Completely forgot about the blog page! Oh dear, how remiss of us!
Thursday, 21 March 2013
Wednesday, 5 October 2011
Band of the Land competition - The Vic 01/10/11
Venue: The Victoria, Fletcher Road, Stoke
Other Acts: Fighting Flux, Rain, All Over Now and Shouting
Swift on the heels of the Memorial at Denry's, we hotfooted it to The Victoria in Stoke for the Semi-Finals of The Band of the Land competition 2011.
First up were Fighting Flux, who apparently since the 1st heat have had a line-up change. An interesting bunch, with a ukelele player!! Playing mainly rock based sounds. The guitarist, a young lad called Taylor, was clearly the main force behind the band espescially when he pulled out his twin neck guitar!!!!
Rain were up second, a half hour set Louise told us, so we mixed things up, doing Fever and Know on Bass, followed by the other tracks. good reaction from the crowd too...
All Over Now and Shouting were up last... at which point Graeme and I thought we should pack our bags and go. They are incredibly techinically proficient, and while a metal band, with a female singer and the growling vocals reminiscent of Korn, we thought they were clearly the winners...
However... the judges made their decision... Rain were to go through to the Final... on one point!!!
Diversity.
OMG!!!! We were in shock!!
Apparently they have had so many metal bands in the competition, it really put the judges off, and they were pleased that there was something different!!
AOKaS had a band meeting, and think that words were said, then the head judge announced that AOKaS would be entered into the final as well... seeing as they have a female vocalist as well, she thought it fair.
Have to admit, while the idea of judges decisions being final.. we are probably the oldest people in the competition and have very little by the way of milage... the youngsters have their youth, plus amazing technical ability... I do think its important for judges to stand by their decisions.. and if it upsets a bunch of teenagers, then they have to learn that they can't win everything.. and there is a lot to be said for losing, as it can mean that they'll try harder for what they want... had they been to the X=Factor.. I'm sure Simon Cowell would just tell them to grow up and stop being petulant! lol
Considering that we
Other Acts: Fighting Flux, Rain, All Over Now and Shouting
Swift on the heels of the Memorial at Denry's, we hotfooted it to The Victoria in Stoke for the Semi-Finals of The Band of the Land competition 2011.
First up were Fighting Flux, who apparently since the 1st heat have had a line-up change. An interesting bunch, with a ukelele player!! Playing mainly rock based sounds. The guitarist, a young lad called Taylor, was clearly the main force behind the band espescially when he pulled out his twin neck guitar!!!!
Rain were up second, a half hour set Louise told us, so we mixed things up, doing Fever and Know on Bass, followed by the other tracks. good reaction from the crowd too...
All Over Now and Shouting were up last... at which point Graeme and I thought we should pack our bags and go. They are incredibly techinically proficient, and while a metal band, with a female singer and the growling vocals reminiscent of Korn, we thought they were clearly the winners...
However... the judges made their decision... Rain were to go through to the Final... on one point!!!
Diversity.
OMG!!!! We were in shock!!
Apparently they have had so many metal bands in the competition, it really put the judges off, and they were pleased that there was something different!!
AOKaS had a band meeting, and think that words were said, then the head judge announced that AOKaS would be entered into the final as well... seeing as they have a female vocalist as well, she thought it fair.
Have to admit, while the idea of judges decisions being final.. we are probably the oldest people in the competition and have very little by the way of milage... the youngsters have their youth, plus amazing technical ability... I do think its important for judges to stand by their decisions.. and if it upsets a bunch of teenagers, then they have to learn that they can't win everything.. and there is a lot to be said for losing, as it can mean that they'll try harder for what they want... had they been to the X=Factor.. I'm sure Simon Cowell would just tell them to grow up and stop being petulant! lol
Considering that we
Denry's Bar - Memorial for Patrice 1st October 2011
What a day!!
Venue: Denry's Music Bar
Other Acts -Wired, Cheesecake, Arthur Righteous, The Friendly Campaign, Rain, The Deep, The Nanateas, The Clockwork Owls, The Longwave, Giro Junkie, The Seers, Nemo.
Organised in a very short space of time by Sian of Cheesecake, this was an event for Pete Norcott (The Incontinents) as a memorial for Patrice, his lovely lady who had died a mere 12 months previous. The idea was to raise funds for the Cocker and English Springer Spaniel Rescue, which was Patrice's favourite charity.
The day began with a rock/metal band made up of 14/15 year olds!!! Sian turned to me (Sheena) and said, "We've got to follow these guys".. to say they were indcredible was an understatement. The drummer did most of the singing (no mean feat) and musically they put a number of folks to shame! Chatting after we discovered that they were music students, obviously dedicated... Lets see where they end up.. just wish I could remember what they were called!! ... Oh yes.. Wired!!!
Cheescake followed with their usual ecclectic style, a sort of bizarre mix really, but still great! Hampered somewhat by the limitations of the sounddesk and the bass amp lead cutting out.. swiftly dealt with my Graeme, who stepped in to sort it out!
Following Cheesecake was Arthur Righteous, taking things in a more relaxed direction, displaying a really rather nice and somewhat expensive Martin Guitar and Roland Acoustic guitar amp.... Think there were a few jealous eyes in the room, as he played with his usual aplomb!
Picking up Arthur's Guitar, Gaz played alongside fellow bandmate Ian for the newly Acoustic Friendly Campaign... Proving that punky songs can sound great as acoustic numbers.. in fact.. I would say that they sounded better, lovely harmonies too.
Rain (us) were next - Playing rather a number of songs from our songbook, well, no-one told us to get off!!! lol... We took the time to set the PA up ourselves, so think we got a really good sound from it.. all things considered.
We gave way for Leek's finest - The Deep... who are a definate sight for sore eyes. They are a band not to be missed, I said that if John Peel were still alive, then he'd be a big fan... Tehy don't mince words and inspired all the crowd to join in on their seminal track "God is dead, long live Satan"
Unfortunately we had to cut the day short, due to appearing at The Band of the Land Competition 2011 at The Victoria that evening... would have been nice to see the other acts.. Oh well, there's always next year!! lol
Venue: Denry's Music Bar
Other Acts -Wired, Cheesecake, Arthur Righteous, The Friendly Campaign, Rain, The Deep, The Nanateas, The Clockwork Owls, The Longwave, Giro Junkie, The Seers, Nemo.
Organised in a very short space of time by Sian of Cheesecake, this was an event for Pete Norcott (The Incontinents) as a memorial for Patrice, his lovely lady who had died a mere 12 months previous. The idea was to raise funds for the Cocker and English Springer Spaniel Rescue, which was Patrice's favourite charity.
The day began with a rock/metal band made up of 14/15 year olds!!! Sian turned to me (Sheena) and said, "We've got to follow these guys".. to say they were indcredible was an understatement. The drummer did most of the singing (no mean feat) and musically they put a number of folks to shame! Chatting after we discovered that they were music students, obviously dedicated... Lets see where they end up.. just wish I could remember what they were called!! ... Oh yes.. Wired!!!
Cheescake followed with their usual ecclectic style, a sort of bizarre mix really, but still great! Hampered somewhat by the limitations of the sounddesk and the bass amp lead cutting out.. swiftly dealt with my Graeme, who stepped in to sort it out!
Following Cheesecake was Arthur Righteous, taking things in a more relaxed direction, displaying a really rather nice and somewhat expensive Martin Guitar and Roland Acoustic guitar amp.... Think there were a few jealous eyes in the room, as he played with his usual aplomb!
Picking up Arthur's Guitar, Gaz played alongside fellow bandmate Ian for the newly Acoustic Friendly Campaign... Proving that punky songs can sound great as acoustic numbers.. in fact.. I would say that they sounded better, lovely harmonies too.
Rain (us) were next - Playing rather a number of songs from our songbook, well, no-one told us to get off!!! lol... We took the time to set the PA up ourselves, so think we got a really good sound from it.. all things considered.
We gave way for Leek's finest - The Deep... who are a definate sight for sore eyes. They are a band not to be missed, I said that if John Peel were still alive, then he'd be a big fan... Tehy don't mince words and inspired all the crowd to join in on their seminal track "God is dead, long live Satan"
Unfortunately we had to cut the day short, due to appearing at The Band of the Land Competition 2011 at The Victoria that evening... would have been nice to see the other acts.. Oh well, there's always next year!! lol
Tuesday, 13 September 2011
The Acoustimass Project - The Victoria 8/9/11
Other Acts: Paul Heeley, Thornleaf, Stokie Mart, Julia Rowley, Sarah and Jonno, Ed Lawton
Venue: The Victoria Hotel, Stoke
We arrived early to this event in order to ask James to record a couple of songs for us. We're interested in putting more of our work out there, so we recorded the same 2 songs around 8 or so times each!!! Crazy, but hopefully worth it, we might get a working couple of demos out of it!
There was a plethora of talent there, as is often the case with The Acoustimass Open Mic night. So many good acts and so many shakey/drummy things!! lol
We tried out a couple of new ones (Forever and the one with no title as yet), which were warmly received, though it made us aware that we need to work on them more. However, onwards and upwards!!
Venue: The Victoria Hotel, Stoke
We arrived early to this event in order to ask James to record a couple of songs for us. We're interested in putting more of our work out there, so we recorded the same 2 songs around 8 or so times each!!! Crazy, but hopefully worth it, we might get a working couple of demos out of it!
There was a plethora of talent there, as is often the case with The Acoustimass Open Mic night. So many good acts and so many shakey/drummy things!! lol
We tried out a couple of new ones (Forever and the one with no title as yet), which were warmly received, though it made us aware that we need to work on them more. However, onwards and upwards!!
Sunday, 11 September 2011
The Boat Band Acoustic night - The Greyhound 7/09/11
Other acts: The Boat Band, plus the usual menagerie of performers from various places
Venue: The Greyhound, Penkhull.
The Boat Band do really put on a show, a mix of folk/cajun.. whatever...
Everyone has a play, everyone inputs a dance/song/poem, whatever and managed to make for a very entertaining evening!
Venue: The Greyhound, Penkhull.
The Boat Band do really put on a show, a mix of folk/cajun.. whatever...
Everyone has a play, everyone inputs a dance/song/poem, whatever and managed to make for a very entertaining evening!
Band of the Land competition - The Vic 03/09/11
Other Acts: No Redemption/Thornleaf and Beyond the Blaze
Venue: The Victoria
Well. this was a rather unexpected gig. Phone call received at 7.30pm from James (No Redemption/Thornleaf) asking if we'd like to support them at The Vic. We were totally unaware of the Band of The Land competition and they had entered it, simply instead we thought we'd be providing a musical interlude.
We arrived at the venue within half an hour to be told we'd been entered into the Band of the Land 2011 competition!
Lots were drawn, and we pulled second! First to entertain were Beyond the Blaze a group of young lads from Coventry, who apparently had only been together for a couple of months.. All original material and loads of enthusiasm.
We were up second with: Forever, Je Ne Regrette Rien, At Seventeen, and others.
No Redemption/Thornleaf went on third and generally blew everyone away.
Time for judges consultation was met with much mutual patting of heads and drinkies.. Then the winners were announced.
It was decided that all bands were good enough to go through to the semi-finals, with the overall winners of the night being Beyond the Blaze!!!
Watch this space for news on the competition!!
Venue: The Victoria
Well. this was a rather unexpected gig. Phone call received at 7.30pm from James (No Redemption/Thornleaf) asking if we'd like to support them at The Vic. We were totally unaware of the Band of The Land competition and they had entered it, simply instead we thought we'd be providing a musical interlude.
We arrived at the venue within half an hour to be told we'd been entered into the Band of the Land 2011 competition!
Lots were drawn, and we pulled second! First to entertain were Beyond the Blaze a group of young lads from Coventry, who apparently had only been together for a couple of months.. All original material and loads of enthusiasm.
We were up second with: Forever, Je Ne Regrette Rien, At Seventeen, and others.
No Redemption/Thornleaf went on third and generally blew everyone away.
Time for judges consultation was met with much mutual patting of heads and drinkies.. Then the winners were announced.
It was decided that all bands were good enough to go through to the semi-finals, with the overall winners of the night being Beyond the Blaze!!!
Watch this space for news on the competition!!
Saturday, 3 September 2011
New songs and thoughts on them.
Well, the time has come for us to work on new songs. We've been singing the same 7 or so songs for the past few months and the decision was made to work on some original material and another cover. These things inevitably take time to come together, through discussion, disagreement, and downright hard work. Some songs are relitively easy to do. Their chord progressions make them easy to interpret and the lyrics are straightforward and might hold memories. Some songs are by their very nature tricky. They are hard to learn, hard to find a way into and hard to interpret. Thats why we choose to do them. No point in trolling out the same covers as everyone else, we made a concious decision to work on material that very few actually cover, specifically because its difficult, it might have strange progressions, tricky time signatures, or otherwise tongue twisting lyrics.
One song has kept us busy for around 2 months now. It was refusing to be bent to our will. Whatever we did to it, something just wasn't "quite right" with it. Last night (Friday), we finally cracked the three songs we've been working on. Well... we cracked 2. Both original songs. We feel like we're accomplishing something now. Its inspiring us to create more songs and work harder on the ones we have already done.
One song has kept us busy for around 2 months now. It was refusing to be bent to our will. Whatever we did to it, something just wasn't "quite right" with it. Last night (Friday), we finally cracked the three songs we've been working on. Well... we cracked 2. Both original songs. We feel like we're accomplishing something now. Its inspiring us to create more songs and work harder on the ones we have already done.
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