Checking in…

Well I’m going through one of those frustrating times when although you’re getting stuff done you feel like you’re not getting anywhere. It’s all important stuff, getting the website sorted, a facebook fan-page and various other promotional material. I’ve been in the studio with Kris Halpin again, this time working on a studio version of All Good Things, which is good. I’ve heard snippets of his own stuff and the standard of the recording fills me with¬†optimism.

Tomorrow I’m meeting up with Alan Caves (who is a very well respected sound engineer) to start piecing together my new set up. The idea being all of the components will then be taken to Flightcase Warehouse and they will make me a case that will house and power it all. So I’m excited about that.¬†

However all of these things, I am involved with to a point but then have to hand over to people with the know how which means I have to patient (not one of my strong points).

I’m itching to play another show, itching to play a show with the new set up, I’m itching to start playing in and around Brum but I have to wait. All good things……

Burning The Candle

It always seems like such a good idea at the time doesn’t it. There I was rehearsing for a show the next day when I get a phone call from a good friend of mine from another band asking me if I’d like to play an acoustic set in a couple of weeks. I accept and the conversation turns to what I’m up to, I explain that I’m trying to practice a new cover for a show i had the next day to which he replies “F*@¬£ THAT, play the tunes you know and come round and have some sauce with me and Bishop”

I tried my best to fend him off and told him I would practice till 11 o clock and then see how I felt. So at about midnight i find myself sat at my friends house with an unhealthy ratio of Jack Daniels to Coke in my glass. We swap war stories telling tails of gigs, girls and gross misconduct. It’s 3am and there are three of us and we have managed to put away the best part of a bottle and a half of Jack away before I call time and head for bed, I had after all got work in the morning.

Work was not fun. I was very much still drunk for the first part of the day. I got to 5pm and went straight home to pick up my gear and get to the venue. Club Virtigo is a rock club ran by Sunny and his wife Emma I’ve played there once before and its a good crack. This show was a fund raiser for a memorial for a little lad called Ashton Cox who passed away waiting for a heart transplant. It was a bit like a summer fair but with alot more alcohol. There was a raffle, some games to play and 50p shots on trays going around the bar all raising money for the cause. The other bands playing were the Papa G experience and Insanity Project. I was quite happy to have Insanity Project headline as it is a rock venue and they are a rock band but they prefered to go second which meant yours truely was on last. We all played well and had a good time, I finished playing about 1am packed up my gear and hung about for one beverage and one only as I still wasnt 100% after the session from the previous evening I had after all got work in the morning.

Work was not fun. Sundays are shorter days but it still wasn’t easy 4pm rolls round and I’m out the door and in the car to the next venue. The Waterfront is this really cool little bar right by the lake in between the Dosthill and Kingsbury this place is like my stomping ground in many ways as it’s where I’ve tested out all of my material before taking it to larger venues. It’s just a chilled out place in a lovely setting ran by good people. I didn’t realise I was playing last at this night too so I had time to get some kip in the car. There were some awesome musicians playing I’m still waiting to get their myspace details from the organisers but they were breath-taking performers. I had a bit of a panic when setting up, I realised that I didn’t have the power-supply to my mixer so I ended up plugging most of my instruments directly into the pedal. This drunken idiot decided to get up on stage and start addressing the crowd only thing was we really couldn’t understand what he was saying but he just stood there….mumbling and mumbling. In the end i just triggered my loudest intro so he’d take the hint. My turn. I like playing to a drunken crowd, all inhibitions have been mislaid and the crowd is loose and open to suggestion. As with the gig the previous night it was a party so I played a few covers of party songs to get people moving and it was a lot fun. By the time I packed up it was after 1am I stayed for my one beverage (how rock n roll I am) and then went to bed and stayed there until about 8pm the next day. On Tuesday I started feeling ill the weekend had indeed caught up with me. Work was not fun.

Recording Begins

So life is full of synchronicities in the last month I have been lucky enough to be approached by an agent. Now you hear things about agents not always good but after doing some research this guy (John Mostyn) has got some serious credibility. So it turns out it was no accident that this guy saw me play, Chris Halpin who is one of the organisers of this particular show and also works for the agent in question invited him down to play himself. Chris Halpin is someone I’ve known in passing for years weirdly enough. In high school I was sent to guitar music workshop, which was hosted at Chris’s school. Since then I would see him in places and without really knowing each other we would nod acknowledging each other. Years later I’m going out with a girl from Kingsbury and we from time to time drink in the pub there and low and behold I get introduced to Chris as someone she used to go to school with, again in the years that follow we nod, we acknowledge.

Now I get stuck into my first meeting with my agent and Chris is present and it’s suggested that I try to record better examples of my material. So I agree to try it out. I’ve spent two days in Chris’s studio and it’s been an absolute blast. Chris said he wanted to do it because he appreciated that I was mixing acoustic influences with break beat rhythms and he loved both of those styles of music. I can quite honestly say we’re on the same wavelength. We’ve done all the live takes for Promises and have started adding things that will give the song more depth on record and make it a different experience from hearing it live. We’re both looking in the same direction on this stuff me with the material and him with his technical know-how and we hope to start recording a studio version All Good Things this week. This may even be the beginning of an album, if we’re onto a good thing we may as well keep going?

The Players Lounge

Playing strip clubs is fun. Not for the reasons you might think, there is so much carpet and curtain in this place its practically like playing in a studio. There is absolutely no reverb at all which makes it very easy to get a good sound. So I’m opening the evening and I play a mixed bag of a set. Smiley-skit to start, Blue Monday, Battle Strategy, Rappers Delight, All Good Things, Promises and maybe more (can’t remember) The other acts were awesome. Breaker were kinda like Sound Garden and were stupidly tight http://www.myspace.com/breakerband. Lunavegas the headliners were something else! They are a Psychobilly band and consist of a guitarist a drummer and a double bass player. They play what can only be described as bar fight music absolutely loved it! Check em out http://lunavegas.co.uk/home & http://www.myspace.com/lunavegas

Packed my gear up got a picture with a couple of employee’s (ahem) and went into town for a beer.

Battle Of The Bands and Free-Fest

Ok I have absolutely no idea where to start with this blogging lark so I guess I’ll introduce myself. I’m Smileymic and I’m a one-man band. I used to play singer songwriter stuff and had a great time doing it but after suffering a chronic case of writers block I bought a loop pedal to stimulate some creativity and that’s where all this multi instrumental stuff began.

The last 2 months have been a crazy time for me. Playing the Battle Of The Bands and being the first ever solo act to win it was just insane. I only ever really intended to use it as a showcase for my new material as I knew that the entire local music scene would be in attendance. I never thought for a minute that I would go down so well yet alone get into the semis, the final and then win it.

For winning the competition I was given £500 and £500 worth of vouchers for flightcase warehouse. Both of these are massive blessings, I’m spending some of the cash on improving my rig with a better mixing desk to improve the sound going into the pedal. The vouchers are going to be used on making a custom built case to house all the gear I usually have on a table which will hopefully cut my set up time of live shows in half. The third thing that came with winning the comp was headlining Tamworth’s music festival Free-Fest. 

The Free Fest was the event that the Battle of the Bands had been building towards. It’s been going for years and has had its ups and downs but has always been about people coming together to enjoy music.

The local scene had experienced a slump caused by a number of factors, competing venues, too many gigs; poor attendance there was a kind of lethargy bug going round. This year had been a completely different story. All of the bands involved were working hard on promo and there was very little actual “competition” involved it was more of a series of showcase events. The attendance had been fantastic and the there was this supportive attitude that flowed through everyone involved from the players on stage to the people in the audience. So everything had been building towards this festival it was organised by Tamworth Borough Council and was sponsored by Kerrang radio who were bringing 2 bands who had been on the Emma Scott presents show (The New Statesmen safe radio friendly soft rock and The Gundogs. bad attitudes). Now I was really happy to be playing this event but I had reservations about headlining. I was quite happy to let The Gundogs do it as they were scheduled to have an hour long set and I really wasn’t sure if people would stick around in the rain to see a one man show but the powers that be wanted the winner of the comp to do it. So at about 10.30 I took to the stage and I was pleasantly surprised to find a substantial crowd waiting to see me play what’s more they were pleased to see me!  They gave me a massive cheer, the rain had stopped and the general vibe was a good one.  I started with Smiley-skit and we were go. My set list blew away, was returned to me, I played a new cover I had been working on, Blue Monday by New Order and played and played Rappers Delight later on. The only bad thing that happened was some F*&$%@G TW@T threw a pint of beer on stage soaking the power adaptor of my loop pedal which as some of you will appreciate is the hub of my show. It didn’t blow up I played my show it went down well. Finishing on intro-galactic and getting a crowd of people to chant the imperial march was awesome!!!

I packed my stuff down and somewhere between the stage and my car my Dad managed to lose one of the notes on my Glockenspiel. So there we were me my dad and some poor kid from the events staff looking for this bar on the grass of the castle grounds only for me to get home to rearrange the remaining notes on the Glock to realise there was no missing note and it had just slipped out of place. Gear dumped back at the house, I went back to town to get drunk at Club V as always I crashed at Sunny the owners at the end of the night which involves waiting for the club to empty, get mopped and then we walk the barmaids home as it is late in the day (or early in the morning) so by the time we’ve got in, had some food, a cup of tea and decent conversation it was 4am. Work the next day was not fun…