Its All Getting Complicated.......

We are having worries. No, don't worry, the recent economic strife hasn't run us into ruin, we don't need a government bailout (although I wouldn't complain) and haven't been rendered immobile by Swine Flu. Although, as Phil is spending his time pointing out to me, I'm going on holiday tomorrow and getting rather close to the source of all this. Eeep.

Anyway, we are having worries. What with the album launch coming up, which is the 12th of June at Jagz in Ascot, we are undergoing a pretty major transformation. Before, we ran the simple band business plan of just turning up at rehearsal, turning up at gigs and where possible recording. Now, however, we are undergoing the slightly odd process of turning into what has been a hobby project, don't get us wrong a very serious hobby project, into a business. Signing up with royalty collection companies, figuring out business plans, distribution channels and all the rest of it. It is very confusing.

Still, as per usual, Google, Gethin and Phil have combined to create some triforce of brilliance. Distribution channels are emerging, we have received the mock ups of CDs to go full steam ahead with them, royalty agencies are being joined and insurance is being sorted. It is a rather large learning curve, but as usual we will endure and succeed. We will....

What not to wear?

Some days it seems that what you wear says more about you as a band than anything else. Music? Don't be so silly, it's all about the shirt. Or possibly, as suggested on The Guardian Music Blog, the jeans. If that is the case, then we're a bit screwed to be honest - our band 'uniform' is jeans and black shirts (although Emma gets to wear whatever she wants, as she has more fashion sense than the rest of us combined!). So, unless we can join the ranks of Mötorhead and Status Quo, singled out by the Guardian article as the two bands who wear jeans and "are not s**t", it would appear we're destined to burn forever in music hell...

So, do clothes actually matter? If The Levellers gig that me, Phil and Emma went to on Saturday is anything to go by, people don't really care that much! The crowd, as might be expected, had quite a few beards (ok, technically not clothes), a fair number of scruffy waistcoats, and a LOT of ripped jeans. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary. So how about the bands? Well, first up we had Hobo Jones and The Junkyard Dogs. The only way I can really describe their outfits is some combination of pirates and farmers - a bit odd, but not that out of place, considering the gig... Up next, Pama International. They walk on stage and, shock horror, they're all wearing suits. The audience seem slightly confused. But then they start playing a very tight set of Specials-esque Ska/Dub/Reggae, and no-one really cares - they're all enjoying the music (or at least enjoying the cider anyway). And how about the headline act, The Levellers? Well, needless to say, they were all wearing jeans...

So, for now anyway, we think we're going to stick with our combination of jeans and black shirts - it might be a bit dull, but it seems to have worked for enough bands in the past, and we reckon that our energies are much better directed to entertaining you with our music! And you never know, if you come along to the album launch we might even splash out and wear some brown...

Plug Plug Plug

OK, I know it's Tuesday - it's a slackness we need to get out of our systems. Three posts in a row that are late is not good, although there is reason for this one being a day later than usually scheduled. We have the following good news:

Last night we finished the album (well, Gethin did along with our engineer Al Heslop)!

All mixing has now been done, so all that is left to do is approve the packaging (when the CD proof copy finally arrives in the post) and then send it off for final duplication and hosting on iTunes etc. Its been a long time coming but we're nearly there.

With that in mind we should really plug the album launch again. We're looking forward to this gig immensely and it would be fantastic if as many of you as possible could make it. I'll list the details in list form so as not to waffle too much.

Date: Friday June 12th
Venue: Jagz Club, Station Hill, Ascot (right next to the train station)
Time: 8pm
Cost: £6 for entry (to the gig and also the club downstairs afterwards) or £10 for entry plus a copy of the new album - which we will be selling for £6 on the night for anyone who hasn't bought the joint ticket.

We will have a full supporting cast for the gig, with the hugely talented Naama Hillman already confirmed (www.naamahillman.com). You can purchase tickets for the night from any of us in person or if you won't be seeing us before the event, online through our official site www.allthingsconsidered.org.uk

While we're in shameless plugging mood, for our London audience we're opening for the superb Aussie singer/songwriter Rory Ellis at The Half Moon in Putney on Thursday May 21st. Tickets for this are only a fiver, which for anyone who has seen this artist will concur is a real bargain.

Tickets for this will probably be available on the door, however for any London event its always worth booking in advance if you can, which can be done here:

www.ticketweb.co.uk/user/?region=gb_london&query=detail&event=317279&interface=halfmoon

We promise we won't bug you all about these gigs for at least another week.

When illness strikes...

Oh dear, this whole bank holiday thing seems to have completely thrown all of us - two late posts in a week, what is this coming to... We promise to try harder next week! Anyway, the post:

As you may have seen (and hopefully heard!) we had our first ever radio session on Monday. We had been hoping to play a few tracks live, but unfortunately Emma seems to have contracted some sort of mutant super-cold that has been plaguing her for weeks now, and resulted in her virtually losing her voice! So, no radio appearance it would seem... But, being the hard-working types, we managed to cobble together a selection of just-about-finished tracks from our album, and turned up armed with that and a bass player who can talk for England and managed to get through the session without any major hitches!

Anyway, you might be wondering while I'm rehashing old news. It's probably mainly because it's 3:30 on a Friday afternoon, so I'm bored almost beyond belief at work, but also because Emma's throat has meant that we haven't rehearsed or really done anything of note since Monday!

But... We've decided that we're bored of being bored, so are going ahead with our gig this evening at Artsbar in Wokingham, which should be lots of fun, with lots of great friends (Anthea Neads, Liz Williams, Philippa Berry and a few others to boot) playing as well, so come along if you're free. We can't promise that there won't be the odd mid-song cough, but we can promise a great evening of local, live music, and also the opportunity to get hold of tickets for our album launch!

So, see you this evening hopefully...

Our First Radio Appearance

Firstly, apologies for the late update, I would try to give a proper excuse, but I think the main reason was that we all forgot because it was a bank holiday! Now, normally we like to spend our Bank Holiday Monday's firmly entrenched at a pub, drink in hand and desperately trying to hang on to our freedom.

This Monday, however, we did something completely different. We went on the radio! A massive thanks needs to go out to 87.7 Brooklands FM for having us, we had a ball and can't wait to come back. You can hear our appearence in a special media player which that clever so and so Gethin has embedded somewhere in this page. I honestly have no idea where, so look around this post 'till you find it. It may even autoplay, who knows?

We had a chat about the album, some of our tracks, how we write and generally have a bit of banter. Enjoy!

Are We a Folk Band?

Coming close to getting this album out, we’ve found ourselves more than anytime before having to label our music – and it’s really difficult. We’re an acoustic band, plain and simple – but with that comes the inevitable question of what sort of acoustic band we are? There are many genres we could fall in to if we really thought about it, but it seems folk music is the closest match.

But, are we a folk band - and if so, what kind?

Acoustic music is a strange thing, and it’s something I didn’t quite realise until I sat down and tried to book an album tour for us. If you type in ‘Acoustic Music Venues’ in an internet search engine, it will pretty much always come up with folk and roots sites, listing folk club gigs which will generally be everyone in a circle having a sing around. Now don’t get me wrong, people that know me (Phil) will know I’ve taken years of abuse for my love of folk music – but this just isn’t any good for us. Does acoustic music mean folk music? Is it an instant reaction in the main that if you say you are an acoustic band, people immediately think folk band? Does the fact we can’t rock up and sit around with a bunch of instrumentalists and reel off some traditional standards mean we aren’t a folk band?

Maybe we’re a ‘nu-folk’ band…..

We’ve just been named as support to ‘nu-folk’ artists Lisa Knapp – a gig we’re very happy to get. ‘Nu-folk’ in my mind means a younger, trendier take on the genre. Performers who wouldn’t look out of place walking down Camden High Street yet sporting a fiddle on their back, not a guitar. Performers who have taken the tradition and given it a swift kick up the arse to bring it in line with this century and make it relevant for a whole new audience.

That sounds more like us – but again, the fact we don’t play traditional based songs could be our undoing here as well.

So, maybe we’re contemporary folk?

This is a controversial one – and one the traditionalists hate, yet I think it’s where we fall. We play acoustic, folk sounding music – yet we make no reference to the tradition, there are no murder ballads or songs about the sea in our repertoire and we don’t encourage Morris Dancing. Surely that is sacrilege?

To be honest, it’s got to the stage now where we’re combining genres to describe us. ‘Folk Fusion’ has been used, as we sound like a folk band musically, but not lyrically. The same could be said for ‘Contemporary Roots’. It also appears that opinion plays a big part in it. Some people say we have a very folky sound, yet people who participate regularly in folk music would say we don’t, and that we are far more contemporary.

It’s enough to fuck with your head if you let it – maybe we should just label our stuff as ‘Music’, and let everyone decide whether they like it or not, it will be a hell of a lot easier……

Back In The Studio

What a nice day it was on Saturday. Unfortunately for Gethin he was holed up in the studio most of the day along with our good friend and engineer for the album Al Heslop. It’s funny that recording studios never usually have windows. I imagine (although I’ve never done it myself) that being in there with a metal band full of hairy men is probably not the most comfortable of environments. It’s bad enough for us when Ben decides to show up.

We’re now at the mixing stage, and after Saturday’s gargantuan efforts by the pair, are close to being past it in a flash. 7 of the 10 tracks were looked over, dissected, listened to with almost alien like hearing from the pair to see if they could pick out the minutest of sounds that needed to be gotten rid of etc. Things were turned up, things were turned down, but by the end of the day they were sounding pretty damn good – and bang on schedule as well (I love a good schedule).

We want the album in as many places as possible to reflect our live sound, as if we’d basically just rocked up and started playing in front of you. Obviously we can’t help but use a bit of technical wizardry to add 800 fiddle parts at certain times, but the majority – apart from a few effects and double tracks is just the 5 of us, as you would hear us live.

So, have a listen to the snippet we have of The Neverending and see what you think.


Remember – the launch is Friday June 12th, which will be the first day you’ll be able to get your hands on the finished product. Tickets for the Jagz gig are available from any of us, and also the official site.

Phil.

If We Were A Business

Exciting times indeed. The news of our (get ready for the first shameless plug...) 12th June album launch at Jagz has already generated a few ticket sales, which is pleasant. Based on that, I really should hurry up and design said tickets...

Other than that, we have been having a quiet week really. Emma is off sunning herself somewhere, Phil and Gethin have been working hard on the promotions side, Adrian has gotten our artwork pumped out and I've been holding the whole endeavour together by cracking wise at each and every opportunity. Oh sure, I could do something a little more constructive, but the others all seem to have it perfectly under control. Who really wants to go that extra mile and find work. If this was a real business, I'd be fired.

In fact, bands often do run a lot like real businesses, with everyone having different roles. I think if we were an actual “business” so to speak, we would all have the following roles -

Phil – Managing Director

I make fun of him like its going out of fashion, but I think its fair to say that he isn't nearly as bad as I make out. Most of our bookings come through his connections, he takes it upon himself to make sure we all know where we need to be and what we need to do. He is a pretty decent driving force, and I don't think the others will begrudge me saying that.

Emma – Promotions Manager\Finance Director

Because Emma is so wonderful, she can pull double duty here. Emma is probably our Promotions Manager as, to put it simply, she is great at meeting people and it is impossible to hate her. Plus, if you're a promoter who would you rather nag you for a gig – her or one of us blokes?

I have also given her the title of Finance Director. This is because she is the one who knows the sort code to the band bank account.

Adrian – Art Director

Its simple, pretty much every photograph, illustration and bit of marketing material you see us with was designed by this great man. If we didn't have him, I shudder to think what would happen. Everything we did would be designed in crayons and coloured in with felt tip pens. And I bet we wouldn't even get them between the lines.

Gethin – Marketing\Web Design

Gethin can get a double job description as well (but you only get one pay check *rim shot*). The site you are reading this on, our own website and pretty much each and every other site we are plugged into online are his doing. Bravo!

Ben (aka me) – Erm...

You know that guy that always seems to be hanging out by the water cooler, or making tea, or outside smoking, or in a meeting room clearly not having a proper meeting? You know that guy who never usually does anything, is the worlds quickest at Alt + Tab-ing down windows he shouldn't be looking at and says cringeworthy phrases like “Hey, you working hard or hardly working?” That's me in this scenario. Emails fly around the others willy nilly with sensible conversations and I spend all day trying to insert juvenile gags into it. I know what Alan Sugar would say to me...