An ATC Blog Post - As Rare As A Goal From Emile Heskey......

Yep – I know, it’s been at least a month since our last blog post. Hardly prolific we’re well aware so again I’m sitting here saying to myself (and the others) that we’ll rectify that and update this far more frequently, but I doubt any of you would believe us…..

Rest assured – if we had anything worthwhile to say we would say it, promise!

You’ll be pleased to know I can think of a few worthwhile things to talk about this time, which is good as this post would be pretty damn pointless if I couldn’t.

The big project some of us have been working on over the last few weeks is putting together the music for the inaugural Headspace Youth, Disability and Communities Festival which is due to take place at Long Hill Park in Bracknell on Saturday June 19th. (http://www.headspacefestival.co.uk/index.html - not quite a completed website but it’ll give you the jist!)

We’ve managed to put together a really solid line-up of music on two stages, with a broad cross-section of different genres, from young up and coming acts to the more seasoned pros (we’ll let you make your own minds up where you think we fit in to that).

Highlights will include a rare local performance from our good friend Rory Ellis from Australia, one of the brightest acoustic prospects around today – Lou Brown and also a set from the brilliant prog-rock band Heights, who have as their guitarist our producer Al Heslop.

It’s gonna be quality – although bloody scary as this is the first one, so anything could happen! Stick the date in your diary – at £5 entry on the gate (with all proceeds going to Headspace), it’ll be well worth your time. And yes……there is a beer tent.

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For those that haven’t yet – please look us up and become a fan on our Facebook page. A lot of us have been working hard to get this medium going properly so would be great if you could link to us – even if you get this blog having signed our mailing list at some random gig and you’ve forgotten who we are – sign up anyway!

You’ll find us (so I’m told) at this link:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/All-Things-Considered/14405050679

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Finally, we have a gig at Jagz in Ascot tomorrow. We’re doing a short opening set for the band Grey Matter, on at about 8pm or thereabouts.

The gig is significant because it marks the end of our winter/spring gigging run, as we’ll be off the circuit for about 5 weeks due to Emma flying out to Cyprus to get married!

Now some of us in this band have known Emma for a long time now – she was basically still a kid when me (Phil) and Adrian started writing with her back in the summer of 2003, so we’ve seen the odd geezer come and go, most of whom were the stranger side of weird.

However – a couple of years ago she introduced us to Darren, the flame haired cockney who actually seemed reasonably normal…… Could this be? Well yes – it appears it is, as in less than two weeks time they fly out to get wed, and then spend the following 3 weeks in the sun, while the rest of us poor bastards who couldn’t afford to go hope for the best we might get a day in the next month where the temperature reaches double figures……

So – as this will be the last blog post (going on our current updating efforts) before she jets off – I’d just like it to go on record to say we all wish them the very, very best. Darren is an absolute diamond geezer and the two of them are perfect together. Whether or not things go quite as swimmingly if and when she pops a sprog and we’re still gigging 6 times a month is anyone’s guess……….

But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Video sessions, festival bookings...

A few bits of news recently - first of all, our "Songs From The Shed" session is now available at www.songsfromtheshed.com, take a look - we had lots of fun making the videos!

Also, Headspace Festival, which is being run by the Headspace charity in conjunction with Artree Music (our label), is confirmed for the 19th June in Longhill Park, Bracknell. It promises to be a great day, and we'll definitely be playing at some point! We're also confirmed to be playing at the International Youth Arts Festival in Kingston on the 10th July, keep tuned for more details of that...

Us+A Shed+A Camera = ?

Sometimes it's the simplest things in life that are the best. I must admit that we were rather unsure of what to expect when, a few weeks ago, we turned up to the lovely Jon Earl's house near Bristol to record a video session in his shed. It was to be all completely acoustic, and recorded as-live with no editing, a nervewracking experience for any musician! And a previous line-up of acts including Lou Brown, Jackie Oates, Black Peak and 3 Daft Monkeys, among many others, didn't do much to ease the pressure on us...

But we had a great time - Jon was very friendly and kept us well refreshed with cups of tea (while he wasn't exchanging stories of rural flooding with Ben anyway), and despite a few false-starts here and there we finished the afternoon fairly confident that we had produced a fairly reasonable performance!

And then the wait started - unfortunately Jon had a back-log of sessions, so we had to wait a few weeks until the videos were available, but now we're incredibly happy to announce that they are live on www.songsfromtheshed.com!

Please do go and take a listen (and take a look at some of the past artists too, there are some gems in there), we reckon they've come out pretty well, so let us know what you think!

The summer ahead

Well, what wonderful weather we've been having recently. Especially so as it reminds us of the fun-packed summer that we've got lined up. I don't know if it's the fact that we've been gigging a lot recently, or Emma's fantastic and entirely festival-worthy dreams of being pushed around by Adrian in a wheelbarrow full of cider (inspired somehow by our recent trip to see Idlewild, who were great, as were the support, Sparrow and the Workshop), but I've definitely been getting into the mood for a few festival outings recently.

And what luck - we've already got a pretty good list confirmed! So far:

• The Harlequin Fayre at a secret location near Norwich on 15th August


• The Small World Festival in Louth, Lincolnshire the weekend after (20-22nd August)


• Carshalton Environmental Fair on the 30th August

And with various others still in the pipelines, including a possible Artree festival at some point, and an absolutely incredible one-day event on the 17th or 18th July (we can't tell you any more at the moment, but keep your diaries free, you'll be the first to find out, and it will be worth the wait!) it's certainly all shaping up nicely.

Anyway - we hope to see you at some of these events, and stay tuned for updates on some more dates very soon. Just make sure to bring a wheelbarrow!

Due Another Blog Post

Nice gig in Portsmouth last week – back at Roger Courtney’s Open Mike Night. Always a great crowd in there, and although a few technical issues at the start of the set, it seemed to go down fairly well again – apart from us getting the name of the venue wrong, much to promoter Nick’s amusement…..

We followed a great set by local Jeff Radford, who did a blinding version of Mr Jones by Counting Crows – which is alright by me.

Of course there was the famous rock and roll raffle which was one of our highlights of last year (as those avid readers of our rapidly diminishing blog posts will remember). We had a winner this time around – Ben managing to snap up a tin of tuna from the prize stand……which he said he was planning on eating last Tuesday, at about 1.45pm. We haven’t yet found out whether that was the case, or indeed the quality of the product, as we haven’t actually heard from him since……..hmmmmmmm.

Bournemouth this Sunday, we’re loving the South Coast at the minute. This will be our first set at Bournemouth’s famous folk club, although I believe this one is more of a showcase night. So if you’re in the area, come along and see us – I believe we’re playing at about 8.45pm.

There’s also been a bit of movement on the festivals side for the summer. Unfortunately we weren’t selected for Glastonbury (yet), but we have confirmed a few summer events, with hopefully more to come in the coming weeks. The thought of hot summer days, playing live music in a random field with a load of new age hippies and drinking warm ale is seriously appealing right now……

Anyway – check the website for those dates and indeed further gigs announced over the next few weeks. It’s gonna be a busy summer.

Dates Announced

A few new dates have been confirmed recently.

We´re going to be doing a set at The Harlequin Fayre, a green gathering event at a yet to be disclosed location near Norwich (please see gig section of the website for the ticket link) on Sunday 15th August.

A little earlier in the year, we've just confirmed a rescheduled set at Good Intentions nr Guildford on April 12th, The famous Grub Café in East Grinstead on April 13th and a return to Jagz in Ascot on May 14th – as well as three confirmed dates at various times this year at the outstanding Icarus Club in London.

All good fun – and be good to see some of you along the way.

A Belated Happy New Year...

Well – to say we've been a bit lazy with this blog lately is understating it somewhat. Everybody has seemed to blame the weather for everything this year so far, so I’m sure I can get away with tagging our complete ineptness at an update on that...

In all fairness, the snow has played a pretty irritating part in our stop/start beginning to 2010. With a whole host of bookings for early this year, it wasn't the best of starts to have the first two gigs snowed off. This included what should have been our first trip to play in the West Country with a support slot for the brilliant Tinderbox. Before that gig on the same day, we were due to do a session for the very popular 'Songs from the Shed' video podcast in Bristol which also had to be pulled. Luckily that looks like it's been rearranged, and we have further West Country dates coming up...still bloody annoying though.

We did manage to get 2010 kicked off with a set at Great Bardfield Folk Club in deepest Essex. It was a fair trek to get up there in rush hour traffic and the icy conditions but we're glad we did. The venue – The High Barn, is nothing short of breathtaking. An old converted barn, with all original beams and pillars – lovingly restored by a private investor who also acted as sound man for the night, and did a fine job. If you ever get chance to visit this place for a gig – do it. We'll certainly be back.

So onwards and upwards we thought – we've had the bad luck with the weather so no issues anymore. That was until Emma caught a cold. Now when Emma catches colds – she doesn't do it half heartedly. It's pretty much gospel that if Emma has a cold, at some point its going to spread to her throat, which this one did. We do make a gag of this – but I'm sure she's not overly happy when it happens... Anyway – this meant a further cancellation in Alton. Four gigs booked for January – one completed – a 25% success rate. Report card will read 'must try harder', but we're confident the excuses we had have held up!

I'm pleased to say its all systems go now though – and we're looking forward to a few really exciting gigs in Feb, and as hectic a month in March as I can remember. Tis all good fun!

One thing we haven't mentioned in the blog was our radio show at Brooklands FM just before Xmas. It was a right good laugh and gave us some much needed interview experience. We played a few tracks as well – including our latest one, Claustrophobia, which although not exactly polished was nice to give a run out to.

Gethin has informed me we have some clips from this show which he's kindly going to embed here (Suffocating) and here (Unheard Sounds and Empty Motions). Your guess is as good as mine what these clips actually contain [Gethin - They're two of our newest tracks, exclusively available to you lovely people who read our blog, hope you enjoy!], but I'm sure they are worth a listen!

Anyway – we have gigs in Bracknell, Portsmouth and Bournemouth this month, be great to see some of you there! As usual check the website for all updates.

Cheers