Starting on the next album...

Well – 3 weeks to go until the new album sessions start. We have a fair idea about what we’re doing, what direction we’re heading in with this new recording and how we want the finished product to sound. Whether that’ll change once we get in there is anyone’s guess, but we’re all starting to get excited – although we’d be lying if we said we weren’t a little apprehensive about what the next couple of months will bring.

This album will in the main consist of material that we have written in the last few months. Whereas with the first one, we’d been gigging most of the songs that ended up on the album for a long time before, so knew them inside out – this time most of it will be pretty new to us. Although we have slowly bought a few new songs in to the set this last 18 months or so, in the main the tracks on this new record will basically be written and then recorded – with very little gigging exposure. It’s an exciting way to do things, and we kind of hope that as the songs will be so fresh to us, that enjoyment of playing new material will shine through (although that will also be down to Al Heslop’s excellent production skills!).

Another thing that is different to the first one, is that we have given ourselves a much stricter time limit for recording. We hope that another way of getting a real spontaneous, exciting feel to the record will be to get it recorded over a period of a couple of months, as opposed the 8 or so months it took us to do the last one. That idea will probably come back to bite us on the arse, but you have to try these things don’t you!

The new material is on the whole a lot more upbeat than the stuff on the previous record. The previous record was a document of what we had done in the first 18 months or so of being together. Some of the songs came from sessions that Adrian and Emma had early on, some of them from when previous bass player Jim was in the band, and only really a couple that we put together from start to finish as a full band. This new stuff we can safely say is pretty much all material that we have written together as a band, so we hope it will be a much collective sounding effort.

So, November 13th and 14th is when it all kicks off, and we’ll expect to record throughout the rest of November, all December and then in to January.......with hopefully something resembling a finished album at the beginning to middle of Feb, ready for duplication and getting out to the press etc for a spring time release. A hard old ask, but we’ll give it a go.

We will still have the odd gig while we record, as otherwise Emma gets irritated. We support the fantastic Leatherat (www.myspace.com/leatherat) at The Farnham Maltings next Friday (29th) and then have slots in Lightwater, Leigh-on-Sea and Newbury before the end of the year. I imagine we’ll add one to sign off the year with in December – so keep an eye on the gig page.

Cheers for now

ATC

BBC Session, summer update

As promised, a (slightly late!) opportunity to listen to the full BBC session that we recorded a few weeks ago:



(you might have to head over to our website to listen if you're reading this in an email)

We won't bore you with all the same news that we've posted elsewhere - head over to MySpace or ReverbNation to find out exactly what we've been up to. Needless to say it's been a very exciting summer, from the aforementioned BBC Session to playing the closing set on the 2nd stage at Weyfest. And we're all raring to get into the studio to start work on the (difficult?) 2nd album, so the next few months promise to be very exciting too! There are still a few gigs coming up though, so make sure you check those out too, it'd be great to see some of you along.

Best,
ATC

BBC update

Just a quick update on the BBC Berkshire session we recorded on Tuesday - this will be airing this Sunday the 22nd August, at 7pm as part of "The Session". Please tune in, either the old-fashioned way, or using DAB, or you can listen live online over at BBC iPlayer. There's a new track that we recorded live, plus a bit of chat and an album track, so definitely worth a listen we think!

BBC Radio session and gig

A few exciting things coming up this week - this afternoon we're off to BBC Berkshire's studios to record a radio session, including a live performance and a bit of an interview, and then tomorrow (Wednesday 18th) we're off to The Oakford Social Club in Reading to play "BBC Introducing...", a night showcasing up-and-coming bands from the local area. We're headlining, with support from our good friends Scattered Few. The night is free entry, and kicks off at about 8:30pm, so please do come along if you're in the area!

Summer Update

Just an update folks regarding a few shows we have coming up over the next fortnight.

Tomorrow night we're at our old haunt of The Cellar Bar, at South Hill Park Arts Centre in Bracknell. Doing a 30+ minute slot along with great singer/songwriter Natalie Long. We'll be on around 9pm and tickets are a fiver on the door.

Sunday we play at The Harlequin Fayre near Norwich. Tickets are almost sold out for this Green Gathering, but you may be lucky if you're quick. Expect loads of hippies and quality ale. Nice!

Next Wednesday we're at The Oakford Social Club in Reading for the BBC Introducing night. Free entry as far as we know, and we're on the bill along with our good friends Scattered Few.

Then, on Saturday 21st August we play at The Small World Festival in Lincolnshire. Again, tickets are pretty scarse for this one now - but if you are interested, check the website gig section where the link for this, as well as the Norwich festival can be found.

Upcoming gigs - BBC Introducing, Eastney Cellars, many more...

Hello all!

Been a bit quiet recently with Emma jetting off to get married (congratulations!), but we're now gearing up for the festival season (full dates on www.allthingsconsidered.org.uk), with a few extra-special gigs lined up as well.

On 21st July, we're off to see our regular line-up companions Chris Ricketts and Mark Willshire for a night they run at the very very good Eastney Cellars. This promises to be a great night of acoustic and folk music, and tickets are available now from any band member, or our website.

And then 18th August we've very proud to have been selected to play at the BBC's "Introducing..." night at Oakford Social Club, Reading. Playing with our label's latest signing and very old friends of ours Scattered Few, it promises to be a great night.

And of course there are plenty of other opportunities to see us live - our full schedule is available, as always, at www.allthingsconsidered.org.uk, so please take a look - it'd be great to see you soon!

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.