So it's nearly the end of another year so I just wanted to put out a little message of thanks to everyone that's been in anyway involved with my musical activities this year. The only resolution I ever tend to make these days is to try and make sure that the next year was better than the last, even if it's just a little bit. So far so good. This year I had a single get into the top 10 on the UK Singer-songwriter iTunes chart (Shipwrecks), released my second EP (Battles), went on my first self organised tour, played Glastonbury Festival, and got my first ever national airplay on BBC6 music.
A lot of these things simply wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for the support of those around me and those that for some reason or another like what i'm doing musically. I say this a lot mostly as I really mean it! There's no record label throwing money at me to make records or organise tours or getting me on the radio etc. And having people sharing links, buying music, liking/following pages etc really is invaluable to a) allowing me to continue doing so and b) my own sanity! ;-)
In short, THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT! :-)
Here's a free download of a track called "Things you don't know" (which makes the title of this blog make more sense). It's got an email unlock thingy, but I promise not to spam you with stuff. I reckon the mail out will be about as regular as this blog! ;-)
Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas & NYE. See ya next year! :-)
Well i'm not going to lie, i'm a little bit sad today. Last night marked the end of the Battles tour. It's been great getting out of the local comfort zone and playing. Especially with Harry & Naomi in the trio setup. I just would like to say a big thanks to all of those that came to the gigs, downloaded the EP, bought the CD, shared posts, liked/followed pages and all that stuff. I'm about to cook dinner and watch the Iggy Pop lecture about being a creative type in a capitalist world (which I'm predicting might be a little depressing) and the simple fact is that whether you like it or not YOU are instrumental in our successes (or failings come to think of it). Not that it's all you of course, but people power can make or break an artist for sure. "Shipwrecks" only did as well as it did because of those that bought/shared it. Yes I wrote it, yes I had a whole heap of help recording it and making a video for it, but if no one ever hears/sees it then it's difficult to call it "successful" even if you think it's good. So with that in mind when I say thanks to those of you mentioned above I REALLY REALLY mean it! Thanks. :-)
In other really rather splendid news, I got my first ever air play on BBC 6 music! Battles was played on Tom Robinson's Mixtape last night. You can download the podcast from here or you can stream it from the site here. Big thanks to Tom Robinson and the BBC6 Music team. That was the perfect way to end the tour. :-)
So what's next? Firstly, i'll be adding physical copies of "Battles" to the Bandcamp store this week. Keep an eye on the Facebook & Twitter pages for when that'll be in place.
Also we've got another London date coming up! It'll be at The Troubadour on Nov 2nd, check the poster below to see all the other fantastic acts that shall be playing. (Read next bit in a cheesy radio dj voice) Brought to you by G7th Capos! ;-) Tickets are available £5 adv from here or £7 on the door.
And then it's time to start planning another tour and EP 3... Mwha ha ha. :-)
Finally! The Battles EP is now out! It's available on iTunes, Bandcamp, Amazon mp3, GooglePlay, and some others that I don't have links for (i.e. Xbox, Deezer, Rdio etc)
Physical copies can also be bought from us at shows and (in a week or two) from Bandcamp also.
I'd just like to thank everyone that has been involved in getting it done. Harry, Naomi, Clare, and Christina Marie for lending their considerable musical skills to everything. Jack & Sam for their hard work and patience with regards to the sound of everything and Ian "King of Pixels" Skriczka for his always awesome artwork skills.
If you like it, then please share these links and/or like/follow the Facebook and Twitter pages etc. It's all these things that really help unsigned artists to further our careers!
So now it's tour time! Here are the dates and locations, so if you're anywhere near then come and say hi. :-)
Oct 4th - The Old bookshop, Bristol Oct 9th - The Jam cafe, Nottingham Oct 11th - The Silver bullet, London Oct 12th - The Convent, Stroud Oct 13th - Brewhouse, Cardiff Oct 14th - The Nest, Bath Oct 16th - The Taphouse, St Agnes Oct 17th - Bread & Roses, Plymouth Oct 19th - The Gylly Beach cafe, Falmouth.
Hope you like the EP and thanks to everyone that has shown an interest in it's development. Time to see how it does in the world all by itself. I feel a bit like a parent. ;-) Laters Aaron
So on October 6th I'll be releasing my 2nd EP called "Battles". It'll be available on iTunes, Bandcamp, Amazon mp3, Deezer and a whole heap of other digital outlets whose name I can't remotely think of right now. Physical copies will also be available at gigs too which brings me nicely onto my next "announcement". We're going on tour to promote the EP! Harry, Naomi and myself will be playing 9 dates in the UK through the beginning of October. You can see we're we'll be on the image below.
Tour time!
It'd be lovely to see you faces if you're anywhere near the gigs, and if you're not but know someone that is that might be interested then feel free to spread the word. In addition to that, the gig at The Convent in Stroud on Oct 12th will be streamed live via the Netgig service. There's a link to it here: https://theconvent.netgig.co.uk/event/aaron-douglas-trio-uk-trio/. The gig at The Brewhouse in Cardiff the night after will also be streamed on www.bigscottradio.com.
I'm off to Ireland to do some work type stuff so i'll speak to you next week.....WHEN THE EP IS OUT!!!! Eeeek! :-)
So the last blog I wrote was just before Glastonbury....so yeah....it's pretty fair to say that i'm finding it difficult to write these regularly! Anyway almost everyone of these blogs start with an apology for being so slack and an explanation (excuse) as to why. I'm not going to do that this time though. For those that would like that, read the first paragraph of #14. :-)
So Glastonbury was awesome again. Not as much as last year (meeting Lucy Rose, Matt Corby plus more was going to be hard to top) but still great. The gig was very nice too despite being a clash heavy slot. Since then it's pretty much just been work and the EP.
That's a bit of a lie actually. Throughout August I was Marvin Berry........well, kinda. For those of you that were unaware there was a big Back to the Future event held by Secret Cinema in London during August.
My friend Bobby had been asked to play Marvin Berry for these events. There was a few dates he couldn't do though so he rang me to ask if I wanted to cover him for those dates. My knee-jerk reaction (in my mind) was "I can't fill your shoes! Are you crazy!?". You see, Bobby is a bit of a legend. His originals band are called the "Yes Rebels" and they are so good it's actually disgusting (Check out the video below). :-) Awesome vocals, phat riffs, great songs. He's also the front man in a covers band called the 45's. A cover band for people that don't like cover bands. Think classic Motown, Soul, 50's/60's era music played in the style of the White Stripes or Royal Blood (again totally awesome). Needless to say you have to have a certain amount of charisma to front bands such as these and Bobby has got plenty of it. I've been in rock bands before but usually as the lead guitarist, not the front man. These days I sit down at gigs with an acoustic guitar and play "nice" music. ;-) So the thought of standing in front of 4000ish people and commanding their attention with a style of music that I've never tried singing before was quite frankly terrifying.
Despite all this flying through my mind in the 3 seconds after he had asked me, my mouth opened and I said "Yeah, why not eh?". I figured that either way i'd find out what my limitations were and that in this case it'd be better to try and fail than to write it off without even giving it a shot. And boy am I glad I did! The 1st show was a whole new level of nerves that I've not ever experienced before. This was due largely to the fact that i'd not had a single rehearsal with the band. We got through it although I was far from happy with my performance. The next date was better again, but it was the 3rd when everything went perfectly. There was a great atmosphere in the air that night. The crowd were all really up for it and singing along to all the classics (Earth Angel especially), but when I played the first two notes of Johnny B Goode, the roof just tore off. It was a great feeling to play a rocky gig with such a great crowd. So in short, I can just about get away with fronting a 1950's rock and roll band..........good to know. ;-)
The whole experience was something that I'll look back on in years to come with very fond memories. I met a great bunch of of very talented people and I'm extremely honoured to have been part of something of that scale.
So in other news, WE HAVE A RELEASE DATE FOR THE EP! "Battles" shall be available on digital and physical formats on OCTOBER 6th! Whammy! I'll talk more about that next time though, until then it's ciao for now. :-)
Hello, it's been a while. For those of you that have been reading all of my ramblings, then you'll know that my life is split into "musician" and "earning enough money to carry on being a musician" periods. The last couple of months have largely been the latter. Not that it's all been hard graft. There's been some cool gigs and nice little developments in that time. I supported Ben Ottewell of Gomez which was ace as it was a sold out gig and the room was full from start to finish. Supporting isn't always the awesome gig you hope for or imagine it to be as most people are there to see the main act and often don't bother watching the support. Not in this case and I was very grateful to have such a friendly attentive crowd. I was lucky enough to play for the Dot 2 Dot festival last month which was also pretty cool. Other bits of good news are that we've confirmed that the trio shall be playing at Harbourside festival in Bristol next month and i've been playing a bit of guitar for my friend (that was on the telly box) Christina Marie. We did a little session for BBC Bristol which you can see below.
Harbourside Festival is always quite an important one to me as it marks the anniversary of me moving to Bristol and sorting my life out. Also it was my first experience of Bristol as a city and it's music scene which, for the record, is great!
The biggest news of late (apart from one other that i'm coming to) is that WE'RE PLAYING GLASTONBURY! The trio shall be playing on the Small World stage in the Green fields on Sunday at 8:15pm. Fingers crossed we can blag a few other slots too, but very chuffed to be playing on an "official" stage, not that playing backstage last year wasn't awesome. This is just a different kind of awesome! :-)
Official Glastonbury app. Wahoo! :-)
So the final and most recent bit of news is that thanks to Ian from Faultless Design I have a shiny new website! You can check it out at www.AaronDouglasMusic.co.uk so have a look and let us know what you think! Ian has been a total legend with regards to the imagery of all my latest work (he did the artwork for the Shipwrecks single) and is basically a dude so keep an eye out for his new creative venture (King of Pixels) coming soon. :-)
That's it for now, Glastonbury next week and then back to the studio! Hope you're all getting to enjoy the sunshine!
Aye up ladies and gents, hope you're all well. So since the last blog we've had some gigs! ;-) You'll have to excuse my sarcasm there. I'm sure there's a famous Mick Jagger quote about how being a musician is 5% playing music and 95% sitting around waiting to play music, but I reckon when you're unsigned those figures change to 5% playing, 10% waiting around, 35% scraping money together and 50% sat in front of a computer/phone convincing people to let you play! As such, recently i've spent waaaaay more time in front of my laptop emailing festivals and venues for gigs than I have holding my guitar. Gigs are coming in though so I shant complain! You can find the gig list on the website or here: www.facebook.com/AaronDouglasMusic/
So the first gig since the last blog was the Shipwrecks single launch party. That was a really special gig, mostly down to the songs performance in the iTunes Singer-songwriter chart that week. The whole thing just seemed to create a buzz in the run up to the gig. It was great to see so many friendly faces, old and new, local and not so local. The reaction we got when we played Shipwrecks was just.........amazing. So a quick thanks to everyone that came because it was awesome! Not bad for only our 2nd gig as a trio! On that note i'd like to quickly "big up" Harry & Naomi for being totally awesome and talented also! Having them on board has really helped me work out what direction I want to take our "sound" in, and I couldn't be any happier about it! Last little note about Shipwrecks, Tom Robinson from BBC Radio 6 picked it as one of his Extra Gems last week! You can hear the whole playlist here https://soundcloud.com/tomrobinson/sets/gems20140324
Shipwrecks single launch panorama. The Birdcage (Bristol)
The following Sunday we supported Brother & Bones at the Exchange in Bristol. B&B are smashing it at the moment. They've been touring with Ben Howard and Bastille and get airplay from Dermot O'Leary and are set for big things I think. I met Rich the singer when him, Harry and myself were helping about as crew for a Seth Lakeman gig years ago. It's nice to see them doing well and they played a shplendid set. They also totally bailed me out the next morning as I was supposed to be going to London the next morning and I missed my coach as the initial bus ride ended up in a tree. Nice one drives! ;-) Thanks for the lift B&B! :-)
Last weekend we played at Proud in Camden. Very cool venue, and we saw Keith Lemon in the Morrisons car park nearby......which was nice. ;-)
On Saturday i'll be supporting some other friends that have been doing well recently called Winter Mountain Band. They've been getting Radio 2 airplay too and been touring with folk legend Cara Dillon so looking forward to that one!
Finally we've been back in the studio this week so fingers crossed we should have some EP news for you soon! Wahoo!
Laters :-)
Aaron
P.S. This Saturday my friend Christina Marie will be performing in the final of "The Voice", if you've been following it then please give her a little vote on Saturday. She's a top lass and boy can she sing. You really need to be in a room with that voice. It's something else. :-)
Hello! Well this week has certainly been interesting! As you may already know a brand new recording of "Shipwrecks" was released as a single last Monday (3rd). On Wednesday morning I found myself browsing through the UK iTunes singer songwriter charts as I was curious to see how far the chart goes down to. As I scrolled down towards 300 (where it ends) I saw Shipwrecks sat at 274. I have a tendency to play things down unless they're amazing to the point of ridiculousness. As such I posted this picture onto my facebook page mostly tongue in cheek.
What followed was quite frankly ridiculous. The facebook post got a lot of "likes" and a few "shares", and within a few hours Shipwrecks jumped up to 95! I posted another picture.
This post got a few more shares and likes than the last one. Shipwrecks moved up again. This time it hit number 40.
At this point the "shares" & "likes" increased exponentially, I started getting congratulatory messages and texts etc, it was all very surreal. Now the realist/pessimist in me decided that top 40 was probably about as good as it was going to get, so I decided that I didn't want to take over people's facebook pages with my updates and said unless something insane happens I wouldn't post again....
Then this happened....
Then it went higher still.
It was getting late by this time so I decided to call it a night. I woke up the next morning fully expecting Shipwrecks to be back in the 100's. So you can imagine my surprise......
Never in a million years did I expect it to hit the top 10. This photo probably got the most attention and within the hour I took this final photo.
What transpired over those 2 days is one of the things I love about the world we live in with regards to social networking, the internet, our ever changing music industry, and people in general. I'm not a fan of most "get me to 1 million likes and i'll....." type things as I believe that in most cases your "likes" & "shares" on facebook don't really hold any gravitas in the real world. For the musician/artist however it really does. The reason I got to number 6 is because of good old fashioned word of mouth. The further it went up the more family, friends and friends of friends, and fans got behind it because it's nice to see friends succeed.
So basically thank you to everyone that bought the single, thanks to everyone shared the statuses to their friends & family, thanks to everyone that got their friends and family to buy it, and massive thanks to the people that haven't got a clue who I am and were just following the instructions of said family and friends! I LITERALLY couldn't have done it without any of you.
We had a little launch party last night and tomorrow we're supporting the really rather good Brother & Bones at The Exchange in Bristol, so i'll give you all the details of those next time around.
The single is still available to download for 0.79p from iTunes here:
The "share" is one of the greatest advertising tools in an unsigned artists arsenal so if you like it, share it thank you please! Thanks for all your support guys! :-)
Forgive me father for I have sinned, it's been over a month since my last blog and it should be weekly. Apologies. ;-)
The reason for this is that my first ever single "Shipwrecks" is going to be released next Monday (March 3rd)! As such it's been quite mental getting everything ready in time. We filmed a video to accompany it which will be going up on Youtube this Friday (Feb 28th). I've already talked about the video in previous blogs so I won't go on about it too much here but I would like to display again my thanks and appreciation to all the people that were involved in making it. It was an awesome weekend and I couldn't be happier with the end result. Round of applause for the guys please. :-)
Artwork courtesy of The King of Pixels
So Shipwrecks is going to be available by digital download via my Bandcamp page on March 3rd and also will be available to download via iTunes shortly after (if not the same day). We're also having a launch gig at The Birdcage in Bristol on March 7th. I'll be playing the gig with my trio (the awesome Harry Harding & Naomi Holmes), plus support from Chris Woods Groove and Lukas Drinkwater, not to mention a few special guests!
Other things worthy of note this month, I have a gig supporting the really rather good James Bay at The Louisiana this Wednesday (Feb 26th), on Friday my good friend Mr Albert Jones is playing for and supporting the disgustingly talented Martin Harley Band on their UK tour. They'll be at The Fleece on Friday so I shall be down there showing my support and in exchange getting to listen to some ruddy good music! You should check them both out! And if that wasn't enough on Saturday i'll be going to watch Bonobo at the Colston Hall! Looking forward to the week ahead fa sho! ;-)
On Sunday 9th March the trio will be performing at The Exchange in Bristol supporting the mighty Brother & Bones! I remember seeing them a few years ago at a festival called Ivylive and thinking "I'd like to be in that band" so really looking forward to sharing a stage with them. Again if you haven't already done so, check 'em out!
And finally, we've got a London gig coming up! Wahoo! Harry, Naomi and myself shall be busting out some tunes on March 22nd at Proud Camden. Times to be confirmed so keep an eye out on the facebook page/twitter for details.
I'll leave you with a little "behind the scenes" video of our time making the Shipwrecks video. Hope you like, see you round the bend! :-)
Happy new year folks. Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and NYE. My Christmas was fairly quiet which was nice. Gave me time to thoroughly batter my writers block into submission! ;-) The days around NYE I headed to Cornwall to do a few gigs with my old band AlBenAza. It was nice to catch up with a few faces i've not seen in a while and play some music not entirely seriously!
It was pretty amazing to see/hear/sleep through some of the storms down that way too.....in a slightly scary way. Two venues/pubs that we've played in are situated on or very close the beach and were literally metres from being washed away! Pretty mad.
Well it's 2014 now so time to get back on it! I've been looking at venues and festivals to play so if any of you that are reading this can think of any then feel free to leave comments. There's a large number of both so it's difficult to play them all........doesn't mean i'm not going to try though! I don't tend to make resolutions as I think if you're going to wait until January 1st to make some "life changing decision" then it either isn't that important or you're probably not going to do it anyway. That said I do see the importance of setting yourself goals. This year mine is simple. Play WAY more gigs than I did last year.
Last night I had my first gig of the year at The Birdcage in Bristol. It was a leaving do "music all dayer" for a friend called Tom Mousey who's off travelling. Since moving to Bristol 2 years ago he's become a very popular face within the music scene and has been responsible for a few very good regular nights and one off gigs alike. Safe travels brother! I also got to catch up with a few mates that i've not seen in a while, one of which had just been on the TV an hour earlier. Christina Marie is currently on the TV program "The Voice". She has simply one of the best voices i've ever heard in real life. Everytime i've heard her sing the room stops what it's doing and listens.......EVERY SINGLE TIME!!! We did a little duet of one of my songs last night and I don't think i've lost myself inside one of my own songs like that in a while. Her passion for music is other worldly and whilst I don't believe her (or anyones) entire career rests in the hands of programs like "The Voice" (she's going to be a star no matter what happens!) I wish her all the best of luck! :-)
Back to gigs (sorry about the tangent!) i've been very lucky to have had the talents of Mr Harry Harding & Miss Naomi Holmes helping me out with my EP over the last few months and this Tuesday (tomorrow) we have our first gig as a trio. Both Harry & Naomi are awesome musicians and complete legends so i'm really looking forward to sharing a stage with them and debuting some of the EP tracks. The gig is at The Exchange in Bristol and we're on at 8pm. For any of you that are in the area and want to come then just add your names to the comments section at the bottom of the blog and i'll add you to the cheap list.
Speaking of the EP, we're back in the studio today and fingers crossed may have the final mixes by the end of the day! I'll let you know how we get on next time.
Till then, toodle pip!
Aaron
P.S. I've been listening to Snarky Puppy A LOT recently. If you're even remotely into any kind of jazz/funk/instrumental music you owe it to yourself to give them a listen. Utter awesomeness. There are better quality clips on Youtube (they did a live DVD) but the energy of this video is so so good. Also if you want to hear the most disgustingly good keyboard solo ever go to part 3 of this video series.
There was a small part of me that was worried that I might not really have anything to say in this post. As Christmas gets closer things start to slow down to an eventual halt. If i'm honest that's one thing I do dislike about Christmas. I don't like doing nothing. I've recently learnt to find time to read so i'll probably spend most of Christmas doing that and making a stern effort to punch my writers block square in the face. There's not a whole lot to say about the EP or single yet as even though they are further along than when I wrote my last blog, there's no major "new" developments. The down time does give me a good amount of time to look for gigs however and it was last week that I found the inspiration for this particular blog.......Venues & promoters.
Some of you might have seen the posts going round on social media in which a musician (or creative type) writes a witty letter to a venue owner/promoter arguing/explaining that they should be getting paid for what they do, or a sarcastic analogy as to why they think the amount they've been offered is borderline insulting. Something occurred to me the other day when I was the receiving end of one such insulting offer.
Why do you never see a post or letter from venue owners/promoters to musicians? Is it because they don't need to defend themselves as there's plenty of gullible bands/artists that will take the offer if you say no. Is it because they don't care or don't know that artists feel this way? One of the posts that I've seen breaks down how much it actually costs to go out and gig. Now to be honest I think that one is aimed more at people that might not necessarily have ANY idea about what a musician does. It broke down fuel, rehearsal space rental, instrument care, etc. I'd like to see a similar breakdown for "opening a venue". As the Flight of the Conchords famously once sang "What are your overheads!?". I'm not naive. I know bar staff, sound engineers, door staff etc need paying. Electricity, alcohol, general maintenance and upkeep all require money. I just wonder why it's the musician (from what I can see) who ends up getting the short straw.
To put it into context here's one of the "offers" I got last week. Tickets are sold for £5. Once you gotten 10 people to buy tickets you then get paid £1 per ticket sold to someone that is there to see you. If you're lucky (or well known enough) to bring 50 people then additional sales get you £2 per ticket. If you sell less than 10 tickets you get nothing and may not be invited back. Now bearing in mind that there are 4 other acts (with the same deal) on this particular bill.
I did once say how crap I thought this all was to a promoter once and his argument was that doing it this way meant that the bands make an effort to bring a crowd and the venue isn't empty. Although I can see the point he was trying to make this doesn't create a scene. If you could have a venue that people knew was going to have good live music on certain nights, then you've got a crowd of people that are loyal to your venue instead a crowd of people that will just follow a band around to other places. Imagine if you had a group of loyal customers in every weekend and then you book a band that has got a large following! Oh! It'd be like Christmas! ;-)
It is possible. Chris who works at The Barrelhouse in Totnes has proved it to be true. When you get there you get sorted out with a meal, there's a place for you to stay, and you even get a bit of booze! Then there's the PA. It's epically good. Unless there's some sort of heinous catastrophe, it'll probably be one of the best sounding gigs you'll play in a venue of it's size (150 cap). And then you get paid a reasonable amount! The whole experience is so pleasurable that I look forward to playing there and more importantly I look at Chris as a friend, not "the promoter at the Barrelhouse". The venues i've played in Europe have a similar attitude so why is it that a large number of UK venues don't? You'll be lucky to get a free drink in most places.
Anyway, it's close to Christmas so i'm not going to get too ranty but if anyone that reads this is a promoter or venue owner (or knows one) i'd be interested to hear what your thoughts are. Especially if you're involved in "£1 per ticket sold" type shenanigans.
Finally, I mentioned a while back that I played a song for Elixir Strings when I was at the London Acoustic Guitar show and here it is! This is going to be the title track of the next EP. Feel free to give it a share if you like it.
That's it for now, hope you all have a shplendid festive season and remember.........support your local music scene. It needs your help more than the X-factor does. :-)
So last time I mentioned that I was going to be off to Cornwall to record a music video. Last weekend we did exactly that. A friend of mine called Lee came up with a great idea for a video for "Shipwrecks". As such whilst we were in the studio recording the new EP we also put down a new version of Shipwrecks to be used in the video. It's a bit bigger than the previous recording I tell thee! Strings and all etc. It seemed a bit pointless to put Shipwrecks on the new EP as it was on the previous one, so Shipwrecks is going to be released as a single at the beginning of next year. We're then looking to release the EP shortly after that.
So how was it? It was awesome. No stress and everything just seemed to go right. When Lee came to me with a location idea I new straight away that fate was sticking it's nose into our business. The location (between Launceston and Tavistock) had a massive influence on Shipwrecks so for Lee (who was unaware of this at the time) to go off and find the "perfect filming location" slap bang in the middle of those two places was ridiculous. The cottage was utterly huge the surrounding area was beautiful. A perfect place to get away from it all. We've all already started planning a return trip. ;-)
Knowing that the next day was going to be a long one, we sorted out room allocations, bought supplies and had a nice meal courtesy of Ben & Paulo before getting an early night. Saturday was indeed a long day. We were up by 8am, moving the furniture around and getting make up done etc. Yes, I did say "getting make up done". It's amazing what an HD camera will show up so you need to be prepared. ;-) We were filming until around 9/10pm. It's mad when you think that all a whole days hard work will be condensed in 4ish minutes of actual footage. We had a little "wrap up" party as the scenes we had to do the next day were all fairly easy and some of the guys would have to leave Sunday night.
Ben, the drunken genius that he is decided that at around 6am he should make sandwiches for everyone so that we all had something to eat when we went to film the beach scenes. He also laid the table in preparation for breakfast (despite nearly missing it). He's nice like that you see. Captain fate wasn't finished with us yet it seemed as on the Sunday we kinda lost track of time filming the last bits at the house and were in danger of losing the light to film the final scene. When we got to the beach we were treated to the most beautiful sunset to see let alone film with. Perfectly timed.
Bude Beach
Big thanks to all the team Lee (director and creative genius), Ian (Photography and visual genius), Sophia (Demon and Flame stick genius), Helen (Evil Ex and Lion King genius), Paulo (Catering and drum genius), Evie (Nice new girl and Make up genius) & Ben (Acting coach and drunken genius) for all their hard work. It was good fun and it couldn't have been done without you. :-)
In other news my Analogman King of Tone pedal turned up this week. There's a 9/10 month waiting list for these pedals due to demand and the fact that the guy that makes them refuses to go down the "factory produced" road. It's nice knowing that you've bought something that hasn't been put together by a robot. Anyway it sounds epically good so i've finally been able to put my other pedal board together. Roll on the full band practices!
Oof.
Anywho, that's how for now. See ya on the flip side.
It was my birthday on Friday. And on Saturday. And on Sunday too as it happens. Ever since I became too old to get the latest Optimus Prime as a present i've not made too big a deal of my birthdays and had it not have been for all the gigs i'd booked around it, this year would have been no different.
As a little birthday "warm-up" we went to see Reef at the O2. They were the first "big" band I ever saw live, my old band (Freerider) supported them on their 1st date of their 10year anniversary tour (which is where the beginnings of AlBenAza were formed), and over the years i've ended up having various dealings and random acts of chance involving them. I've supported "StringerBessant" (Gary & Jacks other project), AlBenAza had a gig once were Dom was drumming for us and Reef's current front of house engineer recorded half of my first EP. Anyway, they absolutely smashed it and it awesome to see them again.
The Friday was my actual birthday and a few friends and I went to a venue called the Stag & Hounds to watch the Plymouth based band Moriarty. Having lived in Plymouth before Bristol, I know Matt (the drummer) but i'd not yet seen them. Annoyingly every time they'd played Bristol, i'd either be giggin myself or working away. It was nice to finally catch them and played a corker of a set with some banging riffs. if you get a chance to see them, do it.
Despite trying to take it easy, shots may have become involved so when I woke up the next morning I can't say I felt 100%. After composing myself I drove down to Totnes to support Dizraeli & The Small Gods at a sold out Barrelhouse. It was great to be back down that way as the Barrelhouse is a great venue and I got to catch up with some friends as well. The gig was awesome too. I'm my own worst critic but that was probably the first gig i've done where I was really happy with how I sang. I'd been listening to the Dizraeli & The Small Gods album on repeat all week and I have to say seeing them live is a must. The album is great, but there's definitely and added layer of awesomeness when it's right in front of you.
Sold out!
The next afternoon(!) I drove back to Bristol to play the Shakespeare for the Totterdown arts trail. The arts trail is basically a load of artists displaying their art in venues and house in the Totterdown area. I got back just in time to catch The Montgomerys who were awesome and another band i'd been meaning to see but just not got round to. Considering by this point my hangover had developed quite nicely and Ben the bar manager had greeted me with a shot of sambuca & tabasco, I managed to get through the set and I dare say I felt like I sang better than I had done the previous night. The night was completed by the Lewis Creaven Band. Seriously, these guys can play. Lewis is probably one of, if not the best guitarist i've ever seen in real life. Get them in your life. :-)
So that was my birthday weekend. Thanks to everyone that came to the shows, bought me drinks, and sent me messages. I'll now be hibernating for a few months. ;-)
EP news! We are in the latter stages now! We should be starting the mixdowns this week and then it's just mastering and artwork to go. Whoop whoop!
Finally, we're off to Launceston at the end of this week to film the video for a single. Quite excited about that so i'll let you know how that goes next time around.
Laters
Aaron
P.S. Moriarty won "Best Video" at the South West Music awards on Friday night. Check it out below.
I was hoping to write this blog very shortly after the last
one so (again) apologies for this one being so late. I’m currently putting plans together to make this a more regular
thing. For those of you that are reading these then thanks for bearing with it!
and a “looping lesson” for
Elixir so that might be on their website soon. I'm not going to lie, I wasn't entirely prepared and it's not something i've ever done before so i'm fairly certain i'm going to look like a right plonker. ;-) My parents also came up
to surprise me again. I met a guy called Darren at the show last year and he
was at this years show also and he tweeted me saying how nice my parents were
and how proud of me they are. I don’t say it enough but I really wouldn't be
able to do any of this if it wasn't for their support so there’s a “thanks” going
out to them now & always. I got to catch up with the guys from Hudson
Taylor again which was cool, and I met Scott Matthews and Tom Crouch (Gabrielle
Aplins guitarist). It’s great to meet all these guys and finding them so down
to earth and friendly especially given the levels they're at and hearing that the
music industry is supposed to be full of a-holes!
Scott Matthews & myself
If you pick up a copy of this months "Acoustic" magazine, you'll find a few nice words about me in their review of the show. Thanks chaps. :-)
Other gigs worthy of note in the last few months have been
the Little Apple Cyder Festival just outside Newquay. It was organised by a
good friend and old band mate and I he did a ruddy good job of it. I can see
heaps of potential with that one. Also similarly, Bicton Fest (put together in part by Adam Isaac) is another that I
can see getting bigger and better. The main stage is in front of a massive lake
which is at the bottom of a hill so it’s kind of like a natural amphitheatre.
Beautiful. I also supported Ryan Keen, twice. The first time was at the
Barrelhouse in Totnes which was amazing and it was great to see the Barrelhouse
absolutely jammed full of people. The second time was in good ‘ole Bristol at The Fleece.
Ryan had a tour support called Gavin James with him for that one and he’s one of
the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. And what a voice that man has. To be fair the
pair of them are just really nice guys, and bloody talented. I was gutted I
couldn't stick around after the show for longer as I had to fly to Newcastle very early the
next morning. Ryan and Gavin have both just released an album (Room for light)
and an EP (Remember me) respectively. Go get them. J
So at the end of the last blog I said that I’d be talking
about advertising this time around. As you may know I’m endorsed by Logarhythm
and they recently ran a campaign that featured their artists in magazines. My
creative genius friend Ian “King of Pixels” Skriczka came up with a great idea
for a photo with me levitating with the Prolog stomper. He’s a bit of a whizz
is Ian and the photo came out really well and as such was featured in the
September issue of Guitarist magazine as well as the August & September
issues of Acoustic magazine. Check it out below.
Speaking of endorsements I’ve now been added to the Lakewood
Guitars official artists list which I’m mega chuffed with as other names on
that list are Dave Matthews and Thom Yorke! Other than their guitars being
great the Lakewood
guys are super nice so it’s a real honour to be included in what they're doing.
I’m also very pleased to announce that I’m endorsing Heistercamp straps. These
guitar straps are hand made to order, are uber comfortable, and tough as nails.
I can’t see myself needing a replacement one of these unless I’m attacked by a
Wolverine on stage…..I fact I could probably beat said Wolverine with the strap
to save myself.
Finally, I’m now endorsed by
G7th capos too! They've got a whole heap of different capos including partial ones
so looking forward to trying them bad boys out with regards to new songs.
Speaking of new songs I’m
also hoping that I can actually get back to doing some writing as I finally caught up
with and completed Breaking Bad. ;-) That was some TV show……up there with The Wire.
(Family Guy joke) In all seriousness though, I did really enjoy that program.
Righto, that's how for now. Next Thursday I shall be off to watch Reef at the O2, and then the Friday is my day of birth so may have a few cheeky shandies. ;-)
For anyone that is in Totnes Saturday after next, i'll be supporting Dizraeli & The Smalls Gods at the Barrelhouse. Should be a cracker of a gig so pop your heads in if you're about. Then finally on the Sunday i'll be back in Bristol playing at The Shakespeare in Totterdown.
I'll let you know how it all goes in 2 weeks. So that'll be the 18th. Pinky promise. :-)
Till then, toodles.
Aaron
P.S. Hudson Taylor recently released their 3rd EP titled "Osea". This is my favourite track from it, check them out yo.
Aye up, hope you're all well and you've managed to get in some of the glorious sunshine (whilst it lasted that is!). This entry is going to cover arguably the biggest and most famous festival on this planet. Glastonbury. This year was my 3rd year at the festival and I have to say that this particular one was far and away the best one of the 3. In fact i'd almost go as far to say that it was one of the best weekends ever! Here's why.
I've always had a "thing" about Glastonbury. When I was a kid (and to a small degree now) I didn't like getting dirty. For me Glastonbury was always a proper "dirty" festival. As far as I was concerned it was always rainy and muddy. As such I decided that the first time I went to Glastonbury would be when I was playing it. This was in part a form of goal I was setting for myself, but mostly childishly thinking that I could turn up in a helicopter and have my own private toilet etc. ;-) 4 years ago I was asked to sound engineer on the street performer stages around the circus and theatre area. Realising that i'd made little effort to achieve my "dream" of playing, this felt like a close second and took it. Despite the weather being utterly gorgeous all weekend, I hated it. The hours we ended up doing were twice that of what we were told we'd be doing. I ended up seeing 2 bands over the whole weekend. Needless to say I was very grateful to be offered work as part of the stage crew for the Acoustic stage the next year. That year was way more laid back and having a better idea of the scale of the festival allowed me to be better equipped mentally in my approach to watching bands whilst also having a job to do. This year I was offered the position of team leader for one of the Acoustic stage crews. So point 1 of it being an awesome weekend: I was given a position of responsibility, I didn't screw it up and nobody died on my watch. Thumbs up then.
Delegating.
The other benefit from working on the Acoustic stage is that there were a number of acts performing on that stage that i'm a fan of that I got to meet and see/hear up close. One of the best performances I saw all weekend came from Mr Matt Corby. The guy has the most incredible voice, his band are amazing, plus he's a lovely chap. Obviously I hate him then...... ;-)
Legend
Other acts that I watched on the Acoustic stage were KT Tunstall, Steve Winwood, and Hudson Taylor. I'd been given a heads up by Janna (my new Glastonbury fwiend) about Hudson Taylor as i'd not heard of them. They were awesome, bought both EP's as soon as I got home. I was lucky enough to meet Harry from the band in the backstage bar after my gig there and it turned out he'd seen my set! He said he really liked it and there was a drunken conversation about supporting them in Bristol so may just have to give him a subtle reminder of this at the London Acoustic Guitar Show next month. ;-) There was another act performing on my stage that caused me the greatest amount of grief I had over the whole weekend. I really really wanted to see Glen Hansard however it transpired that he was playing at the same time as Lucy Rose (on the Avalon Stage). I'd seen Lucy at Dot to Dot festival and i'd not seen Glen without The Frames yet. Damn you Glastonbury clashes, inevitable as they may be, they still hurt. In the end I decided to go to the Avalon stage and see Lucy Rose. And super chuffed that I did too as I watched her from the side of stage and met her and the band afterwards!
I don't tend to get star struck around people as I think we're all the same. No one person is any more important than the next (unless they've got super powers or something..). Despite this I did feel like some sort of school boy with a crush when I met her. "Like I used to" was my favourite album of last year, so getting to hear some of my favourite tracks from it live as well as her new stuff was awesome. Then to top it off she's utterly adorable. I try not to outstay my welcome with things like that so after I got a picture taken with her and the band (also lovely people) and a little chat I left her to it. Before she left the compound she actually made the effort to say goodbye to me. She didn't have to and I wouldn't have thought any less of her had she not have so that was nice........................I don't mind saying I think I fancy her a little bit. ;-)
What a babe. :-)
This year also marked my first performance at Glastonbury. I played in the backstage bar of the Acoustic stage and although it was quite a short set it went down really well so fingers crossed same again next year!
Other things worthy of note, despite Glastonbury Festival being the 3rd biggest population centre in the South west of england when it's on (allegedly) you should never underestimate how easy it is to bump into people you've not arranged to see there. Within the first hour on me being there i'd bumped into about 7 people i've not seen in ages and whom I didn't even realise were going to be there. Similarly you should also never underestimate how difficult it can be to find someone you've actually arranged to meet up with! I should also give a shout out to Mr Ruarri Joseph. I've only met him a few times (from hanging around in Cornwall, my old band pal Albert being his guitarist, and my bass player Harry being his drummer), but he seems like a nice fellow and it was really nice to see him get a standing ovation from a full Avalon Cafe and to find out he had a TV slot on the BBC the next day.
I could probably go on about Glastonbury for the next couple of blog posts however I don't want to rub it in for anyone that wanted to go but couldn't. If it's any consolation to those of you that relates to then count yourself lucky you didn't have to drag this lot across a bunch of hilly fields for about an hour and a half.
These trolleys are rubbish.
Finally here's some EP news. We're going into the studio next week to start it! Fingers crossed it'll all be tracked and recorded by the end of next week. Here's a little question actually. What do you think of purely digital distribution i.e just downloads instead of CD's? Anyone still buying hard copies? Feel free to answer in the comments etc.
At the moment the title for the EP is "A lot to answer for". And here's an acoustic version of the song that was recorded during a photoshoot at the Birdcage in Bristol.
Hope you like it (if you do give it a "share" please!). Next time, we'll talk about a subject close to the heart of the late Bill Hicks. Advertising. ;-)
Till then, toodleoo.
P.S. Whilst typing this I've been listening to "Eavesdrop" from the new Civil Wars Album on repeat. What a tune! Check it out. :-)
So the last blog established that there were a few rubbish moments over the last few months. HOWEVER! It certainly was not all bad. I'll try and catch up to where I am now so I won't blabber on too much detail about everything that's happened for the constant fear of turning this into a dissertation. :-)
In April I attended Musikmesse in Frankfurt. For those that don't know, Musikmesse is basically a massive music trade fair. And when I say massive I mean MASSIVE. Pretty much every company that makes anything to do with music or musical instruments attends this show. I was lucky enough to play on the Lakewood, Elixir and Logarhythm stands and what an amazing experience it was too.
Yamaha had the entire right hand building to themselves!
Unfortunately the side effects from the medication I was on (see blog 2) had just taken hold whilst I was on the trip so i'll be honest, I did not feel 100%. The gig I played on the Lakewood stand was amazing/petrifying and although I didn't feel like I played anywhere close to my best the Lakewood guys (some of the nicest people you'll ever meet might I add) and the crowd seemed to enjoy it. I even sold some CD's! ;-)
I also got to meet Jonathan Kluth and Wallis Bird whom are fellow Lakewood players. And it's from them that I think I took the biggest influence for my own performances.
When I first started playing guitar I taught myself not to make silly faces or move around too much as I didn't want to look stupid. Now i'm older I don't care. Also I realised that holding that back was also preventing the performance from ever being a just process of playing the correct notes in the correct order, at the correct time. Watching Jonathan and Wallis play with such energy and passion made me take a good look at what I do. Don't get me wrong it's not like i'd play like the guys below but there's always room for improvement eh!? ;-)
The Elixir stand was another amazing experience. My first ever silent gig. The Elixir stand was in the same hall as most of the electric guitars and amps etc so try to imagine hundreds of guitar shops in one place all with people playing.......loud. To avoid joining the volume war Elixir put together a system so that everyone was on headphones. A cunning plan and pretty essential for being heard in such a loud environment. Again I met some lovely people on the stand and I got a chance to hang out with the Elixir guys after the show which was very funny indeed.
I should probably mention that Frankfurt is a beautiful city too! I got a chance to take a little walk down the river and take a few pics. Definitely want to go back and play some gigs there!
That's how for now, next up is Glastonbury, adverts, and the new EP.
First of all I'd like to apologise in the mahoosive delay in writing this blog. For reasons I'm actually going to tell you, the last few months have been quite chaotic. I don't want to bombard you with a dissertation so I'm going to keep this particular one short.
I work freelance as a Sound Engineer for a "day job" when I'm not trying to make a living as a musician. As such I often find my life swings between having no work where I have plenty of time to gig/write songs etc, but having rod all money or working my toosh off having loads of money but hardly looking at my guitar! The last few months have been the latter. Now don't get me wrong, this has been great in most ways. As a freelancer living in a new city it can be hard to find work so when it starts picking up, the constant worry with regards to paying rent and feeding yourself (temporarily at least) subsides. As such I'm planning to get into a studio and record the next EP very soon (as I can now afford it!).
Writing a blog isn't particularly time consuming so I can imagine you might be wondering how I could have been too busy to write one in 4 months. This brings me to the other 'element' in my life that up until very recently had been preventing me from writing this.
For a few years now I've had an occasional problem with cramping in my hand when I play guitar. Last year I had such a severe occurrence of it that I couldn't finish the gig that I was at and I couldn't play guitar for a week. Needless to say at this point I decided to get it looked at and to cut a long story short, we (and by we I mean a doctor I've seen) think it could be "Musicians Dystonia". There isn't a cure however it can be managed and as such I was prescribed some medication whilst they conducted further tests. To start with everything was great, my hand felt much better whilst I was playing and I dare say I actually improved! About 5/6 weeks in though I started experiencing some alarming side effects. Severe anxiety, paranoia, memory loss, a constant dry mouth, loss of mental alertness and eventually an inability to concentrate that was so bad that I couldn't drive.
Bleurgh!
The knock on effects of this managed to infiltrate every facet of my life. It was the busiest period of work I've had since going freelance and yet I felt like I was incapable of doing my own job because of the anxiety and paranoia. The worst part however was the effect it had on my music and creativity. It erased it entirely. At it's peak I sat in my garden staring at my guitar completely unable to play it. It would take me ages just to type a text let alone a blog! The whole situation has been incredibly sobering and thought provoking for sure. Lots to put into lyrical content make no mistake. :-)
I don't want this to be a 'negative' blog so I'm very pleased to say that I can off the medication and am now much better, hence this even being written.
The last few months haven't been all work, and side effects either, so next week I'll inform you of all the awesome things that have been happening of late.
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