Tuesday 10 December 2013

Its all been happening here.. well, almost.

Hi folks..
Time for another blog update (I hear a few groans at the back... ), now listen up here.. there's stuff to tell dontcha know..

Saturday 23rd November - The New Empire, Swadlincote
Always set out with a keen sense of adventure, is something that could be said for Rain. We'll try our best never to pass up an opportunity to play, so when the opportunity came to play The New Empire, I thought, why  not?? I thought, ooh, its close to Ashbourne... erm.. well, not really.. Its closer to Burton and therefore a bit of a trek to get there. Thankfully due to Graeme's keen map reading skills and ability to memorise said maps we successfully arrived in "Swad" (as its known locally). The New Empire used to be a cinema, and in that respect its quite a large venue, well, largish, with a nice stage area, lighting rig and the like. We set up our gear and looked somewhat lost on the stage, we had far too much space to play with.. Still it made a nice change. The venue itself is a rock/metal pub, though in the words of the bar staff "We just like music here, so just play and we'll enjoy it".. *gulp*.. With this in mind, we set to playing our first set, replete in the knowledge that the jukebox had been pumping out Metallica, Korn and Slipknot prior to our taking to the stage. Poor Graeme felt a little ill at ease.. How I looked at it, its a venue, if they want us, then great.. If they hate us, we'll soon find out. So we kicked in and did our first set... With only one round of whinging from one particuarly drunken individual. During our break we chatted to a fella who was an IT/Telecoms engineer (sorry fella, I forgot your name, think it was Martin.. Oh heck.. me and names..) who was very enthusiastic about our set of songs.. and he was looking forward to the second set... The rest of the room seemed nonplussed, well, it wasn't heaving, so the pool table saw more action.. During the second set, our more lively set, we were treated to several groups of people coming in, and the mood lifted.. Several ladies around one table astutely singing along.. which was really encouraging to hear. We finished off with our usual Who numbers to rapturous applause and lots of very positive comments from the assembled crowd..
Overall then, not too bad a gig really.

The dreaded "lurgy" struck me then.. meaning we had to cancel a few events that we were hoping to take part in :-( There's no point in me singing when I'm wheezing, snotty, coughing and grotty, so some evenings have been postponed until new year.

Thursday 5th December - Arthur's Table Showcase, The Glebe

I still wasn't feeling 100%, but because we'd been asked to do the showcase meaning it would only be a 30 minute set at most.. then I agreed to it.. Tried out a few "new" songs on the crowd.. which contained its usual motley crew, but with the addition of a friend who I'd not seen for around 20 years... who is a fellow musician.. It was rather pleasing knowing that I had completely blown his socks off.. as he'd never known I could sing. As always Arthur's Table is a stunning night, filled with amazing talent and well worth just going to and admiring the musical talent of Stoke on Trent.

Sunday 8th December - Late Selector Christmas Open Mic, Nakatcha, Nantwich

So the Festivities have started.. Stevie P Abbott, DJ extrordinaire hosted the Late Selector Christmas Open Mic.. the proviso was to do a Christmas song.. sadly, the two songs we would have done, were chosen by other people.. and we couldn't be bothered to learn some more.. so we just played 3 new songs to the crowd.. It was a great evening though.. with some brilliant performances all round.. plus it all gets recorded and played on This is the Cat Radio on Thursday 12th December!! I was getting ready to go and I was asked by Scott D Thompson to do some backing vocals for him.. along with the eminently talented Hayley Strangelove.. we whooped and howled our way through Earth Song.. heaven knows what that's going to sound like.. Guess we'll find out on Thursday.

Monday 9th December

No gig.. but a chance to return to the studio to do some mixing of the tracks.. well 3 tracks to be precise, namely Goodwood (which we've been invited to put on a movie soundtrack!!.. which is enormously exciting news!!), Bosun's Call and Mary Go Round.. with my bed calling me, I voted to leave the studio and we've booked to go back in January, to get the rest of the tracks finished, mixed and hopefully mastered ready to get the cd's done!! Of course artwork and all that has to be considered, and we'll be employing the amazingly talented Jon Aldersea to do that, he's done some brilliant work down the years..so we know it'll be in good hands.

So, that's us up to date for now. More gigs and stuff coming up.. so watch this space.

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