January..I'm sure there's a song about you somewhere

Hi folks.

Well We're well into January and the frenzy for booking gigs is underway.. We have some nice ones coming up, but we're not going to tell you just yet.. Cos we want them to be a surprise. Well, that, and we know with things in this current climate that the pub trade is deeply affected, with venues closing left right and centre... What can we do about it?? We can support our local music scene all the more... And that's kind of how we've kicked off 2014..by popping along and seeing other people perform, attending Open Mic nights and generally getting out there when we can.

Without a local music scene, there would be no national music scene and, well, no music being played outside of people's homes. There's nothing better than hearing live music, its thrilling, exciting and just as much fun for the people on the stage as in the audience. I will say that of course not every band is to everyone's taste and that's a good thing. If every band were the same, if all musicians played the same way, if all singers sounded the same, wouldn't it be boring??? I prefer to live in a place where there is an infinate variety of music, played by an awesome range of people, all putting in the hours to perfect their techniques and develop their style. I might not like all of it, but I like some of it and that's a start.

So, back to Rain.. well, we popped along to The Blacksmiths Arms in Alton to attend their Open Mic, a lovely affair organised by Geoff Smith.. a really nice bloke, with a penchant for Willie Nelson... It was a great night, jamming with some of the guys and thoroughly enjoying ourselves.. a reminder of why we do it.. because its fun.

Anyway back to real Rain stuff.. the CD... eeek.. Its coming along so well, on Saturday 11th we popped into Tremolo to carry on the long job of mastering the songs... We'd mastered a couple on our last visit, so we got stuck into the rest... Dan tweaking and twiddling to our request.. "Put a bit of reverb on that bit"... "No too much, can we turn that down?"... "Can we drop this bit out, but bring it up at this bit"... We listened  and listened and mastered away. We  were joined later by Katharine, who has already put brass on two tracks, but we felt we needed some on a third, and she,as always, didn't disappoint, coming up with a truly delightful piece that has really brought the song together. We were finally ushered out at 11pm, with 8 tracks mastered.. Just two more to complete and master, then the exciting stuff begins, with the design work of Jon Aldersea, adding his magic to the proceedings. Its all getting a bit real now. Its taken nearly a year so far of gigging, writing, recording and the like, its hard to believe the end is nearly here and we'll finally have a copy of our CD.

So, lots going on behind the scenes, I've written something close to 19-20 songs that require the Beardmore treatment, due to his amazing ability to transform a rough sketch into something beautiful. So this year will no doubt involve us airing those at some point.. But not until the CD is finished!! So, you'll just have to be patient!