Gig at The Troubadour, Earl's Court // 12th September 2014 // with Oak, Tom Figgins and Hattie Briggs

We were out of our comfort zone in West London for this one. The show was a charity gig to raise money for children with cancer (the first of 12, more info here: https://www.facebook.com/thepowerofsoundbeyondcancer?fref=ts).

I had been working all day on a building site in St. Pauls and I was pretty exhausted but felt up for it. Even more so as everyone soundchecked and However my voice was still giving me a bit of trouble so I went out and got a bottle of Courvoisier so that I could at least soothe my throat a bit. 

The Troubadour is a nice venue. They put out free popcorn on the tables and they have a beer called Rothaus which is apparently very nice and costs £5.95 per pint in a heavy German glass. The house drum kit costs £10 for bands to hire, which is perhaps a fair price for wear and tear, however if bands are paying £10 each and there are five bands playing that night, it's a bit of a tax. You have to pay for the popcorn somehow I spose.

The night was largely acoustic musicians, who talked to each other about who their managers were during soundcheck, and made sure to tell the audience that their latest single release that was on iTunes between songs. I suppose that's fair enough. The Troubadour has always seemed to me, though, like a venue where everyone is on the make.

Tom Figgins (https://twitter.com/tomfiggins) was very accomplished. He played a song on a Nord Stage 3 piano about his mother which was quite moving.

To be honest though I was looking forward to getting up there and making a lot of noise. So we got up and set up, and I had my bottle of Courvoisier there just in case, and then the barmaid saw it and confiscated it off the stage just before we were about to start. I had my guitar plugged in already so I couldn't really stop and get off stage to get it back, plus she was pissed off that I'd brought it in. I wasn't trying to take the piss, but rather I had it there as moral support for my throat. Which, as might be expected, gave out in about the third song, and it's a load of shit, and it's really pissing me off. Three weeks in a row now I've had to cut the set short because of my voice. I've got an appointment booked at the doctors, so I'm gonna sort it out. But it's so annoying.

I did eventually sweet-talk the barmaid into giving me my brandy back.

Gig totals: 

Wines (West London, when in Rome): 2 free (1 red - Zygmunt 1 white - Nath)

£5.95 pints of Rothaus - 1

Other free drinks: 6

Bottles of Courvoisier confiscated: 1

Bottles of Courvoisier later returned: 1

Apologies made to barmaids: 1

Gig at The Underbelly, Hoxton Square // 5th September 2014 // with Hoatzin, Rafiki and Justin Lavash

A quiet gig at the Underbelly, where we drank a few warm beers and my voice gave out again mid-song. We had to cut the set short in the end. It was pretty annoying. Hoatzin were a great, tight mathy three piece. I bought their EP after the show which you can hear / download here:

Gotta sort my voice out somehow I guess. Pretty annoying.

Gig totals:

Beers: 8 free warm Heinekens

Brandies: 0 :(

Albums sold: 0

Other bands EPs bought: 1

Magnus Loom - Gilded Bumf

Our sometime saxophone player Joe Murgatroyd has just released this eccentric and lyrically meta track from his new project Magnus Loom (https://soundcloud.com/magnusloom). 'ave a gandaaaaaaaa

We're in the new issue of the East End Review

Pick up your copy at your local East London cafe / bar / pub / venue / barbers now.

[link to the review to follow, when it goes up]

Gig at The Stag's Head, Hoxton // 30th August 2014 // with Tom Jacobson and Uther Moads DJ

Last night we were joined at The Stag's Head in Hoxton by Tom Jacobson (https://soundcloud.com/tomjacobson) and had a DJ set of acid house and all-out DnB from Rhodri of Uther Moads.

The Stag is a great pub to have a gig at, with reasonably priced drinks, reasonably priced pizza, and generally just a nice atmosphere. It's tucked away down Orsman Road, so it feels a bit secret, but when you get the right night on there it can be incredible.

We went on around 10pm, and our set was going pretty well until about the 4th song in when I inexplicably lost my voice. I managed to croak my way through one of our new songs, before Sophie Jamieson arrived with a glass of magic throat balm, otherwise known as Courvoisier. It worked for Napoleon, and it usually works for me.

We got extremely sweaty, and Sophie J joined us onstage to sing the outro of Wanderers.

Then Rhodri of Uther Moads stepped behind the decks and played us out.

Gig totals:

Pints of ale: 3

Brandies: 1

Albums sold: 1

Nice tune from Tom:

Madrid Day 6

We're in Madrid this week recording at Mr. Soul Estudio in the Barrio de la Concepcion.

Sunday was Gin and Nathan's last day in the studio so we spent the morning finishing and refining any guitar and bass overdubs. We also added group handclaps to one of the songs, which involved standing round a microphone and counting. In the end we finished all the instruments for one more song than we originally thought we'd get done, which is a bonus.

In the evening we tried going out to what we'd heard was "the Dalston of Madrid", Lavapieds, and was busy on a Sunday night. But there was nobody about, and in fact, most of the bars were closing by the time we got there, but we had a curry and a few beers anyway. BRITS ABROAD.

Madrid Day 5

We're in Madrid this week recording at Mr. Soul Estudio in the Barrio de la Concepcion. 

We started the morning recording David's Hammond organ which he mended overnight. It was hooked up to a Leslie cabinet which gave it the magic oscillating sound. We recorded organ on two of the songs, and then I sat down at the piano and put a ridiculously jaunty piano part on another song.

It's great to be in a studio where we can have access to so many different, good quality instruments and bits of equipment. Having everything together in one place makes recording simple, so we can focus on getting good takes and sorting out the arrangement. David's equipment has taken years to collect from second hand shops, eBay, friends of friends and other places, and a lot of it he has fixed and restored himself. A really noticeable thing about using some of the gear he has is that we get better results from it in less time; putting one of his valve Neumanns next to something and recording it through a Neve channel strip means you can skip a lot of the extra recording and processing that you need to make decent sounds with cheaper equipment. There's also an element of unpredictability and grittiness to antique analogue gear, but you can also push things like microphones harder without any nasty distortion. It's been interesting to use these things.