Dayve Dean

Preview of forthcoming album Seven

noreply@blogger.com (Dayve Dean) — Wed, 14 Nov 2018 21:41:00 +0000

Preview of some of the pre-mastered songs from forthcoming g album Seven

Next Old Mill Open Mic night is this Thursday

noreply@blogger.com (Dayve Dean) — Mon, 22 May 2017 18:50:00 +0000

ill be hosting the next Old Mill Open Mic night at The Old Mill in Alsager this Thursday with Dan Logan. Come along and join in if you can!

Open Mic Tonight

noreply@blogger.com (Dayve Dean) — Wed, 04 Jan 2017 21:08:00 +0000

Open mic tonight with Dan and Pete at The Railway in Alsager. Time to try out some new songs!

Northbound Winds (demo 1 January 2017)

noreply@blogger.com (Dayve Dean) — Mon, 02 Jan 2017 16:36:00 +0000

A new song for the new year, this is a demo of Northbound Winds

New Year's Eve

noreply@blogger.com (Dayve Dean) — Sat, 31 Dec 2016 20:02:00 +0000

Gigging in an inflatable pub this evening! Very exciting way to end the year :-)

Rainy weekends, songwriting, electric guitar and looping pedal

noreply@blogger.com (Dayve Dean) — Sun, 01 Mar 2015 20:10:00 +0000

I realised over the past few years that I've not given myself enough time to do the enjoyable parts of music making such as just chilling with a guitar and writing a new song. So have set myself a bit of a challenge to write a new song every week.

I'm already running a little behind my schedule but the idea is to give myself time to experiment, get some ideas down and hopefully something good will come out of it.

I've had quite a quiet weekend for a change with just one live show in so have been playing with electric guitar and a looping pedal, which are things that I've been wanting to play with for some time.

Time will tell if anything useful comes out of me messing around with them but I can certainly think of worse ways to spend a rainy weekend. Next job: introduce myself to the world of guitar effects!

Happy Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Dayve Dean) — Wed, 24 Dec 2014 22:14:00 +0000

It's Christmas Eve and there have been a few fun news stories suggesting taking kids out to watch the International Space Station go overhead and telling them that it's Santa flying over.

I don't have kids and am on my own this evening but I wandered into the park by my house to watch it happen and it was surprisingly enchanting. It's great to watch it go over at any time but tonight the sun was taking the last of the light away with it and the moon was looking magical. So it helped to inspire a new song which I've called Space Station. It also gives a slight nod to a line or two in A New England which I've covered in my live set for a few years.

I've recorded a rough demo on the iPad which I've uploaded to SoundCloud. Check it out on the embedded code below or visit http://SoundCloud.com/dayvedean.

Happy Christmas to all :-)

Alsager Music Festival today

noreply@blogger.com (Dayve Dean) — Sat, 12 Jul 2014 10:39:00 +0000

I'm playing at the Alsager Music Festival today. My main show is at 3pm at The Meir Inn but this morning I've been busking around the town. Lots of fun!

Had a great time at the festival last year (check out www.youtube.com/dayvedean for the videos) when I was playing the Sunken Garden Stage on the main festival site, Milton Park, with Dan Logan. This was all despite having heatstroke!

Thankfully feeling great today and looking forward to a fun day of music :-)

Gigging in Newcastle

noreply@blogger.com (Dayve Dean) — Mon, 07 Jul 2014 20:39:00 +0000

I'm playing a wedding gig today at Blackfriars in Newcastle upon Tyne. I've rarely been to the city centre and as far as I remember haven't played here before.

It's a lovely venue and a wonderful crowd here too. I'm playing totally acoustically as the venue isn't able to have amplified music which has made a really nice intimate atmosphere. Some really nice acoustics in the room too!

Violin time

noreply@blogger.com (Dayve Dean) — Mon, 07 Jul 2014 20:38:00 +0000

I've been playing the violin tonight. I don't play as often as I'd like - party down to time, partly down to it being quite a loud instrument, party down to not being as good as I'd like to be - but always have fun when I do.

Tonight I've put the scores aside and just had a mess about trying to play some of my songs that I'd usually sing.

It's been really interesting to see the songs in a different light and also to see how some of the things I do vocally translate into different fingers and strings when moved to an instrument. Really gives me a good idea of how much is involved that I don't often realise.

Sunday

noreply@blogger.com (Dayve Dean) — Sun, 06 Jul 2014 22:17:00 +0000

Today was a rare day off for me. Much needed after gigging in Newcaste upon Tyne yesterday. I was playing totally acoustically at a wedding at Blackfriars in the city centre. It was a lovely venue and wonderful audience involving busking requests (acoustic YMCA anyone?) along with the usual covers and originals. Lots of fun but a very late drive home and had to be up early to take the hire car back.

So today has been a mixture of sleep and rest, feeling as though I should be doing more. I did get chance to play the bouzouki for a while though (though still seem to be struggling to move away from the same few chords) and had a mess about with my Alesis SR16 drum machine which I've had for years but never really got to grips with.

It got me thinking that it's likely that, due to changes in technology and especially the advent of digital recording, I probably have a more sophisticated recording studio set up than was used in either of the two studios I used to record my Still Life album, in terms of flexibility, amount of channels, ease of editing etc. Yet I'm still not recording as much as I'd like to and certainly not anywhere near as much as I did when I was a teenager with just an Atari ST, cheap Yamaha keyboard connected through MIDI, and a Tascam 4 track using compact cassettes.

Back then I used to dream of having a portable studio like I'd seen in some recording magazine which was really little more than a little MIDI keyboard with recording facilities for its own sounds. These days I have that much capability and much more in the form of the iphone I carry everywhere and the ipad I often have with me. Yet still use them far, far less than I would have done back then.

It's partly down to lack of free time, working several jobs and travelling nationwide (and sometimes internationally) to play gigs. And I suppose partly down to an odd lack of motivation.

So now I've realised this I feel as though I need to address it. I have some ideas of how to make that happen. Collaborations will hopefully be part of it and also creating a form of pressure as I'm well aware that I work much better to a deadline.

Watch this space!

Score writing

noreply@blogger.com (Dayve Dean) — Thu, 03 Jul 2014 22:29:00 +0000

Following on from my recent long post about wanting to learn to be better at reading and writing music I've tried to score a reasonably new song using my iPad. It's not going well so far! This is about an hour's work and it's only vaguely right. No idea at all how to notate the strummed tenor guitar part.

Still, if you'd like a sneak peak of a new song from me then here's a taster: :-)

Capturing songwriting ideas

noreply@blogger.com (Dayve Dean) — Tue, 01 Jul 2014 22:45:00 +0000

For several years I've been recording song ideas into the voice memos app built into my iPhone. I've got more advanced audio apps but it's a very quick and easy app to use to get a song idea down so tends to be the one I'll use as an audio notepad. I've not really mastered the art of using either the iPhone or iPad to their full recording studio capabilities yet, generally finding things easier on a Mac. Must be my age getting the better of me.

I've been trying to get a recent song demo uploaded to the Facebook page from the voice memos app to the page and seem to have failed miserably. I'll probably have to resort to importing the audio into the computer I guess.

But it's been interesting to go back through some of the older demos I've recorded, going back to 2009. I've had an iPhone since their were first released in the UK in 2007 so guess I either hadn't discovered the audio voice memos app then, or probably more likely it didn't exist.

I've found songs that I'd forgotten all about, songs I now know well but which sound completely different in their original demo formats, and some which I thought I'd lost.

I'm not sure how interesting they'd be to anyone else, unless maybe used as part of a longer blog post or podcast with explanations and audio explaining the journey but it made me realise quite how much technology has helped save such snippets, including the date and time of the recording.

I was clearing my loft out a few years ago and came across lots of old lyrics, the majority of which I'd either forgotten about or turned into 'real' songs. For the ones I'd forgotten about the tunes are now lost - unless I happened to record the idea onto a cassette but suspect that would have been harder than using an app, and they'll also be no date or time recorded even presuming I could ever find the relevant cassette or bother listening through the hundreds I still have filling the loft.

It's also brought home the realisation of why I'm trying to become better at reading and writing sheet music. I mostly dismissed it in my younger years, thinking it relevant only to more classical music. It's a challenge and one that in some ways is less necessary with the ease of recording into an iPhone app. But that relies on the technology still existing and being compatible, and still being able to work the chords and tune out from the recording.

It's encouraging to realise that, as difficult as I'm finding it to learn properly, it will be a useful skill that will benefit me in years to come if I can learn to read and write a score with a similar ease to being able to use an iPhone app.

Alsager Music Festival 12 July 2014

noreply@blogger.com (Dayve Dean) — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 20:10:00 +0000

I'll be playing the Alsager Music Festival again on 12 July this year, playing 3pm at The Mere Inn. I played it for the first time last year and had a great time so really pleased to be asked back.

Lots of other wonderful acts (and friends) will be playing there too so would be great to see you there!

Summer

noreply@blogger.com (Dayve Dean) — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 17:47:00 +0000

"...And the summer's just another one, I feel it drifting away..." - Ride

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/octagon/id325940690

Keyboards and pianos

noreply@blogger.com (Dayve Dean) — Mon, 21 Apr 2014 19:07:00 +0000

After a long but enjoyable Easter weekend working away from home playing at weddings it's been nice to chill out this evening playing the keyboard.

I'm not a great pianist (yet!) but enjoy it and a couple of days ago brought my Alesis Quadrasynth out of storage so have been having a go with it this evening.

It seems strange to me how different the feel is between keyboard instruments, much more so than between different guitars or even different string instruments. The Quadrasynth has unweighted keys. My digital piano, a Roland FP4, has weighted keys and although I love playing it it has been very nice to find I can move around the keyboard so much more easily with unweighted keys.

Sadly the synth has seen better days but was an eBay bargain several years ago. It's a little frustrating that the power is intermittent and the tuning keeps changing but the wealth of sounds in it is more than enough to compensate. Kinda itching to start integrating more sounds into my recordings now :-)

Fuel

noreply@blogger.com (Dayve Dean) — Thu, 27 Mar 2014 20:08:00 +0000

I'm playing at Fuel in Manchester this evening. Have been listening to some of the other acts during the soundtrack and it sounds as though we're in for a good night. Lots of interesting variety in acoustic music. I should do this more often.

Live show this Thursday, 27 March 2014

noreply@blogger.com (Dayve Dean) — Mon, 24 Mar 2014 12:27:00 +0000

I'm playing a live show this coming Thursday, 27th March, at the Picnic Club at Fuel Bar, Wilmslow Road, Withington, M20 (near Manchester).

It's free admission and several other acts will also be playing including The Blazing Snowmen, Red Moon Joe and Picnic Area.

It's a lovely intimate venue which is also a great vegetarian restaurant. Would be great to see you there. Kick off is at 8pm.

If you'd like to join the Facebook event you can find it at https://m.facebook.com/events/438782206253453

Père Lachaise

noreply@blogger.com (Dayve Dean) — Sun, 19 Jan 2014 09:41:00 +0000

Yesterday I went back to the Père Lachaise cemetery where some of the photos for the Octagon album artwork were taken. It's 10 years, give or take a couple of weeks, since I was last there. It's a slightly eerie yet strangely beautiful place.

The photo that made it onto the album was taken close to Jim Morrison's grave. There are several famous people buried there including Chopin. His and Jim's graves eluded me yesterday as closing time came before I'd found them. The purpose of the visit wasn't really to see celebrity graves but I did pass Oscar Wilde and Edith Piaf while there. Some wonderful views out over Paris from there too.

Gig at Stalybridge tonight

noreply@blogger.com (Dayve Dean) — Fri, 29 Nov 2013 20:29:00 +0000

Tonight I'm playing a support gig at The Rifleman in Stalybridge with Dan Logan for Risa Hall.

It's the first proper airing this season of some of the songs from the Winter album so we're looking forward to it!

Dan's soundchecking at the moment

Website update

noreply@blogger.com (Dayve Dean) — Sat, 09 Nov 2013 22:27:00 +0000

I'm thinking the website is overdue a refresh so I'm after your ideas. What would you like to see? Any recommendations of particularly good musician sites which would be good to view for inspiration?

Either leave a comment on the Blogger site or email the mailinglist email address with your thoughts. Or head to twitter.com/dayvedean or Facebook.com/dayvedean

Tonight's recording session

noreply@blogger.com (Dayve Dean) — Fri, 20 Sep 2013 22:03:00 +0000

I'm recording a session this evening in my home studio and have assistant engineer Cromity helping out. She seems to be liking it though which I'm taking as a good sign. Very sad song this evening with a really haunting piano line which I'm really enjoying.

Tomorrow evening I'll be playing a live show along with several other acts in Shavington near Crewe. Should be a fun evening!

Alsager Music Festival 2013 (video playlist)

noreply@blogger.com (Dayve Dean) — Thu, 12 Sep 2013 16:41:00 +0000

It was great to play the Alsager Music Festival this year with Dan Logan on the acoustic stage in the Sunken Garden. This YouTube video playlist shows the songs we played. If you can't see them on your device they're available on YouTube at www.youtube.com/dayvedean.

The set list is:

Sidelines
Follow
Don't You Think It's Time
Lizard Skin
Business As Usual
What You Do
Make Me Smile
Tricks of the Light

Radio appearance on RedShift Radio

noreply@blogger.com (Dayve Dean) — Wed, 11 Sep 2013 20:55:00 +0000

I'm playing some songs and being interviewed this evening on RedShift Radio, broadcasting online at www.redshiftradio.co.uk with presenter Kev Lovell (who has also written some songs with me and sung backing vocals on This Love)

Charity Show for Teenage Cancer Trust

noreply@blogger.com (Dayve Dean) — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 07:37:00 +0000

Last night I played and did the sound for a charity show for Teenage Cancer Trust in Sandbach. Lots of fun and over £100 raised for the charity. I played with several local acts including Neil Smith, Oli Ng and Jonathan Tarplee (pictured).

Jonathan and I did a video together a few weeks ago for his band The BlueYellows for the song No Tobacco, No Jesus on which I did backing vocals. As it involved us dressing as natives in grass skirts (and not a lot else) it was a good job that it was recorded in summer rather than February which was the original plan. And if nothing else it was a good encouragement for me to keep at the diet! Hopefully the shots of me will be sped up enough not to put people off their meals... I'll post a link to the video when it goes live.

Set list for last night was a mix of originals and covers:

Sidelines

Make Me Smile

I Could Be Happy With You

Somewhere In My Heart

Don't You Think It's Time?

Free Fallin'

Tricks Of The Light

I played a similar set, although with fewer covers and more originals, at the Alsager Music Festival along with Dan Logan. It was a fun show despite me suffering from heatstroke on the day. I'll post videos once they're all edited.