I,Muso

Lenny Smallman Songwriters Competition

noreply@blogger.com (bingo brown) — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 11:03:00 +0000

Last night (Sunday 16th) I took part in the 'Lenny Smallman Songwriter's Competition' at the Leicester Square Arts Theatre. Appearing with me were Emma Boyle on vocals and Adrian Jeckells on keyboards. This idea has been brewing for a while now - in fact, several projects have been going on involving both parties: - Em recorded my song 'In The Spotlight', taken from my recent CD 'Diamonds' with Adrian on keys recently, whilst simultaneously we have been rehearsing three songs for last night's contest, namely 'Spotlight', You Don't Know' and 'I Hear The Rain'. I should mention that as Adrian is closely associated with the production of the show, any accusations of nepotism were to be avoided at all costs, hence the name of the game was 'we're only here to play'. Disappointingly, my publisher Tom Evans texted me to say that he wouldn't be able to attend just before we started to play last night, which was a bit of a downer. I had invited him along as he is working my song 'I Hear The Rain' and I wanted him to hear Em's version. Having said that, he had mentioned from the outset that it was 50/50 as regards whether he'd be there or not, as he has been moving flat. Ah well. I turned up just as Adrian arrived yesterday. There are several things that I haven't mentioned about my life that might put things into a bit of context I suppose. I worked for BT for 18 years and recently took early release (i.e. a fair bit of money as severance pay). The job was always a pain in the rear but it allowed me to keep body soul and family together. I quit at the end of Jan and as I wandered along through 'London's bustling Theatreland' yesterday, I was suddenly overcome by a terrible feeling of, not loneliness but more a feeling of being 'apart'. No job, no real prospects and a feeling of 'what the hell am I doing still schlepping about to gigs and contests etc?' suddenly hit me. It soon passed and seeing Adrian's beaming smile took all doiubts away, but the feeling of being somewhat divorced from the everyday life that had been my routine for so many years has crossed my mind a few times lately. Anyway, we went into the theatre together and initially met Richard Lumsden (who is 'Lenny') who was busily preparing everything for the evening's show; lighting, sound etc. We spoke briefly and I mentioned how much I loved the Catherine Tate Show (he appears in it as 'Mart'n' in a regular sketch) and it was clear from the off that he is a great guy and a good writer, too. He hosted the event and proved to be a great MC. The contest was held in the upstairs room above the main theatre, which is where the 'Rise and Fall of Lenny Smallman' is being staged. The concept is basically as follows: Lenny is a fictional failed singer / songwriter hitting middle age and realising that he's not going to make it big. Sounds familiar. However, the twist in the tale is that Lenny gets a big break and the story begins with him appearing at a Glastonburyesque rock festival. The songwriter's competition and others before it (I think this was the third) was to decide who would open the play, appearing as the band who happen to be onstage prior to Lenny's Glasto set. It will be for a couple of weeks and then further contests will decide subsequent 'opening acts'. Lat night's judges included a television producer and a recognisable actor (don't know his name) and a female who seemed to be rather rude. We were on first and I think we did really well. Em was amazing vocally and I was even quite pleased with my performance for a change. The judges felt we were middle of the road and hence obviously not right for the part (we knew this), but one of the judges (TV producer) said that he found ' I Hear the Rain' ''really beautiful'' and all three enjoyed it and said there were some great melodic touches and lovely harmonies. Unfortunately, the female judge soured things a bit for me by saying that my song (I sang lead on just one song, 'You Don't Know') was 'Eurovision material' and compared me to Johnny Logan! Arrrrgghh!! No! Oh well. Could have been worse, could have been compared to Cliff. Anyway, my mate Brian came along and thought we were great, also he fell in love with Em (understandably) and then we settled back to watch the rest of the show, which unfortunately was populated by a lot of very earnest singer songwriters who all seemed to have songs about mental illness or lost family members, or, in one instance, a song about both! ('This song is about my uncle who went mad and then died two years ago..'). Good times..

The whole thing was filmed so I will put up the Youtube links as soon as possible.

Mr Hastings

noreply@blogger.com (bingo brown) — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:37:00 +0000

I played a really unusual gig with L (my duo partner) on Saturday in a holiday park in Hastings. It was a fair distance to travel for a gig, let me tell you! I am based near Watford and this is a 2 hour plus drive (or at least it is the way I drive - plus the weather made conditions on the road abysmal). Anyhoo, we'd earlier discussed the option of meeting up halfway to travel on in one car, but I wasn't convinced that the kit we were both carrying would easily fit into one motor, so we agreed to travel to the gig seperately. L using her new Satnav and me using my beloved Google Maps directions meant that we both arrived in good time. I'd promised myself I would at least see the sea before going home. Light was failing a little when I arrived in St Leonards on Sea shortly before the time that the contract stipulated we should be there (6pm). Having found the place, Combe Haven Park, I spotted the coast to my left and so I drove on a little and parked up at the brow of the hill to look at the distant shoreline above the rooftops, while I ate my cheese rolls which my partner had lovingly prepared for me. I eventually headed for the gig and stopped at the security gate to ask where the Saxon Club was. I drove around for a bit and finally spotted L on foot walking away from the entrance to an entertainment complex also on campus. This place is massive, built on the side of a steep hill with mobile homes and caravans as far as the eye can see. L said that she had directions so I followed her as she drove down to another big building. We walked into this place and it was clear we were looking at a 'common folks' holidays r us' scenario; the whole scene was fairly typical - a big telly showing Sky Sports, round tables dotted around a big bar area (see pic above) with families with babies and kids, all the blokes were in shell suits of jogging bottoms with sweat shirts - women all dressed about the same. On the other side of the garishly-lit hall were pool tables and fruit machines. There was no stage. We met the entertainments manager who was a gushing teenager (she may have been older - they all seem so young to me these days!). We were told that usually bands set up in the corner but they hadn't had many people playing there anyway. No real surprise. A few of the staff moved some tables from in front of the corner of the room where the miserable-looking few who sat around watched a rerun of a football match on the oversized TV. We got the gear set up and were ready to roll. L was feeling very low unsurprisingly due to some recent events. We chatted until it was time to play our first of two 45 minute sets and then we commenced. 'Magic time' I said as we walked to our corner. It was like playing in a funfair marquee. The place was heaving by the time we started and we went down really well. I was a bit rusty on some of the numbers but we sounded great and it was a good gig. Afterwards, we broke the kit down and took it back to the cars whilst the quasi redcoats yelled and karaoked the throng into submission. One of the entertainments managers yelled and hollered herself hoarse introducing her colleagues to the vaguely disinterested crowd. As we trundeled back and forth with the kit, some hapless tone deaf fat woman was singing 'I Will Survive'. I have never heard anything so terrible. L and I were hysterical. Finally the gear was packed and we chatted for a minute before setting off home. I suddenly spotted that there was a guy about 20 yards to our left crawling in the road. As I watched him clamber to his feet, he staggered and fell really heavily so L and I ran up to help. He was pissed as a newt and had cut his head badly in the fall. I told L to look after him and ran inside to get help. One of the happy-clappy mob (Hayley), came out to assist and was followed by the security guy I had originally spoken to earlier. Eventually, the injured drunk refused all offers of help and brusquely and slightly more steadily, wandered back to his caravan. L suggested I follow her back to the M25 as she had the Satnav and off we went. During the long journey, we chatted on our mobiles which broke the boredom. All in all a great night which we agreed cheered us both up. I did feel quite nervous throughout as were right in the audiences laps virtually, but it was musically good; I think it was one of the best nights vocally I'd had for a long time and I was pleased with my guitar work too. L is always great and this was no exception. All we need now is to receive our payment for the gig from the agent and it will go down as one of the best we have done!

Eurovision

noreply@blogger.com (bingo brown) — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 20:18:00 +0000

I mentioned in an earlier post that my female 'partner in crime' in the duo I sometimes gig with is also a member of a 'happening band'. Well, I don't see why I cannot at least divulge that she is a member of one of the two girl bands who are competing tonight to represent the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest! It's been a time of real excitement for her and all of her friends and colleagues. I have just been watching the 'Eurovision Your Decision' program and I have to say that it's a strange experience watching someone you know on the box. It's happened a couple of times for me lately: a few weeks ago, my old mate Katy Setterfield who sang on some of my demos a few years ago, won the 'One and Only' TV competition (a competition whereby tribute acts competed for a place in a Las Vegas show) as Dusty Springfield. That was an odd experience. Odder still tonight was seeing my duo partner storming through a great performance of their song and bringing the house down on live TV. In an hour's time, we will find out whether the great British Public have voted them through to appear in Belgrade at the main event in May . If her band gets through, I suspect life will never be the same for her. In addition, I also suspect that she won't be doing many more duo gigs, knocking out old songs for social club members and Bingo fanatics! Good luck to her and her band - fingers crossed.

Surviving Gigs

noreply@blogger.com (bingo brown) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 22:31:00 +0000

In my time, I have played some strange places and had some fairly weird experiences at gigs. The kind of gigs I play these days tend to be social clubs or working men's clubs and usually on weekends. Mostly, I play in a duo with a female singer sometimes as a solo act, but in both cases I play guitar and sing to backing tracks played over a PA on minidisc, which seems to be the medium of choice on the circuit I am playing. The main reason for using this fairly old technology is that should an outbreak of frenetic dancing break out on the audiences part, the ensuing vibrations won't cause the backing track to jump, or worse, to stop playing altogether. And yes - that really has happened. For many years I played bass with a four-piece weekend band and then packed it all in and had quite a few years of concentrating on writing and recording my stuff at home. I only really got back into gigging again last year and all this backing track stuff was a relatively new thing for me. The first time I used a mini disc player for backing tracks was with my long-suffering duo partner (she will remain nameless as she moonlights in a 'proper' band who are currently 'going places'! Bet that's intrigued you..or not). My very first gig with 'Miss X', I was given a mini disc player to operate and for a while, I surprised myself by how easy it all was and all went well. My partner had another mini disc player on her side of the stage with her tracks and we alternated quite comfortably. Then disaster struck: mid song, she told me she was going to change the running order and throw in a different tune to the one we had agreed on our set list. As the song she wanted to tackle was on one of my discs, I took this to mean: 'cue up your player with the relevant track' as her mini disc player had the current backing track churning along. I located the disc and put it in my machine. Little did I realise that it wasn't set to pause between tracks and no sooner had I placed the disc in the player than it instantly started to play a really raucous rock n' roll number while the punters were staggering around to a waltz. The ridiculous sight of these predominantly elderly types trying to articulate their limbs between two competing rhythms was quite something and reduced us to hysteria. I was known as 'Martin Mini Disc' after that disaster.

Anyway, I will share some further gig disasters as I go along. For now I wanted to share a sort of survival guide for giggers, aimed mainly at folks like myself playing the club and pub circuit. These are based on a few tricks of the trade I have learned, either from bitter experience or that have been passed on to me by others. I hope that these may well be useful to you and who knows, they may well save your bacon in certain gig situations!

MARTIN'S GIG SURVIVAL LIST

1. SPARES - Alright, this is going to be a no-brainer list in some respects, but you'd be surprised at the novices who carry no spare guitar strings, mics, leads, batteries for effects pedals or music stand lights etc etc. No need to elaborate further. Make sure you have enough of everything to cover as many eventualities as possible.

2. SATNAV - In earlier days, I was often perturbed by the 'directions' to gigs given by our beloved bandleader, that would often merely consist of ; ' Gig Saturday - it's a pub in Fulham'. Satnav or at the very least, work your route to the gig out beforehand using Google Maps which I recommend.

3. LEARN SONGS YOU CAN DO WITHOUT BACKING TRACKS - What will you do if and when the PA packs in one night? Make sure you learn a few songs that you can play 'unplugged' just in case. Oh yea, and bring an acoustic too!

4. KEEP A SPARE GUITAR ON STAGE WITH LEAD IN - you can change a string in the break, right?

5. BE COURTEOUS AND POLITE TO THE LANDLORD / CLUB OWNER - They are paying you, you are in their place as their entertainment for the evening and they set the rules. Take notice of their house rules and make sure you are prompt and ready to play at the times the contract states. Don't get lippy with anyone, punter or barstaff alike and do what they ask you to do and they will always have you back.

6. PACE YOURSELF AND DON'T OVEREAT OR OVERDRINK - Drinks-wise, it's self evident if you're driving, but take it easy in both departments. You don't want indigestion to hit you on stage! Always keep water close to hand onstage, too.

7. ALWAYS THANK THE OWNERS AND BARSTAFF OVER THE MIC AT THE END OF THE NIGHT. Keeps them all happy.

8. TRY TO GIVE THE PUNTERS WHAT THEY WANT - They are your customers after all, and although they can be daft and demand songs that nobody in their right mind could expect a club duo to do: ('can you play Bohemian Rhapsody?') do your best to oblige them: ('will 'Moon River' do?').

9. MOBILE PHONE - Keep it charged and with credit. Obvious really. And keep enough change on your person for a pay phone, just in case.

10. GET VERBAL AGREEMENT RE SET TIMES, BREAKS AND FINISH TIMES - A good idea to make sure you and the managers are on the same page before the gig commences. Nobody can say it wasn't discussed and agreed.

Well that's the obvious stuff but I'll add more as I think of them. Hope that's some use.

Here We Go...

noreply@blogger.com (bingo brown) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:28:00 +0000

At this 'late stage' of my musical career, I have decided to use this forum as a means of posting my thoughts, insights, moans, rants, reviews or recommendations related to my experiences regarding music in general (both my own and in the world at large),including songwriting, recording and gigging. In my 'About Me' section you can find out who I am and what I am all about. I also make no apology for the ads that appear here which I will be totally upfront about and say I am hoping to make some money from! I hope you find the articles and so forth that will appear here on a regular basis interesting and enjoyable and moreover that you may find some of my thoughts helpful.