Further developments into the world of Folk...

It's been 13 days since I last posted on here and alot has happened since then, so much in fact it's difficult to know where to start!

I think it's best to start in chronological order, so lets begin on the 11th January. A while ago I was contacted by Ian Bettridge, a third year student at Derby Uni, who needed to record for his final recording project. He asked us whether we'd like to record and of course we jumped at the chance. We travelled from Leicester to Derby on Monday 10th and stayed at my lovely student house where we chowed down on a brilliant curry with all the extras and lager, whilst watching Shameless, a good relaxing night before a day of hard work.

We were booked in the studio from 10am until 4pm, plenty of time to get recording, and so we got up at 9am and prepared to leave the house. Little did we know, whilst we were busy styling ourselves for a day of windowless, headphone wearing music making and eating our Weetabix, a traffic warden was already at work along the street and had clamped Sean's VW Golf!! It turned out that Sean's tax disk was out of date, a fact that we actually knew. To cut a long story short, Sean had been waiting for his tax disc to arrive for some time and actually had a reciept to say his car was taxed, however that didn't stop us being clamped and having to pay a fine of £260 to have the car realeased!!! This of course put us off schedule and so we left the car and made the 10 minute walk carrying our gear (luckily no amps or drums) arriving in the studio at about 10.45am.

From then on the day was very successful, we recorded 2 tracks, firstly we recorded 'Romeo and Juliet' as a multitrack recording, layering the different parts up, proving that the rehearsals we'd had payed off as we all knew what to play without any real problems. Whilst recording the harmonies we managed to get Sean singing, however Nick was suffering with a bad throat and so Ian kindly recorded the higher harmonies for him. After this, we recorded 'By The Water', as a live recording with us all in the same room surrounded by different microphones and sepreated by blue sound isolating boards! Overall the day was brilliant and we got some really good recording done, due to be avaliable soon. Thanks again to Ian Bettridge!

The tracks that where recorded can be found here at: www.soundcloud.com/davenportfolk

Following the recording, we came back to Leicester again and had a few days before playing at the Crumblin' Cookie's Unplugged 2 event. The Crumblin' Cookie is a small cafe/bar that as well as serving the usual beverages to the public, hosts all sorts of artistic nights, from Poetry Brothels to Comedy Nights and of course gigs. Although the venue hasn't been designed with a stage etc the atmosphere within the place is brilliant, with artists and audience mingling together amongst local art work on the walls. We really enjoyed playing here and the gig went well. We hadn't rehearsed as much and so there were moments between songs where we were deciding what to do next, however in this environment it seems almost like the right thing to do.

So, onwards and upwards again... We have our next gig tonight at The Academy at the University of Derby, as part of the student showcase. It's looking like it will be a good night with an audience into the hundreds, so a nerve racking experience but I'm sure we'll have fun! Also news from the OBS events!! Our performance in out heat was so good that we managed to get into the Finale on the 27th January!!

Our next big gig following tonight is The Gentle-Folk's Ball, a night which I have organised personally, so means quite alot. I have speant all week getting posters up in shops around Leicester and getting flyers out there, so now all we can do is hope that people come along, more on that in the next blog!

Thanks for reading!
Dan Wright

P.S Sean managed to contest the clamping sucessfully and get all £290 back, no mean feat!!


Hours So Far...

Planning & Promoting: 2hrs
Travelling: 4hrs 15mins
Rehearsing: 4hrs
Time at Gigs: 3hrs
Recording: 5hrs
Blogging: 1hr 30mins

Total: 19hrs 45 mins

Total so Far: 44hrs 15mins

Happy New Year...

Happy New Yearrr!! Hope you're all well :)

Well It's January 5th and so far the years got off to a cracking start! To kick the year off we began with our first heat in the Original Bands Showcase in order to try and secure ourselves a slot at the Summer Sundae Festival in Leicester. Overall there are 9 Heats and then a Final gig on the 27th Jan which will showcase the acts chosen to play at the Summer Sundae festival.

In our heat there were 7 acts all of a very high standard creating a brilliant night of midlands talent, each artist/band presented a 20 minute set in which they could show off there talent. The evening began with Marc Reeves, a singer songwriter from nottingham with a beautifully clear tone and pure voice, this warmed the audience up nicely and he was follwed by the amazing Kieren Hebdon - The Kids Bob Dylan; a 9 year old singer songwriter who held his own on stage better than many 19 year olds and blew the crowd away!!

We were on next and thoroughly ready to play! On donning the stage we set ourselves up and were introduced to the crowd by the OBS organiser Val McCoy and then we were off...

We played a set of 6 original songs and the set list was as follows:

1. What Will I become
2. Spare Me Some Change
3. By The Wate
4. Soldier's Song
5. Old Flame
6. Romeo and Juliet

The set went down well with the crowd, we were ideally placed in the line up to experience a full venue and got the full attention of them. Our reherasals payed off well which meant that the few mistakes that we made were covered well and we managed to play through within the time limit. With all this working well we were able to relax and enjoy ourselves and really let loose with the songs playing to the crowd.

Overall this gig was a successful one, that we all really enjoyed, it felt like the first time that the band had gelled in that way and it created a brilliant musical groove on stage. If anything, the only problem that I really experienced was not having enough of my guitar in the monitor, i managed to cope and played well considering, however in the future I think I will make sure the levels are set well for ease on stage. Also whilst clearing down after the set, moving the bass drum i knocked over a full glass of water, luckily missing anything electrical but lesson learned, be more spacially aware!!

This gig gave us a good introduction to the Leicester Music scene as amongst the crowd were Trevor Locke, editor of www.artsinleicestershire.co.uk, a site that lists and reviews bands and gigs, Val McCoy, a local promoter who organises the OBS gigs as well as many other gigs around Leicester and Darren Knokles, owner of The Musician and the man in charge of the Musician Stage at the Summer Sundae Festival.

It was a very entertaining night with an array of brilliant talent, other notable acts where a band called Humble He, who hopefully we'll gig with in the near future, watch this space ;)

More gigs coming soon and a recording session on 11th January at the University of Derby so hopefully first single release coming very soon!!!

Thanks for Reading!
Much Love
Dan

Hours So Far...

Planning & Promoting: 2hrs
Travelling: 1 and 1/2hrs
Rehearsing: 4hrs
Time at Gigs: 5hrs
Total: 12hrs 30mins

Total so Far: 24hrs 30mins