That's What Friends Are For...

Hello avid readers...

It's been some time since I have written on here, indeed 19 days! I suppose 19 days isn't actually such a long time, however it feels like an age.

The return to university life has set in fully now after the Christmas break and February has seemed like a relatively quiet month for us as a band. Only two gigs booked in, and after last month's five it seems increadably slow paced. Being away from Nick and Sean in Leicester, presents us with difficulties in keeping the band up to date and ready for action, university work combined with the work we do in the band and keeping down a job to earn cash is sometimes quite a difficult juggling act. That said, we keep on rolling and February has been reasonably productive.

The first thing to mention would be the tracks that we received back from the recording we did in January. They sounded great, it was really nice to hear the tracks recorded in high quality, they have been posted onto our Myspace page and onto our new page on Soundcloud. These tracks have been produced well and really do sound great, however listening to them I think you can tell that they were recorded in a padded, no windowed space and that some of the character in the songs is lost. No disrespect to Ian who produced the tracks for us and did a fantastic job. This in mind, it has inspired us to try and set some time aside to record an EP. We'd like to be able to take our time recording in a different environment and experimenting so that we can produce an EP that shows the band to the best of our ability and quality. More on that as it happens though...

On the 15th February we played at The Vaults in Derby, a venue which we had never played before. It's a brilliantly interesting venue situated under the Slug and Lettuce on Iron Gate. As you emerge down the stairs you are met with the long arched ceiling, closely resembling the Cavern Club in Liverpool, with an atmosphere which longs to be packed out with sweaty audience members crammed in singing and dancing along.

With the gig being in Derby and two thirds of the band travelling up from Leicester logistically the gig was a bit of a nightmare. With Sean's car being on the fritz it was looking as though we may not be able to make the gig. However, being a true Scout I was determined not to let us miss one of the few slots we had in February, and so we decided if I could get hold of equiptment, Sean and Nick could come by train.

Firstly, we needed to obtain amplification! Fortunatly for me, being on a music course there was plenty of help at hand and so I asked Daniel 'Mole' Turner and Ross Labiak to borrow their amps and they obliged. (Thanks again!) Although this was an advantage, I was then met with another problem... transportation of the equipment the short distance from their houses to The Vaults. Being a very novice driver (Two lessons in fact) and not owning a car I again needed to call on the help of friends. In this case my housemate Olivia Ross came to the rescue, after promising her bribes (of which I still need to supply), It was agreed that Liv would drive me and the equipment to the Venue, I would set up and Nick and Sean would meet me there, where we would play. Simple!? Well almost...

Valentines day is one of those days which people either love or hate, being loved up and of that romantic disposition I was in high spirits and made my journey to Leicester to visit my lovely girlfriend. We had a wonderful night and then the following day (the day of the gig) the plan was to wait for Sam (the girl in question) to finish work and then acompanied by her head back to Derby in time for my Sound Technology Lecture and then the gig. Well public transport is not always the most reliable, and on this particular day it was in fact very not the most reliable! At about 3pm we set off (in the miserable rain and strong winds) to the bus stop in Leicester to try and get a bus to the train station. Only to find the bus stop with no timetable and when the bus arrived it drove straight past us with the driver giving a shrug of the shoulders to indicate they were full in a kind of 'what can you do, eh?' type of motion. Well, this was a slight turn up for the books and had knocked the schedule completely out of sync. By this time it was about 3.45 and so we headed into South Wigston, the nearby villiage town to try and get a taxi. Of course with the school run and the rain it was a catastrophy, feeling very damp and stressed we decided to take shelter in a cafe to re-assess the situation. Over a coffee, some Eggs New York (for me) and a Crepe (for the lady), We decided that we were deffianatly not going to be back in time for me to make the 5 O'clock lecture and so decided to wait until the 4.45pm train to Leicester station and then get the next train to Derby. On arrival at Leicester we discovered that the 5.09 train had been delayed! In the end we finally got a train and Arrived in Derby at 6.30pm, 15 minutes before we were supposed to collect the amps and 30 minutes before we were supposed to be at The Vaults. Needless to say we were late.

In the end, Nick and Sean arrived at about 8.00pm and we went on to play at about 10.15. This gig was the most informal we had played in a while and so we had fun playing a mixture of songs and even dabbling in a few old songs from our old bands set with James Brown's I Feel Good. We played until about 10.45pm and then cleared the stage and headed home. The gig was great fun, only a small crowd in there made up of the musicians from the PMMT course and friends.

After that adventure, we're now getting ready to play in Nottingham this coming monday. Luckily Sean's car is better and so we will have some transport, hopefully public transport won't let me down...

In other news, I have been organising the 2nd Gentle-Folks Ball, but we'll save that for a later blog.

Thanks for Reading
Dan

Hours So Far...

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

Total: 11hrs

Total so Far: 91hrs 50mins