Symphony

Another sweet evening playing at a "Meet the songwriters" event courtesy of Cafe Symphony, Sandbach and host, Andy Anderson with fellow songwriter guests Johnny Jaeger and Guitar Mal. This time I managed to starve myself until the end of the gig so that I could enjoy the complimentary meal. Andy had set up a choir mic, which was a new one on me, and it seemed to work pretty well too in picking up both vocals and guitar from within it's "sights" out into the room through some Roland amplification. Another kind, listening audience too.

Radio Daze

We've done a fair bit or radio in recent times. I joined The BlueYellows last Monday evening for Simon Newbury's Show on Redshift Radio where we really got through quite a few songs, we went a bit mad and brought loads of intruments and equipment for a would be "acoustic" performance. Thanks Simon, for putting up with us and giving us the opportunity! Simon is a busy guy, his main vocation I think being a very accomplished photographer (see his website here) plus every year he organises Crewe's wonderful Boxjam event, the first one, in 2009 being the very first gig for The BlueYellows! The man himself invited us back again to Boxjam 2011, and while not wanting to wish the summer away already, it's a great event and I kind of can't wait already! On Wednesday daytime it was back to radio-land again, a different station and this time Andy Anderson's "Meet The Songwriter's" show, an interesting show for real music fans and budding musicians and songwriters in particular.

Photos Simon Newbury (taken by me, obviously, not him!) and thanks to Andy for the picture of me at his show.

If you're quick you can still listen to Meet The Songwriters HERE!

"Music of the forest and the surf"...

I love that it's not always so easy to work out which will be the really cool gigs. The Commercial is an ancient, (unchanged by the hands of unscrupulous landlords), pub and hotel with it's own parrot and history steeped into it's walls. We had a great night there thanks to the amazing talents of Hayley Strangelove, Guitar Mal and Phil Maddocks who supported us and both Mal who joined us on improvised trumpet and Jason Louth who joined us on a rare outing for "Custard" a song which he and I co-wrote and which Em named. Most of all though it was down to the wonderful, considerate, listening, enthusiastic friends and strangers who came along to see us all. Thanks xxx

Photos courtesy of Olga Whitmore and Guitar Mal. Cheers guys.

Hip to be Square

We play to all kinds of audiences in this band, one of the the things I love about playing in the BY's as I've said before. Some of our acoustic gigs have a sort of pin-drop atmosphere and of course it's great to have that much attention focused on the music, the Square One gig had a much noisier, sort of pre-clubbing atmosphere but it was still great fun and some of the crowd were definately up for it, we even had some dancers. Perhaps a full-kit gig would've been more suitable for this venue in some ways but The Angry Badger's gave us a great sound as always! Read about their own exploits at badgerodyssey.blogspot.com

Thanks to Nick/The Angry Badgers for the photo with Angry Badger himself in it and Tim Lee (a super-talented singer songwriter) for the other photos.