Unsung Heroes and Samurai Swords

Behind every on-stage performance and hours of writing, rehearsing, travelling, equipment buying preparing and loading is a whole rank of unsung heroes who never get their moment under the stage lights including family, babysitters, partners and helpers plus this one; Emma's own Vincent, which doubles as the band van (see interior shot, partly loaded for a rehearsal). The live pic is from the weekend's Crewe Live 11 Festival (Thanks to The Duke for that one) which saw some great bands and artists perform all over the town and everyone seemed to enjoy (shorlty after our set there was a sudden and huge police presence which someone said was due to someone walking about brandishing a samurai sword, but all that was well, ended well thankfully!

Thanks to Abby and Angry... again!

Abby Wallis that is and The Angry Badgers for the ace photography and sound/lighting respectively, not to mention the free Badger badge, cheers guys! No thanks to my still-injured thumb which is not conducive to the old spanking of the proverbial plank!

Recording fun :)

You can now see links to my new download provider at bandcamp on the right of this blog. You can download my entire album Happy Juice and/or Humankind by The BlueYellows, as well as a few other individual tracks, most of which you can choose how much you want to pay should you choose to download it...

.. and just to show that recording can be fun, here's an unedited track from The Applecause days (faded out on the final mix)... you can hear our already-recorded track in the background (bleeding through from our headphones). Happy Days :)

The photo is also from those days... As well as myself, The Applecause included Emma, also now in The BlueYellows, Nik Thomas currently enjoying plenty of gigs with metal outfit Chimps On Death Row, Warren Goff and Mike Clowes.

"The Show Must Go On"!

The old showbiz adage was as true as ever for me on our return to The Full Moon. My Wha-wha foot (my right one) and fretting-support thumb (left one) were both painfully injured though incidents too embarrassing to go into here. During setting up I then set my thumb back further while passing a cable under the snare stand. Ouch! It could be a lot worse really and one day no doubt will be, but if I can sit, or even only lie down, as long as I can physically spank the plank and make some sort of acceptable noise from my mouth, I'll be there! On top of all this I then had a few hiccups somewhere along the line with the signal through the pedal-board set up plus my strap disconnected at the start of "The Owl and The Willow". Thankfully my bandee-mates played solidly throughout all this and saved the day, as did a sweet audience ;)

Bad Hair Days followed with a storming set. Go Robot! (Their fans will understand).

On the right are some of my effects pedals. I quite often get asked about these so I might well do a post about them some time, I've added a few more since I took this photo (it can be an addiction).

Set In Sandstone.

(photos - Zinney Live on stage, Soundcheck at Bickerton Village Hall)
I spent much of my childhood wandering round the gorgeous wooded hills around Beeston and Peckforton, so it's been lovely to combine my love of this area with my love of music. Before the gig, and on the following day I enjoyed plenty of walking in the lovely hills with my fellow band-members. We played a mainly "acoustic" set before Zinney came on to introduce his soulful, moving songs. Ric Sanders was a revelation, (youtube and the like does not do any justice to the experience of witnessing this guy live). He is a truly inspiring musician who just makes you want to stretch yourself more and more on your instrument, and to non-playing music fans he is an incredible and entertaining musician. His approach to the violin was playful, jazzy, at times moving and with more than a hint of prog-rock about it :) The interplay between himself and guitarist Vo Fletcher was a joy, clearly a pair who had played together for many years telepathically knowing the direction they were heading, perhaps on well practiced compositions but also clearly with plenty of musical spanners thrown playfully into the works to keep everything alive and spontaneous. Vocalist Catherine Howe, who had a huge hit in the 70s with "Harry" added spirited vocals which evoked a timeless, almost movie-esque quality into the mix. In short, an EPIC night of music!
(Photo - The band's right, and left hand man Pete at Camp BlueYellows!)