Broken, but a blast!

The Blue Yellows at the Alsager Music Festival.

Having had a weird virus giving me the strangest bunch of uncomfortable and exhausting   symptoms since May the 3rd on and off, it was nice, at last, to play a gig while feeling well (though the virus had ‘gone under’ for a couple of days at a time in the past before returning with renewed vigour so... touch wood!).

In an ideal world, bands would get an hour or so to sound check, and I’ve even worked with pro bands who have taken up to two and a half hours to perfect their sound to the venue and iron out any problems, so these festivals we often play where you get a really quick turnaround, it’s a big challenge to try and get it right for all involved, and our sound engineer Matt, stage manager and whole team did a great job!

However, I did manage to snap a string in the first few seconds of the opening song (first time in quite a while as I’ve been using these NY Elixir strings which have an extra carbon component, and so are extra strong ((and expensive!)) ). So while I ran off stage, grabbed the spare guitar and tuned it, Em played the intro to the next tune over and over for a bit, until I was ready.. such pros, this lot on The BYs. 

We also got a brand new song into the set, ‘Who put Bella in the Witch Elm?’ and the gang played it so well, sounded pretty raucous from where I was anyway, in fact the whole set did.

It was great to catch good friends in The Dying Lights who sounded more laid back and melodic than usual, but in a good and groovy way. Good friends were all around the seating areas in fact, so nice to see you all and have at least a tinsy catch-upette. 

The Dying Lights on flowering form.

It was a blast!

Spot the new song?

Photo-Shoot with the band.

11/02/17

We really needed this as we realised we (The BYs) still hadn't got a single decent photo of the band since Dave The Groove Coomer joined us on the bangy things.

Kirsty and Chris from KR-PR Services did a great job on a freezing February day. They made it great fun doing it too, in spite of the cold, as you can probably tell. Dave also did us proud!
Below are some of our favourites from the day, and you can also see the whole lot HERE):

Photo by KR-PR Services

Photo by KR-PR Services

Photo by KR-PR Services

Photo by KR-PR Services

Photo by KR-PR Services

Boxjam V

And so we returned to the scene of the band's very first gig (at the first BJ 4 years ago), and what will probably be my last festival-type gig of the year, Boxjam. All for charity of course, suburb acts including for the first time, the wonderful poet Paul Howard Ellson. We managed to stick around and between us (the whole band) caught Human Condition and Interception, both sounding as superb if not even better than ever, We Are Nomad and Then Alien. All fantastic by all accounts.

Hats off (Fez's off?) to Simon & Tina of Simon J. Newbury Photography fame for doing all the sterling work that must mean many sleepless nights before an event of this size. Another great success and most impotantly, lots of dosh raised for Oxfam and Chrisite's.


Thanks to Liz Wells for the video of a more mellow segment of our set :)

Alternatively, here's a video shot by The Late Selector team, thanks chaps;

Live Radio Session. Chat on The Cat!

No rest from one of those full day-job type of days, 15 mins with a coffee at home before setting off again. It all seemed like a huge chore but in the end our lovely hosts at The Cat Radio gave us a lovely time.

Here's at least some of what happened, cover versions have had to be removed in respect of copyright restrictions.



Corrections & Clarifications;

Band names; As well as "See Daylight" which nearly became our band name, Simon came up with the potential band name "Beachcombing" (as well as "The Four Cups") this, along with "The Dandylions" were rejected on the grounds that there are so many bands with these names. Emma came up with "The Ferns" which didn't get past the as it were, committee. "Road Kill Cafe" was another one which didn't make it for various reasons.

July 28th - Bidstock Festival Sunday.

Day 2 of Bidstock was band day for us, and also (as last year) a mixture of sunshine and torrential rain. Luckily we missed the worst of it as some of the music was delayed for a number of hours and the main stage had to re-convene indoors, such was the deluge.
As well as our set it was a nice chance for me to catch up with some old friends while watching a couple of my favourite live bands, Flux and Roots to Nowhere.

With enormous thanks to all those involved in organising the event and to SD Photography for these great photos.

Photo by Simon Dunkerley. SD Photography.

See the full SD Photography album for the day
here.

Photo by Simon Dunkerley. SD Photography.

June 15th - Return to Middlewich & the return of the band.

Our audience, not long before going on.

I think this was something like the 6th Middlewich Boat and Folk Festival gig in a row and as a firm favourite of all the band an ideal setting for the first outing of The BlueYellows in many a moon following the birth of young Casper to Em, our keyboardist, backing vocalist accordionist and all-round good-vibe-giver.

Although a relatively local gig to me, as someone who lives on a narrowboat, I wanted to do it properly and take my floating home with me, and this meant something like an evening (Wednesday) plus an entire day (Thursday) to get there. It was well worth the relative "dash" to experience the festival properly.

Saturday morning meant an early start though to get over to Sandbach, to Emma and Vincent (the van) to visit various corners of Staffordshire and Cheshire to pick up band members and instruments, thankfully we could guarantee the quality of a great PA and sound engineering from Nick Bayes so didn't need the full load-in we normally do. With memories of playing in torrential rain and strong winds the previous year, but nevertheless to a packed audience, we had no doubt the Middlewich lot would give us a good time in this much more summery conditions. To be honest our time away did show, a little rusty here and there but we played with gusto and had a great time, the lovely Middlewich Festival crowd did to, they never let us down! We must also say a massive thanks to Andrew Tranter again of the superb Alt-Folk outfit Headsticks for hosting the stage.

On Saturday night I played a little, solo and jammed along with a load of great musicians at a traditional back-room get-together which included some great young fiddle players including Eddie Ogle and one of the guys from the folk act, Blue Horizon (I tried to find them on facebook and elsewhere on the internet, but there are so many organisations and bands of the same name I ended up giving up, can anyone help me here?). This went on until getting on for 3.30am before realising I had to make a very early start on Sunday morning to get the boat back to base!

Sadly all these happy memories of the event were marred in no small way by the revelation that a close friend's boat had been destroyed by fire (almost certainly in an arson attack) plus I later found out about the passing away of someone very close to a previous organiser of the event. Very sad.

Hayley, photo by Stephanie Burgess-Arteaga.

Emma,  photo by Stephanie Burgess-Arteaga.

Me,  photo by Stephanie Burgess-Arteaga.

An as-ever smiley Simon,  photo by Stephanie Burgess-Arteaga.

My "hotel room" view!

Some mini-festival goers! 

A Chap, a very nice one too, I just  had to take his photo.
This festival attracts some very quirky, intelligent, individuals.
This guy says it gets more and more magical every year.
I think he might be right.

June 24th-27th - May Bank Holiday Festivals.

Photo by Dave Myatt, from Monday's Folk N' Ale Festival at The Old Brown Jug.

Saturday Daytime, Crewe Live Festival.
The 1st time The BlueYellows played together since last September and the first time we were all in the same room together in fact since a Pre-Christmas lunch (oh alright piss-up). This was a rehearsal, the first one since a break brought about through the birth of Lovely Casper, Emma's and hubby Pete's new son. I was expecting things to be a bit ropy but we slipped back into it like a duck to a mucky canal. In places we were actually "in the zone" and I forgot all sense of anything sensible, should be good...

Saturday Night, Crewe Live Festival.
Now much as I appreciate being put on for this solo performance, the circumstance here were "a bit ropy", the football was on the TV of the Corner Bar which was the evening's venue and I was to wait for half-time before my shortened set or potentially suffer the wrath of drunk football fans... not fun but "the show must go on" and it was one to put down to experience, you know with the best will in the world of all concerned sometimes you'll have a bit of a crap night, I did get some good feedback through from members of the small audience both then at the gig the following night.

Sunday. Crewe Live Festival gig 2
 An altogether much better experience, not only a listening, attentive audience but lots of friendly familiar faces including Abby and Mat from the superb 1980s style, electro-outfit Human Condition who played later that night. 

Bank Holiday Monday. The Newcastle-Undr-Lyme Jazz and Blues Festival (Subsection The Old Brown Jug Folk N' Foam Festival.
A great day/and night sub-festival organised by Andrew Tranter from the Agit/Folk band currently making waves, Headsticks. Again a lovely, attentive audience, some great acts (including Headsticks themselves) and lovely ale too, only the weather was dodgy at times but... this is a festival in England... onwards and upwards.... Special thanks to Tina Newbury of Simon J. Newbury Photography and Dave Myatt who has been taking great music-scene photos since the 1970s for the photos. Cheers to them and everyone involved in making it a fun weekend.

The Official T-Shirt.

Photo by Dave Myatt.

T-time

We have a few T-shirts of a new design based on the EP cover. Some good friends of the band make things so much easier by offering to take on jobs that would eat hugely into what little time we have left after writing, rehearsing, day jobs, promoting -oh and blog... in a self-signed, independent band... in this case our mate Tim sorted these. Thanks Tim!

New Toy.

I bought this recently from Gear4Music.com and as recommended by Neil from United Breaks. It helps me create very beautiful reverb sounds and dramatic looping effects. Coming to my solo gigs soon...

Talking of gigs;

Oct 27th - Levenshulm Festival, Manchester

October 28th - Boxjam Festival, Crewe (with The BlueYellows)

November 8th - The Grapes, Stafford (with The BlueYellows)

November 10th - Cafe Yes, Blythe Bridge

(full details via the widget on the right- get clicking)

This should be pretty exciting - and it's our 3rd Birthday.

The Band at Boxjam, Coming soon.

Please see boxjam.co.uk for full details of this exciting festival in Crewe (opposite the railway station).

Dedication, that's what you need.



We recently asked, via the band's facebook site, for fans of the band to send in photos of themselves wearing Blue Yellows T shirts. Here's a couple to start with, we have some more to post on an album on facebook, but do feel free to send us any pics of yourself photographed perhaps with the EP, in one of our T shirts, poster or in some other way connected with the band. You can post them to the facebook site (facebook.com/blueyellows) or email them to blueyellows@live.co.uk Cheers, we really appreciate it! xxx

Superfan Tim in his home made T (based on the EP cover). Thanks Tim, we're going to have some more of these made!



A more glamorous one (sorry Tim) from Rachel wearing a "No Tobacco, No Jesus" T-shirt in Antigua

A little home-made promo film for All These Things...

"All these things" CD launch

Tim Lee (2nd left) joined us on stage for "No Tobacco". Photo by Liz Wells, thanks Liz x

As I was quoted as saying in the local press “We have so many special friends and loyal supporters in Sandbach that it seems like the obvious place for a really friendly, relaxed, launch show for our record.... We’ve also gone for an afternoon time-slot so that whole families can come along, people who can’t always come to our evening gigs.” (you can read the full article here).

Well our friends and fans did us proud in giving us a great party as did two great acts; Tim Lee of Suzie Does It fame perfromed a great set as did our Mat and Abbie, who aside from giving us by all acounts the best sound we had ever had on stage, also performed a stonking set of 80s electronica classics as Human Condition (see video below). Many thanks to all! xxx



Human Condition made us all dance.

It's here!



Artwork, download version.



The Road to Orchard

We have done some great gigs lately including festivals in Crewe and the inimitable Middlewich Boat and Folk Festival. Maybe I'll catch up on posting some photos at some point (you can always check the oft'-updated band facebook page). Producer Dan sent us the awesome1st mixes for the EP on the summer solstice which seems very appropriate, more news on that, plus a chance to listen and download... very soon :) xxx

The road to Orchard Studios

Launch show party

The Band EP Launch Party is JULY 7th, SANDBACH!

Here's all my gigs at the time of writing, please note that the special event on July 7th has been revealed as follows;

Sat, July 7th; THE BLUEYELLOWS DEBUT EP LAUNCH PARTY, WITH SPECIAL GUESTS!
The Market Tavern, Sandbach, Cheshire! Families welcome, free. 2pm-7pm

Thanks to Simon J. Newbury Photography for the official promo shot!

Back to Square One! (...but in a good way).

Taken in the exciting post sound-check, pre-show time.

Square One, the venue in Crewe that is! I felt really relaxed at this gig, really enjoyed it, the music flowed effortlessly. It's always a challange to play to a sort of pre-clubbing crowd rather than a musicistas but it felt like we rose to it. Exciting times with some really fun festivals being planned (and the EP of course!). In the meantime here's a little mini-songette of a ditti-intro type of thing...

Recording Day 4. Done! (but not dusted).

The main desk at Orchard.

Well on the 4th day (strictly the 4th session which was also the 2nd Thursday evening) session. I sang my lead vocal on 2 songs, Hayley and Emma worked on their last few backing vocal sections and I put on one extra dinky little guitar line behind the backing vocal sub-melody. Simon, though he had finished all his parts, made an appearance with Dorota (our "biscuit manager") to catch up with what was going on and add some opinions... And suddenly it's all over so soon. Next, the magical black art of mixing, leaving it to Dan Logan for the initial listen, then I'll join him next week for my input.

As this was the last session, I want to take this opportunity to really thank everyone at Orchard Studios, and especially Dan Logan for being not only being fantastically talented but also immensely patient and making the whole process a really friendly, enjoyable experience. Also to Mr Dayve Dean who has done so much for me and the band since "part 2" of  my career began, here doing us the honour of a guest backing vocal on one of the tracks.  The good really good photos from these recording posts are by Jamie Waddington, another fabulous, friendly & talented chap. I always try to put relevant links within the texts of this blog but lately this isn't obvious as they don't appear as highlighted as an obvious link (anyone know how to correct this??), so in the absence of this, please check out the links below;

Orchard Studios - http://www.orchard-studios.co.uk/

Dan J. Logan - http://www.facebook.com/danieljloganmusician

Dayve Dean - http://www.dayve.co.uk/

Jamie Waddington Photography - http://www.jamiewaddington.co.uk/

Also big thanks to the lovely Radley, who as far as I know doesn't have a website.

A couple of lyric sheets printed out in advance of the evening session

A complicated-looking part of Orchard

Recording Diary Day 3: "Widget Poobid Fapside"

"Widget Poobid Fapside" is a possible working title for the EP which Hayley came up with based on something her laptop “said” to her. Perhaps it makes sense to someone out there, perhaps it’s some sort of computerspeak/code. It won’t get past the status of working title though so don’t go looking for an album of this name!

So day 3 was really a Thursday evening session, I got lead vocals down for 2 songs and quite a lot a backing vocal work went on. In fact one song could just about work A Cappella when we heard all the vocal parts played back at once. Emma also put some extra keyboard parts down on a couple of tracks. Dayve Dean, who has done so much for us before, continued the tradition by adding his emotive vocal sound onto a backing track too. Dayve had been working in another room at Orchard, while we worked with Dan, preparing his new radio show The Cat Sessions (& you can "listen again" of course)which featured us “live” from a gig the weekend before – weirdness squared.

A relaxed atmosphere while Dan, our sound wizz beavers away at the desk.

So another evening session beckons with more lead and backing vocals to do this week, stay tuned.

Dayve Dean, putting a show for "The Cat Sessions" together.

Nice things to look at and play :)



Dayve giving it some backing vox

Mind The Gap...

A gap in recording that is... we managed to fit another gig in though, which included the new band T-Shirts for the 1st time (apart from a one off charity one a while back).  Have a look  below at some great photos taken by pro lensman Jamie Waddington (check out some others if you like on the facebook site HERE). Back in the studio this week so more soon!

At a rather splendid little gig (Thanks to Dayve Dean for the photo)

The setlist (we changed the order of the penultimate songs).

Hayley giving it some pom pom

On the lovely Tokai strat (could've been made for me!)

Simon digging in on the fat strings