Great at The Grapes



The Grapes in Stafford is to be highy recommended, great atmosphere, music-loving crowd, cool venue and fab real ale. I also felt the inspiration from my hero,Spidey,  vibing his image on my strat from the other end of the interior. This all helped in our fully recovered mode, we were ON FIRE! Also to be recommended, original Alt-Punksters Some-Day. Awesome stuff, check them out. Thanks to all the friendly people we met, especially those who bought CDs, hope you enjoy them. All in all great fun and a fitting finale to the current run of BYs gigs.

Spidey slumped above the entrance, lyrics to classic songs everywhere you look.



Alt-Punksters, Some-Day were our hosts, and they were GOOD



Indeed!

Boxjam Phoar! (the show must go on and all that...)

The old show-biz adage "the show must go on" was very much to the fore of my mind as we prepared for this years' Boxjam IV, or perhaps "Boxjam Phoarr!" given the immensely talented bands and soloists playing, literally too many to mention without forgetting to leave out some of the best artists I've seen (ok heard) so, sorry in advance.... I'd pretty much been in bed since the Levenshulme festival (see previous post) with a fever and was still very much within it's grip.

Human Condition were on stage as we loaded in and sounding even better than before, I think Abbie's vocal confidence had grown allowing her to take flight over Mat's mega-keyboard sounds. Then we had the chance to really enjoy Benjamin Bloom, a real musical showman and talented pianist (throwing in plenty of classical references into this pop-oriented set) before our set, and Chimps On Death Row in full-on rockster mode after us. Hayley Strangelove introduced us on stage, herself a "must see" musical phenomenon. Our set was so short by our usual standards that it flu by (get it?) and I managed to enjoy a misery-free half hour just running on adrenaline!

Post-Chimps, I ambled  over to the Acoustic stage to see the wonderful George Borowski (allegedly "Guitar George" of "Sultans Of Swing" fame, which was a piss-take of the band seen by writer Mark Knopfler was it not???... but that's another story). Anyroadup... I'd "seen" George on youtube. It doesn't do him any justice at all. The man is a troubadour, a story-teller and something of a home-spun shaman. Go See!

Mahoosive thanks to Simon and Tina newbury of Simon J. Newbury Photography for organising, raising all the dosh for Oxfam and taking the black and white shots here. Hats off to you! x 




Thanks to Abbie from Human Condition (& "A band, A Badger & a Blog") for this pic.

Em giving it some keys. Photo Tina Newbury.

Hayley giving it some stick. Photo Tina Newbury

Me nearly giving it some puke. Photo Tina Newbury.



Simon Zenning the bass. Photo Tina Newbury.

 

Levenshulme Festival & a chance to wander.

Photo by Tony Gribbon (copyright tonygribbon.co.uk)
Yes it was VERY cold!

I'm a confirmed country bumpkin but oddly this gives me a child-like glee and excitement when I hit the bright lights of the big city, gasping in awe at every turn at the hustle, colour (i.e. not just greens and browns), the fact that you can buy more than just milk and sugar in the shops and the immense socio-cultural diversity it brings together. This being an afternoon gig, I had the chance to go for a wander, albeit in the exceptionally cold, sleepless, a little hungover and increasingly feverish state I found myself in (so I didn't get far!). Levenshulme turned out to be an delightfully friendly place by the way by the way. Lovely.  I also got to see some great acts including Zacc Rogers and Tracey Browne.

A Gorgeously sunny day but the 1st really cold snap of the winter.

Some very cool busking, 50 meters behind me, others joined in on djembes.

Want to get signed? Why, why, why???

Photo by Dorota.

I continue to be amazed at the number of bands and artists who are desperate, yes actually desperate to be signed to a record label. There was a time not that long ago when to have a record deal was the only way you could possibly even dream about recording any of your music and getting it "out there". Now I can understand that there might be some good record deals to be had by organisations which will actually nurture you, promote you and allow you to develop your art over a reasonable period and give you masses of exposure, but I'm sure these are very few and far between. On top of this is the fact that any of you reading this I'm sure are quite capable of setting up your own record label, taking on some bands and trying to make money out of them one way or another (but what's in it for the artist?).  Surely, unless the dream-deal comes along.. the way forward must be "self-signed", "DIY", call it what you will. It may mean lots of hard work promoting, poster-designing, website management, distributing, constructing, shmoozing, hustling and so on, but at least you don't have to sign away your musical direction/image/soul away to the man. Here's a glimpse into the BYs factory, putting some CD copies of All these things right now together. Thanks for the photo Dorota x

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!