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...

The Paw-Jive Jazz Festival (Nantwich).

I was a bit apprehensive about doing our debut at The Nantwich Jazz Festival without Emma, her keyboards being such an integral part of our usual sound & the Jazz Fest being an auspicious event with the likes of Cleo Laine, Wilko Johnson & Jacqui Dankworth performing, but as it turned out we had some additional musicians joining us on a one-off basis for this stripped-down, acoustic set. This included Louise Gibson (who has worked with Dave Dove, Geoff Mather and The Providence Jug Band among others) who provided some accompanying extra percussion and even more unexpectedly, Tash & Babooshka, two Cocker Spaniels in the audience who did some paw-jiving (with a little help from Duncan & Jacqui, their humans) and even some sing-along background howling!
Special thanks to The Angry Badgers for our sound set-up and Abby Wallis Photography for these great shots;-

Posing with an Angry Badger (over my sholder) and Dorota, our "Buscuit Manager", right.

 Links;             Angry Badgers creative Solutions                         Abby Wallis Photography

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