Yes it’s another update, not quite as soon as I had hoped but better late than never.
Ok a couple of recent gig reviews
On the 19th Sept we were in Atherton at the Jolly Nailor, a great venue. Since we were last there they have built a nice stage area which was good. It wasn’t our finest gig though to be honest, we were missing a mic stand which was admittedly a rather basic and unprofessional thing to happen; unfortunately this meant that anytime there were two part vocals it required Steve and I to share a mic, beatles style. Not a good visual image, although it probably sounded ok and certainly no-one there seemed to complain.
The problem is of course is that just like driving , cooking, or anything else, you get used to things being in their place and being second nature so whenever they are different you have to concentrate far more. This in turn results in the core task becoming less slick than it should be.
So – although a reasonable gig and an appreciative crowd I personally didn’t really enjoy it as much as I should have done.
However these things happen. C’est la vie.
Last Friday 26th we were at the Clwyd in Shotton, again a good venue and it was a great gig. Everything back in its place and even three blown flood lamp bulbs didn’t darken the evening.
Great gig and nice to see our friends Chris and Janette (apologies if incorrect spelling) again.
Nothing happening until November as of now but keep checking the web site/twitter as something may crop up during October.
Other things, well I had a very enjoyable day recently taking the Ferry ‘cross the Mersey to Liverpool, a mooch around and an enjoyable al fresco lunch. The weather was really rather pleasant.
I heard from a few friends last week, always good to catch up on what they are up to.
Saturday I spent a couple of hours trying to fix the tumble drier which decided it didn’t want to heat up. Thought I had succeeded but apparently not. I have a decision to make on that one. Repair or replace? I think I will try replacing the thermostats first as that is relatively cheap and simple if the internet videos are to be believed. I did manage to recover some plectrums from it.
Obviously since I last wrote there was the referendum in Scotland. I am glad it is all over to be honest. The news coverage was extremely tedious regardless of what your opinion was.
As there was no athletics for them to cover the BBC decided to force golf down our throats last weekend, the people working on their outside broadcast Sports units must be coining it in this year.
I was recently offered the chance to have one of the band’s tracks included on a CD that is to be given away free with TBFM (Total Biker FM) magazine – December issue. Obviously no guarantees on this happening so I figured I would submit our Biker track – Night Ride from our 100% live album. If it does happen we also get a ¼ page advert in the magazine.
Worth a try I suppose.
Debatable how useful these are really, personally I rarely listen to free CDs on magazine covers but I know some people do like them as tasters or introductions to bands.
Rants
Ah the return of the rants.
Well I am going to start with loyalty and discount cards again. I don’t know how much room coffee shops think we have in our wallets but every man and his dog seems to give a loyalty card these days. As if that is not enough there now seems to be an increase in Discount cards for a whole range of hotels, restaurants and other services. It is all getting way out of hand. You turn up at a restaurant and you have to juggle several cards they accept to determine which one gives the best deal. All this in conjunction with the ever increasing number of special offer and money off vouchers that arrive via email!
I don’t really want to mention X-factor and I actually haven’t watched it for a long time but I was unfortunate enough to see about 10 minutes of it recently. I had no idea what was going on, there seemed to be a game of musical chairs in progress, total confusion amongst the judges and a baying crowd. All extremely contrived and planned I am sure although whether the total inability of any of the contestants to actually sing in tune was deliberate I don’t know – probably. Absolute garbage the whole thing, I couldn’t turn off soon enough. I really could not see where the entertainment was meant to be.
Speaking of which another program I have refused to watch on principle is the one about bad drivers. I had a moan about a similar program years ago when a program created “celebrities” out of people who seriously should not be driving cars. I presume this new program is more of the same I won’t be watching.
As for watching people on TV who are sitting watching people on TV? Seriously what is that all about?
Here’s another old chestnut of mine, people wandering along seemingly talking to themselves. They aren’t of course they are actually on mobile phones. I find it very annoying. Even worse many of them now seem to have adopted the current trend of holding the phone horizontally out in front of them? I must be missing something as I really don’t know why; all I can think of is that they presume the microphone will pick them up better. Well it would work a lot better if they put it near their mouth and the speaker by their ear. It might stop the whole street having to listen to their side of the conversation as well.
Unbelievably I spotted a dad out with his three young kids the other day eating a meal. He was eating normally yet he was allowing all three of the children to follow the stupid and totally impractical trend of having their cutlery in the wrong hands. No hope for them if he isn’t going to put them right.
Music
Well the New Bernie Tormé double CD Album Flowers & Dirt has arrived. Now as you probably know I am somewhat biased when it comes to Bernie as he is one of my favourite guitarists so I was looking forward to this.
I’ve listened to it a few times now so I am becoming familiar with the individual songs. If you like Bernie you will probably like this album as it’s basically him doing what he does, long guitar solos with all his usual techniques incorporated. The singing is passable as usual but then Bernie is a guitarist who sings not a singer so we don’t worry too much about that. I have heard some people saying in reviews that there is too much self-indulgent guitar on the album but this is surely why we buy Bernie’s albums. I think I would be a bit disappointed if there wasn’t. My only criticism bizarrely is that it is a double CD with 20 tracks on it. It is just too long. That might sound a bit strange and it is not the songs themselves but it’s finding enough time to listen to them all in one chunk, which is the problem. Unless on a long car journey I find that I have to listen to it in broken up sections and that defeats the point of it being on one album.
I have found this quite a lot recently with other albums as well and personally I have to say that prefer albums to last around 45 minutes like albums used to when they were recorded on vinyl. For me anything longer than an hour is definitely too much. I think a lot of artists just think they need to fill the80 minutes available on a CD in the mistaken idea that they are providing good value.
Most classic albums were vinyl and therefore only last 40 minutes or so. It is quite long enough in one sitting.
Another album I have acquired recently is this year’s Axel Rudi Pell album “in from the Storm”. I have quite a few of his albums and as I mentioned previously with Bernie, yes they are all similar but isn’t that the point. I would be a bit upset if I bought it and it turned out to be jazz-rock or something. Not really had a the chance to familiarise myself with it yet but I will.
My last posting mentioned it was 37 years since Marc Bolan was killed. Well Sept 30th would have been his 67th Birthday as he was not even 30 when he died. It is difficult to imagine how he would have been now or what he might have been doing. Some things are best left as they are.
So on that note
Keep rockin’
Speak to you again soon
Craig
http://www.clan-rock.com