Band Homepage www.clan-rock.com
Well here we go again. No gigs to tell you about this week.
Last week we were in Coppull and to be honest we shouldn’t have played. We have said many times that we are trying to concentrate on playing venues where people specifically go to listen and watch live bands. The Springfield is not one of those however we decided to do it as we have played there quite a few times and it’s been ok, plus they asked us. Well it was apparent very early on that the large majority of people in there were there purely to drink and chat which I guess is fair enough, it is their local. So really it was our own fault for not sticking to our own policy. We did try hard to get some rapport going but it was a bit like flogging a dead horse and not a fun night.
The best part of the evening was that we finally have an idea (courtesy of Jim) for a T-Shirt. We just need to execute it now. We were all quite excited by it.
The other thing that was positive was that I played the boys three new song demos and they liked them all so that is good. I also have at least two more in the pipeline plus some reworkings of some of my older songs that I think will benefit from the Clan treatment. There are probably enough for an album if we had the time and money to record them all. Given that we have neither it is more likely there will be a couple of EPs this year.
I had my weekly weigh in last Friday – lost 3lbs, which I thought was a good start. Hopefully maintain that rate. Short-term target is to lose a stone by the end of March? I think that is a realistic target for now.
There are a few things being discussed re: some live gigs that I can’t tell you about at the moment but if they happen it will be quite exciting. I don’t want to jinx them though.
FYI – Our next live gig is on March 14th at the Witton Chimes – Northwich a proper music venue and one of our favourites.
Most of the rest of my week has been spent listening to new music about more of which below.
So here are a few Rants
Stephen Fry, Alan Davies, Jo Brand, Rob Brydon etc. etc. – Yes all talented funny people but the amount of quiz and similar shows that they all seem to appear on together is getting a bit silly. Talk about keeping it in the clique. It actually gets to the point that you don’t really know which show you are watching as they all seem to have the same people on. A bit tedious really.
On Saturday my wi-fi router decided not to route and the solution was to set it back to factory settings. Fine except it then meant I had to spend time resetting every device in the house that connects to it, computers, phones, television etc. What a pain. Needless to say Sony entertainment still isn’t working (not sure why as the TV is connecting) and it looks as though I need to go on the website to get it sorted. Why is it that you never remember your password, request it to be reset which annoyingly includes having to decipher one of those “enter the word you see “ things, the password you want is never secure enough to meet the 25 characters including Chinese and Russian letters that they seem to require and is unlikely to be memorable.
When you finally reset it and try to login it tells you it is wrong! I think I will need a two-week holiday to get this sorted. All so I can have the pleasure of paying to watch a film.
Have people become less spatial aware these days? Especially when it is raining, I have nearly had my eyes poked out several times this week by umbrellas, the reason being that the users were too busy messing with phones and not watching where the umbrella was.
Speaking of rain I was walking along with my head down due to the rain and I became very aware of the amount of discarded chewing gum splodges on the pavements. Why are the disgusting people who do this unable to dispose of the stuff in a bin? It’s not difficult is it? I think it should be banned like in Singapore. Horrible stuff anyway.
Music
Well as I indicated last week three new albums were released on Monday.
Black Star Riders – The Killer Instinct
UFO –A Conspiracy of Stars
Scorpions – Return to Forever
I am pleased to report that they are all rather good. Lovin’ them all. Check out whichever you fancy.
What I do not like and I mentioned it last week is the current trend to include acoustic versions of some of the tracks already on the album as “Bonus Tracks”. Thunder did it last week and now The Black Star Riders have done it as well. Let’s hope this trend is short lived.
A lot of discussion this week about David Coverdale re-recording some of the Deep Purple tracks he wrote and sang on. Again is this a growing trend following Uli Jon Roth’s Scorpions album I mentioned recently? Unlike Uli who remained fairly true to the original versions Mr Coverdale has followed the Reworking route with his songs. His prerogative of course, it will be interesting to see how successful it is. I have only heard one track “Stormbringer” and I would say give me the original every time but others may disagree. No right or wrong here. You either buy it or you don’t.
I suppose in one way it may be a good way to introduce older songs especially album tracks to a new audience.
That’s it for this week
Until next time
Keep rockin’
Craig