Well I just thought I would drop you a quick update to let you know how last Saturday’s (Nov 29) Clan gig went. I suspect I will waffle on a bit more though.
If you remember we were in a new venue called “The Venue Bar” in Bolton. We haven’t played Bolton for a while for some reason and the venue is next door to the Old Man & Scythe where we have squeezed ourselves in previously.
Anyway , ”The Venue Bar”.
Only opened a few weeks ago it is a large one room establishment with a separate VIP area. The decent sized stage is visible from pretty much everywhere. A perfectly adequate in house PA and some in house lighting which is always good for us , reducing the wear and tear on our backs. Friendly owners and management, easy access for the gear including a ramp and it advertises itself as on over 25s bar which means better for our type of music I guess.
The location is in Churchgate which has numerous bars so a lot of transitional drinking goes on as people move from one to another. Anyway we kicked off at around 10:15 and apart from a short 20 minute break we finally left the stage to rapturous and tumultuous applause at 12:35. It was an absolute stormer of a gig as far as we were concerned and the audience seemed to agree. I knew Bolton rocked and we weren’t disappointed.
Ok so we couldn’t use the haze machine which effectively makes our lasers pointless and despite the stage being a reasonable size the in house gear on it restricted the space a bit so we didn’t use the back drop (which makes the visuals a bit “cabaret”) but we were probably the only ones who cared. We have been sent links to a couple of videos a friend ouf ours filmed on his phone, I don’t think they quite capture the full atmosphere however if you want to see them, here are the links:
Don’t fear the reaper Whole Lotta Rosie/Rock for you
It is actually nice to see some of the videos and pictures people take at gigs, we normally never see them.
But yes a great gig. Only strange thing was having tuned my spare guitar prior to playing I put it down ready for action should it be needed? When I picked it up again after the gig to put it away a string had broken. Not sure when it broke but just as well I didn’t need it for real. Do I need to start carrying two spare guitars?
Ok what else. Well the gig served as an unpleasant reminder to me how out of shape and unfit I seem to have become. Probably caused by my current lifestyle which has recently involved a fair bit of hotel living plus a reduction in the number of gigs effectively reducing my regular physical exercise, I think it has all caught up with me. So despite it being Christmas season it’s time to take the bull by the horns and sort it out.
Yes it is indeed December and the TBFM magazine has been published and distributed. As I have mentioned previously we have a track from our 2012 100% Live album included on the giveaway Cover CD. They have called the CD “Breaking Bands” which I find slightly amusing but hey who knows? – It may carry some weight or kudos somewhere? Listening to it (we are track 15) I am surprised we were included really as the majority of the other tracks show a considerable heavy metal bias and we are more straightforward rock. Still, there you go.
So keeping with the December theme, this month means I will be getting another year older, nothing special happening though as far as I know. Then after that it is Christmas of course, only three weeks away really. Hopefully this year I will actually manage to send Christmas cards in good time.
Like most of you I can’t believe it has come around again so quickly. Well in reality it hasn’t of course it just feels like it has.
So am I looking forward to it or not? Well in one way yes as it does kind of mark the year and it is a chance to get together with family and friends I haven’t seen fora while. In another no, as I could do without some of the forced festivity and things that are expected. If I was given the choice though I wouldn’t be without it.
In the States of course I don’t think it is as big as Thanksgiving which may be down to the diversity of people there and the religious make-up? I don’t know really but I do know that if the current trend for copying them continues we will probably end up making a big thing out of thanksgiving as well.
It’s interesting how an old celebration such as Halloween which I am sure has been around in Europe for centuries has been taken by the Americans, rebranded as their own and sold back to us? Of course their post-thanksgiving “Black Friday” sale has now been exported to us as well – that worked well last week didn’t it? So mark my words, thanksgiving will be on the up. Our traditional Guy Fawkes Night seems to be on its way out.
Hmm, am I straying into RANTS territory here? Yes probably however I’ve started so I’ll finish.
Yep that is indeed a line from Mastermind, which reminds me, I couldn’t believe the guy on there the other week who was answering questions on Pink Floyd as his specialist subject. They were really not that difficult in my opinion and that was without me having done any revision or preparation. He scored five – Pretty Pathetic really. I got the impression he still wasn’t familiar with some of the answers when he was told them. Had he done any research?
Something else that I find pointless and admittedly only seems to happen in TV programs like Morse or other detective series are people who spout forth Latin quotes which because no-one understands they always have to follow immediately with the translation. I am sure there probably are people who do actually do this. Is it so they think they look superior because it really doesn’t. They may as well use a Fictional language like Klingon and then translate that, What would we think about people who did that I wonder, I am pretty sure it wouldn’t be how smart they are. Why bother saying something knowing you will need to translate it, utterly pointless.
Speaking of pointless I saw Russell Brand on the Alan Carr show last week. Now I have no real opinion of the man yet I do keep hearing how actually he is quite intelligent and clever. Well on last Saturday’s showing he certainly didn’t do anything to back up that opinion. He just waffled on very loudly about nothing in particular in what I suspect is his professional Essex geezer accent similar to the one Nigel Kennedy uses. I knew no more about him when he finished than I did when he started not that I really care anyway but it wasn’t very entertaining.
In complete contrast I did enjoy the series with Sue Perkins travelling up the Mekong River which I admit is not part of the world I know a lot about. I feel like I have now learnt a fair bit about it over the four programs. Sue presented them very well not only providing information in an entertaining way but also posing some interesting and though provoking questions about how the region may change in the future.
Music
I noticed this week that sales of vinyl have topped the one million mark in sales for the first time in a zillion years or something. It kind of makes me wonder what this is all about.
Personally I am more concerned about the music itself i.e. the content rather than the format in which it is delivered. Yes I bought vinyl for years and yes I agree that the covers were far better and more interesting when you could actually hold them and read them. What I am quite happy to live without though is tracks, jumping, sticking and clicking due to scratches plus having to get up and turn the thing over every 20-25 minutes. When I borrowed other people’s records I originally recorded them (illegally I guess) onto reel to reel tape until I finally obtained a cassette recorder which was far more mobile.
As soon as I could drive then nearly every record I had was put on to cassette for use in the car, yes you lost quality recording them but they were still listenable. Next of course we were fed CDs and minidiscs and now of course we have MP3s and digital downloads. Do I really care that the alleged quality is better on vinyl, no of course I don’t. I simply want to hear the music in the most convenient form it is available for my circumstances. For me given that most of my listening is when I am in a car or travelling my IPod does the job for me. Yes they are MP3s, can I really tell the difference? Not really. I can still tell what is happening musically.
So I believe this resurgence in vinyl sales has actually far more to do with two other things than audio quality; Nostalgia and the Marketing. As far as I can see the majority of the vinyl being produced now is being marketed as limited editions. This effectively means it is being aimed at collectors and completists (is this a word?). I strongly suspect that most new vinyl records will never be taken out of their sleeves and the owners will still be listening to the content via a CD or a download.
Anyway – I have completed my reading of Dee Snider’s Biography and a very good read it was too. Certainly for the casual reader it will probably open their eyes as to how the music industry works, or used to, although to be fair I had a good understanding of this. It clearly demonstrates how the general perception is that if a band is on TV, radio and seem to be playing large gigs and tours then they have a lot of money. This is far beyond the truth in most cases, it is longevity that brings the financial rewards and the music business is a very fickle business based on trends and fashions. It’s a shame that the Desperado project never took off as the album it produced is one of my all-time favourites. I have had it for a long time as some kind of unofficial release but it was officially released a few years ago and is entitled “Ace”. It has also whetted my appetite for the two Widowmaker albums as well (not to be confused with the 70’s UK band Widowmaker which included legendary bassist Bob Daisley).
So this time the recommended listening is Ace by Desperado
Anyway
Until next time
Keep Rockin’
Craig