December 2007

This wasn’t too long ago actually.

It was a gig I deped for Ash with his mate Paul (See Previous Blog Better to Say Nothing Than to Lie). At a showcase for a soul band that hired us as a horn section.

Now in theory the gig seemed great. Play for 9 min for a good fee be home for 8ish.

Paul picked me up at 3:30 and we had a play through the three charts we were playing. That was fine. Then we went to Nottingham for this gig.

It turns out that we were the last band to play of the night and we didn’t play until about 1am!!!

That’s bad enough.

However because the venue was in the middle of no where we were stuck at this showcase. After 15 acts of magicians, vocal tributes like “Malt Loaf” and World War 2 duets we were up to play.(You can imagine the type of acts - Just picture X Factor scraping the barrel and you’ll get the most talented act of the evening!!)

I got back ironically at 3:30 in the morning making it a nice round 11 hours and 51 minutes of driving and waiting with 9 minutes of actual playing.

And the final slap in the face was the only food I could get was a sandwich (not a magical sandwich, just a normal 2 slices of bread job) that cost £7.00.

Fun!!

This was an on going bad experience. I saw a poster looking for a trumpet player to go on a show tour so I applied, auditioned and got the job.

It turned out that it was for a Carpenters Show - Beggars can’t be choosers though.

So I ended up doing 2 tours with these guys. The MD was an absolute joke and incredibly weird. His little sister (who was the talent and sang as Karen Carpenter) was continually bullied by him at rehearsals in front of the rest of the band and she was only 16 (but looked about 20 with a strong voice to match).

It was a truly terrible experience and I suffered through it with some really cool musicians. I’ve got to say that the audience was just as weird. And average age of 100+ and when I did see a young couple in the first row they were sobbing with happiness. - Did I mention it was an on stage band, multiplying the pain, I could sob looking back at it .

The most weird thing was that people would hang around the stage door at the end and want our autographs?! The show wasn’t even that good. Having said that though it was a surprising market with every venue sold out.

A truly weird experience.

(Whilst I’m on Eurobusk I’ve prepared these posts so even when I’m away I don’t miss a day of blogging.)

When you start getting lots of gigs coming in and you’ve not got a lot of experience you have to do a lot of crap before you realise what is reasonable and what is unreasonable. Over the next few days my posts will be about these situations.

Whilst you read them I know most experienced musicians will think why didn’t he just leave. Because that’s what I think. But until your there and you’ve gone through it and vowed never to go through that again you just get on with the job.

I’ve tried my best to recall my Top 5 Worst Gigs but out of the hundreds I’ve done there may me worse ones that I’ve either forgotten about or purposely blanked form my memory.

Here’s a short and easy story to start off with. (Oh, and something I’ve noticed is that the worst gigs are usually the ones where your getting picked up. I don’t know why this is the case but it’s perhaps because the events are out of your control and your more inclined to go along with it).

I was getting picked up from Birmingham with a peer from college who played the sax. We had got up and walked into the City Centre for 6 o’clock on a Saturday Morning.

We waited for 30 mins before I started to get a little annoyed at missing out on the extra half an hour in bed when we got a phone call. It turns out that the guy who was picking us up had overslept but his mate was on the way to get us.

(Alarm bells should be ringing at this point.)

Another half hour later a transit van turns up… with one spare place.

I was brought up to do things like hold doors open for people and let ladies go first etc. So I let Paul go in the front –mental note, never have manners. I spent the next 45 minutes sliding around( with a bunch of tools and my trumpet) around the back of this van. You really don’t appreciate seat belts and… well… seats until you are in this position. Especially on roundabouts.

The rest of the gig was standard but that’s a start that’s scarred my memory for ever.

I’m off to Eurobusk tomorrow. But My Top 5 Worst Gigs will be posted whilst I’m away.

The gig with the Northern lights was a good laugh last night in Church Broughton, even if we did have to play a Spice Girls arrangement and despite the 6-7 hours of playing I still have chops left on my face.

Only a short post today as I’ve got to pack. Keep an eye on my site and I’ll write about our adventures when we get back.

This is a group a play with run by Chris Lydon. The line up varies from a small band  to the a doubled up horn section for bigger works.

The gig is sold out tonight and accompanied by a meal but it’s a hell of a blow. We rehearse for 2 hours before and then play a 3-4 hour gig finishing in the early hours of the morning. So it’s a bit like running a marathon. Great fun all the same!!

I will make sure that I post up the next public gig we do so if you’re around you can have a look.

A few days now and I’m off to Eurobusk. But again! Don’t Fret!

My Top five Worst Gigs will be posted for me whilst I’m away. The Final one is so big it’s a in three parts; involving a high speed car race! - I’m not kidding.

Up until that point it’s a quiet old time and I have no new revelations to blog about.

Apart from perhaps that I finished my course last May and don’t have my graduation until the end of January 2008. - I think that’s a fair bit of a waiting. It’ll be interested to see who’s there. Especially if Rhyd will be there after he wipes the floor with that Micheal Buble wannabe and wins the old X Factor.

Good Times

When I was starting out building websites I used fasthosts as my provider.

Let me tell you now - AVOID THIS COMPANY AT ALL COSTS!!

First off their software is terrible, it’s confusing and doesn’t let you do anything you actually want to do with your website.

They then took payment with no warning (instead they put in the small print that this was a reoccuring payement that had no prior warnings). -my fault, I should have read the small print. But the fact that they have to do this shows that the service they provide is one that they can only get further subscription through coning their customers.

I’ve been so busy and needed so many pieces of information in order to terminate their service I had to wait to get a free morning. This is why I’ve spent three hours this morning trying to log onto my account!!!

The fact that my password doesn’t seem to work and in order to re-enter it you have to fill in the most ridiculus de-spammer every-time (which involves typing in letters generated on a picture, that could be uppercase or lowercase so you might be typing this bit in wrong and never know) .

But don’t worry, fasthosts say: “Our services are so reliable and easy to use, that less than 10% of our customers ever need to contact us. If you do need help at any time, we have experts on hand 24/7 in our state-of-the-art UK call centre.”

Is that why it’s been engaged for 3 hours? Their Customer service is a joke!! In order to use it you need a 4-digit pin no. typed into the top line of your email (or it bounces back).

How do you get this? 

You need to login.

But what happens if you can’t log in? -  That means I can’t email for support, I can’t call and I can’t terminate my service!

On top of all that they’ve had a security breach and now our accounts aren’t safe. They are changing all our passwords at 12:00 today. - Well you might as well. I might have more chance of getting into my account then.

Fasthosts are a Conn and Should be avoided!!!

When I was 16 Ashley Morgan (my teacher at the time) put me onto a group that he had left. As they were gigging quite a bit and about to do a recording and photo-shoot he thought it would be a good experience for me

(Even though they weren’t a great band - one of the reason for Ash’s departure)

All in all it was a good expeience. Except for a few things…

Ash’s best mate Paul was playing sax for this soul group (he looked after me) and we decided that it would be best to say that I was 19 rather than 16 so that they wouldn’t try to mess me around with my fees etc.

It wasn’t difficult for me to get away with this because I’m a tall guy and played to a higher standard than my age would suggest. But there’s a great gap of knowledge between being 16 and being 19. Such as driving, sixth form, university, relationships, leaving home etc.

It wouldn’t have been that bad had the band not always been asking me questions (most likely because I was quiet and kept myself to myself).

Eventually the lies started… and there were a fair few.

The 2 most troublesome lies were:

1) Do you know Ashley? – No (he’s not my teacher and family friend)

As Ash left on less than good terms they weren’t especially kind. But this was quite funny to me as he was in a different league of playing to their band and they were obviously quite bitter about losing him.

2) What are you doing at the moment- er, Music.

Where? – University?

Which one? –Erm?? Nottingham!

Oh really?! My son goes there?? (… shit.)

I was with group for 6 months before Paul and I left - and to this day they never knew anything about me.

It did each me to think on my feet at least.

I finished my last day of teaching this year. Few.

My students are ace! I got cards and Christmas presents including two bottles of wine (very nice - although a little worried about where they got it form), gift voucher and a new tie. What more could a teacher want?

Those who know me might say, “but you don’t really like wine that much so surely that’s no use.” To them I say; NEY! For if decide I that I don’t fancy the wine they can be then recycled into out-going Christmas presents from me and therefore they are brilliant.

 Of course as one day ends another day closer to Eurobusk Dawns!!