Thought I should drop a quick post to keep you up to date with the various goings ons…
Just got back from a whistlestop trip to Poland. We were revisiting the little festival we played a few years ago (in fact, I blogged about it at the time). We were playing again at the Amfiteatre Dolina Charlotta near the town of Slupsk (which is apparently pronounced ‘swoopsk’ I discovered). It’s a lovely little place by a lake and this time we got to stay in the lovely hotel next to the gig that they were still building last time.
The rest of the band arrived in Poland the night before but I left the house at 5am to catch the early flight. we soundchecked in the afternoon, which is when it became apparent that the weather in Slupsk is much much colder than at home…
Gordon was provided with exactly the wrong kind of Nord keyboard and spent a lot of the soundcheck trying to program up a few sounds for the gig. We were playing before Bonnie Tyler, which was great. We had to reshuffle the stage completely as her drummer flatly refused to share the (hired) drumkit. But we got there in the end…
The gig was a lot of fun and the crowd were fantastic. The only problem was the temperature onstage. It was absolutely freezing and pretty windy. None of us managed to warm up all all through the 90-minute set, and I’m pretty sure the cold I’m suffering with right now is as a result of that gig…
We’ll be returning to Poland in June for another show. Not sure where it is yet but it’s quite near Krakow apparently.
In other news, Clare Teal’s new album Hey Hocomes out May 9th. Featuring me (mostly) on bass with Grant and Ben. We’re working our way through the ‘Great British Songbook’ with songs from Noel Coward to Moloko and Snow Patrol. You can preorder the album at Amazon if you simply can’t bear the wait…
We’ll be playing in Jersey this Sunday and we’ll also be only This Morning on Friday with Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford, so don’t forget to tune in…
And finally, as I mentioned in my last post here; my new EP Rejectamentais available for download on the music page, where you can also stream the whole EP in full. Hope you like it. I’ve had some great feedback so far. In fact, here’s the player embedded from Bandcamp so you can stream it right here. I’d love to hear your comments…
As many of you know I spent last week up in Glasgow with the Maggie Reilly band. We played two shows at the Tron Theatre on Friday and Saturday as part of the first ever Limelight Festival.
Limelight is Scotland’s first professional music production company run by people with impairments and the UK’s leading producer of high quality inclusive music. The company specialises in raising the profile of disabled artists in the mainstream music and theatre industries. It was set up originally in 1989 as Sounds of Progress by Gordon Dougal (who plays keyboards and guitar with Maggie)Â with the main aim to bring professional musicians with impairments into the mainstream. Gordon stated in an interview with the Herald Scotland
“part of that challenge is to do with getting the mainstream to look beyond their prejudices and preconceptions about performers with disabilities. That’s why, when we changed the name to Limelight and decided to have a music festival as a launch event, we wanted our artists playing alongside mainstream names, proving to audiences – and to themselves – that they have the talent, the professionalism, the high performance standards to be out there.â€
We spent Wednesday and Thursday rehearsing in Glasgow and then played on the Friday and Saturday. This time we had Tony Soave from The Silencers on drums alongside the usual lineup of myself, Davie Dunsmuir, Stuart MacKillop and Gordon. We also had a couple of special guests from previous lineups; on Friday we were joined by guitarist Morph and Saturday featured Brian McNeill.
These were to be the first UK shows Maggie has played for almost twenty years. Mainly she tours around Europe; more recently concentrating on Germany and Scandinavia. We added a few of the old Cado Belle songs to the set including Airport Shutdown, Got To Love and Stone’s Throw From Nowhere. Both nights were recorded and Saturday’s show was filmed so hopefully I’ll have some footage to show you sometime in the near future when it’s been edited. There is talk of a possible live album but I guess it all depends on what the recordings came out like…
Hopefully these shows will be the beginning of Maggie’s return to UK touring. I’m hoping we’ll actually play in London so people I know will actually see me play with Maggie!! Both nights at the Tron were a resounding success and I’m looking forward to getting back on the road..
Incidentally, the one place I have to go whenever in Glasgow is the fantastic Trans-Europe Cafe behind the Tron. They do the best breakfast anywhere and I highly recommend you check it out next time you’re in the general vicinity… I went there three days on the trot and it kept me going through the long days of hanging about 🙂
This is just a quick update to let you know that my solo album Mandala is now available on virtually all the major music download providers including iTunes, Amazon MP3, Rhapsody, eMusic and Napster. This is thanks to those lovely folks at CD Baby (where incidentally, you can also buy the download!).
Now, CD copies are still only available form my website via Bandcamp, and the best way to help support me and my music is to buy the album from me directly there. I know some people prefer to use iTunes or Amazon and it is for this reason that I’ve submitted the album to these sites. I also really wanted the album to be available on Spotify, which it should be in the next couple of weeks.
Now for a little plea… If anyone who already has the album fancies writing a short review or posting their ratings over on the iTunes or Amazon MP3 sites, that would be much appreciated. Niche music like mine relies so heavily on word of mouth and personal recommendation that any help you can give would make a real difference. If you have any questions on how to go about this, please leave a comment here or contact me on Twitter. Thanks guys 🙂
I have already started work on the follow up to Mandala here at Little Towers. But that is another blog post entirely. I posted a little sketch over at Soundcloud a couple of weeks ago to give you some idea of the direction it’s heading in. Here it is again so you can have a sneak peek..
If anybody’s in Glasgow at the end of the week, I’ll be playing two shows with Maggie Reilly at The Tron Theatre on Friday and Saturday. These are very special shows as they are the first UK dates Maggie has played in over ten years. Seriously not to be missed. Hope to see some of you there.
