Playing Live Again

Westy — Mon, 01 Jul 2019 10:07:10 +0000

It’s so nice to be getting out again after so long. I can’t express how much my upper arm injury had limited my goals, and, although I could just switch emphasis and concentrate on other stuff, having to protect the arm really did put a dampener on my enthusiasm.

That said, it’s easy to fall into bad habits. Although the arm has been recovering for a while now, it was easy to tell myself to “protect the arm, protect the arm!” as an excuse to not go back to playing regularly too early.

Anyway – it was time… blow off the cobwebs, and get back out into the unsuspecting world.

My first plan was to aim to play at least once a week… somewhere.

Straight off the bat I have the offer of a gig from Scott Doonican of The Bar-Steward Sons of Val Doonican at the Old School House in Barnsley. Good on yer, mate, and thank you. It’s now been pushed back till January due to a scheduling issue on our original date, but I’m looking forward to it.

Then I literally went onto the Open Mic Finder site (link) and made a list of all the nearby open mics, and made contact by email/facebook.

Next, I contacted a total unknown… A venue known simply as Small Seeds, in Huddersfield. I did wait a few days to get a response from the email, but they were very encouraging. They invite all musicians locally, as well as poets, to come on down and play/read their material at the aptly titled Acoustic Club every Tuesday evening after 9pm.

It’s a lovely spot, very rustic looking stage, and there’s no mics or amplification, so this REALLY IS acoustic only. The nice thing too is they provide an acoustic guitar for those who simply want to turn up and play; and there’s an upright piano there as well if you want to play that too.

Next up I contacted Pete Long, whom I’d met through Andrew when he ran the Acoustic Circus open mics at the Taproom in Batley. He’s moved on from the Taproom, and is now hosting Acoustic Circus open mics once monthly from the West End pub in Gomersal. He also runs another Acoustic Circus Session once a month in St Mary’s Church in Gomersall too.

Pete himself is a really good guitarist and songwriter by the way, just check out VanRay on Spotify or iTunes…

Anyway – as soon as I made contact, Pete offered me a half-hour guest slot at the West End. This kinda threw me in the deep end, but I was glad of it. It blew out the cobwebs and got me thinking about a set again, rather than just the usual two or three odd songs that you get to do at a ‘normal’ open mic.

One thing I have realised though: playing ‘Whispers of Home’ with its drop tuning is a difficult song to put in the set, wherever you put it. I’ve tried retuning the guitar mid-set, and, unless you’re a good raconteur whilst you’re re-tuning, you’re asking a lot of patience from the audience whilst you mess about. The only alternative is to swap guitars. Here’s where my poor old EKO E20 lets me down, as the old Barcus Berry piezo bridge pickup I fitted 25+ years ago really isn’t up to it any more. Feedback from the audience is that it just wasn’t as good sounding as my Taylor 214. So – at some point, to do this justice, I’m going to need to change the E20 for something better, or just get better at re-tuning the 214 mid-set.

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Pickles Fest

Westy — Tue, 11 Sep 2018 18:31:41 +0000

This was a long standing invite from old friends \’Red\’ and Heather Pryce, for their Annual festival in Cenarth, near Cardigan, in West Wales. Because of the overly hot summer, this had been cancelled from it\’s original July date, because fire-risk (and lack of water supplies in case of fire) had prevented the Festival from going ahead.

Anyway, on the back of my successful gig at Electric Cabaret, Claire and I planned to do the five hour drive South West-wards, plus dog Sophie, as we were going to stay with Pat and Chris, Heather\’s parents, afterwards. I\’d planned for an early start, as this would give us plenty of time for stops, dog walks, and chance to stop at Pat and Chris\’s, freshen-up, and upload some of the gear from the car. At least, that was the plan…

First of all, as I went to fill up the car, I noticed we had a puncture. \”No worries,\” I thought, as there\’s a tyre repair station in our village. Luckily, it opens at 8am, and it was just 8:02. Anyway, within just over half an hour, I was filling up with fuel, but also, having to re-pressurise my tyres, as the repairers had more-than over-inflated my newly fixed tyre…

It was now 9am. I get home to find Sophie has diarrhoea, and won\’t eat. We have a ritual where I give her dog treats to encourage her to eat something, and then, after her stomach settles, she\’ll eat something. Today it wasn\’t going to work. So, by 9:45, we decide to set off, wondering if we were due for \’doggie accidents\’ on the way. Fortunately for us, she settled.

Driving rain for most of the journey made this trip arduous, as well as slow. We find out after ringing Chris, that my set has been brought forward to 15:50, and I\’m first on stage. We finally arrived at 15:25. Enough time for me to carry gear to the stage, to do a quick sound check, and then start playing.

Again I kept my set short, and though I could have had 45 minutes I ended at 35. My arm had had enough, what with all of the driving as well. Lovely to catch up with our friends and watch the other acts, some very talented performers, including Big Joe Bone, and of course Red\’s own band: Red and the Hogweeds.

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Playing Live Again

Pickles Fest