We’re trigger happy

If it’s past midnight and I’m blogging I must have some adrenaline flowing. You’d be right.

I tried something new this evening: a gig with another musician. I’ve been thinking about having a bass player join me for some songs at my gigs. A chap I know put me in touch with Mark who has turned out to be just what I needed: someone who can play, doesn’t live too far away, has been there done that.  We did a rehearsal last week and decided to give it a lash this evening in front of an audience.

I’m liking the feeling of having a bass underneath my vocal and guitar. It’s also nice to have someone else up there on stage. There’s additional resonsibility… I can’t suddenly change the song and I have to watch my tempos.  It allows me to have a bit more control over my playing.

What didn’t work so well this evening was the sound which I have to take responsibility for. Problem identified and fixed so we’re going to do another rehearsal before the weekend. The whole middle bit between the bass & my voice just wasn’t present. Unfortunately the way I had setup my guitar signal made it impossible for anyone to fix it. Lesson learned.

I’m much happier with my vocal these days.  A combination of my recent surgery and a signal processing unit I am now using live is giving me more confidence and satisfaction with how I sound.

On Sunday I’m playing the Apollo Sessions and Mark will be joining me for some of the set. I’m very close to being in a position to play a full set of my own material and I sense a venue booking in my near future.

The recordings are getting there at last !  I reviewed all the nearly-finished songs a couple of weeks ago and have enough material for 2 EPs and reckon I could complete the recordings over the next 4-6 weeks. Other bass playing friends have been adding parts and I’m more comfortable with the edits that I need to make to the recorded versions that will make them ‘different’ to the live versions of those songs.

“Trigger Happy” is a new song by the way. It’s in 3/4 time (or 6/8 if you like to count that way).