Blend 05/12/07 - Radio with pictures

Here's some photo's from last Wed show. The middle is the Hohiria street crew. Good bunch.

It years 20 years ago today..

Sargent pepper and the band played last Wed night at Blend.

The setlist was:

Fall again
Control
City Streets
Secret Garden
I'll wait for you
Lover
Fallen
Hope
Broken pieces
Masquerade
Only a fool

The show went well, we soundchecked with 'Turning away' after which the bar manager told me to turn it down - even though I thought it was already barely audable, so down it went again.
Not many people showed, that's not necessarily important - as long as we're consistantly good people will come, but as far as getting more gigs there the bar manager has to justify the cost of paying us. I might have to promote us playing a bit better. We're probably one or two songs short of really putting on a great show too, we have good songs but I feel we need a couple that really hit hard & take us up again. Will work on that, unfortunately there's not a song tap you can just turn somewhere, you're a slave to the music, it comes in it's own sweet time. I think it's best to trust it & let it lead you rather than try to force it out.

Back to the gig, we started slowly, my harmonica crapped out on me again, I can't get clean notes out of it anymore it's too jammed with gunk. I'll need a new one soon. After that though, Control, City Streets & Secret Garden all went well. The guys are learning the songs now so they're more confident playing them. It was the first public outing of 'I'll wait for you' which is a love song sung by a guy who's just died singing to his wife, I think it's a great song & it sounded good live. Rest of the show went alright, Dave took a video of 'Lover' which I'll get put on dvd, finished with a rockin version of 'Only a fool', I always felt the chorus was a bit bare, it had potential but the chords left too much space, I changed the Em to an octave higher & it fills the gap nicely so the song sounds a lot fuller, very happy with it now.

Anyway, that's it for Pisces for 2007. Looking forward to getting straight into 2008 & having Carly's lovely vocals back.

Business time

First of all a big 'Congrat's' to my homeboy Ragin who's now a proud Daddy to little Rajan jr. - as yet unnamed I believe. Much love to you & the lovely Lexis. make us proud.. :)

Two shows coming up:

Wed 5 Dec Pisces at Blend.

Lover
Control
City Streets
Secret Garden
I'll wait for you
Hope
Oh my
Fall again
In the meantime
Masquerade
Only a fool

We have practice this Sunday, couple of things about the show: I'm going to get Mike to open the gig with a bit of a drum intro, perhaps keeping a regular time on his hi-hat while doing a few combo's before Graeme & I come in with the main riff. Should be good.
I'm also going to perform Oh my solo. Which may or may not go down well in the pub. Not really suitable for a solo acoustic track, but the set needs it so..

The other gig is also at Blend on Saturday the 15th. It's for our work Social club function. Myself and two workmates are playing rock'n'roll covers as 'The Merrymen'

Who do you love? - The Doors
Money - The Beatles
Maybelline - Chuck Berry
Tutti Frutti - Little Richard
A hard days night - The Beatles
That's alright Mama - Elvis
What you want me to do? - Elvis
School days - AC DC
Great balls of Fire - Jerry Lee
Hound Dog - Jerry Lee
Rocker - AC DC
Roll over Beethoven - The Beatles
Kick out the Jams - MC5

Out of all those songs I'm most excited about playing Kick out the jams, a legendary rock track by the Motor City 5. I think Pisces will start covering it too.
The bars open to anyone, some come on down if you want to hear some kick-ass Rock'n'roll!

Christmas gigs

Well, where to start? Unfortunately our Nov gig at Blend fell through due to clashing with bookings so I'm at him now to sort one early for us in Dec. It's such a freakin pride swallowing, soul destroying process trying to get a bar to take a chance on you. To them you're just another band that doesn't even play music people are gonna know, why the hell should he bother? You try to give them a sense of what you're trying to achieve & get them believing a little that it can actually be a successful venture but until they see it with their own eyes you're basically pushing shit uphill. That's why every show we play is so important, we proving ourselves everytime we play & for every listener we win over with a good show, 10 others will be put off by a bad one. But that's what it makes it so much fun right? These are the days that I'll look back on fondly, struggling for gigs, sweaty shaking hands before we play - this only happens once in a bands career so might as well enjoy it. The birth of the band.
Have also been offered a gig at the Wellington Musicians club Christmas function on Sat Dec 8. It's a six song set with five other bands, if it works out it'll be the first time our name has been on a flyer being distributed around town. That's pretty cool. It would also be pretty sweet playing to a bunch of musicians, like minded people that'll be listening to the band with a discerning ear.
Myself & two other Asteron staff are also forming a band to play at our social club Christmas function. I got to choose the setlist so I indulged a little & chose old rock'n'roll tracks by Elvis & the Beatles & Chuck Berry, that sort of thing. It's been a fantasy of mine to play this type of set for a while so I totally get to indulge myself.
Anyway, will post later when & if the gigs get the greenlight.

The day after the day after.

Gig went well, better than I was hoping. We ended up using another bands PA so hired it off them for $125 which was a lot better than the $350 Vidcom was charging us. One of the guys in the band we hired it off 'Noodles' came & set it up for us so that was one headache averted. Almost forgot to cancel the already booked PA & only remembered on the bus home which resulted in a mad 018 call from the bus & missing my stop, thus walking home from the basin making me even more stressed than I already was.
Actually can't remember ever being that nervous. At the beginning of the show when we kicked off with Secret Garden I put my hand up in a rock star pose & realised it was shaking - definately not rock n roll - I put it back down pretty quickly.
Set list was

Secret Garden
Control
City Streets
Lover
Portrait
In the meantime
Fallen
Hope
Masquerade

Over all it was good, started strongly with the first three tracks, lost a bit of momentum, then finished strongly with the last three. Masquerade was the best we've played it, it was a strong way to finish the show. Overall I give it a 8/10. Not perfect but effective in showing what we are & do.

Spoke to Jono the bar manager afterwards, he was happy with the way things went & the crowd we pulled. He offered to get us back but he wants every sixth song to be a cover. That's a compromise I think I can live with, I've been thinking Helter Skelter & Kick out the jams, but we'll wait & see.

Tomorrow night

Looks like we're all set for Blend. It's just me, Graeme & Mike for this gig as Carly's got commitments with a movie. Add's to the challenge of how it's going to sound already being that it's our first time with a vocal PA and through our amps. I haven't set my sights too high for the gig, if we can get through without turning people off the band I'll be happy. The experience is going to be great though & we're going to learn alot about where we're at & what needs to be done to move forward from here. Just hope it's not too painful..

Secret Garden
Control
City Streets
Lover
Fall again
In the meantime
Fallen
Hope
Masquerade
Broken Pieces
I'll wait for you
Only a fool

Sacre Bleu!

Oops, we did it again. Condolences to the AB's, I thought we played ok, recriminations are useless now. I've avoided the media so far as I don't want to get involved in the blame game which I have no doubt our infantile media commentator's have already started. It was just bad luck, nothinng else. A couple of bad calls, the ball not bouncing our way & then we're out. Bad luck, it's over, get on with it. At least the Aussie's lost as well..

In other news though, on Friday night I was offered a gig up at Blend bar on Wakefield street. The bar manager has offered to pay for whatever we need to hire and pay us well. It's a great step forward for us as we've never had to play this type of bar or crowd before. These types of bars are traditionally covers bars, with a drunken corporate crowd more interested in scoring than listening to music. If we do this well, I'm going to try to turn it into a regular monthly gig, maybe first Wed of each month. Looking forward I'd like to get the night so popular that they end up turning people away from the door because we're packing the place out. It holds about 100-150 people so it's definately acheivable if we play good shows. If we can win over this type of crowd then it'll be a great step for us.

I've been having a lot of discussions with people about marketing. Most people are of the opinion that we need a myspace page or website (which I'm sure we'll get in time) but I'd like to avoid it for the time being. I want this band to be grassroots from the beginning. I want people to feel they've found something that is their secret, something that isn't a mass produced consumer generated product for mass consumption. There has to be intimacy & subtlety & I don't think you get that appealing to us many people as possible without discretion. As the band grows so will our audience, let them follow something which isn't for sale for a change.

September 26 - San Fran - Acoustic Lounge

Secret Garden
City Streets
Jimmy Jones
I'm your lover
Fallen
Hope
Masquerade
Picking up the pieces

Show went well, most people we've played to so far. We were a bit rusty in places due to having not rehearsed for a couple of weeks but we got by. It was beautifully lit, the blue curtains behind us, burgundy walls and the dimmed lights make the whole thing look really intimate. I opened the night strumming the opening chords to 'Angie' by the Rolling Stones just as a surprise for my flatmate Ange (which she later confessed to being completely oblivious too..) which morphed into the opening chords to Secret Garden before the band kicked in. It was a pretty cool way to start the show. By the second song people had started to move to the front of the room and were sitting on the ground in front of us. At one stage there were about 4 camera's taking photo's of us, unfortunately it was noone I knew so I'm unable to post any, it was slightly surreal to have camera flashes going through city streets, but very cool.
Carly nailed Jimmy Jones, it's the best she's sung it & the best I've played it. She'd been really nervous earlier in the day due to workmates & family coming along so it was good to see her perform it well. Lover went ok, unfortunately at this point I had switched to a heavier pick & there was no flexibility to it. It meant I had to hold it so tightly my hand started to cramp so I found it difficult to strum properly. It got worse for the next song Fallen which was supposed to be the centrepeice of our performance, but due to my not being able to strum properly and lack of rehearsal it got slighthly hashed. Hope was ok, it's a fairly reliable song as it's structurally quite simple. Carly & I have some beautiful harmonies on this track which is my favourite thing about it. Masquerade was a bit of a carwreck again due to lack of rehearsal and my hand cramping. We finished with Picking up the pieces which was my favourite track of the night, after fighting with my pick and sore hand it's a really easy song to strum and has a great melody to sing so it finished on a high for me. Again the chorus harmonies with Carly on this track always blow me away.
So overall I give it 6/10, we can definately do better but it was another step forward.

On another note, after the show we were having a drink outside with another performer and he pulled his guitar out and sung a song for us. He handed it to me so I played 'that's the way the world goes round' which is an old country track. Dylan took lead vocal & I harmonised the chorus with him, it was a pretty special spontaneous performance, as satisfying as anything we'd done earlier in the night.

Peace.

The Future

Show went ok. Set list was:

I'll wait for you
Take me home
This old house
Secret Garden
Potrait
Old man
Jimmy Jones

Carly joined me from SG onwards. Again, I couldn't hear anything we played so couldn't get a grasp for how it was sounding. All I could hear was people talking. Had a lot of good feedback which surprised and pleased me as I thought a lot of it was going over peoples heads.

Band plays on the 26th, set list is currently:

Secret Garden
Broken peices
City streets
Jimmy Jones
Lover
Fallen
Hope
Masquerade

Hopefully we get a chance to play all eight. We've been kicked off early in the past.

Have decided to start the recording of the first Pisces album in March next year when my contract finishes at work. I'll continue to work part time but focus on getting the album done. Not sure how I'm going to pay for it, cause it's going to have to be done properly, but I'll think of something. Between now & then we'll have to put on our own show as well, maybe at Happy.

Solo

The bands been postponed to Sept 26th, damn that sexual perversity of Chicago, it's a play that took our night last week. I've agreed to fill in tonight with a solo spot up at San Fran so I'm gonna get Carly in to help out. Track list at the mo:

Me:
Take me home
I'll wait 4 u
This old house

Me & Carls:
Secret Garden
Oh my
Portrait
Jimmy Jones
Old man

Should be good, looking forward to being able to play the guitar and have all the subtle stuff come through without being drowned by the band.

Two weeks 2 go.

I've changed the set slightly, Carls' brother is coming to the show so we're going to do 'Jimmy Jones' which Carly takes lead vocal on. It's about a 50's housewife that hears Rock'n'roll for the first time and can't control the feelings of liberation she feels, she thinks it's the devil coming out of her radio. It's pretty cool & it'll be good for Carly's bro to see her in action. I think she stole the show at the last gig when she sung it. It was the highlight for me anyway. We didn't have a fold back so I couldn't hear anything I was singing, but she sounded great.

Secret Garden
Broken Pieces
Jimmy Jones
Lover
Fallen
Hope
Masquerade
Only a fool

Short & sharp. God, I can't wait to play.

Song structure & the art of arranging

Verse/chorus/verse. That was the working title of Nirvana's last studio album 'In Utero'. That & 'I hate myself & want to die' - no kidding, it really was.
Interesting that someone who was a master of arranging would be digging at the most common form of pop song structure - verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/verse/chorus. I guess it showed his growing apathy toward his craft, but that's another blog altogether..

Song structure is where it's at. The ability to surprise, to take your listener somewhere they're not expecting to go. Why not throw your bridge in after the first chorus? Throw out the chorus's altogether and only have verses. This is what's meant by song structure, arranging the different parts of the song.

You might start with a riff which over time develops into your verse. This might lead into a chorus, so to break the song up you develop a bridge which might change the rhythm of the song - slow it down, speed it up, give it more depth, whatever. So then you have your different parts which then need to be arranged into a coherent order, hopefully in a way that keeps the listener interested and can show them something they weren't expecting.

Song structure, the art of arranging your song.

For a masterclass in songwriting, arranging & song structure check out the first track on Nirvana's 'In Utero' - 'Serve the Servants'.

Lyrical content

Writing lyrics is like pulling teeth. Sometimes they tumble out, other times it's like squeezing blood from a stone. I have a theory that sometimes the songs not ready to come into physical form so it refuses to reveal itself. When this happens it can hold the song up for months, sometimes years. I've got a song I started in 1997 that I've never finished cause I haven't been able to figure out it's structure or lyrics. They'll come, but in their own sweet time..

There seems to be two types of songwriter - ones that start with words & build a song from there & others that start with music and add lyrics last. I'm the latter, I wouldn't say I'm a poet or anything but I do try to write interesting lyrics. The less cliche the better. The last thing you want is a killer track with lyrics you're too embarrassed to enunciate clearly. Yes, this has and does happen to me. Not every lyric is a home-run, sometimes you just have to admit what you've written is tripe, but what the hell - someone might find something truthful in it..

There's two types of ways of coming at your lyrics, personal experience or storytelling. I tend to be a mix of both, you may not want to give too much away, but sometimes it's unavoidable in the completion of a track.

I'll leave you today with a track called 'the old man & the sea', it's kind of a sea shanty and is a pretty good matching of lyric to music.
You'll have to come see us if you want to hear the tune.. ;)

'I'll take the rain, & I'll take the fog
To live my live on the ocean
& I'll take cold & I'll take the wind
To live my live on the sea

I gave my life to the ocean
I lived my life for the sea
I gave my heart to the salt & the breeze
Yes that's the life for me

I left my home, when I was a boy
To learn the secrets of the sea
I laughed, I cried,
& other men died
But I was born on the ocean

I gave my life to the ocean
I lived my life for the sea
I gave my heart to the salt & the breeze
Yes that's the life for me'

Practice, practice, practice

Makes perfect apparantly. Soon see about that.
We ran through the set on Sunday & couldn't drop either Lover or Masquerade so we're gonna play both.

Secret Garden
Broken pieces
Masquerade
Im your lover
Fallen
Hope
City Streets
Only a fool

Guys are picking up the new tracks amazingly fast, but we're only gonna have time for one more practice - on the 21st Aug, the night before the show. Unfortunately Mikes going to Vietnam so we can't do anything about it.
Hopefully it will suffice.

Riffs & Hooks

The most important thing to me is that the main riff of a song or the main chord progression is a big enough hook that it makes people want to move. Whether that means dancing, nodding their heads or just tapping their feet. This is the only criterior that I judge whether a song gets fully developed or not.
There are degrees of poppiness - sacharrine is unacceptable - I want my hooks to be intelligent and surprising. Not so obvious that you're sick of it after five listens. They should be immediate in a live sense that if you're a first time listener of the song you can still enjoy it, but it should reveal itself to you slowly over a number of listens so you only really understand the strength of the song over time.

What is a Riff?
A riff is a short musical progression that when played over & over becomes the main body of a song. Probably the most famous Riff in rock music is 'Satisfaction' by the Rolling Stones. da da dadadaa da daadaa followed by Mick Jagger's fantastic lyrics

'I can't get no/ Satisfaction
When I'm watching my TV
& a man comes on & tells me
How white my shirt can be
But he can't be a man cause he doesn't smoke
the same cigarettes as me'

Says it all really. That's the perfect combination of a killer riff backed by killer lyrics - everything rock music should be, rebellion, the threat of violence, sexy. You hear Satisfaction in the right environment and you know you're listening to the real thing.

What is a hook?
A hook is the term given to the indefinable characteristic in music that makes you want to dance. What seperates 'Hit me baby one more time' from anything else that Britney's done? Or 'Living on a Prayer' from other tragic hair band songs. They have the same chords as other songs, played pretty much identically to thousands of other tracks but for some reason when you hear these songs you want to dance.
This is what's meant when saying that a song has a hook. It grabs you & makes you want to move. The ability to write a riff with a hook is what defines a songwriter, great ones do it over & over - Lennon & McCartney - lucky ones stumble over them by accident & almost never manage to write another one - The Bodyrockers - and average ones might come up with something every now & again.

How it all started

Sometimes I worry I'm leaving things too late. I'm 34 chasing a dream that most are done and finished with by my age. My friends are settled in careers and family life & I'm still out here doing basically what I was doing 10 years ago. I never thought it would take this long, when I was 25 I thought I was a year away from being discovered. I wasn't.

Still, I feel I'm a pretty lucky person to have known what I wanted & where I'm going since my early 20's. A lot of my peers often tell me they have nothing to be passionate about so I'm lucky in that respect.

I've felt since my late teens that I had something important to contribute, at the time I was playing rugby pretty seriously & presumed that that feeling meant I was going to be an All Black, music to me then was just something I listened to when I trained.

Then one day while listening to something it struck me that I understood what the artist was doing - the structure of his song, what he was playing - it was kind of like understanding a maths equation for the first time. I was in the States at the time & I decided when I got home I'd need to get a guitar & start working this stuff out for myself.

I came home & a friend of mine had a guitar body in his shed with no bridge or nut, so I carved some out of bone. They were so big that the action on that guitar was twice the size of a standard guitars. It made pushing the strings down so hard that it killed people's fingers to play it, I think that's why I became a strong rhythm player, it was such a tough guitar to play - & I started with the heaviest strings available - I could only play barre chords. I would play E then slide up the frets - F, G, A, B etc. That's how I learned to play, it's called a power chord. All of the first songs I wrote were major chords, simple but effective. I still remember the thrill I got when I first strung that guitar, it was exciting, I knew I was onto something.

I really liked that guitar but ended up wrapping it round our clothesline in a moment of creative frustration, something I've regretted since. I've had other guitars, but that one was special.

So that's how I started all this.

The Band

The band is as follows:

Myself; Guitar, Vocal
Carly; Percussion, Vocal
Graeme; Bass, Vocal
Mike; Drummer

Note Mike is the only one that can't multi task. This is why he is a drummer. Just joking Mike. He is in fact a very smart man. He builds bridges & tunnels.

Practice went well on Sunday, although my voice kept breaking like a twelve year olds. Whenever I go long stretches without singing I feel like I lose months worth of training. My vocal chords need constant use to stay at their optimum.

City Streets is coming together. It's a track that's been on the periphery of my music-consciousness for a while, just developing over time. It has great potential, I think it's a closing track. The last one on the album. Masquerade is something I never thought would develop past the jamming stage, but both Graeme & Mike love playing it, so we might have to play it live just to see how it goes. If we do go with it we'll probably open with it.

I can't figure out how to save music attachments as web links so cannot post any music yet, but I'll figure it out.

Welcome..

Hi all, I've created this blog for friends & family that are interested in following our band 'Pisces'. When catching up with people I haven't seen for a while I'm invariably asked 'how's the music going?'. This is a way for you guys to keep an eye on things and it also gives me a chance to keep in touch and let you know how things are going. It also allows me to avoid the whole myspace thing, which is kind of impersonal. I like the idea that my friends and family can check on what we're doing, but no randoms can just stumble onto us - which could possibly be a bad thing..

I'll try to figure out a way to get audio links so you can check the bands recording & live sound - I'm sure there's a way.

I'll leave it here for now - our next show is Aug 22 up at San Fran, hope to see you here.
Possible setlist:

Masquerade
Broken Pieces
Secret Garden
Fallen
Hope
City Streets
Only a fool

Would like to get 'I'm your lover' in but Masquerade's sounding pretty explosive at the moment so it might have to sit this one out.

Peace, M.