03-05-10 – Powys, Fwance / Listen up, you just might learn somefin’!

Okay! This week was a busy one, with…

- A YAWA gig in Powys, Wales (7/10)
- A YAWA gig in Daventry (6/10)
- Finishing the Darkstep 7 day song
- Posting the 2nd Axe FX tutorial
- Some seriously exciting news on my secret project
- Getting some squash from ASDA

I’m going to Fwance!

Powys was an unexpected treat. After journeying a few hours into the Welsh countryside, we found it. A tiny town with more take-aways than people.

We soundchecked and when we finished, we were applauded by some Welsh people wearing YAWA merch! We went over and chatted, turns out they’d found us on myspace and loved us. This one guy wearing a “Giant robots from the future are coming to destroy us all” T-shirt got Rachie and I a discount on our chinese takeaway since he used to work there and knew the people that ran it. Everyone was so nice! Rachel was apparently talking to loads of people who thought I was cool. Wales is good for my ego.

When we got back, the place was filling out nicely. But the night was running late – we were meant to play at 11, but it looked like it was going to be closer to quarter to midnight. We’d heard most people were leaving at that time, so I was down in spirits.

We went on and loads of people came to the front. Welsh people know how to go crazy! So much so, in fact, I’d say that’s the most exhausted I’ve been at a gig – there just wasn’t enough oxygen in the tiny venue for all the people. It was awesome.

Mid-way through Nebula, the P.A. cut out for some reason, and like 5 minutes of the sound guys trying to sort it out while we attempted to keep the crowd entertained with no electronics or microphones ensued. We finally finished off on Starcadia when it worked again and it was a fantastic night.

We made some hardcore fans that night and were talking to them until about 3am. We got home at 4:30am. I got up at 8:30 to do Day 6 of the 7 day song. I’m still tired from that one.

Daventry – Round 3

We’ve played Daventry a few times before, and each time has felt like it could have been really good, but not too many people were there.

Well this time, it felt like No-one was there at all. We hung out with Kyra for most of the time, since they played too.

The sound guy was a kid who didn’t know why the PA wasn’t working, so I had to sort it out and get something half-way useable so the synths were audible, since they kept randomly devolving into a noisy mess for some reason.

Kyra played to a reasonable crowd, the kids filed in and watched with enough enthusiasm to last through the set, it’s great to see people enjoying Kyra’s music since they are all talented, nice guys.

We went on and the place erupted. Kids appeared from out of nowhere and the whole place was killing itself in the mosh pit by the end of starcadia, even though the sound of the synths randomly went down to about as quiet as some headphones plugged into an mp3 player.

Talking to them afterwards, one guy came all the way from Portsmouth to see us there. Another told Kieran we were better than Linkin Park, which was a freakin’ awesome compliment (assuming he means old school LP!)

Listen up, you just might learn somefin’!

Man, I love the feeling when I finish a 7 day song. I’ve got 4 pages of comments on the video of the final song, most people saying it’s the best I’ve done so far which I agree with – I’ve learned so much about production since starting boyinaband.

Hopefully I’ll continue to learn loads!

There are 4000 views on day 1 of the tutorial, within a week. How awesome is that?! I remember being happy about 100.

Axe Fx! Back from the dead!

It feels like forever, but I’ve finally loaded up tutorial 2 of the axe-fx tutorial series after more problems with it than I care to remember!

It’s on Chorus and goes through making a nirvana-esque guitar tone. G66 like it and I’m intending to keep it weekly from now on.

Secret Project news!

Well, as always it’s pretty secret, but I can say some cryptic things…

- My songs may be played on a pretty important radio station
- I may soon be able to interview a pretty famous producer
- Things may soon be taking off with my production career for some interesting reasons
- I may be getting my hopes up for no reason

But it’s cool to think that some awesome stuff might happen!

Squash

We ended up getting some orange and some white grape & peach squash, though it looks like they’re phasing it out in ASDA – Boo!

Next week on Dave’s Blog

I should be talking about…

- The update on biab for this month
- The next step for the business
- The 3rd Axe Fx Tutorial
- The next step for YAWA
- More cryptic secret project stuff!

Take it easy!