05-10-09 – The only bit of carpet! / Guess who’s back…

Hey Guys.

I’ve been neglecting my personal blogs lately – I just couldn’t find the motivation to do them. But now, as a result, I feel kinda lost, not sure what I have to do, so I figured I’d try blogging again in the hope that it would put me back on track.

Okay! So this week, I…

- Went on a Mini-tour with YAWA and…
- Played a Gig in Liverpool
- Played a Gig in Mexborough
- Played a Gig in Leeds
- Worked on an awesome new YAWA song
- Got back on the Primeloops metaphorical horse
- Made a few video tutorials I’ll be releasing next week
- Had a 203 meeting where we tried to combat lack of motivation

Mini Tour

This weekend, Zak had organised 3 gigs in a row, working our way up the country so we could save money on petrol and play more places. This is really difficult to organise considering how hard it is to get gigs in the first place and how hard it is to control where and when they take place if you’re an unsigned band – so well done to Zak for that!

So we packed our camping gear, since Zak was intent on camping out in a random field both nights (Something I’m pretty sure is illegal, but hey…) and hopped in the van with Eamon and Scratch. Our first destination was…
Liverpool

This gig was at a venue called “Zanzibar” – a club name I associate with chavs, since it was the big chav mating ground in Stafford, where I went to university. However, this venue was much nicer… when we eventually found it. We parked right outside it and since the sign was a hidden away, unlit neon sign we completely missed it, walking up and down the street several times.

We met up with an awesome YAWA fan who had got the tickets and helped to sell a bunch of them, ElCrampo (as he is known on our forums), and his girlfriend Meg. We had a drink with them (I stuck to water) and then went out to talk to random people and try to sell the remainder of the tickets. I hate selling things, more so to random people and even more so on the street. However, we gave it a try and even though it was mostly unsuccessful, Zak and Eamon came back with tales of selling some.

Back at the venue, we soundchecked (The sound guy was a… uh… sound guy. We got a really good mix that night.) and then chilled with the YAWA fans that ElCrampo had recruited and a couple of Kieran’s friends.

When we started playing it was pretty sparse in terms of audience, but the place began to fill up later on, until about 30-40 people were there so it wasn’t too bad. Plus, the YAWA fans were going mental so it was all worthwhile. We sold a ton of merch, the most in the whole weekend, then after fun times chatting with everyone, we put our stuff in the van and set off.

Kieran recieved a text from his mother telling us of a place to stay in the locality – one of her old bosses lived there, who Kieran had met once previously. It was a tenuous connection, but we felt that a warm place to stay beat camping in Liverpool. We arrived and she was very welcoming, allowing us all in onto her tiled-floored living room with a single small piece of carpet (this does have significance) and joining us for drinks (Every time I say this, I re-iterate that I was sticking to the non-alcoholic beverages.) and having a good chat about everything from the BNP immigration policy (I was struggling not to laugh as Zak gave his spiel on the parts of said policy that he agreed with and the obvious disagreement from our politely silent host.) to the way Jimmy Hendrix died from choking to death on his own vomit. Nice.

I shotgunned the bed and so got a good night’s sleep – unlike Kieran, who was woken up by Jamie, Zak and Eamon being loud and drunk downstairs, even when our host had let a bunch of people she barely knew sleep in her house. Idiots. When Kieran asked them to quieten down, they just shouted louder at Kieran for telling them to be quiet. And people ask me why I’m not a fan of alcohol. I hate that kind of loutishness so much, but what can you do? Drummers that can keep to a click track and Bassists that can play something more than a simplified version of what the guitarist is playing are few and far between in my experience.

That and I suppose I get on with them when they aren’t drunk.

Anyway, we woke up and Eamon had thrown up in his sleep – nearly doing a Jimmy Hendrix and topping himself unintentionally, but instead getting vomit on the only bit of carpet in the entire house. After apologising profusely and clearing it up, we said our goodbyes, giving flowers to show our appreciation of the hospitality, then proceeded on to…

Mexborough

We didn’t know what to expect from this place. It was huge – the stage was bigger than most venues we’ve played and the lighting setup was awesome. After unloading and soundchecking (again, pretty sweet sound from this place), we grabbed two-for-one pizzas and free garlic bread from over the road – Score!

The venue began to fill up and I was surprised by how many people turned up – got to be about 100 people in the end. And they went mental.

We got it all on video tape thanks to Scratch too – I’ll be putting together a compilation video no doubt of the evening. They loved us and we ended up talking to them all late into the night. The sound guy and Venue owner both bought CDs and we sold a few T-shirts too. Some girl was begging us to move there and others were claiming they were lesbian seagulls. You meet all kinds when you’re trying to be a rock star.

So we were all on a high – playing an awesome gig, meeting some fun people and selling a decent amount of merch. We were then brought sharply back to earth in…

Leeds

Well, first we stopped off at Whitton at Scratch’s parent’s house, where we were fed, watered and I got to see where he disappears to every other week. It was a huge house and his mom is an awesome cook. We all gratefully accepted the second bit of fortunate hospitality, and though Zak was initially disappointed at the lack of camping during the weekend, he eventually conceeded that it was infinitely better than freezing to death in a nylon sack outside, where the trees were hanging on to the ground for dear life.

Though not in those exact words.

But yes, Leeds – we arrived at the dank little pub and loaded in. I’m not a fan of pub gigs, never have been – the clientel doesn’t tend to appreciate Rave Rap Rock… in fact, anything that isn’t an AC DC covers band or a female acoustic artist with a top lower cut than a guillotine tester that they can oggle isn’t worth their time as a general rule.

However, a couple of hardcore YAWA fans turned out, having seen us before last year when we were in Leeds with the old line up at Rios. I chatted to them for most of the night. Then we eventually went on and played to the few people that were there. In the end I decided to just go for the lol and took things even less seriously than usual. I ended up mocking the bald singer from the band before us, who took it gracefully so fair play to him (I was talking to him after the show and he seemed cool) and in general being much too over the top for a pub gig.

We sold merch to the YAWA fans and this dude who was taking pictures loved us so much he said he’d send the pictures for free! Ace. So it wasn’t a complete waste. In the end, even though the turnout was dire I had a lot of fun just being silly and it was another one of those times that having the line-up we have (including Eamon and Scratch) just turns a crap gig into fun times. It was certainly a change from the eventfulness of the night before, but it’s all paying dues.

So then we set off home, 3 hours later arriving in Telford and unloading, followed by a well-earned sleep in our own beds (or the settee in Shortty-E’s (Eamon’s) case, since he decided to stay over. All in all an awesome weekend.

YAWA updatery

Okay! I’ll bring you up to date with what I’ve been working on with YAWA! The songs in development are…

- Ascension (Just needs mixing)
- Nebula (Needs vocals)
- Crunkulon V (Needs vocals and a better title)
- Zero Gravity (Needs guitar, more gangstuh vocals and more synths)
- [untitled dancey guitar track] (Needs everything)

The last track on that list I concieved this weekend, wanting to make an upbeat almost indie-dance track crossed with nu metal guitars and funky bass. It sounds good in my head, I assure you.

Ooh, also – Sketch made this frickin’ amazing photo:

From a photoshoot we had during the week, but the other guys don’t like how they look in it – Jamie and Zak saying they didn’t like what they were wearing (Then why wear it?!) so poor Sketch has to spend another 4 hours on a different picture. I feel like I’m being pretty harsh to Jamie and Zak in this post – I do get on with them for the majority of time, but I think that shouting in the house we were guests at so early in the morning lowered my respect for them significantly.

Oh! And we were on Kerrang this week! Singing Henri, the dude we had an interview with on Beacon radio ages ago who has since moved to bigger and better things, played “Epidemic”, followed by the quote “They might just be the next big thing”. Which will sit nicely in the press pack I’ve begun working on!

Primeloops + Boyinaband.

I’ve been pretty slack with my blogs on primeloops – I’ve done them all but generally at the last minute. However, this week I got back on the ball and have resolved to do both blogs by 6pm every Tuesday. I’d say god was my witness, but I may as well ask Vishnu to entertain me with some juggling – it’s pretty pointless.

Oh yeah, I’ve got more anti-religious over this past month. I think my religiousness is inversely proportional to my traffic on boyinaband.com, which is going up and up lately – I’ve broken the 800 visitors a day mark now and I’m looking forward to 1000 which I reckon I can do in the coming month if I release both this Electro Pop Tutorial and Trance 7 Day Song tutorial.

203 Inc

I believe that’s the name we’ve settled on for our business. Anyway, Jamie and Pete didn’t turn up or inform us that they weren’t turning up, so we only had the 5 of us – Eamon, Sketch, Scratch, Kieran and myself. We came up with blog ideas (mine being the Electro Pop video tutorials) and resolved to approach 5 companies asking for details of how much traffic they want before they’ll advertise with us. It’ll be ace if we get responses – I’ve contacted loads and about 1 in 10 replies back with anything of use. The hope is that by getting reachable goals from companies saying when the other guys can start earning money, they’ll be more motivated to write blogs and get to those kinds of pageviews required!

Next week on Dave’s Blog…

Will entail…

- Blogging again (I want to get back into the swing.)
- A charity gig in Leicester
- 10(ish) tutorial videos
- Replying to all the emails I’ve accumulated whilst on tour (I get quite a few for boyinaband now!)
- Making a YAWA press pack for E-mail and one for snail mail distribution
- Blogging twice for primeloops

AND THE BLOGLY QUESTION: How have you been?