Aaaargh! It's all too much!

Bloody hell! I forgot about the blog!  No one's reading, no one's reading, no one's reading, sod it, give up, someone's reading! Hello John.
Morecambe, last post, four years ago! Trouble is, keeping up this information stream is hard work, and to what end? I had this grand idea of starting a MySpace (remember?) for each of my musical projects from the last thirty-something years. So I did, and I uploaded recordings from each one. And made them all friends with each other, and other people joined in, a bit. Then MySpace got a bit shit, and looked like history, and no one else joined in any more because I'd probably saturated my audience. So I got rid of them all. No one has banged on my door demanding their return.
I have a Facebook page for music and a personal one too. I'd quite happily give up the personal one but I feel I need to sustain it for the sake of the music one. The music page has music you can listen to, details of gigs, and automatically updated my Twitter account. Oh, and it's linked to ReverbNation, and possibly Soundcloud. You can listen to my songs on last.fm if you want, assuming that still exists. I might have a We7 account with songs on too, can't remember. My YouTube channel has videos to go with demo versions of new songs, and links from other people who video me when I'm out and about. I've got a web site. Two e-mail accounts. Subscriptions to Facebook music groups, and a Yahoo group somewhere or other. What's it all for? Who cares? Who is taking any notice? I suspect that a normal human conversation with a few people on selected occasions might well be an adequate replacement for all this online information overload.
Then again. Went to a venue a couple of months ago, set up, got a request for 'Silly Alibis'. They saw a poster, checked me out. Another venue about the same time, this couple started asking me when I was going to play some original material, they didn't come to hear covers, they've downloaded my whole album, love it, play it in the car all the time (is that the only place we use CDs now, the car?).
So I suppose I'll keep updating everything as best I can for the sake of the few people who might be interested, or that stumbler-upon of my stuff...StumbleOn? Isn't that something....

Up North

Went up to Lancashire for a week or so, pleasant family time. Visited, briefly, the Lake District, Yorkshire Dales, Forest of Bowland and Morecambe. I had to look Morecambe up in the 'Crap Towns' book. It's deservedly at number 3. We drove through a derelict seaside resort, parked on the seafront carpark and walked along the prom. The wind was strong and the sky was grey, although that's not Morecambe's fault. The Midland Hotel has been restored to its deco glory. There was an amusement park in between the closed down amusement parks. We had coffee at Costa, I looked in a bookshop.
Superficially disorganised, rooms coming off rooms and stepping over piles of books to get from one place to the next, it reminded me of the way secondhand bookshops were thirty years ago. Masses and masses of books you can't imagine anyone ever buying, which is exactly the sort of place you need when you can't find what you want through more straightforward means. At some point over the last twenty years, bookshop proprietors have reasoned 'instead of charging what I think this is worth, I'm going to charge a generous percentage of the price were you to buy it new'. This particular bookshop proprietor has then added another percentage, so you get to search longer than you need to to pay more than you want to.
I enjoyed visiting Morecambe. It makes the seaside resort I live in (Crap Town 18 in the second book) look tolerable.

More Songs

I have recorded three more songs and put them here for your enjoyment. They haven't been mastered (because I'm not really sure how to do that yet), but they are quite close to finished. One is very new, one is very old, one is somewhere in between. Please feel free to leave a comment, I'm not really sure anyone's listening!

Youth of Today

The thing that was weird about last night was that there were lots more young people than usual (Lewis said they've been in more lately), but they asked for Elvis, Dire Straits, and 'some reggae'. I thought they were taking the piss, out celebrating A-level results, but that's what they wanted. It was the (older) usual types seemed to appreciate the more modern stuff (Killers, Kooks etc) and the punky songs. Still I expect everyone got what they wanted somewhere along the line, apart from the beardy folksters who left as soon as I played with a backing track!

Singing can be difficult

I did a four hour set last night. I enjoy singing, I'm not complaining. Still, I forgot to look after my voice throughout the evening. I started with some acoustic songs (Golden Touch, All You Need Is Love), and then some quieter ones with backing tracks (Come Back and Stay, Tempted, Yellow), but they have high-pitched vocal melodies and I hadn't warmed up. Consequently, I began to get a little croaky around 11:30, which is early for me. That means picking songs that give my voice a break (Bohemian Like You, Make Me Smile), and avoiding songs with falsetto in them, because that's gone. It's not that anyone else noticed, but it matters to me.

Backing tracks

I also discovered that people will download and use backing tracks off the internet regardless of quality or arrangement. It's really easy, you just search for the song in midirobot or some other specific search engine, download it and record it to your minidisc/CD/whatever. So there's no personal touch, the key might be wrong, it might not work live. Sometimes I think they secretly hope no one is listening, but that doesn't matter anyway because other people will still hear, and they leave with a particular impression.
I do my own backing tracks, which means they're specifically arranged by and for me. It takes me about 10 hours minimum to make one. That means listening to one song for that long, so I have to like it. Which means, in turn, that I only do songs I like. So there's no use in asking me to play 'Lady in Red', I'm afraid.

Don't want to be like everyone else...

Anyway, I mention it because I've seen a few other pub singers lately. I try to catch them when I can. Initially, I went to learn, to pick up some tricks. These days, I learn what not to do.

I don't want to sing those crappy 'sixties' songs, for a start. Sometimes you get these old dears saying 'do some sixties' but they don't mean the Kinks, the Small Faces, the Who. They mean the songs that were in the chart for a few weeks in February 1963 while they were keeping their hands on their ha'pennies behind the bike sheds at the youth club. I saw this bloke last year, slashed black shirt, permatan, syrup and medallion complete. He introduced one song '...and ladeez and gennelmen, Mr.....Bobby.....Vee!' No, mate, it isn't. It's you.

Sometimes people say 'play something I know'. What - I have to run my set list through the sieve of your ignorance? I just did a Dusty Springfield song and you don't know it? Do I need to get clearance? Why can't you listen to something you don't know? I bet you knew most of the songs I played so far, stupid.


Everywhere I go people make an effort to come and talk to me. They tell me they really appreciate the fact that I don't do the same songs as everyone else (actually, I do some of those songs, but only the good ones). So I know I'm right about this. Generally, make an honest effort, sing properly, don't take the piss and people will appreciate it.