Day 420

Day 420

Monday February 27

A whole bunch of callbacks to bars and agents. The usual frustration really and nothing is happening. We have the first of our two agent auditions tomorrow and there’s another possible audition in the pipeline. We could really do with one of them producing something. But we have to pass them first.

One guy at a bar who I’ve spoken to before testily says he won’t give me his personal email when I haven’t even asked for it. Then, when I ask if I can leave a message for his boss, he says he can’t be bothered. While I’m not completely immune from uttering those words, although I like to think I use them in more suitable contexts, in my opinion, ‘I can’t be bothered,’ is one of the most lazy, bad attitude evoking phrases in the English language. I hang up on him. That’s the first time I’ve done that to anyone in this capacity. I think there are few more annoying everyday things than being hung up on, apart from someone not saying thankyou when you’ve held a door open for them. If that ever happens and I get an immediate opportunity, I make a point of pushing the next door shut in their faces. I really do get quite a bit of immature satisfaction out of doing that.

A regular live music venue in central London asked me late last year to contact them again late February. I do that now and the guy says they’re having problems with the council and can’t have it anymore. I’m sorry but this really feels like we, as musicians, are being systematically shut down in London.

Bloody hell. I’ve just done a word count on this thing. It’s now longer than War And Peace. I love that book and am not suggesting for a second a longer word count makes this even anywhere near a percentage as good. But if you’re looking for a weapon, I may suggest printing The Diaries and dropping it on someone’s head.

The drum machine/looper pedal arrives and I’m like a kid at Christmas as I instantly get the manual out and start using it. It’s got a load of drum beats that are really easy to navigate around and I have a good session playing with them and generally learning how the thing works. It really is very user friendly, even navigating between the drum machine and guitar effects.

By the time Dan comes round for tonight’s rehearsal I’m starting to get quite well versed on it and we try a few songs using it. The only issue is going to be moving slickly from one song to another but that will be for another day. Our main concern in this session is deciding what songs we’re going to do in the audition tomorrow and specifically what song we’re going to use to demonstrate our new drum situation to show that we have and can use backing tracks. Bryan Adams’ Run To You gets the nod on this one. I spent a good amount of time yesterday looking through the entire set and identifying little bubbles which we could have a look at and improve. This sees us spending two hours on songs we’ve already been playing live for a long time, edging each one ever closer to the next level which means that as an act we’re being taken up a notch or two at the same time.

Day 421

I never used to want to go to Guildford unless it was really going to hurt. I’m not sure how much I’ve mentioned this next thing, but I have a hare lip and cleft palate. To deal with one or two aspects of the ongoing treatment of that, in my mid to late teens and going well into my 20s, I wore a permanent brace on my teeth whose purpose was essentially to widen my lower jaw in preparation for surgery. For eight years I had various contraptions permantly clamped on there; for a good number of years there was one on the upper teeth too. The visits to Guildford were to see my orthodontist who would make the adjustments to pull the thing tighter and wider. For a few years, every two months or so I had to take the day off work and travel down there from Warrington for the appointment, a round trip that would see me leaving the house between 8 and 9am and not returning until sometime near midnight. With sometimes a hefty waiting room wait thrown into the mix. So yeah. With all that time invested, if the guy didn’t cause some amount of pain I didn’t feel like anything was being accomplished. The more pain there was, the more I felt the marathon visit to the awfuldentist was worth it. I don’t think I was ever more annoyed than the one time I went all the way down there to sit in his chair, only be told, after a quick look, ‘Yep, that’s all good. See you next time.’ Thanks. Back to Warrington I go. When the sessions were really worth it, I got through them by just sitting back and letting him do whatever he had to do, almost welcoming anything that hurt. This attitude prepared me for and got me through a fair amount of later operations. Lying in the hospital, also in Guildford, in the post op days of quite a few operations when even the morphine wasn’t doing much good, as there was no escape, I’d self hypnotise myself and convince myself I was enjoying. Maybe making it worse was my way of exercising some sort of control over the situation.

Our audition for the ferry company agent today is the first time I’ve been back to Guildford since that time. You could say it holds a few memories.

I meet Dan at KTown tube at 10:30am and we head off to catch the train from Waterloo. Arriving at Guildford station, I tell Dan the first thing I have to do is walk over the concourse bridge and have a look at the surroundings as this was my route out of the station way back then. Dan finds this quite funny saying, ‘Are you going on a nostalgia trip?’ ‘I suppose I am. Do you want to wait here while I just have a quick run up?’ No. He’ll come up and have a look too. This is a strange experience as not only does everything look pretty much the same but I can’t see over the high windows as much as I remember being able to do. ‘Maybe I was taller then,’ I suggest. OK. I’m done with that. We can get on our way.

We checked this on the map yesterday and the route to the studio is straightforward enough but the long London Road is much longer than we thought it was going to be. When we see we’re not even halfway up London Road and it’s already 12:45 we know we’re not going to make it for our 1pm arrival time to set up and be ready to audition at 1:30. We thought we’d given ourselves plenty of time. I have their number so I put in a call to let them know where we are. They’re very easy about it. No problem. Thanks for the call. We’ll see you when you get here. Yep. It’s one thing being late, another thing altogether to not let it be known. If we’d just turned up 20 minutes late that might have been an issue. This call has made everything alright and we can carry on in not so much of a hurry.

Then, when we reach New Inn Road, which I thought would be a quick jaunt off to the side to get to the studio, that thing also goes on and on. When we see the end of the houses and are about to enter woodland, Dan says, ‘Are you sure we’re going the right way? actually about to walk into the woods.’ I check the map and assure him that yes, all is good. We’re not actually on a woodland path though. We are still on the side of a road so we’re OK there. Finally, arriving at the end of that road, we see a little industrial park. Great. Now we just need to find the place which we do with not too much messing around.

Once inside we’re met by Katie, the lady I’ve been dealing with, and told that we’re absolutely fine for time as someone who arrived early was given our spot. When they’re ready for us, we’re directed to studio two where we discover how this thing is working. In there a solo singer guitarist guy is just packing up and we have a quick chat with him as we organise our own stuff at the same time. In studio one we can hear another audition taking place. Once that’s done we’re going to be auditioned in here while over in the other studio someone will set up as that act is taking down and that audition will start as we hand over to the next guy in here. We also learn that people have come from all over the country for this so it’s a big day with a lot of acts to be seen.

Once we have the room to ourselves and are unpacking, the first thing I notice is my strap on Dan’s guitar. So that’s where it went. I didn’t leave it behind. He says he thought it felt a bit funny and offers to swap it for what I have which is one of his. No. That’s fine thanks. Soundcheck and we see the speakers in here are set way back from where we are which means we have crystal clear vocals for once outside of rehearsal. Which is handy. Although there’s no bass amp meaning I’m going through the two tops. And oh they do not handle bass very well at all. It comes out all wooly and loose rather than strong and solid. But we’re just going to have to get on with it. No point making excuses before we start. Bad workmen blaming the tools and all that.

We’re not quite fully soundchecked when the two auditioners come in and introduce themselves and give us a bit of a mini interview. Tell us about yourselves and what you’ve been doing. That kind of thing. We tell them we have the three required songs and one backing track song as that’s not really our thing but we’re going to show the potential of what we can do with it. They say that two and the backing track one will be just fine. That works too and we make a quick decision of which song to drop.

We’ve gone for our rock’n’roll medley and our own version of Seven Nation Army and they tap their feet and smile along, seeming happy with the performance as we play as though to a packed bar although it is a little tricky knowing whether or not to make eye contact. Dan doesn’t. I kind of glance over in their general direction every now and then. After only the first song, the guy says, ‘It’s very clear that you guys are a team and work really well together. We see so many duos that are just two individuals.’ Really cool to get that kind of feedback so early on and we tell them how we often communicate during songs, sometimes changing things as we go which they find a touch amusing.

When it comes to the drum track song, I laugh a little and say to them, ‘We’re going to give this a go now. We just got this pedal yesterday so we’ve never done this before in a full situation.’ ‘Go for it lads. We love that attitude.’ I get the track started, Dan comes in and we alter the levels to what sounds about right. For now we’ve decided not to run a guitar through the pedal meaning it has its own channel which makes adjusting levels easier. We get to a level which sounds about right with just the guitar intro going on. Wouldn’t want the drums any louder than that. We think. But then when we come into the song fully, we really can’t hear them as we would like to and it takes quite a bit of concentration to keep locked into them. The good thing about this song is that it has quite a few quiet breaks so if you get ever so slightly out, when the break comes around you can lock back in again, hopefully with no-one noticing. But we manage to stay pretty solid with them right to the end. Job done.

We go up to the front of the studio to talk to them and they’re in a very good mood and say they enjoyed it and start telling us a bit about the ferries before asking if we have any questions. I’ve been all over their website, watched the videos and had a few conversations both with Katie here, someone else in the company and with a few other companies. I feel I’ve asked all the questions I can. The rest could be learned as we go. Dan says he’s happy with what he knows too so all good. They tell us they’ll be making decisions by Friday and leave us alone to take down as the next act comes in.

We get everything packed up and are ready to leave to make the trek back to the train station. And it is a real trek. Just as we leave the studio it starts to rain. Ten minutes in and it’s coming down hard accompanied by a strong, cold wind. As we walk through the woodland and down lonely country roads with fields on either side, hammered by the weather and carrying or dragging all our gear, Dan says, ‘Who needs the army?’ We have a chuckle and keep going in quiet yet somehow happy determination while chatting about how we think it went. We agree that it went as well as it could have done and we gave as good an account of ourselves as we could. Ready for the ferries with the backing tracks? We don’t think so but as long as they liked us, we’re on their books and will be ready to go should something come up. As for this hike in the cold and rain, I’m starting to quite enjoying the little challenge of it all. But as we get close to the station I’m starting to feel the heavy bass on my back with the weight going right through my body. My left knee is beginning to have a bit of a tantrum.

Finally we’re at the station. I will learn later that this is five kilometres away from the studio meaning this has been a 10k roundtrip. We never sat down during anytime of the audition either, including before and after. With so many trains between Guildford and London we have one waiting for us when we enter the station and gratefully fall on board. But it’s nothing like the lovely warm almost business like commuter model we came here on. Instead it’s wide open from front to back, meaning it’s cold with a gentle, persistent wind blowing through. And there we are, sitting in soaking wet clothes. And it travels almost glacially slowly, stopping at every station along the way. Really not a pleasant journey at all.

By the time get to Waterloo station my knee has really deteriorated and I’m struggling to keep up with Dan and stairs are suddenly an issue. But as I’m walking behind him through the crowds, I’m able to not let on. We separate as the first tube comes with him taking a different northern line to me and we say our goodbyes and good lucks.

I warm up a little on the tube but then when I reach my destination I get hit by the full force of Ktown, the windiest tube in London. Out on the street and despite having hiked over ten kilometres, this last little walk home feels like another long trek and I take it slowly. Once I’m home I discover I can now only take stairs one at a time with the knee getting very cross if I attempt to walk down them in the usual way.

I’m really going to be hurting in the morning. Once more, Guildford has delivered.

Day 422

Wednesday March 1

A very quick reply from yesterday’s audition from Katie.

Hello Mark,

I hope you’re well. Thank you for attending our audition yesterday, it was great to meet you both and we really enjoyed your performance. We don’t think you’re quite right for the Ferries, however should something suitable for you come in, we will be in touch.

And my reply.

Hi Katie

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. Thanks for your thoughts and we’re glad we entertained you and, likewise, very happy to meet you. Your reply is pretty much the best we we could have expected and we’re happy to now be in your thoughts for other future engagements. We have to agree we’re not quite ready for the ferries with the backing track requirements but it was great to have a go with it for the first time and we could see you liked our ‘can do’ attitude to that. A side note. We ordered the drum pedal the day after I spoke to you on the phone about it and it came the day before the audition so we really were on the fly with it. Not to say having had it much sooner would have made any difference. I think something like that takes a little more time to integrate into a performance and especially to make slick over a whole night but it’s great we’re started with the concept now thanks to you.

As we get used to using the drum tracks and, more, the looper for which we already have ideas, we may well be suitable for the ferries in the future. But yes, as I said, this will take time and experience.

Again, thanks a lot for your reply and for your time yesterday and we’ll see how things develop both on your side and on ours. Good luck with the ferry recruitments and engagements. It was quite fun to meet a few of the auditionees and see the different perspectives from which people were coming.

Not long after that I get an email from one of the venues I’ve been relentlessly pesetering saying they love our music and asking what we normally charge. I immediately send them that information with thanks.

Day 423

Thursday March 2

Tonight’s rehearsal is an absolute revelation. Before it starts I make sure I have another good session with our new looper pedal. I did the same yesterday as Dan didn’t have it as he should have so I didn’t want to waste the opportunity. To help me I have the wonderful Steve Lawson’s looper course on SBL and I start to go through that and using his exercises to practice. As a result, by the time Dan arrives, I’m able to create semi decent percussion loops by using hits on the bass. And more often than not I manage to get everything in time. However, I’m discovering that as my foot has to hit the pedal to start the loop at the same time as my hand hits the bass, I’m having a tendency to hit that first note just that little bit harder than the others. So even when I create a perfect loop, the first beat is clearly the hardest. Not a disaster but something that will have to be smoothed out and which I’m sure will come with practice.

As soon as Dan arrives I tell him what I’ve been up to and show him how the thing works. I even take him through a couple of the exercises I learned earlier from Steve Lawson. He gets straight onto it and is like a kid at Christmas. He even says as much himself. The annoying thing is, it seems he needed none of my little tutorials, passed on or otherwise. For all me saying, ‘Now take your time, it’s far trickier and a lot more frustrating than it looks, yet strangely addictive,’ he hits a perfect loop first time. And second. And third. Yes I know Dan. Stop it. However, he still has a slight tendency, as I did, or do, of hitting that first note just a touch harder than the rest. We solve this temporarily by me taking charge of the pedal while he beats out a rhythm. Yep. First time absolutely perfect and not a hint of any note that shouldn’t be being any louder than the others. Oh that’s a fun little moment.

Once he’s had a bit of a jam with it and is really motoring, we start to set up rhythmic loops to play along with. It’s a seriously exciting start. It gets even more so when Dan has the inspired idea of trying this with a mic-ed up cajon. Unfortunately the cajon is round his so we aren’t going to get to try that out tonight, but yes. We think that will really work and we’ll get to it as soon as we can. Remember we tried that cajon player a while ago and it didn’t quite work out? Well if we can get this thing going like we think we can, who needs a cajon player anyway? Assuming we get the chance to practice it enough before then, we target our next gig at The Marquis on March 12 to try out this new concept live for the first time.

During all this I put a call into The Boston Arms to find out the time for our gig there on Saturday. It’s going to be at 11pm so I might make it for a pint or two after the first day of the London Bass Show afterall. If nothing else, if the guys in charge are amenable and let me go first, I might even be able to play the post Bass Show Saturday night jam.