Busy Times

in #music5 years ago

Well it's been a busy few weeks. This is the first post in a while....

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Between Xmas, New Years and covering for some musicians who are on holidays at the moment I've been happily gigging these last few weeks.

Unfortunately I haven't been switched on enough to deal with taking my recorder or camera to the gigs these days. Now that I have the studio, it's been like musical chairs with where to leave the basses between home, studio or venue.

Been a number of events with the gypsy jazz guys. 1 for a Xmas event and another for a new mall opening up. We were playing outside with a freezing wind. 1 or 2 degrees or something like that. Could only manage 2 songs before all feeling was lost in the fingers. Then we'd go in and warm our hands and go back out again and play 2 more. Don't think it was too good for the bass also…. I'll have to think twice before accepting these kinds of outside gigs again.

I was also lucky enough for the past few weeks to have three steady nights at a club called Shake while the house bass player is away. Fri and sat are with a full seven piece band: singer, guitar, bass, drums, keys and 2 horn players. It's popular music, but with great musicians so always a lot of fun. The bass amp is burned out though so I couldn't really get much volume which probably didn't leave a good impression with the other musicians... but anyway, it all seemed to go reasonably well. I just cranked everything up to the max!

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What else was there... there were a few jam sessions at the wooden box. One night we had a pleasant surprise with this amazing drummer came in (forgot his name). He's currently at the Shanghai Lincoln Center and has been checking out different clubs in Shanghai. Anyway it was amazing! Just to jam a little with someone on that level..... it's just a great experience. I wish more of the Lincoln Center bands would come out to some of the jams. Because when you play with someone on that level, you see how it should be, and then you have a better picture of what to aim for.

I should really go and watch the bands that play there more often. It's just that the ticket prices are usually pretty expensive...

New Years Eve seemed to be the busiest day of the year for all the musicians in Shanghai. I had been booked for Shake relatively early, and lucky enough I managed to find another gig that finished before 10pm not to far away, so I could do both. There were other offers going around too, and everyone seemed to be working.

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Shake was packed, people dancing right up against the band. There's no stage there so often drunk people casually walk through band members and equipment. My wife Leeyan came too, which is rare. But she likes pop music so these are her preferred musical performances.

So 2019... a new year, new ideas, and hopefully some of these new ideas about using the studio to record and as an internet live venue will come to fruition.

I’ve also found a friend who wants to share the studio space. It seems like a perfect match as he works a full time job during the day, and I'm usually busy on the weekends so our times of use don’t collide so it’s perfect! Also he is a drummer and therefore has a drum kit! He also has a few things that I needed like a PA system and some other bits and pieces. He’s pretty easy going so I think it’s going to work out fine.

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