We're having quite the time in our band just now, we finally feel we are rid of the troublesome pair that was our last guitarist and his wife. We thought we were rid of them after our last gig but they could not let things go. They were sending us e mails, phoning our bass player, they phones my home to cause trouble but Mrs 555 is not a woman you trifle with. She answered the phone and told Mrs Satan never to call our home again and to stop causing trouble. So far she has not made any further a
Our first gig was played, and we were not 100% happy with it, gremlins in the works the week before for me. As I said, I really went for it, but as I have reflected on it over the past week, I know I was way below the standard I should have been at on the night. I had too much stuff going on in my head - unemployment, a lousy job interview the day before, and other stuff. In truth, I did not feel personally ready to play live. But as I said before, we were well received by a welcoming audience.
It seems like a long time since I last wrote in my blog, yet lots has happened. For those of you who read my blog, you will recall that we were auditioning a new guitar player. Well, Robin is now well and truly embedded in the band and is taking on his share of the load. He's a Les Paul player at heart and his go to guitar is an RI that cost an arm and a leg, but I have managed to switch him on to Telecasters, which he uses on Honky Tonk Women. He's become a real member of the band and has a hug
Today was our final practice before our first gig. Thankfully the gig is a friendly environment for us, which is good. We got next weeks gig when we had only been together two weeks and only had eight songs in the bag. So, we have done our best to get as many songs as we can together. The gig will be good for us because we can treat it as a shakedown gig and see what reaction we will get. Our bass players brother got us the gig and actually invited us, we didn't go looking for it. The audience w
It's some months now since I left the band, Route 62. I was at the end of my rope with it all, the whinging of our other guitar player, no end of things and I'd just reached that point where I had had enough. I thought about it, and the positives of leaving outweighed everything else. I knew that once I said I was done, there was no turning back and I still left.
So, four and a half months on, where am I up to, and with the benefit of hindsight, did I do the right thing?
Well, I can an
For those of you kind enough to read my last blog entry you will recall that we had lost our other guitar player to another band, and that had come at a bad time, as we were all about ready to gig, just working on a final few song ideas to get up to the magic number of thirty songs in the set list. So, we have had to look hard and find another guitar player good enough to fit in. I had placed several ad's on websites and was getting little response when a guy from Doncaster (about fifteen miles
With over thirty gigs played now, we all have a nice share of the earnings. So far I have been able to d home improvements, buy two more guitars, and various bits and bats with the money I earned from playing.
Just now I am concentrating on buying what I need rather than what I want. As I want what I need, it's almost an oxymoron, but I would still rather buy a Gretsch or PRS than what I am currently buying. BUT.... sound reasoning is ruling the heart.
I have been wanting a monitor of m
Today our auditions came to a close for a further guitar player to compliment the line up. Earlier this week we organised today's sessions with three different guys coming at intervals of one hour and fifteen minutes so each one could have fifty minutes with us. Well, that was the intention. Earlier on this week I had an e mail from one guy who said he had gone down with a really nasty cold and was getting worse, he would let me know on Friday if he was able to come. I don't know if he was reall
As 2018 comes to a close, the band I play in, Route 62 has had two changes of personal and we are re establishing our selves on our playing circuit and we're happier than we've ever been. Our old guitar player's wife cost us all just short of £2000 but we are now 18 months rid of them both and we no longer hear anything from them. Robin has been playing guitar with us just over a year and has fittted in well, he uses three guitars on stage, a Les Paul RI, a Strat and a Tele. Our Drummer, Graham,
OK, the gig was played, the autopsy was performed and we have hunted high and low for would be singers. We have put ads on internet sites, in music shops, and asked around. We are auditioning for a singer!
One guy called us up, and wanted to come for an audition, but when we said that we would expect a singer to bring a pa with him to the band, he said he was going to buy his own mic and stand, Well, I suggested to him that when the rest of us have spent a lot of money on guitars, amps and d
Back to rehearsing after a couple of weeks break due to starting a new job and also having had a very bad case of bronchitis.
I wasn't really 100% fit for practice today because my chest was still weak, and I do a lot of the singing, but others are committed to the band and you have to keep this in mind. We now have 25 numbers in the set list and we are now starting to go through them one at a time, sharpening them up. There's nothing difficult about any of them for a half way decent player,
Life is full of surprises, and I love a book or a film with a twist in the tale. However, I don't always appreciate real life's twists.
Believing that all was well and that things really were heading in the right direction, I was ten minutes away from home on Wednesday evening when my phone rang in the car. As it is blue tooth and hands free, I could speak with no problems. Very unusually, it was Dave, our other guitar player. This was unusual because friendly fellow though he is, he never c
If you had asked me this time last year if the band would be playing again with the same line up I would definitely have said no because I was convinced it couldn't happen. Allen, the drummer, had decided that he was going to look for something else, and I couldn't blame him, he did it honourably and just said he felt things weren't going anywhere without a singer, and we agreed. So, we all shook hands and decided to give it a break. On top of that, Pete with the yellow telecaster went to his ho
After our first gig when we really fought the sound gremlins, we decided that we would devote our next practice to sorting out the problem of sound so that we are ready next time. So meeting up at our rehearsal venue, instead of our usual rehearsal positions facing the drummer and each other, we lined up and started playing as if we were on a stage, we even allowed ourselves only a small space to play from to replicate smaller stages.
How ironic though that on this day when we wanted to sort
Just an up date on the band and how things are progressing. One thing I did during the week was to buy myself a new mic lead. Thankfully that was all that was needed and not anther microphone. I like decent equipment and just right now I don't have a lot of spare cash for band equipment. We bought a 600 watt Peavy pa amp a few weeks back, that proved a good investment. It's old but good and kicks out the power nicely. A bit like a big V8 engine, gets you there nicely without putting your foot do
Since my last entry on my blog, the band, Route 62, has had two practices. Last week we added the final two songs to our set list for our forthcoming gig, and now we have the luxury of just polishing them up and bringing them to an acceptable level for public performance. As this is going to be our first gig, I am sure that we will be ok, but not as sharp as we are going to get through playing a few more live situations. The one pain in the neck though is almost having to re learn the earlier so
This entry tells of the week leading up to our first live gig and the gig itself.
Did you ever have one of those weeks where after you have practised, practised and practised till you got your parts right, had some great rehearsals, then for some reason, you seem to just not be able to get things right. Well, that is what exactly happened the final week before our first gig. The catalyst was that we started to practise as a band line up would be on stage, with some borrowed monitors which we
It seems like forever since I have made an entry in my blog about the story of my playing in a band, maybe all the lockdown had a lot to do with that.
After Lockdown, we started trying to gig again but the market for bands had really slowed down and many of the social clubs we were playing were no longer booking bands. Bars and pubs were booking less also, as they were building their trade up after Lockdown.
We were playing several gigs, but something was just not sitting right with m
Since my last entry, events just seem to have conspired against us. My dear friend and fellow guitarist in the band, Peter, is having tests because he thinks his cancer has come back. On top of that, he and his wife have gone off to their place in the south of France for an indefinite period of time, I think that he just needs to get some peace and quiet and get away from it all. I sincerely hope that he is ok, I have a huge amount of respect for Pete and I am sure that he has good reason for g
What a week it's been, the hottest week of the year so far, but when we get heat in England it can also get very muggy and can drain you and make you very tired.
Last Friday a friend I have known for thirty five years or so invited me to go and watch his band as they were playing in the local pub in our village. I was very pleased to meet another of my friends who was also at the gig. Pete, owner of the yellow telecaster had come back from his place in the south of France for a week or so a
Another four songs in the bag today, once again rehearsed to gigging standard. We practice every Saturday afternoon, meeting up at 12.30 and after setting up we work until 4pm. And in a good rehearsal session, it really is work, getting all the mistakes ironed out until it is right. Last week it was my fingers and brain which were not connecting, this week, Terry the drummer was having a difficult time by his standards. All I can say is that if that was a bad day, he must be incredible on a good
As we are back on our world tour of nowhere in particular, I I'm finding that running a band is often harder work than it needs to be. Thankfully though, I am now able to drive once more and can find my own way to and from gigs. Saturday night we were playing in Sheffield at a venue we play three times a year and go down very well at. Sheffield in one of Yorkshires largest cities, if not the largest. It is a city built on steel production and there are still some big foundries in the city. Howev
So, the story begins again. After trying so hard to get a band up and running a year or two back, and failing at the last hurdle of finding a singer, over a year on Shaun my bass playing buddy and I have decided to have a go again. Following a really good gig we went to last December to watch English Rockers "Status Quo" (American's might not know them, but they have sold 130million albums) we got motivated to play again.
The first step was putting ads out for fellow musicians, namely a drum
The weekly practices are happening and things are moving forward nicely. However, we found that our success and work ethic of the past few weeks was the result of a really good plan - we had the first fourteen songs pre selected so we knew exactly what we were doing. As the main lead player in the band, I could work on solo parts weeks in advance and be ready when they were needed at rehearsal. It was an excellent method and was working really well. Anticipating the arrival of the day when we wo
There is a saying that go's "While the cat's away, the mice will play".
Now I am not saying Mrs 555 is a cat, that would not be nice! But she and our youngest daughter went to Liverpool on Friday and got home at Midnight on Saturday, and I like having the house to myself! Friday night I watched what I wanted on TV and found that a Billy Joel concert from back in 87 in Moscow was being shown, and it was very good, so after that i climbed into bed and read for half an hour.
Normally on a S
