Talking heads gig

The build up to the gig at the talking heads happened fast. 
We just about finished the two new songs we needed but didn't get time to run through the rest of our set in the weeks leading up to the night.

Doing these sort of gigs means a long day. 
I picked our drummer Chris up at 3pm
We loaded the van at the lockup and was at the venue by 4pm.
By 5pm we had our back line on stage and started our sound check. 
One of the best things about headlining is we get to be a bit picky during sound check and can take our time to get things how we want them. 
For example I needed to hear the bass and other guitar clearly in order to know what's going on in the new songs. So we played a second song during the check just for me to get my mix right. 
By 5.40pm we were finished,  now we have nothing to do until we go on stage at 10.30pm.
Thats five hours in a venue,  with a bar. With nothing to do,  You can see the problem. 
More so I was driving that night so I was just sticking to energy drinks.

Backstage we had a room with a kitchen and strangely someone was using the washing machine. 
Yes there was a washing machine,  and it was being used. 
A lot of people think it's all partying backstage,  but in reality it's mostly doing laundry.

It was around this point in time that I realised I was suffering from something that don't normally get to me... Nerves.

Now I found a way to pass the time but it was not just time I was passing. 
I lost count how many times I ran off to the loo,  but daz didn't,  it was five apparently.

At around 8pm we popped down to the bar to watch the 1st support band,  they were young and so was they're fans.  In fact the other bar was full of parents chaperoning.  I was starting to feel old,  but the nerves was turning into excitement and we were itching to get on the stage.

Finally it was time for our set,  we had sold a lot of tickets and t-shirt and given away cds,  the venue was busy and it was time to do our thing.

The stage was hot that night and everyone was soaked with sweat,  everyone apart from me that is.  I was playing my usual position of stage right and as luck would have it,  I was stood next to the biggest industrial fan I have ever seen.  Much to the delight of my mates who are still laughing about the effects the fan had on my uncontrollable hair. 
We had a fantastic sound at the talking heads,  probably the best we have had. And the venue has a awesome lighting system too. 
We all left the stage that night happy with our performance. 
As usual  by the time we started to relax into it and enjoy ourselves it was all over. 
The house lights came up and we had a stage full of equipment to load into the van.

We spend 20 minutes chatting to new fans we acquired that night.  
Everyone seemed to be wearing one of our t-shirts.

Then it was back to work loading the van then on to the huge anti-climax of going home.

Personally this gig was one to remember. It has always been an ambition of mine to play 'the heads' and I felt we put on a great show.

Top 10 items to take to the gig.

Top 10 items you wish you took to the gig.

When you are packing your gig bag in preparation for the big night,  don't treat the packing the same way as a rehearsal.  For gigging you will need extra stuff.

Strings
No brainer really,  but I am always forgetting this one.  My frets are nice and warn down on my gigging guitars. So I seldom brake strings.
But it happens and it happens during the first song and not the last,  also if you have a Floyd rose trem it will really mess you up.

Guitar
If you can bring a spare great,  if not try to have at least one spare guitar between the members of the band.  When a string brakes do you really want to spend 10mins getting that Floyd rose trem balanced with 300 people giving you shit?

Tuner
This is a easy one,  most people have smart phones these days,  and tuner apps are free. Get one.
I've lost count how many times I've had to find a guitarist from another band to use his tuner when the sound guy panicking because sound check has gone over time.

Fuses
Fuses are the first thing to go when you knock your beer over the plug socket,  (happened 3 times to me so far)  don't rely on the venue having yearly PAC tests,  there is a lot of power on stage and a lot fuses stopping you from getting shocked.
Cheap extension leads are a usual culprit (just ask our singer Pete about his monitor)

Deodorant
It gets hot on stage,  very hot,  remember the reason you started playing guitar years ago,  yup girls.  Not all of them like the smell of sweat. And nor does your bass player stood next to you.

Spare leads
Patch leads and instrument leads brake all the damn time.
People trip over them,  stand on them,  tie them in knots and generally abuse your leads when your on and off the stage.

Tool kit
Make up a small tool kit for your gig bag.  Wire cutters,  pliers, alien keys, and screw drivers for adjusting pickups.
I also keep my spare fuses and picks in the guitarist toolkit.

Nail clippers
Ever tried to play guitar with long nails?  Ever forgot to cut them before a gig?
Leave a set in your gig bag next to your hairbrush.

Batteries
Another obvious one but one I am famous for.
You spent £800 on a great pedal board full of effects you rely on.  What's another quid.

Ducktape
Possibly the most important item in any guitarist's bag.
People tripping over leads,  bass drum moving off the rise,  that sheet behind you that your mum made with the band name on it? Singer still singing in the van on the way home?
Ducktape is your friend.

Cry of the innocent

There was three weeks until our headlining gig at the talking heads.
We had about 40 minutes of original songs that we wrote but an hour gig slot to fill. We could pack it out with some covers but that would be to easy,  and we don't want to play covers,  that's what cover bands do. 

Pete our singer turns up for rehearsals with a acoustic guitar,  with a quick "what do you guys think of this song I'm been working on"  he began to play.
Immediately our ears pricked up. 
The genius was in the simplicity and the vocals gave me goose bumps.
Pete was really onto something with this song.  We all could tell.  It felt so powerful even with just an acoustic and vocals,  and catchy as hell.
He shows us the chords and we all started playing it.
Something also happened inside daz. 
Our bass player played this riff that drove the whole song and added even more to a great track.
By the end of the night we had pretty much finished the song. It fell together that quick.
Sometimes songwriting can take ages,  sometimes everything just works.
This was one of those times where it felt like we could do no wrong.
I'm sure when we show the world  for the first time (or at least a few people)  at the talking heads later this week it will go down well. 

When it brakes, it brakes on stage

When something is going to fail with your equipment,  it will never happen at home or in the practice studio. It will happen while the drummer is going "a-one-two-three-four" in front of a half drunk crowd of long hair.
Within the first three gigs I done with spytfyre,  exactly that happened not once but twice.
The trick is to be ready for it and to expect it. 

My second gig with spytfyre at the railway is a classic example.

I set my rig up,  tested it all and done sound check.
When it was our turn to go on stage,  I made sure I had sound by given the distortion channel a quick stab.  The dirty channel was to stay on for the first two songs.
All was well until a clean section in my arch nemesis 'one night in april'
I have less then a second to turn off my tubescreamer and effects loop,  kick in the clean channel and fret a Em chord.  All went well until I hit the first note and realised I was still distorted.
Thinking on my feet,  I rolled off the volume pot which acts more like a gain control and came in 4 bars late.  Lucky for us our drummer Chris is always on the ball and it went unnoticed by the audience. 

I spend every spare second over the next 3 songs trying to work out why my amp won't switch over,  for some reason the effects loop switched and that's on the same pedal,  the stage was stupidly dark with 4 bands worth of equipment and wires everywhere.  I spend the time between songs with my head down the back of my amp.
I made it through the next few tracks by manually changing the channel on the face of my amp with my hand. 
Just as Chris was counting in our last song I noticed the extension wire that plugs into the pedal was very slightly pulled out.  It turns out the guitarist from the band before us must have stepped on it in the dark and it wasn't connected properly.
Adding to this,  when  I did select the clean channel,  it had no power and sounded very thin and weak.
I later found out one of my preamp tubes gave out as well that night!

This sort of thing is the norm of gigging not a freaky one off thing.

The following gig was at the joiners and we were going on first on a bill with four bands.
We had our sound check last,  had a few minutes for more beer then on stage to start off our set with pentacle.
Right from the start I couldn't hear Paul the other guitarist,  so I signalled to the sound guy for more of Paul in my monitor .  He pushed it all up but it was not much better.  Its pretty typical when so many bands are on the bill that you can't hear much on stage so I got on with it best I could.
When looking down the stage to Paul he was frantically signalling to the engineer too.  So much so I had to check we were not playing 'YMCA' 

After the first song the engineer approached the stage and fiddled with wires.  Paul had a terrible sound that didn't cut through the mix and no one could work out why.  It was fine a few minutes ago in sound check.
We made it through the gig,  with Paul constantly pulling wires and knobs but it didn't improve.
After we finished Paul noticed the speaker cab was set to the wrong ohms instead of a matching 16 ohms it was on 8.
We have no idea how this got to be like this.  Someone must have knocked it by accident or it just sounded worse after his tubes warmed up. 

But when things go wrong,  it Will happen live.

First gig

The weeks leading up to the first gig with spytfyre was the usual mixture of nerves,  self doubt and excitement.
I had a one-on-one practice with Paul the other guitarist,  which helped with my nerves and ironed out a few things I was not sure of.
Two of the songs I had to learn had no demo,  so the only time I could hear them or practice them was in the live setting of the rehearsal studio.
A few hours with Paul helped me work out my parts and got me up to speed.
The only thing that I was worried about was the clean part in 'one night in april' at that point I have not got it right once in practice!

Its been way too long since I got on stage with a band,  busking at the jam session was one thing,  but now I had musicians that were relying on me.
We got to the gig early,  we were second on the bill.
We got sound check out the way and headed off into winchester for a kebab,  which is now a bit of a custom.
I didn't tell many people about this gig,  as it was my first one with the band and I was already putting enough pressure on myself without my boys taking the piss.
As I stepped up to the stage an old mate that I taught guitar to appeared at my side,  it was a relief to see a friendly face. 
The gig went well,  we only had a 30 mins slot so before I knew it,  it was all over.  All I remember is feeling euphoric and loving every minute of it.
It has been way to long since I last played with a band. I remembered why performing music is the most addictive drug in the world.
I even managed to blag 'one night in april'  so it didn't sound like I came in late for once. At that point it had weird timing that we have now fixed.
As I left the stage another mate and his wife appeared out of the crowd. That made my night.  Its one thing doing good a great gig,  but it's all that much better if there is people I know in the audience.
I guess we went down well,  as we were asked back a few weeks later.

There is a review of the gig on our bands website here.

Band Auditions

I was not sure what was meant by 'come jam with us'  when asked along to play with spytfyre for the first time. I thought of it as an audition. So I studied the CD they gave me,  as there is nothing worse than trying to blag my way through songs that the rest of the band knew inside out.
The other guitarist Paul phoned me to let me know they turn down to D standard, a whole tone lower than my guitars were used to.
The new JS100 would have to be shelved for this jam as I just paid out for a full setup,  so I dusted off my old weapon of rock my Ibanez RG570,  ripped off the hybrid skinny top /heavy bottom strings I used and replaced with a set of 10s, Added another spring to the Floyd rose trem and finally got her in tune.
I left work early so I could arrive on time to the rehearsal studios,  borrowed the wife's car so I could take my full rig. As I've been out the game for a few years I stupidly bought myself a very guitar unfriendly 2 seater car.
Within 10 minutes of meeting the guys in the band I felt at home.  They made me feel very welcome and I totally loved playing their songs with them.  I felt instantly relaxed.
After we finished they asked me if I wanted to come back the following week and if I could make a gig the following month,  when they are playing the railway inn in Winchester.
Of course I jumped at it.
I don't remember ever being asked to join the band, 
That was five months and six gigs ago.
So I guess I got in.

Finding spytfyre

To me not being in a band,  feels a bit like being single. I don't feel complete,  it feels like something is missing the whole time and it drives me crazy.
I need to be in a band much the same way I need to eat.
A wise old guitarist called Bruce Roberts once said to me,  "nipper,  I wish I could retire but I just love performing so much it's never going to happen. And those bloody organisers know that, which is why I get paid peanuts"

I was out the music game for a few years after I got married,  but soon I felt it calling me,  I felt a void in my life that could only be filled with music.
An old friend phoned me up to ask if I could run a jam session for her in my local boozer.  I jumped at the chance as it got me out playing again,  and I met some great people starting off their music career's. Which drove me to start up my site Guitarlickstudio.  But it didn't fully scratch the itch. I wanted to write,  and gig.  I missed the excitement and it was destroying me slowly.

A guy at work was in an originals band,  he said they were considering taking on another guitarist.  I loved their music,  the sort of band I would go and see. So I dropped a few hints and waited.
I think it was about six months later,  out of the blue, he invited me into his office to listen to a new demo CD they put together. It was very catchy, melodic rock,  one of the tracks called pentacle felt like prog metal. Then on the other end of the scale was cold road.  A clean,  finger picked balled.  I loved all the tracks instantly.  Then he asked me if I would like to come jam with them. Of course I jumped at the chance.
And that was how I first met the fantastic bunch of guys collectively known as spytfyre.

Obligatory 'Hi'

Hey and welcome to my blog!

I felt the need to give the personal touch to my website Guitar Lick Studio.
I have a twitter feed on the site,  but sometimes 140 characters just don't cut it.
I considered a few things but at the end of the day you can't beat a good old blog.  Which is exactly what I hope this will become.
So far there is very little space for feedback on the main site. So I choose a popular blogging platform to enable people to easily ask questions and get involved.
Now i'm no writer, but I have loads of experience playing in different bands. My website is me sharing with you my knowledge of the guitar and hopefully help out guys new to the instrument. 
But I started this blog to share my experiences of working as a gigging guitarist, to share the pitfalls, the excitement, the fun and the stress of being in a gigging originals band.
And I hope you will take away something from my experiences that might help.