After succesfully writing together for the first time with our song Strong Enough Aaron and I have been working hard on developing our writing partnership. In the last couple of months we've collaborated on a whole bunch of new songs and at the same time I've snuck out a couple of new compositions! Goodness knows where I find the time. Here's a little lowdown on what's in the pipeline:
Blue and White - by Aaron and I... this is a song about lunar module pilot Michael Collins, who travelled with Buzz Aldrin and Neal Armstrong on the first lunar mission that lead to a landing, Apollo 11. Collins had to stay in the ship and orbit the moon while the others went exploring, out there in space he must have been the most alone any human being has ever been!
Almost Home - by Aaron and I... this is an odd lyric, in some ways it is quite ambiguous but I see it as releated to Stowaways and End Of The World, in that we see a relationship strained by apocolyptic circumstances.
Chasing Hearts - by Aaron and I... about a guy who sees the girl he likes being persued by predatory sex addict men. A bit of a reflection on the clubs and party scene we used to frequent more often I would say.
Take It As It Come - by Aaron and I... a ballad about sticking your course through tough time and making the best of it, no matter what life throws at you.
Body In The Boot - one of mine... this is a weird lyric again, it's a sort of story. There's a guy and his girl has left him by faking her own death/kidnapping and then years later he sees her alive. The twist is that he's been pretending to himself she's been alive all this time anyway... but this is ambiguously put, he's 'kept her alive' - so her memory, perhaps, but how is not discussed. A while back I was toying with 'Skeletons in the closet' as an album title, and this would fit that very well. We sense our narrator is psychotic himself - the faked death plays on a real obsession I have with people who come up with extreme solutions to every day problems. (I was watching horrible bodies last night and some woman had started giving herself daily enemas with coffee to deal with her constipation and then had become addicted to the coffee enemas; people are strange.)
The Poison Apple - another of mine... I wrote this song about Alan Turing, who was a code-breaker for Britain during the second world war and is thought to be the theoretical father of modern computing. Turing as gay and after the war he was prosecuted for indecent conducted and forced into a chemical castration which destroyed his body (he grew breasts, his penis and testicles shrivlled up) and his brilliant mind. Turing had an obsession with Snow White and used to chant the withes mantra about dipping the apple in the brew. When he eventually committed suicide he did so with an apple he had dipped in cyanide.
Tuesday, 6 March 2012
March 3rd Private Party
On March 3rd we played a Private Party for my Mum's birthday. My Mum runs ACT (the drama school) so they used the Kemptown building to host the show. It was the first time my brother and I had been playing on the same bill but not in the same band since we were really young teenagers learning the ropes in a much less vibrant Brighton scene than the one we have currently.
We asked Ben to leave the band last year just before deciding we would call ourselves Fragile Creatures - we felt his drumming style was a little too busy for what we were trying to create - I don't really want to go into it, cos it's hard to discuss without sounding like I'm slagging him off! Ben is an excellent drummer, we just had to make a decision that he wasn't working out with the group when we went into this intense period of defining ourselves last year.
Ben now drums in a great group called Eliza Jaye and The Tarts, who won the coin toss and headlined the party. It was a lovely evening and in the end we were glad to go on first as we'd been given free access to the bar, so it would have been a much sloppier set if we'd played any later!
we played:
1. Stowaways
2. Sunshine
3. Fragile Creatures
4. End Of The World (For Two)
5. Slow Down
6. This Strange Dance
7. She Makes Me Nervous
8. The Chemicals
9. Strong Enough
10. Into The Night
We also played Hold The Line (by Toto) after an encore was called for. I borrowed a lovely silk kimono from the schools costume cupboard to wear onstage and was allowed to keep it at the end! It felt good having a bit of a wizardy cloakness to flap about in. An old friend of my Mums told me she had a nice kimono I could have too, if I popped in to visit her shop. This might be my new stage 'look'!!!
We asked Ben to leave the band last year just before deciding we would call ourselves Fragile Creatures - we felt his drumming style was a little too busy for what we were trying to create - I don't really want to go into it, cos it's hard to discuss without sounding like I'm slagging him off! Ben is an excellent drummer, we just had to make a decision that he wasn't working out with the group when we went into this intense period of defining ourselves last year.
Ben now drums in a great group called Eliza Jaye and The Tarts, who won the coin toss and headlined the party. It was a lovely evening and in the end we were glad to go on first as we'd been given free access to the bar, so it would have been a much sloppier set if we'd played any later!
we played:
1. Stowaways
2. Sunshine
3. Fragile Creatures
4. End Of The World (For Two)
5. Slow Down
6. This Strange Dance
7. She Makes Me Nervous
8. The Chemicals
9. Strong Enough
10. Into The Night
We also played Hold The Line (by Toto) after an encore was called for. I borrowed a lovely silk kimono from the schools costume cupboard to wear onstage and was allowed to keep it at the end! It felt good having a bit of a wizardy cloakness to flap about in. An old friend of my Mums told me she had a nice kimono I could have too, if I popped in to visit her shop. This might be my new stage 'look'!!!
Feb 16th Show!
We really enjoyed playing The Pavilion Theatre on Thursday February 16th. We'd never played on such a big stage before and it was probably the biggest crowd we'd played to, despite going on early at 8pm. The organisers were very enthusiastic about out set and said they woulkd love to have us back further up the bill and hopefully they will programme us into some shows they are doing in The Dome bar during the Brighton Festival.
Here's our set:
1. Stowaways
2. Fragile Creatures
3. End Of The World (For Two)
4. This Strange Dance [shorter arrangement]
5. She Makes Me Nervous
6. The Chemicals
7. Into The Night
8. Strong Enough
Here's our set:
1. Stowaways
2. Fragile Creatures
3. End Of The World (For Two)
4. This Strange Dance [shorter arrangement]
5. She Makes Me Nervous
6. The Chemicals
7. Into The Night
8. Strong Enough
5th Feb show...
The show at The Duke of Wellington on the 5th of Feb - Sun afternoon - went really well. We got lots of good feedback form the locals and it has been decided we should play there on Saturday nights in future! Result. I wasn't able to play as much of an acoustic set as I had initiall planned. As best as I can remember this is the set that we playted:
Set 1: my introductory acoustic set:
1. Blueprint
2. Wake Up Tired
3. Willin' (by Little Feat)
4. I Won't Tell If You Won't
Set 2: first band set
1. Stowaways
2. All You Believe In
3. Bird in a Cage
4. Sunshine
5. Just A Fool
6. Slow Down
7. Dear Michael
8. Down In The Basement
9. Empty Head
Set 3: final set
1. Virtually
2. Fragile Creatures
3. End Of The World (For Two)
4. The Chemicals
5. This Strange Dance
6. She Makes Me Nervous
7. Into The Night
8. Hold The Line (by Toto)
9. Strong Enough
Set 1: my introductory acoustic set:
1. Blueprint
2. Wake Up Tired
3. Willin' (by Little Feat)
4. I Won't Tell If You Won't
Set 2: first band set
1. Stowaways
2. All You Believe In
3. Bird in a Cage
4. Sunshine
5. Just A Fool
6. Slow Down
7. Dear Michael
8. Down In The Basement
9. Empty Head
Set 3: final set
1. Virtually
2. Fragile Creatures
3. End Of The World (For Two)
4. The Chemicals
5. This Strange Dance
6. She Makes Me Nervous
7. Into The Night
8. Hold The Line (by Toto)
9. Strong Enough
Wednesday, 1 February 2012
A long gig and a big gig:
Hello,
Just thought I'd mention some forthcoming stuff while I am here as well as the retrospective I just wrote up. Fragile Creatures are playing two shows in February, both of which we're really looking forward to.
This Sunday coming (February 5th) we're playing an early evening show in Shoreham at The Duke Of Wellington [368 Brighton Road, BN43 6RE Shoreham-by-Sea, United Kingdom]. As some folks will already know Fragile Creatures started last year when we decided to retire -ahem- 'Adam Kidd Band' and refocus. At the time we started working on a large batch of newer material, which has made up most of the sets we've been played in the handfull of shows we've done since becoming Fragile Creatures. This meant our drummer James, the latest addition to the band, hadn't played a lot of that older stuff. This has now mostly been rectified and our Shoreham show will be our chance to play most of everything we've got!! Here's a list of the songs we played in our last rehearsal:
1. Fragile Creatures
2. End Of The World (For Two)
3. Stowaways
4. The Chemicals
5. This Strange Dance
6. She Makes Me Nervous
7. Strong Enough
8. Dear Michael
9. Into The Night
10. Virtually
11. Down In The Basement
12. All You Believe In
13. Bird In A Cage
14. Sunshine
15. Just A Fool
16. Slow Down
17. Empty Head
18. Hold The Line (Yes, our famous Toto cover!)
We'll be starting the gig at around 4pm and breaking the material down into two 9 song sets. I've also been working on a list of cover version and other songs I might play for some acoustic interludes... here's a rough list of what I've worked on for that:
'Going To Acapulco' - Bob Dylan and The Band
'Watching The Detectives' - Elvis Costello
'Good Vibrations' - The Beach Boys (although I'll need some vocal help on this)
'Willin'' - Little Feat
'Day In The Life' - The Beatles
'The First Day Of My Life' - Bright Eyes
'Time's A Wastin'' - June Carter & Carl Smith (if I can convince my girlfriend to join me for a duet)
and some originals like Blueprint, I Won't Tell If You Won't, A Message (if we need a sad moment) and new song Stand Up And Be Counted; although I probably won't play all of these tracks!
Later on in February we're palying at the the Pavilion Theatre in Brighton on Thursday 16th! For this show we'll be supporting the excellent Foxes! who are celebrating the launch of their debut album. Tickets are a surprisingly (for the Pavilion Theatre) cheap £4 and it's quite an early show too. Doors are at 7:30pm (accompanied by a singer-songwriter in the downstairs bar) then we're on at 8pm followed by a band called Jetglo and then Foxes!
Here's an event page from facebook in case you are into that sort of thing:
https://www.facebook.com/events/328275107203744/
Toodle pip!
Just thought I'd mention some forthcoming stuff while I am here as well as the retrospective I just wrote up. Fragile Creatures are playing two shows in February, both of which we're really looking forward to.
This Sunday coming (February 5th) we're playing an early evening show in Shoreham at The Duke Of Wellington [368 Brighton Road, BN43 6RE Shoreham-by-Sea, United Kingdom]. As some folks will already know Fragile Creatures started last year when we decided to retire -ahem- 'Adam Kidd Band' and refocus. At the time we started working on a large batch of newer material, which has made up most of the sets we've been played in the handfull of shows we've done since becoming Fragile Creatures. This meant our drummer James, the latest addition to the band, hadn't played a lot of that older stuff. This has now mostly been rectified and our Shoreham show will be our chance to play most of everything we've got!! Here's a list of the songs we played in our last rehearsal:
1. Fragile Creatures
2. End Of The World (For Two)
3. Stowaways
4. The Chemicals
5. This Strange Dance
6. She Makes Me Nervous
7. Strong Enough
8. Dear Michael
9. Into The Night
10. Virtually
11. Down In The Basement
12. All You Believe In
13. Bird In A Cage
14. Sunshine
15. Just A Fool
16. Slow Down
17. Empty Head
18. Hold The Line (Yes, our famous Toto cover!)
We'll be starting the gig at around 4pm and breaking the material down into two 9 song sets. I've also been working on a list of cover version and other songs I might play for some acoustic interludes... here's a rough list of what I've worked on for that:
'Going To Acapulco' - Bob Dylan and The Band
'Watching The Detectives' - Elvis Costello
'Good Vibrations' - The Beach Boys (although I'll need some vocal help on this)
'Willin'' - Little Feat
'Day In The Life' - The Beatles
'The First Day Of My Life' - Bright Eyes
'Time's A Wastin'' - June Carter & Carl Smith (if I can convince my girlfriend to join me for a duet)
and some originals like Blueprint, I Won't Tell If You Won't, A Message (if we need a sad moment) and new song Stand Up And Be Counted; although I probably won't play all of these tracks!
Later on in February we're palying at the the Pavilion Theatre in Brighton on Thursday 16th! For this show we'll be supporting the excellent Foxes! who are celebrating the launch of their debut album. Tickets are a surprisingly (for the Pavilion Theatre) cheap £4 and it's quite an early show too. Doors are at 7:30pm (accompanied by a singer-songwriter in the downstairs bar) then we're on at 8pm followed by a band called Jetglo and then Foxes!
Here's an event page from facebook in case you are into that sort of thing:
https://www.facebook.com/events/328275107203744/
Toodle pip!
Things that happened in January...
Hi folks,
I failed to keep a recording diary in December - I clearly overlooked the amount of time and effort recording would take and at the end of each night I just wanted sleep! Recording the way I'd always dreamed of was more nerve-wracking than expected. Everyone had to be perfect at the same time for a take to be useable! After the honeymoon period of the first two days setting up and sound-checking (whilst getting quite drunk) we settled into the hard work and I'm sure it was four solid days before we were perfectly happy with a performance of a song!
Still, we were only aiming to get enough material for a short EP as a debut release and that has gone as well as we could have hoped. We've been doing lots of over-dub and vocal sessions throughout January (as much as we could fit in without having to quit our jobs) and later on this evening I'm heading back in to Metway Studios to do some final tidying up before we send the tracks off to be mixed next week. We've been to hell and back but I'm starting to feel really pleased with what we did.
You can see some photographs from the sessions on our facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/fragilecreaturesuk
We've also performed two live shows in Janauary. The first was for The Bleeding Hearts Club on January 9th at The Albert. We got a bit of a mention in this blog:
http://brightonmusicblog.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/bleeding-hearts-club/
This write up had a bit of a mixed reception in Fragile Creatures camp. I, however, fondly recall dancing to Prefab Sprout's 'The King of Rock'n'Roll' and Simple Minds' 'Don't You Forget About Me' in many an 80's club night, so I can't be offended by the comparison! I really enjoyed 'The Men Who Fell To Earth' who also played, who seem to be a new band born from the ashes of The Hornblower Brothers. Our set was:
1. Fragile Creatures
2. Dear Michael
3. Stowaways
4. End Of The World (For Two)
5. She Makes Me Nervous
6. Strong Enough
On Monday evening (30th of Jan) we played another show, this time at The Latest Music Bar (which many still affectionately call the Jooglebury). We were a bit confused about stagetimes and thought we would be on somewhere in the mniddle of a large bill, but, probably as we were the only band with a full drum kit and all the trimmings, we ended up going on last and quite late! I won't mention everyone we played with but KATE (who we performed with at one of our water-testing acoustic shows last year) were excellent, great songs, refreshing instrumentation and lovely harmonies... personally my favourite of the set was their first song. All We Are were an interesting proposition, a three piece with the main vocalist playing stood up playing half a drum kit, lovely sounds and some memorable songs, but I wasn't to keen on their slowed down version of Chris Isaac's 'Wicked Games'. Our set here was:
1. Fragile Creatures
2. Stowaways
3. End Of The World (For Two)
4. This Strange Dance
5. She Makes Me Nervous
6. Strong Enough
7. Into The Night
The audio from the event was streamed live by 4thepeoplemedia, with over 300 people logging in globally to check it out (large clutches in New York State and Eastern Europe apparently). There were also some photos and video shot on the night, so maybe we'll see some of that emerge.
Over and out,
Adam
I failed to keep a recording diary in December - I clearly overlooked the amount of time and effort recording would take and at the end of each night I just wanted sleep! Recording the way I'd always dreamed of was more nerve-wracking than expected. Everyone had to be perfect at the same time for a take to be useable! After the honeymoon period of the first two days setting up and sound-checking (whilst getting quite drunk) we settled into the hard work and I'm sure it was four solid days before we were perfectly happy with a performance of a song!
Still, we were only aiming to get enough material for a short EP as a debut release and that has gone as well as we could have hoped. We've been doing lots of over-dub and vocal sessions throughout January (as much as we could fit in without having to quit our jobs) and later on this evening I'm heading back in to Metway Studios to do some final tidying up before we send the tracks off to be mixed next week. We've been to hell and back but I'm starting to feel really pleased with what we did.
You can see some photographs from the sessions on our facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/fragilecreaturesuk
We've also performed two live shows in Janauary. The first was for The Bleeding Hearts Club on January 9th at The Albert. We got a bit of a mention in this blog:
http://brightonmusicblog.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/bleeding-hearts-club/
This write up had a bit of a mixed reception in Fragile Creatures camp. I, however, fondly recall dancing to Prefab Sprout's 'The King of Rock'n'Roll' and Simple Minds' 'Don't You Forget About Me' in many an 80's club night, so I can't be offended by the comparison! I really enjoyed 'The Men Who Fell To Earth' who also played, who seem to be a new band born from the ashes of The Hornblower Brothers. Our set was:
1. Fragile Creatures
2. Dear Michael
3. Stowaways
4. End Of The World (For Two)
5. She Makes Me Nervous
6. Strong Enough
On Monday evening (30th of Jan) we played another show, this time at The Latest Music Bar (which many still affectionately call the Jooglebury). We were a bit confused about stagetimes and thought we would be on somewhere in the mniddle of a large bill, but, probably as we were the only band with a full drum kit and all the trimmings, we ended up going on last and quite late! I won't mention everyone we played with but KATE (who we performed with at one of our water-testing acoustic shows last year) were excellent, great songs, refreshing instrumentation and lovely harmonies... personally my favourite of the set was their first song. All We Are were an interesting proposition, a three piece with the main vocalist playing stood up playing half a drum kit, lovely sounds and some memorable songs, but I wasn't to keen on their slowed down version of Chris Isaac's 'Wicked Games'. Our set here was:
1. Fragile Creatures
2. Stowaways
3. End Of The World (For Two)
4. This Strange Dance
5. She Makes Me Nervous
6. Strong Enough
7. Into The Night
The audio from the event was streamed live by 4thepeoplemedia, with over 300 people logging in globally to check it out (large clutches in New York State and Eastern Europe apparently). There were also some photos and video shot on the night, so maybe we'll see some of that emerge.
Over and out,
Adam
Wednesday, 14 December 2011
Thought I'd start a new blog...
The band are going into Metway studio on Friday for a whole week of recording with trusty engineer Matthew Twaites. I'm rather excited by the prospect so I've decided to start a new blog, working on the perhaps vain assumption that I'll make some sort of studio diary of the week!
We've been rehearsing a lot since finding our latest recruit, drummer James Crump. We had already been doing some exploratory recording in the summer at Metway and were very greatful to get to work with Toby May (Clearklake) on drums for those sessions. Since Crump's been aboard though the songs have really started to come into their own, so the plan is to do what I have always wanted to do for recording sessions - play it live!
The live approach has obvious potential pitfalls - you have to get it absolutely right as, especially if all your insturments and amplifiers are in the room together, as there will be 'spill' from one mic to the next. For example two overhead mics on the drum kit are bound to pick up traces of the guitars and bass so when you mix the finished track you can't completely re-write and re-record any of the instruments as they will still have bled through onto the other tracks. We can minimise this with 'baffle' (sound absorbent materials) but there will inevitably be traces - so here's hoping we can all nail the tracks at the same time!
Having said that we will be doing vocals and probably a fair few keyboard overdubs when we go to finish these recording in France in the new year. More on that as it happens.
For those as fond of lists as me here is a list of the songs we have rehearsed ready for Friday:
1. Strong Enough
2. Fragile Creatures
3. The Chemicals
4. Stowaways
5. End Of The World (For Two)
6. This Strange Dance
7. Dear Michael
8. She Makes Me Nervous
9. Into The Night
10. Drink The Cup
Fingers crossed it will all go swimmingly, for me and Aaron have started working on the follow up already (after getting the hang of co-writing with Strong Enough) - roll on Friday!
Adam
We've been rehearsing a lot since finding our latest recruit, drummer James Crump. We had already been doing some exploratory recording in the summer at Metway and were very greatful to get to work with Toby May (Clearklake) on drums for those sessions. Since Crump's been aboard though the songs have really started to come into their own, so the plan is to do what I have always wanted to do for recording sessions - play it live!
The live approach has obvious potential pitfalls - you have to get it absolutely right as, especially if all your insturments and amplifiers are in the room together, as there will be 'spill' from one mic to the next. For example two overhead mics on the drum kit are bound to pick up traces of the guitars and bass so when you mix the finished track you can't completely re-write and re-record any of the instruments as they will still have bled through onto the other tracks. We can minimise this with 'baffle' (sound absorbent materials) but there will inevitably be traces - so here's hoping we can all nail the tracks at the same time!
Having said that we will be doing vocals and probably a fair few keyboard overdubs when we go to finish these recording in France in the new year. More on that as it happens.
For those as fond of lists as me here is a list of the songs we have rehearsed ready for Friday:
1. Strong Enough
2. Fragile Creatures
3. The Chemicals
4. Stowaways
5. End Of The World (For Two)
6. This Strange Dance
7. Dear Michael
8. She Makes Me Nervous
9. Into The Night
10. Drink The Cup
Fingers crossed it will all go swimmingly, for me and Aaron have started working on the follow up already (after getting the hang of co-writing with Strong Enough) - roll on Friday!
Adam
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