A little faith...

I played at the Soul Cellar last night. No biggies, I've played there a few times, it's a nice little cellar bar in Southampton.

When I arrived the place was dead apart from a few friends (4)of the guy that was playing at the time.

He was thrashing away, acoustic guitar and mic plugged into an amp, a Marshall I think.

There were about 3 other random chaps hanging about but they buggered off after a while.

Young Jack Martello played next. He played his usual set of covers and original songs.

The previous guy and his mates had pissed off by this time. Solidarity brother!

Around halfway through Jack's set the place started to fill up a bit. The reason being was that the drum and bass club upstairs was due to start and a few enthusiastic D&Bers had turned up early and wher taking advantage of the cheeper drinks downstairs before it all kicked off.

I was standing next to Mrs Nick and remarked that this would be a great opportunity to play Pure Acoustic ie no mic, no amp just me on stage singing with a guitar.

She, understandably, was unsure. "People won't be able to hear" she said. Looking round at the young crowd of around thirty, mainly male average age around 20  I thought she may have a point.

I've been toying with this theory that if you play Pure Acoustic, people will  talk quieter and some will even listen EVEN in a big noisy bar.

This theory was borne out last night. At first people didn't notice and probably wondered when I was going to start. Nevertheless they did clap when I had finished so at least they noticed thaty I had stopped.

When I cracked into my second tune, the ones that wanted to listen did and the overall sound level had dropped considerably. I was playing ballads and getting a great reaction and by the time I got to the end of my set the louder funky tunes went down a treat!

So, Pure Acoustica DOES work, people DO listen.

Last Saturday

Just posted a short vid of an audio clip and some still from my gig at The Soul Cellar in Southampton as part of the Angry Badger Showcase. Yes, I'm not too sure why they asked me but I'm glad they did!
Pucka stage, P.A. and some great lights care of Glynne.
I asked Joe the sound guy to experiment with the out front sound, hence the crazy reverb.
It was interesting how some songs don't work as well with a P.A.
"Glad you Came" was a bit odd. All that picky guitar doubled back on itself but I thought this version of "How Do You Sleep?" worked pretty well.
Eh?

Busy Busy Busy

That's what I've been, all through the summer. I had the six whole weeks off work and what a difference it made. I managed to catch up with all the contacts I wanted to catch up on and do (nearly) all the things I had been putting off until I "had the time and head-space". It did pay dividends!

I had a few things I needed to do. Firstly I wanted to record all my songs. I thought I had managed that but last night remembered two that I had forgotten about, so I'll put that right this weekend.! Halfway through that process I had an idea to record a live, studio LP and release it as a limited edition vinyl collectors item. So excited by it that i actually created a blog and have received an amazing amount of pre orders and a large donation by a guy I haven't even met! You can read all about it here thevinylproject.blogspot.com

I also organized the first Pure Acoustica residential gig at The Dolphin in St. Denys.
You can read about that here 
It was a great night. Join the group and you can keep an eye on what's going on with this little beauty. The next event at The Dolphin is on the 17th.
Tomorrow I'm playing in Alton from around tenish
I'm playing next Saturday, the 12th,  in Southampton city as part of this thing called "Music in the City" catchy eh? You can read all about it here it looks like a lot of fun.
And I'll be playing a grown up set on a stage with a pucka P.A. on the 26th upstairs at The Soul Cellar for Angry Badger Records 
What I haven't had time for is recording any new pod-casts which is a shame as I do enjoy them. I have some new ideas for some jingles buy I may give them to http://watchwithmothers.net/ saves them pinching them eh?
Meanwhile I'm going to be recording some new videos for my YouTube channel.
I may even record one using this, it's beautiful. Made form an old cigar box and a bit of 2x1!
Pip Pip

Now that's a plan!

After a weekend of beach, gardening and chopping wood, it's a new day and I'm working in my pj's.

Plan "C", recording all my songs see previous post, has now escalated into the most exciting idea I've ever had! That is, to record a live solo album and release it on vinyl. I've been in conversation with Angry Badger who have some very interesting ideas, so interesting that I won't mention them until certain "things" are in place.

As you can see above, the first of the regular Pure Acoustica events at The Dolphin is all loaded and ready to go. It's a dodgy time of the year to start something like this as so many people are on holiday but I know it will be a great night and the people playing are fantastic so it will be a great night. I made a Facebook event for this if you want a peek.

The windows sponsored free download thing has gone a bit crazy, read about it here. I only needed to get 100 downloads to get paid and so far 1330 people have downloaded How Can it Be Wrong, which is nice.

Heading down to the Soul Cellar tonight for the launch of Angry Badger's compilation cd that "How Can It Be Wrong" appears on. It's got some legs on it that song eh?

Looking at totally revamping my website www.nicktann.co.uk I would really appreciate your opinions good and bad on how it is now.

Charles Olsen, artist, musician and all round good guy, has just pimped my myspace page.

I think it looks very classy despite crashing Safari when I looked at it first thing, although I did have many many windows open.

I also get a mention in the local paper! Whatever next?

So today will be spent recording new tracks for Plan "C", publicizing the Pure Acoustica event, picking up Mrs Nick's dry cleaning, taking another door to be stripped and other sundries.