Witton Park Gig

We played a gig at Witton Park, Blackburn on Sunday, setting up in our usual spot in the courtyard which was set out with straw bales for the audience to sit. Quite a number turned up. It was a nice day (until later - see below) and we ran out of straw bales but thankfully not out of songs!

There was a lot going on besides us. There was some chap dressed up in a duck outfit collecting entries for a duck race. I couldn't resist the temptation and called to him over the mic - "Collect a bit for charity, there's a duck..."!

Throughout the morning and into the afternoon it was so sunny I couldn't read the LCD display on the keyboard which led to this rather unfortunate necessity...

From lunchtime, though, we kept hearing thunder rumbling in the far distance, although it remained warm and sunny through the afternoon. Then as we were considering calling it a day and just as we were halfway through the last chorus huge raindrops started to fall. We finished, yelled "Thank you, goodbye!" and yanked plugs from sockets and dragged the equipment into the shelter of the ex-stable that we use as a base.

Almost immediately the Heavens opened and thunder, lightning and hailstones the size of marrowfats were bouncing all over the place.

A great day with none of the usual requests for "just one more", as the audience dived for cover too!

Have I Told You Yamaha Are Great?

Well in all honesty I have spent a fair few hours on it today but I've found how to do so much stuff it's been a joy!

I can now play all the pre-recorded song backings without bass for when Bob's with us and I've worked out how to split the keyboard to play two lead sounds (which I do on Fields of Athenry) and how to move the split point so I could fit in the required bass note, and I've also spent some time just playing different styles of music and loving the sounds that come from it.

Ahhhhh.... The only thing I've not done yet is work out how to record some new backings but I'm sure it won't be a problem. I've only looked at the manual twice and found what I wanted straight away!

Wonder if I can take it to London with me... Hmmm...perhaps not!

Keyboard Replacement

After the unfortunate refusal of my keyboard to play all of the notes it should the other week, I've decided to have an early Christmas present!

It was looking extremely like a duff printed circuit board. The Korg keyboard was not exactly intuitive to use and I'd found it very hard to get to grips with.

The new one is another Yamaha and whilst it's totally different than the old one in terms of controls, at least it's easy to find your way around.

I've managed to get it to play all the backings we use in the band. The only thing I haven't found yet and suspect I may not(!) is how to turn off the bass for when Bob is with us. It may well have such a feature for music recorded on it but there seems to be no way of taking it off the pre-recorded midi files I recorded on the PSR 630. There was a separate control file that had a switch in it for that and the new keyboard doesn't recognise the control file. Could be a lot of work for me!

But the progress I made in just one afternoon was excellent and a heck of a relief after struggling with the Korg.

Birthday Booking in Freckleton

We had a bit of help from some enthusiastic singers last night as David and I performed at a 40th birthday party in Freckleton.

An interesting gig - the SatNav took us down some narrow country roads to get there and then once we were playing the keyboard decided not to let me use several keys - which meant we had to rely on the pre-recorded keyboard sounds whilst I played guitar almost exclusively during the night.

I now need to find a spot with at least a fortnight free to get it repaired and am wondering whether to make my Christmas present this year a somewhat emergency purchase! The Korg doesn't like the files from the Yamaha so will have to plump for another Yamaha.

Whichever way I go, it will mean learning a whole new set of procedures for recording and style setting.

A Winter's Tale

Yes I know it's only September!

That's the title of the second Christmas song we are doing for the Billy Fury web site this December.

A Winter's Tale was a hit for David Essex in the days when he had hair on his shoulders. Well... so did I! None on my head, but there was some on my shoulders...

I've used the Korg keyboard on this one and it will be our first track using the Korg rather than the Yamaha. Very orchestral and quite different to our normal stuff. Moya! Have you got your Billy alerts tuned in? It will be BILLYant!!!

Bye Bye Cassettes!

Ah, what memories these conjure up for a generation of people who wooed their partners with a well chosen selection of songs on a personal cassette!

The news has just announced that cassettes are no longer to be made. This is probably good news for the countryside, as one thing about cassettes I don't miss is the miles and miles of cassette tape wrapped around hedgerows and flapping in the breeze!

The band's music has been recorded and mixed on computer but in the 1990s I bought two identical hi-fi cassette decks so that I could record on one, play it back and record on the other, building up tracks (and background noise). Many units had two decks anyway but normally you could only record on one and it invariably ran at a slightly different speed than the other!

No such problems for me as I put the album together. Yes, I know it's taking a while but I'm still doing bits every now and then, honest!

It struck me the other week that the Yamaha keyboard is 9 years old and I won't be able to replace it easily if (when?) it dies. So I've been recording onto the PC all the backing tracks I've recorded on the keyboard so that hopefully I could think of a way of coverting them to a more modern keyboard if needs be. At the very least we could use them on mini-disk or CD for a gig or two. But that's not necessary yet!

You can see us next weekend at Witton Park, Blackburn - Sunday 13 May in the courtyard from 11:30am to 4:00pm. Come and say hello!