Gigs all over the place and recording at Pete's

Hey all, it's been a manic few weeks down here in the sunny South West with a lot of music going on. As is customary in the life of a self employed musician things can come and go in waves and this was one hell of a wave.

Jag Harps at Thekla

It began at the end of May doing an issue launch for Vice magazine aboard the Thekla up in Bristol. The Jag Harps were a studio based band first and foremost but our debut live performance outside in the real world went without a hitch and kicked the rest of the night off preparing for Breton's big performance.

Freshly on the road again

Then the funk machine Freshly Squeezed had lined up 11 gigs during the following week. We were on the road a whole load playing everywhere from Salcombe and Plymouth right up to Glastonbury and Birmighham. We were kept busy with student unions, clubs and a wedding too. Not bad for a week's work!

Real World Studios

Lastly the Jag Harps managed to swing some time in Real World Studios at the weekend. Set in awesome surroundings outside Bath, RW is Peter Gabriel's brainchild and we were lucky enough to get to play in it. The sheer amount of gear to gawp at meant we started a little later than planned, but have laid downs some live studio recordings and shot some video too. I'm waiting to hear back from Graham and the engineer to see what we came up with.  If it sounds as ace as it felt then we're in for a treat.

Oh, and I'll be taking on group teaching clarinet in primary schools at the beginning of the new term which will be good experience.If all goes well I'll be looking to do a lot more of that in the future.

That's all for now!

Dan.

Quantum Ironing

When you're running massively behind for a gig and you're all together in the band bus, the conversation tends to start falling apart quicker than the schedule for the festival you've just messed up.

Today's mental wanderings have tuned to ways to speed up 3 tonnes of vehicle and we've decided that grabbing the fabric of space time and pulling us along might just about do it. This of course means we'd be leaving huge crumples in time behind us making 2011 much longer, leaving 2012 with a few less weeks and generally messing history up for all of us.

Thusly to repair the damage we'd need to construct a quantum Corby trouser press to flatten things out again. What do you think? Quantum ironing sounds plausible to me. Then again I'm sleep deprived. It's probably best to leave this where it is.

Recording For Seahawks

Over the past two days I've been laying down some sweet horn sounds for the Seahawks once again. We've lived amongst a nest of cables and vintage gear putting together some crazy sounds.

Bringing flute and the whole hog of saxes in on this bad boy has been great and working with hot musos laying down Rhodes, sitar, guitar and percussion is most entertaining. Can't wait to hear the final mix.

There's talk of taking this very studio based group out on the road with their agent promising gigs up North. The fun's going to be translating it into a live ensemble.

Album to follow!

Cheers,

D