blog off.

As if!

2010-08-04T08:46:00.000-07:00

AS IF
Hello again! Hope you're all having a fantastic summer and making the most of the 'sun' here in the UK. For those reading who are in Spain (Carly Ryder) or places with similar climates, I am green with envy. The following paragraphs will be me telling you all that's been happening since the last blog. Hurray!
So the album launch was on the 12th July and has been and gone. What an evening! The room was packed out, we managed to put out a nice buffet spread, hopefully it was enough for everyone! The Glitter Girls gave out their glitter tattoos, we sold over 70 copies of the album on the night and sold out in the next few days! As if! A massive thank you to Carly Ryder and the Polar Rays who were support acts for the evening. Both played two fantastic sets and I'd recommend their music to anyone!
www.myspace.com/carlymusix
www.myspace.com/polarrays
The next step is looking to get the album reviewed and pushed as much as possible!

www.emmamcgann.com is near enough ready to go live! The geek in me finds it unbelievably cool that I now own my own personal internet space. Just a few tweaks here and there to take care of. A big thank you to Alex Kaye for all his hard work on getting the site ready and looking great! Can't wait to get it out there!

I joined Liz Kershaw for her Sunday Morning talk show at BBC Coventry and Warwickshire a Sunday or two ago to have a chat about my influences, music degree and upcoming gigs. It was my first live radio interview so you can imagine my nerves... especially as it was a morning show and I'd nowhere near woken up properly. I'd been in Alton that weekend for a short getaway weekend with the besties so me and James had to rush back on the motorway but we got there in time thankfully! Liz played two tracks from my biggest influences, Suzanne Vega and Imogen Heap and also played some tracks from the album. So thank you Liz!

As for upcoming gigs we have a few full band performances lined up, one of which being at the Warwick Arts Centre on 27th November where I'll be playing alongside the lovely Carly Ryder once again! All upcoming gigs are listed on the music Studyvox at www.myspace.com/xemmxacousticx and very shortly will be available from www.emmamcgann.com !

Aside from music I've been making the most of spending as much time with the besties before they venture back to Uni on different sides of the country/in completely different countries! We had a weekend away in Alton filled with BBQ's, trekking, clock-stealing (don't ask) and the pub... of course.

We've decided to start planning the first music video! I won't reveal just yet which single from the album it'll be, but we're hoping to get it all done before early September time! I can however reveal that there won't be any of Beyonce's single ladies dancing in leotards, crazy telephone wigs worn by Lady Gaga or mountains of half naked people with Kylie stood on top... unfortunately! On a serious note though, we may need to recruit some extras so will post details on the website once everything is planned!

The new flat is proving to be home sweet home. We've settled in now with nothing more to unpack. We've a bunch of xbox games to get through and a mini studio set-up to record any ideas I have for new material. (Very handy for someone with a memory like mine!) The parents and friends have also approved the new crib, checked for sharp edges, christened carpet with drink spillages, invited themselves around for pizza nights etc. so it's feeling more like home everyday.

I've become a full on tweeter. I understand the wonderful world of Twitter a lot more now and am tweeting whenever possible! I've found that it's such a good tool for promotion and have been tweeted by Kylie (omg!) and retweeted by Big Brother twitter @bigbrobot ?! Hoping to get more followers once emmamcgann.com goes live? Follow me @emmamcgann :)

And with that, I leave you with a first episode from a friend - paranormal detective, www.Flint Angel.com

It's almost here!

2010-06-20T07:00:00.001-07:00

A lot's been happening since Febuarys

events! It's feeling more like summer

every day as I finished my first year of

Uni two weeks ago, that and the sun is

shining for once! So far the course has

been really enjoyable, looking forward

to second year and composing for film!

And building my own instrument!

After all their hard work James and Alex

put on Barbershop the Musical and it

went down unbelievably well! The two shows

were both well organised and the audience

were loving it! You can have a listen to

their tracks here - www.myspace.com/barbershopthemusical

They now have plans to get trained in silver

service and become singing waiters and perform

'Barbershop-o-grams'!

Apart from all this it's been all go with

The Undercovers. More and more gigs seem

to be coming in which is always good.

Everyone wants a piece of us it seems! We

played in front of over 1000 people last

night in Minehead at Butlins which was

fantastic! One of the best gigs ever!

One kid even tried to climb on stage!

We also played at the Ricoh Casino a few

weeks back that went down just as well!

Have had a few comments from people about

playing in a covers band. Some negative

but mostly positive. A few have regarded

it as selling out but I don't see it that

way at all! It's all still full steam ahead

with my original stuff :)

I'm still up to my eyes in all my own music with the album due July

12th! Very exciting stuff! Also holding an

album launch at the Phoenix on that night

with Carly Ryder and Polar Rays as support.

Should be amazing! The album will be available

on the night for £7 and from then on will

also be available on Amazon and iTunes.

Then we're shipping it off to Kylie & friends!

It's been hard work getting everything together

for the album but it's almost finally

finished! No more long nights in the studio for

a while! Well... not for me anyway. Poor James

will be in there with lots of different bands

recording EP's, albums, radio jingles and what

not. Hopefully next year I'll have a smaller

scale album with more acoustic tracks on as well.

But we'll see how we get on though eh? :)

After looking at the songs individually, it helped

me to organise them into an order that worked for

the album. Photoshoots were fun too, I owe a

certain Mr Pete Lord a million favours for all

his time, ideas and fabulous photography.

www.emmamcgann.com is almost ready to go! Big

thanks to Al Kaye for all his hard work and mega

brains to get everything working for the website!

Do keep a look out for any video updates/gigs/news/

pics/press!

The still as of yet un named Emma McGann band

were labelled Band of the Month in June for

BBC Coventry & Warwickshire Introducing...

We popped into the studio for a chat with the

lovely Martin Winch who also aired new track

'Little Hearts' on the show too. (Which is also

now on the myspace!)

Me and James are moving into the new flat this weekend!

I've never been so excited! A few weeks ago we

bought a new 32' HD TV and an Xbos elite. If we're

gonna get a new flat then new toys are most

definitely needed! Moving day won't be all that hard either

as it's only 2 doors away and on the ground floor!

Songbird is still a running success and is every

Monday at the Phoenix from 8:30pm onwards if any

of you should fancy popping down to watch or play!

I think that's it for now! Lots more gigs to update

on throughout the rest of the year! When I get a

chance to write another blog! Hope y'all are well!

Em x

2010 then

2010-06-20T06:05:00.000-07:00

2010 then

wRITTEN THURSDAY, 18 FEBRUARY 2010

So far the new year’s not been too shabby at all! Songbird’s now in its second year, I’ve dropped all other acoustic nights for the moment as it’s just too much work with uni as well! The course is going fab! Despite being one of the only girls on the course, the atmosphere’s brilliant - and it’s nice to know that whenever I fancy a tinker on the ol’ grand piano I can just pop round the corner and play away to my hearts content :)

We went on the hippy van holiday last year before Christmas and had no regrets despite snow, no 2nd gear and dodgy electrics! The petrol was waaaaayyy too expensive for us to go anywhere like the Lake District, so we ended up parking at a caravan club in Moreton-On-Marsh. I’ve never felt cooler… rolling in alongside these massive remote controlled caravan winnebago machines driven by people three times our age. And then there’s us in our teeny weeny tiny yellow tin can VW. Kept ourselves occupied though, took two guitars, a pack of cards and plenty of hot choc.

This year’s Covfest is on April 10th at various venues around Coventry. I’m running the acoustic stage at Esquire’s Coffee House while Justine’s running the stage at the Tin Angel. It’s a bummer that I’ll be missing the acts playing over at the Tin on the same day… but quite looking forward to watching the Ripps and the Austin Francis Connection at Taylor John’s on the Sunday! Check them out on myspace if you haven’t already, time well spent.

Have a new band up and running which is in centre focus at the mo! We only got together for rehearsals just before Christmas so it’s still early days, but it’s sounding top! We all love our pop so we’ve decided to stick to that genre and work with each other on some new material. We’re all working together really well and have some gigs in the pipeline so things are looking sweet!

As for writing I’ve found that I’ve wrote heaps of new songs… but I never seem to finish them! Talking of heaps… me and James went to Manchester to see Imogen Heap the other week and blimey! What a gig! We were quite near the front so we got a close up of all the little props and trinkets she brings on stage with her. She had this transparent piano frame with fur interior sitting beneath odds, ends, cymbals and gongs that were hanging from a massive tree which stood centre stage. It was all very visual! She was even hooked up to tiny microphones that were stuck to her wrists to pick up the jingles and jangles of all these obscure instruments she leaped around the stage with! That performance in Manchester was the first of the Ellipse tour, and perform she did! She’s almost like a comedian in a way too… she kept herself calm and pokerfaced through any blips the equipment made throughout the show. And somehow, even when Pro Tools crashed as soon as she came onto the stage she managed to make a joke of it, she communicated with the crowd really well. Dead professional, dead good… everything I expected and more from the grammy award winning Immie :)

So the writings going farely well… just need to join up the dots at the end and actually start finishing off lyrics! But there’s some newbies that I’m eager to get done in the studio - ‘written in stone’, ‘speak for yourself’, ‘is it cuz’ and ‘so long’ being a few. Jezebel should be up on the Myspace by the end of this month too… as well as soon Youtube video action!

Roll on Summer 2010

Interview from Summer 2009

2010-04-09T12:45:00.001-07:00

Courtesy of www.itsallaboutcoventry.co.uk

I should be so lucky...

2010-03-09T16:48:00.000-08:00

The last two weeks have certainly been more eventful than expected! Just over two weeks ago I received some great news from the team at studyvox.co.uk - I’d been shortlisted for the StudyvoxFM Music Award Prize and had won! This meant I was to accept the award and perform to none other than Aussie pop songstress Kylie Minogue five days down the line on Thursday 25th! I should be so lucky right? (no pun intended), but it was true! Seeing as we would be performing to Kylie we thought we’d go all out and do it properly, so me and James gathered the troops and formed a full band over the five days we had left to rehearse... enter ‘Barbershop the Musical’ writer Alex Hart on drums and Rich Overton on bass/beehive noises.

So anyway we crammed in some rehearsals in between work and uni until we had to travel to Oxford on Thursday. Me and James drove down on the Wednesday to the teensy tiny village of East Hendred in Oxford to meet the team and the four other student winners who had won bursaries of up to £10,000! We could not have been more looked after by the guys at Studyvox who greeted us, showed us around the headquarters and booked us in for a night in a lush B’n’B just a little way down the road!

So Thursday morning came and went, we flew through a quick sound check around midday and then prepared the stage for the event a few hours ahead.
Can’t resist putting a good word in for the chef of the buffet too, who did a small buffet at the local pub the night before – my eyes were a lot bigger than my stomach that day!

Once Kylie arrived, we were told she wanted to meet the band personally before the event, which I could not have been more excited/nervous about! I needn’t have been so nervous though, she was lovely! Killer heels too...
A few snapshots later we were back in the main room behind a load of paps waiting for Kylie to perform her speech and award the bursaries. After being called onto the stage for the Music Award I stood on stage with Kylie who handed over this glass trophy reading ‘StudyVoxFm Music Award Presented to Emma McGann by Kylie Minogue 25.02.2010’ How freakin’ cool is that?! First thing I’ve ever won in my life if you don’t include pitchers of beer won at the odd pub quiz... So after being blinded by camera flashes left right and center, I stumbled through my speech and managed a graceful exit off stage. Following this came well deserving winners Jess Gurr, Hayley Roberts, Fern Tomlinson and Vicky Stringer, all giving fantastic speeches.
So the next job was to get all the kit on stage ready to perform, which went smoother than expected thankfully! We flew into the set with ‘Fall into Me’ and ‘Start the Show’ to which Kylie came out to view the performance. Half of me thought right, must be professional and not screw up with the lyrics or break a string... the other half of me thinking... O M freakin’ G! Kylie Minogue is a few feet away dancing around to one of my songs! Surreal is not even the word!
I’d encourage any student to have a browse on the Studyvox website and explore what they have to offer. It’s inspiring that it’s an entirely student focused foundation, aiming to ease all the financial stress students are to face after graduation. Not only that but Studyvox also provides an online radio station for students to upload their music and material for broadcast on the internet. What better way to showcase student talent, be you a comedian/artist/band etc. than through StudyVoxFM radio? With such a foundation fighting for our team, I’m glad I’m now a part of it. So get yourselves to www.studyvox.co.uk and join up!
Massive congrats to the four winners of the bursary awards and a
huge thankyou again to Kev, Sara and the rest of the team at Studyvox for their hospitality and for giving us a day down in Oxford we’ll never forget.

2010 then

2010-02-18T08:18:00.000-08:00

So far the new year's not been too shabby at all! Songbird's now in its second year, I've dropped all other acoustic nights for the moment as it's just too much work with uni as well! The course is going fab! Despite being one of the only girls on the course, the atmosphere's brilliant - and it's nice to know that whenever I fancy a tinker on the ol' grand piano I can just pop round the corner and play away to my hearts content :)

We went on the hippy van holiday last year before Christmas and had no regrets despite snow, no 2nd gear and dodgy electrics! The petrol was waaaaayyy too expensive for us to go anywhere like the Lake District, so we ended up parking at a caravan club in Moreton-On-Marsh. I've never felt cooler... rolling in alongside these massive remote controlled caravan winnebago machines driven by people three times our age. And then there's us in our teeny weeny tiny yellow tin can VW. Kept ourselves occupied though, took two guitars, a pack of cards and plenty of hot choc.

This year's Covfest is on April 10th at various venues around Coventry. I'm running the acoustic stage at Esquire's Coffee House while Justine's running the stage at the Tin Angel. It's a bummer that I'll be missing the acts playing over at the Tin on the same day... but quite looking forward to watching the Ripps and the Austin Francis Connection at Taylor John's on the Sunday! Check them out on myspace if you haven't already, time well spent.

Have a new band up and running which is in centre focus at the mo! We only got together for rehearsals just before Christmas so it's still early days, but it's sounding top! We all love our pop so we've decided to stick to that genre and work with each other on some new material. We're all working together really well and have some gigs in the pipeline so things are looking sweet!

As for writing I've found that I've wrote heaps of new songs... but I never seem to finish them! Talking of heaps... me and James went to Manchester to see Imogen Heap the other week and blimey! What a gig! We were quite near the front so we got a close up of all the little props and trinkets she brings on stage with her. She had this transparent piano frame with fur interior sitting beneath odds, ends, cymbals and gongs that were hanging from a massive tree which stood centre stage. It was all very visual! She was even hooked up to tiny microphones that were stuck to her wrists to pick up the jingles and jangles of all these obscure instruments she leaped around the stage with! That performance in Manchester was the first of the Ellipse tour, and perform she did! She's almost like a comedian in a way too... she kept herself calm and pokerfaced through any blips the equipment made throughout the show. And somehow, even when Pro Tools crashed as soon as she came onto the stage she managed to make a joke of it, she communicated with the crowd really well. Dead professional, dead good... everything I expected and more from the grammy award winning Immie :)

So the writings going farely well... just need to join up the dots at the end and actually start finishing off lyrics! But there's some newbies that I'm eager to get done in the studio - 'written in stone', 'speak for yourself', 'is it cuz' and 'so long' being a few. Jezebel should be up on the Myspace by the end of this month too... as well as soon Youtube video action!

Roll on Summer 2010

I thought she told you she can't dance?

2009-10-17T13:54:00.000-07:00

Going over what I'd written in the last post I've realised it's actually a good idea to keep a blog for myself otherwise I'd most likely have forgotten half the things that I've been up to!
It's now October and I've started at Cov Uni doing Music Composition & Performance, it's only two weeks in and I'm loving every second! I can imagine it'll get more challenging as the year goes on but I really can't wait to get stuck in and start playing with new people!

As for the acoustic night at Eden Bar, alas it is no more. It had it's good weeks and bad weeks and we had some great acts down but after having a slight disagreement in regards to payment and promotion etc. I thought it best to knock it on the head and take Tuesday nights off! It's such a pleasant little venue and it's got a lot of potential but I reckon the location just puts people off.

However, I have started another night down Rosie Malone's. I'll be honest and say that so far the locals in there haven't been as responsive and I'd have hoped, but I think there's a lot of leeway for it to progress and get better. For one it's the official pre-club for the Kasbah which draws in a lot of students anyway. In the meantime James is usually busy downstairs at Rosie's twiddling, pulling and pushing certain buttons to make the bands sound ace. Does a good job of it too.

As for the album/EP, things are certainly looking up! We've been recording new material recently and still have dates in the future for the studio to lay even more tracks down so that's definitely something to look forward to. We've recently finished a track called 'Start the Show' which will be on the myspace pretty soon. Currently working on a new song called 'Jezebel' and 'Wasting Time'. After that I reckon the EP will be near enough ready! I've been looking into sponsorship for the album from different companies, one being Sailor Jerry's rum. I sent them a dinky little box filled with little totes and delights and a letter enquiring about sponsorship and to my surprise they were really responsive! They even sent me some free Sailor Jerry t-shirts, playing cards, stickers and a bottle of rum! Was a lovely little package to wake up to! As for sponsorship they'll be in touch as they haven't set up anything in the UK for supporting unsigned acts like they have in the US but they said they'd let me know :)

Me and James have booked a camper van holiday for the 7th December. We'll be bloody frozenbut I'll be damned if I'm gonna pay as steep as it costs during the summer! I thought about looking up some venues to play round the south of England while we're away but I reckon a weeks break from the music side of things is definitely needed!

The Godiva Festival has come and gone (it seems like light years ago that it was summer) It was a lovely weekend, with constant sun and some interesting music. I was running a small acoustic stage myself in the mini-market which was good fun. Playing on a different stage whilst Newton Faulkner was on another proved difficult to keep a crowd though! Got terribly sunburnt too!

I was asked to run the open mic night at the Tin Angel throughout October which has been really enjoyable so far. It's a lovely place to host anything musical. We've even had a few poets share their work too.

Me and Katie organised another Bank Holiday Lovin' at the Campbell. It was pretty last minute that I was asked but we managed to raise a bit which was what really mattered. Not as much sun this time and no live bands but lots of acoustic delights downstairs in the corner that made the day :)

The Tuns is apparently re-opening which is something to look forward too! It'll be good to have somewhere else to go other than the Campbell again! Noth that there's nowhere else in Coventry, but I always liked the atmosphere in there. Gave you that warm fuzzy feeling.

As for the nights down Esquire's I passed them along to my friend Lee Evatt who was eager to start a night of his own. I usually work Saturday nights which doesn't give me a lot of leeway to get acts booked and organise/promote the night properly, but Lee's doing a darn good job so far.

We moved into the flat about 2 months ago now. It gets messy at times but it's nothing we can't all keep on top of! There seems to be a lot of instruments strewn about the place, guitars, tele's, bass's, banjo's, trumpets, bongos, violins etc. ... the neighbours love us.

Almost halloween, meaning a mass metal band night at the Campbell I reckon. The Monster Mash. with Finish Him and support from evenflowerskill and a zombie discotheque to follow. Sweet! Also planning some kind of Christmas Carol sesh for Songbird... not to sure where to start with that one but I'm sure we'll think of something!

Currently sat in Mum's flat as have locked myself out for the first time since moving there. Which has resulted in having to cancel a gig and an acoustic night. Goody.

Roll on Christmas 09.

Eden Acoustic

2009-06-11T07:36:00.000-07:00

On the 5th May I started doing another night down at Eden Bar on Ryley Street called the Eden Acoustic. It's going really well so far, more and more people seem to be coming each week which is a good sign considering the location of the place. It's a bit out of the way and most people I talk to are like, 'so where's that again?' - but it seems to have found itself on the map now. We had the Acapellafellas and the Oolites down on the launch night which was brilliant :)

It's proving a little hard to juggle shifts at the pub with the acoustic night and gigs of my own but I seem to be managing it somehow :)

Mr Jonny Nichold's, frontman from the Bellows has started a new night down Inspire every other Thursday called Jonny's Broken Mic. I've popped down a couple of times now and it's a brilliant atmosphere. No rules, just a nice crowd, open mic's and instruments and drinks. Oh, and a megaphone :)

I recently popped down to Brighton to visit Claire and have decided that I actually want to live there. If only I could! Everythings so quirky with little tucked away shops on cobbled streets leading down to the beach. I've heard the music scene down there's on it's feet so me and James are thinking of taking a week off to stay down there and write the album and do some gigs.

Godiva finals have just gone by too. It's such a shame that Reuben's Cane didn't get through, I reckon they deserved a slot. Although I think they'll definitely get bigger offers in the future. Newton Faulkner's playing Godiva this year so there's every reason to go down still... although they still have the drinking ban which is a load of crap.

I saw Andy McKee at Taylor John's on the 20th May too! I can't actually put into words how much I enjoyed that evening. The guy's unbelievable. When I heard he was coming to Coventry I HAD to get a ticket. I remember watching him for the first time on YouTube when I was like, 15 or something. It wasn't too busy either. It's a small venue but I preferred it as it was. We were all just sat on the floor watching him. The Tin and Taylor John's seem to share a same relaxed atmosphere.

Me and Katie organised a charity event at the Campbell on the 24th May called Bank Holiday Lovin'. Went down a treat :) It was for a charity that Katie works for called SoLo. We had a lot on that day. I put on loads of acoustic sets outside in the beer garden from 2pm. The BBQ was on the go, we had a raffle. Was a great day. And the weather was perfect! Not a spot of rain thankfully. We had Momma's in the Kitchen, the Shortlist & Marble Skyes play upstairs in the club later on at night too. We raised around £850 I think! Good times! Ever so glad it went so well.

Looking through my diary now I didn't realise how busy I've been!

It was my birthday on the 29th May too, was booked in to play the Tuns but unfortunately it shut down :( Was so bummed out when I heard. So instead we had lunch at Browns, viewed some art at the Degree Show and then got rather drunk at the Campbell :) Tha Saturday was the Godiva finals. Wasn't happy that Reubens Cane didn't get through but very glad the Satin Dolls did. They deserve it for sure.

I think I've covered everything! Got quite a few things lined up in the future to get ready for too.
'Fall Into Me' is being played tonight and on Saturday on BBC Coventry & Warwickshire Introducing which is pretty cool. It'll be on iTunes soon with some luck!

I'm running a couple of nights down at Esquire's Coffee House called 'Spotlight' in June and July aswell. Fingers crossed it goes down all right. :)

I've just started revising properly for my Music Theory Exam which is next week. I'm not too worried about it, although I probably should have revised more a bit earlier! Still looking forward to starting Music Compostion in September too! :) I'm moving out into a flat with James and Rich in early July which will be really ideal as it's literally on the uni's doorstep... as well as the Campbell's! Not sure how I feel about living with two guys though. They've mentioned naked Sundays which is worrying. Don't believe I'll be participating in that!

Think that's all for now ya know. :) Signing out.

Covfest 3

2009-04-09T09:33:00.000-07:00

On April 4th Covfest took place at Dogma & Escape Bar in Coventry, an event to raise funds for two local charities - the Alexandra Emery Fund and the Coventry Telegraph Snowball Appeal.
Over £4000 was raised which was great to hear! It was a great event to be a part of - I hosted the first few hours over at the Acoustic stage at Dogma until it was time to play my set which went well too! James and Dave played with me and they make things sound ten times better. Since these guys have been playing with me there's been a bigger and better reaction to the set so I'm very lucky to know such talented lovelies :) We communicate well and enjoy playing together so fingers crossed for a possible electric set later on in 2009 maybe?!
Myself, Rich, Han, Patrick & Claire helped out on the door as well, handing out wrist bands,
selling CD's and bucketing the dosh and what not. After finishing my set we all hung around to enjoy the rest of the acts. Especially enjoyed the Satin Dolls set as always, and Reubens Cane. I can't remember most of the other acts as I believe I took advantage of the free drinks.

Thank you as always to Chris Johnson for the photographs and thank you to Annie, Justine and to all who made Covfest happen. It's great that the local music community, as small as it is, can raise that much money and make such a difference. NICE ONE ;)

A quick update

2009-03-23T06:23:00.000-07:00

Okie doke. So it's Monday the 23rd March, and tonight will be the tenth Songbird Acoustic since starting the night in January. It's also my best friends birthday, so Happy 19th Sin! The acoustic night is going so much better than I thought it would be at this point. It's pretty much busy every week and on it's toes. www.myspace.com/songbirdatthephoenix

I have a gig this Saturday in the city centre at Shelton Square for Oxjam which I'm really excited about! Face-paints, raising money and local music - I can't wait! I've got gigs lined up throughout the year until July aswell so things are pretty busy.

I recently got back into the studio with James and a few other friends a couple of weeks ago. We recorded 'Fall into Me' and it sounded so much better once we got the bass, drums and other things down. So thanks to Dave, Jonny, Dan, James, Alex & Matt for sticking around that night to get things done. It'll be on the myspace soon hopefully! www.myspace.com/xemmaxacousticx

I'm starting Music Composition at Cov uni in September so I've really gotta start getting down to learning some theory for this exam in June. A couple of good friends have offered to help me out and give me some tutoring which is a great thing to have. Everyone I speak to about the composition course has given great feedback about it. So it's sounding like it's definitely for me, instead of Graphic Design!

I had another idea for the acoustic night a couple of months ago. I thought about filming the acts as they play and giving them a small interview afterwards so they can promote themselves on Youtube and I can promote the night at the same time. It's called Songbird TV and the first episode can be seen on Youtube and on the Songbird myspace. I can't watch it myself as I can't stand to see myself being filmed! But it was a good idea and me and a few friends ran with it and it turned out really well. Thanks to Mark and Rich for the filming.

I'm going to see Andy McKee on the 20th May!!!!!! He's playing at Taylor John's! I couldn't believe it when I heard. I first saw his videos on Youtube about two years ago. Who'da thought that two years later he'd pop up in Coventry?

April 4th will be Covfest. SO excited about it! There's so many great acts playing, both acoustic and full bands. It's taking place at Dogma and Escape throughout the day. It's for the Snowball Appeal so it'll be great to get as many people as possible down there.

I ran the night at the Squirrel a couple of weeks back. It was good to use a full PA instead of the small mixer I have at the pub! The girl that usually runs it was ill and asked me to take over for the night so I jumped at the chance. It's all good experience I guess.

So there's the quick update about what's been happening in the new year. More to come later on!

2008 gigs and other shindigs

2008-12-18T13:51:00.000-08:00

This is the first online blog I've ever wrote... ever, ever, ever. I've never really had anything to blog about to be honest - some people manage to find something to blog about almost everyday by the looks of it... these people obviously have a lot of time on their hands I guess? I've just always seen it as a chore but I think I've found something to natter on and on about and that's about all the gigs I've been doing his year.

Played my last featured gig of the year on Tuesday in Birmingham at the Yardbird, this lovely little jazz cafe near the art gallery (we found it eventually... in the rain!) Once I noticed this was my last gig of the year I thought a blog about the places I've played and the people I've met so far on the local music scene justifies a reason to write and publish a blog.

So it started out in June 08. Myself, Hannah Banana and Lorenzo made a trip to the Campbell for the weekly strawberry cider Friday after doing some photography exhibition work (my first ever strawberry cider friday as I'd only just turned 18) So after cider and food we toddled up the road to the Hope and Anchor - I thought the Satin Dolls were playing but it turned out they were playing elsewhere and instead there was an acoustic night on. After me being reluctant and eventually giving in and Lauren knowing I play and write my own stuff she went over and asked the girl running it if I could jump on the mic, turned out she was all booked up but asked me to come to her new acoustic night at the Earlsdon Cottage.

After I met Kristy at the H&A it kind of went on from there. I asked my good friend Caroline Kelly to sing for me at the Cottage the first time we went up there. We were working on some country stuff in between lessons in 6th form so it felt great to perform what we'd been working on ourselves. After I played there once I'd do my best to get down to the Cottage most Thursdays. Dead atmospheric, playing in front of this mega grande piano. The Cottage had only recently just been done out so it got popular really quickly, and people would be really appreciative and listen to you play. I remember being stupidly excited when I was asked to do a featured artist slot. Wouldn't shut up about it. Went all out and bought a new dress and even played Kate Nash on my pink ukulele :)

Back at 6th form my art teacher found out I'd just recently started playing and asked me if I fancied playing at an acoustic night at the Tin Angel on Spon Street, this dinky little studenty cafe. The Tin is a right little intimate place, lovely people and again, really atmospheric... and about the size of your living room :)

So after playing a few nights at the Cottage and meeting new people each time, I started getting asked to play here there and everywhere. I met the lovely Dave and Brenda and played at The General Wolfe, the Albany, the Campbell - ya know, small, pleasant acoustic nights around Coventry. Really enjoyable and good to hear other peoples music.

Come September Kristy started hosting a new night down at the Tuns in the city centre - and now it's pretty much THE place to be on a Friday night - compared to the Cottage the Tuns turned out to be way better, with cheaper drinks and a much more laid back atmosphere with candle-lit tables and a bigger stage budded with orange fairy lights - lovely stuff, and perfect for an acoustic wind down on a Friday - so I always take the usual crowd down for a nice relaxing evening nowadays (before drinking too much rum at the Campbell afterwards :)

I pretty much tried to make it to the majority of the acoustic nights that were on throughout the weeks of September. The Campbell with Paul Ryan on a Monday, the General Wolfe with Dave and Brenda on a Tuesday, the Acoustic Escape with Justine on a Wednesday and KG presents at the Tuns with Kristy on a Friday. I'd just started uni in September as well so I was trying to work my music around my uni projects but I could never really find the time to write until I eventually found myself writing more stuff than usual and eventually losing interest in my uni work for graphics. I'd just started working at the Campbell too so I was busy all the freakin' time. I was way more focused on my music and got a good response from the recordings I'd done with a friend in the Herbert Art Gallery. So after attempting to transfer from graphics to music composition but not being able to, I temporarily withdrew and now plan to start music composition next Spetember instead. A year out will do me good anyhow, and I love working at the pub. There, I think I've justified me dropping out now :) If I had to pick two of the best things that has happened to me this year it would be getting a job at the Campbell and starting to promote my music locally and stuff. Met some awesome people.

Recently from October through to now I was offered to play gigs outside of Coventry and in bigger places like the Kasbah (aka. the Colly), the Fox in Birmingham, the Newbold Comyn Arms in Leamington, the Great Western in Warwick. I played instore at Zavvi on October 18th too. Playing in the music store where you bought your first album is pretty surreal :)

The gig I had on Tuesday at the Yardbird in Birmingham was probably one of my favourites so far. The guys who ran it were lovely and really supportive. The guy behind the bar even cooked me and Sin some grub because we were hungry! :) Was ace. The Yardbird's a charming little jazz cafe near the art gallery in Birmingham, would definitely go there again and would recommend popping in if you ever pass it on Paradise Place.

In the mean time it's all about getting sorted for Christmas, and planning the new acoustic night at the Campbell for next year! If all goes as planned it should be a good un'. I've got some gigs lined up for next year already and they're all listed on my myspace, as always. So have a peak if you're reading this now. http://www.myspace.com/xemmaxacousticx

I have a lot of people to thank because if it wasn't for them I wouldn't be enjoying what I'm doing with my music as much as I am now so thanks very much to all.