Update: Music

Things have been a bit quiet over with the Tie-Dye Quartet since Christmas - the novelty of getting paid nice bits of money for gigs wore off a bit and it almost became a bit of a chore, having to tailor our sets (and therefore rehearsals) around audiences rather than challenging ourselves and being creative.

I've found some new folks (including Rob Moore, aka I Have Clones) who are interested in having a play, and I've got some new material I'd like to show them. If it comes to anything, I'll let you have a listen.

My listening habits haven't changed too much and I'm ashamed to say I haven't found much that's particularly new for a while. One thing I have been getting into a lot is 50's jump blues, and I'd highly recommend you go listen to some Big Joe Turner or Big Maybelle if you have the chance.

I've also gotten myself some really old Duke Ellington bootlegs, with what sounds like an extremely young Ella Fitzgerald singing alongside him. Hit me up if that's your thing and I'll send them over.

More Jazz Recommendations

People often come up to me and say "I think I'd like jazz, but I don't really know where to get started or what to listen to - it's not like other music where you can just put on the radio. Can you recommend some stuff?". I'm not fooled, I know they're just desperate to be seen talking to me, to find out if my hair colour really is natural, to stare into my eyes...

..I digress.

1. Ramsey Lewis - Sassy Stew
Ramsey Lewis is a pianist probably most famous for his hit, The In Crowd - a perfect example of what a traditional jazz trio should sound like.

Sassy Stew, on the other hand, is more of a jazz funk track - a bit more Herbie Hancock than Bill Evans. The drums are great, the bassline and changes gorgeous and the alto sax hits notes that are barely even audible to anyone other than children and dogs. What I love best about this though, is that it's a pure jazz funk track, but the pianist's playing a real piano all the way through - rather than the keyboards that dominate the genre.

Well worth a listen.

2. Cal Tjader - Mambo Mindoro
Latin jazz is always popular. We've had club hits from Azymuth, Mas Que Nada has been on a million adverts and covered by some awful pop band. Recently, Bebel Gilberto has been letting down her father and her namesake (both Latin jazz greats) with some chart music.

Mambo Mindoro featuring percussionist Cal Tjader on the vibraphone is a great, and much less well known example of the genre. It's also highly worth a listen if, like me, you cringe at the mere word 'vibraphone' - mostly thanks to how awful it sounds within the music of the Modern Jazz Quartet. Trust me, he does it well.

3. Victor Wooten & Carter Beauford - Zenergy
This is not only a fascinating video - watching top-class musicians at work, but it's also a great track, easy to listen to whilst being extremely technically impressive. If the names Wooten & Beauford aren't enough to get you to listen, then note that Béla Fleck is playing banjo in this track too. Yes banjo. Yes, it works, yes he's that good. Just go listen already:



4. Lianne Carroll - Fever/This City Never Sleeps
It would be remiss of me to only mention past greats, and to just link you to freely available tracks that the artists possibly get pennies a year from. There's a decent jazz scene in any town, and if you're willing to make the effort to travel (central London's the only real UK hotspot) you can hear some unbelievably good performers.

Lianne Carroll is a pianist and vocalist playing around London and the UK, and is amazingly passionate and talented. For a preview of the recommended track, and a chance to buy your own copy, head over to her Amazon album page.

Better yet, go see a gig.

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That's all for now. Enjoy.

I was planning to also recommend you go and see the Tie-Dye Quartet at The Yardbird tonight, 8.30pm, free entry, but that would be a bit tacky, so I won't.
Xx

Videos of Tie-Dye Quartet at The Yardbird

As promised, courtesy of YouTube, here's some videos from parts of our second set:

Chameleon


Spanish Guitar Jam


Fever


Ina's Jam


Wade In The Water


Silver Rain


The tracks are also up for free download on Last.fm. Or, at least, they will be shortly. Try back tomorrow if you can't find them now.

Tie-Dye Quartet at The Yardbird

Last night was our exciting (and nicely paid, wink wink) gig at The Yardbird jazz club in Birmingham city centre - and it went pretty well if I do say so myself. The place wasn't packed, being bonfire night, but there was still a respectable audience and we played two 50 minute sets or so, with an encore when some folks started shouting.

Pics below, videos to follow once they're done uploading to YouTube.







Excuse the quality, our usual photographer was on a date :)

Gigs In November

It's a good month for music. Early in the month you can find Manu Delago playing various gigs in London - and I'm off to see him at The Rainbow in Birmingham on the 8th. See his site for show dates.

On the 20th I'm finally going to see my favourite musician of all time, Herbie Hancock, playing at Symphony Hall in Birmingham, with a brilliant line-up at his side. Tickets for that one are sold out now I'm afraid.

Tie-Dye Quartet have a very nice gig at The Yardbird in Birmingham on the 5th - I expect you all to be there. Free entry, 8 'till late. We're also playing a Ball in a lovely hotel and possibly the odd show in some nice restaurants.

Alas, the month isn't perfect though. McFly at the NEC on the 13th has sold out :(

Not enough time

Since coming back to University I've been busy pretty much constantly, with no spare time to just sit back and relax, or even to complete the occasional ancillary tasks that crop up from time to time.

I'm in University early every morning, even when I don't have lectures, so that I can get some research into Artificial Intelligence and Multi-Agent Systems done for my Final Year Project. When I'm not working on that, it's preparation for assessed lab classes (each of which is worth 0.6% of my total degree!) or finding obscure references to satisfy the lecturer who's set the other coursework I'm currently working on.

When I get a break, I grab an orange juice and a banana or head down to the pool for my daily swim - I normally manage about 1Km a day before it's time to head back to lectures. Once I'm back home it's practicing and learning music for Tie-Dye Quartet gigs, more work on my Final Year Project and co-ordinating all my various extra curricular activities - societies, job applications, MS student partner stuff, all that jazz.

Mondays and Wednesdays are for Squash, Saturdays are for Ultimate and weekends in general are spent helping the homeless, raising money for charity and volunt...

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Ok, enough lying. Let's try all that again:

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Since coming back to University and getting addicted to Team Fortress 2 I've been busy pretty much constantly, with no spare time to just sit back and relax, or even to complete the occasional ancillary tasks that crop up from time to time boring paperwork I should really, really do sometime soon.


I'm in University early every morning, even when I don't have lectures [seriously], so that I can get some research into Artificial Intelligence and Multi-Agent Systems done for my Final Year Project. When I'm not working on that, it's preparation for assessed lab classes (each of which is worth 0.6% of my total degree!) or finding obscure references to satisfy the lecturer who's set the other coursework I'm currently working on finding amusing stories on BBC News, following link after link on Wikipedia and continually F5'ing in my inbox.

When I get a break, I grab an orange juice and a bananaa sausage roll and a bottle of Lucozade or head down to the pool for my daily swim - I normally manage about 1Km 500m a day before it's time to head back to lectures collapsing in a heap and needing resuscitation from the lifeguard. Once I'm back home it's practicing and learning music for Tie-Dye Quartet gigs, more work on my Final Year Project and co-ordinating all my various extra curricular activities - societies, job applications, MS student partner stuff, all that jazzPLAYING TF2 FOR HOURS AND HOURS UNTIL MY EYES BLEED AND I GO TO BED WITH DREAMS OF HEADSHOTS AND SENTRY GUNS PLAYING THROUGH MY BRAIN.

New TDQ website is up

Go take a look at

http://www.tiedyequartet.com

and let me know what you think of the new design. If you see anything particularly wrong, I'd appreciate an email with a screenshot, and some details on what operating system/browser/resolution you're running. If you don't know how to do any of that, just write me a letter.

Thanks for the lovely design from Pete, the lovely photos from Clush and the lovely er...poses...from Ju. Oh, I did some writing and web dev and image hacking too.

Enjoy.

Xx

Tie-Dye Quartet Pictures

The wonderful Chris Lush not only took photos of Tie-Dye Quartet for our album artwork, but also comes along to the occasional gig and photographs us. Here's a few shots from our show on Thursday - be sure to click on each image to get sent through to the full quality pictures, the previews really don't do them justice.


<sub>Our good looking drummer, Pete Ford


Presumably this was a tricky passage...


Guitar solo!


Can't forget the trumpet


There was a very good crowd on the night


Seriously, people were queueing up outside the door, one in - one out</sub>

I'll also see if I can dig up some audio from one of the people who was either filming our set, or just watching the entire thing through a digital camera lens. Presumably the former.

Xx

The Apprentice

Last night we played a fun, cozy little gig at the White Swan in Birmingham - a trendy little pub just off Broad Street. We played whatever we wanted, we were surrounded by friends and it was all quite wonderful.

And unpaid.

So, naturally, the next thing to do was to sell-out. I spent a couple of hours with Ju traipsing around restaurants in Birmingham city centre (and we've spent many more hours on the phone) convincing them of the business value of having some live music. She wore a skirt and I did the pitching...lovely combination.

Some positive responses, some maybes and some people to get back to. I love presenting :)

First gig for a while

Last night was the first gig I've played with the Tie-Dye Quartet since recording and...whew. I think the best description for the night would be 'a bit Spinal Tap'.

Our guitarist got held up (after giving a guitar lesson, what are the odds?) and we were almost about to start playing without him when he came through the door. The stage set-up was, to be generous, not the best I've ever seen. Suffice to say that I could only hear the drums, as could the drummer. Lots of head gestures were in order. Oh, also my bass string snapped during the third song and we had to have a quick improv guitar & drums jam whilst I changed it in record time.

Still though, no matter how badly we thought we performed, everyone genuinely seemed to think it sounded great - even the other musicians in the audience. We even got offered a gig at someone's Ball in a fancy hotel, and sold a few albums once we were done playing. Clearly the acoustics were fantastic eh?

We're going to be practising hard now for some of the more important (and/or paid) gigs we've got coming up - this was just a free show at the University bar. If people thought last night was good, then I don't see how we can fail :)

I'll get some pics up once our official photographer has finished Photoshopping them to make us look good. I might even put a short video or audio file up too if I can find one which doesn't make me wince too badly.

In brief

New Tie-Dye Quartet website is looking beautiful and almost ready to go online.

The time difference between Britain and America is rubbish. Americans should stop being so damn lazy and get up at 8am GMT like the rest of us.

Have started swimming every day, either before, after or between lectures. All my muscles ache constantly.

On a diet, please don't bother leaving your opinions on the matter. Apparently I'm spectacularly good at losing weight though, might not need to be doing this for long.

I hate 9am lectures.

Am now playing squash once a week. Felt slightly guilty at playing 'how nastily can you return the tentative serves from the girls who've never played before' with the other guys at the training session.

First CompSoc trip to Omega Sektor was a success, had about 30 people show up to beat me at Warcraft III DOTA, COD4 and other such games.

I hate 9am lectures.

Gig 8.30pm tomorrow. Guitarist is meeting drummer 3pm tomorrow. I'm sure it'll be fine.

I'm excessively busy. Seriously. I bought TF2 a week ago and I haven't even had a chance to play it yet.

Freshers' Fair '08

Today was the chaos that is Freshers' Fair, where hundreds of impressionable new students see the Guild Hall in daylight (and free of vomit and alcohol) for the first time, and cyncical final year students try every tactic they learned in their Business Studies lectures (which, let's face it, had to come in useful somewhere) to con the freshers out of their student loans.

I was on joint duty for CompSoc and LMS (Live Music Society), so it seemed logical to have the two stalls placed next to one another with Guitar Hero inbetween them. Unfortunately this rather impacted on my work ethic at times, but at least I looked rock 'n' roll:



Actually, it turned out to be a great idea, though it drew a lot more geeks over than it did musicians.

We got about 50 members for each society, which wasn't quite as good as I hoped, but we should get a bunch more over the next couple of weeks for each society. Now if you don't mind, I'm off to practise Guitar Hero III religiously for the next 50 hours straight. There was a chap there who could beat me at Dragonforce, and that just won't do.

We also sold a few more Tie-Dye Quartet albums, which was nice. Might need to print more if this keeps up ;)

CDs have arrived!

Totally awesome, I have a large box full of CDs with my face and my music all over them.



It's entirely possible I've forgotten who amongst you actually ordered copies (except those that have actually paid), so get in touch. £3 if you want one in person, £4.50 if you want one posted to you. If you want one posted, either grab me online to get my bank details or pay via Paypal.

They look pretty awesome ^^

Artwork's Done!

Well, Somnesia's been sent off to the printers for duplication, printing, boxing and wrapping. As there's not really a lot more to say about this (other than to regale you with my exciting trip to the post office, which my lawyers advise me is unwise), here's a peek at the front cover:



Can't wait! :)

Recording Pics

Lots of people I've been talking to over the past couple of weeks think that recording studios are exciting places full of fairies, neon lights and whirring machinery. There were a large selection of machines that did indeed emit varying green and red lights, but other than that, it really was just a couple of (rather cold) rooms that get quite tiring after 10 hours a day, day after day.

That being said, here's some pretty pictures:


<sub>My pretty guitars


(Not my) Steinway Grand Piano, 1872


Could you try that again please Ina? And again...and again...


...screw it, we'll just get Tim to fix it


Drum boy, drum


Harpsichord, hand-made by William De Blaise


Parking facilities were...sparse


But the views were lovely</sub>

5 Songs from the Recording are up

Well, I've put 5 tracks from my recording jaunt up online.

You can find them on:

Tie-Dye Quartet's Website
Tie-Dye Quartet's Facebook (add us as a fan)
Tie-Dye Quartet's MySpace (add us as a friend)
Tie-Dye Quartet's Last.FM

Hope you enjoy. You can buy the whole album from me for a whole £3, or buy it online with a bit of an extra fee for postage and PayPal.

Enjoy, tell your friends!

Xx

Looking Good

Sneak previews of some of the music from the album will be coming soon. Just tidying up some web stuff and sorting some artwork now.

Speaking of which, here's a glimpse of quite how good some of the photos that will be going into the album, and be used for general publicity are going to be:



Sweet or what?

Finished

Years of playing, months of composing, weeks of rehearsing, over 100 hours in the studio, 20-something hours of driving and not a lot of sleeping later...Somnesia is complete.

We've got 12 tracks, totalling around 66 minutes' of content. It sounds wonderfully professional and is far better than I'd even dared to dream.

Over the next week or so I'll work on getting some pretty CDs printed with a nice full colour booklet and all that jazz. I'll also be putting some of the tracks up for free play online, along with some of the photos we had done before we started.

Copies of the album will be £4 or so to cover the CD & postage costs (unless you're lucky enough to get one free), and will probably even come signed by the band - good or what?

For now, I need some sleep. Normal blogging will resume shortly.

Xx

Recording

Well, I'm off recording for a week. See you when I'm done!

:D

Photo Shoot

Yesterday, the wonderfully talented Clush came by with all of his snazzy gear to take some photos of Julie, Pete & I (aka, 'the band').

After much moving of furniture, laying of white sheets and gathering of lights we'd turned the living room into a photo studio of sorts, and then spent the next couple of hours posing and contorting ourselves in a variety of outfits for his amusement. Hopefully he took some snaps too.

After that, it was off to the park to see precisely how many strange looks we could get from locals enjoying the scenery as we climbed trees, lied around on the grass and generally just got things in our hair.

As soon as the pictures have been selected, post-processed and other technical things, I'll share a few with you on here. Still more will end up on the band website (still coming along nicely) and on the CD we get when we're done recording.