Monthly Roundup #4 - June '18

Hello once again! June has been another busy and varied month, with a wide variety of gigs going on - there's been jazz gigs, concerts with a local choir, church stuff, a night of theatre-ish stuff (I'll explain!), original gigs and a tribute band - each of which were gigs which required all their own prep on top of 5 days a week of teaching for most of the month. Like I said, busy!! 

Teaching-wise, on top of my usual 3 days a week of my own stuff, I've been filling in for a friend who's currently on a touring show, so he's dished out some of his teaching to some of us fellow drummers in the area. As such, that's meant it's been pretty much 5 days a week of teaching throughout June, which is wonderful, but full on when combined with gigging over the evenings and weekends... But on the whole, it's been great fun to spend so much time around enthusiastic young drummers!

The first few days of June were taken up with Big Church Day Out North which I mentioned last time, so we'll skip on from that... I got home from that on the Sunday, then fortunately my usual Monday school had an INSET day which I was able to use to prepare for that weekend's gigs. It was 4 days of teaching after that, as well as plenty of material to learn and things to get back on top of after the week away. The first gig of the week was another jazz quartet at a local wine bar, which was good fun. After having a week of setting up other people's drums for them and watching a load of fabulous drummers, it was really nice to be reacquainted with a kit of my own, and I was really up for getting back behind the drums! I'd like to think that it came across in my playing, as I was certainly enjoying being back in the "drivers seat" for that one.

The Wednesday night jazz gig after the week away at BCDO. Nice to be back with my own drums!

The next day we were back out with Pete James and the usual guys. We were playing for an event at a church up in North West London. The real treat for me was listening to the house band who started and ended the evening, plus another guest band, both of which were gospel music through and through. I love me some gospel music, and it's always a treat when I get to experience it live! The guys from the church were super accommodating and appreciative of us being there, and made us feel right at home. Overall, that was a really fun evening - and once again, a special opportunity to be backed by a gospel choir!

The Saturday was spent doing a gig with a local choir, whose summer concerts I tend to play for. Music-wise, I'm given the SATB/Piano parts which the choir are singing from as oppose to drum parts, so I have to spend a fair bit of time preparing by checking out the arrangements and sketching in some drum parts. Again, it's a gig that's got a lot of variety - from show tunes to a Queen medley, and then more classical material through to a David Bowie arrangement! On the bright side, we do the concert twice, so that makes all the prep feel a little more worthwhile, so the second concert was a couple of weeks later.

My setup for the gigs with the local choir. The electric pads were used as either timps or 808 bass/snare sounds.

On the Wednesday the following week I was off for another lesson with Andrew, then on the way back had to make a stop in London for some impressions for my new earplugs - exciting stuff...! This is worth mentioning for any musicians reading this actually - I was made aware of the "Musicians Hearing Health Scheme", through whom musicians can get a very heavily discounted pair of ACS earplugs along with a hearing test - £30 as oppose to £150 odd! Well worth checking out if you're a fellow muso.

Thursday night there was a rehearsal for a gig the next Friday. With this one, it was the launch gig for an artist from Lewes, Jack Allsobrook, made up from mostly original material with a few covers thrown in. The rest of the band had been learning and rehearsing the songs together over the previous couple of months without me and sending over rough recordings for me to stay up to date, so I'd gone through those and written up some charts. Fortunately, all went smoothly and with just a few little tweaks here and there, we got through all the material pretty smoothly!

The Friday night that week involved a show at Eastbourne's Underground Theatre. This is a wonderful gig that comes around every few months with a friend of mine who, the rest of the time, I do lots of local functions with. His way of describing the gig is “like a tv show of old, without the cameras”, where we’re the house band playing theme tunes and introductions to different parts of the show, along with a couple of tunes. It was really good fun this one!

Setup for the Friday night variety show.

On the Saturday/Sunday we were off once more with Pete James and the guys to play at an event called "Joy" at Kempton Park racecourse. We were playing on the Sunday, but had an early start so went up the night before. With this one, we did one set of the regular worship stuff, and another a bit later on of Pete's other project, Throwback Kid. It was the first gig with a full band we'd done since recording the EP in January '17, and it seemed to go down really well - we certainly had fun playing it! A couple of the other artists at that event were Noel Robinson, a brilliant gospel artist and Daughters Of Davis, an acoustic duo formed of two sisters doing bluesy/soulful stuff, which was really nice - both of which I really enjoyed listening to between our own sets.

The setup from "Joy" at Kempton Park - a backline DW (from Botty Backline who I do BCDO with) plus my extras.

With my buddy Mike Efah who was drumming with Noel Robinson. I've tech'ed for him on a few occasions doing BCDO over the years, so we joked that it was strange for me not to be getting his kit set for him this time! 

The next week there was more teaching, then the Friday night was the Jack Allsobrook launch gig after a final rehearsal on the Thursday. The gig went really well and it was a lot of fun to play a full set of (mostly) original music - great vibes! It'll be really cool to continue with the next steps with this band, as Jack is keen for us to record his album together soon - watch this space! ;) 

A great shot from the Friday night gig with Jack Allsobrook, taken by Steve Hudson.

The Saturday was the second gig with the local choir, which was the same concert as the one we did a couple of weeks previously, just in a different location. 

Same setup, different day...!

The last week of June was spent preparing for a gig with Alter Eagles, a friend of mine's Eagles tribute band that I was depping for on the Friday. The gig was part of a covers/tribute festival taking place in Paddington, and involved a rather early start - I was up at 5:00 to leave at 6:00 and be in Paddington by 9:00! As it was in such a built up area, surrounded by hotels, noise levels were something of an issue for this festival. As such, there was an electric kit provided... Never quite the same as using real drums, unfortunately, but needs must and the show must go on! All went well and I've got another gig coming up in July which will be their full show, where this one was just a 45 minute set with a handful of songs. It'll be nice to be on a real kit for that one! ;)

Just before starting our set at the Paddington Covers Festival. Electric drums!!!

So there you have it, that was June! After a hectic few months, things are set to settle down a bit over the summer (at the moment!), so I'm looking forward to having a little bit of down time and getting back to doing some decent practice - which I've neglected slightly with all the gigs I've been busy with lately! As always, thanks for checking in and I hope you enjoy the read! All the best, Ed.