Lighthouse Rehearsal before Area Final!

I booked out the Markeaton Street practice room for the 25th and 26th April for Lighthouse to rehearse for the Live and Unsigned Area Final on May 3rd. We had already worked out what we were going to play for our 3 and a half minutes - our cover would be Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" twisted to our own style and our original would be a new song written by Honza and Anna called "The DreamCatcher".

"Poker Face" song is originally a synth dance song, but we put it into a more hard rock style with a slightly faster tempo. I played the synth line with a phaser guitar effect and provided backing vocals. The chorus was done with full distortion, an aggressive contrast to the original, as well as the second verse, which we changed into a funk-influenced style.
Honza suggested I take a lengthy guitar solo, firstly over the chorus chords, then completely unaccompanied - to lead into DreamCatcher.

DreamCatcher begins with a piano intro passage in Bb minor. "Poker Face" is in Ab minor, so during the unaccompanied part of my solo, I needed to somehow transpose into this key and I did this with an ascending arpeggio pattern. To give Honza a cue to start playing this piano part, I suggested playing a trill while Petr clicked twice on the beat to count in.
Having already learned to play it, DreamCatcher did not take long to arrange. Honza suggested a guitar part for me in the verse so that he could play the piano, changing to guitar for the chorus.
Anna and I also collaborated on creating lyrics for the outro piano section that she and Honza would sing in harmony.

Go to http://www.esnips.com/doc/a324f9af-f721-453b-901d-f9cc70b9b702/dream_cat for a recording we made of our arrangement using Petr's laptop.

Unfortunately, by the time of the Area Final, it will have been the final hand-in deadline for Complementary Studies, so I will not be able to report on how well we did. Rest assured, we are very confident and hope to get through to the national final!

Total: 8 hours (4 for each session)

Jam Night with new bassist /// Singer-songwriters' Club

On the 18th March, "The Other Service" rehearsed for two hours at the university practice room. We went over the cover versions we already knew to warm up and refresh our memories. After finalising our arrangement of "Run Through Me", we began work on our next original song "Burden of Proof" that Ryan and I had been working on. It was slightly more complex than the previous song, and it took us a while to teach it to Jono and Simon. It helped to have a structural
diagram laying out the sectional order of the song, and we did manage to perform one whole take of it successfully by the end of the session. We all agreed it would require more practice but
would play it in the evening anyway to see how it went.

[2 hours]

At the Old Bell jam night that evening we played two sets as before, to a great response. The
song list was as follows:
1:

Hell and High Water

Run Through Me

Remedy

2:

All My Life

Burden of Proof

Plug in Baby

Killing in the Name

For the final two songs, I focussed on vocals only - since it only required one guitar part,
which gave me the frontman freedom I desired. We all agreed it went very well, with the
exception of Burden of Proof where most of us forgot the structure of the song and dropped out
halfway through! We received a lot more positive feedback in spite of this, and I talked to the
landlord who said he'd been willing to give us a gig in April/May time.

[3 hours]

For video footage of our first set, visit:http://www.esnips.com/doc/34b3abd9-dee2-45f1-8ab0-652095f4cb8b/18th-March-set-1

On the 25th of March, I played a headlining acoustic set at the Derby Singer-Songwriters club playing mostly original material. Unfortunately not many people came and I was only paid £8 for the night, but it was an enjoyable experience. Songs I played included:

Condemned

Final Release

Patriarch

Midnight Musings

A False Identity

Upon Reflection
Betray

This Infectious Mood

[2hours]

Busy Week!

Anna asked me to support her on guitar and backing vocals at her acoustic Brewery Tap gig on the 2nd March. We spent an hour the night before preparing some of our covers to perform, including:

Numb - Linkin Park

Another Way to Die - Jack White

Drive - Incubus

Untouched - The Veronicas

Gravity Rides Everything - Modest Mouse

Englishman in New York - Sting

Honza also joined us on stage for some Lighthouse original songs:

Sleeping Walkers II

Listen, Angels Sing

Stay With Me

Lighthouse

Breathe 4 U

Altogether it was a very profitable evening, having brought more than the minimum number of people to the venue and we performed well. Anna was paid the promised £50, and extremely kind in giving me £20 of it for my help on stage.

[1 hour 30 minutes] rehearsal time[2 hours] performance and preparation time

The next day in the evening, Ryan and I began writing some songs for The Other Service, including a song based around a riff he had, which I helped develop as well as create a chorus part using the lyrics he had written a while ago, named "Burden of Proof". We also worked on Simon's simpler song "Run Through Me", adding a counter melody to the main chord progression.

[1 hour 30 mins]

That Wednesday (5th March) morning, The Other Service spent two hours rehearsing with Jono on bass so that I could play guitar and concentrate on vocals for the songs with only Ryan's guitar. We went over all the covers we played at the jam night - Jono having learnt them all previously before coming to the rehearsal. It all went very smoothly, and we even worked on the original song "Run Through Me". It did not take long to learn, being fairly simple - which was fairly appropriate for us since we'd only been playing a few months.We will be rehearsing again on the 18th March and playing at The Old Bell jam night again, hopefully with some more original material.

[2 hours]

As the 8th March was the Regional Final of Live and Unsigned, Lighthouse spent Thursday and Friday evenings and Saturday afternoon rehearsing and preparing.
On Thursday myself, Anna and Honza met at The Polish Club to arrange the three and a half minutes that we would be playing at the contest; composed of 1:45 of a cover song, the other 1:45 of an original song. We had decided on "Untouched" by The Veronicas and "Sleeping Walkers Pt II". It took us roughly two hours to learn and arrange The Veronicas song in our style, using delay effects on the guitars and the contrast between mine and Anna's voices. We would segue straight from after the first chorus into the shortened version of "Sleeping Walkers Pt II".

Friday evening we rehearsed as a full band in The Polish Club hall to teach Roman and Petr the arrangement. It didn't take long to play it as a full band - most of the two and a half hours was spent perfecting it and working on stage presence. It was also important for Petr to try out and get used to his new acoustic drumkit. In this session, Petr also presented us with the CD covers for our demo album, which we all agreed looked fantastic - we would now begin using them for promotional purposes, later on we would sale them at gigs.

I booked the university practice room for a final two hour rehearsal before the competition, since it had all the best equipment such as PA which would be particularly useful for the vocals. We constantly went over the three and a half minutes to try and get the best possible performance we could before the gig.

[6 hours 30 minutes]

We met at 8am on Sunday to travel to Sheffield for the soundcheck at 10:15. These took place very rapidly - there were about twenty acts altogether and each was given about forty seconds to soundcheck. I had initial worries about my effects pedal's power inlet playing up, but I managed to sort this with tape and blue tac!Unfortunately we had not sold all our tickets for the concert, we had five spare. Many other acts had ordered more tickets to sell and additionally we hadn't done much promotion - so our expectations were low.However, when it came to our turn we gave our performance everything we had and the only problem we encountered was Anna's microphone accidentally being turned off to start with. My effects pedal behaved itself and the audience seemed to enjoy the performance.

After all the acts had played, the judge's scores were made and the audience votes counted. Ten acts would be called out who would go through to the Area Final. We were surprised and ecstatic when "Lighthouse" was called out! We will be playing at the Area Final in Salford on May 3rd, but this time we plan to carry out a lot more promotion via press contact and interviews. This shall also be helped via the distribution of our new demo CD.

[4 hours] from arriving in Sheffield

Additionally, I had an acoustic gig at The Brewery Tap on Monday 9th. Although I brought nineteen people and played for just about two hours, I was not paid the £50 that I expected. I had to play extra time due to open mic performers turning up, so I will take this up with them at a later date.

My setlist featured many original songs:

Condemned

Upon Reflection

This Infectious Mood

Too Close for Comfort

Losing The Gift

Leave My Heart

Patriarch

Your Curtain Call

I also played a variety of covers, a couple of which with Anna - I shall upload a link for a video compilation of the set shortly.

[2 hours]

Total time: 11 hours

The Other Service

After constant extenuating circumstances, myself, Ryan and Simon finally got round to rehearsing a few songs to play at The Old Bell jam night. We had been spontaneously jamming in Simon's room where he kept his drumkit, going through a few cover versions that we knew for some time now, and it was not until a fornight ago that we booked the university practice room to get a solid set together. I compromised to temporarily play bass as well as vocals, with Ryan on guitar and Simon on drums.
In total we had two rehearsals, because in the first one I had a throat infection and was unable to sing so we needed a second for the important vocal cues. Each lasted two hours, and the setlist we constructed was as follows:

Breathe - Pink Floyd
All My Life - Foo Fighters
Remedy - Seether
Plug in Baby - Muse
Hell and High Water - Black Stone Cherry
Killing in the Name - Rage Against The Machine

After discussing band names, we settled on "The Other Service", at least for now.

[4 hours]

Unfortunately, I have no video evidence of these rehearsals. But a friend of mine managed to capture some of the songs we played at the actual jam night on Wednesday 25th February. There were many bands on that evening, and we had to split the set into two halves. It went very well, the only problems we faced were a few missed cues and the lead being pulled out of my bass during "All My Life".
For our final song, I asked a friend of mine Jono if he would play bass for us during "Killing in the Name" so that I could concentrate on frontmanship as a vocalist - something that this song demanded. We made it known that we were looking for a bassist so that I could concentrate on vocals and guitar, but it looks as if Jono may be able to fill that role for us.

We all agreed that it was more than worthwhile, and we had a great time - seeing a lot of potential for us as a group. Ryan and I have subsequently started writing some original material, hoping to have some of them to showcase the next time we attend the jam night. We received a lot of positive feedback about our performance, and the landlord showed particular interest in getting us a paid gig there.

A video of our set can be viewed here: http://www.esnips.com/doc/ee5e9b47-bde3-4d9f-9c9d-66f2b081d5bd/jam-night-25th-february_0001

[3 hours]

In the meantime, Anna has now returned to the UK temporarily so that Lighthouse can begin rehearsing again for the UK live and unsigned regionals on March 8th and our acoustic gig at The Brewery Tap on the 2nd.

Mixing + Mastering Session and Future Prospects

Last Thursday me, Honza and Petr from LightHouse revisited Dubrek studios to mix and master all the tracks for our CD. Additionally, I would rerecord the verse bass parts for the song "Stay With Me" because the bass guitar was out of tune when Roman originally recorded it. Honza would also record his vocals for the song "Breathe 4 U".

Jay the producer/engineer did most of the mastering since he had the expertise of what would make it sound best - the main idea being to make it sound big and full. Honza and I would decide what was best mixing-wise due to our extensive musical experience, as well as suggesting potential use of effects.

We were very pleased with the end result of the songs, acheiving better recording quality than we could have ever expected from a demo session.

[3 hours 30 minutes]

I also produced a paragraph for the band website to describe the us and our sound - combined with Anna's fantasy story idea to make us more distinct. The web address is www.myspace.com/thelighthouse which also showcases not only some the recordings we made but also a couple of the images from our photoshoot in January.

On Sunday I got together with the band with Ragnar and Dominic for a long-awaited rehearsal. I had already been having doubts about the progress of this project. Initially I had joined up purely for enjoyment, hoping some potential would come out of it but sadly this was not the case. I had been growing weary not only of the style we were playing (Iron Maiden/Megadeth and pretty much nothing else) but also of their dependence on me as a musician. Without meaning to sound conceited, they were far behind me in terms of musicianship and stylistic variety and this formed a band relationship that meant they needed me to function at all even with two other guitarists (me being the most competent guitarist and only experienced vocalist).
In spite of this, I had little choice in what we played and they were not interested in learning any of my songs - the only original material we learned was written by Ragnar which I found to be fairly generic and uninteresting.

This session on Sunday finally clinched the decision for me. Ragnar proposed (surprise surprise) we learn yet another Maiden song and when I protested that not only was I bored of Maiden covers, the song in question ("Brave New World") was also not at all suited to my vocal range - I was completely ignored. Plus the drummer seemed to mess it up everytime we tried to run it through. I therefore decided to myself that I would call Ragnar before the week was out to let him know I had no more desire to be in this band.

On a more positive note, this means I can spend more time working with LightHouse for when Anna comes back to visit. Also, I hope to get the other members of The Falling Ashes to Derby for a weekend to learn some new songs and possibly record using the university facilities.
In addition, me and my housemates can finally begin work on a our potential band now that Ryan's finger has healed to the extent that he can play guitar again. In fact, me and Ryan did a couple of acoustic covers at The Brewery Tap yesterday evening (including "Remedy" by Seether, "Hell and High Water" by Black Stone Cherry and "Stranger Things Have Happened" by Foo Fighters) to great response. We also have several songs we wrote last year that we can start learning with Simon on drums. All we need now is a bass player, which we hope to find soon.

Recording Session and Sunday Gig

Friday 30th LightHouse rehearsed between 9:30pm - 1:00am for our recording session the next day. We ran through all our original songs to make sure we had them fresh in our mind. Also, we carried out my idea to add a new section to "Sleeping Walkers II" that would relate it to the "Sleeping Walkers I". That is to use the original chord progression in part I as the basis for a new section in part II to bring it full circle. We all agreed this new idea greatly improved the song.

[3 hours 30 minutes]

We all met at 11am at the Polish Club to pack all our equipment into the car to take to Dubrek studios, to arrive at roughly 11:30. Although we only planned to be there for nine hours, we ended up working until 2:30am. We had originally decided to only record some live takes andc take the best of them. The producer Jay advised us to only keep the drums and bass tracks from the live takes and overdub everything else. This was because we were using an electric drumkit and therefore saved us a lot of time (than if we'd been using an acoustic one) to produce a much higher quality recording.It took roughly six hours to finish tracking the drums and bass in the live takes, and then about two hours for mine and Honza's guitars each. The setup for the guitars included a 70s Marshall head in the control room linked to a speaker stack in the live room with two microphones on the speaker and one ambient omnidirectional microphone to catch the spacious room's ambience.The acoustic guitars were recorded using one condenser microphone and only took about an hour and a half altogether.The rest of the time we spent recording Anna's vocals, many takes being done since she was very self-critical but eventually we reached a stage where we were all satisfied with the result. The mixing stage would take place on Thursday 5th along with recording mine and Honza's vocals. Altogether the session cost £250, meaning £50 each.

Here is a link to an initial rough mix of one of the songs - http://www.esnips.com/doc/52c2aa3b-1e5c-41c3-afb1-30f7d4e293e2/03-AudioTrack-03

[14 hours]

Sunday evening we hosted a party at the Polish Club to celebrate the recording of this EP combined as a leaving party for Anna since she is going away on Wednesday to Spain for several months, meaning Lighthouse will be on temporary hiatus until the Live and Unsigned Regionals in March.We played two sets, one where we played the EP in its entireity and after a break we played a few cover versions. In between and after we had other acts included an accordion player and the JJ dancers. I also did an acoustic set compiled mainly of easily accessible covers. A good time was had by all and when most people had gone me, Anna and few a guys from the open mic scene jammed for a while before going home.

[5 hours]

Total: 22 hours 30 minutes

Photoshoot and Battle of the Bands

Last Saturday I spent a significant portion of the day at Firefly Photography Studios with LightHouse (renamed from DelightHouse) taking part in our band photoshoot. These photos would be used for our upcoming EP and for promotional purposes. We will collect them on Friday, having paid a total of £100 (£20 each) for the seven photos we had chosen. Although it was productive, one set of pictures had to be retaken because the photographer's computer corrupted his memory card and afterwards we had to wait a long time to see them. I will post a sample of one of photos on Friday.

(3 hours) - not including waiting time

In the evening (9pm-1am) we rehearsed for the Battle of the Bands at The Old Bell on Monday. This involved going through our setlist as well as rearranging "Sleeping Walkers pt II" to make it less messy-sounding. We also produced an acoustic version of "Breathe 4 U" which, although good, I felt did not live up to the original electric version. However, we would see how it would go down on Monday. I will request Anna send me the videos we recorded of the rehearsal.

(5 hours)

We turned up at The Old Bell at about 7pm for our soundcheck, which was a little hectic. The resulting sound was not brilliant, the guitars being too quiet - particularly mine. However, lots of people turned up to see us and the other three bands had also brought a lot of fans so we got decent exposure. Our set went well until our selftitled song "LightHouse" where Petr got the structure wrong and played the wrong drumbeat in a particular part, confusing us.Although we did not go through to the next round, we were offered another gig at The Old Bell for around April time.
(3 hours)

Total time: 11 hours