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

DelightHouse Activities

I returned to Derby on the 10th December to rehearse with DelightHouse for our Nottingham gig the next day. In the six hour session, we organised and practiced the setlist of songs we were to play. The first half hour would involve original material, the second all cover songs. We did a few audio recordings of these:
- http://www.esnips.com/doc/9a2e107f-9ed0-499c-ba05-487099c3117e/Listen-Angels-Sing-10th-December
- http://www.esnips.com/doc/024ccb6d-b816-4990-90b9-a90141dc210b/Drive-10th-December
[6 hours]

We did spend a few more hours on the Sunday going over our set again before we left for the Nottingham Polish Club in Roman's car with all our equipment. There were two other bands playing at this charity gig, each would get an hour to play. After them, we had half an hour with which to soundcheck before our set, to start at 18:00.
However, whilst we were soundchecking one of the event hosts told me that we would have to end at 18:15 because the owners had told them at the last minute that they would have to relinquish the property three hours earlier than they had planned, meaning they had to be packed up and out by 18:45.
This angered us, since we had put so much time and effort into preparing for this gig only to be told our slot had been shorted to fifteen minutes. The few songs we did play went down well and people told us how good we sounded.
[2 hours]

When we returned to the Derby Polish Club that evening, we looked at some of the videos and photos we took, and then decided to do an impromptu gig there for all the friends etc who had come to see us and not got to see a full set. So we set up all our equipment in the hall and played the set we had planned to roughly twenty people, mainly for the pure enjoyment of ourselves and our fans. It was also good stage experience for the band. There is a video of us playing Lighthouse on youtube - http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=0HxAPkG0Ykk
[2 hours]

The following week on Friday we spent the late evening 9:30 till 12:00 rehearsing for the Live and Unsigned Acts 2009 song competition in Sheffield, working with our two strongest songs to make cut-down versions viable for it, ie under two minutes. Eventually we decided to play "Listen Angels Sing", since we felt it was more distinctive, interesting and memorable. It contains all the main elements of our sound, that is Anna's voice and acoustic guitar combined with my harmonies, the ambient guitar effects and counter-melodies and the heavier outro chorus with the fast guitar solo.
[4 hour 30 mins]

We had to meet early the next morning at 8:30 to quickly refresh memories of what we were going to play. Leaving at 9:15, we set off in Roman's car for Sheffield which took about an hour. Our slot would take place between 11:30 and 12:30, so we made sure to register our act well before then.
When we were called, we were told that we could not use Petr's electric drumkit we had brought, since there were so many acts to get through there would definately not be time to set it up, as I had warned the others. However, Petr coped well on the acoustic kit and although we only got to play 50 seconds of what we had prepared we were told that we got through to the next round.
[3 hours]

This will be a show at the Memorial Hall in Sheffield on the 8th March where each act will get 3:30 to perform a part of a unique cover version and a sample of an original song. Our next rehearsal will focus around which songs will do for this. Anna mentioned a Luther Vandross song that may be possible for us to produce a more rocked-up version, with potential for her to interact with the audience more, as well as room for parts that would suit my voice too.

This week we have been searching for a studio to record our first demo EP before Anna moves to Spain for a period of time. We checked out Honza's friend's studio which weren't very impressed with due to its shabby layout and cold atmosphere. We also visited Snug Recordings, which had very good feelings about, mainly stemming from its professional attitude, wide variety of equipment and a setup that was not too complex - going through a single Control 24 mixer for ProTools.
The other studio that showed promise was Dubrek Studios, who although a lot more laid back than Snug, also seemed to have a diverse range of equipment and experience. They clearly had dealt with lots of different styles of music just like Snug, and yet for a cheaper price (£19 an hour for 10 hours).
Although we decided on Snug, they were not available on the dates that we were and so we booked a session on Saturday 31st at Dubrek. Anna, Honza and I discussed how we would arrange our recording, and we decided we would do some live takes of the five songs, and overdub the vocals and guitar solos. A suggested tracklisting could involve:

Sleeping Walkers pt I
Sleeping Walkers pt II
Lighthouse
Listen, Angels Sing
Breathe 4 U

Honza had also been working on a possible artwork for the CD:


On the same day of the Sheffield trip, I visited Matt and Jon from The Brewery Tap in the evening to discuss my first tasks as a University liason for the pub, for which they are going to pay a small amount, although I am mainly looking for experience.
This included:
- Spreading the word about the Monday student night, emphasising the open mic and paid live music acts, plus drinks offers and free food
- Finding an act to play at the Student Night on 2nd March (possibly upcoming band (PulseFire)
- Communicating with the SU about liasing with other universities in finding budding comedians for a comedy night The Brewery Tap hopes to start, including sketches and comedy musicians
- Ideas for a mini festival that they plan to host in the summer

[2 hours]

Total: 19 hours 30 mins

Big Big Update!

The song that the band that Dan Leathers had organised to play at the university carol service
went very well. Sound checking did not take long, and we played the song as we rehearsed
procuring a recording of it. Here is a link to a copy of it: http://fb.esnips.com/doc/4a45f679-
ad27-4ecd-9af7-a61659af7f9c/nativity-carolThe only problem that occured was that my effects pedal malfunctioned slightly so my guitar was not making the sounds that I would have liked. Nevertheless, we were happy with the result.
(1 hour)

What started as a jamming session with Anna and the Czech guys Honza, Roman and Peter had been going very well, and has become a band called DelightHouse. Having put in many hours of
rehearsal, we played two Derby gigs in November. One took place at the nightclub Deez on the
10th, the other at The Brewery Tap pub on the 15th (this was originally going to be Anna's solo
gig). Both consisted of two sets - one of partially acoustic cover versions, the other of
original DelightHouse material, with the exception of two or three songs.The first set we used to exploit the material that me, Anna and Marcella had been working on,
including:
"Like a Stone" Audioslave
"Coil" Opeth
"Sex on Fire" Kings of Leon
"Heartshaped Box" Nirvana
"Admiration" Incubus
"Stop and Stare" OneRepublic
"Numb" Linkin Park
"Another Way to Die" Jack White
"Many Shades of Black" The Raconteurs

The second set of songs with the band included:

"Sleeping Walkers pt I" DelightHouse
"Sleeping Walkers pt II" DelightHouse
"Stay with Me" DelightHouse
"Listen, Angels Sing" DelightHouse
"Lighthouse" DelightHouse
"Breathe 4 U" DelightHouse
"Stepping Stone" Duffy
"Gravity Rides Everything" Modest Mouse
"Rooster" Alice in Chains
"Drive" Incubus

Here is a link to a video compilation of the Deez gig highlights - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhpuJCnGNAk, and also a video of us playing "Lighthouse" at The Brewery Tap -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imcqGn3sNrU

(6 hours) for both performance and setting up/derigging at both gigs

Unfortunately I was unable to get any footage of our extensive rehearsing, although I did manage to procure some poor quality audio from one of Anna and I's acoustic rehearsals.We as a band practiced both days of the weekends, for about five hours at a time, totalling
roughly(18 hours) of rehearsal for these gigs all together.

DelightHouse have two upcoming gigs now - one charity concert in Nottingham on the 11th Jannuary (where we are headlining amongst other bands despite being only three or four months old!) and a song competition in Sheffield on the 17th. I have a solo acoustic gig at The Brewery Tap again on the 19th February, and a gig with mine and Ragnar's band at the Polish Club on the 24th January. So it looks like a busy performance shedule ahead!

I have recently spent some time recording an acoustic demo as a prospective song for
DelightHouse, using Live 6.0.1 software on my laptop in conjunction with a MobilePre USB
soundcard input. I received good feedback from Anna about it, and it looks like it may become a
possible song for the competition in Sheffield.
(2 hours)

Total: 27 hours