Eurovision

I mentioned in an earlier post that my female 'partner in crime' in the duo I sometimes gig with is also a member of a 'happening band'. Well, I don't see why I cannot at least divulge that she is a member of one of the two girl bands who are competing tonight to represent the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest! It's been a time of real excitement for her and all of her friends and colleagues. I have just been watching the 'Eurovision Your Decision' program and I have to say that it's a strange experience watching someone you know on the box. It's happened a couple of times for me lately: a few weeks ago, my old mate Katy Setterfield who sang on some of my demos a few years ago, won the 'One and Only' TV competition (a competition whereby tribute acts competed for a place in a Las Vegas show) as Dusty Springfield. That was an odd experience. Odder still tonight was seeing my duo partner storming through a great performance of their song and bringing the house down on live TV. In an hour's time, we will find out whether the great British Public have voted them through to appear in Belgrade at the main event in May . If her band gets through, I suspect life will never be the same for her. In addition, I also suspect that she won't be doing many more duo gigs, knocking out old songs for social club members and Bingo fanatics! Good luck to her and her band - fingers crossed.

Surviving Gigs

In my time, I have played some strange places and had some fairly weird experiences at gigs. The kind of gigs I play these days tend to be social clubs or working men's clubs and usually on weekends. Mostly, I play in a duo with a female singer sometimes as a solo act, but in both cases I play guitar and sing to backing tracks played over a PA on minidisc, which seems to be the medium of choice on the circuit I am playing. The main reason for using this fairly old technology is that should an outbreak of frenetic dancing break out on the audiences part, the ensuing vibrations won't cause the backing track to jump, or worse, to stop playing altogether. And yes - that really has happened. For many years I played bass with a four-piece weekend band and then packed it all in and had quite a few years of concentrating on writing and recording my stuff at home. I only really got back into gigging again last year and all this backing track stuff was a relatively new thing for me. The first time I used a mini disc player for backing tracks was with my long-suffering duo partner (she will remain nameless as she moonlights in a 'proper' band who are currently 'going places'! Bet that's intrigued you..or not). My very first gig with 'Miss X', I was given a mini disc player to operate and for a while, I surprised myself by how easy it all was and all went well. My partner had another mini disc player on her side of the stage with her tracks and we alternated quite comfortably. Then disaster struck: mid song, she told me she was going to change the running order and throw in a different tune to the one we had agreed on our set list. As the song she wanted to tackle was on one of my discs, I took this to mean: 'cue up your player with the relevant track' as her mini disc player had the current backing track churning along. I located the disc and put it in my machine. Little did I realise that it wasn't set to pause between tracks and no sooner had I placed the disc in the player than it instantly started to play a really raucous rock n' roll number while the punters were staggering around to a waltz. The ridiculous sight of these predominantly elderly types trying to articulate their limbs between two competing rhythms was quite something and reduced us to hysteria. I was known as 'Martin Mini Disc' after that disaster.

Anyway, I will share some further gig disasters as I go along. For now I wanted to share a sort of survival guide for giggers, aimed mainly at folks like myself playing the club and pub circuit. These are based on a few tricks of the trade I have learned, either from bitter experience or that have been passed on to me by others. I hope that these may well be useful to you and who knows, they may well save your bacon in certain gig situations!

MARTIN'S GIG SURVIVAL LIST

1. SPARES - Alright, this is going to be a no-brainer list in some respects, but you'd be surprised at the novices who carry no spare guitar strings, mics, leads, batteries for effects pedals or music stand lights etc etc. No need to elaborate further. Make sure you have enough of everything to cover as many eventualities as possible.

2. SATNAV - In earlier days, I was often perturbed by the 'directions' to gigs given by our beloved bandleader, that would often merely consist of ; ' Gig Saturday - it's a pub in Fulham'. Satnav or at the very least, work your route to the gig out beforehand using Google Maps which I recommend.

3. LEARN SONGS YOU CAN DO WITHOUT BACKING TRACKS - What will you do if and when the PA packs in one night? Make sure you learn a few songs that you can play 'unplugged' just in case. Oh yea, and bring an acoustic too!

4. KEEP A SPARE GUITAR ON STAGE WITH LEAD IN - you can change a string in the break, right?

5. BE COURTEOUS AND POLITE TO THE LANDLORD / CLUB OWNER - They are paying you, you are in their place as their entertainment for the evening and they set the rules. Take notice of their house rules and make sure you are prompt and ready to play at the times the contract states. Don't get lippy with anyone, punter or barstaff alike and do what they ask you to do and they will always have you back.

6. PACE YOURSELF AND DON'T OVEREAT OR OVERDRINK - Drinks-wise, it's self evident if you're driving, but take it easy in both departments. You don't want indigestion to hit you on stage! Always keep water close to hand onstage, too.

7. ALWAYS THANK THE OWNERS AND BARSTAFF OVER THE MIC AT THE END OF THE NIGHT. Keeps them all happy.

8. TRY TO GIVE THE PUNTERS WHAT THEY WANT - They are your customers after all, and although they can be daft and demand songs that nobody in their right mind could expect a club duo to do: ('can you play Bohemian Rhapsody?') do your best to oblige them: ('will 'Moon River' do?').

9. MOBILE PHONE - Keep it charged and with credit. Obvious really. And keep enough change on your person for a pay phone, just in case.

10. GET VERBAL AGREEMENT RE SET TIMES, BREAKS AND FINISH TIMES - A good idea to make sure you and the managers are on the same page before the gig commences. Nobody can say it wasn't discussed and agreed.

Well that's the obvious stuff but I'll add more as I think of them. Hope that's some use.

Here We Go...

At this 'late stage' of my musical career, I have decided to use this forum as a means of posting my thoughts, insights, moans, rants, reviews or recommendations related to my experiences regarding music in general (both my own and in the world at large),including songwriting, recording and gigging. In my 'About Me' section you can find out who I am and what I am all about. I also make no apology for the ads that appear here which I will be totally upfront about and say I am hoping to make some money from! I hope you find the articles and so forth that will appear here on a regular basis interesting and enjoyable and moreover that you may find some of my thoughts helpful.