8 May concert

Flashback,



the band I joined earlier this year, was booked a while back to play in front of Les Maronniers, a large and well situated café/brasserie near the River Marne at Gournay-sur-Marne.

The day is described below.

Spent the morning pottering about, as one does, preparing various items of clothing and equipment, practising a particularly tricky organ part for the 200th time and generally trying not to be the victim of a freak morning-before-gig accident.

2 pm load up from home for 2.30 departure leaving plenty of time to meet the other band members at our rehearsal studio at 3. I have pretty good procedures and checklists but at the back of your mind, there is always that thought “Did I bring my keyboard” or whatever. In any case, there is always something missing – you just have to hope that someone else in the band will have a spare (unless it’s stage trousers that have been left behind!)

Each of us fills about half a car with our personal gear, while all the really big stuff travels in our mid-sized back-windowless white van. We haven’t got round to painting ‘Flashback’ on the side yet, but my co-band members are so well organised that it would not surprise me if that happened one day.

This is the sight that greeted us on arrival.


OK, without our rhythm guitar player, singer and front man celebrating like he'd just scored a goal...

A huge open-air stage, complete with waterproof roof. This raises our spirits greatly (not that they were down in the first place) particularly since we had played our previous gig in a broom cupboard of a bar roughly the size and shape of a railway carriage.

With so much space to play with, and great vehicle access right up to the stage, unloading and setting up is no hassle at all. If you were wondering, roadies really earn their money. P.A. gear is heavy and does not take readily to being moved around.


We are lucky enough to have our own expert and ressourceful sound engineer who accompanies us on gigs and he ensures that everything is placed exactly where it should be before the power even gets switched on.



When we can, we replicate the configuration we always have at the rehearsal studio as this is what we are familiar with. I don’t get to see the lead guitar player much (he’s way over the other end of the stage) but we can sort of communicate enough through nods and waves.

Soon my work station is ready for action.

After many gigs of not actually hearing what I was doing, I now have my very own local monitoring system a few metres behind me. I run the ‘phones out’ line of my keyboard into this together with a split from my mic line, made possible by a neat little gadget (one of the many). Although, of course, we are well covered with stage monitors (4 floor wedges in this case) I find there is no substitute for having this local and personal monitor. It doesn’t make me play any better, but at least I get to hear the mistakes!

Anyway, for the 3rd time, our sound engineer reassures me that the local amp does not affect the front of house output at all and none of the others seem to mind, so I’m happy.

The key difference between having a professional sound engineer and not having one is at the time of the sound check. Without one, it’s guesswork at best but more often simply competition as to who can put his stuff up the loudest without anyone complaining.

Our sound check – as usual – is like a military exercise and if you play as much as one note when its not your turn you get a look equivalent to 10k volts from C, our engineer. But you can’t amble off in search of a coffee either as your name can be called at any time.

We run through a couple of songs and everyone seems happy, so its power off and break time as we settle down for a light meal courtesy of our hosts. I impress my fellow band members with the ultimate accessory – a sleek, black elastic keyboard cover which really looks amazingly pro.
The waiters and waitresses say they will keep an eye on our equipment while we are away, but we take it in turns to make regular patrols anyway and I try to keep the stage in my line of vision.

We change in a broom cupboard (2 at a time, for obvious reasons) and its showtime.



My wife and son arrive and, fearing a drop in temperature once the sun goes down, position themselves strategically inside the café but with a good view of the stage.

I am eternally grateful to my wife not only for the splendid photos on this post, which are her work, but also for her patience and moral support.

First thing I notice is that there are not many empty tables on the terrace. This is more due to the fact that it’s a nice sunny evening and the café’s great location than to our reputation. But it’s encouraging none the less.



We play less well than we do at rehearsal, but without any major disasters.
As our repertoire consists of pop hits, the songs go by quickly. There is barely time to find the right settings on the board between numbers and I’m thankful now for the hours we have spent rehearsing as a result of which I can play most bits of most songs without having to think.

The audience seems appreciative, although no one is applauding wildly or dancing – but then again, we’re not really that kind of band.

C checks up on us regularly, making sure we are all happy with what we hear on stage. He tells us that the front of house sound is fine in the main and gives me a mild ticking off for adjusting my volumes too much during the songs. He is in a much better position to do this. In fact, its why he’s there!

I find myself trapped in a one-sided conversation with a member of the audience keen to relate how he was in the front row of the Stones 1967 concert in Paris …(there’s one at every gig. The band may change but the story remains essentially the same).

There is just about time for a lemonade and we are back on stage to complete our set – with a more varied mix of covers and a couple of original songs as night falls.



I make more mistakes than in the first half, particularly towards the end of the set when, for some strange reason, the stage gets overrun with 4-5 year olds who appear to be playing some form of hide and seek.

I wave goodbye to my wife and son who are leaving before the traffic gets too bad!


We end with our regular show stopper, Van Morrison’s simple but organic stomper, Gloria and that is that. These things are quite strictly controlled with local regulations needing to be complied with, so come 11 pm its power down and reverse the setup/unload process of earlier in the afternoon.

We watch the drunks stumble away from the café and into their cars (fortunately we will not be on the road for a good hour) as we disassemble and pack up our gear. C gives a master class in the correct technique for handling and coiling cables. Mains leads, stands and plectrum are returned to their original owners wherever possible.

General opinion is that we have played ok and that both our host and the audience were pleased by events. We picked up a serious contact for future concerts sometime during the second half of the show despite the oversight of not having left printed cards on all the tables (these exist but had inexplicably not been brought to the gig)

Once everything is safely stowed away we stop for a quick drink before heading off for the final unload at the studio (those speakers do not get any lighter) and if anyone has made it home to bed before 2 am then they are doing well.

8 May concert - day before

Well that was that. Final rehearsal completed yesterday evening prior to our concert (with Flashback, that is) at Les Maronniers, a bar/brasserie close to the River Marne at Gournay.

As anyone who plays live will know, it’s always a bit of a marathon and you need to conserve energy for when it matters i.e. on stage. We have a 3.pm meet, giving us enough time to arrive, set up, sound check and eat before getting on stage at 7.30.

Much fretting in the hours beforehand about what seem like pretty trivial details
(which string patch should I use here? If we’re outdoors, will my music stand fall over? Have I got a spare mike clip?...and the list goes on..how many times do we repeat the A capella bit? Which shoes should I wear…)

But actually its these details that matter, as once they are under control you feel more confident in the performance and this is immediately picked up by the audience.

While we rehearse and prepare as thoroughly as time allows, there is always an element of uncertainty…

Will someone be particularly ‘hot’ (or, for that matter, have an off day?). Will the band achieve that indefinable chemistry that makes the same piece sound so different when played at rehearsal or live in front of an audience. Will anyone show up? So many questions…

I guess that’s what makes it live music.

Hope the Gods of Rock and Pop are with us tomorrow!!

Tuesday 28/04

After a long break, I relistened to all my 8 of my self-written, self recorded songs yesterday. Of course, there are plenty of things that can be improved, notably in the mixing and mastering as I know slightly more now than I did when I started.

But I was quite happy with most of the songs from the point of view of lyrics, structure and overall feel.

It is still a source of intense disappointment that I have not been able to convince my band, the Cannonballs, to attempt to play one of my compositions – even if it’s only for fun. Which it would be, because this band has precisely no dates planned.

I may have more luck with the much better organised Flashback, but I am the new boy here, having only joined in February 2009. I think my songs stand up fairly well to the other originals the group plays so we shall see. There is a short series of dates in the near future with Flashback – starting with a local concert on 08/05 – so we are hard at work in the rehearsal studio at the moment. Things have not been made any easier by our front man and singer recently undergoing 2 operations (and 3 weeks in hospital).

The contrast between the two bands is striking.
The Cannonballs is likely to remain a hobby band forever as nobody has the time necessary to devote to promotion, marketing and the non-playing side of things. 2 of our members still turn up to the studio without any documentation of the songs we play and so constantly forget words, bridges, endings etc.

Flashback is an entirely different matter. We are lucky enough to be able to rehearse in a well-equipped and soundproofed home rehearsal room at one of the band’s members. A legal entity has been set up to enable customers to book us and the band has collectively invested in its own p.a system. Furthermore, I get the impression that ‘day job’ commitments are less pressing which gives 2 of the guys plenty of time to tackle the administrative and promotional aspects of the band.

In recent months, I have been rehearsing every Mon. and Tue. evening with these respective bands – which has made for an interesting life! But I guess you only get out what you put in.

Until next time…

Where is my band going?

Since 2005, I have been playing second guitar and keyboards and singing with a local amateur covers band.

What do we have? Well let me tackle that question a different way but listing the things we don’t have:
- a stable line up
- a name
- a shared vision of what we want to do
- a regular gig (or any gig, in fact)
- a demo CD
- a web site

…and the list goes on.

In other words, my fellow musicians seem quite content to lark around for a couple of hours in a rehearsal studio every week, but are totally resistant to those annoying, non music-making activities that we would need to do to make the thing work. Yes, I’m talking planning, organisation, promotion, marketing, networking, advertising, selling ourselves.

We held a poorly attended crisis meeting last week at which not much was decided and discussion was pretty well limited to what songs to include (or exclude) in our repertoire.

Furthermore despite intense lobbying on my part, the band has steadfastly refused to have a go at any of my songs, although pretty well all of them are well suited to our line up.

You could say that as we don’t ever play anywhere, this doesn’t matter. Which is true, but I would still like to hear what these songs sound like played by a real band, rather than a PC sound card.

On the plus side, we are all competent musicians united by a love of good rock and pop. We really should be doing better.

So as you can see, moving into 2009, the band is not the potential source of pleasure that it should be.

Still it is –as they say- the only ball game in town as regards to playing music with other people, so for the moment I’m sticking with it.

Dream of the hobby musician

It’s not easy trying to combine the strains, stresses and constraints of an ‘ordinary life’ i.e. full time job, family, house and PCs to maintain…with the role of home studio musician and songwriter.

There is some time available, of course, but it is usually at the end of the day when creative and musical facutlies are not at their best. Also, for many parts of the process, an hour or two is not enough. You need a larger chunk of time in which to experiment all options and then pick the best one, without having to put it all away and start again.

So that’s decided, then, I’m giving up the day job! (moving out would be a little bit too drastic).

The Greats

How do you react to hearing, say, a Motown tune written by Holland/Dozier/Holland or a Burt Bacharach classic? Does it make you want to run to your piano and emulate the almost perfect sound you have just heard?

Does it make you roll your sleeves up and say “I could do all that, and more?”

Well, I wish this were true for me, but more often than not it has the opposite effect.

I wonder to myself how anyone could have written anything that good and resign myself to the fact that even if I were to write the very best song I could, it could not even be measured on the same scale as what I had just heard.

But what can you do. Lower down the food chain, us mere mortals have no choice but to plug away, borrowing a chord sequence here or a rhyme there, and hope that no one notices.

Perhaps Smokey Robinson wrote some absolute stinkers. But somehow, I doubt it!

Over half way there

On the basis that I probably need 10 songs for an authentic debut CD, I am now over half the way there having just recorded song number 6.

When you think of all the professionals who contribute towards the production of a CD – songwriter, lyricist, musicians, producer, sound engineer, mastering engineer...it is astounding to think that the home studio musician can now do all of this alone.

This would never have been possible a few years ago but is now thanks to the various technologies which have emerged in recent years.

Indeed, there is a risk that the home studio musician spends more time tinkering around with the hardware and software tools than actually making music. There comes a point where you have to say to yourself “this is the gear I’ve got. I’m going to learn how to get the best sound I can from it, although I know that some of it is pretty obsolete and all of it could be upgraded”.

Fortunately, help is at hand. I have found that fellow home studio musicians are, almost without exception, generous, supportive and kind spirited. At any rate, the ones I have met through the PG Music (1) and Audacity (2) member forums fit this description. There is a strong norm that if you have any useful knowledge or experience, you share it with others.

Of the various aspects listed above, I find that the most critical is song writing. The hardest part is to find the key idea, whether musical or lyrical, that you want the song to focus on. From that point on, it’s ‘just’ a matter of giving concrete form to that original idea. It may take time and effort, but I find that most things kind of fall into place once the song has its direction.

There have been 2 particular moments of euphoria to date. The first, obviously, was when, in 2007, I completed work on my first ever composition. The second was the overwhelmingly positive reaction I got to a “Power Ballad” I wrote in the first months of 2008. Since that time I have been trying – so far, unsuccessfully – to sell this song to a music publisher.

I should also mention how much fun it was recording my daughter on backing vocals on one of my compositions.

My dream is still to make music my livelihood, but I know that this is not likely to happen any time soon. But I can still dream!

In the meantime my musical output can be found here


(1) PG Music is a company which makes and distributes music software

(2) Audacity is a digital audio editor application