Month: August 2010

Electric Picnic

Today I set up a tent for the first time ever. My parents were Scouts & Cubs leaders when they were younger, but we didn’t go camping as kids. I guess there were just too many of us that it would have been a bit of a nightmare for my folks. The tent is for Electric Picnic this weekend, which is also the first proper outdoor festival I’ll have been to in my life. I’m performing at it, but not musically, unfortunately. I always promised myself that the first festival I’d go to would be one I was performing at, and indeed this is the case. I’ll be dancing with the Opus Gei crew in the thisispopbaby tent, though. Perhaps I should have been more specific in my promise to myself.

Then again, I did spent most of my 20’s playing music for other people, as opposed to working on my own, and who knows, maybe a year will change a lot in my life. I’m looking forward to this weekend though, though the fact that my car has been out of action for over 2 weeks now is adding a bit of awkwardness to the arrangements. Living where I do it’s difficult to get anywhere without a car. I’ve been walking the 3 miles to town a lot, which added to the dancing rehearsals has made up for the fact that I’ve not been able to get to the pool much lately.

DJing at R.I.P. (Rock Indie Pop)

I’ll be spinning some tunes for a while at the R.I.P. (Rock Indie Pop) night in The Button Factory, Dublin next Friday 27th. DJ Laura Lovejoy of the band Pulpit will also be playing, alongside R.I.P. regular DJ Sean John.

If you’re around Dublin, come check it out. (click the poster for the facebook event page)

After the last two nights of fun this Summer, we couldn’t let August pass without another RIP.

The Button Factory will open it’s doors again for a third installment on Friday 27th August, and to help get us in the mood for Electric Picnic / back to collage / the leaves falling from the trees, DJ Seán John will be back to rock our world with more of his signature beats, and joining him this time will be DJ ebby.

Spinning his own blend of rock, alternative, quirky pop and electro, ebby has been DJing gay alternative nights in Galway since 2006, namely AlternativEden, IQ (IndieQueer) and Smells Like Queen Spirit, while Dublin dwellers may have caught him this year playing at Paddy Monster.

DJ Laura Lovejoy will be on the decks in the Button Factory side bar. Obsessed with 60s pop, as well as girl groups, soul, motown and surf, Laura’s record collection is a treasure trove of the finest pop hits and obscure gems. She’s currently the weekend resident DJ at the Garage Bar in Temple Bar, and before that she played at Antics, Retro Revival at Le Cirk, Shebeen Chic and Dice Bar. She ranks Phil Spector and Joe Meek among her favorite producers, and the multi-talented Laura also plays guitar and sings with the band The Pulpit, who rocked RIP back in June. She’ll be accompanied on the decks by band mate Evan O’Leary.

Maria (demo)

The lyrics for this song were written years ago, I think circa 2002 or so, but didn’t become a song until some time in 2006. I wrote the music for this and another song Caoineadh initially as piano instrumentals first. The lyrics for Caoineadh started to come as I was playing through the music for that one, but it was only as I was going through old ideas and words that I’d sketched out that I noticed that the other instrumental I’d been doodling on at the piano fit rather well with the words of Maria. I have two other melodic lines written (possibly two violins, but I’m toying with the idea of going with woodwinds for this song, as I think it’d suit it better, but that’s for another day I guess) but they’re not recorded in this demo at all.

It’s a song that I always mess up the verse order in when I play it live, but at the same time, it’s a song that I tend to pull out a lot when I’m playing live, as it’s just lovely to play to be honest. I might record an instrumental version of this when I work out the rest of the instrumentation. I think that would be lovely.

Maria (demo) by misterebby

Friday Night Friends (demo)

This song kinda came together in dribs and drabs over a wee period of time. The main chunk of the lyrics were written all at once, in a longer form that I edited down a good time later. But it didn’t really start to come together until I added what became the middle section and the whole idea of what the song was about started to take shape.

Initially I was going for a piano version of a surf-pop kinda song, to counteract the bite in the lyrics, I’m still not sure about what way the arrangement will go: whether to make it poppier and lighter, or to go for a more piano rock sound. I’m still toying with this song in that regards, but I do like playing it solo with just piano.

I’m rather terrible at programming beats, but I just needed something to play off and to start to give myself an idea of how the whole song would sound. So, it’s definitely a demo, and definitely quite rough still, but it’s helped me to see the shape of the song, and what I want to change or alter, and to give me ideas on how I want to flesh out the arrangement more.

Friday Night Friends (demo) by misterebby