gigs in june

word up you crazy cats!!

just a quick one to let y'all know, in line with my civic duty, all the places that the bwoi can be found and therefore avoided (for the betterment of your health) during the month of june...

busy at the start of the month, with two seperate gigs on the same day, and then it kinda chills in the middle of the month before ending on a high with foxton locks festival... which i am really looking forward to

so its all there for you to digest, in both widget and text formats...and should you decide to shun government advice and come join the bwoi for some thang shakery... well it would be damn lovely to see you!!

JUNE

sun 03 - 3rd Annual Charter Festival, The Charter Inn, Rothwell
sun 03 - Jubilee Music Festival, The Horseshoe, Sywell
wed 06 - The Charter Acoustic Club, Rothwell
sat 30 - Foxton Locks Festival, Market Harborough

JULY

sun 22 - The Artichoke Inn, Moulton
thu 26 - The Golden Lion, Wellingborough 


peace-out y'all

the welcome rock...

it is the welcome rock...

not only does it tell you 'welcome', it goes on to provide a bona fide dictionary definition too...

AND... its a rock!!

welcome, rock...

Charter Acoustic Festival AND The Horseshoe... 030612

how do?!

the jubilee weekend is almost upon us, it brings with it a bank-holiday which has confused me (they always confuse me, its like changing year at new year only slightly more random) and as ever, the promise of sunshine...

there has been sunshine... and long may it continue

one thing there will definitely be, is quality music...

and (THIS JUST IN!!)... you can know get yourself not one, but TWO slices of bwoi action too!!!

                        SUN 3RD JUNE - 3RD ANNUAL CHARTER FESTIVAL

                        SUN 3RD JUNE -         JUBILEE MUSIC FESTIVAL 

that's right, its goin' all olympic torch, and there's gonna be one of those one day hyper condensed tour thingies... like the torch relay, but faster - right on!

at about 16.50 on sunday, i shall be shaking that thang at the 3rd annual charter festival!! it'll be my second appearance at the festival, having played last year too, but the charter's always an ace gig...

that one's been arranged for a while... then one email later (well two, if you count the reply) i was booked to play an evening slot at the jubilee music festival at the horseshoe - bwoi on tour!!

i'll be hitting the stage there around 9.30(ish), it may even be a bit darker... but the thang will still be primed, and ready to shake... 

so if ya fancy some quality tunage, and even a beer, it'd be lovely to see you... although only people who make it to both will know whether or not the hot weather forces me to instigate a costume-change-manoeuvre between venues...

just putting it out there...

peace-out y'all

Fatbwoi Live @ The Tollemache Arms 250512

word up you crazy cats!! how's it all goin'?!

took to the stage with the most-excellent wildfire sessions crew on friday night... twas at the tollemache arms in harrington... which has got itself some tight old roads, some beautiful vistas, and a complete lack of mobile reception - a bit of a hitch when you have decided to navigate via the magic of google maps...

but i found it! and it was a lot of fun...

there was two stevies, who both put in sterling performances... an excellent set from abbie hutt, who i first saw over at nbs... and after a brief discussion on the relative merits of 'nandos' and a certain mister sheeran's tune of a similar name, and that mine came first and stevie is convinced he robbed it from me, it was my go...

opened with aforementioned poultry ballad... the reaction to which is always interesting in a new venue, before requesting some dance moves and dealing with the marmite...

the weather basically twisted my arm into playing sunny afternoon, fatbwoi filtered of course, it almost seems wrong not to... and perhaps the complete lack of sun explains why i haven't played it yet this year...

there was a spontaneous 1-800, which never featured on the lil' piece of paper... but i was going down well and i just couldn't help myself... forgot to consider the effects of stomping on a hot evening, and by the end 1x bwoi was damn hot!

always nice when you drop the fresh prince at the end of CYHMN and everyone sings along... it still amazes me to this day, just how many people know all the words to that particular ditty...

its like some kind of national guilty pleasure...

the closer was bullet, by request of mr jones... and who can deny a request like that?!

all-in a really good night... i had a lot of fun, and anywhere with red stripe on draught has automatically got itself a handful of bonus points... thank-you to the two stevies for having me over!

learnt an important lesson too... its probably best not to burst into spontaneous versions of "we're the anchor cows" when asked if this is the adverts... i'm not sure that pretending to be a doo-wop cow whilst standing there looking crazy-haired and sweaty doesn't affect your street cred...

good fun though 8)

until the next time...

peace-out y'all

fb

the sunshine vibe... [going all katy perry]

"Well, can you tell me what it feels like?"

"Fool, it's hot! I told you again! Were you born on the sun?! It's damn hot" 

well, its not actually that hot, but complaining about the weather is the national obsession...

although i for one have been rather enjoying it...

didn't i tell you, its hot, damn hot...

i'm less keen on the 'medallion man' triangle i appear to have developed on my chest whilst out and about today... (and if my face caught the sun, it could be that the beard is gonna have to stay awhile)

and you can't beat a bit of messin' with synths on a sunny day (esp. not the bass!!)...

Katy Perry... and watermelon

but what's all this got to do with katy perry?!

well, it has come to my attention, via the means of proper scientific analysis, that attempting to write synth lines on a sunny day inevitably leads to katy perry bubblegum sunshine-pop...

it is seriously true!! you start out all dank and dirty, and then a lil' bit just creeps in there...

you gotta be quick!! like that game with the moles and the hammers...

tbf bubblegum synth-pop is a genre that i have explored yet, and have no especial desire to at this time (i'm leaving it to my 50s, after my dub-freakout album)...

if it happens, you know exactly who/what to blame...

peace-out y'all

fb

writing... [flatbread]

word!!

or in this case, words...

still doodling away with some electronic weirdness over here on planet bwoi... but i can at this stage present to you an early (incomplete) draft of the lyrics to 'flatbread'...

its the one with at least half a shopping list, and a brief dabble in culinary territory...

not that you asked, but i am known for musing upon my own modus operandi, and it enables me to answer a question...

the question? do you ever write these things down?!

the answer? yes! and the paper is never bloody wide enough [must use less syllables]

[or get a bigger book]

they do actually all get written down at least once... sometimes its on a cardboard box, once in match on a paving stone, but i digress...

when i was on bridge FM, paul (the DJ) asked me whether i write the words or the music first... and really the answer is both... sometimes one-way, sometimes the other (nightmare answer i know - but its true)...

this one was words first, in the car, on the way back from the supermarket... and they're wrong. well the 'do-do do do' bit (kinda of a chorus) is anyway... now its much more science-y. some of the second verse is missing, and that last line is different (currently back to the monkey)...

structurally its a bit of a builder... but also a bit out there, but i like it, cos it allows me to repeat the "something missing... tiger, string-pull light... mirror" motif, and that was the late night 'eureka' line that made me want to roll with the idea...

i like the prawns line too...

so there you have it...

peace-out y'all

fb 8)

ps. i'd consider some-kinda prize if anyone out there fancies guess-humming the melody, and sending it to me?! i would say closest, but anything is good... reinterpretation is good for me too

beunos noches

writing and recording...

"Norway has trolls... so more power lines will be needed, that's just the way it is..."

word-up...

how the devil be thee?! all good i hope...?! life on planet bwoi has been proper hectic of late... mostly, as a way of celebrating the gradual return of my hearing, with the good stuff - the writing, the playing and the recording... and to make it just that lil' bit better, there's even a few gigs coming up...

happy time...

between one thing and another, there's definitely been a lot of writing recently... one i am hoping to debut on friday is tentatively called 'luggage', and has this kinda 'happy-eels' type vibe to it... there's a few more acoustic ones, that i shall be slipping into the set over the summer...

lately, i have been working on a couple of 'less' acoustic tunes... there's the TRE remix of 'Love Once', which has this retro-bigbeat/monster-synth vibe going on...

and then there's 'flatbread'... which is loosely based on a shopping list. initially i was aiming for a 90's b-side kinda vibe, with definite hints of 'go to the bank' by james... not a b-side i know, but definitely the kinda start point i was thinking of...

a flatbread, although not the one i was singing about...

it has admittedly 'wandered off' a bit, but is nearly finished and ready to make happy in your ear-holes...

its got aliens, flatbread, (conspiracy) intrigue, and a healthy slice of weirdness (whether or not the sound of pan-fried bacon makes it to the final mix remains to be seen)... pretty much what you've come to expect after all this time...

thus i shall leave you, for now, with this lil' couplet, which may/may-not explain something/everything/nothing [delete as applicable]...

"there's a little piece missing from deep inside the tiger...
there's a string-pull light sits on top of the mirror..."

alles klar?! though not...

i hope the world is good with y'all... i shall return, for now, to my beavering...

peace-out y'all

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stereo sound

i think that my hearing is finally coming back...

there have been a couple of moments, both last night and today, where i have realised that i am receiving (more or less) in stereo...

full service is not yet restored, its a bit like a speaker with a loose connection... but the pain has gone, and i know that the full restoration will indeed be glorious...

they are some truly impressive headphones...

where did my hearing go... the short answer is i don't know, away somewhere...

but after the initial "oh my <insert deity here> i've gone deaf, i can never make music again" panic had subsided (days 2 and 3), i've been pretty stoic in dealing with it...

to the point where i only realised today, now that we are in may, that i was in-fact 'receiving in mono' for the majority of april... [and i actually managed to not get run over!!]

the most frustrating thing about it all, is that i have been on a bit of a writing tip of late... and at its worst i couldn't hear the guitar i was playing - i was effectively working off the vibrations... try to hum a melody over that and the guitar is gone... add a little bit of outside noise and everything suddenly gets really confusing...

but its going now...

as far as i understand it, i had some kind of bad-ass infection in my inner ear that produced a lot of gakk... which then bunged up the delicate inner workings off my ear (and tried to take over the rest of my head)...

two courses of progressively larger horse tablets later (the second batch we're bright red "how ill are you" type tablets)... and its only just starting to clear...

i was trying to sort out a click track for a new song the other day, and playing through an earphone into my left (deaf) ear i was hearing a most awesome metronome sound... when i swapped ears it was this hideous flabby distorted bass drum... so in that the deafness did a good thing...

but i'm not planning on using my ears reduced frequency response as a plot for a new extreme drum filter... nuh-uh, i'm just looking forward to being able to lay some stuff down...

as the song says...

"Can You Hear Me Now?"

("honestly?! uhm,... no.")