So much has happened in the last few months regarding the band it's hard to know where to start.
Wynd is set to perform in full for the first time in a very public venue right at the centre of Brighton at the end of August, we are very excited about this opportunity to launch so publicly!
But just descending from that cloud for a moment, in reality I'm amazed we're still going because the survival rate for original bands is very low. I am still teetering, personally, on that excruciating edge of, am I too old, is this ridiculous, is the material rubbish, do the others in the band really want to do it, a negative world I used to live in sometimes pops up and seduces me for a few minutes.
The most important event in the last couple of months is the arrival of Katie Miller - K-rrrang! Katie, who also plays with the metal 3 piece Pyro, is a real asset to the band, being young and gorgeous, and can play great lead so it's really enhanced the sound.
We have now probably managed to arrange and rehearse most of the original songs I came up with, plus one or two new ones.
We've been through several curves. Two people had to leave, we're still looking for a rhythm section, but our friend Aldo is helping me make backing tracks.
Backing tracks! Surely that's against the rules in rrrock? Well, most of the big bands use some kind of digitally generated or looped backing now. Check out some of the current videos on the TV music channels or live performances, look at the TingTings and the White Stripes. Nuff said!
Backing tracks, for muso readers, have other spinoffs. For one thing, although obviously you lose spontaneity, it tightens the band arrangement-wise, and it's very good disclipine. For another, the rhythm tracks form the basis for eventual recording, which is the next phase.
We have two possible gigs and even a mini tour of Holland in the offing but we still need to get out there and test ourselves and the material.
I've now played some of the material a few times at the Portland Pub jam in Hove, with various combinations of band members, just off the cuff, and it's gone really well.
A lot of feedback has been sought just playing people the tracks and unless they are being incredibly polite, so far so good.
Plans are afoot to start 'staging' the band.
We'll have to play where we can to start with of course, but once we start performing in some bigger venues, we have very big plans for performance oriented presentation, right from stage clothing, props and a few other nice touches up our sleeves.
I feel really excited about the project. We all get on, rehearsals are taken seriously but we have a laugh and we've started to socialise together.
My guess will be that we should soon have something recorded which sounds good enough to post here.
WyndMusic, my record and publishing company has also recieved permission to put material on to ITunes that's probably going to happen in the Autumn.
We do have a bit of a band 'sound' going on now, K-rrang has a very distinctive lead guitar sound, Fiddleycat's violin, mandolin and cello accompaniments are adding a huge amount of class to the overall mix, and now that we have another guitar player there will be some duelling fiddles on one or two tracks. Lurex's high soprano ghosting or harmony vocals are unique to us and Karma Mama's haunting Native American Flutes add real ambience and heart stopping, uplifting solos.
Over the next couple of weeks we are going to check out a woman accordionist who has approached us, and we're still open to a real rhythm section and maybe a didge player.
We'll also be approaching radio and TV shows who play 'unsigned' bands so at the moment, lots of plans.
Listen to this space.
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
Monday, 6 April 2009
Update on Wynd
It's now two months and we've had quite a few rehearsals, for me, the writer, the music has firmed up and developed, although still a little way to go.
Wynd women are awesome, there has been a bit of angsting about eventual performance, but I have started to really scare them as I now have plans for getting us out there and actually playing.
We did manage a couple of songs at Lurex's party two Saturdays ago, so that might have proved an informal 'first outing', it remains to be seen how we'll do when we're a bit more sober!
It's been an interesting personal journey for all of us. Belinda, as my main Other Musician, has not had many problems coming up with stuff to play, some of it is much better than I could have hoped for, she's now playing three instruments.
The backing vocals are getting stronger every week, my partner, Baz, alias Kevin Kirk, has been invited to coach the girls since while I'm playing and singing myself so that they can practice it's been difficult to focus on what they are doing.
We've had one demo of three songs courtesy Nick Conroy which I'm sure will prove useful.
Next major step for us is to start laying down backing trax, as we have been unsuccessful in finding a suitable percussionist or bassist, although Karma Mama and Wicca can bash a djembe if necessary.
Karma Mama has been to two rehearsals, her beautiful Native American flute, handcrafted by Antz, her partner, who is an instrument maker, now has a pickup and sounded hauntingly beautiful.
All good, look for us at Newick Tuesday night open mic in perhaps six weeks' time, and in the summer we may doing the Portland open mic on Sunday night, there's a possibility of a proper gig at a Beer Festival in Hampshire in August and a short tour of Holland later in the Autumn.
Meanwhile, plans afoot to promote our own launch gig Somewhere in Central Brighton, also in September.
Lurex will be staging the band: backdrops, props, dry ice, movies, clothes, dancing, you name it!
Wynd women are awesome, there has been a bit of angsting about eventual performance, but I have started to really scare them as I now have plans for getting us out there and actually playing.
We did manage a couple of songs at Lurex's party two Saturdays ago, so that might have proved an informal 'first outing', it remains to be seen how we'll do when we're a bit more sober!
It's been an interesting personal journey for all of us. Belinda, as my main Other Musician, has not had many problems coming up with stuff to play, some of it is much better than I could have hoped for, she's now playing three instruments.
The backing vocals are getting stronger every week, my partner, Baz, alias Kevin Kirk, has been invited to coach the girls since while I'm playing and singing myself so that they can practice it's been difficult to focus on what they are doing.
We've had one demo of three songs courtesy Nick Conroy which I'm sure will prove useful.
Next major step for us is to start laying down backing trax, as we have been unsuccessful in finding a suitable percussionist or bassist, although Karma Mama and Wicca can bash a djembe if necessary.
Karma Mama has been to two rehearsals, her beautiful Native American flute, handcrafted by Antz, her partner, who is an instrument maker, now has a pickup and sounded hauntingly beautiful.
All good, look for us at Newick Tuesday night open mic in perhaps six weeks' time, and in the summer we may doing the Portland open mic on Sunday night, there's a possibility of a proper gig at a Beer Festival in Hampshire in August and a short tour of Holland later in the Autumn.
Meanwhile, plans afoot to promote our own launch gig Somewhere in Central Brighton, also in September.
Lurex will be staging the band: backdrops, props, dry ice, movies, clothes, dancing, you name it!
Monday, 16 February 2009
The Long and Wynding Road
Wiccapaedia writes:
Why did I form WYND?
Last year I had looked at joining three or four original bands as a violinist. Since 2001 I’d done covers for a while and then been in a brilliant project which didn’t quite work out. Last year I was briefly in a country and western band that sort of, petered out!
Somehow, I couldn’t get enthused about any of the new offers, even though most of them were great bands and I’d have had some fun.
One of them was a well known band, nice people and very competent but I just wasn’t mad about the material.
The next band leader promised me I’d have creative freedom, but when it came down to it I was presented with some manuscript and asked to play this bit there, and that bit there. I'm only going to do that if you pay me, I'm afraid.
The third was disorganised, I liked the material and had some creative freedom, but the first rehearsal was cancelled at an hour's notice, a bad sign, and there were no gigs planned, so I said a polite, no, I don’t think so.
All this was a bit disappointing and frustrating.
But I sit down when this sort of thing happens and ask myself what message the Universe is sending me.
Someone had said to me a year or two back, ‘you need to go do your own thing.’
That comment stuck with me and it popped back into my mind.
Yes, Steve, the children’s dad and I had had an original band for about seven years in the past and we’d had some success but found it really hard to keep it all together. We were all young and people had a lot of calls on their time. We didn’t know how to create a good group dynamic either and people came and went rapidly.
But lately I realised that really I’d been wanting to form my own band again, and had been writing a lot of material, particularly recently. I seem to have endless ideas and had got about 14 or 15 fairly decent pieces together so I thought, why not?
I decided it would be particularly good to have a band of just women.
It’s not that I’m a raging feminist, I just think it would be nice to have some variety in the local music scene! I think an all-female band will come up with some interesting music simply because we’re women!
Anyway, lots of established artists from Beyonce to Bette Midler now have all-female backing bands. Maybe it's Our Time!
Not that I want my fellow musicians to be a backing band as such, my ego really isn’t that big.
I do want to showcase my material, this was the point. But I wanted to work with other people, and eventually I’m very open to encourage them to participate in writing more material as a group since this is what I'd hope for if I joined another writer's band.
So who else is involved?
I go to a jam night locally and there I met another violinist, Belinda Bohanna – ‘Fiddleycat’. We made a connection and I knew immediately that Belinda could be a musical lynchpin as she has vast classical knowledge, has taught and played for many years, but has a foot in the rock and roll camp as she’s married to a fantastic rock musician, Scott.
Then two friends expressed an interest, one Laura, ‘Lady Lurex’ has a nice high voice, sings in tune and would be good at harmony as she’s getting choir experience. Lurex is now in charge of staging, design and performance ideas too as she has a top quality background in marketing and design.
These women will love performing and have a lot of stage presence.
Latest addition is an old and dear friend Karen ‘Karma Mama’ who plays gorgeous Native American style flutes made by her lovely instrument craftsman husband Anthony. I’d been in Anthony’s drum ‘n bass band for a while a couple of years ago and their musical background is awesome.
We haven’t found a woman bassist or percussionist yet, but I’m making us backing tracks which seem to work. If other women musicians emerge, brilliant, but I’ve drawn a blank so the Universe must be telling me to get on with what we’ve got.
Needless to say we’re all very different but we’re all willing to put in the effort and deliver not just music, but a whole performance.
My personal agenda as the current main creative force of Wynd is to deliver meaningful lyrics, some of which are ironic, some comic, some deadly serious and come under the heading of social comment. So far my band colleagues seem to like the music and lyrics.
While the musical context is basic baroque rock, we draw from traditional rock but also World Folk or Country influences with even a sprinkling of hiphop and dance music.
I’m not playing much violin – I’ve decided to play guitar and a little keyboards and as these are not my first instruments I’ve kept it simple. I don’t believe in punching above my weight musically but I think I’ve come up with some nice stuff.
To entertain and inform was my credo when I was a journalist so that’s bound to be a theme.
Our mission statement is to give a good show, have fun, and try to connect with whoever is at our gigs.
For me, there’s also a spiritual element. I’ve always used music as a way of ‘raising my vibrations’, it comes high for me on the Maslow’s hierarchical pyramid after food, water, relationship, and meaningful work, many people believe listening to or playing music actually maintains the immune system.
It’s also a very palatable way of tackling difficult subjects – and I mean to.
Wynd in Celtic is the word for the path off the main drag and that sums up my philosophy perfectly.
Wynd for all of us in different ways will be the Road Less Travelled in many ways.
An original band is a daunting challenge. An all-female band is a bigger challenge. Doing this, when most of us are over forty, is the biggest challenge of all but rock is no longer the preserve of young people, and who knows, we could be one of the first mature bands to make a modest success of it since there are many Baby Boomers out there still creating great stuff.
My journey is to perform my own material and play guitar for the first time.
Belinda’s journey is to learn to improvise in rock music.
For Laura, performing and getting confident with live music is the journey.
Karen’s performance has mostly been accompanying at meditation groups and in workshops, this is her opportunity to perform just to entertain.
So, where does Wynd want to go?
Well, I’m not interested in the Top Forty or X-Factor, I don’t disapprove of pop but I like to keep things sane, and ethical, so I don’t see us scrambling for a record deal and we don’t need to in this day and age.
We’d like to get some respect locally and I've already applied to put our music on ITunes.
As soon as we’ve got a cohesive, well rehearsed body of material we’ll record.
There is an invitation for a short tour abroad already and we plan to take ourselves off to some festivals for ad hoc performances.
Further blogs will chart our progress as musicians, as a group of people, and as friends.
Meanwhile, if you didn’t get here from it already:
www.wyndmusic.co.uk
Why did I form WYND?
Last year I had looked at joining three or four original bands as a violinist. Since 2001 I’d done covers for a while and then been in a brilliant project which didn’t quite work out. Last year I was briefly in a country and western band that sort of, petered out!
Somehow, I couldn’t get enthused about any of the new offers, even though most of them were great bands and I’d have had some fun.
One of them was a well known band, nice people and very competent but I just wasn’t mad about the material.
The next band leader promised me I’d have creative freedom, but when it came down to it I was presented with some manuscript and asked to play this bit there, and that bit there. I'm only going to do that if you pay me, I'm afraid.
The third was disorganised, I liked the material and had some creative freedom, but the first rehearsal was cancelled at an hour's notice, a bad sign, and there were no gigs planned, so I said a polite, no, I don’t think so.
All this was a bit disappointing and frustrating.
But I sit down when this sort of thing happens and ask myself what message the Universe is sending me.
Someone had said to me a year or two back, ‘you need to go do your own thing.’
That comment stuck with me and it popped back into my mind.
Yes, Steve, the children’s dad and I had had an original band for about seven years in the past and we’d had some success but found it really hard to keep it all together. We were all young and people had a lot of calls on their time. We didn’t know how to create a good group dynamic either and people came and went rapidly.
But lately I realised that really I’d been wanting to form my own band again, and had been writing a lot of material, particularly recently. I seem to have endless ideas and had got about 14 or 15 fairly decent pieces together so I thought, why not?
I decided it would be particularly good to have a band of just women.
It’s not that I’m a raging feminist, I just think it would be nice to have some variety in the local music scene! I think an all-female band will come up with some interesting music simply because we’re women!
Anyway, lots of established artists from Beyonce to Bette Midler now have all-female backing bands. Maybe it's Our Time!
Not that I want my fellow musicians to be a backing band as such, my ego really isn’t that big.
I do want to showcase my material, this was the point. But I wanted to work with other people, and eventually I’m very open to encourage them to participate in writing more material as a group since this is what I'd hope for if I joined another writer's band.
So who else is involved?
I go to a jam night locally and there I met another violinist, Belinda Bohanna – ‘Fiddleycat’. We made a connection and I knew immediately that Belinda could be a musical lynchpin as she has vast classical knowledge, has taught and played for many years, but has a foot in the rock and roll camp as she’s married to a fantastic rock musician, Scott.
Then two friends expressed an interest, one Laura, ‘Lady Lurex’ has a nice high voice, sings in tune and would be good at harmony as she’s getting choir experience. Lurex is now in charge of staging, design and performance ideas too as she has a top quality background in marketing and design.
These women will love performing and have a lot of stage presence.
Latest addition is an old and dear friend Karen ‘Karma Mama’ who plays gorgeous Native American style flutes made by her lovely instrument craftsman husband Anthony. I’d been in Anthony’s drum ‘n bass band for a while a couple of years ago and their musical background is awesome.
We haven’t found a woman bassist or percussionist yet, but I’m making us backing tracks which seem to work. If other women musicians emerge, brilliant, but I’ve drawn a blank so the Universe must be telling me to get on with what we’ve got.
Needless to say we’re all very different but we’re all willing to put in the effort and deliver not just music, but a whole performance.
My personal agenda as the current main creative force of Wynd is to deliver meaningful lyrics, some of which are ironic, some comic, some deadly serious and come under the heading of social comment. So far my band colleagues seem to like the music and lyrics.
While the musical context is basic baroque rock, we draw from traditional rock but also World Folk or Country influences with even a sprinkling of hiphop and dance music.
I’m not playing much violin – I’ve decided to play guitar and a little keyboards and as these are not my first instruments I’ve kept it simple. I don’t believe in punching above my weight musically but I think I’ve come up with some nice stuff.
To entertain and inform was my credo when I was a journalist so that’s bound to be a theme.
Our mission statement is to give a good show, have fun, and try to connect with whoever is at our gigs.
For me, there’s also a spiritual element. I’ve always used music as a way of ‘raising my vibrations’, it comes high for me on the Maslow’s hierarchical pyramid after food, water, relationship, and meaningful work, many people believe listening to or playing music actually maintains the immune system.
It’s also a very palatable way of tackling difficult subjects – and I mean to.
Wynd in Celtic is the word for the path off the main drag and that sums up my philosophy perfectly.
Wynd for all of us in different ways will be the Road Less Travelled in many ways.
An original band is a daunting challenge. An all-female band is a bigger challenge. Doing this, when most of us are over forty, is the biggest challenge of all but rock is no longer the preserve of young people, and who knows, we could be one of the first mature bands to make a modest success of it since there are many Baby Boomers out there still creating great stuff.
My journey is to perform my own material and play guitar for the first time.
Belinda’s journey is to learn to improvise in rock music.
For Laura, performing and getting confident with live music is the journey.
Karen’s performance has mostly been accompanying at meditation groups and in workshops, this is her opportunity to perform just to entertain.
So, where does Wynd want to go?
Well, I’m not interested in the Top Forty or X-Factor, I don’t disapprove of pop but I like to keep things sane, and ethical, so I don’t see us scrambling for a record deal and we don’t need to in this day and age.
We’d like to get some respect locally and I've already applied to put our music on ITunes.
As soon as we’ve got a cohesive, well rehearsed body of material we’ll record.
There is an invitation for a short tour abroad already and we plan to take ourselves off to some festivals for ad hoc performances.
Further blogs will chart our progress as musicians, as a group of people, and as friends.
Meanwhile, if you didn’t get here from it already:
www.wyndmusic.co.uk
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