Wow what a winter so far! First thing that happened since the last post was that we lost our drummer. You know, sometimes people are lovely and I was sad to see Ali go but it was her decision. This was the point where we had to make a new decision about the fundamental position of Wynd as an all-women band......but the decision was made when four hours after Ali quit, Andy Hoadley was on Facebook asking if we wanted him to join. Done deal, really. Andy brings excellent drumming, enthusiasm, commitment and fun to the band, a huge asset.

Meanwhile Aldo and Wicca have been going to the Plough and Harrow in Smallfield, Surrey once a month with Cass for a good open mic singsong with Ron Howe, et al.

Last blog I was moaning about the lack of recording. Andy bought a jamhub, so we have a couple of useful live demos, but the detailed work of making a professional recording begins this week as Andy and Aldo are going to start putting down drum trax.

We've also asked Ian Lloyd from Aldo's Other band, Raw Deal, to bring his brilliant guitar synth to add a bit of accordian to Dawn of Crack and Butterfly Pillow live if he can make some of the bigger gigs.

Lots of gigs coming up this year.....I am seriously looking for some management to take us to the next level, meanwhile Wynd's marketing campaign is looking good.

Joogum got a new bass for Xmas and Lyn has reduced her commitments elsewhere, so for 2012, well, it might be the end of the World, but it's just the beginning for Wynd!!!

Enjoying the Indian Summer but also thinking towards Winter's recording plans.
Wynd ... plans? yeah, we are quite big on Organic.

BUT, I did say 2011 would be the Year of the Gig and it has been. We're gradually building up a roster of suitable gigs, but it's also becoming clear that most of our activities to build some interest in Wynd in 2012 will be Festie-based. We've already been invited to do Glasstonwick, after Attila The Stockbroker saw us at The Welly back in August and liked the band.

Either as a whole band, unplugged or just Al and I, we've done 10 gigs since the beginning of May, and Wicca's been messing with Teenage Grandad a little too, which is a nice synergy for Wynd. Aldo and Wicca did a duo supporting Bad Medicine, the Bon Jovi trib., at Newhaven's Ark, and also ran a jam for Mary at The Neptune, Hove, we've another proper duo gig on December 18 doing a mix of Wynd and other material, and a full gig for Wynd is promised for the new Year.

Lyn has fitted in so well, in every way, really feels like the band is settled and we should have a chance to develop more new material this year.

We simply MUST get down to recording, we've only two tracks done 'properly' right now and we'd really like to put out some more audio, plus another video - probably green screening this time.

Off to the Rose Hill Tavern, even as I write, tonight, so we'll see how we go down there, that will be, with the two more planned, including one in Worthing in October, 12 gigs altogether this year. We just need to quadruple that and we'll be out there every weekend.

Meanwhile there will be some open mic visits for various configurations of the band so a busy 'live' year ahead!

Tempus .... Fugit! Year of the Paid Gig!!

It's August and I'm totally shocked to see that I haven't blogged anything about Wynd since January. Why? Well, time gets sucked up by Facebook, Twitter, rehearsals, gigs, cooking, travelling, writing more songs, getting a new five string violin, losing Belinda who has gone back to the USA probably for good, inducting Lynn, her fantastic replacement, inviting Al into the band on a permanent basis......breathe!

WYND is having a pretty good 2011. We've developed a bunch of new material, we are a five piece again but the wonderful Lynn is providing the third part of the harmonies I have so longed for, Aldo, the second part of course.

We've done a few gigs and we are now getting paid to play more often. Rosie couldn't commit in the end, I understand why, but she's there in the background rooting for us.

Joogum's bass playing has improved at an astonishing rate, Ali finally extracted her acoustic kit and is now using it at gigs, and because we now have Axeman Alster helping out I finally get to play a little violin, with Lynn, in my own band, so far on one number but the sky's the limit. Am very pleased with the five string, it gives me viola range, very dramatic!

We had a brilliant gig at Lindfield Arts Festival, two great gigs at the World's End, one at the Hove Park Tavern, and at the private festie, Glass-Tonbury Two and at the time of writing we are set to play Brighton Bandstand again, the Wellington Shoreham, The Brunswick, Hove and four or five other gigs dates yet to be advised.

Our struggle is to find the right circuit. Because most of the material is original, it would be almost impossible to crack the pub circuit unless we stick to the folkrock genre, or do a majority of covers in the set. But, we're not a rock covers band, we're not a folk band, we're not an Indie band. In some ways that's all good, but it does make it really hard to place us in terms of performance.

Alster, Joogum Boogum and I are off to Glastonbury town at the end of August to try to arrange a mini tour as we think we'd go down well in that demographic.

Back in March, Alster's rock covers band Raw Deal did a mini tour of Liverpool and we'd like to crack that city so that's also on the cards.

We won't be doing the HPT again, we had a great gig, got a fantastic response from those who showed up to see us, but the 'regulars' weren't interested and it did underline to us that we don't really belong on the pub circuit with one or two exceptions.

Winter will be the time to record another video, this time it's a studio project, with two tracks which we have yet to decide, after our Visitation video we realised all the drawbacks and hassle of location stuff wasn't really for us yet, so we're going to greenscreen it instead, should be a laugh.

Winter Plans

Lots has happened since October.

We've been at the jams in various configurations, although I've done more with Mr Bohanna's hard rock band Thunderfrog.

Writing and developing new songs all the time, in October Belinda and I stood in for the 'lost in France' keyboard player from the original Mockin' Birds fronted by Rosie Barnard. We played the Punk Brighton Festival at the Prince Albert, Brighton, it was a scream. Two violins, brilliant!

Of course I'm always on the trawl for likely backing vocalists, so Rosie was invited in. The bonus is that she's also a drummer so will provide some enhancing percussion.

Rosie has been down with a bad, bad flu since Xmas, so she won't be joining us at our next two gigs, Jan 22nd at the newly refurbed Hobgoblin and Feb 4 supporting Teenage Grandad, the loudest, edgiest 'older' band we know, at the World's End in London Road.

The Hob gig is due to Jason Alexander's revival of Brighton Pulse so there are opportunities for further gigs. Jase is looking at the Dome, Komedia and venues in London and Liverpool so, World Domination awaits. We have co opted Al into the band as Honorary Woman (he has the T shirt. For real!) to play a bit of electric guitar and provide some backing vocals.

Meanwhile, we released the first cut of our video: Visitation, see vid tab on Wynd Music group, Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=115090300082 we had a laugh doing it, the next step is to redo including some storyboarding to match the song, and then another video. It was hell doing location, Al will green screen the next one! BTW we hit our 100th member on Wynd's Facebook Group on December 16, yay! 1,000 by Xmas 2011 please!

I've just asked for another gig at Brighton Bandstand, this time I will probably bring a support act and make a big show of it.

Belinda Fiddleycat and I have been asked to do more violin duets, people really liked the Pachebel Kanon and traditional tunes B and I did to kick off the Bandstand gig.

There are plans to get the girls to Al's house in France and maybe busk either in Chateauroux or another biggist town close by, that means generator or maybe Joogum can acquire a battery busking amp.

Our latest songs are called Eclipse, Barrio Blahniks, Red Suede Boots and Daddy. Al's written some great country rock so I'm hoping we can apply my When The Boss Went Country, a satire on Springsteen. We're also working up some covers, Tweeter and the Monkey Man, Travelling Wilburys, The Boxer, Simon and Garfunkel, and Refugee Tom Petty.

We all had a big meeting on Saturday and decided to establish a common mission apart from Joogum who wants to be Rich and Famous. We realised we did not want to give up our Lives and would be happy doing lots of gigs and selling some stuff on ITunes, that's the plan for this year anyway.

Let's see.....

Things Get Serious

It's been a great summer for the band. Sadly Lurex's commitments forced her to leave and we are missing our backing vocalist, but Belinda is filling some of the gaps and there is a full replacement on the horizon.

All our gigs went well and we are learning live work as a band.

We did Brighton Bandstand for Busking for Cancer in August. This was our first big public audience and it went extremely well. The day wasn't without disaster, our bassist Julz had to do the whole gig while her husband Dave 'Boogum', the bassist with Dolly Dagger, languished in A&E having come off his motorbike just before the gig. What a trouper she was, it couldn't have been easy.

We also had two videos of the event.

We played a private minifest at Alan Rae's Glass-Tonbury by his organic nursery in Newick, and also provided some entertainment at the Brighton Earthship Open Day.

We're developing new material and have shot the band inserts for our storytelling video of our song: Visitation.

Wynd will play the Hydrant, Brighton on October 13. This is our first proper gig and we are very excited.

For me, the band seems to be finally gelling as a unit, and we are growing in confidence weekly.

We've also been showing up in various combinations to jams and open mics and the material is going down well.

We've applied to be included in an all-women rock Fest in Wales next year and have been invited back to take part in the Summer 2011 Rocking Horse charity event in Brighton which we did in 2009.

We now have a better PA and no longer need the backing tracks but we haven't yet worked on including the FX that go with some of the songs live.

We're still not sure where our performing niche will really lie but we are meeting other musicans and networking all the time.

Wynd now has around 80 members in our Facebook Group and it's nice to have that kind of support.

There's never been a moment when I've considered quitting, taking as my motto: It's not a problem, it's a situation.

And overall, we are having fun, so looking forward to 2011 and whatever it brings.

The Beat Goes On

Synchronicity......just at the point when Al had a computer disaster and lost all our recorded material, the band started to sound like a band without the backing trax. Two finished mixes are still available on Facebook, but we'll probably redo them eventually.

He has retrieved some of it, and we'll probably keep the sound fx bits once we've figured out how to kick them in live, but we don't really need bass and drums on backing trax at all.

We now have a third summer 'gig' a private festie at Alan Rae's place in Newick in July.

We are also looking into just busking a bit around Brighton but really suitable places to play for us are definitely the outdoor gig and the benefit gig for now.

The video still needs shooting, hoping for some live videos and pix from this summer's crop of performances.

I am still working up new material, one new song finished since the last blog, just starting to put some music to a brand new lyric, but teaching Alispark and Joogum the set means we haven't been able to develop many new ones recently but that's ok, rehearsing with the 'new' members raises everyone's game.

I bought a gorgeous new 12-string which will enrich two or three of the songs enormously and I'm getting more confident on the Strat all the time.

Feel more enthusiastic about the band since the rhythm section appeared, the challenge of using backing trax live is really daunting and to be honest the two or three times we've used them, mostly last summer, was stressful, it was so tricky!

Have started also to think about trying to get some gigs on the alternative circuit which would seem to be our natural home, in a few months I plan to apply to the Mind Body Spirit guys for a spot at some of their shows.

Finally, A Rhythm Section!

AliSpark showed up a couple of months ago and has fitted in really well with us, we love her personality her percussion and drumming skills are great, she's using a djembe, a banana shaker, a shimmery tingly wind chimey thingy (what's is called again Ali?) and a Roland electronic kit. We're still using the backing trax as they have FX on them but once she has the whole set down we can strip the drum track off.

Joogum started playing a bit of bass at the electric jam, coached of course by Boogum or Mr Joogum. She got a new bass for her birthday and has been to our first rehearsal to get a feel for what we're doing. I liked her energy immediately, she is practical, down to earth and seems mad keen to learn the instrument, I feel glad she's giving us a try!

With live drums and bass the band can now get rockier and heavier which I will certainly enjoy because the tendency will be to brand us as prog rock or electric folk and that's not What She Wrote!

So, that prompts the question, what ARE we doing?

Well, we've got up at the Kendal jam which Al and Wicca run on a Wednesday and done various configurations of Wynd songs.

There was a hilarious episode at Frank's Lectern jam on AliSpark's birthday where she played Visitation for the first time on a kit drum, it, er, sounded weird, but no matter.

We now have six backing trax and two numbers which do not need backing trax so are ready to deliver about 45 minutes of music, due to the fact that a lot of the songs are pretty long, up to 8min. It's an eclectic band, we can have songs as long as we like! Two of the songs are now fully available on Facebook and the Wynd Group there grows weekly.

Better, warmer weather means that we will be able to film our first Rock Video since all the storyboarding is outside.

We have two gigs so far this summer, one at the Earthship Open Day in Stanmer Park on July 18 and one to raise money for Busking for Cancer at Brighton Bandstand on August 8, can't wait.

Lurex is muttering about various other local outdoor gigs, it seems this is Wynd's destiny, to play outside, I personally am a Leo gal so of course sun on my face, wind in my hair, perfect!

We've also acquired a much bigger PA and some more gear in general, so we will be louder, clearer, and more confident from now on.

Well we've definitely been together for more than a year and feeling smug that while people have come and gone, the core of the band has stayed together. Karen had to withdraw, it's just not viable for her to be in the band but that's ok.

More importantly, we haven't had any problem conflicts.

That's not to say we haven't had disagreements or concerns but so far things have seemed to be resolved pretty easily.

We've set aside a provisional date for our first self promo gig at The Sanctuary, Hove, end of March, more on this nearer the time.

We're trying out a woman drummer, Alison, who we've known about for a while but couldn't contact, she showed up at a jam at The Lectern, Brighton last Sunday so I spoke to her, since then she showed up at the acoustic jam that Scott is running with Al at the Kendal on Wednesdays and played with us, which went well and was fun.

The Portland as a music venue is dead and gone now, sadly, but in a way it's opened things up, it's been replaced by four other jams, the two mentioned above, a new acoustic jam in Shoreham, also on Wednesdays and an intermittent electric jam for Tuesdays and Thursdays which has been happening at the Hove Park Tavern.

This means lots of chances for Wyndgirls to get out and strut our stuff but we can't use the backing trax at most jams so so far we haven't given a Full On Performance!

Meanwhile the recording moves forwards slowly, we now have several finished trax and have just loaded Visitation on to MySpace: www.myspace.com/wyndmusic profile page.

Next task is to try again to find a bass player, especially as we may now have a drummer, but we can still use the backing trax in the meantime.

Where is Wynd going for 2010?

Follow the blog and see because we sure as hell don't know. What we do know is that if we put the same amount of work in this year we should double the outcome.

2009 was the year we came together and formed something to work with.

2010 will be the Year of the Gig hopefully.

WTS!

Long and Wynding etc!

All change again, Sandi had to quit as she's overextended with work and family, we were disappointed but understood and she's going to come to our gigs.

The recording project moves on slowly, we've pretty much finished Butterfly Pillow and made inroads into Holding Back.

Continuing to make connections with new musicians.

We played at Mary's last night as she gave up the running of the Portland, this was sad and the jam sessions have disintegrated, but are either happening elsewhere or starting in a different form down in Portland Road again.

I moved in with Al so we have wall to wall oppportunities to make music in between gourmet cooking and DIY.

I've also been asked to try out with Scott's band, Thunderfrog. Scott is Fiddley's husband so that's convenient.

But Wynd is still my priority and we are now hoping to do our first full blown gig in Brighton in early February which means using all the backing trax and staging, but we're also hoping for a few support acts.

I'm sort of getting used to the idea that we three are always going to be the core of the band and that backing trax are the answer, I guess a rhythm section might not appear until we are ready, in the Buddhist sense so I have relaxed.

Written four or five more songs or bits of songs recently.

This week Fiddley and I are off to Surrey to collect her new electric five-string violin, which will mean she won't have to pick up a viola.

I've also started playing twelve-string guitar, Al has promised I can play his Rickenbacker if I'm a good girl, but I don't wanna be a good girl all the time so I shall just capture it anyway, after all he's commandeered my Strat and my beautiful Crafter Rose Anniversario acoustic.

I'm learning more lead and power chords too.

We tried out the accordionist - or did she try us? on a fairly chaotic afternoon a few weeks ago but that doesn't look like it's happening so Al dusted off his keyboard and midi'd up an accordion for the backing track and the recording of Butterfly Pillow.

We had a long discussion about whether to just combine with the guys but so far we've held off.

Kids parties, one or two drunken nights and lots of girly emails are continuing to bond us up and now all of us are seeing serious possibilities.

Fiddley and I are hoping to do some Xmas busking meanwhile and we'll continue to show up at the jams doing our stuff, and any stuff we fancy.

Well, the band is still together after almost a year and we haven't had one fight!

On Halloween, the four witches took to the stage at the Portland Rock Bar and did two numbers, breaking the hex for Lurex which was: can I get up in front of a load of judgmental blokes and survive?

She more than survived, not sure I did as I'm now having to play guitar all the time.

Plus Al is revising my guitar playing which is exhilarating AND frustrating at the same time of course.

I wrote some more songs and started putting new chords to some of the older ones, meanwhile we have full recordings of Visitation, Frida, Little Too Rock and Roll and almost Butterfly Pillow.

Still storyboarding the video but at least we've shot some scenics now.

Next move will be to put on our own gig at a suitable venue in Brighton somewhere.

Fiddley came back from the US well rested and is now talking about getting an electric cello so we're going violin-shopping this week which will be big fun.

Meanwhile Sandi is getting more and more confident with the percussion, she is a real asset to the band as she has great stage presence, and is very brave indeed!

Still not ready to put anything on MySpace or ITunes but I think Wynd deserves slow development, it's not like we're on the X Factor.

My songwriting has changed and evolved so much this year, I realised that I've written 59 songs altogether, most of them in the last 12 months.

Before that, I think I wrote ten my whole life.

I'm hoping the others will begin to come up with ideas, but, let's get the existing show on the road first, because gigging is where it's at for any band so we just have to get out there.

Oh, and the judgmental men? Well, whatever guys. We were the only womens' band there and the only original band so, everything else is chopped liver.....

On The Record

Fiddleycat is off in the USA for six weeks but before she took off we brought her to Bevendean's answer to Abbey Road and captured her excellent mandolin and violin for our first full recording project.

Visitation came to me around February. It feels very channelled and is a Storyteller song. It's eight plus minutes long but in spite of gentle teasing about creating new Prog Rock, I am unashamedly glad to create material which takes whatever time it takes. We are not a commercial pop band.

It'll be on MySpace music (wyndmusic) so have a listen.

Next was Lurex. She has a high soprano which complements my mezzo growl pretty well! Al, our wonderful producer, overdubbed her voice, and we ghosted our vocals to add variety. For the chant at the end of the song he double tracked then multilayered me five times and Lurex singing in the round there were three layers.

Andy Bell kindly supplied some pretty dynamic flute as Karma Mama couldn't make a summer recording session (too much healing to do!) and finally we added some superb lead guitar for the outro.

We captured some apocalyptic rumbling from a free sounds site and after some mixdown sessions we now have the title track of our album, taken from the song: Part of the Solution.

So the track content is as follows:

Wiccapaedia: Djembe, acoustic guitar, vocals
Fiddleycat: Mandolin
Lurex: Vocals
Al: Bass, electric guitar
Andy Bell: Flute.


Live work moves on apace. We played two charity gigs, one outside Brighton Station and one outside Hassocks Station (what is it with us and trains, Al?) The Brighton gig was a technological disaster due to generator problems, but we made up for it by showing up at The Portland that night and doing a couple of numbers.

We now need to start promoting our own gigs because it's obvious that we're never going to be a pub band.

With one exception: we've asked Ginny who promotes the Portland Rock Bar to put on a Girls' Rock Nite this Autumn.

My guitar playing has slightly improved, Al again stepping in to give me some accelerated coaching especially since sadly the lovely K-rrang has had to leave the band in order to pursue her career as a Police Officer.

This week I am going to meet up with an accordionist.

Another welcome addition to the band is Sandi who does not have her Band Name yet.
She has gone off with my djembe and a set of congas and we'll be back in rehearsals as soon as Fiddleycat returns from the US of A.

Overall one of the best things about Wynd is that we've stayed together and developed for almost a year now.

Black cats keep crossing my path, magpies flit around in pairs everywhere I go, so as a true Pagan I am watching the signs.

Next to record are Frida and Little Too Rock N Roll, and we have six more backing tracks to make.

2010 is going to be a Wiccid year I think.

Dog Days

It's August and predictably, much has happened to the band.

Generally, it feels like a band as we have now actually performed together, three times in fact.

There's so much more to a band than just a bunch of musicians rehearsing and playing together especially as we are creating something with limited resources.

A band is a very organic thing.

Even though so far I’ve 99 per cent created the music myself, the band’s contribution grows.

Ideas for arrangements, different chord sequences, input on instrumentation and of course what each member is actually going to play, how and when, have flowed and I am hoping this will increase, not because I could not orchestrate it all myself but because creative input is the secret of ownership of the band by its members.

Ownership brings increased enthusiasm, increased commitment, increased loyalty and increased enjoyment.

On another level we have all made friends. In a women’s band this brings with it the added bonus of emotional support, sometimes not just on band matters.

We all know each other better now. We know each other’s faults and foibles but are becoming friends.

The energy field that this creates is always greater than the sum of the parts.
But bands cannot live by bread alone.

We’ve now acquired a percussionist and maybe a second backing singer, but we still haven’t recruited a bassist.

My solution, to make backing tracks with the help of our mentor, Aldo, (yes, he’s an honorary woman!) is working well. Aldo is clearly a genius and is even beginning to like our music. We collaborate on creating the drums and bass lines using Cubase, I feel I have ultimate creative control but our 'silent' mentor member has input a great deal and we are very grateful.

We went off to a jam/open mic night at the Bull in Newick which is a few miles north of Lewes.

Last time I went it was pretty quiet, so I thought the girls would survive their first outing without too much drama.

When we arrived, it was heaving with the crush of summer evening drinkers and musicians.

But Andy who runs it was very patient with our complex setup and we managed three numbers which were reasonably well received.

Our new percussionist - no alias chosen yet - was definitely thrown in the deep end (think middle of the Atlantic in her case as she has never drummed before let alone in public.

But the risk paid off and she even drummed at our next gig, far more scary, in front of Brighton Station where we were supporting a charity event by laying on a day of music.

Sadly, technology, in the form of a terminally overheated generator, let us and down but undaunted, we took ourselves off to the Portland Rock Pub in Hove and did two numbers at their Sunday acoustic jam.

This was extremely well received considering the usual resistance to original material but we were among friends.

We’ve yet to play with our backing tracks but on August Bank Holiday weekend we’re off to another charity day at Hassocks where the backing will hopefully be playable.

Plans for Autumn gigs include a couple of self promoted gigs in Brighton’s Sanctuary, more open mic at Audio, on Brighton Seafront, and a Girls' Rock Night which we aim to do with some other women musicians at the Portland.

Fiddleycat leaves for a six week trip to the USA next month so it’s eyes down for some serious recording, which should result in a demo and then it’s time to do some better gigs and get some of the music on to MySpace and ITunes.

The band is far from tight yet but we can leave the stage satisfied we’ve given a performance even at this stage. Ideas for costumes, staging and filming are beginning to firm up.

Perfection comes with workrate so it should be an interesting Autumn.

We continue to build positive and fruitful links with many other musicians and I am determined to involve others in live music whenever I get the chance, as that’s been a lifelong commitment which I intend to maintain.

I have written 59 songs in the last year or so, every one of which is a meaningful statement about something I care about, some are comedic or ironic, some are serious, many are just stories.

Can’t wait to get them recorded as a finished product because my aim isn’t to become some sort of local celebrity, my aim is to entertain and try to be thought provoking.

Wynd continues to take the Road Less Travelled, and right now I don’t see too many brambles and gates!

Six Months and We Take Stock

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.

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!

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