Strength of 10

What a month it's been so far, mostly dominated by Big 10 activities. We've got our new promo pics (nearly) ready to go (thank you Annie Lovett Photography) played to a thousand strong crowds at Modrapheniacs 2013 (video just uploaded here) and this week we get to support one of our favourite bands.

The Beat are returning to Cambridge Junction and will be main support. We had a great time when they played in 2012 and in my opinion are the best of the revivalist acts touring at the moment. I've seen The Specials, The Selecter and Bad Manners in the last few years, and The Beat top all of them for energy, vibe and, for want of a better word...class.

The Father/Son front man combo really works well and I've been looking forward to this gig for months. We'll be doing a few new songs ourselves, including Dexys 'There There My Dear' which has been going down a storm.

Cambridge Junction
This Friday
Bring your skanking shoes.

And just in case you needed a reminder... here are The Beat in action...

Once more, with feeling.

No. Not the god-awful Buffy episode...

The bloody awesome Popes of Chillitown.

The album is done. It exists out there on the web and in physical copies, CD's that you can get your lovely hands on. Positive reviews abound, so I guess it's about time for an album launch.

The PoC launch for the debut album 'A Word to the Wise' will be at the Popes spiritual home, Ginglik, in Shepherds Bush on April 13th. I'll be sharing the stage with the guys one last time, as although it's been over a year since I left the band I recorded a large chunk of the sax work on the album, and will be very proud to play these songs one more time.

So, to recap...
Ginglik.
Saturday
13th April.
9pm onwards.
Fancy Dress tbc (yes, things are never straightforward at a PoC party)

Keep an eye on here and the Popes facebook group for fancy dress inspiration and support act news.
In the meantime, you can download the album from here (warning, contains naughty words)

See you down the front, for the last Dalk?

lx

February Album Writing Month

Last month was February, therefore time for the internet challenge February Album Writing Month.

Guess what that entails?

As you may or may not know, my music degree is Jazz Composition, which to be fair I haven't done much with since graduating from Middlesex 7 years ago. T'other half and his band colleagues in Jacqui & Geoff have done FAWM for the past few years and find it quite enjoyable, so this year I thought I'd give it a go.

How hard could it be?

Actually....bloody tricky. Finding time to sit down and write, finding inspiration, not editing and rewriting to the nth degree as time is at a premium. In some cases I used techniques from Uni to build my pieces, collecting tone rows from some of my twitter followers.

In other cases it was more organic, taking earworms and random happenings in daily life and turning it into a song. The latter were often melodically and harmonically much simpler, but also catchier.

I managed 5 songs during February, some collaborations, some just me. Songs with me singing lead vox. Songs about chins.

Here are the results - let me know what you think!











If you're looking for some sort of music challenge, give it a go. You've got 11 months to prepare.
See you next year, FAWM :)