RPM Challenge and SWJO Big Band Course

Hello. Just thought I’d post a quick blog about a couple of projects I’m working on that may be of interest…

RPM Challenge
The RPM Challenge is quite a simple idea…record an album’s worth of original material (10 songs or 35 minutes) during February, Why? Why not! I love the idea of working to such a constraint and coming up with new material. I have no idea what I’m going to do, or even if I’ll manage to complete it but I’m going to have fun trying! I’m also not allowing myself to use any material written prior to February 1 2009 – great fun!

Once the project is done, I’ll be making the material available free to anyone who wishes to download it.

Steve Waterman Contemporary Big Band Course
From April 3-5 I will be, for the fourth year running, teaching on Steve’s residential big band course in Llanelli, South Wales. It’s a great weekend focusing on, not surprisingly, big band playing as well as jazz improvisation and there are plenty of opportunities to play. Sax virtuoso Alan Barnes is also appearing as a tutor this way which promises to add a new dimension to the course.

If this sounds appealing, full details can be found at http://www.swjo.co.uk/index.php?page=7.

Take care
Alun

Panic Room – Swansea and Kingston upon Thames

Hello all. Hope you’re not too snowed under wherever you’re reading this.

Last weekend, Panic Room travelled pretty much the length of the M4 to play The Garage in Swansea on Friday 30th and then The Peel in Kingston upon Thames on Saturday 31st.

The Garage is a relatively new venue in the Uplands, just outside Swansea’s city centre and is still finding its feet but it really promising. The stage isn’t a bad size, the load in is easy enough and it’s a decent sized two level room. It was a special night for us too as Liz Prendergast, who played the fantastic violin parts on the Visionary Position album, was joining us on 6 tunes.

Soundcheck was reasonably painless although the venue only had an 8 channel mixer so myself and Paul were relying on the backline to be heard ( my lovely little Markbass rig more than coped!).

Support for the evening was from an interesting duo, Karma Junkie who played a fascinating blend of acoustic guitar, violin, harp, and electronics. The only downside was a series of technical gremlins which seemed to be the theme for the night as we were about to find out.

Just after 10pm, we took to the stage and Jon started the keyboard drone for Elektra City. At this point “Roadhouse Blues” kicked in on the house PA so we stopped and patiently waited for the soundman to stop the music. Wth The Doors silenced, we started again. All was going well until Anne attempted to sing…..nothing. She signalled to the soundman who looked oblivious to the mime show in front of him. We then noticed that the DI box for her vocal effects, which Mr Soundman had left in the middle of the stage and apparently not checked in the changeover, was unplugged. So we plugged it back in. And started again. Third time lucky!

And onto Reborn. Anne asked the soundman to mute the acoustic as it had been unplugged. He didn’t. It went pop. By this time I was quite happy to not be going through the PA!

We also had various other technical mishaps, including Jon’s keyboards deciding to misbehave, but we got through it. Liz was fantastic throughout, perfectly recreating her performances on the CD as well as adding new colours to those songs and also “Banks Of The Ohio”, where she added a fabulous bluegrass fiddle part, and “No Quarter” where she added a beautiful sense of authenticity to the “Kashmir” section.

The setlist for the night was….

Elektra City/Reborn/Sandstorms/Into The Fire/Banks Of The Ohio*/Endgame*/Fifth Amendment/Hadditfeel (Anne solo)/Dominos (Anne solo)/Yasuni/Black Noise/The Great Divide/Go/Moon On The Water*/I Wonder*/
Apocalypstick*/Blood Red Sky/No Quarter*

*Featuring Liz on violin

Regular Panic Room watchers may notice a couple of surprise song titles in there? Yes-two brand new songs! We were a little nervous as we hadn’t rehearsed them much ( and messed one up in the soundcheck) but (even if I do say so myself) they went really well.

First up was a new Edwards/Helder tune Fifth Amendment (which might end up being called “Pleading The Fifth” by the time it gets recorded), a mid tempo anthem with a great heavier section in the middle. I get to have some fun tonewise on this one, using a big swirly synth in the chorus and a Muse-like buzzy distortion in the middle section (where I also get to pay tribute to jazz legend Charlie Parker and Tom Hamilton from Aerosmith in the space of two bars – see if you can spot it!).

The second new one was one of mine/Anne’s – a ballad called “The Great Divide”. I wrote the main track for this and sent to Anne with a few lyrics that summed up the idea of the song, she then turned my random scribbles into a beautiful lyric and came up with a gorgeous vocal melody. I’m really proud of this one so really enjoyed playing it. It also gives Paul a chance to do the big power ballad guitar solo thing and I get a little noodly bit over the outro.

Overall, not a bad gig but a little rough around the edges in places. The vibe in the venue was a little weird, the audience are a fair distance from the stage and there seemed to be an equal mix of people who really wanted to listen and those who just talked incessantly. Oh, and as we were in Swansea there was a fight too!

And then on to Saturday, sans Liz. This was to be the “rematch” between ourselves and co-headliners Jump after our first attempt in early 2008 was ended by a power cut.

I really like The Peel, it’s a nice size venue with good sound and a reasonable stage. It also has a fantastic atmosphere.

The club soon filled up ( great to see so many people from the Panic Room forum – hi everyone!) and Jump took to the stage. I’ve heard them a few times but I think this was the best one yet. I loitered at the back for a while and really enjoyed it.

And, before we knew it, it was out turn to play. I must be honest, it was one of the best gigs we’ve done – great atmosphere and a lot of fun. The Peel has a strict 10.50pm curfew so we had to cut the set down quite a bit but still managed to squeeze in 1hr20 worth….

Elektra City/Reborn/Sandstorms/Banks Of The Ohio/Endgame/Go/Yasuni/Black Noise/Fifth Amendment/Apocalypstick/Blood Red Sky/No Quarter

Thanks to the tireless Andy Smith, bassist for Mostly Autumn, for great lighting too.

It was a great weekend and I can’t wait till the next time ( which will be March 13 at The Venue in Stockbridge, near Sheffield)

Take care,
Alun

Panic Room – Best New Band at CRS Awards

Hi all, hope 2009 has been good so far.

This is just a quick post to announce, rather proudly, that Panic Room won the Best New Band award at the Classic Rock Society Awards a couple of days ago

This is one of those great awards that is voted for by real people, real listening people, so we’re immensely pleased to have won

Speaking of Panic Room, there are a couple of gigs coming up at the end of this month that may interest you:

Jan 30 – Whites, Swansea
This’ll be a fun gig as a, it’ll be the first time we’ve played in our hometown and b, Liz Prendergast ( the wonderful violinist who played on our Visionary Position CD) will be joining us for <cue big reverb> one night only.

Jan 31 – The Peel, Kingston upon Thames
Yes, the following night we’ll be on the other side of the country for a double headliner with Jump. This is the rematch of last year’s gig which was scuppered by a powercut before we even got onstage.

Hope to see you there!
Take care,
Alun

2008 – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Hello. Hope you had a great Christmas and New Year. 2009 is upon us so I guess it’s time to reflect on the madness that was my life in 2008. It was definitely on of the most manic 12 months I’ve known, full of fantastic and occasionally not-so-fantastic moments.

I think I’ll get the “Bad” and “Ugly” bits out of the way as the year ended positively and so should this post. Plus I have faaaar more cool, fun things to talk about than crap ones.

The Bad mainly revolved around some up and downs in my personal life , constant chaos in my day job, and my car’s ongoing attempts to bankrupt and/or kill me Considering I have a 5 year old, low mileage VW you’d think I’d have no trouble at all. Alas, I fear mine was made by a hungover apprentice on a Friday afternoon . That vehicle must have cost me over £1500 in random faults this year and then, just as it was behaving, it got crashed into whilst parked outside my house leading to another few weeks of repairs ( and I still haven’t had my excess back as the other two parties are continuing to bicker of who crashed into who before hitting my car!).

I don’t really want to go into the Ugly bit in detail but this year I have learnt a lot about people. I have encountered a lot of lies, deceit and general unpleasantness in my personal and business lives this year and hope to never encounter them on such scales again. I have also seen the lengths some people will go to to either a, further their own careers by using and discarding the people who helped to get them there or b, ruin the happiness of others ( and sometimes, self destructively ruin their own). Ultimately, I believe in karma and “doing unto others” so will say no more about it. So there

OK, that’s enough darkness and negativity Let’s get onto all the wonderfully wonderful things that happened! In no particular order…..

Panic Room
This year has seen the release of our debut album “Visionary Position”, which has been received better than I ever dreamed, and two mini-tours. I have a reputation as a freelance player and a jazz musician, but I have to say that I absolutely LOVE playing in this band. They are great musicians and great people and I’m very proud of the music we’ve created. And there’s more to come in 2009 I’m really pleased with the new music, both the ones we’ve been playing live, and the “in progress” tunes lurking in my CD player and laptop. I can’t wait to get back in the studio and get this music recorded. I have met a huge number of lovely people through Panic Room and would just like to say hello and thank you to everyone who’s supported us.

Recordings
In the past, I’ve done a few ad-hoc recordings for people over the Internet but this year I recorded tracks for two CDs from the comfort of my house – two tracks for “Waiting Days” by Pip Robinson and a track on “Alone on The Sun” by US guitarist Mike Shouse.

In additon to these, and the Panic Room album, I also appeared on a promotional DVD for singer Jeff Hooper’s big band.

Bassbook
This year also saw the launch of Bassbook.co.uk, my new educational site. It’s still in its early stages but the first release, Christmas Songs for Solo Bass, sold really well and I have also been doing some custom transcription work. All good fun!
The next release is going to be quite involved, as I want it to include MP3s, backing tracks and midifiles so it may take a while, but it will come. Oh yes

Solo Bass
Ok, so my solo recording still isn’t out! Unfortunately, it has to take a back seat this year but I have had great fun playing supports for the likes of Chapman Stick player Jim Lampi and one of my favourite bassists, the great Seth Horan who was nice enough to say the following in his blog:

“The show opened with a set by solo bassist Alun Vaughan, who I’d been looking forward to meeting and hearing play for quite awhile now, and he did not disappoint; it was a short but focused set of intriguing music, played effortlessly and with good taste.”

Thanks to Rob Southall of the wonderful Islwyn Acoustic Guitar Club for both of those gigs! The music world needs more dedicated music lovers like Rob ( and Dave Cottle at Swansea Jazzland) who voluntarily give their time to make gigs happen

Speaking of wonderful volunteer people, I have to thank Kofi of Bassmasterclass.com for inadvertantly giving me some of the biggest exposure to the bass community this year. In March, Kofi organised a two day masterclass with US jazz bassist Todd Johnson which I attended. During that masterclass, Todd asked me to show him an arrangement I was working on so I showed him my work-in-progress arrangement of Blue Bossa. This led to an impromptu jam captured on film by fellow bassist Andy Long. This is now my most viewed clip on YouTube Yay!

Other Fun Stuff
And now for the other fun stuff that doesn’t really fit in the categories above….

- In February I did a short run of gigs with New York singer Marlene VerPlanck which was the first time I ever played solely upright on a gig. It was a great experience (although my bowing is still terrible!)
-I got to play with the Root Doctors, a band I used to go and watch when I first started playing
-I managed to get an endorsement deal with Italian bass amp manufacturers Markbass
- I was called for a gig and told that the bass parts were on a sequencer anyway so I just needed to mime. I decided I didn’t fancy that and set about learning 27 songs in one day – just as well I did as it turned out that the gig was the wedding of two musicians and I would have been rumbled instantly had I attempted to mime
- I finished the year off with some manic sight reading, depping with John Oliver’s Live, a great function band with a huge pack of music, nearly all of which is segued (making page turning almost as challenging as reading and playing!) and a fantastic show.
- I got to play bass while one of my biggest bass influences, Laurence Cottle, played trombone including a chorus of just bass and trombone – scary but great fun

The Internet, and in particular the Social Media side of things and Twitter, have played a big part in my musical life this year. As well as the recordings and work mentioned earlier, Twitter very nearly got me a gig with one of my favourite sax players, Andy Sheppard, after, in a “three degrees of seperation” moment, I had a phone call from Steve Lawson asking me to ring Simon Little as Tom Mason was ill and unable to do the gig that night. Unfortunately, by the time we had sorted it out, the manager had already fixed someone. Next time! But, without the Internet I wouldn’t have got that call.

And that’s about it. I played around 100 gigs in 2008 ranging from scruffy rock clubs to the most magnificent ballrooms and country houses you could imagine. Emotionally, the year went from some of the best moments of my life, to dark lows, and back again

Right now, I have no idea what 2009 has in store, but I think it’s going to be fun!

Take care and Happy New Year!!!
Cheers
Alun

Panic Room – The Limelight, Crewe

Hello! Hope you are all having a fantastic Christmas.

Apologies for the incredible lateness of this post – the last few weeks have been a bit hectic to say the least but now, as I munch on turkey and watch The Chronicles of Narnia, I have time to write it. Just hope my memory holds out as the gig was Dec 4 and I’m typing this on the 26th

I’d never done played at the Limelight before although the others had in the Karnataka days so I was really looking forward to it, despite various rumours about the new management and that the sound hadn’t been great for a few bands.

I liked the venue, and we soon set about making the stage a bit more festive with balloons and tinsel. My phone pics are online at http://www.alunvaughan.com/interactive.shtml  and there is a much more professional selection by Stephen Turner here.

At this point I should probably mention that I am now fortunate enough to be endorsed by Italian bass manufacturers Markbass and this was the debut gig for my tiny but deafeningly loud new speaker cab. It looked like a demented Christmas dalek when I’d finished tinselling it and added a fiber-optic Christmas tree!

After hunting out the local chip shop and supermarket we retired to the dressing room as the club began to fill up.

The support band for the night was Jump who played a great set. Vocalist John Dexter Jones’ onstage banter was as entertaining as ever.

And so, around 10pm, we took to the stage. The set was simailr to our standard one but with a couple of little tweaks…

Elektra City / Reborn/Sandstorms / Into The Fire / Banks Of The Ohio / Go / Endgame / Hadditfeel* /O Holy Night* / Yasuni / Black Noise / Apocalypstick / Blood Red Sky / I Wonder What’s Keeping My True Love Tonight / Merry Christmas (War Is Over) / Enter Santa

*Anne solo

Yes, a few Christmas additions – O Holy Night by Anne and then the John Lennon classic as first encore. And then, for final silliness, a re-jigged Enter Sandman renamed Enter Santa with assorted festive references (“we’re off to winter wonderland….”). This particular moment of daftness can be found on Youtube , albeit without Jon’s organ intro. You too can now experience the true glory of my £1 flashing Santa hat (and Anne’s considerably more thought out Santa costume)!

We were besieged by numerous technical hitches throughout the gig (my bass cutting out, Anne’s pedalboard failing, etc) and only about a quarter of the lights at the venure were working ( thanks to Andy, better known as bassist with Mostly Autumn for doing a great job with the lighting), but it was still a really fun gig and seems to be a favourite with fans who’ve followed the tour.

After the gig, we presented Gavin with his belated birthday present -an iPod to replace the MP3 player stolen in Wolverhampton- and headed off in search of the hotel. We finally found it and, before we knew it, we were sitting round at 3.30am eating pizza and kebabs – such a healthy bunch!

Thank you to everyone who came, as always, and I’m looking forward to the next gigs – Jan 30 in The Garage, Swansea and then the re-match with Jump at the Peel , Kingston upon Thames ( a rematch as our first attempt at playing there was foiled by a powercut!)

As it’ the end of a pretty mad year, I will be posting a blog about the happenings of 2008 soon, but for now – take care and enjoy the rest of Christmas!

Alun

Now where have I put those chocolate covered brazil nuts……..

Christmas Songs For Solo Bass – new collection of arrangements now available

Hi everyone.

Yes, that time of year is sneaking up on us at an alarming rate and soon the sound of relatives saying “play us something on that big guitar” will be ringing in our ears. With this in mind (and the fact that I’m a bit of a big kid where Christmas is concerned!) I have put together a collection of solo arrangements which is now available from http://bassbook.co.uk .

So what is it? Basically, for the princely sum of £3 ( as I type this, just under $4.50) you get a zip file containing the following in PDF format:

10 Christmas chordal arrangements for solo bass in notation and tablature

Auld Lang Syne, Away In a Manger, Ding Dong Merrily On High/Deck The Halls, In The Bleak Midwinter, Jingle Bells, Joy To The World, O Come All Ye Faithful, O Little Town of Bethlehem, Silent Night, The First Noel

11 Christmas melodies specially transposed to “easy” keys ( ideal for less experienced players) in notation and tablature

As above, but “Ding Dong Merrily On High” and “Deck The Halls” are presented as seperate pieces

2 mini lessons

An introduction to natural harmonics and a lesson on the two handed tapping technique used for the arrangement of “Jingle Bells”

So how do you get it? All you have to do is go along to http://bassbook.co.uk where you can pay by credit/debit card or Paypal by clicking on the Buy Now button. Once I receive your payment, I email you the zip file – it’s that easy I will also send you a link to performance notes to assist in playing the arrangements.

I also have a favour to ask of you – if you like the arrangements and use any of the bass forums or social sites, please tell people about it Word of mouth is often the best advert an independent musician can get so any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks for your time and take care,

Alun

Panic Room – Marrs Bar, Worcester

Hello all, hope you’re all well on this rather cold day – how did it get to be November already??? Really not sure where this years has gone!

Anyway, last Friday saw Panic Room head off to the Marrs Bar in Worcester for a Halloween gig. The journey up was really picturesque – Jon decided it was a nice day so we’d avoid the motorways and take the Heads of The Valleys up to Hereford and go up from there. The scenery is stunning up there, especially as a lot of the mountains still had snow on. Apart from one idiot white van man nearly ramming us off the road, it was a pretty nice ride.

The Marrs Bar is a really nice rock club in the centre of Worcester and has one of the biggest, most luxurious dressing rooms you’ll find in a club. It’s basically a studio flat and can be seen, along with assorted other pics on my tour page.

We were soon set up and myself and Anne set about decorating the stage with assorted cobwebs ( no, not cotton wool – cobwebs ), skulls and Anne also had an assortment of cuddly toys ( again, piccies on the tour page). Soundcheck went pretty smoothly despite some of the monitors not working so the on stage sound was a little weird. I think we may have confused the staff slightly as we were billed as “folk rock” and then preceded to run through Black Noise and our surprise Halloween cover

Soundcheck done, we found a takewaway nearby and returned to our luxury backstage area with pizzas and chips – such a healthy band!

Anne had found a CD of “spooky sounds” while shopping for decorations so that made a slightly surreal pre-gig CD. I have to also mention the club’s regular PA music which included King Crimson, Zappa, and assorted other “none ever plays that in a club!” music – great stuff

The stage sound was great from where I was, the fretless in particular sounded really nice even if I do so myself . For some reason the keyboards had gone off between soundcheck and the gig so Jon’s sounds had gone a little mad – the drone and synth bass were fine but when he went to start the verse we were met with a brief blast of Eurodisco as the top keyboard had gone back to its slightly oddly chosen default setting

The setlist was basically the same as we’ve done elsewhere but with a couple of variations…

Elektra City, Reborn, Sandstorms, Into The Fire, Banks of The Ohio , Firefly, Go, Endgame, Hadditfeel, Murder ( the last two were performed solo by Anne), Yasuni, Black Noise, Apocalypstick, I Wonder, Blood Red Sky, Toccata/Enter Sandman

It was great to hear “Murder” from Anne’s solo EP The Contact, it’s such a powerful piece of music. The encore saw Jon donning a black wig and me donning a rubber witch mask for our Halloween encore  – Jon playing Bach’s Toccata  followed by Metallica’s Enter Sandman. It was during Sandman that I realised I hadn’t put the mask on entirely straight meaning that I was struggling with two minor issues – seeing my bass and breathing! I now have a lot of respect for Slipknot It was great fun to play though and went down really well.

The venue turns into a nightclub at midnight ( not a pumpkin sadly), so we quickly got the gear into the van and headed back to the takeaway ( there must be more than one in Worcester surely!) for a pre-journey meal.Thanks as always to Ray and Steph for doing the merchandise, the venue staff and crew , and everyone who came along.

Alas it’ll be a month before our next gig ( Dec 4 in the Limelight, Crewe) but the way this year has gone it’ll be here before we know it!

Take care,

Alun

Panic Room – Little Civic, Wolverhampton

Hello all. Well, here goes with my first “proper” WordPress blog. How exciting

Last night saw Panic Room head off to the Little Civic in Wolverhampton for the latest gig on our mini tour ( does that make it a Tourette???). As longterm followers of the band know, getting us together can be a challenge – we picked Gavin up from Birmingham International Airport, as he was flying back from Fish’s tour that morning, and Anne travelled down from York as she’d been rehearsing with Mostly Autumn in preparation for their upcoming gigs. But somehow we still got there with plenty of time to spare.

The Litttle Civic is a nice rock club alongside Wolverhampton’s Civic Hall, with poster plastered walls, loads of room backstage, and (oddly) a large chandelier, which can be seen along with other random pics over at my Panic Room tour page. The backstage area is a bit of a labyrinth and did remind a lot of the scene in Spinal Tap where they can’t find the stage and keep going in circles The load in isn’t the nicest though, a couple of flights of stairs interspersed with dodging the local traffic wardens who seemed to pounce from nowhere.

Once the gear was in, the virus I’ve been keeping at bay decided to rear its ugly little head, leaving me to sit in the dressing room for 10 minutes until the room stopped spinning – no fun!

Mike, the local sound engineer, was great – getting everything set up very quickly. Due to the shape of the stage ( about 20ft deep but only 12ft wide) I ended up setting up my gear behing Paul’s cab in the “naughty corner” – not ideal but OK ( and it meant that I could at least kneel on the stage behind the cab when I wasn’t playing without making it obvious that I was having trouble standing up!)

Soundcheck took a little while due to some mysterious gremlins playing havoc with Jon’s mixer and Anne’s pedalboard. we still managed to run through a few songs to make sure we could remember them before sneaking off to the local KFC while Quecia set up for their acoustic set.

We got back to find that one of Quecia had gone missing – the traffic wardens had struck again and he was frantically driving around looking for somewhere to park . As Quecia started ( they were fantastic incidentally), we realised one of Gav’s bags was missing. It turned out that some kids had snuck in through the back door and run off with it. We got the bag back but not his MP3 player Assholes!

Our set was basically the same as the one we played at Cardiff’s Point in September:

Elektra City, Reborn, Sandstorms, Into The Fire, Banks of The Ohio ( dedicated to Nigel Bradford-Sharp as he’s previously mentioned to Jon that he didn’t like it Jon is cruel sometimes ), Firefly, Go, Endgame, Hadditfeel, Domino ( the last two were performed solo by Anne), Yasuni, Black Noise, Apocalypstick, I Wonder

Due to the venue’s strict curfew we only intended on doing Blood Red Sky as the encore but we weren’t going to be allowed to escape that easily and went back for an unexpected, but lovely, second encore – No Quarter.

The sound,lights ( by Mostly Autumn bassist, Andy) and audience were all fantastic – what a great night. I only wish I’d felt better and been able to enjoy it more. We also sold a load of merchandise ( thanks as always to Ray and Steph for their hard work!) The venue cleared the audience very quickly after the show so apologies to anyone we didn’t get to see ( I know I missed a couple of people-sorry!).

After the gig, we huddled into Paul’s borrowed Freelander to do a quick Radio interview for a new station in Bridgnorth. It was fun but intimate

Can’t wait to the next one now, which will be next Friday in the Marrs Bar, Worcester. Hope to see some of you there!

Take care

Alun

A new blog home?

Hello, lovely people of WordPress. I’ve got increasingly tired of Myspace as a Blog tool – the random advertising and frequent crashes are just getting out of hand – so thought I’d wander over here and see what the fuss is all about.

For the time being I’ll probably do some cross posting between the two but hopefully I’ll eventually migrate it all to here.

Speak soon,

Alun

PS My original Myspace blog can be found at http://blog.myspace.com/alunvaughan