Live tonight!

Afternoon all,

Just a quick one today. We are playing our first gig of the year tonight at the Betsey Trotwood in Farringdon! To mark the occasion it has snowed here there and everywhere, on cars and buses and trains. We shall be playing a new never-heard-before (outside of a Pearly rehearsal room) song tonight so keep those ears peeled. Or you might miss it...

We've got a good few gigs coming up, this one is the most low-key I think. After this we have a couple of corkers on the horizon, 93 Feet East (very exciting) and the Dublin Castle...

Also we might play the bullet bar, which used to be called the Verge! Who remembers seeing us at the Verge?! God, that was a LONG time ago!

Anyway, what else has been going on? Probably not too much that would interest the casual observer of Pearlyland. Recording dates in February have been confirmed, which is good, and so hopefully we will be flogging copies at the Dublin Castle in March (weather permitting).

Ok gotta go!

Immediate plans

So far a good start to the year. My new plan is to get up early and go swimming before work. It's a good plan and it would make me feel better but winter holds me underneath the weight of short days and late daybreaks and it's a bugger getting out of bed in time for work never mind getting in a cold pool and swimming up and down and around. I do love a good new year's cliché, when is it summer again?

Well the new songs are sounding good. I don't usually listen to our recordings much but I've had the tracks from the last gig on at work and in the car loads. Really pleased with nights on the tiles, I think it's a great recording that does it justice and is fun to listen to! With the other songs it's interesting to hear the bits that worked really well and then the bits that we should do differently. It's great to be able to hear it back and think "ok, that works better than I thought" and also "hmm... don't do that again!"

I also think that we sound better live and I hate it when recordings really sound like they've been made in a studio and tracked bit by bit. It just never sounds the same as a live recording when everyone's playing together. The studio recordings might be 'better' by generally accepted standards of audio quality (or they might not, I'm guessing here), but I don't listen to them as much as I listen to recordings where the whole band are playing at once. Our band or any band.

So is 2007 the year of Pearly? Things are looking good so far with the gig offers coming in thick and fast. We are meeting tomorrow night to discuss where we want to play and what, when and where we're going to record (hopefully not 'if', I think we've agreed that bit..!). The plan at the moment is to have some stuff in the can and pressed for the Dublin Castle gig in March (fucking brilliant venue, always love playing there). Definitely do-able, I guess it depends on if we can get studio time in February and if we can agree on what we want to put down. Any thoughts?

So objectives for the year are to make a good recording (much better than the ones that have gone before), play lots of gigs and generally raise the profile of the band more. I shall be focusing more on the band and trying to maintain my concentration. I shall do one band-related thing every day! Luckily playing my guitar counts as a band-related thing.

Laters,

Brown

You may now comment on our musings!

Through mucking around I have managed to enable comments for new posts! So from now on you good people can leave your mark on these pearly pages.

This is exciting news, and I think it might even call for a new news article on the website!

I retire satisfied that my work here is done. I'll write more soon, don't want to over-excite anyone.

Laters

Brown

‘Bad to have a bad uncle’

It appears that in the epic battle between ‘Doing Stuff’ and ‘Writing About Doing Stuff’, ‘Doing Stuff’ has been kicking arse.. so to redress the balance I figured I’d blog..

Happy Christmas and New Year etc. That ‘etc’ was a bit Nathan Barley wasn’t it? I do love that show, the DVD of the first series (hope there’s a second) is a tenner in HMV. I just think it’s genius.. 'Keep it Mencap yeah?'.. lovely rich text!

Anyway… I like Christmas and new year, they are, for me, yearly punctuation marks that cause me to reflect on my (possibly futile) existence and what the hell is happening!!?? And more importantly… what the hell is happening with the band?!

Well, it’s kind of rehearse, gig, rehearse, record, rehearse, gig which is way more exciting than it sounds..

So, our next gig is:

‘Wednesday 24th January 2007

24/01/06
Betsey Trotwood
56 Farringdon Road
London
EC1R 3BL

Here’s a link to a map:
http://www.ents24.com/web/maps.php?venueid=18725

We’re springing back into action with a gig at perhaps the smallest venue in London (it has to be seen to be believed) we’ll all be well up for it so come down and bang your head on the ceiling with us.
It’s £5 (£4 with a flyer). Doors open at around 8ish and we should be on stage at about 9:30ish. This gig is through Plum Promotions who generally put on good nights so it should be a good bill.’

I’ve just quoted our own mail out in a blog.. sign of the times eh?

New Live Tracks

We have new live tracks up, they are free to download, so fill your boots.. and hard-drives.. They are:

Map of the Stars
Cognitive Learning
Nights on the Tiles

We might record a couple of these songs, unless we write, learn and arrange something better before we record again.. which brings us neatly onto..

Recording
We’ve been talking about it for a while but we should be recording in February which I really can’t wait for. I have a lot of ideas for interesting additions to tracks.. some probably need to be discussed at length with the rest of the band, otherwise we will end up with loads of bloody hand claps or something.

In the mean time I’ve been trying to write some bitchin’ new songs, this is now being aided by a new keyboard I have acquired.. it was my little brother’s and I used to write loads on it when I lived with my family so it’s brought back some great memories. There’s a good church organ sound which is fun, I really want to write a hymn incorporating references to Monty Python and the Holy Grail. There’s kind of a wide range of material kicking around as always and I think a few things, assuming I don’t bugger them up, should make the light of day.

Anyway, more on everything soon.. new year, new blog policy?!! 'Watch the fuck out Blogspot..etc'

WFA