Not this time ;-)

Awww well I didn't get through tonight... but I've had a wicked time the last few weeks :)

Newspaper Clipping for Stars of Our Bars

What am I playing on Friday??

...not that I'm freaking out or anything....ahem.

I've sorted out which cover I am playing, BUT out of hundreds of my own songs, I can't seem to find ONE song of my own composition that I want to play on Friday night...

I've tried to narrow it down to a few but not convinced that any of them are perfect for Friday at the moment and I'm still looking through the others... Whatever I play, I'll probably end up changing it anyway! lol

So far, I've narrowed it down to:

Bite - would have to be a re-make, starting off a capella like the original but then instead of the drum stick on wood, it would be heal stomping (which goes down well usually) and then the guitar joining halfway through... am worried that the judges may think it's a gimmick to win though... or it might just show originality...

Dressed To Undress great song, instantly likeable... but I already played this the first weekof the competition...

Falling into the Leaves - I would be playing the original "fast" version of this if I did play it (not like the slower recorded version) - this is a favourite amongst friends in Athlone but the guitar part is so simple, I may lose marks for that... The chords are literally G Em C D and then mixed up and there's no fancy strumming or anything like that...

Facing the World Again - It might be a little slow and depressing... but it's got quite heart felt lyrics... the guitar part is a little quirky in the verses... not sure the vocal really shows off my voice though...

A Secret Love - obviously this is definitely slow and depressing too but it *is* on piano, which could be a bonus and it's pretty dark and eerie which might be a good change of mood during the evening - if I did a remake of it, I might be able to make this one work... Re-makes on the piano are more difficult for me though and I only have 2 evenings before Friday...

Petroleum - I love the lyrics to this cos it's comparing a relationship to a jar of vaseline! haha but you could see how, due to that reason, it could be easily disparaged... The guitar work is good though, the song is upbeat, it's catchy, it goes down well at parties usually too... The chords aren't anything fancy but I think the general structure of the song makes up for that...


In History - even though I think this is one of my best, I do think that it is a song that grows on you rather than being an instant favourite - which it needs to be on the night... I dunno, it's such an OLD song now and I've played it so often that it's kind of tatood on my brain and I find it difficult to analyse it objectively...

Kate Bush - this is definitely an option - the guitar part is ok, decent variation of chords and strumming... I think vocal could benefit from more variety and that might let it down...

Deeper Interaction - I say this is a recent song but it's actually end of 2006 hahaha which is aaaaages ago! Anyway - this is also dark and on the piano, like A Secret Love except I guess that the piano part is a little more interesting...

Killing Me - a music review in Sheffield once said that this was a sure fire Number 1 hit - but thats when I had all the backing arrangement from Mothership to it... I'm not sure how well the songs stands up when it's played only acoustically.. The other thing is that the lyrics are quite disturbing - about a friend who wanted to commit suicide - and even though the lyrics are quite subtle, I'm not sure it suits the atmosphere of a competition night...

Ok.  So.  Bite, Petroleum, Kate Bush and Deeper Interaction are the first songs I'm going to play tonight and see how they sound....and I'll take it from there...

Through to the Stars of Our Bars FINAL!

It was the second round of the Stars of Our Bars semi finals last night and I came first out of the night and am through to the FINAL on Friday!!

I played "Wish on The Moon" (a new version) and "One" by U2.

I'm not sure of the songs to sing on the final on Friday yet - need to get thinking quick as I only have 4 evenings to decide and prepare...

I'll be uploading the photos from last night on to Facebook later and I'm going to put them up from the last weeks on to here too!

Facebook Fan Page and New YouTube video of Summertime

So I was quite busy yesterday and created a Facebook fan page...
http://twitpic.com/19ixk4

And uploaded a video of me covering Billie Holiday's Sumemrtime:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgBrm4puYMM

Poster for Stars of Our Bars

Semi Finals: Sunday 21st March

I've got a place in the Semi Finals of Stars of Our Bars playing on Sunday night at The Palace Bar again - usual venue but the time will be a bit earlier this week because it's Sunday (am waiting to find out but I guess that getting there for 8 should be fine!)

Last.FM link
Facebook link

I've gone and caught myself some kind of cold so I'm hoping I can get rid of it before Sunday otherwise my voice will not be at it's best.. eeek!

This week I will be playing a cover version again and then also one of my old songs Wish On The Moon - but it's been totally re-vamped!  Will get the new version recorded soon! :)

Through to the Semi Finals!

Wooohoo ok so last night, I sang:

Matthew MoreOrLess (my own song on piano) and
One by U2

And it got through to the semi finals!

Today has been really cool - I haven't done anything except chill, have a siesta and write a few bits and pieces on the piano that I really like... I should play piano more... need to expand the piano EP anyway as there's only one song for that so far.

So hooray for U2! And Matthew! lol

Pics coming soon!!

Covers on Demand 2

hehe

Well... if you remember my Covers on Demand post a few weeks ago where I had a choice of 3 songs and had to cover one of them? Well I chose 'Try a Little Tenderness', by Otis Redding and when it was fininshed, I sent it out to a few people... and I was chatting to a friend in Brazil who loved track and I agreed to do the same thing for him...

So here's another 3 songs...
Lift Me Up - Christina Aguilera
So Beautiful - Darren Hayes
Glitter In The Air - Pink

Once again, I don't know any of the actual songs so that's kinda cool as I'm learning it from scratch!

News on my EPs

Thought I should clarify what's going on with my EP's... :)

I wanted to split my recorded songs into different EPs, so that each EP had a flowing 'theme'. Therefore I am recording several EP's all at once and I'm just adding to each EP as and when I record a new song for it.

Demo
Recorded in 2005 - this is finished so I'm not adding any tracks to this.
1. Wish On The Moon
2. Bite
3. In History
4. Takin' The High
5. So Worthwhile

Eight English Months
This is for songs mainly with acoustic guitar accompaniment.

5 Minutes
Anything on here is cover versions... Since these are not my songs, I have not put them available to download from anywhere but you can just email me and I will send them to you :)

[to be confirmed]
This is my most exciting project as it is more electronica based. Just 2 tracks recorded for this so far "Spirit Like You" and "Theories from Von Krahl" but I have a few bubbling under :-p

Live Sessions
These are all songs recorded on my iPhone so they're not excellent quality but I have sooo many songs and I don't want them to get lost forever in my brain somewhere, so everytime I play an old song for someone, I try and record it. I have a few that I can add to this so I need to upload them.

I'll also be having an EP for songs that have piano accompaniment mainly because these tend to be quite dark so I think they will all fit pretty well together on the same CD. For anyone who knows my music - this will be tracks such as A Secret Love, Deeper Interaction, No Soul I Know Could Live Without Love, Matthew MoreOrLess etc.

Links to all my downloads are on my Last.FM page.

Yay 2010 is an exciting year :-D

That's it for now...

Looking forward to tonight as I'm going to sit on the patio in the sun, drink red wine, and rehearse my songs for Friday's competition!

Through to the next round!!

Sooooo...... I good news from last night! Was at Stars of our Bars at The Palace Bar in Athlone and I CAME FIRST in the competition and therefore I'm going through to the next round which is next week! So excited! Seriously can't believe I won...was sooooo cool! Got to find good songs for next week now!

And we celebrated with champagne afterwards woohoo!

For the record... I played a cover of Garbeg's 'Only Happy When It Rains' and my own song Dressed to Undress :)

Gig tonight!

Yay! It's the talent competition tonight! It seems like I've got a few people coming from work thanks to friends in each department acting as mini marketing peeps hehe so that's really cool!

I was going to play a song on guitar and a song on piano... but the piano one I haven't really practiced enough (even though I wrote it 2 years ago...but it's really hard! I need to start writing simplier piano songs or maybe I just need to practice more mmmmhmmmm hahaha yeah I think that is the answer!)

Link to gig info

So I think I'm going to play Only Happy When It Rains (Garbage cover) and one of my own "Dressed To Undress" - both on guitar...

It's a beautiful day again here! I'll be able to rehearse on the river bank in the sun later if this keeps up... :-D