Open Mic Tonight @ Suede, Athlone

There's a new bar opened up in Athlone called Suede and I went there with Beko a couple of weeks ago and we randomly stumbled upon an Open Mic session!

So I'm going back to play a few tunes tonight! Will be there from 8:30 onwards...

Jolene (Dolly Parton)
My Baby (new song of my own)
Blowin' In The Wind (Bob Dylan)
Dressed To Undress (an old song I used to play with Mothership)
Where Do You Go To My Lovely (Peter Sarstedt)

See you there! ;-)

Songs Brewing and Ableton Ordered

After a little break from music after the Stars of Our Bars weeks, I'm back on track now and writing some new material... since I haven't bought the mega expensive software yet, I cannot record, so instead I am writing on guitar again in the mean time - which is nice! Guitar is good for summer... I also have a couple of covers lined up - one to choose for Eduardo in Brazil which I promised aaaaages ago and one for Beko in Turkey.

*** 5 minutes later ***

Ok so I decided to bite the bullet and buy Ableton Suite 8 (€700!) - it was very hard to click on the BUY button.... hahaha but in 2 weeks I will own it so no more trying to work with cracked software that keeps crashing and breaking (well, I hope not anyway!!).

After the buzz and excitement...

Omg.

What a week...

A week last Sunday I had to take Antonio (my car) back to the UK before the Irish government turned him into Cola Cans... I missed my ferry (followed sign to the wrong Port!) and had to hang around 5 hours for the next one and then when my ferry got into thr UK, I had to drive to my parents.. I didn't get to sleep till 6am and was up for working from home at 8... lol Then Monday night I was back in Ireland but there were no coaches to go back to Athlone (and obviously I didn't have a car anymore) so I had to get a hotel and then catch the first coach in the morning... However, I couldn't sleep that night and only had 2 hours again... Then the night after I slept really well until 4am and then that was pretty much it... I only started to feel normal again yesterday...

I've taken a bit of a break from music this week. The last few weeks have been really intense - rehearsing night after night and changing the songs for the competition... But I'm actually ITCHING to get started again now and can't wait until the evening... I think the first thing I am going to do is have a few run through's of the song I did for Aitor "Try a Little Tenderness" (I spent so long on it, I don't want to not practice it and then completely forget it!) and then I'm going to start working on one of the covers for Eduardo. Before I can record again though, I need to buy Ableton Suite 8 which is €700 so I'm not sure when I'm going to have the money for that what with all the crazy amounts I've spent on double car insurance and everything to do with that recently...

I got some really lovely messages from people on Facebook after the competition last week giving words of support...

Easter weeekend was cool... I was meant to start my covers for Eduardo but I couldn't find the email with the songs... :-(  However, I started recording a song I started writing last week... It was acoustic guitar based but I'm starting with the drums and bass and synth and building it up from there now and then maybe add guitar in later...

I've only got tonight thought and then I'm off to France on a business trip tomorrow until Friday and then June is over to visit until Sunday so it's going to be a crazy week...

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

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!!

Cover Versions on Demand!

One of my friends (who is also a musician!) had an idea that we should both choose 3 songs and the other person has to choose one of those songs and cover it!

So he gave me the option of these 3:
Otis Redding - Try a little tenderness
Imogen Heap - Half life
Joe Cocker - My father's son

I know other songs from all 3 artists but don't know the actual songs at all, so I got home last night and downloaded them from iTunes... I was really tempted to cover Half Life because I like Imogen Heap, but then I thought that My Father's Son was quite a simple song and I would be able to do more stuff to it to make it my own but in the end I chose Try a Little Tenderness, simply because I loved the vibe to it - think I need to invest in a bit more of Otis Redding... So last night I started practicing... The bloody chords were wrong on all the internet sites (I think they just copy from one another so if the first ones wrong, then they all are!), so first I had to work out the correct chords. It went quite well, but I need to practice it more yet...

The 3 songs I picked are:
Joni Mitchell (obviously!) - Carey
Whitney Houston (obviously haha!) - Saving All My Love For You
Billie Holiday - These Foolish Things

So I'm waiting to find out which one he is going to cover now! Woo!

YouTube Covers - Tear In Your Hand / Redemtpion Song

Recorded a couple of YouTube videos on Friday night...

A cover of Tori Amos' "Tear In Your Hand":

A cover of Bob Marley's "Redemption Song":