Hello!
Singfield are proud to announce that they will be playing at ‘The Big Gig 2009’ at Ferneham Hall in Fareham on the evening of Wednesday 21st October. This is a charity event with all proceeds going to the Hampshire Autistic Society. We’ll be sharing the bill with:
- Baadness - a ska/pop/Madness covers band
- The Lokomokos - a rock covers band (they are already promising to play some Lynard Skynard and some Eric Clapton). Info at www.myspace.com/lokomokos
- Rusted Warrior - providing all your hard rock needs, these guys will be covering the likes of Iron Maiden and Metallica. More at www.rustedwarrior.com
Also, this will be our first gig with our new lead guitarist, Dr. Nick White! Hurray! So we would be really grateful if you could come along and support us. The evening is modelled on “Later… with Jools Holland” so each band will be playing a couple of short sets, with a few guest spots and some (exciting) on-stage interviews!
Tickets are £12.50 for adults and £5 for under-18s. This is essentially being run as a private gig, so tickets need to be bought directly from the band (they are not available from Ferneham Hall direct).
If you would like to come along the please e-mail us at singfield@gmail.com or send Ben a message through Facebook. It’s going to be a brilliant night out and your support would be gratefully received!
Thanks!
Ben, Sarah, Dominic, Nick and Dr. Nick.
Links:
The Big Gig 2009 - www.natsnoise.co.uk
Hampshire Autistic Society - www.has.org.uk
Ferneham Hall - www.fernehamhall.co.uk
Singfield - www.singfield.net
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
Sunday, 28 June 2009
Gig @ The Railway Inn Gosport.
Woop -
Well, the secret warm up gig at the Railway Inn in Gosport went down swimmingly. This was Sarah's first gig, so there were a few nerves (and repeated visits to the ladies) but all worked out well.
The highlights of the evening included
1) Turning up at Ben's house to find he'd cooked an enormous chinese. (Good)
2) Nick arriving at the venue to find he'd left a pretty crucial part of his drum kit in his house 40 miles away. The fact that "I know where I left it - it's by my stairs" didn't excuse it Nick. (Bad)
3) Turning up at the venue to find that it's the landladies 30th birthday and all the locals were in their sister pub where the party was. The news that "Oh there are millions of people in here on a Friday night, but their all down the road tonight." (Bad)
4) Nick attempting to fix his missing equipment with a legendary amount of gaffer tape / chairs / sellotape/ pencils (Amusing as ultimately successful)
5) Quite a few of my dear friends rocking up (despite there being "a good night on TV like") (Great)
6) Everyone focusing on the fact that I had a little spot (It was a huge spot Dom - Ben) on the side of my head. This was discussed constantly by everyone, and Ben even claimed that it ruined the acoustics in the venue. (Bad)
7) The PA and bass rig I'd brought being quite, quite excellent (Good)
8) Ben rewiting one of the tune halfway through the song (probably quite bad)
9) The general audience reaction (Excellent)
10) Going back to Bens and drinking "a heroic amount of Guinness" (superb)
11) The fact that Paul turned up and videoed the whole thing. The sound ultimately suffered on the video simply 'cos ben was "very fucking loud" but a great solution was employed (by the way of a bit of masking tape). And Paul set up our own video channel on YouTube. (Fantastic)
I know that list goes up to 11, but there are some conventions that one can't escape from.
Next, the Millenium Stadium on October 14th.
ddm*
Saturday, 16 May 2009
Friday, 1 May 2009
Demos in the post
Our live demo has finally gone out in the post this week. Hopefully the gig offers will coming rolling in over the next few weeks...
In other news, I'm trying to organise a couple of solo gigs to see how they go, and we have a friend jamming with us at the moment so that we can hear some lead guitar over our "vast" set list. All good things!
- Ben
Wednesday, 11 March 2009
Slow Progress
We managed at couple of rehearsals in February, but as Dom has pointed out, if we're not actually rehearsing for anything then essentially we're just four mates playing music together in a room. This is depressingly true.
I have a long list of venues and potential "gig-opportunities" to send our demo to, but Dom is working hard (hopefully) on a fab sleeve for the CD, so I won't be sending it out until that is done. I've considered making one myself, but that will probably involve scissors, glue and the photocopier at work, and I imagine Dom would not be impressed. He is the visual artist within the band after all.
However, we potentially have six rehearsals over April and May, and we may actually be able to make them all if Nick doesn't jet off again, Dom & Sarah stop having so many friends, and I can get the baby to bed on time.
In other news, the non-drummer members of Singfield had a rather lovely day out a few weeks ago, any saw Wobbly Squadron, The Berettas, and The Wow Signal, who were all rather good. And one of our favourite musicians has a new tour, and we may also be going to this.
Ben
I have a long list of venues and potential "gig-opportunities" to send our demo to, but Dom is working hard (hopefully) on a fab sleeve for the CD, so I won't be sending it out until that is done. I've considered making one myself, but that will probably involve scissors, glue and the photocopier at work, and I imagine Dom would not be impressed. He is the visual artist within the band after all.
However, we potentially have six rehearsals over April and May, and we may actually be able to make them all if Nick doesn't jet off again, Dom & Sarah stop having so many friends, and I can get the baby to bed on time.
In other news, the non-drummer members of Singfield had a rather lovely day out a few weeks ago, any saw Wobbly Squadron, The Berettas, and The Wow Signal, who were all rather good. And one of our favourite musicians has a new tour, and we may also be going to this.
Ben
Wednesday, 28 January 2009
Winners and Losers
I notice that Unsigned Act has just finished on Channel 4 - it’s one of those programmes that I caught bits of every now and then. I was pretty impressed with some of the acts on it, including the winner Tommy Reilly and finalists Hip Parade.
The only thing I didn’t really get is the competition aspect, so I’ve come up with my own idea for a new TV show - a cross between ‘Unsigned Act’ and ‘Later…’ that is essentially a show case for unsigned bands, etc. Same rules as Unsigned Act - everyone plays live and it must be their own material. It would be bound to have loads of interest, it would be pretty cheap to make, and there is endless potential for “theme”, “best-of” and “where-are-they-now?” episodes. Heck, I’d tune in. I may even try and enter.
Our competition experience so far has been limited to a very brief slot on a BBC Radio show. Our song ‘Innocence’ was rated against a couple of others. Actually, to be more accurate, the first 45 seconds of ‘Innocence’ were rated, as that is all the show bothered to play. I’m not convinced that you can properly review a song by only hearing the first 45 seconds. If you did that to ‘Stairway To Heaven’ you’d probably think that Led Zeppelin need to lose the flutist and get a drummer and a singer.
Anyway, needless to say we didn’t do brilliantly on the South Live competition, despite Dom “influencing” the on-line vote. And to be fair the song that was submitted (by persons unknown) was just a live demo recording. But regardless of all that, we’ve never been that fussed by music as a competition. I know “Battle Of The Bands” are an easy way to get a gig, but we just can’t be arsed.
So instead we’re looking for proper gigs. If you can recommend a suitable venue then please drop us an e-mail or leave a message on our Facebook page, and we’ll stick a demo CD in the post to them very soon.
Ben
The only thing I didn’t really get is the competition aspect, so I’ve come up with my own idea for a new TV show - a cross between ‘Unsigned Act’ and ‘Later…’ that is essentially a show case for unsigned bands, etc. Same rules as Unsigned Act - everyone plays live and it must be their own material. It would be bound to have loads of interest, it would be pretty cheap to make, and there is endless potential for “theme”, “best-of” and “where-are-they-now?” episodes. Heck, I’d tune in. I may even try and enter.
Our competition experience so far has been limited to a very brief slot on a BBC Radio show. Our song ‘Innocence’ was rated against a couple of others. Actually, to be more accurate, the first 45 seconds of ‘Innocence’ were rated, as that is all the show bothered to play. I’m not convinced that you can properly review a song by only hearing the first 45 seconds. If you did that to ‘Stairway To Heaven’ you’d probably think that Led Zeppelin need to lose the flutist and get a drummer and a singer.
Anyway, needless to say we didn’t do brilliantly on the South Live competition, despite Dom “influencing” the on-line vote. And to be fair the song that was submitted (by persons unknown) was just a live demo recording. But regardless of all that, we’ve never been that fussed by music as a competition. I know “Battle Of The Bands” are an easy way to get a gig, but we just can’t be arsed.
So instead we’re looking for proper gigs. If you can recommend a suitable venue then please drop us an e-mail or leave a message on our Facebook page, and we’ll stick a demo CD in the post to them very soon.
Ben
Tuesday, 20 January 2009
Live demo released on the world
So today is the day - Dom's wonderful website is available to the world, and so is our new demo. Five songs, all recorded completely live in an effort to get us some gigs around the South-East of England. We realise that there's not much chance of someone stumbling across our website and then giving us a gig, so we'll be making up some good old-fashioned CDs to send out.
The only problem with this whole process is that the vast majority of venues that have unsigned bands playing have no interest in how good you are. I'm sure they'll give the CD a quick listen just to make sure you're not a tuba-xylophone double act, but if and when they decide to give you a call and offer you a gig, the main thing they are interested in is how many people you can bring along to the gig.
I can understand that - we're purely a bit of entertainment to try and bring in a few extra people. But it's bit disappointing that it's our mates who are expected to be those extra people.
Not all venues are like this of course - some have recognised that by having live music it makes their venue a more appealing place to be. But they'll still be interested in seeing how many "travelling fans" we'll bring with us. That, of course, is a very difficult question to answer. It depends on what day if the week the gig'll be on, where the venue is, whether they'll be charging people to get in, etc, etc.
Still, one way we can let them know how popular we are, is to see how many friends and fans we have on websites like Facebook and Myspace. So if you've got a couple of minutes, won't you please become our friend?
The only problem with this whole process is that the vast majority of venues that have unsigned bands playing have no interest in how good you are. I'm sure they'll give the CD a quick listen just to make sure you're not a tuba-xylophone double act, but if and when they decide to give you a call and offer you a gig, the main thing they are interested in is how many people you can bring along to the gig.
I can understand that - we're purely a bit of entertainment to try and bring in a few extra people. But it's bit disappointing that it's our mates who are expected to be those extra people.
Not all venues are like this of course - some have recognised that by having live music it makes their venue a more appealing place to be. But they'll still be interested in seeing how many "travelling fans" we'll bring with us. That, of course, is a very difficult question to answer. It depends on what day if the week the gig'll be on, where the venue is, whether they'll be charging people to get in, etc, etc.
Still, one way we can let them know how popular we are, is to see how many friends and fans we have on websites like Facebook and Myspace. So if you've got a couple of minutes, won't you please become our friend?
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