Waterfront Project update -shameless promotion

As some of you may know, I'm currently involved in a music project with some friends - Glyn Collinson and Ben Clayton , as well as a couple of others who have been known to join with us for sessions. Collectively the project is known as "The Waterfront Project", and recording of our album is currently underway.

We have a myspace (see link on the right) where you can listen to all our recorded tracks so far - bearing in mind that there aren't necessarily the finished versions yet. If you're on facebook, come and join us on the facebook group page ! We also now have some more space on Glyn's website thanks to an update he's done. He's promised to keep updating it more regularly from now on, uploading new tracks as we go along. There will also be regular news posts, from all of us not just Glyn, and there's space for you all to join in and comment. So come on over and let us know what you think ! Today for example, we have just uploaded a new recording (made last night) of our version of the Trad. song "The Blue Cockade".

We've been reviewed !!!

How cool is this...today Glyn sent me a link to a review he found that had been written about our performance at the Big Session Festival last Summer (June 08). Here it is ! The bit on us is under "Lee's Saturday sessions", about 1/3 of the way down the page. It's not too bad :-)

Apologies for not blogging recently; things are a bit manic at the moment with having been away a fair bit and having lots of work to now do. I currently have at least 2 posts in my mind that I want to write, one of which is a follow-up to the last post I wrote, but I think writing them will have to wait til at least next week, when I have enough time to spend writing them properly !

Sailor Girl

For those of you who still read this, I just wanted to let you know that our latest recording "Sailor Girl" has now gone up on our myspace. Do have a listen and let us know what you think. I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I do ! I've been very impatient over the last couple of days to hear how the final mix sounded, but I think it was worth the wait :-)

I love this song. In folk music there are lots of 'broken token' songs, where the song is about a girl sitting on the shore whose husband/boyfriend/lover has gone off to the sea/join the navy etc. So, with the navy now striving for equality, Glyn thought he'd write an equivalent song from a man's point of view, where a wife/girlfriend/lover had gone off to the sea. However this song, unlike many traditional broken token songs, does have a happy ending.

The song itself has evolved so much since Glyn and I first played it together. This particular version came together a couple of weekends ago, and now somehow I've ended up singing lead vocals (!) It does feel strange hearing myself sing lead for one of Glyn's songs, but on the other hand, it does allow him freedom to do some of the harmonies he's so good at doing !

So yes, anyway, I hope you enjoy ! A redone version of Lonely Mountain will also be appearing at some point, and then we have to wait for the next chance we get to do some more recording. I think "Your Father's Son" is next on the list for recording properly, but then that could easily change before the next session. We just have too many songs we want to record ! :-)

Music recording

As those of you who have been following my recent frequent changes of facebook status know, we (i.e. The Waterfront Project) are continuing to record tracks for the album and this week has been no exception. This past weekend we had an epic weekend of jamming, rehearsing, going to a session, and some recording. Then later in the week we had an intense evening of recording (probably the latest we've stayed up playing music as yet since the start of The Waterfront Project !)

Music recording can be soooo frustrating though ! I'm not done a lot of multi-track recording before, and as a consequence I underestimate the amount of time it takes to do things and the number of takes you have to do to record each part ! It's so different recording each part separately as opposed to playing live - I'm used to singing and playing guitar together, not having to concentrate on each one separately ! One feels there is an added level of pressure too, when you know you're playing/singing into a microphone and being recorded ! (Or at least, so i feel anyway). It takes so many takes to get each part right - as a musician, you know exactly how you want each part to go, yet so often you can have a take that is perfect apart from a couple of notes (meaning you have to rerecord, whereupon usually you get those notes correct this time, but some other ones seem to go wrong somehow!) Still, having said all of that, I think we got some good work done this week. Glyn is always very patient with me and is very good at trying to get me more relaxed and encouraging me that I can actually do it ! :-) It is fun too of course, as I love playing this music. And despite all the hard work, I feel very priviliged still to be involved, and wouldn't want to have it any other way. So yes, keep watching this space...

The Waterfront Project myspace

Tis very exciting - The Waterfront Project now has a myspace page ! Go check it out at: www.myspace.com/waterfrontproject !!!

Upcoming gigs...

I've been busy. There are several upcoming musical events at which I am playing...
- If anyone is free tomorrow and would like an evening of music in Cambridge (see flyer above)... This event is to raise money for this year's Romanian summer camp, of the variety I helped with last summer.

- Also, if anyone fancies a trip to Leicester in a couple of weeks, then I am accompanying a friend of mine at the Big Session Folk festival (See: http://www.bigsessionfestival.com) !!! We have a lunchtime slot on the Saturday in the Marquee Stage ! Exciting stuff...

The Waterfront Project !!!

For those of you who still read this blog (well done if you do) and who are vaguely interested, I have some news to share...

At the moment I am involved in a 'music project' with several extremely talented musicians, all of whom were at Bristol University like me, (but I didn't really get to meet any of them until we had all left Bristol Uni !) Together we are called 'The Waterfront Project'. The overall aim is to eventually record an album, putting in lots of hard work and having lots of fun along the way, perhaps also leading to some gigs. Anyway...we had our first 'full band' rehearsal a couple of weeks ago and not only was it amazing, but we made a few rough recordings (to see how we sounded). What we all I think agree were the best of these have recently been put up on Glyn's website (links about half-way down the homepage) and so please feel free to have a listen ! Enjoy and let me know what you think - bearing in mind these are very rough recordings. Technically speaking, you might call us 'folk-rock' of a kind, but we're hard to define.

I have never been involved in anything like this before. It's exciting, and hard and so tiring and truly wonderful all at once, and much more besides. I feel like I am growing so much as a musician at the moment and in many other ways too; well, playing with other musicians at this level and for rehearsals this long kinda makes you want to 'raise your game'; you want to learn to play your parts really well so that you're not the one who messes the song up ! It's a really practical demonstration of what it means to be a small part contributing to an overall big picture, which in this case is each song. I'm also learning just how much hard work music can be - I lose track now of how many times I've played some of these songs (although, I am still not bored of any of them!) and the sheer number of hours I have spent working out harmony for some songs, but it is SO worth it. I feel so very priviliged to have been asked to be a part of this and can't wait til our next session :-)



p.s. to anyone who has stuck out the long months of no posts, I do apologise for not keeping this site up-to-date in the last few months. I just seem to have too much else on my plate/mind at the moment. Besides, I think facebook really has taken over from the fad of blogging - well, for some things anyway. I may still post exciting news like this on here, but don't expect 'regular' updates like I used to give. I can't promise anything like that anymore !