A surprise solo gig supporting Seth Horan :-)

Hello. Last week I had an email from Rob at the Islwyn Acoustic Guitar Club asking me if I fancied taking my bass along on Friday to the Seth Horan gig at the Blackwood Miners Institute. Did I??? I'm a huge Seth fan so jumped at the chance.

For those who like to know such things the set was....

Improv/Purple Haze/Day Tripper
Untitled Original ( Have been playing this for a while and really need to name it!)
Goodbye Song

 I really enjoyed it but it was definitely "freer" than usual - I ended up wandering off into variations a few times, some more successful than others .

The main support, Chris and Den Fry, were great and Seth was mind blowingly good

A fun night all round!

Take care,
Alun

PS Since Myspace "upgraded" the music player, mine has vanished completely Hopefully iy'll get fixed soon!

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The further adventures of Panic Room - Derby, Lydney and Cardiff

Hello all. The latest run of Panic Room gigs is at an end so thought I'd post some random thoughts...

The Flowerpot, Derby
What a great venue! The rest of the band had played there previously with Karnataka but it was a new one for me.The journey up was reasonably smooth, intertesting range of music in the van including some great mashup CDs that Jon brought along - Janis Joplin mixed with Vivaldi was a highlight , acoustic Paul Gilbert and, to Jon's despair, "Music From The Elder" by Kiss. Paul's ""total recall" knowledge of Paul Gilbert's songs and the Elder was quite terrifying

Despite the one way systems best attempts, we were soon at the venue and set up. Soundcheck went fairly smoothly and we headed out in search of food. Derby seems like a lovely town - much "posher" than I anticipated.

The Flowerpot was one of the best gigs I've done with Panic Room - such a great vibe and atmosphere. When I find my setlist, I shall add it to the set list archive over at the official forum, but the set was a cross between the one performed in Rotherham and the list used earlier in the year - back to Elektra City as an opener and Anne also did a couple of solo tunes. The new tunes went down really well, Sandstorms seems to be becoming a particular favourite.

The Flowerpot stage is quite a bit smaller than the others we've been playing on so my pedalboard was slightly off to the side meaning I occasionally changed sounds by mistake while trying to use the volume pedal .

There was no support band at the Flowerpot so we had time to add No Quarter to the encore. Paul's guitar ( NOT his amp as some forums are suggesting) cut out towards the end but otherwise everything went well.

A great night overall

After the gig we headed back to the home of our merchandise people Ray and Steph who spoilt us rotten until it was time to head off to Lydney.

Town Hall, Lydney

The site of our very first gig which seems years ago but was in fact only April! Soundcheck was very slow getting started today which was a bit frustrating, lots of hanging about. Eventually we were done and left the stage while support band Also Eden set up. I was very flattered by the bassist's comment that my amp, which he was using,  didn't have a "play like Alun" switch .

As usual we headed off in search of food (Ray had already gone out and found a chippie ). As we were heading back, Suzanne rang to say she was lost. All she knew was that she was by a church where they seemed to practicing bell ringing. Standing in Lydney, I could hear no bells . Eventually she found her way to the venue, realising that she'd only been a few hundred yards from the venue when her sat nav sent her off on a tangent!

Musically the gig was really strong but the lighting was a little bizarre - for the first few songs they alternated between medium tempo flashing and plunging the stage into darkness This continued until Firefly when they went into a mad disco frenzy - not ideal for a ballad ( although it did lead to Anne singing "Ha ha ha ha firefly firefly" over Staying Alive in the dressing room later in the night )

The gig also saw Moon On The Water being added to the set and also the debut of a short acoustic piece from Paul that was used as an intro.

The audience was smaller than we would have liked but more than made up for it with their enthusiasm. Great to see HippyDave amongst others.


The Point, Cardiff

A beautiful day in Cardiff so I ventured down to the Bay with Suzanne for lunch before soundcheck. I strongly reccomend the Gourmet Burger Kitchen if you're ever down that way - really lovely food .

Soundcheck was much smoother today, they always have a good crew ( and fantastic lighting!) at the Point.It's a lovely venue all round so we were looking forward to it.

Support tonight was from the rather wonderful Evolve Reverse, a great duo who you really should check out ( once you've finished reading this!).

The set was going really well and then I noticed Paul's guitar drop out during Endgame. We left the stage for Anne's two solo tunes where we discovered that Paul had damaged his fretting hand somehow and couldn't grip the guitar neck

We decided that we would try and get through the rest of the set as a four piece, covering the guitar parts as best as we could. The rest of the set really kepy me on my toes as I juggled bass parts, guitar parts ( the middle section of Black Noise being a particaulr challenge!) and frantically improvised solos .

All in all, another good fun gig. The sound engineer came up to the dressing room at the end of the night and said that he sees a lot of bands through the venue and it was the most impressed he'd been in a long time

Random photos from our travels can be found at http://www.alunvaughan.com/interactive.shtml

We now have a couple of weeks to recharge before Wolverhampton on Oct 24 and Worcester on Oct 31. Hope to see you there!

Cheers
Alun

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Panic Room -Montgomery Hall 13/9/2008

Hi all. As we kicked off the latest run of Panic Room gigs last night, I thought I'd post a quick blog about it . Some photos from our adventures can be found at http://www.alunvaughan.com/interactive.shtml .

The venue was the Montgomery Hall, Wath upon Dearne, near Rotherham - a decent sized hall which ( I believe doubles a cinema) and the gig was organised by the Classic Rock Society. The only downside with the venue is that it has tiered seating at the rear,so it ends up somewhere between a regular venue and a theatre which does make it feel a little overly "formal".

Soundcheck was pretty smooth and everything sounded fine. I was a little concerned as my trusty distortion pedal had died the night before leading to some frantic effect programming but everything sounded OK.

We then had a few hours before the gig as there were two supports - Final Conflict and Dead Like Harry, both of who played great sets. We ventured out in search of food and found the local chippie/kebab shop while coming up with a long line of puns based on the village's name. Some of the highlights ( if you can call them that) were...

Off licence - Grapes of wath
Police Station - Crimewath
TV Guide - Wath On
Sci Fi Shop - The Wath of Khan
Van Halen tribute artist - David Lee Wath

and so it went on. We're easily amused

Things nearly went very wrong as we were changing the gear over before our set. I hear a loud bang and turned round to see my main bass lying face down on the stage, still in its stand, with a very sheepish member of one of the support bands stood next to it . He was very apologetic, and luckily no damage/harm was done.

When we started it soon became very apparent that the stage sound had changed considerably since the soundcheck and various monitors ( noticably Gavin's drum monitors) were no longer set to the same mixes meaning people couldn't hear each other. Once we settled though the gig went really well, despite a few technical hitches with my pedalboard and Jon's keyboards.

It was also amazingly hot in the hall ( there were people in the audience fanning themselves!) which made eveything a bit slippery

The set on this tour is a mix of old and new and last night was...(Turn away now if you don't want to know!!!)

Yasuni, Go, Reborn, Into The Fire, Sandstorms, Apocalypstick, Elektra City, Firefly, Banks Of The Ohio, I Wonder, Black Noise, Endgame

with Blood Red Sky as the encore. The venue had a strict 11pm curfew so No Quarter will have to wait for another day.

The new tracks seemed to go down pretty well which is always a good thing and the arrangement of Blood Red Sky, originally from Anne's EP "The Contact" was particularly well received.

All in all, a good night and nice to catch up with people I met on the last tour including Ray and Steph, our tireless merchandise people who did a great job of selling CDs and our lovely new T shirts .

While loading the gear into the van afterwards, we encountered two of the happiest drunks I've ever seen  - a lady who claimed that she could be "quite arty" and felt the need to tell us that she's done PE in school , and a very well dressed gentleman who enthusiastically wanted to tell us that Anne reminded him of Joan Baez. I wish I'd had the presence of mind to record this conversation as it was fantastic

Looking forward to next weekend when we get to do a few gigs in a row  - Derby on Friday 19, then Lydney on the Saturday and Cardiff on the Sunday. Should be fun!

Cheers
Alun

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Panic Room gigs - behind the scenes fun

Hello all.

Being a bit of a web and music anorak, I've always enjoyed reading about tours and music from the musician's point of view so, in the hope that some of you may have a similar tendency , I've set something up for the upcoming Panic Room gigs...

If you go to http://www.alunvaughan.com/interactive.shtml you will find regular updates from http://www.twitter.com ( a site that allows you to post short ( max 140 character) updates ) as well as an imbedded Blogger page where I'll (hopefully, if I remember!) be uploading pictures as we go.

Hope to see some of you on our travels

Cheers
Alun

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Where have I been?

Hi all. apologies for my total lack of bloginess lately - have been so busy doing things that I haven't had chance to tell you about it 

I won't stun you with details of every gig but have had some great times, including playing with Dave Cliff, a guitarist I've admired for many years, and having a great time with The Root Doctors, a great South Wales band where I get to play "proper" bass

I've also played on a couple of CDs that will be released shortly - two tracks on Footprints by singer Pip Robinson and a track on Alone On The Sun by guitarist Mike Shouse . Both very different projects - Pip's album is really pretty folky pop, Mike's is a more Joe Satriani-esque rocker, which also features some over my favourite bassists including Trip Wamsley and Scott Hubbell so I'm honoured to be involved.

More info on release details for both when I know

Tomorrow we start the next run of Panic Room gigs and I'll be posting another blog in a minute regarding those in aminute.

Take care,
Alun

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Panic Room gigs - some slight changes

Hi all. There have been a couple of minor changes to the Panic Room gig list so here's the latest version...

SEPTEMBER
13th - Saturday - Montgomery Hall, Wath upon Dearne, Rotherham
(Classic Rock Society) with support from 'Final Conflict' & 'Dead
Like Harry'
19th - Friday - The Flowerpot, Derby
20th - Saturday - Lydney Town Hall, Lydney (support: Also Eden)
21st - Sunday - The Point, Cardiff Bay

OCTOBER
24th - Friday - The Little Civic, Wovlerhampton
(support: Quecia (acoustic)
31st - Friday - The Marrs Bar, Worcester

DECEMBER
4th - Thursday - The Limelight, Crewe

JANUARY
31st - Saturday - The Peel, Kingston upon Thames
(double headliner with JUMP)

Hope to see you there

Take care
Alun

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New Panic Room Dates Announced

Hello all. Just a quick note to say that Panic Room have just announced some new UK dates. We'll be playing.....


Fri Sept 12 - Town Hall, Lydney
Sat Sept 13 - Montgomery Hall, Rotherham ( a Classic Rock Society event)
Sun Sept 21 - The Point , Cardiff
Fri Oct 24 - Little Civic, Wolverhampton
Fri Oct 31 - Marrs Bar, Worcester
Fri Dec 4 - Limelight, Crewe

And one for 2009

Sat Jan 31 - The Peel, Kingston upon Thames ( hopefully the electricity will hold out this time!!!!)

Hope to see you there

Cheers
Alun

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The Making of Visionary Position

Hello all. I've been promising a blog on how the bass parts for the Panic Room album came into existence for a while now so here it is .

Before I start though, I should mention that we have a got a great 8/10 review in this month's Classic Rock magazine ( Lynyrd Skynyrd cover) and that we still have a handful of the limited edition digipaks ( which the reviewer states has artwork that "puts the packaging of many a major record company to shame" ) left so if you haven't got one yet, head over to the official website and snap one up .

Anyway. back to the recording diary....

The bass parts for Visionary Position were recorded in three sessions - initially at Jon's house in Jan 05 and then two sessions at Pete Charlton's studio, Vimana,  in either Oct or Nov 05 and then Dec 13 2005 ( I remember that one as it was the night before my birthday and therefore the last recording I did as a 30 year old - I have a very odd memory for stuff like that!).

Jon gave me a CD in Dec 2004 which consisted of instrumental demos of everything except "I Wonder" and "Moon On The Water" played by himself with, if I remember correctly, some of Paul's guitar parts already recorded. As a result the rhythm section was recorded backwards compared to the usual routine with the majority of the basslines being recorded before the drums, although I did redo some bass parts to fit the drum and vocal tracks better.

I wrote out the majority of the music prior to the sessions, sometimes in notation and sometimes just reminders ( usually referencing other bands - at various points you'd find comments like "Faith No More riff x 4" or "Marilllion bit" Not that they always sounded like that to anyone else, just my way of remembering what I'm doing!!)

All tracks were recorded by plugging my Cort Curbow 6 string bass ( with Elixir strings, who are nice enough to endorse me ) directly into the recording desk/computer and were played fingerstyle unless noted otherwise.Are you sitting comfortably? OK, here goes.....

Elektra City - Jan 05. The bass line was effectively Jon's synth bass part with some embellishments here and there. The descending line before the second verse was my attempt at copying the guitar line.I also really enjoy playing the little repeating counter melody in the second chorus which repeats E to F while the lower note follows the chords as usual - simple but adds another layer.

At the end of the main track it sounds like I'm playing a very fast fill in sync with Gavin's drum fill but I'm not sure I did - I think it's the drums are making me sound more impressive than I am :-) I am however trying to play that fill live!

The final section features my DeArmond Ashbory, a strange little silicone rubber stringed bass affectionately known as The Radish. It looks like a kid's toy but sounds great.

For live performance, I'm also playing one of the guitar lines in the breakdown before the final choruses and playing the end section on my fretless Washburn MB6. You can see the live version of the outro HERE .

Endgame - Dec 05. This was initially done in January, but as the track built I didn't feel the bass was aggressive as it needed to be. As a result, I re-recorded it in December. For this one, I used a plectrum ( very rare for me) and put the Curbow through an Electroharmonix POG pedal which added an upper octave to the bass sound - instant Zooma-era John Paul Jones!

For live performance, I'm using a Micro-POG for the tone and playing the violin melody in the intro.I've also been using a Danelectro Back Talk reverse delay for the backwards lunacy at the end of the track (Anne is also using a reverse delay on her vocals for that section).

Firefly - Jan 05.This was the very first track I recorded for the album. We did a couple of takes of this and I'm not sure which one is on the CD ( or whether it's an alamgamation of them all).

Reborn - Oct/Nov 05. This was originally done in the January session, but as the track developed it was clear that it could fit the overall sound a lot better. This take was recorded while we were having a chat in the studio and only myself and Pete ( who pressed record) knew we were actually recording it :-)

Moon On The Water- Jan 05. Jon introduced me to this tune when I arrived for the session in January. It was originally not meant to have bass on it but we thought we'd try it and the track you hear on the recording was played as he was teaching me the chords! If there'd been a microphone in the studio, you'd hear Jon telling me the next chord throughout :-) As a result, the bassline moves about quite a bit and rarely repeats. This was recorded on my old battered Aria MAB10 fretless bass which is falling apart but has a great tone for recording.

Live, it's played on the MB6 again I'm also covering the violin intro and solo.

Apocalypstick -Dec 05. I re-did this one as I thought the original recording sounded a bit mechancical and wanted a more raw live take.. The fast triplet run leading into the final section was something I played over the original programmed drums and Gavin then doubled when he recorded.

Originally, in January, I slapped the final section but when I finished Jon looked up and jut said "you now I'm going to ask you to do that again without the slapping don't you?"

Live, I also get to play the obnoxious sounding distorted wah wah part in the breakdown and add a few more "Al DiMeola tribute runs" in the outro.

I Wonder - Dec 05. This didn't even exist in January and, like "Moon..." wasn't meant to have bass on it. I recorded a rough demo of the bass track on my laptop,  which Jon approved and the bass was recorded in the December session. The main body of the song was my defretted Washburn MB6 six string, with the Curbow taking over for the heavier section at the end. There are a couple of nods to the great Pino Palladino ( Paul Young, The Who, etc) in this one, especially the fills in the last verses.

Live I've been playing the whole track on the Curbow as I'm playing the fast acoustic guitar arpeggios leading into the final section and don't have time to swap basses. The Micro POG gets used for the outro too for a huge sub-octave sound.

The Dreaming - Jan 05. This mammoth of a tune was recorded in the intial session. It took me ages to get the time change leading into the Doors-ish section and we ended up having to run a click track through that whole section.

Live the bass it pretty much as per the CD, except I've added some of the backing vocal lines to the bass part in the chorus and get to play one of the Robert Fripp-esque guitar lines in the outro ( which is one of my favourite parts of the whole CD).

And there we have it . I'm really proud of this album and can't wait to do it all again!

Take care,
Alun

4:39 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Website tweekery and new Panic Room forum

Hello all.

I've done a little spring cleaning over at www.alunvaughan.com over the last week, nothing too exciting but it should load more quickly now, and you can access my other assorted other online homes ( Reverbnation, Facebook, here, etc) directly from the homepage.

There is also a new Panic Room forum now online over  at: http://panicroom.omgforum.net/.

This has been set up by the ever helpful Dave Cooper and will hopefully build into a nice little community. If you're interested in Panic Room related things, please head over, sign up and join in

Quite quiet gigwise this month, which is quite lucky as I really need to rest a bit at the moment - my arm/wrist is nearly back to normal but I now have yet another cold!!! Since I gave up alcohol and starting going to the gym regularly, I've had more colds than I can remember - who says it's good for me?

In a very un-Alun like fit of sense, I've actually turned new gigs down until my arm is back to normal. Far too sensible! Am still committed to all pre-arranged work though so, if it's on the giglist I'll be there

Take care,
Alun

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Youtube videos now on my website

Hello all.Just a quick post to say that some of the videos from my YouTube account are now also available on my website . Head over and you'll find the Todd Johnson, Solid Airbag, Panic Room and Martha Skilton videos all on one convenient page

Why? Partly for convenience sake, and partly for a more practical reason - with places like YouTube available, there is no real need anymore to host videos on your own webspace. Just upload them and your done - no bandwidth issues, no storage concerns

I may consider moving the MP3s over to a Reverbnation player too for the same reason - still downloadable or streaming but hosted elsewhere .

I'd love to say I came up with this efficiency plan myself but that would be a huge enormous fib Credit must go to Steve Lawson for planting this idea in my head.Thanks Steve!

Take care,
Alun

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