Owen's Diary Of A Working Guitarist: December 2007

Quite a busy time musically: this week was interesting as i played a couple of gigs with a completely new oufit, revisited a familiar old haunt and had an offer to join a great band...

Also we were hard at work at AOG Towers getting the new feature 'Elevenses' ready - so make sure you check these great interviews out - we will be publishing at least 5 as week from now on - unbeatable coverage!

Gig with 'The Southern Hat Band' Sunday December 2 2007: The Kings Arms, Saffron Walden, Essex

Today was a funny one...I set off early from Kimbolton - and with a real case of dicky stomach! - and picked up my old mate Mark Jackson from Royston just over the Cambs border into Hertfordshire, and then we bombed over to Saffron Walden in Essex. Never been out here before - seems a good town though, and the gig was in the Tudorish old town which is very picturesque at a lovely old pub called The Kings Arms. Today is a warm up - really a live rehearsal - for next weekends gig over in Leicestershire.

The line up is Mark on Vocals and Acoustic, myself on joint lead guitar, Jim/Gary Bowler on drums (from Medicine Hat, The Dennis Stratton Band as well as my regular outfit Red Soxx) and two guys who I'd never met before: Tommy Dunn (a great old school blues/rock guitarist) from Essex outfit 'The Soouthside Blues Band' and a very accomplished bassist by the name of Alex Tsentides who has played with old proggers The Enid, Katrina& The Waves and currently with Jazz Funk band Capricorn; check them out here: www.myspace.com/capricorngoatfunkuthside Blues Band' . I'd seen Tommy play years ago at the some pub also in Essex with Dennis Dalziel, and Alec and I knew lots of the same crowd from Cambridge so whist it was the first time we'd met peronally, we all had some mutual friends.

The set list included some Medicine Hat originals, Free - 'Alrite Now', Deep Purple - 'Hush'; Little Feat - 'Willin''; Rolling Stones - 'It's All Over Now' and ZZ Top's 'Tush'.

We kicked off at about 2 p.m. and after a slightly shaky start got in the swing of things. Audience was a fairly typical pub crowd - between 30 and 60 and all obviously into their rock and blues so we went down pretty well! After the slickness of Red Soxx it was refreshing to do it a bit 'spit'n'sawdust' style - and we got a good groove - but there were a few rough edges that will need to be ironed out: it did get to the stage at one point that every song became a massive 'Freebird' style trade off!

A good fun day ruined by my 'shortcut' on the M11 ending up taking hours - sitting stationary on a motorway for nearly three hours on a Sunday evening is not fun...

General Site work December 3-10

This week I have been working on catching up on site business - we were down for a couple of months as Andy and the team redesigned everything and I need to catch up on interviews with Steve Lukather, Clive Carroll, Brett Garsed Parts Two and three, Michael Romeo and Symphony X. I HATE TRANSCRIBING INTERVIEWS...

This week we've been working on the details of some work we are doing with a number of companies that will all be announced in the next few weeks...suffice to say that behind the scenes we have all been toiling away on some exciting developments and events that I can't wait to get going...

Am to join medicine hat in 2008!

This week I also have had confirmed an offer to join Medicine Hat, a great band with an international track record Not a big band by any description, but one that has had some great reviews and press over the years, a small but loyal following and a great alive reputation as far afield as Canada, Italy, Austria and Doncaster! Have a look at www.medicinehat.co.uk (which is their old site) and you will get an idea of them. I am coming in as joint electric guitarist with Country pickin' phenomenon Mark Wright, taking over the great Steve Lovedays role as principal 'rock' lead guitarist. Steve's busy branching out into more production work now, in addition to being one of UK's principal and most successful TV music composers and producers. Have a look at a www.sdloveday.com ; we are hoping to work with Steve on a project here at AOG as well, more news when its all confirmed.

With Medicine Hat we will be begin working on a new album for international release after Christmas, some big festival gigs and just seeing what happens! I've known Mark, Steve and the lads for wel over 15 years now and have played with them on many occasions so it should be fun!

Gig with Red Soxx Thursday December 6 2007: The Crown & Csushion, Gt Gransden, Bedfordshire

We were all looking forward to this one as although a very small pub, this venue has seen some fantastic musicians and bands play it over the years - many courtesy of Don Airey living here: some world renowned musicians have been here including Gary Moore, Rick Wills from Foreigner (another one time local resident) Uli Jon Roth, Keith Aiery (Tom Jones, Nik Kershaw and millions of others!) Mick Grabham (Procul Harum) Bernie Marsden, Micky Moody...as well as many of the local scenes best players over the years such as Rob Harris, Dan Boutwood, Booga etc. Back in 1989 - indeed up until around '94 - me and the lads used to come to this pub on many Tuesdays and over the years saw a lot of the aforementioned musicians play - great atmosphere, lots of beer, great memories: I also last played here back in 1992 so a bit of a trip down memory lane...

We played pretty damn well tonight - and with an appreciative audience it was a good night. The set list included numbers from Toto, Stevie Wonder, Wild Cherry, Whitesnake, Van Halen, Doobie Brothers, and everyone was on form so good fun and some ale was had. Late getting to bed though, so only got a few hours shut eye before having to go and put my teachers hat on at a couple of schools I teach at down near Luton - I didn't feel my best to say the least!

Gig with The Southern Hat Band Saturday december 8 2007: The Sharnford Arms, Sharnford, Leicestershire

Got picked up by Jim at around 4 p.m. and after a surprisingly easy journey got there at around 5.30. Never played here before - indeed I think we are the first band to play here in many a year - so we had no idea how this would pan out...could have been playing to an audience of five people and a dog!

But, the pub had done a good job promoting this and it was heaving by the end of the evening. We all played well tonight and had a good sound; nice and clear and although the volume crept up in Set Two (as often happens even with the best intentions...) we pulled it back and ended the night on a high. One thing to note is the importance of monitors - tonight we didn't have any and as such I wasn't really confident in contributing as much as I would have liked to the backing vocals - these are so important when you have more than one player singing and made me appreciate the tons of gear RedSoxx use...

Tonight, despite the fact I'd been teaching with it earlier in the day for a good five hours, my Ibanez let me down with some electrical problem - plugged it to the H&K, heard a crackle and then nothing... As I always do, I had my trusty Charvel as back up - but as it's been a good 25+ gigs since I've popped a string or anything I hadn't prepared that propely - old strings, forgot to put the trem arm in the case etc etc.

Still, in the end it was good for me as it was a bit of a challenge - and I realised how attached I've become to having a trem - many times tonight I grabbed for the bar only to find thin air...played well enough though - particuilarly plerased with this crazy G Dom9 string skipped bubbly arpeggio tapped thingy that I often put into 'Tush' (it works - honest!) as it cut through really well adn definately raised a few smiles on the hard core guitar fans in attendance! Not so happy with my general phrasing at the moment - a bit vapid and directionless: I think I need some lessons again to give me some fresh inspiration!

Nice relaxing atmosphere, so had a quite few beers (c'mon - its a blues and rock'n'roll gig!) and eventually left after midnight - only to get back home and realise a crowd were still out at the boozer near home, so I wnet out again. Eventually got to bed around daybreak...

More after Christmas with a report on Red Soxx's GREAT end of year gig - and remember to check out www.redsoxx.com regularly - we are arranging an action packed 2008 with maybe an original album on the horizon as well - so I'm going to be dusting down all my funkier and Toto-esque riffs and songs to submit to the lads after the Christmas Break!

See you in the New Year!

Cheers

Owen