Goodbye...Again!

Stagborough Arms Stealth Gig
31st July 2010



Hello again. Well this is a little quicker than we had planned but still a pleasure all the same. Hello. When we last spoke we had just finished the recording of a new EP and as I left that late night session Ron told us of a chat he had had with the manager of the Stag, who drinks in Ron's local. He was in a pickle and in danger of not putting a band on Saturday night and asked us if we were free. We were. And besides he really cares about live music and we want to do what we can to help him.

So we confirmed, on Thursday. Bearing in mind the gig was Saturday we expected it to be a quiet sending off type affair - we were wrong.


Anyhoo, we arrived on time - minus Ron who was busy preparing for Slide Boy Roy's Tour de France next week. We had checked his slip and it was approved. So, we setup the whole thing with a drummer sized space at the back - or more accurately about a foot less than a drummer sized space at the back.



Ron turned up after a particularly busy day and we loaded the kit in (well me and Ron did anyway). He's a pro that boy (!) and he had his kit setup and LOUD in 21 minutes flat. Good lad.

We have done this gig many times before so the setup was smooth, the only thing I did different was to put my bass rotor in stereo through the PA - that's right girls, Stereo!! I'm sure everyone noticed.

Soundcheck was good, Marco was invaluable as ever with his perfect and trustworthy ear (and muscles) and the onstage sound was nice and quiet. Could have been a little bit too quiet but I'll take that. A friend of Ron's was playing a gig 10 miles away and couldn't make it but he did send a message to Timmy to ask him to tun the bass up a little so that he could enjoy our gig too!

So to the gig. Well, people turned up. Lots of them. The Landlord Steve was very pleased with this and so were the band, nothing like playing to a full crowd. The volumes were good onstage (Acoustic a little low perhaps) and the outfront was perfect. I can always tell when the Organ is at the right volume as, due to my aggressive visual style (shall we say) I get a little pool or people on my left looking over my shoulder. If they don't come, I turn up!!

Its was hot and the first set, which we had written in the carpark 2 minutes before going on(the set not the songs!) was a belter and really seemed to work. We quickly wrote the second set outside. Personally I was really going for it on stage and I think there was a feeling that we had to do 3 months of performance energy in one night - I certainly did. I was more sweat than man!

So, we are cooling off outside and I am photographing stuff. On the wall, behind where Timmy's bass amp sits we actually noticed a crack forming in the building.

I never checked it when we left, I wonder how big it is now. Timmy asked me to take a picture of his far better half, Sue, which I did.Sue was very self conscious of the cut of her top as you can see..

...and it was only the next day that I though this was odd. I wonder if she knows that she was outside in public where people can see her? I do have a picture without the hand there but I think that stays off the Internet...for the time being anyway...

This is the view from the carpark!

Back in with set number two. Very aptly named that too as Little Dave was suffering from a poor stomach and just before we played the first note he raced off the stage not to be seen for 5 minutes. GHM style we improvised a really atmospheric piece of music for roughly 4 or 5 minutes (in the key of E) before our singer appeared and we could jump into Magic Potion by The Open Mind.

Slight intermittent user based fault occurred so far that there was not guitar for the first 45 seconds until the fault was diagnosed by Canadian Dave and he got back in. I kind of enjoyed it, reminded me of Deep Purple, NEC gig 1987 when Richie Blackmore had one of his strops and refused the encore. They all did Smoke on the Water without him and Jon Lord was immense. To be able to pull off a song minus guitar is pretty impressive. Needless to say, when Dave did come back in it sounded much better!!

The Second set was also good and my concentration levels were on top form, I managed to stay focused in the music throughout which is pretty good as sometimes you tend to drift.

It was hot and full and the audience were most appreciative. We overrun as usual and finished on 25 miles and Roadrunner missing out the now traditional Pink Floyd / Doors combo. Nevertheless it was a great success.

We say goodbye now, for a bit. We will be working on the EP whilst Ron gets better and we plan to return on 30th October 2010 at Katie's in Stourbridge. Do be there. Oh go on.

See you later dudes,

Nick

Searching for a Green Head Man ... Vibe

Hello!

Bit of a surprise blog this, I was expecting to be a little quiet for a bit but we had an idea – or two. Ron is going to be out of Acton (sic) for a while so we decided at short notice to get a studio recording of some sort initiated (drum parts the essential bit) so that whilst he is recovering we could be overdubbing and generally making great a few songs for a studio e.p for release the back end of the year. As we have had to do the unthinkable and cancel/rearrange/redeploy a few gigs then this would keep our and possibly your momentum going until our victorious return(!) on the 30th October 2010 at Katififzgerald’s – the irony of course being that we don’t fitz on the stage there!

So, where are we? Well we didn’t feel like we needed to enter a commercial studio for this for many reasons; cost of course, the fact that we have got (and it has to be said) some very good recording gear and also that we prefer the manky environment that we affectionately call the Chicken shack (due to there being chickens running lose all around it). Basically it is a rectangular room and that’s what we wanted.


With the day cleared we arrived around 14:00 (well some of us did) and got to work with the load in. That’s a feat in itself, and Canadian Dave started assembling his hard disk recording environment. Regularly being attacked by wasps and me getting a little Spinal Tap about it affecting my performance we got a fair bit of it setup.


Just as Ron arrived we popped out to the shops. Now that sounds simple but for us it gets a raucous affair. Timmy decided that he wasn’t going to bother with food and just bought larger, I was under instruction to get something cheesy and I lived off nuts and Pan au chocolat – middle class rock stars! You don’t need anything too upsetting as the “recording studio” has no erm.. facilities if you know what I mean. Actually I lie, after two years I found a little shed claiming to be a toilet. Actually it wasn’t too shabby expect for the JESUS spiders, occasional Rat and the lack of light or electrics – not that I wanted a shave there or anything just good to see what’s crawling up your leg you know?


Anyway as I was saying, Ron came in late (we checked his note his excuse was valid) and got to work setting up the drums. Once they were in we could get all the microphones in place (boring bit: AKG Drum Mic, SM57 on the snare, Senhiser clip on Tom mics – I liked them! – left and right ambient condenser mics and a central Rode condenser about 2 foot off the floor 4 foot in front of the kit). We had been compromised down to 8 tracks simultaneous recording due to a technical FAIL that is even too boring for me to explain so I won’t. That said I managed to link up my 16track porta studio via optical to Canadian’s computer and was able to sub mix all of my amplifier's inputs into an extra 2 stereo tracks making it 10. Still with me? Blimey! Good….

Next was the incredible bass booth. After the first take there was more hi hat on the bass track than on the hi hat track!! How could that be? The ceiling was to blame and we created a little Den or Fort for Timmy to play in, he liked that.




When recording in a live environment we like to play at a decent volume as we can bounce off each other and make something special. This band is about the interaction and the chemistry – that’s our strongest card – so playing stiff and regulated isn’t going to represent the band very well. The problem with this though in recording terms is the separation, the fact that everything is recording on all mic’s. Timmy went for a stroll. He came back with a couple of 6foor square corrugated roof panels – you just know something somewhere is raining in don’t you – and these made excellent walls so we didn’t have to see little Dave’s face, marvellous.


I’ve not mic’d up a Leslie speaker for proper recording before and there is a trick to it. Seeing as the speaker inside the cab is rotating and giving it that spinney sound you need to calculate how to reproduce the Doppler effect. I’ll leave it there as I can hear you snoring already. All you need to know is less than 120 degrees.


With everything in place we started a take. It was stiff. All too quiet and too “sterile” for us. I think we really wanted to get it right but maybe a little too much you know. I ordered everyone outside to immediately down a pint of Bank’s Bitter. Which we did. When we returned we turned up a little and had another go, much better. Come 20:00 Green Head Man kick into gear as the night band they are and the groove was getting better and better.

We did about 3 takes of our first original composition – “Human Zoo” and it was starting to sound good. Moving swiftly on to our second composition – “Golden” with a slightly Jon Lord-kinda-perfect-strangers-intro-sound going on. Very much liked being Jon for a song, when I first started on Hammond and indeed in this band I simple WAS Jon Lord and over the years my own style has developed but for this track is was 1972 Machine Head and Maybe I’m A Leo mixed with Perfect Strangers and a good old helping of 60’s fizz and pop.

Mistakes were abound and even arrangement and 12” and 18” versions were occurring on the spot. We had forgotten about the recoding and were just having fun – Green Head Man brought to you by Bank’s Bitter, a name you can trust. Things were good and we got the last take right down I think.

We then popped into recording a cover as a warm up, The Open Mind’s classic Magic Potion. This song suits us so well, and is a good indicator of how we want the heavier side of our set to sound. Stick that in with Lucifer SAM and you get the idea. Can’t wait to hear how that worked out.

It was getting late and we had another song to do. Another Original song of Little Dave’s called Moths to the Flame. By all accounts this has been well gigged by him for a few years now but we gave it the GHM treatment and hopefully it’s come out rather well.


Last thing I suggested that we hacked out another 3 versions of Human Zoo from earlier on, on the basis that we were all too tired to be up tight and we were in the groove and all that. They went well, the penultimate version was pretty definitive but the step up to the chorus was going to need to “post work” dynamically we thought. Timmy then had an idea and insisted that we recorded it once more and refused to let Ron play anything but hi hats. Madness pure madness. But we often forget that Timmy is a secret genius….

The song sounded mean, ironic, moody and just waiting to explode out (which of course it never did). Wow! The step up into the chorus is now going to be handled by Ron and Canadian Dave in post by overdubbing some percussion in afterwards to lift it. IT really did sound quite good.

It occurred to me that there were a lot of hats being worn that night. Have we turned into a “Hat Band”? One hat even turned into a rather neat and ornate mixed unsalted nut selection receptacle –which was nice.


Anyway, I think I’m all off topic. Time to pack up! Wow there was a lot of gear and wires all over the place and remembering who has what was an event. We packed up and discussed the very short notice offer of a gig at the Stagborough Arms in Stourport on Saturday. We’ll do it! Definitely the last time you will see us as a band until late October.

So the recording is done. Just the mixing and overdubs now. That’s the tricky bit. Canadian Dave is up to the task and I’m going to help him with it too. It’s got to be done right but I’m also a keen that it is done soon too but I must wind my neck in a little as I am impatient to the extreme! We are hoping that this Studio ep of Original songs plus the Live at the Stag CD will help us get bigger gigs and festivals in 2011 – Here’s’ to that eh?

Thanks for your time,

See you soon,

Nick

See you later...

The Hop Pole, Bromsgrove
16th July 2010



Arghh another Friday gig. My conscience gets me to work really early as I intend to leave a little earlier than I usual would in order to get home, changed, washed and loaded ready for arrival at the gig at 19:00. Military precision however, it ain't.

The view from the stage this week is of a slightly quieter Hop Pole Inn in Bromsgrove and the gorgeous Timmy there on bass with ridiculous length cable enabling him to sound check the band from space. Very useful this as we are prone to playing Madison Square Gardens and you can never get a good sound engineer there!

Usual setup then, got there a little late and only two guys were ahead of us. Little Dave (attempting the aforementioned military precision) and Canadian Dave setting up his guitar rig.

What was spooky though was that there had been a bass rig in the corner all the time, all setup since 18:30 but no bass player to be seen?? These days you don't worry about that sort of thing, its for the best.....

I threw the keyboard gear up in a hurry. Ron wasn't here yet and my detritus was right in his Drum space so setting up quickly was the order of the day (there was around 3 square foot to setup in - Rock and Roll!) in other news Marco had suggested we get some chips and maybe a saveloy so the pressure was on.

Marco is a star, and a cheap roadie, and with the thought of fish and chips in our heads we setup in 16 minutes and then did one.......




















Off for chips then....

I couldn't face the saveloy (so to speak) so encouraged by the "Now serving new potato's" hand drawn sign (does that make any difference?) I went for a simple cone of chips, dry chips. Its nice not to be malnutritioned at a gig but also good not to be doubled over in the pain of IBS also.

Chips done, twitter updated (@nickster2000) I raced to find my mobile phone (!) and then back to the venue. Ron had turned up with his smaller venue kit and was setting up.
















By around 20:30 we were all setup and we whistled the rest of the band onto the stage in order to attempt a quick sound check. Difficult one as it was not our PA and we only have Marco to thank for our mixes. This is obviously a good thing and thankfully I trust his ears better than mine to be honest, in fact these days he's about as much in the band as I am!! (I still haven't actually passed an audition - Ron has been waiting nearly 3 years now!)
















This is me trying to get Dave's attention whilst he chats to Marco over a beer....when he should be sound checking!!

Oh and Timmy appeared by his bass...He'd been off for a curry! Nice

Eventually we got the sounds as good as it was going to get to be honest. Ron and I (both earplug wearers) got very confused by the sound we were hearing in the sound check, it was like we were playing next door??? then the engineer walked up and admitted to the fact that he had forgotten to put the front of house PA on! aaah, that's it then....

Anyway, that done and with the house carrying the bass so much (raised box stage) we could hardly hear it onstage. I'm not saying it was a small gig but you don't hear of the Deep Purple keyboard player (wassis name - not Jon Lord that's the significant bit) having to approach his instrument via the back of the drum kit with someone kindly leaning the hi-hats out of the way (nice padded drums stool Ron!)

Anyway, we were setup...
















But where was the audience?

It was around 21:00 and there were about 25 people in. This is not so good,usually and fortunately we pack this place so something was afoot. Okay the Upton Blues Festival was on and that would account for maybe 10 people but it was odd..





















The band retired to the back garden for a rest and a rock and roll entrance! (but mainly a rest - Rock and roll is very tiring)

A beer festival 3 miles up the road you say? Oh that's it, we're boned. We weren't of course and it did fill up. Not usual capacity crowd I have to say but busy enough and with space enough for the ladies and gentlemen to dance - which some of them did. Even my mom turned up!

The first set went pretty well. We hadn't really been able to rehearse since the last gig on the 2nd July so its always interesting to hear what the band have been listening and playing along with in the interim, it tends to come out in the solos and ad lib parts of the set.

This is our last gig for a while due to an autumn sabbatical so I think we all wanted to give it 100% and really go out (possibly until January 2011) with a bang! So, first set was good, little stiff on my part but hey. Hold on, I think we only did 40 minutes! that's the problem with not sticking to a set list.

Lets see if we can sell any T-shirts in the interval then...




















We had a quick break and reassembled at 22:15 for the second set with the ambition of playing 1hr and 5mins through to kicking out time.

The second set was much better, more flowing. The pub had filled up so it was a lot easier to get lost in myself (it just is) and we flew threw some powerful numbers. Hurry on Sundown was another high point, lots of dancers to that one (as there usually is) and I can never figure out if its a classic Hawkwind song of just a cool tempo.. anyway at this point Little Dave had a little rest and we played a 13th floor elevators track again with Canadian singing before Little Dave rejoined us, watered, for the back end of the set which finished with a crazy version of Gimme Some Lovin' with mad ending supplied by Ron..

It was good, nobody in the audience knew at the time that this would be our last gig for a while. They just shouted for more whilst we chanted "Greenheadman dot com" at them for a few minutes. We we not allowed to play any longer (by order of the management) so we said good night and retired to the car park.

And it was good, we were sweaty but proud of quietly going out with a bang. Set down was easy too, aided by potato sustenance and excellent roadie work from the over appreciated and under paid Marco, we left pretty earlier and I was home before 00:30 which I guess would be before Ron had unscrewed a single nut from his drum kit!

Ron is so lumbered with the drumming as all the cables and amps crowd around the kit and engulf it so much that he cannot hope to move it until all of the rest of the equipment is packed away so often after a gig you will see nothing but a pristine drum kit shining away on the stage waiting to be disassembled!

Our next gig is in Stourbridge at Katiefitzgeralds on the 30th October 2010. Hope to see you there, fully recovered, with a new load of songs and a very healthy team of telepathic, psychedelic Rockers!

Nick

The Queens Head, Wolverley, England

2nd July 2010




















Hello again, how are you doing? Yet another gig and this time at the Queen's, our spiritual home or the place we played first or the drummers local whichever fits best.

Good venue this. Its not really a venue but the audience are really appreciative and the odd celebrity (odd as in every now again - Sorry mate!) turns up to support Green Head Man, and that's a lovely gesture.

We are not allowed to setup until around 20:00 on a bad day due to the venues other function as a restaurant and this makes getting on stage at 21:00 difficult for us (especially as we have to provide the PA etc..) and so with the best will in the world we are usually a little late. This time we were very late - 21:40 - so we made a very special effort on a very hot and sticky Friday night to be extra trippy and extra committed to giving the assembled drinkers (and musicians too??) a good quality piece of entertainment.

That we did. A very hot experience all round.

The venue and the audience really enjoyed it and that's the best we can hope for. The band were in full jam mode - the drummer is packed away in an alcove so sometimes cues are missed and another 16bar improvised musical passage is called for but we get there in the end and visit many a magical place en route.

















We did only one extended set here as we were late getting on stage and it was interesting to see people flow in and out to the bar and for a fag and basically a breather too. In retrospect 2 sets is the way to approach these smaller gigs I think - gives people time to take 5 and buy a beer and all that - lesson learned there.
















The usual crew came, fans, musos, WAG's and we all had a very nice time indeed thank you very much. It was so hot and I was giving it "the beans (tm)" so much that at one point I seriously considered that I may collapse but I carried on with pints of council pop and remained vertical in the end.

We sold more CD's too and advertised our new clothing range (A shirt).

Next weekend off and then over to Bromsgrove to the good old (loud) Hop Pole Inn. Venue PA as well so the get in is easy. Ron is playing 3 gigs that day so we are setting up one of his kits for him - don't think he knows what hes letting himself in for!!




















See you later lovely people,

Nick