We played in Nottingham last night at the rather lovely Crocus Cafe in Lenton. Strange location but a great vibe inside.
When we got there, the place was rammed, mainly with students so we though a good crowd would hang about. The second act on had obviously bought a few more with them but suprise suprise, the band and most of their follows fucked off after they had played. So we didn't go on late, about 9.30pm and you'd think students would hang about till the place shut at 10pm. But oh no, we were left playing to about 15 people!
Why am I bothered after 8 years of playing. I know that bands bugger off when they have played and I should be used to it. It still pisses me off though as we're far too good to be treated like that. Add to the fact that 3 girls sat right at the front talking the whole way through which winds me up. They could have moved to the back if they wanted to talk. It was the age old thing of they talk loud in the loud bits and then are very loud when we get to a delicate bit of a song. This just didn't happen to is the USA. At the gigs intheir coffee shops, people actually listen because they've gone there to listen to the music.
We'll end up playing at the Crocus again I think but in an earlier slot when people are there. They'll probably be talking still but at least we will have someone to play to!
ON a different note, my new bike has arrived. Its sitting int he study looking brand new and ultra clean. Its screaming to be ridden! Hopefully this weekends weather will hold off and I can get oout for an hour. Riding my bike is the only time I can clear my head and forget all the shit I need to forget. And boy do I need that at the moment!
Looking forward to the Malt Cross gig on the 8th December. Its a great venue and the sound was very good last time we played there. Lets hope there are a few in.
Take care out there, its a cruel world sometimes.
S
Friday 27 November 2009
Thursday 12 November 2009
Dissallusioned! (and can't spell)
Its not a good morning.
We've not got a support slot I wanted, with a singer I really admire. In my silly little brain, I thought he'd hear our stuff and think it was great and would want us to play with him. It was always a long shot, but I still feel really disappointed. Those sorts of bits of luck have never happended to my band and its now starting to feel too late. Yes, you hear from bands who struggle for years to get any recognition and then all of a sudden they get that bit of luck and they take off. I know in my heart of hearts, that ain't going to happen now. I'm even starting to doubt the whole thing of playing.
Also this week, we had the misfortune to play at the Rescue Rooms open mic. It was badly organised with shit sound and a crowd who watched their mates and then turned their backs to us. I've been doing this for long enough now to know thats what happens at these nights and really, we're too good to be playing open mics now. We thought playing this venue might get us noticed by them and we might get a proper gig there without having to suck someones cock. I'll still have to get on my knees by the looks of it......
Thirdly, someone close to me, i.e. a friend, has let me down and doesn't seem to want to carryout a comitment which he made to me first. He's lucky I'm quite mild mannered and will rather let myself stew, rather than saying how I feel. I'm fucked off about it but don't want to fall out with him.
The bright park is when I get home, my other half is pleased to see me and I have the most beautiful daughter who smiles as soon as she sees me. Without them I wouldn't be able to take these knocks.
I love music with a passion, but my love is waning. I have tried to be positive over the last couple of weeks which has let me enjoy recent shows more. But it doesn't take much to bring me back to earth again. I still worry about getting people to shows and thats a constant battle. We have a show in December where we've been told we have to sell 30 to 50 tickets, on a THursday night at an own of town venue! For fucks sake, what planet are these people on. In other words, I've booked you and thats the extent of my promotion, you do the rest.
I really feel like that when these upcoming shows are out the way, I need to take a break. 8 years of slog is starting to take its toll on me and seeing really shit musicians with zero talent getting recognition is finally wearing me down and I'm not sure how much longer I can do it. I get much more enjoyment out of riding my bike at the moment and am much more excited about the arrival of my new Simple, than I am about upcoming shows.
I feel really sad to be feeling this way about something I love doing. Yes I'm a miserable fucker but I'm also being honest with myself.
Lets hope something exciting happens soon.
S x
We've not got a support slot I wanted, with a singer I really admire. In my silly little brain, I thought he'd hear our stuff and think it was great and would want us to play with him. It was always a long shot, but I still feel really disappointed. Those sorts of bits of luck have never happended to my band and its now starting to feel too late. Yes, you hear from bands who struggle for years to get any recognition and then all of a sudden they get that bit of luck and they take off. I know in my heart of hearts, that ain't going to happen now. I'm even starting to doubt the whole thing of playing.
Also this week, we had the misfortune to play at the Rescue Rooms open mic. It was badly organised with shit sound and a crowd who watched their mates and then turned their backs to us. I've been doing this for long enough now to know thats what happens at these nights and really, we're too good to be playing open mics now. We thought playing this venue might get us noticed by them and we might get a proper gig there without having to suck someones cock. I'll still have to get on my knees by the looks of it......
Thirdly, someone close to me, i.e. a friend, has let me down and doesn't seem to want to carryout a comitment which he made to me first. He's lucky I'm quite mild mannered and will rather let myself stew, rather than saying how I feel. I'm fucked off about it but don't want to fall out with him.
The bright park is when I get home, my other half is pleased to see me and I have the most beautiful daughter who smiles as soon as she sees me. Without them I wouldn't be able to take these knocks.
I love music with a passion, but my love is waning. I have tried to be positive over the last couple of weeks which has let me enjoy recent shows more. But it doesn't take much to bring me back to earth again. I still worry about getting people to shows and thats a constant battle. We have a show in December where we've been told we have to sell 30 to 50 tickets, on a THursday night at an own of town venue! For fucks sake, what planet are these people on. In other words, I've booked you and thats the extent of my promotion, you do the rest.
I really feel like that when these upcoming shows are out the way, I need to take a break. 8 years of slog is starting to take its toll on me and seeing really shit musicians with zero talent getting recognition is finally wearing me down and I'm not sure how much longer I can do it. I get much more enjoyment out of riding my bike at the moment and am much more excited about the arrival of my new Simple, than I am about upcoming shows.
I feel really sad to be feeling this way about something I love doing. Yes I'm a miserable fucker but I'm also being honest with myself.
Lets hope something exciting happens soon.
S x
Thursday 29 October 2009
Hull City - FFS!
What the hell is it with clubs like Hull. You had a great first season in the Premier League, where with the best will in the world, you over acheived. I have no axe to grind with HUll by the way, good luck to em. I'm a Forest fan so would love to be in their position.
But get a reality check. You're a small club doing well just to be in the Premier League. Why the hell would you sack Phil Brown. He got you up, kept you up and made you 80 odd million quid. Its the clubs fault if they spent it all too quick. He's now having a bad spell so in the usual over optimistic and knee jerk way, the club want to get rid of him. I was going to ask about loyalty but why bother.
Just enjoy the ride, back the manager and you might stay up. If not, you've had a great ride and will have a good chance of getting back up.
Just another example of how the sporting world is going mad. I won't mention my teenage idol Andre Agassi. Whats all that about?
But get a reality check. You're a small club doing well just to be in the Premier League. Why the hell would you sack Phil Brown. He got you up, kept you up and made you 80 odd million quid. Its the clubs fault if they spent it all too quick. He's now having a bad spell so in the usual over optimistic and knee jerk way, the club want to get rid of him. I was going to ask about loyalty but why bother.
Just enjoy the ride, back the manager and you might stay up. If not, you've had a great ride and will have a good chance of getting back up.
Just another example of how the sporting world is going mad. I won't mention my teenage idol Andre Agassi. Whats all that about?
Wednesday 28 October 2009
A real hello
That last post was terrible! I play acoustic music and really enjoy it??!! WTF
It was in fact a copy and paste of the last blog entry from my bands myspace page. www.myspace.com/3ringcircus
Whilst I meant every word, its a slightly delicate situation as I don't really want my band mates reading it. Well Russell really as I don't think he'd like my cander. He doesn't like to upset other bands/musicians as he thinks it'll come back to haunt us.
Me, I've got no such worries. Mainly because I prefer to be honest and partly because I sometimes don't engage my brain before I speak. Hence I once slagged off a soundman from the stage, which I was right to do, but ended up looking like a prat for a bit. Although on the other hand, it was quite funny, mocking him in a slightly patronising way.
So I've set up my own blog so I can type what I want without fear of anyone reading it who shouldn't. Cos lets be honest, you would have to search the net pretty hard to find this and even know about 3 ring circus. So here I can write what I want and as much as I want. Twitter is good but thats too public. Plus you can't write enough.
I love playing music, but it causes alot of stress. I stress about shows, about getting people to gigs, about sharing kit, about getting songs to sound right. Bloody hell I even worry about whether I should change strings! I don't worry about knowing we are a good, no great band. I still dream of making it and getting somewhere with it. I still have a naive belief that one day, our song writing ability and skill, will get us recognition. It probably won't as we don't lick arses and don't try and sound like whats trendy. We play from the heart, which is not cool.
I hate my job, even though I am self employed and aledgedly own my business. But its mind numbing and I want to get out of it to be a musician, but that still feels like its as far away from being reality as it was when 3 rc started 8 years ago. In some ways it definitly feels further away than it was at the start. I hold our old drummer responsible for some of that as his attitude sucked the enjoyment out of the band for me for the last few years. Thats another story. I also blame the idiot who ran the first label we were signed to who was a complete lier and did nothing to promote our first album. That, again, is another story that I may go into in the furture.
So hello!! If you have stumbled accross these rantings by the slimest of chances, don't take alot of it seriously. I'll tell you when its important.
I'll sign off for now by leaving you with these words:
"sing it out, better loud than too late"
S
It was in fact a copy and paste of the last blog entry from my bands myspace page. www.myspace.com/3ringcircus
Whilst I meant every word, its a slightly delicate situation as I don't really want my band mates reading it. Well Russell really as I don't think he'd like my cander. He doesn't like to upset other bands/musicians as he thinks it'll come back to haunt us.
Me, I've got no such worries. Mainly because I prefer to be honest and partly because I sometimes don't engage my brain before I speak. Hence I once slagged off a soundman from the stage, which I was right to do, but ended up looking like a prat for a bit. Although on the other hand, it was quite funny, mocking him in a slightly patronising way.
So I've set up my own blog so I can type what I want without fear of anyone reading it who shouldn't. Cos lets be honest, you would have to search the net pretty hard to find this and even know about 3 ring circus. So here I can write what I want and as much as I want. Twitter is good but thats too public. Plus you can't write enough.
I love playing music, but it causes alot of stress. I stress about shows, about getting people to gigs, about sharing kit, about getting songs to sound right. Bloody hell I even worry about whether I should change strings! I don't worry about knowing we are a good, no great band. I still dream of making it and getting somewhere with it. I still have a naive belief that one day, our song writing ability and skill, will get us recognition. It probably won't as we don't lick arses and don't try and sound like whats trendy. We play from the heart, which is not cool.
I hate my job, even though I am self employed and aledgedly own my business. But its mind numbing and I want to get out of it to be a musician, but that still feels like its as far away from being reality as it was when 3 rc started 8 years ago. In some ways it definitly feels further away than it was at the start. I hold our old drummer responsible for some of that as his attitude sucked the enjoyment out of the band for me for the last few years. Thats another story. I also blame the idiot who ran the first label we were signed to who was a complete lier and did nothing to promote our first album. That, again, is another story that I may go into in the furture.
So hello!! If you have stumbled accross these rantings by the slimest of chances, don't take alot of it seriously. I'll tell you when its important.
I'll sign off for now by leaving you with these words:
"sing it out, better loud than too late"
S
Hello!
Is there anyone out there?
My band (3 ring circus) play acoustic type stuff and really enjoy it.
Well, Clean Getaway, our third album, is still going great guns and we have some great shows lined up prior to Christmas. You can catch us in the following places:
30th Ocotber - The Fishpond Matlock Derbyshire (Full band)
20th November - PJs Ripley Derbyshire (Full band and the last one for a while)
26th November - Crocus Cafe Lenton Nottingham (acoustic)
28th November - The Royal Derby supporting the mighty Foy Vance (acoustic band)
1st December - Malt Cross Nottingham (Acoustic)
10th December - The Vic Derby (Acoustic band)
Obviously the album will be available at all these shows.
We hopefully have another Nottingham show in November and a gig at the Vic in Derby in December. There may also be a visit to Sheffield in November which is waiting to be confirmed.
We're also starting to write some new tunes, which is always my favourite time, full of optimism and positivity. This is always the case until they are released and largely ignored but hey ho......
I'm in a new realm of positivity at the moment which I'm hoping lasts for a little while longer than the last one, which was round about the time of the release of the current record. It quickly vanished. Russell is always telling me to be positive like him, so I'm going to try hard. In fact yeah, fuck it all. Who cares if hardly anyone comes to watch us anymore, or that we've been playing for 8 years and not really got anywhere, and that we constantly play with bands who are pretty shit and yet get far better gis than us. And thats a fact, I can't think of one band we've played with from the local scene who are anywhere as good as us. And if that makes me sound like a cock, then good.
We've never been arse lickers and we ain't going to start now. I love music and I'm a complete dreamer, believing that our song writing prowess and musicianship will, shock horror, get us noticed. The day we try and become trendy with some angular guitar played out of tune and with absoulutely no melody, will be the day I smash all my lovingly built guitars on the back yard. Although there have been lots of times I've wanted to smash them on the heads of "musicians" we've played with.
Can't sing - check
can't play properly - check
Look like a twat - absolutely check
namecheck all the cool bands plus some 80s shit as influences - check
WELL DOME, HERES A SUPPORT WITH THE LATEST LAME SUPERSTARS AND A RECORD DEAL IN ORDER TO INFLICT YOUR "MUSIC" ON THE PUBLIC.
YEP, CAN'T YOU SEE I'M BEING POSITIVE
Some twat on a forum once called us pub rock, knob head. He was thinking of his mates band, or Robbie Williams pub singer and professional twat. (sue me fat boy) THey also said why don't we pack up as we'd not got anywhere in 6 years. I pointed out we released a record nationally which not many other bands get to do, played in front of 30,000 people and done two acoustic tours of america. I finished it by saying if he agreed to stop breathinh, we'd stop playing. Quite funny for me I thought.
I can type what I want here really as no fucker will read it, much like no one will listen to our music. But you know what, I really don't care anymore. You see I actually enjoy playing with Russ, dave and rob. and when me and russell have a writing session and he sings something magical over one of my pieces of music, it gives me goosebumps and that optimism all comes flooding back. So its worth carrying on, just to keep getting that rush for a relatively short period of time. And I can also say here that russell is one of the best singers and lyricists I've ever heard and Dave is by the best bass player anywhere. The man could walk into any band and make them better. Well apart from Pearl Jam, but definitly U2 ;-)
Oh.......hopefully see some of you at a show!
Is there anyone out there?
My band (3 ring circus) play acoustic type stuff and really enjoy it.
Well, Clean Getaway, our third album, is still going great guns and we have some great shows lined up prior to Christmas. You can catch us in the following places:
30th Ocotber - The Fishpond Matlock Derbyshire (Full band)
20th November - PJs Ripley Derbyshire (Full band and the last one for a while)
26th November - Crocus Cafe Lenton Nottingham (acoustic)
28th November - The Royal Derby supporting the mighty Foy Vance (acoustic band)
1st December - Malt Cross Nottingham (Acoustic)
10th December - The Vic Derby (Acoustic band)
Obviously the album will be available at all these shows.
We hopefully have another Nottingham show in November and a gig at the Vic in Derby in December. There may also be a visit to Sheffield in November which is waiting to be confirmed.
We're also starting to write some new tunes, which is always my favourite time, full of optimism and positivity. This is always the case until they are released and largely ignored but hey ho......
I'm in a new realm of positivity at the moment which I'm hoping lasts for a little while longer than the last one, which was round about the time of the release of the current record. It quickly vanished. Russell is always telling me to be positive like him, so I'm going to try hard. In fact yeah, fuck it all. Who cares if hardly anyone comes to watch us anymore, or that we've been playing for 8 years and not really got anywhere, and that we constantly play with bands who are pretty shit and yet get far better gis than us. And thats a fact, I can't think of one band we've played with from the local scene who are anywhere as good as us. And if that makes me sound like a cock, then good.
We've never been arse lickers and we ain't going to start now. I love music and I'm a complete dreamer, believing that our song writing prowess and musicianship will, shock horror, get us noticed. The day we try and become trendy with some angular guitar played out of tune and with absoulutely no melody, will be the day I smash all my lovingly built guitars on the back yard. Although there have been lots of times I've wanted to smash them on the heads of "musicians" we've played with.
Can't sing - check
can't play properly - check
Look like a twat - absolutely check
namecheck all the cool bands plus some 80s shit as influences - check
WELL DOME, HERES A SUPPORT WITH THE LATEST LAME SUPERSTARS AND A RECORD DEAL IN ORDER TO INFLICT YOUR "MUSIC" ON THE PUBLIC.
YEP, CAN'T YOU SEE I'M BEING POSITIVE
Some twat on a forum once called us pub rock, knob head. He was thinking of his mates band, or Robbie Williams pub singer and professional twat. (sue me fat boy) THey also said why don't we pack up as we'd not got anywhere in 6 years. I pointed out we released a record nationally which not many other bands get to do, played in front of 30,000 people and done two acoustic tours of america. I finished it by saying if he agreed to stop breathinh, we'd stop playing. Quite funny for me I thought.
I can type what I want here really as no fucker will read it, much like no one will listen to our music. But you know what, I really don't care anymore. You see I actually enjoy playing with Russ, dave and rob. and when me and russell have a writing session and he sings something magical over one of my pieces of music, it gives me goosebumps and that optimism all comes flooding back. So its worth carrying on, just to keep getting that rush for a relatively short period of time. And I can also say here that russell is one of the best singers and lyricists I've ever heard and Dave is by the best bass player anywhere. The man could walk into any band and make them better. Well apart from Pearl Jam, but definitly U2 ;-)
Oh.......hopefully see some of you at a show!
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