Saturday, December 13, 2008

All Elbows And Arms


This week I played two gigs in two days. Wednesday was a last minute fill-in at the Fiddler's Elbow in Chalk Farm. I enjoy playing there as the sound is good and you actually have monitors on the stage so I can hear what I'm doing. It was a very cold night, but a good crowd came out and we had a really good evening. Had a bit of a technical disaster during Denver. There is a spot when I have to change patch on my voice processor and then sing a note and then stop playing. The idea is that the note rings out in the gap at a tempo that I've tapped in earlier (are you following this?!) I then join in playing at the same speed. Unfortunately I managed to not change the patch, so I sang the note, stopped playing and... nothing! Nightmare, still I think I got away with it. You can hear how it should sound here:

Daren's Videos

Thursday night took me to the fabulous Montague Arms in New Cross. This was the last of my birthday celebrations and boy did we celebrate in style. The event was billed as a Masquerade Ball and it was great that so many people got into the spirit and either brought masks, or made them at the craft table (pictured above). All the artists that performed were excellent: Anne-Marie Sanderson, Eddy Jay, Steve Antoni and Wayne Myers - thank you all. Many even played in masks, which is quite a feat! I didn't manage that as my mask kept hitting the microphone! My set was interrupted by the arrival of a wonderful homemade birthday cake (yes, with 40 candles!!) - thank you Victoria!! I was also somewhat spooked out by all the posters and "Daren" masks that people were wearing.

The night was capped by the arrival of Uncle Santa (Santa's lesser known reindeer loving brother) and a sing-a-long with karaoke Santa too! Quite frankly the whole evening was excellent, and it all carried on afterwards back at Frog and Vicky's place with Doctor Who and Strawberry flavoured vodka (and the world's cheapest Scotch!). If you've not yet been to 2nd Thursdays at the Montague Arms - then get along. It's every 2nd Thursday of the month and it always fun and interesting.

Don't forget to ink in 1st February for my gig in Tufnell Park - more details to follow next week and look out for some more excellent live shots from Kris Gruber.

This Sunday I'm at Prohibition for 15 Minute Club. Do come down!

5 comments:

Joanna Cake said...

Hopefully you got away with it! Sorry I missed your birthday. Belated greetings x

Oh, and I completed a post on the return of the Wispa some days ago! How did you see into my mind? For publication in Xmas week :)

nitebyrd said...

I really have to travel to the UK. Y'all seem to have the best places to drink, listen to great music and just have fun!

Carnalis said...

happy (belated) birthday :)

Trixie said...

Oh all these well wishes...so late! You know who your true friends are. ;-p

Daren said...

HMC: Yeah, I usually do get away with it...

Nitebyrd: The Montague is one of a kind, come on over and join in the fun!

Carnalis: Thank you!

Trixie: Ah, at my age I take all the well wishes I can... ha ha.

Dxxx