Last weekend we had two gigs on the Dodgy tour, where we are focusing on playing the new album 'Stand Upright In A Cool Place' in it's entirety. The purpose of the tour is to give you people out there a preview of the new album, see if you like the songs as much as we do and hopefully encourage some pre-orders on the night, so that the album gets a good lift off when it is released next year.
We are honestly loving all of these gigs to bits and hopefully giving the new songs a boost everytime we play them but it's certainly a learning experience. A couple of people have tweeted and texted about the Guildford gig for instance, at the Boileroom, saying that they were annoyed that some people talked through the songs. Honestly, don't worry, it's a gig; we expect people to come along, meet up with their mates and enjoy it however they might seem fit, and we know it's a big ask, playing a whole bunch of new songs in one go, however much faith we have in those songs. Luckily there's also been loads of positive feedback and we learnt some lessons in Guildford that we were able to put into action the next night.
The weekend certainly was a tale of two cities, well more like towns actually; A Tale Of Two Towns is alliteratively (hope any past English teachers aren't reading this) a lot better, so you were missing a trick there Mr. Dickens old son - and a tale of two very contrasting towns at that .
There's Guildford, with its art galleries, top of the range cars, its busy Karen Millen and Kath Kidson shops and its recession proof glittering jacket - though I was put right by a recently made redundant Dodgy fan that hard times (you see, got another Dickens book in there) are indeed hitting Surrey as well.
Then on Saturday it was up north to St. Helens and before anyone says anything OK, I've googled it and of course St. Helens does have galleries but gives the impression of being like a different country, a different decade even. It was 8pm on Saturday night and the streets were deserted, no-one around - pubs and restaurants boarded up and the few pubs that were open had posters in the cracked window advertising "£3 entry / 50p a pint" and scared looking bouncers outside giving me a look that said "please don't come in here, you look relatively normal, flee while you still have the chance".
Dodgy have got quite friendly over the years with Johnny Vegas, actor and comedian, he comes from St. Helens and told us how it was a 'new town', developed with fine intentions after WW11 to get people out of what were becoming slums in the bigger towns but unlike Crawley, St. Helens hadn't quite worked, especially when there's only one major employer left in the town, Pilkington's glass. But as you find with a lot of these towns and cities - the bleakest looking place conversely contains the warmest and most generous inhabitants.
We were impressed by the fine looking audiences in both towns but a big shout out to some of you in Guildford; we are very much digging the 'vietnam vet' chic that several of you rocked up sporting on Friday - the tye dye, beard, sunglasses and cap look is seriously rocking our world - and that's just the ladies.
In St. Helens, the ritual of the pre-gig drink took us to one of the only bars we could find open in the town centre on Saturday (apart from the fighting arena mentioned earlier) and it was empty apart from a group of about 8 people of both sexes and varying ages acting out what can only be described as the old English definition of BEDLAM - madness, chaos and confusion. We'd get shouting, football songs, arguments, crying, kissing and laughing but all simultaneously and as LOUD as they possibly could. It was quite amazing to watch. They were obviously quite excited about the new Harvey Nichols opening up in town...
the gig turned out to be one of the best yet on the tour. We felt we were better and more inviting and as a result the audience were incredible - singing along to the the new ones, dancing, smiling and just thoroughly enjoying themselves, us and each others company. We loved it and made it all worthwhile. So thank you, any doubts we had have been well and truly swept away...
This coming weekend takes on a distinctly culinary feel. We commence with the fromage at the Cheese And Grain in Frome on Friday (21st Oct), enjoy fine cuisine at the special Dodgy night at the River Cottage on Saturday night (22nd) and then pop down to Whitstable for oysters at East Quay on Sunday (Oct 23rd)....yum yum
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
Thursday, 13 October 2011
A photo session with Dodgy, a Dodgy tattoo and the latest gigs
As a band, Dodgy have never been very good standing around doing long photo shoots, there's not many bands that are. We had our fingers burned early on in our career with the photos for our first album; we didn't have any firm ideas and were persuaded by the record company that the input of someone with the job title 'stylist' and the photographer would be appropriate - the results, I can quite confidently say, would shame the most enthusiastic children's TV presenter - what were we thinking with those jumpers? Well, I can hear you now and you're right - we weren't thinking.
Since then we've formulated some kind of approach and try to use a photographer we know and trust, hence using our old friend Pat 'the professional' Pope (http://www.patpope.com/) for our afternoon photoshoot in and around Hertford last Friday. We were also very ably assisted by Annie, the head of tourism for Hertfordshire (not just Hertford or indeed Hereford as both myself and Nige got wrong trying to give her a mention on stage later) who showed us the more picturesque spots around the town, of which there are many. So not a bad afternoon at all really, especially watching Pat getting wound up by Annie's suggestions for photos -
"why don't you have them peeping from behind that tree?"
" WE DON'T DO PEEPING!"
Anyway, here's one of us not peeping - awaiting approval apparently...
On the current tour Dodgy are giving people a full sneak live preview of the new album 'Stand Upright In A Cool Place'. As these gigs are a bit special, we didn't want to fall into the trap that a lot of bands do and focus on the big towns and cities and play any old night of the week, as we knew this one would be for the true Dodgy fans. It's fine if your audience is made up mostly by students and city dwellers but when a lot of you have jobs or kids or both and perhaps live out of town then to go and see your favourite artist can be a real baby-sitty, long drivey ball-ache and an expensive one at that. So we felt it was only right for "us to come to you rather than you come to us". Hence, we've downsized a bit and are going out to play some smaller theatres and venues in some of the smaller towns - hence Hertford and Shrewsbury last weekend, and indeed Guildford and St Helens and Frome and in fact most of the gigs on this tour.
And we certainly pushed the down-sizing to it's limit in Shrewsbury as well pointed out by Mr Tea in his comment to an earlier Blog post here. In fact the size down from pub function room we played is actually on the street busking, so we were definitely 'keeping it real' but as is always with gigs like that, we had a blast and the crowd were bananas. We'd met one of the organisers, Elliot earlier in the year when we played an acoustic show in Oswestry - see my earlier point about out of town places, well it don't come more out of town than Oswestry. We like Elliot because Elliot has a Dodgy tattoo, see below.
It's on his chest, we'd obviously prefer it on his forehead or neck, but chest will do. Elliot and his lovely wife very kindly offered me their spare bed for the night but I did have to think twice about taking up the offer as this brilliant Alan Patridge sketch was going through my head quite a bit. It was OK though, the door had a lock.
New songs Waiting For The Sun and Shadows seem to be going down very well at the moment, let's see what Guildford thinks on Friday (14th) at the Boileroom and then up to St. Helens on Saturday (15th) @ The Citadel - we're hoping a few will try and get over from Liverpool for that one and who knows, our old pal Johnny Vegas might be visting home.. looking forward to it..
Since then we've formulated some kind of approach and try to use a photographer we know and trust, hence using our old friend Pat 'the professional' Pope (http://www.patpope.com/) for our afternoon photoshoot in and around Hertford last Friday. We were also very ably assisted by Annie, the head of tourism for Hertfordshire (not just Hertford or indeed Hereford as both myself and Nige got wrong trying to give her a mention on stage later) who showed us the more picturesque spots around the town, of which there are many. So not a bad afternoon at all really, especially watching Pat getting wound up by Annie's suggestions for photos -
"why don't you have them peeping from behind that tree?"
" WE DON'T DO PEEPING!"
Anyway, here's one of us not peeping - awaiting approval apparently...
On the current tour Dodgy are giving people a full sneak live preview of the new album 'Stand Upright In A Cool Place'. As these gigs are a bit special, we didn't want to fall into the trap that a lot of bands do and focus on the big towns and cities and play any old night of the week, as we knew this one would be for the true Dodgy fans. It's fine if your audience is made up mostly by students and city dwellers but when a lot of you have jobs or kids or both and perhaps live out of town then to go and see your favourite artist can be a real baby-sitty, long drivey ball-ache and an expensive one at that. So we felt it was only right for "us to come to you rather than you come to us". Hence, we've downsized a bit and are going out to play some smaller theatres and venues in some of the smaller towns - hence Hertford and Shrewsbury last weekend, and indeed Guildford and St Helens and Frome and in fact most of the gigs on this tour.
And we certainly pushed the down-sizing to it's limit in Shrewsbury as well pointed out by Mr Tea in his comment to an earlier Blog post here. In fact the size down from pub function room we played is actually on the street busking, so we were definitely 'keeping it real' but as is always with gigs like that, we had a blast and the crowd were bananas. We'd met one of the organisers, Elliot earlier in the year when we played an acoustic show in Oswestry - see my earlier point about out of town places, well it don't come more out of town than Oswestry. We like Elliot because Elliot has a Dodgy tattoo, see below.
It's on his chest, we'd obviously prefer it on his forehead or neck, but chest will do. Elliot and his lovely wife very kindly offered me their spare bed for the night but I did have to think twice about taking up the offer as this brilliant Alan Patridge sketch was going through my head quite a bit. It was OK though, the door had a lock.
New songs Waiting For The Sun and Shadows seem to be going down very well at the moment, let's see what Guildford thinks on Friday (14th) at the Boileroom and then up to St. Helens on Saturday (15th) @ The Citadel - we're hoping a few will try and get over from Liverpool for that one and who knows, our old pal Johnny Vegas might be visting home.. looking forward to it..
Thursday, 6 October 2011
Dodgy music on the radio plus an encounter with Noel (Gallagher)
With the new Dodgy album 'Stand Upright In A Cool Place' recorded and in the can, now for the difficult bit - all the planning and cunning promotion so people out there know it exists. Of course you'll be kept up to speed on how our marketing and attention seeking schemes evolve.
With that in mind it was up to London town yesterday to meet a potential 'radio plugger'. For anyone who doesn't know, a radio plugger is someone whose job it is to help get radio producers to listen to our music and nudge them into putting it on the radio. As we essentially make our music to be listened to their job is one of, if not, the most important in our book. The plugger's job is not as exciting as it used to be in the payola days of American radio in the 70's and 80's, where the plugger would slip drugs/money/very small prostitutes into the sleeve of the record they were plugging. I'm sure it still goes on somewhere but there's a fantastic book to read all about those days called The Hitmen by Fredric Dannen. Of course there's no way I would even suggest that the fine boys and girls from the UK music industry ever get involved in using narcotics....... pause for dramatic effect and perhaps make one more book recommendation for today - Kill Your Friends by our old friend John Niven. If you get offended easily then don't read it.
Anyway, for some reason I arrived early so I was partaking of a cup of Earl Grey sat outside a Swedish cafe on Gt Titchfield St (that sentence sounds too poncey for words) when who should jump out of a taxi but Noel Gallagher, obviously on his way to an interview but still with time to bound over the road and say 'hello' to me. It was at this precise moment that I was hoping a gaggle of ladies were watching but unfortunately there was just a small, bald oriental chap. He was lovely, as always (Noel, not the little chap) and asked how Nige was, bless. We talked about our new albums, his and ours and the band Electric Soft Parade who are supporting him and us over the next month. We swapped email addresses and he asked me to send him some of the new Dodgy tracks, which I'll be doing over the next couple of days and let you know what the good man Noel thinks. Actually Dodgy and Noel go way back as Oasis supported Dodgy at the Academy in 1994 and two years later offered to return the favour by offering us a slot at their big Knebworth shows but apparently our reply was something along the lines of "No thanks, Noel, we'd rather get shot at in Bosnia" a previous commitment we couldn't and didn't want to change.
As it happens we travelled to Bosnia a total of three times between '95 and '97, you can actually see what we got up to one time here
As far as I can see, at least one of our new friends in this video ended up onstage with us at that previously mentioned Glastonbury performance in 1997. Which brings me nicely to the fact that on one of the trips to Bosnia we took the esteemed photographer Pat Pope with us and as it happens he's going to be doing a new photoshoot with Dodgy this during the day before our next gig on Friday (7th October) in Hertford at the Corn Exchange where again, Dodgy will play the new album in it's entirety and the following night on Saturday (8th October) we'll be in Bicton near Shrewsbury at the Four Crosses Hotel.
So until then,
ZBOGOM
xx
With that in mind it was up to London town yesterday to meet a potential 'radio plugger'. For anyone who doesn't know, a radio plugger is someone whose job it is to help get radio producers to listen to our music and nudge them into putting it on the radio. As we essentially make our music to be listened to their job is one of, if not, the most important in our book. The plugger's job is not as exciting as it used to be in the payola days of American radio in the 70's and 80's, where the plugger would slip drugs/money/very small prostitutes into the sleeve of the record they were plugging. I'm sure it still goes on somewhere but there's a fantastic book to read all about those days called The Hitmen by Fredric Dannen. Of course there's no way I would even suggest that the fine boys and girls from the UK music industry ever get involved in using narcotics....... pause for dramatic effect and perhaps make one more book recommendation for today - Kill Your Friends by our old friend John Niven. If you get offended easily then don't read it.
Anyway, for some reason I arrived early so I was partaking of a cup of Earl Grey sat outside a Swedish cafe on Gt Titchfield St (that sentence sounds too poncey for words) when who should jump out of a taxi but Noel Gallagher, obviously on his way to an interview but still with time to bound over the road and say 'hello' to me. It was at this precise moment that I was hoping a gaggle of ladies were watching but unfortunately there was just a small, bald oriental chap. He was lovely, as always (Noel, not the little chap) and asked how Nige was, bless. We talked about our new albums, his and ours and the band Electric Soft Parade who are supporting him and us over the next month. We swapped email addresses and he asked me to send him some of the new Dodgy tracks, which I'll be doing over the next couple of days and let you know what the good man Noel thinks. Actually Dodgy and Noel go way back as Oasis supported Dodgy at the Academy in 1994 and two years later offered to return the favour by offering us a slot at their big Knebworth shows but apparently our reply was something along the lines of "No thanks, Noel, we'd rather get shot at in Bosnia" a previous commitment we couldn't and didn't want to change.
As it happens we travelled to Bosnia a total of three times between '95 and '97, you can actually see what we got up to one time here
As far as I can see, at least one of our new friends in this video ended up onstage with us at that previously mentioned Glastonbury performance in 1997. Which brings me nicely to the fact that on one of the trips to Bosnia we took the esteemed photographer Pat Pope with us and as it happens he's going to be doing a new photoshoot with Dodgy this during the day before our next gig on Friday (7th October) in Hertford at the Corn Exchange where again, Dodgy will play the new album in it's entirety and the following night on Saturday (8th October) we'll be in Bicton near Shrewsbury at the Four Crosses Hotel.
So until then,
ZBOGOM
xx
Saturday, 1 October 2011
Dodgy keep it in the family and what does 'Free' mean to you
The responsibility of music vibes in the bus on the tour so far has been left to 'Handsome Chris', Nigel's nephew who's helping out with selling the merch, so we've had a mixture of Jurassic 5, the Sex Pistols and Jimi Hendrix - it's like 1993 all over again. Chris was 8 then, bless him. In fact there's quite a nepotistic thing going on as our tour manager is Jack, who is the son of our original tour manager, Danny. Also my nan is the drum roadie. Not really. We had to sack her for having it too large. Not really.
OK, SOME THINGS THAT WE'VE LEARNT ON THE TOUR SO FAR:
After a year of playing gigs as just a 3 piece, like we used to do back in 1992, we decided to get another musician on board for this tour because Nigel plays so much integral acoustic guitar on this new album that there is no way we could have done it justice live with just the three of us. We'll keep an eye on it and make sure it doesn't get a silly as it did at Glastonbury 1997 where we counted a total of THIRTEEN musicians on stage, and that's NOT counting Ray Davies who came on stage with us to sing a version of his Kinks song 'Tired of Waiting For You'.
And on to MANCHESTER last night and the royal gala performance of the upcoming all new Dodgy album Stand Upright In A Cool Place in it's entirety and we couldn't have been more happier with how it went. The crowd were perfect. Supportive; in to it; LOUD and happy. Probably one of my favourite gigs OF ALL TIME.
Against much drunken abuse and opposition from my good friends who had made the effort to come to see us, I managed to slip back to the hotel relatively clear headed. I know it sounds dangerously responsible of me, but I wanted to keep it together for the fair folk of York tonight. The same can't be said for Handsome and The Fugitive - Manchester was theirs for the taking and I believe they took it.
Till next time x
OK, SOME THINGS THAT WE'VE LEARNT ON THE TOUR SO FAR:
- we're still interested in the idea of 'free' but noticed that when you offer a gig ticket for free, there's always a 40% drop out rate. Does this mean that by offering the tickets for free for some people this devalues what is being offered? Let's mull that one over...
- Dodgy are liked by boys and girls in equal measure
- The new songs are "better than the old ones" and "much better than I ever expected"
- It's not a joke, the folk from Blackburn and Burnley REALLY don't like each other. We're thinking of doing a Bob Marley style peace concert.
- Manchester really is one of the most vibrant cities in the UK
- Girl's, especially drunken ones, have a much more colourful palette of swear words then their male counterparts. Quite wonderful.
After a year of playing gigs as just a 3 piece, like we used to do back in 1992, we decided to get another musician on board for this tour because Nigel plays so much integral acoustic guitar on this new album that there is no way we could have done it justice live with just the three of us. We'll keep an eye on it and make sure it doesn't get a silly as it did at Glastonbury 1997 where we counted a total of THIRTEEN musicians on stage, and that's NOT counting Ray Davies who came on stage with us to sing a version of his Kinks song 'Tired of Waiting For You'.
And on to MANCHESTER last night and the royal gala performance of the upcoming all new Dodgy album Stand Upright In A Cool Place in it's entirety and we couldn't have been more happier with how it went. The crowd were perfect. Supportive; in to it; LOUD and happy. Probably one of my favourite gigs OF ALL TIME.
Against much drunken abuse and opposition from my good friends who had made the effort to come to see us, I managed to slip back to the hotel relatively clear headed. I know it sounds dangerously responsible of me, but I wanted to keep it together for the fair folk of York tonight. The same can't be said for Handsome and The Fugitive - Manchester was theirs for the taking and I believe they took it.
Till next time x
Wednesday, 28 September 2011
Dodgy are setting out on a UK tour
DODGY played in Windsor on Friday and was probably the best warm-up show we have ever done. We were at the Firestation Theatre and part of the Windsor Festival. It was advertised as an acoustic evening with an 'electric encore'. Thankfully we managed to get out of that. I think that little arrangement came about once when an old agent was trying to sell an acoustic gig to a stubborn promoter and 'an electric encore' was dangled and taken without much consultation with the band. Whenever we've had to put down the acoustics and crank up the amps in the encore it's never worked - it's like having a fight and a curry after a night of warm cuddles by the fire.
We sold it out, which is always such a relief, apparently "Glen Tilbrook never managed that", according to some fan afterwards, "Yeah, but I'm sure Squeeze would sell out the enormadome down the road" I reasoned.
We are about to go on a series of dates where we will be playing our new album in it's entirety, so this was the first time that we played a load of new tracks. They seemed to go down well, which was a bit of a relief, one of the candidates for a potential new single is 'What Became Of You' where Andy gets possessed by the spirit of Carlos Santana and my favourite of the evening was 'Did It Have To Be This Way' - it was a real pin drop moment and we left there with our tails wagging and our confidence really high.
Today, Wednesday (28th September) we travel up to Glasgow for a show at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, the first of two shows we are doing where entry will be free (you might still be able to sign up for tickets via the dodgyology.com* or Dodgy@Facebook web pages. As things change in this business we call show it seems that you have to give something away for free (read Chris Anderson's book 'Free'), so we thought what better than offering two free live shows to get things under way. We'll let you know what what we think and the feedback we get. After Glasgow, our feet won't touch the ground until Sunday, after we've played a warm up in Burnley at The Mechanics on Thursday (29th September) where we meet up with our tour manager Jack and the newest addition to our touring party, Stu The Fugitive, the second of the free gigs, in Manchester at (newly resurected?) Band On The Wall on Friday (30th September) and then York at The Duchess on Saturday (1st Oct). I will explain who jack is and why we call Stu a fugitive in later posts, it will give me something to do. Until then xx
PS * In an ideal world we would have taken the name 'Dodgyology' for this blog but unfortunately that has already been taken by dodgyology.blogspot.com this was a blog started in 2004 made 2 posts and then gave up - apparently that's enough to have your blog carved here on the internet forever.. shame... hopefully we'll manage more than 2 posts ;-)
We sold it out, which is always such a relief, apparently "Glen Tilbrook never managed that", according to some fan afterwards, "Yeah, but I'm sure Squeeze would sell out the enormadome down the road" I reasoned.
We are about to go on a series of dates where we will be playing our new album in it's entirety, so this was the first time that we played a load of new tracks. They seemed to go down well, which was a bit of a relief, one of the candidates for a potential new single is 'What Became Of You' where Andy gets possessed by the spirit of Carlos Santana and my favourite of the evening was 'Did It Have To Be This Way' - it was a real pin drop moment and we left there with our tails wagging and our confidence really high.
Today, Wednesday (28th September) we travel up to Glasgow for a show at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, the first of two shows we are doing where entry will be free (you might still be able to sign up for tickets via the dodgyology.com* or Dodgy@Facebook web pages. As things change in this business we call show it seems that you have to give something away for free (read Chris Anderson's book 'Free'), so we thought what better than offering two free live shows to get things under way. We'll let you know what what we think and the feedback we get. After Glasgow, our feet won't touch the ground until Sunday, after we've played a warm up in Burnley at The Mechanics on Thursday (29th September) where we meet up with our tour manager Jack and the newest addition to our touring party, Stu The Fugitive, the second of the free gigs, in Manchester at (newly resurected?) Band On The Wall on Friday (30th September) and then York at The Duchess on Saturday (1st Oct). I will explain who jack is and why we call Stu a fugitive in later posts, it will give me something to do. Until then xx
PS * In an ideal world we would have taken the name 'Dodgyology' for this blog but unfortunately that has already been taken by dodgyology.blogspot.com this was a blog started in 2004 made 2 posts and then gave up - apparently that's enough to have your blog carved here on the internet forever.. shame... hopefully we'll manage more than 2 posts ;-)
Here we @ the Dodgy blog - Introduction
Do a blog they said - keeping people up to speed from inside the Dodgy camp.
You/we arrive here. The original line-up of the UK band Dodgy (Nigel, Andy, Mathew) have recorded our first new songs for blah blah years.
The resulting new album is called 'Stand Upright In A Cool Place', we're really excited about it and the way it's all sounding, and hope that the people that get to listen to it think so too.
Please feel free to comment on the blog and that will help us with what to and what not to post
So the blog starts here, let's see how it goes shall we.....
You/we arrive here. The original line-up of the UK band Dodgy (Nigel, Andy, Mathew) have recorded our first new songs for blah blah years.
The resulting new album is called 'Stand Upright In A Cool Place', we're really excited about it and the way it's all sounding, and hope that the people that get to listen to it think so too.
Please feel free to comment on the blog and that will help us with what to and what not to post
So the blog starts here, let's see how it goes shall we.....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)