Had another Malham Road rehearsal on Sun night. This is such an exciting project! The music is wicked and so much fun to play. Phat grooves and the crew are such a laugh. The booking agent is totally on it and we are raring to go! Just going through technical rehearsals at the mo. Check Malham road out at www.myspace.com/malhamroad and ad them as a friend. Here’s a couple of photos from the shoot…
Me and my trusty Cymbal/snare trolley AKA the City Banker Forcefield!
Im writing to y’all from the 4th carriage of the Central Line tube on the way to tonight’s Gemma Mewse gig in Notting Hill. As you can see, I have my cymbals and snare with me on my trusty Granny trolley turned City banker leg destroyer! It’s quite satisfying watching the suited and booted trying to barge past me without looking down amongst the crowds, only to find that they walk into a very heavy immovable object and either end up with a painful bruise on their shin, or, even better, lose their balance, get all flustered and stumble around! Followed by a dirty look, and a little chortle (do we still use that word?!) from me. It’s a bit like having a forcefield all of your own. Shields up Mr Spock!
So the last week has been hectic! An offer of a 4 week carribean cruise had to be turned down due to the projects I’m involved with here. Further to that a new bollywood show got in touch asking if id be up for a 6 month uk tour. Have yet to hear more about that but I may well be able to fit that in with my other commitments should they come back to me.
Anyway last weeks gig with Caroline Jay was a great success and she has now been asked to play at the Bloomsbury Theatre on fri march 26th. This will be a top gig in a fantastic venue. Well worth coming down. Supporting Steve Carlson from the USA.
The Bloomsbury Theatre. Come along to the Gig!
My good friend Juan Zelada and his hot band are playing on this night too. I depped with Juan for his full time drummer Rick Chambers a year or so ago and it was Wicked. Juans energy, charisma and music is fantastic. You can’t go wrong coming along to this gig! You can get tickets by dropping me an email to contact@uksessiondrummer.com
Carline Jay rehearsals. The view from behind my drums at Panic
Gemma Mewse
More rehearsals with Gemma Mewse and a gig tonight at Notting hill arts club. Again a top band. The venue is a bit of a mission but Gemma will draw the usual up for it crowd so it should be a good laugh.
Malham Road
OH BOY! Malham road is really kicking off. We are getting constant positivity from new fans and industry people. We rehearsed the live show for the first time on sun night at creekside studios and the vibe and energy in the room was amazing! Following this, we had a photo shoot with the outrageously talented John Fitzpatrick, as you can see below. Join the malham road story at www.myspace.com/malhamroad. Become a friend and check out the tunes. This is a really exciting project!
RIght next stop on the tube is mine…
Back in the practice studio today. I’m working on double kick again using 4 bar combinations as you can see above. Having sooo much fun! U to 120 bppm with this exercise now 
So tonight Im playing with Gemma Mewse at the Aragon in Chelsea. Onstage at 21:30 and the set should be awesome. We had a great rehearsal on Thurs and have the new backing tracks to fatten the sound. So if you are around, come on down .
I spent 3 hours yesterday in the practise studio again. Although I was struggling to get back into the zone due to other things constantly ticking over in my head.
Ive picked up Pete Rileys book on double kick playing. Having never played double kick before I figured this would be a good area in which to challenge myself. Not sure if Ill use it much, but it’s a fun challenge!
So, a quick bit of dinner, then off to play…
Vinny and ryan…Efficient workers…
So 9am and I’m on a train into kings cross heading for the joint rehearsal studios. Carrying 2 crashes, a ride, a pair of hats, my dw snare and my laptop bag. Fortunately I bought a great protection racket cymbal case recently which is a backpack style case and means I can carry all my cymbals on my back. The best thing about this though is the weird looks I get from all the 9-5 grey suited commuters as they are forced to move 5 inches to their left or right due to my abnormally wide load. Well at least the expressions they pull gives their face muscles some movement away from their boring glum look!
In a way, like them I guess I’m on the way to my office too – a rehearsal studio. Although my office can be anywhere and changes everyday! I reckon mine is more fun though ;-p
Rehearsal should be a laugh today. Two of my good mates, Vince benjamin (bass) and ryan haberfield (guitar) along with lee and Gemma. We are working with backing tracka to fatten out the sound so I’ve been doing the MD bit and preparing them at home along with the setlist.
Managed to get 4 hours practice in yesterday. I’m loving getting back into it after all this time! Bought a MASSIVE and heavy pair of sticks from wembley drum centre too. The conversation went something like “hi mate, can I have you heaviest pair of sticks that you sell”. A look of delighted evil came across will’s face as he said “ooooh yes, ill have to go to the special vault for those! Mwahahahaha!” At this point he opened a locked chest at the back of the counter – cold smoke blew out of it, a light shone from it and for some reason, there was the sound of an angelic chorus as he lifted out a pair of. Fat white drum corps sticks. I was excited, but also slightly fearful. What had I let myself in for??! More to come on those…
So, today I booked a studio and actually got down to some practise. Im not talking about setting up my drums and playing a load of chops for 2 hours. No, proper, head down and concentrating on 1 thing. The difficulty for me is that having purely played for the last 10 years and not sat down to concentrate on something in detail, it’s difficult to be disciplined again.
So, I pulled out my material from the 4 years I spent with Bob Armstrong and pulled out the 8th’s reading and Moeller technique exercise we used to do. After spending 10 mins playing through this, I ended up taking it right back to the basics having realised that by my standards, I wasn’t happy with the standard of my singles. So the next 50 mins were spent with a click at 130 BPM, playing 16th’s (Semi quavers) for 2 bars, followed by 64th’s (hemi-demi-semiquaver) for 2 bars.
I moved up to a couple of other tempos, but stayed with this. It’s amazing how satisfying it feels and how addictive it becomes! The hour I was there flew by and it took me back to my school days where I would practice for hours and wonder where the day had gone…
So I left and have booked 4 hours tomorrow where Im going to try and put together some sort of disciplined structure.
It’s great to be back at it again and hopefully Ill get the time to fit it in around all my other bits that are going on.
Just need my discipline back!!!
Tonight I played with Gemma Mewse (now now!) at the Bull and Gate. She had quite a few people down which was great for a Monday. Although the other bands only seemed to be playing to each other as we left…
Sometimes I do think I should wait and watch the other bands because I feel sorry for them if they have no audience. The problem comes when the music just isn’t great though!!
I think there might be some video footage of Gemmas gig around somewhere so Ill try to hunt it down and stick up on here.
Anyway, after the show I headed on down to South London to meet with producers 2DARC who are the crew behind Electro pop/dance outfit Malham Road. These guys are having a massive response to their stuff which is at www.myspace.com/malhamroad – They are funny geeeeezars too! Im really looking forward to this project. Exciting things in the pipeline!!!
Right, so 0300 is pretty much the latest I can legitimately allow myself to be up until, time for some Zeez….
UK based Session drummer Matt McDonough has appeared on stages, TV and in studios and theatres all over the world.
