Planning the next Satchel Blue Album

Through to the semi-final!

Last night we (Satchel Blue) qualified as one of the bands to go through to the next round of Surface Unsigned 2008.

Thanks to everyone who turned up on the night and to everyone who voted for us by text.

We do have an audio copy of our performance taken from the sound desk so watch this space for mp3's coming soon.

In the meantime, here's the official review:

"Next up were Birmingham based five-piece Satchel Blue. Delivering another fine performance of their melodic Nu-Folk soundings, they went down very well with the Wednesday evening crowd. On the surface it’s a refreshingly simple, infectious noise that’s instantly likeable and wholly accessible, however don’t be fooled, there’s some real depth (and a nice touch of heartfelt whimsy) in their lyrical content and in the careful arrangement that goes into each track. Excellent material, an engaging and endearing manner, and tight technical ability onstage made for a convincing and impressive set from a band who do things their own way and sound all the better for it."

Read the full review of the night and check out the scoring.

Surface Unsigned - Round 2

Tomorrow night we (Satchel Blue) are playing in Round 2 of the Surface Unsigned competition for 2008 - although noticing that my favourite band in our Round 1 heat, Olly Dabblers, haven't made it past Round 2 then I'm not holding out much hope.

If you fancy supporting us, or just coming along to see what's going on, then pop down to The Factory Bar, Custard Factory in Digbeth.

First band on at 7.30pm and we're hitting the stage at 9pm.

(check out our MySpace or Facebook page for more band details and music.)

Satchel Blue through to Round 2

So we made it through to Round 2 of Surface Unsigned 2008, somewhat helped by the fact that only 4 bands out of 7 actually made it on stage and the top 4 bands from each heat qualify for round 2.

Congratulations to Subjects of the City, Olly Dabblers, and The Kinells who also managed to turn up, thus guaranteeing qualification to the next stage.

A review of the gig has been posted on the Surface website and, at long last, someone has attempted to solve the "what kind of music do you play?" question.

Or at least helped prove that it's not an easy question to answer.

Satchel Blue describe themselves as ‘nu-folk’. What’s that you ask? Well, in this case it seems to mean melodic, folk-edged, retro-rock-pop-blues (and so I guess it’s probably best to stick with the original abbreviation). It’s a timeless 60’s/70’s pop sound with a modern spin which made the band standout as innovators. Immediately likeable and accessible they’ve got some really ‘nice’ songs (but, like, in a good way), each one a memorable, well written track with heartfelt, witty lyrics and a superb tender-folky vocal. It’s refreshing to see a band trying out a direction that is quintessentially pop, yet completely removed from the modern musical landscape; especially when they do it as well as these guys.

I quite like being labeled as an "innovator" and I'm certainly not going to disagree with the "heartfelt, witty lyrics" so all in all, thank you very much.

From an on-stage point of view I think it was one of the worst gigs we've played in a while but at least we now get a crack at Round 2 to put on a proper show.

Satchel Blue to play Surface Unsigned 2008

This coming Saturday, Satchel Blue will be playing in Round One of Surface Unsigned Festival 2008.

The best way of demonstrating your support, to us and the 6 other bands playing in our heat, is obviously to come down to The Rainbow in Digbeth on Saturday night for 7pm.

Alternatively you can help the Satchel Blue cause by texting your vote.
Simply text SURFACE 666 to 83149 to vote for Satchel Blue.

Please remember to include a space after SURFACE otherwise we will not be able to use your vote. 10 (ten) pence from every text will go to Oxfam.

Texts cost £1.00 plus standard network charges. Please get permission from the bill payer. Customer services: info@surfaceunsigned.co.uk or contact us on 0800 434 6076. Terms and conditions: surfaceunsigned.co.uk/termsandconditions

Full details of all bands playing in the central region can be found on the Surface website.

Going digital

I've finally taken the first step in moving from analogue to digital music production and my faithful old Tascam 424 MkII 4-track recorder is on eBay and looking for a new home.

Band Photos

Blimey, it's been a while and there's plenty been happening.

However, more of that very soon. In the meantime, check out The 20 Worst Band Photos from Spinner.com.

My particular favourite is the Freedom Fighters at number 19 (left).

"First we form a band, then we get a dented van ... then we'll get the girls."

Maybe we can use this as inspiration for our new set of Satchel Blue band images? Answers on a postcard please.

'Satchel Blue' mentions via Technorati

How search results can be deceiving!


English posts that contain Satchel Blue per day for the last 90 days.

Get your own chart!

LastGraph

Andy pointed LastGraph out to me several weeks ago but that unfortunately coincided with the service being off-air for a while as demand outstripped capability.

I'm glad to say that the site is now up and running again and so I have finally been able to visualise my listening habits of the last 12 months in quite spectacular fashion.


(click image for large version to read labels)

Of course there is also the obligatory Flickr group for sharing your musical taste with others - I'll let you decipher mine as you see fit.

Satchel Blue on Facebook

In this age of social-networking, virtual community, and all power to the long tail, etc etc etc then it would be simply wrong for Satchel Blue not to have a presence on Facebook.



So, now we do, the Fans of Satchel Blue Facebook group.

Come along and join.

Satchel Blue release 'February'

Our latest album, titled February, has now been officially released.

It's the fourth album released under the Satchel Blue name, although the first to really feature the complete band.

It's also the first to be released with AWAL.

View Satchel Blue - February on iTunes.

A very limited number of CD's will be available very soon.

The Bristol Sessions E.P. was released two years ago and is available to download free at myspace.com/satchelblue.

Moseley Folk Festival 2007

The second annual Moseley Folk Festival took place in Moseley Park this weekend.

Lots of fun was had by all and the it remained dry until 7.30pm on Sunday evening which isn't bad going considering the summer we've had.



I found it particularly noteworthy for a number of, quite different, reasons.

It was the first occasion in a long time I walked away from a live gig feeling equally inspired and excited by the performance/performer(s) on stage - in this instance the truly fantastic Rory McLeod (above).

I shall be purchasing CD's very soon and hoping that the recorded version captures the talent and personality of the live show.

Other acts which stick in the mind include Nizlopi (who notably did not perform the JCB song), Findlay Brown (who was very kind to the little boy who asked him for an autograph), John Smith (similar in many ways to Ray LaMontagne), and Simon Fowler who performed some great acoustic versions of old Ocean Colour Scene songs.



The festival also proved a reminder yet again of how popular knitting appears to become when it's offered to a group of people sat in a field drinking cider for two days - or maybe it's got more to do with the cider than the wool/needle mixture itself.

Concert on a stick

Marketing genius, a guaranteed money-earner, and a damn fine souvenir as well.

Anyone who watched Barenaked Ladies' play live at Birmingham Academy last night was able to leave the gig with an mp3 copy of the entire set, including Boothby Graffoe's superb support slot.

For a mere £20 I now have a delightfully branded 256Mb Barenaked Ladies USB drive (left) containing a DRM-free mp3 of their entire gig, a pdf file of their set list, an mp3 of Boothby's support slot and a pdf of his set list.

The queue of people waiting to part with their cash rather than head for the exit suggested that the merchandise stand was heading for a rather tidy profit for the night.

What a great idea, and extremely well executed - although I'm still not sure how they managed to duplicate so many copies of the USB stick from the desk so quickly.

Cover art and personal radio

Generally speaking I'm not a picky/fussy type, nor am I a perfectionist by any stretch of the imagination. So why is it that, not only do I insist on going to great lengths to ensure all my music on iTunes has suitable cover artwork, but I religiously use only the exact artwork that is used for my personal CD version of the album (assuming I have the CD version of course!).

To illustrate this very point, I've just this second spent far too long searching the internet for an image of the purple/green album cover for Midnight Oil's Scream in Blue [live] album (far left) rather than using the ever-so-slightly bluer version (left).

According to my source (Amazon) the purple/green version is used for the cassette album but I assure you it is definitely the one that adorns my CD and will now also feature on my iPod.

Moving away from my cover art issues, have you heard of LAUNCHcast? I hadn't until very recently and I've no idea how I missed it.

It's basically a free Yahoo service (although premium service is available for a small subscription) that will allow you to run your own personal radio station, configured to suit your music tastes based on your genre/artist/album preferences.

There's plenty of options to rate the music as you listen and therefore configure (and improve) your station's playlist the more you listen - essentially it's Pandora for the UK.

Admittedly I've not used it much yet and maybe I've missed lots of flaws, but so far it's the kind of service I've been trying to find for ages and, as usual, has existed all along.

Satchel Blue on iTunes

Andy's already beaten me to the big announcement, but for those that don't already know... Birmingham based band Satchel Blue (yes, that's us!) now have a track available to download via iTunes, and theoretically other music download stores, for 79p.

Download here.

This technically means that if enough of you purchased this track we could actually get into the official music charts (i think).

The track is just one on a charity CD released under Dannyboy Records (DBM004) and features 16 unsigned bands/artists from the Midlands area.

Proceeds from sales go to the Kidzlikedanny charity which rasies money in aid of Autistic children, so download it today, and help a good cause.

So I went to Wales...

... for a week and did some sightseeing (most impressively, Harlech Castle and Criccieth Castle), play a round of golf at Pen Y Berth (well, 9 holes anyway), walked up the 59th and the 40-somethingth highest peaks in Snowdonia (according to a book in the house we were staying in at Croesor), spent far too long recording vocals and harmonica for the forthcoming Satchel Blue album, and then mixed the first version of the album onto minidisc (remember them?), played lots of scrabble and an interesting new game called 'Mensa Connections', and now I'm back to work and, quite frankly, exhausted.

I need a holiday.

PS. Some pics on Flickr - when I've had more sleep I'll put some more up.

Kylie in Manchester

Kylie was fantastic and so were the colourfully and creatively dressed members of the audience - but what a shame that there were too many men and women in yellow jackets stalking around and stopping anyone from taking photos.

The venue website was even at pains to point out that even photos taken with mobile phones were unacceptable - I mean, please, come on... will someone tell me what harm it does to let people enjoy their night out (which was hardly cheap at £50 a ticket) by taking a couple of photos away with them to show friends and family?

Satchel Blue start recording

At long last we ('we' being the band, Satchel Blue) have started recording our next album with the first session last weekend.

Despite a long and varied back catalogue of material ranging from the first release in 1999, this will in fact be the first full album release with the full band line-up - let's hope it lives up to its' promise then!

Provisionally titled 'February' it will feature a complete set of previously un-recorded material, some of which has been featured in recent gigs and some of which is still unheard.

Further pictures are available on the Satchel Blue Flickr group.

Ye Olde Record Shop

There I was (or rather, here I am) vacantly gazing around this enormous wealth of information called the web and trying to work out if there is anything of particular interest or importance going on around me that I need to pay attention to when, oh, shock horror, I read a post on recently launched Brum Blog which says:

"Jon Bounds of Birmingham: It's Not Shit has had a productive couple of weeks. His review of the year is a must read and the Brummie of the Year award went to Jason Furnell, a cricketer by all accounts, with Danny Reddington of the recently closed Reddington Rare Records came in second."

Reddington Rare Records has closed!!
(photo from sfb_dot_com on Flickr)

Damn.

...and I think it's partly my fault. Ok, maybe not me as an individual, but certainly people like me, people that act in the same way that I do... ...and I reckon there are definitely a few of you out there.

To a music fan/collector/listener/whatever-you-are there is something warm, friendly, enjoyable and special about whiling away your time in a small, independent music shop that still has the word 'record' in the name above the front door.

Something that simply isn't present during a trip into the bright lights and clean spaces of an HMV or a Virgin Megastore - the name itself 'megastore', what's enjoyable or friendly about that?

But, and this is the problem, did I make an effort to visit Danny at Reddingtons? Did I make sure that for every pound I spent on Amazon or in HMV, I saved a few pennies and spent them at 'Rare Records? No, I did not.

And why not? Now that it's closed and the option is no longer open to me it's hard to understand why I didn't go more often. Yes, I visited once or twice, but definitely, absolutely not enough.

There are plenty of excuses waiting in the aisles - convenience, not enough time, too busy and so on and so on, but ultimately I just didn't stop to think about what I should be doing until it was too late.

Don't worry, this isn't a crusade to get you all to spend more at Danny's online music store, but rather a reminder... whatever your thing, whatever you enjoy, whatever you value, don't wait until it's gone to realise how much you enjoyed having it around.

Download free music!

After much hassle and annoyingly niggling problems I've finally managed to properly upload the latest Satchel Blue EP to last.fm and have made all five tracks available as mp3 downloads.

Visit the Satchel Blue - The Bristol Sessions page if you're interested.

Although varying in quality I've also uploaded all previous recordings under the Satchel Blue name and made some of the better songs available as mp3 downloads as well - so even more free music, woo!

For those of you that have ended up on this website looking for cider related content - and I know that there are quite a few of you from the stats - then please spare a second to check out the music and get back to me with some comments on what you think. All comments, critical or complimentary, will be very much appreciated.

Right... now back to uploading a few more random photos to my Flickr account and finally getting around to finishing the website for this year's Fun In The Sun party.
[note] Fun In The Sun now updated with 2006 winners and photos.

Damn it's busy at this time of year!

Mud, tigers, and a band in need

In the absence of a new cider test I thought I'd post a random update featuring bits and pieces from the last few days. Firstly, aren't tigers simply great? My favourite three animals in the world (tigers, penguins, polar bears) are all present at Singapore Zoo and I eventually got around to adding some tiger pics from the zoo to my Flickr account.

Sadly the polar bear photos didn't come out very well thanks to the glass around the viewing area being covered in dirty rain water.


Talking of which, I spent yesterday morning taking part in the Sodbury Slog - a 9.5 mile run through the countryside surrounding Chipping Sodbury, nr Bristol. One day I promise I will train properly for these events.

Nevertheless it was thoroughly enjoyable and a bit different to my average Sunday morning. There are some photos already on the web courtesy of Pete Tiley but I imagine there will be more available soon - there were certainly plenty of people with cameras around the course.

Finally, despite the fact that Satchel Blue have received 99 votes in the Unsigned Music Awards 2006, we're still trailing some way behind a number of other bands.

So what are you waiting for, get on and vote here now.

Something to talk about

Ok, so i don't really have anything specific to talk about once again but I was getting fed up with pictures of Bethanie's nose on the website all of the time.

The band, namely Satchel Blue, play at the B91 Festival in Solihull recently which, while not the biggest crowd we've ever played to, was certainly good fun.

It even inspired me to create a Flickr group for Satchel Blue photos, although understandably there's not many in there at the moment!

Music aside, I've been putting my creative efforts into random photos recently, trying to take simple photos of almost anything to see what i can come up with. I've even been inspired to get hold of an old Duaflex camera after seeing some of these excellent photos through the viewfinder.