cheddatom

We've got loads! Our gig list is here but there are loads more that haven't been announced yet https://headsticks.co.uk/gigs EDIT: There have been a few cancellations due to low ticket sales. That seemed to start last year. Nervy promoters in my opinion as every gig that's gone ahead seems well attended to me

I just listened to this whole piece as I'm bored at the office in my day-job. It's not to my tastes as it doesn't really go anywhere, just a solid hypnotic groove that randomly crosses the bar about half way through (the most interesting bit for me) but I know people who would like it. If you'd like any constructive criticism I could give you a paragraph or two. It'd be based on what I've heard and I wouldn't use any music theory terms as I hardly know any

You actually quoted me saying "If you've been using your ears to build up your own "theory" of which notes will work and when, in a sort of trial and error fashion..." which is basically the same as what you've written there, but confusingly, at the start of your sentence, it reads like you're disagreeing with me.

This is obvious isn't it. Your ears can only hear sounds, and no sound is made until you play a note, so your ears cannot be involved in that note choice If you've been using your ears to build up your own "theory" of which notes will work and when, in a sort of trial and error fashion, then your ears were involved in a way, but not in a literal one.

Maybe! However, he absolutely nailed the first song, which was much simpler, but still, he was looking/sounding pretty confident. It was pretty bizarre!

Great young newish band in yesterday. The drummer can't play a beat and I'm wondering why he's trying to play it, when he clearly can't. I offer advice from a drummer's POV - he was struggling with the bass drum so I suggested adjusting the height of his stool, and adjusting the pedal. It got to the point of "we're going to have to simplify the part", but the guitarist said "hold on, let me play the demo". They'd recorded a decent demo of the song some months back, and the drummer was playing the beat in question perfectly! That left no choice but to go over and over until he got it. A frustrating hour and a half but worth it in the end. They actually gave me their demo, less the drums, to use as a guide track and that saved a lot of time. I suggest this to a lot of bands but these are the first to ever do it!

If someone asks my opinion, I'll generally be nice, but will often say "I wouldn't choose to listen to it personally, but it's good stuff" or words to that effect I'm an engineer or a producer, it depends what people want really. I prefer to get really stuck into the creative side of it, helping with instrumentation or extra hooks etc, or sometimes even writing most of it... but I do need the money so I'm also happy to STFU and just engineer

It's common to add virtual instruments to songs so it's important to get everyone in tune with the computer

You wouldn't believe the number of people that don't or even can't tune up using a digital tuner. I reckon I tune an instrument for the player in at least a third of my sessions

Absolutely! The worst session of my career so far was down to a drummer. It was pretty straight forward rock music. The guy only knew how to play a sort of bouncy indie beat, which worked for one track, but none of the others. I tried to get him to play appropriate beats. I'd sort of beat-box the beat to him on the talk back, he'd say he got it, then when I hit record he'd play the same beat as before. I'd say "no, that's not it" and go show him the beat on the kit. He'd say he got it, and then do the same again. Over and over we went until I gave up and accepted the one beat he could play. Unfortunately, as the guide tracks were to a click, and the guy started drinking white lightening at 9AM, to get him anywhere near in time took a hell of a lot of editing. The band sacked him that night and I played the drum tracks for them the next morning - 6 songs in an hour. Obviously when he turned up with literally no gear (no sticks even) I should have cancelled the session, but again, I needed the money!

Yep, I needed the money!

Something common to loads of bands/sessions - people in the control room start singing or playing along the to the song, which I'm inevitably going to stop before it gets to the end, giving those awkward moments when people carry on playing or singing for a couple of beats after I've hit stop. I get that you're excited to hear your songs, but think of the poor red-faced engineer!

The band from the first post were in again this weekend. The "boss" told me that they were only doing a couple of straightforward rock 'n' roll numbers and it should be easy to get them done in the day. I breathed a massive sigh of relief. It turns out his definition of "a couple" is actually 4 songs, and once again, they rushed, and didn't get everything done. Everything I suggested, he repeated as though it was his idea, but everyone could hear us both Every time he played or sang, he told us all "that was pretty much perfect". Every time he said it, I said "even if you do say so yourself". The other band members giggled, but it didn't phase him a bit Working on drum tracks, I would stop the drummer and start talking to him over the talkback mic, but we'd be unable to hear each other because "the boss" was loudly exclaiming how perfect the drumming was. I had to wait until he'd finished complimenting the drummer, before I could explain what was wrong with the drums, which felt very awkward indeed They brought a non-band member to the session. He just sat in the control room the whole time and said nothing

We did the Gifford Arms in Wolverhampton on Saturday night. I've been having some serious stress recently and was really looking forward to a few beers, a curry, and playing f|_|ck out of the drums. Google maps directed us to the wrong side of the pedestrianised high street. 20 minutes of manoeuvring and bickering about signage and fines later, we got to the back door of the pub. The load in was punishing and I was drenched and out of breath by the end of it. Our roadie stood on a bench to hang up some merch, and the sound engineer immediately told him to get down. Apparently it was a health and safety concern. A little alert went off in my head and so I opted for my quieter, dampened snare drum, just in time for him to start telling us that we'd need to keep the stage volume down. There are only 2 monitors, one at each edge of the front of the stage. Our guitarist doesn't use an amp, and all 4 of us sing, so it was quite a challenge to get a sound. The engineer insisted our bassist turn down to almost zero, but then fed a load of bass through the stage monitors, making them work far too hard, and making it weird on stage with no low end. We play a lot of gigs, so we're used to compromise and the occasional sub-par PA, but this engineer was talking to us in a very patronising manner, as though it was our first gig. I'm sure he sensed the frustration as after our sound check he tried to win us round "That was amazing guys, is that song on spotify? I love it" etc. 🙄 The support bands turned up, and we start discussing kit share and stage space between ourselves, which is all pretty normal, but then the engineer started speaking to the whole room, over the PA. When he realised we were still talking to each other, he turned up, and literally said "lend me your ears for just a minute" in a tone that I can only describe as "caricature of bingo caller". He wanted to tell everyone the stage times, and the very strict load-out times. Obviously you'd usually get this info from the promoter/rep before hand, and maybe on the night too, but I've never had it announced at top volume over the PA by a sound engineer. It was all very bizarre Anyway, we trudged off through the rain to find a curry. We failed. I got some chips. I don't think I've ever been that grumpy getting on stage before, but as usual, the crowd cheered me right up. Ace gig, and by all accounts the sound was excellent, so I guess the engineer knew what he was doing (although our bassist turned up quite a lot, and I switched to my louder, un-damped snare drum). Nightmare load out through a wasted crowd but paid and home before 1AM

You did char the orange peel right?

I think you have to wait until after 5 or 6pm to park there? We've never had a ticket anyway

When we play in London we all go in one van, pay the congestion charge and any parking fees. We never seem to have a problem loading in, or finding somewhere nearby to park. It always seems fine to me!

Burslem is pretty much dead. I doubt this will do anything to help but but if it's going to attract Rayman all the way from Macclesfield you never know!

Yeh we definitely won some new fans. It would have made sense if we'd picked up another gig in London, which was on the cards, but didn't happen in the end

We drove from Stoke to Margate on Saturday. 5 hours with a couple of stops. Olby's Soul Cafe is a brilliant venue! Great PA and the engineer was brilliant too. Unfortunately the choice of some unknown band from Stoke to headline a night in Margate didn't work out so well. The old story of a local support band bringing most of the crowd, then taking them with them after the set. All that way, writing off two full days, to play to less than 50 people... still, at least we got paid and had a laugh

Duffy's bar in Leicester on Saturday night. It was rammed and super sweaty. I'd annoyed the sound engineer yet again! This time I moved the drum monitor before he'd arrived. It turned out this monitor was knackered, and rather than fix it, he'd found just the right angle to balance it on a bar stool and keep it working. It'd been working for months apparently! After the show I politely recommended that if he didn't want to fix it, he should put a "do not move" sign on it. Anyway, I played without a monitor and it sounded fine on stage. Great gig!

Yeh it was definitely a successful gig! This soundguy normally works at the other local venue, which was his excuse for all the problems, although both venues have the same desk... Anyway, issues with the bar and door staff mean that our fans would never go to this venue again (even longer story!), so it's not going to be an issue for us in the future

We played at The Sugarmill in Hanley (Stoke) on Saturday night. It's our first headline gig here and the local venue so it felt like there was a bit more pressure than usual, that plus the lack of gigs since November, and it would be my first time on BVs, all gave me some nerves When I arrived, I greeted the soundguy. We're on first name terms and I thought we were pretty friendly, but the first thing he said is "what ridiculous gear have you brought this time then?". I explained it's just my usual stuff but he seemed really annoyed for some reason. I set up the kit and the whole band were ready to go in 10 minutes as usual. Then the soundguy spent 30 minutes plugging everything in. While he was mic'ing the kit I showed him my nice new cymbal. He's a drummer so I thought he'd be interested. He said "oh, so that'll be dominating the whole room then!". I said "not really mate, it's the way you play them" to which he replied "Yeh, which is F&*KING LOUD!!!". I asked if he'd ever done the sound for us before, and he confirmed he hadn't, so he'd have absolutely no idea how loud I'm going to play my cymbals. I just let it go. So, all mic'd up, he tried to get sound. He had the main outs from his mixer routed to the centre vocal wedges. I explained that it all sounded weird and that my drums shouldn't be feeding back but he just cracked on, sweeping EQ on the drum mics for a solid 15 minutes. Bass was checked just fine, but guitars (just DI'd) sounded weird and kept feeding back. I asked him to turn the stage monitors off just to check there wasn't an issue, and this is when he finally figured out the mains were routed to the two centre wedges. Half an hour to who knows on the phone and he reckoned it was sorted, so we went back on to sound check. All fine except the lead singer can't hear himself. There's sound out of the centre wedges, but it's quiet and muffled. The soundguy told me I needed to play the drums quieter. I explained that it's never an issue and we play similar sized venues all the time. He finally came up to hear the vocal in the wedges and agreed it sounded wrong, and so after another long phone call figured out that he should have used a different cable for these wedges. FINALLY everything worked and we did our check in less than 10 minutes, but from setting up to completing sound check was pretty much 2 hours. After this check the soundguy approaches me to tell me that my bass drum is a nightmare. "oh, what's the problem?" I ask and he complains it has "no top end". I screwed up my face and said "we're not playing metal mate". Then I went home to change and try to forget the sound check The actual gig was awesome, loads of people in, loads of people singing along, an encore... just an awesome gig all round. A couple of my mates were there, and they said it sounded OK but that my vocal mic was muted! All that practise and all those nerves for nothing!

A wonderful session of lead vocals yesterday. This singer hates headphones and asked if there was a way to record without. Some engineers would refuse, others would try to set up a super accurate out of phase monitor system, I just handed him the SM7b, put my earplugs in, and turned the monitors up loud. He was nervous that it wouldn't work as he's never seen it done like this, but I know the guy, and he's LOUD, so when I played it back with the vocal solo'd, you can hardly hear the track at all, just his screaming voice! Ditching the headphones really loosened him up and we got some very "live" performances

Something about the smell of them makes me nauseous but I'd rather not impose my weirdness on clients... will do the "no hot food" thing though