September 18th – delivery of a healthy ten-track album called “Rolling in the Trash.” Mother and baby are doing well. In fact baby is already making its own radio appearances and hanging out at Bandcamp and I-tunes. Mother is happily recovering from massive stress, sleepless nights, trying to create a series of 30-hour days, and wrestling with Logic Pro while not understanding the manual.
Big thanks to Rob Raw, my partner, who played bass, helped when I was in over my head and was not afraid to tell me if an idea wasn’t working.
Rob Raw at the helm
And to my musician friends who came by to help in my hour of need!
Tom Peterson on drums
And to two people who made it all possible. Me….
Cheers!
….And YOU. Thanks for reading this and listening to my sounds ! (no photo, use a mirror)
If reincarnation is true, can I come back as Viola Smith? She seems to be having more fun with two sticks than I’ve ever had with six strings
I actually learned drumming for three years
If I was married to a guitar, drums would be my bit on the side….no – that sounds kind of weird, let’s try again. Rehearsing with various bands during my long musical journey, there was always something highly seductive emanating from the unattended drum kit every time the drummer left the room. It would whisper “come on, hit me, you know you want to!” But I was scared of either being torn off a strip by its owner for unauthorised use, or of sounding like a grade A non-drumming idiot. Or both.
One day in ’98 the affable and tolerant Stef X, (who drummed for a couple of years with Joyryde) offered me his drumstool during a rehearsal break and I had a proper go. While I’d never played before, I had a thousand patterns stored from music I’d absorbed, and years of rhythm guitar-playing must have taught me something about timing. He was duly impressed by my not-too-badness on the first attempt. Soon the challenge of getting round a drumkit would become a welcome diversion from trying to be a rock’n’roll frontwoman (which then was more about hustling venues and labels than playing the goddamn songs)
By some God-must-have-planned-it coincidence, a work colleague was vacating his flat that week and couldn’t take his drumkit (which up to that point I’d never even known he possessed) A Hayman kick drum, snare, floor tom, two toms, a rickety hi-hat stand and a few cracked cymbals were mine for a mere 100 quid a few days later. My miniature drumming oddysey had begun…….watch this space, more to come!
The Red Beastie – in service today as a studio kit
Distinctive snaredrum
You can check out my songs (but not my drumming!) on BANDCAMP
Due to technology issues way too boring to go into here, I’ve moved my tumblr site to a different address – ie this one. Everything preceding this post is reblogged from the old site which will now only act as a dumb datasource
Between Rock and a Hard Place 