Week 126: Venues & Gigs

Hi Music Lovers!

It's been a busy month. I've moved to an ideal location next to the Arc De Triumph in Barcelona. I've got two gigs booked, one for April 18th and the other for May 4th. I will be preparing an acoustic set for both gigs.

Concerts

Sell music on Amazon at ReverbNation.com

Covers Band Project at BAMM

The covers band is developing well and we now have 9 songs under our belt. Here's the selection of alternative songs for female vocals too, so we should have a full set ready soon.

Original Playlist covers that we are attempting

Social night at Sala Monasterio.

Thursday nights is free Blues Jam Session from 11pm till about 2am! Narani our vocalist from the BAMM Pop/Rock Coversband had just graduated in Mathematics and it was a good excuse for a party.

We caught up with Larry Smith who played a set of rocking songs. Some old friends, new ones and a great friendly atmosphere.

Checkout Larry's awesome guitar playing in this slideshow

Spring is here and we're planning to do some acoustic rehearsals in the Citudella park.

Have a great Easter holiday and looking forward to playing live for you from April!

Zack aka RedEyeZack

Week 125: Finding Local Musicians

Hi Guys!

I recently met up with Alexis (who I've been trying to meet up with since Xmas). He's outside Barcelona. He's been playing lead guitar in various bands for five years. I'm going to check them out soon. He was kind enough to come into Barcelona to meet me. Later Tatiana joined us. 

Last July Tatiana and her colleagues from Lampli organized a music festival called Petit Burg Festival ( a small format, I was there for the weekend and it was great, located in a lovely place up in the Pyrenees mountains, in Burg Village, they combined music with theatre, workshops etc..it had great local success) . I had seen a few videos of artists called ANÍMIC filmed performing on a bridge in the countryside. She also writes a blog about music, so it will be interesting to exchange ideas.

My blog has just had its most successful post 'technology as an accelerator'. With over 750 views, it's also pulling up another blog about looking for small venues. Traffic has increased 10x since I started in Sept 2012. I'd like to embed the blog on my own website- www.Redeyezack.com to get music lovers to explore the songs on the site and get involved in the Barcelona community scene. It's a bit tricky and I'll have to look into RSS feeds.

POOL - EP Release Party!

It's important to support musicians you know that have a similar passion for music as you do. And it's interesting to know local bands who are active and releasing material. So, then at 10pm I headed off to continental and met Gille's band POOL on a street corner giving out last minute flyers! Well done guys... 5 euros to enter on a Saturday night, a drink or beer around 3.50e and 6e for a spirit drink. Lighting of the bar was cool, just great for low light colour photos. I loved the luminous paintings of cool celebs.

POOL played 2 songs before starting my favourite 3rd track with the funky electric guitar part played by Gilles on Piano-synth. It was a bit  chilli peppers- give it away/pearl jam-alive/lenny kravitz  with
guitar riff played on keys... Awesome and got the crowd going!

Checkout Claudia's sultry vocals on Pool's song 'Crazy' in this video slideshow.
POOL are:
Claudia Steccato - voice
Gilles Estoppey - piano / rhodes
Pau Sala - electric bass

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Week 124: Content Is King & Making Easy Slideshows

Hi Music Lovers!

Well it's been a difficult week with the change of climate and my allergic reaction to the change of season which became a cold, as well as having to visit the dentist twice this last month. Thank you 'Paracetamol & Antihistamine'. As my doctor in Istanbul once said, "If you don't take medication, your flu will last a week... If you take medication it will last 7 days...! But taking it will help you tolerate and work better". Thanks Dr.Birgul!

On the work front, things have been slow but I feel positive opportunities around the corner. I've spent the time resting and studying, preparing a blog and new English courses for the spring and getting ready to take my students to Brighton this summer for English courses.

On the music front, I've made some slideshows for two songs that are not very visible on my website: Sofia's Song and Living a Lie... I'm posting them here for you to get a good look and listen. It's important to create content to give more exposure to songs with visuals. Mainly due to the growing influence of YouTube for discovering new music.

I've also added individual pages that allow you to 'rate this song'. You can also see the Stats of how others rated the song from 5 (I love it!) to 1 (Poor).

I'm looking into 'screen capture' software so I can show you exactly how to make the slideshows in a DIY training video (coming soon). Making slideshows is an easier way of getting a video of a song up on YouTube without the production expense of making a video clip. In future I may have a go at a storyboard of photographic stills using models/props/lighting effects etc... Any of you that would like to collaborate, please send me a email at zackqureshi@gmail.com

It finally took me about 20 minutes to put a slideshow together. The first time I remember it was 2 hours or so! Once you learn the software you intuitively know it's possible to cut and paste repeated actions. So I learned that I could 'highlight/select' all my photos and add an 'effect' to them as a 'batch' and do the same for 'transitions'. The effect I generally use is 'Ease In' It creates a gentle zooming-in effect. The transition I most commonly use is 'Fade' because it is possibly the smoothest transition between photos. There is also an automatic slideshow generator that adds effects and transitions but I will reserve that for more energetic up-tempo songs.

All the slideshows here were made using 'Microsoft movie maker', so when you're happy with your slideshow, just click 'publish' and wait for it to convert the format and generate a version compatible for the web. Then 'upload' to YouTube.

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Week 123: Covers Progress

Hi Guys!

I was at the Nike FlyKnit product launch this week. It was a beautiful structure and a great piece of engineering. Looks like a great place for a private party. I gonna get me one for my garden! Very interesting promotion, great branding and lots of money to do things properly :)!

It was a productive week for the Pop/Rock CoversBand Project

Songs Practiced:

One Key: C (Original)

Wonderful Life: (Original Em), key Gm (Play Em on 3rd fret)

Mad World: (Original Fm), key of Gm (Play Em on 3rd fret)

Light my fire: In original Key of Am.

We arrived at El Patio Studio at 9.15pm. It was the first time I had seen Luis and we went down to the basement. There were 2 small rooms, a medium sized room and a larger room with a sofa.

The studio was well equipped with amps, cables, mics and mixer.

We set up the mics and positioned the instruments in a circle. By 9.30pm the others were arriving and we began with our first song- One by U2. We played round and round with chords to the verse, Am D F G for 10-15 minutes taking it in turns to enter. I started with the acoustic guitar for 4 bars, then Sheera entered with Ukulele, 4 bars later Luis started with Clean Electric guitar. Then Gustavo came in on the drums, Dom added more rhythm on acoustic guitar 2, Carolyn created bass notes on her trombone, Miquel entered with Acoustic guitar 3 and finally Narani began with the first verse.

We then worked on the chorus C Am F C & finally put the whole song together. It was great because everyone was listening to each other and playing steadily.

2 hours went really quickly and we also did; Light my fire (the doors), Mad World ( Tears for fears), Wonderful Life (Black).

We shared the cost of the large room which was 17e/hour, so it worked out about 3euros each. Much better than going to play in the music bar, cheaper and more productive. We are planning to put a set of 15 songs together then start looking for small venues to make some fun gigs. Great way to join in, sing in English and learn words to great songs.

We look forward to seeing you at our first concert!

Zack & Members of Pop/Rock Coversband at BAMM

Miquel - piano/guitar

Narani - vox

Gustavo - drums

Luis - Electric gtr w/effects

Dom - Rhythmn Gtr

Carolyn - Trombone

Sheera - Ukulele

Tony - Guitar/Vox

Manel M - Acoustic Guitar 2

Guests Singers: Ester Galeote & Elena Mendez  Jose Galeote

Other songs: (Click o song for YouTube video link)

Wicked game (Chris Isaak)

1. Mad World Tears for fears

2. My Immortal Evanescence

3. One U2

4. Stand By Me Ben E. King

5. Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay Otis Redding

6. Wish You Were Here Pink Floyd

7. Wonderful Life Black

8. Wonderwall Oasis

9. Light My Fire The Doors

10. Another Brick in a Wall Pt2 Pink Floyd

11. Hey Jude The Beatles

12. Fields of Gold Sting

13. California Dreaming

14. Angie

15. Mrs. Robinson/ The sound of silence

16. Every Breath You Take Sting

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Week 122: Setting up a Pop/Rock Coversband at BAMM II

Hi Music Lovers!

We had a fantastic evening of live music at El Nostre Raco, (C/ Boria 22, Barcelona, ES) the other week! There was a surprise in store for us too... It made the evening an experience & surprisingly more interesting as well.

Making A Pop/Rock Covers Band

We were about 12 people, 6 musicians and 6 listeners who doubled as our audience & singers. They helped us to select 15 songs from a list of around 50.

We separated into 2 groups. Musicians and audience. We made 2 seperate

lists and then compared them.

Here are the songs the musicians collectively selected: (Click on song for YouTube link)

Another Brick in a Wall Pt2 Pink Floyd

Light My Fire The Doors

Mad World Tears for fears

One U2

Stand By Me Ben E. King

Wonderful Life Black

Wonderwall Oasis

So we started by giving a preview of some of the songs by singing

them. After about 3 songs, a party of about 15-20 people arrived with

5 or 6 classical guitars!

They were a flamenco group called Tuna! Apparently it was their 20

year anniversary party of when they first started the group when they

were jamming  in El Nostre Raco.

They were very loud so we couldn't hear ourselves play. We quickly

selected the next song and began as soon as they had finished. Then

when we finished, they began... It was very funny and like a battle of

the bands! They joined in with our songs and we joined in with theirs.

People have been playing at el Nostre Raco for 37 years.

Related article: Week 118: Setting up a Covers Band

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