First of all, we’re playing in Shoreditch tonight

On Friday the 10th of September, my new band will be performing a house gig which will be filmed for a DVD to be released in December. We’ve been working on the DVD for a few months now and just need some footage of my new venture. Were you at the massive party we had on the 13th of March? To remind those who did not come, I live in an old church in SE London. It’s a big space where I write my songs and rehearse with my bands. Back in March we organised a party with two other bands and we had about 100 people who turned up. It was one of our best gigs, it’s so cool to play at home and everyone seemed to enjoy a house party where you can bring your own drinks. Some tracks from that night will be featured on the DVD, if you were there you might want to buy it as you might see or hear yourself in it. I played with my original band, the one I recorded my debut album “there was a night before there was a day” with.

As the new band sounds completely different and we play brand new songs, I would like to film a couple of songs from our set for the DVD to give people an idea of the other things I’m involved in. So that performance will happen on the 10th of September and as it’s private gig, you should email me at info@jaremamusic if you want to be part of the audience or you can also let us know via facebook

There will be another band on, The Hopeless Sons fronted by my friend and guitarist (in the original band) Alex Gettinby.

Doors open at 8pm – Free entry – Bring your own drinks

Our next gig will be on the 5th of August with my new band at the underbelly in Hoxton Square. Email us for £6 guestlisthttp://www.jaremamusic.com/0508-10-15pm-london-hoxton/

Also I’m busy writing a 3-part story about the recording of our debut album “there was a night before there was a day”. It will be the story of my journey as an artist before/during/after the recording of the album. The first chapter called “I was a fat man” will be published on this blog within the next two weeks. It will be an honest account of my life before the recording of the album. Be prepared to be shocked, surprised and hopefully amused. More details soon.

Pictures by Rosa Adler

We made it on the cover of Altascope this month

The band Denounce look like a bunch of sissies, don’t they? We’re the real bad boys and if you want to see that for yourself, you should come to our gig this Sunday the 27th. It could be the last gig with the current line up. I’ve been playing with these guys for about a year. We got together for the recording of my debut album last year. I needed musicians to help me record my music and these guys really helped me out. But i feel like it’s time to move on to something else. I don’t know. We’ll see. I might change my mind but you never know. You wouldn’t want to miss our last show, would you?

Tomorrow Saturday I’ll be playing brand new songs with a brand new band. I still play with my fellow old codgers (Cristiano, Alex and Owen) and our next gig is planned for the 27th of June (we will be the featured act for the final of BandQuest-a “battle of the bands” kind of competition). This new line up is an experiment. At the moment it’s a trio (Christopher Reeves on bass and Sean McDaid on Drums). Hopefully it will somehow take the shape an indie-orchestra if it all goes according to plan. I just feel the need to have a new creative outlet for the songs I never get to play with the other band.

We only met about a week ago and we have spent every single day of this week rehearsing and putting songs together. These guys have a serious work ethic and i feel very privileged to be playing with them. Obviously what you will hear tomorrow is not a finished product but work in progress. So if you want to find out more about this new venture, come tomorrow to the East London University Graduation Party in the docklands area. Details in the gig tab.

Tonight, for the first time, we sold out all the CDs we’d brought to the gig. There weren’t hundreds of them but it means that the audience enjoyed what we did and there’s no greater feeling than that, is it? Cristiano (double bass) and I played in Lewisham tonight. Just a 15-minute walk from where I live with my housemate David. We met so many nice people, the gig was organised by John and Tony from Kinder Bruised Thanks to them for letting us play.

We sell Cds on a pay what you want basis at gigs -not having managed to get a distribution deal after recording the album- and it seems like people were in interested in hearing more from us. The songs played at the acoustic gigs are a bit different from the tracks on the CD on which feature a whole band but it gives a good idea of the music and the songwriting. Thanks to the person who instead of putting money in the collection box left a bit of weed, i’m sure it will come quite handy because after all this is my housemate’s “bachelor weekend”. His girlfriend is away for a few days, anything can happen.

We’re playing again in the West End tomorrow (Sunday) night and in Brixton on Tuesday. Catch up with you then?

You would be forgiven to think that this band is cursed. After Cristiano’s double bass being split in two after being shipped from Italy (see old post below) and Alex dropping and breaking his guitar while playing a gig with his other project the hopeless sons (by the way, this great moment was captured live on video, you can watch it here), i’ve managed to break my guitar too. I just leant it against a bloody pool table and it felt on the floor in a very bad way. I thought it was beyond repair, as you can see on the picture, it looks pretty bad.

But this week I went to see Mo Clifton, the luthier in Blackheath whom I mentioned in the blog before and who did a really good job repairing Cristiano’s double bass. He said he will probably be able to fix it so thanks to him i can look forward to playing again the guitar on which I wrote most of my songs. It’s very difficult not to have this guitar for a week (it’s my only acoustic guitar unfortunately). Instinctively I keep trying to go and pick it up to play a tune or something. At least five times a day. I can’t help it, my poor brain hasn’t yet recorded the fact the guitar is not there at the moment.

Two weeks ago we did more filming with Simon and his crew for the DVD we’re working on. We played all of our songs at home, in the old church, but this time without an audience. It sounds easy but i really felt under pressure at times. I was playing most of the opening song on my own and for some reasons I kept making stupid mistakes, just because I was being filmed. It’s really annoying because the more you have to do it again, the more and more difficult it gets. Now we’re supposed to film a few more songs just me and Cristiano on the double bass and do small interviews too. After that it’s just a case of putting everything together.

To finish I would like to say that lucky Cristiano has been busy touring the US with another band. It’s good, it’s session work. I don’t like dissing other people’s music but when they are knobheads on top of being shite, they deserve it but let’s face it, the music is pretty shit actually (nothing to do with Cristiano by the way) but i wouldn’t be surprised if they had some kind of success in the Italian-American niche market. Good luck to them but I want my bassist back!

It’s a very busy week for us. On Sunday night we’re filming more footage to include on the DVD. This time without an audience. This means a lot of rehearsals with the band. Cristiano and I are also busy putting together three brand new acoustic songs on the double bass as a bonus feature. These three new tracks are called Annie, Cannot/Could/Can and Feeding Pigs. This means even more rehearsals. On top of that, the usual blog/website updates, contacting the promoters, the songwriting… Exactly the life I had dreamed of: music-music-music. Isn’t it brilliant?

Also tonight Cristiano and I are playing at Biddle Bros in Hackney. We will be playing the three songs mentioned above, it still needs a bit more work but it’s good enough to be performed live. As there is a piano in the venue, I will also play two piano songs. I love performing new songs live for the first time and tonight is the night. I’m trying to improve the lyrics at the moment so we’re still in that confusing period when i have a tendency to mix everything up and make a mess of it all. Singing the old lyrics I’m used to then making up the end of the sentence with the new words. Because I’m foreign, people probably don’t understand me anyway…so it’s all cool…let me take this opportunity to apologise for being foreign by the way. I did not mean it.

If you haven’t joined our facebook page yet, it means you haven’t seen the pictures of our gig/house party on the 13th. They were taken by Kota Kakinuma from Polartone. I knew he was a brilliant guitarist but I did not know he was a really good photographer too. One of the pictures really catches the spirit of our band I think. It will be used as the cover for the DVD. I let you guess which one it is.

Tonight we had a gig in Brixton in a venue called the Dogstar. I was probably the only one in the band who had not been there before. We’re doing a lot of acoustic gigs at the moment and this was one of them. Alex on a freshly broken acoustic guitar (long story), Cristiano on double bass and me on acoustic guitar and vocals. The venue is beautiful, very dark with high ceilings and a big stage. Once again something special happened tonight. There were only about 10 people in the venue-all performers but one-and it felt so good to play for them.

Because of the fact there weren’t many people there I thought we might just play acoustic: no mics, no amps, no pa system. I had never done that in a venue in front of an audience before. I felt very confident on stage, hopefully not coming across too arrogant, just arrogant enough. I enjoyed myself so much. Another great gig in a completely different way. It was one of those gigs that make you jump on the piano, as soon as you come back home, to finish that song you were working on just before leaving for the venue . What an amazing feeling.

Iain, the promoter, is now going to run this event every first Tuesday of the month. If you want to perform there too or simply go and watch some cool acts, get in touch with him through his myspace. It is well worth it.

If you haven’t been recently spammed by us trying to promote our secret gig, it is probably because you haven’t joined our mailing list yet and maybe you should fill in the form in the right tab under the upcoming gigs listing to make sure you receive countless emails from us. Last night we had a secret gig/party in our rehearsal space. As it was a first we did not know what to expect. How many people would turn up? Would they behave themselves? Would the sound be good enough? I tend to get worried sometimes and always think of the worst case scenario. My housemate David and his girlfriend Faye (who kindly helped us organising the night) always laugh at me when i start talking about health and safety. What if someone falls off the roof? What if someone puts fire to the attic? What if someone goes to the kitchen, grabs a knife and stabs someone in the audience? You never know…no laughing matter, guys!

Oh yeah, so what about the actual gig? It turns out that the place was very busy and the guests seemed to enjoy themselves. The whole set was filmed by Simon and his crew. Simon has started a new production company and got together a team of people who recorded and filmed the performance and did the sound for the whole event. He is putting together a live DVD of us that we’re planning on selling on a “pay what you want” basis just like we are doing for our debut album at gigs. It is great to see that people buy our CD after watching us a play. Thank you to them and thank you to Simon and his crew for contributing to the success of the event.

Something very special happened last night. The chemistry between the band and the audience was right. We took risks by putting new things in the set but it seemed to work. We played new material and you are never sure of how people will react to it. We want to entertain because that’s the job we do and i think we did a decent job. People’s reaction to the music was uplifting and it really helped us getting into it and perform better. We got some really good comments after the show and particularly about a new track called “i wanted to be alone”. You have to come and watch us play to hear it because it is a brand new song not featuring on the album.

Thank you old and new friends for the love and see you again very soon