Dumplins Live ska is a monthly night at the Fiddler’s Elbow close to Chalk Farm in Camden.
It is probably our favourite gig.
The crowd enjoy their ska, and are happy to hear rarities and new stuff as well as the old favourites. There is always great sound – both out front and on stage.
There’s no sense of their being a support and headliner – both bands get the same time and equal billing.
We were very happy to play there at the beginning of August (though holidays have intervened to stop a write-up until now).
Thanks to Michelle we have some great pictures from the night, some of which are below.
We thought that we were on particularly good form, and certainly got a great audience response. It was also good to share a bill with the Estimators , who love their traditional ska as much as we do.
This is what we played – the first time we have played Doctor Who live for a long time.
Holidays have intervened to delay a report of a great wedding gig that we played at the end of July in Birchington, near to Margate in Kent for Rebecca and Alex.
We played at the historic Quex House,which has lovely grounds. Best of all , there were fireworks during the break between our two sets.
We didn’t take any photos, but everyone seemed to have a good time.
This was one of the many recent gigs where we were lucky to have Rachel Musson guesting on saxophone, and also featured the mighty Joe Ospalla on drums.
Just after a week after our benefit at Northwick Park Hospital we were back in action for our first wedding gig of the year for Martin and Martha.
This was at the Blackheath Halls – a splendid if reverberant venue – and we had great sound provided.
This is what we played – the first time we’ve ever done Red, Red Wine.
First set
I’m in the Mood For Love
The Tide is High
Guns of Navarone
Chinatown
Latin Goes Ska
You’re Wondering Now
The Harder They Come
Alley Cat Ska
Mambo Number 5
Can’t Get You Out of my Head
Enola Gay
Red Red Wine
Price Tag
Tequila
Second set
James Bond
Johnny Too Bad
Misirlou
Pata Pata
Ten out of Ten
99 Red Balloons
Tainted Love
Rudy A Message To You
My Boy Lollipop
Monkey Man
Baggy Trousers
Israelites
Night Boat To Cairo
Gangsters
We were not able to grab many pictures when we were playing – though if any guests want to share we’d love to see them. But here are a few of the set-up and while we played..
We are playing at Northwick Park Hospital Social Club in North West London next Friday.
The funds raised by the modest £5 entry fee will help patients that are “locked in” or have little or no movement in their arms and legs. It will be spent on an ‘eyegaze’ communication tool. This allows them to communicate with eye movement as it tracks eye movement on to an alphabet sheet and ‘speaks’ the words for them. It also enables access to emails and the Internet.
Here’s a picture of one in use.
We will be playing two full sets with the first one at about 8:30 or so.
It’s near Northwick Park tube station.
Here is a map of the site (pdf), with the social club clearly marked towards the top of the map.
We have a free gig at the Cavendish Arms in Stockwell. It’s on Friday April 11th.
Our Facebook event is here – and you can see the other acts who are playing here.
The pub is easy to get there from either Vauxhall or Stockwell stations. The address is 128 Hartington Road, London SW8 2HJ.
We like the Cavendish Arms because it has a characterful music room with excellent sound and a proper stage. It is where we had our most recent official band photos done.
Here is the second product from our recent recording session Tainted Love.
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This is the one song that we attempted to video in the recording studio.
It is fair to say that we learnt from this that if you want a quality video you need someone else in charge of videoing. You can’t play instruments and video a recording session at the same time. It also needs a lot of time that we did not have as we were always clear that getting good recordings to showcase our playing and repertoire was the priority. And we think we have achieved that.
It is also not a good idea to think that you will get decent video without having at least some lighting when you are in a somewhat womb-like recording studio. You also need a very fast and powerful PC to edit so many tracks of video, otherwise you lose sync between the sound and picture when you edit.
It would perhaps be giving too much away to explain all the tricks we used to try to salvage the video, in addition to some miming after the recording session that we always knew that we would need. After all there is nothing wrong with a retro Top of the Pops vibe!
But while you can do that easily with vocals and the bass, it doesn’t work so well with drums where we had the worst camera failure in the studio. So the video concentrates more on the vocals and horns and rather neglects the rhythm section.
And while we planned to do it in black and white – to match our band photos – giving it a creamy film noir treatment has also helped hide some problems.
But having broken the cardinal rule of band PR to be always positive and upbeat, we think it’s come out OK.
After all the important thing is the music and we are very pleased with these recordings – the video is always a lower priority.
There are three tunes to come which we are busy mixing.
