Thursday 29 March 2012

Easter Monday

Due to Heather changing job, Killing Amy won't be able to play at the New Quay Inn in Teignmouth on Easter Monday. Booooo! :-(

Monday 7 November 2011

This is All Getting a bit Spinal Tap...

Paul has decided that he can't commit to Killing Amy after all. He has lots of pressures on his time with work and family and just can't fit in enough practice time. Thanks for having a go Madge.

Tracy, who depped with us at Gig for Heroes, has accepted our invitation to take over. Yay!

I would like to point out that all of our former drummers are still alive and healthy(ish).

Tuesday 4 October 2011

Say Hello, Wave Goodbye

Matt has had various problems with his hand lately which drumming is aggravating so rehearsing frequently has been tough for him - as well as him having his own very busy business, a two year old and another band.

Something had to give so we're sad that Matt never got to gig with us but had an absolute blast playing with him over the last 18 months. A pleasure mate... and there'll be another time, one day.

Paul Bond (former Reoffenders drummer) joins us in his place. With the speed of his punk drumming, we may need a few more songs per gig!

Sunday 2 October 2011

Gig For Heroes

The day started quite early with only two hours between 10am and noon to setup before the football club prepare d for its main activity - a football match. We couldn't get back at the stage area until 6pm. So we went off and enjoyed a day in the sun and tried not to sit about just twiddly our thumbs.

When we got back in the evening, we soundchecked all of the bands as and when they arrived. The problem with soundchecking an empty room is that the acoustics change a lot when the place fills up, but it gives you a good starting point.

I was quite nervous beforehand so it was good to get on first.  I was struggling to hear the monitors a lot so couldn't really hear what I was doing, which meant I sang too hard, which meant I hurt my throat....argh! I had a whole stress thing going on about "would I be able to hit that note in that song". I shouldn't have worried (but I had first gig nerves) but it meant that by the time I got the toughies under my belt, I only had a couple left to relax into and enjoy properly. Ah well, there'll be more!

Tracy did a brilliant job and I still can't believe she'd only had 3 rehearsals!  It was a funny gig because out of the four bands, three were using a dep drummer! Tom White was standing in for both Trigger Happy and Hooked. He and Tracy had got their heads together and ordered DEP DRUMMER tshirts which looked great!  They both did brilliantly well standing in at such short notice.

I didn't get a proper chance to see what John and Manuel were up to during the gig but the photos afterwards show that John was managing some rock 'foot on monitor' poses. Considering he's only been playing bass for a year, I thought he did bloody brilliantly!

Rob did a sterling job on the mixing desk during our gig and then John took over on the desk when Hooked took to the stage. I took to the bar and it wasn't until afterwards that I realised I hadn't eaten that much and was a little too excitable. I may have got a bit squiffy!

Hooked had a couple of problems with the sound limiter going off, I suspect due to the extra bassiness of Rob's extra string, but once they got that sorted it was all good and they banged out lots of favourites.  Trigger Happy were there usual brilliant selves (ok ok, I admit it, they're my favourite Exeter band) and Take a Look Around still takes some beating, as did the Barracoodas rendition of Comfortably Numb.

All in all a top night, and £1118 raised for Help for Heroes.

Well done to John and Trigger for organising the event, to Chris and everyone at the Centre Spot for being so accommodating and to the rest of the bands for putting on such a good show!

Friday 23 September 2011

Preparations for the Big Day

We've been rehearsing the set for the Gig for Heroes for a few weeks now but a little spanner appeared in the works last week. Matt, our drummer, needs surgery on his nose - basically so he can breathe properly. Unfortunately, the surgery is happening 4 days before the gig.  We're really gutted but Matt won't be able to drum with us on our first gig! Otherwise his face might explode (which would make quite an impact on our first gig but not something we could necessarily pull off every time).

However, we are getting some help from an old friend. Tracy, former drummer with The REOFFENDERS, is stepping up to the drum stool for that gig. We had a run through on Wednesday and she was great so that little disaster has been averted.

Oh and the other big news.... I think there are maybe two tickets left for the gig (which will probably not last five minutes) and then we can officially declare this a sell out! There won't be any tickets available on the door, sorry.

Thursday 8 September 2011

First Gig on the Way

It's been a while since I've written... sorry 'bout that.

We have our first gig coming up which we're mighty excited about. It's the Gig For Heroes charity gig at Exeter City Football Club on 1st October.  There are four bands on the bill, ourselves, Hooked, Barracoodas and Trigger Happy - all awesome bands and all good friends of ours which should make for a bloody good night!

Members from each of the bands got together last night to discuss what gear we'd be using for PA, lights, etc. and we came to the conclusion: we really don't need to worry! We've all got lots of stuff! And we'll all need to stitch our name tags into the back of everything cos there's likely to be quite a mix up of microphones, leads, etc. (except Debbie from Hooked has very obviously clean, neat and tidy things apparently).  If we use all the lights at our disposal, we might have to kit the audience out with shades!

Over 150 tickets have been sold so far. They're available from any of the band members and from the football club. We do expect this gig to sell out so for anyone who's not able to get tickets in person, we've created a paypal page where you can reserve tickets for collection at the door. Tickets are £4 (plus 35p paypal charges because we want 100% of the money to go to the charity). You MUST bring your Paypal confirmation to the gig to collect your tickets.

Monday 2 May 2011

More New Songs

So far, we've learned 18 songs, although we think we've agreed to bin Smells Like Teen Spirit. Is that a mistake? I dunno, we watched Trigger Happy the other week and they ended with Teen Spirit and the world went nuts so maybe we shouldn't be too hasty.

We've also put together a list of new songs to learn, another 15 in total! Here's what's next on the hit list:

  • Lost Art of keeping a Secret - Queens of the Stoneage
  • Lithium - Nirvana
  • Bohemian Like You - Dandy Warhols
  • Peaches - Presidents of the USA
  • Minority - Green Day
  • The Captain - Biffy Clyro
  • All My Life - Foo Fighters
  • Smooth Criminal - Alien Ant Farm
  • Pretty Fly for a White Guy - Offspring
  • In Too Deep - Sum41
  • Boulevard of Broken Dreams - Green Day
  • Last Train Home - Lost Prophets
  • She - Green Day
  • Only Happy When it Rains - Garbage
  • I Write Sins Not Tragedies - Panic at the Disco!

I think this lot is probably a bit more mainstream than some of our earlier choices but still in the same ball park. Hopefully they'll all get to gig stage but there's some definite challenges in there...