25/jul/15

Dave's 12 string guitar tuned to fifths has been brought back for our current live set. This has enabled us to resurrect some of our favourite songs... 'Rocket Ship', 'For All Time', 'Rock On The Beach' etc.
There is a quality about the huge quantity of open strings used in these 5th/12 string tunes that just doesn't come across on a 6 string no matter how faithful you try to be to the original idea. It has been working well at gigs and the 5th/12 string guitar has become an incredible accompanying instrument rather than a beast to be wrestled with!
A search on the internet produces hardly anyone who has thought of this or used the 5th/12 string tuning to show its potential, but if you want to try it, here's the info...
The main strings are in standard guitar tuning intervals but down a tone and a half, and what would be the octave strings are tuned a fifth above on all pairs.
Here they are with string gauges used:

Most strummed chords work and sound awesome, but if you take it further and finger-pick you can create some weird and wonderful tunes with a banjo like picking combination of fingers and thumb... an upstroke creating one note and a downstroke creating a different note on the same string, same fret.
A word of warning though... it has to be perfectly in tune!

2/jul/15

Here's something new for us that we've been experimenting with called a Porchboard. It produces a satisfying bass drum thump when you tap your foot on it. It's passive and has no noise, feedback or delay.
Dave has occasionally inadvertantly achieved a similar effect by wearing Doc Martens whilst performing on hollow stages, but without the sound quality and... (as he wasn't actually aware of it) clumping out of time. The rhythm section (Boo) has now commandeered it. Look out Dartford!

16/jun/15

Last Saturday we played at 'Live at the Tithe' which was a one day festival held in and around the Tithe Barn in Gt Coxwell, Oxfordshire.
The evening concert was held inside the stunning Tithe barn and was a joy to play.
As you can see, the lighting was exceptional, and the sound was equally brilliant.
Thanks to Jay, Ray, Derek and Chris who organized this event... and of course thanks to everyone who came... we had a great time... thanks!

(photo: David Garmont)

15/jun/15

A quick update about 'God Save Olive Cooke' (see 30/may)...

We had one of the best reviews we could hope for from Rhiannon Teeluck underneath the 'Olive Cooke' video on youtube: "Hi there, I am Olive Cooke's granddaughter and I just wanted to say thank you for writing such a lovely song about her. The family love it and keep humming it to ourselves, my nan would have LOVED it! Thank you so much xxx"
...and we were worried about upsetting them! Come on spread the word and buy the tune at https://itunes.apple.com/album/god-save-olive-cooke-single/id999293854?ls=1… to help raise money for the British Legion.

30/may/15

This song is a tribute to the poppy seller Olive Cooke who had dedicated her life to the British Legion.
At the age of 92 Mrs Cooke jumped to her death in the Avon Gorge, Bristol, reportedly after becoming stressed by endless cold calls and begging letters.
Her family have insisted that the charities were not to blame for Olive's death and said the pensioner would have wanted charity work to be 'promoted'.
This song was written and recorded a while ago for our forthcoming album but the lady's name in the song was changed more recently as it seemed to reflect Mrs Cooke's story.
We hope this might raise some money for the cause she cared so much about so - click here to find "God Save Olive Cooke" on itunes for 99p - any money we receive from this song will go to the British Legion. Please share this video by using this link https://youtu.be/f7mX3qfqzK0
Thanks!

25/may/15

We've been getting our publicity department up to date!
Anyone wanting posters or photos can now get downloads of some really excellent studio shots taken just last month by Liz Simcock.
Click on the picture or go to our publicity page if you want to have a better look.

(pic: Liz Simcock)

15/apr/15

Boo takes one final photo of the day at the Ally Pally watering hole after the shoot... Goran, Paul, Dave and Liz Simcock, who took so many excellent pictures (over 400 of them!) that we're now faced with the problem of choosing which ones to use.

6/apr/15

No chicks onstage last night (see below), but there was a knitted dog!..
Thanks to everyone who came to Hitchin last night. A great turnout for us and Liz Simcock with whom we played as a band for almost the last time before pursuing our own projects.
Liz was on top form and we wish her all the best for her tour with Clive Gregson later in the year.
We shall be back next Easter at Hitchin with Liz - though who knows what format it will take!
In the meantime we shall be concentrating on finishing our current album 'Back To Default' with a photo and video shoot planned in a couple of weeks time.

25/mar/15

Our new album has been delayed slightly as we're experimenting with 2 extra songs.
One is a resurrection of one of Dave's songs from the 70's called 'Reasons For The Rhymes' which was brought to his attention by an old DE fan who says he has been playing it for the last 30+ years (poor guy!) It has now been reworked and rewritten but not yet recorded.
The other is a blues called 'Nothing In Between' which we are revamping as an acoustic blues as opposed to the wild thrash it used to be in our band days.
This continues our tradition of pillaging our past repertoire for our CDs. All the other songs for the album (listed below on 7/feb/15) are original and written over the last couple of years.
You may be wondering what this Magritte painting has to do with the album... well, the CD will be called 'Back To Default' and we are going to try and recreate this picture for the cover with a bit of Dave and Boo photoshopping. The bowler has already been found!

13/mar/15

Really looking forward to playing tonight at Watford Folk Club (see gig page for details).
Here's a little video we've just put together of the kind of thing you might expect later if you're in the area. It's a gig condensed down to 5 minutes...

26/feb/15

It was a lovely night down in Arundel last night at the Willows FC. Thanks to Trish and all the regulars. Can't believe it's 15 years since we were last down there... but it was good to be back and we had a great time.
We did miss Chris's presenting skills as he was ill and couldn't make it, but get well soon Chris and hopefully we'll see you next time.

7/feb/15

We now have a complete or almost complete running order for our new CD. We have been working on it over the last couple of years and we're very excited with the way this most recent crop of songs has taken shape. Can't wait for you to hear it! It should be available in a couple of months...

We Go Round
Remembrance Day
Home Again
I Know
Facebook Friend
Who Will Tie
Back To Default
Victor Coyle
Two Left Feet
Shelter
Always Will

We have been doing most of these titles live for some time, so we hope there's a song or two there that you might have been waiting for!

6/feb/15

We've been very busy recording our new album with the latest and possibly the last song 'Home Again' being recorded over this last week. It's a real Dave and Boo collaboration and has taken months to get into this form. We've had a lot of fun recording it though despite disagreeing about almost everything!

12/jan/15

It was a real joy to play at Readifolk last night. A more attentive and responsive audience you couldn't wish for! Thanks to Una and Colin and everyone at the club.
We haven't done a gig since before Christmas and we really enjoyed playing through our new amps which replaced our old Fenders (pictured below). If you play live acoustic music using amps, do check out ACUS amplifiers... they make your beautiful guitar sound like a beautiful guitar and not like a pickup!
We had lots of new songs to try out and we have now nearly finished our new album which should be out sometime in the Spring.

1/jan/15

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