Introducing Nick Griffiths

A few months back I got an email from Pete Jones at Radio Reverb in Brighton saying that someone had emailed him trying to get in contact with me. He asked if it was ok to send them my email address. I said Yes.

Some days later I received an email from a lady called Sinead who said that the weekend before she and her husband had been in Brighton and whilst driving home caught one of my tracks on the radio. She said that her husband commented on the track saying 'i like that, we must remember the artist' and then he forgot my name. She knew it has something to do with Piegons and eventually she found me.

She told me it was his birthday coming up and asked if she could buy some of my music, I told her that I have yet to finish the debut album but that I would happily make him a special one off cd with some of my demos - a kind of work in progress.

So I made a little cd and sent it off. She in turn wanted to send me a thank you present and one day I got a book in the post. It was the first novel by her husband; Nick Griffiths entitled ' In the footsteps of Harrison Dextrose'.

I took this book on holiday with me this summer and truely loved it. It was really funny, very surreal and just amazing.

Since then I have been in touch with Nick a few times and it would be fair to say that he is a big Dr Who fan. He has already written one book (Dalek I loved you) about the Dr and has a new book coming out soon called 'Who goes there'. I sent him an early demo of one of my new songs as it has some Dr Who samples going on and he liked it so much he wrote a blog about me.

So I am using this post to tell more people about Nick and his writing. Please do go and check out his website and buy, steal, borrow his books as they are great.

Nicks Website can be found here!

Inspiration Comes From

At the weekend I got the new album by The Streets entitled 'everything is borrowed'. I have been listening to it a lot today and really like it.

I first took note of the The Streets when they released 'has it come to this' and later the album 'original priate material'. This was quite a few years ago and for a long time I love that album. The idea that one guy had pretty much made such an amazing album on this computer by himself was an inspiration. I think The Streets are one of those bands you either get or you don't. I do.

Mike Skinner is an amazing poet and the first two album are filled with some really great gems. I did not buy the third album as what I had heard of it was shit and many people I knew disproved of it. That said you should never listen to your friends, journalists or anyone with music - make up your own mind.

So now Mike Skinner has just put out the 4th Streets album and its quite different from the first two as its made up of songs played by a live session band. From what I gather Mike said 'I want you guys to make a sound like this' and they did. It sounds cool hearing The Streets in this way as it gives is a more wholesome feel.

I saw The Streets like a month or so ago on Brighton beach with this new backing band and even the older songs sounded so much better. Part of me wishes that they would release a live album, but I don't think they ever sound as good on record.

My point of all this?

Well, at the moment Amongst The Pigeons is me making music on my laptop and eventually I would like to be able to both play it live and record new songs with a real band of musicians. For me this seems a long way off but it is a dream, a hope I have that one day I can do it.

If you have not listened to it yet check out the new The Streets album.

Don't blow your cover

This week I have been working up in London at Waterloo. This involved getting up extra early and sitting on the train for hours everyday. Although this can be quite boring I used the time to work on Music To Brush Your Teeth To.

I am pleased to say that now 16 of the 18 tracks are finished. The two that need work on are ones which other people are providing guest vocals for. So I have to wait for them to free up some time and come back from other lands to finish these.

This week I also spent some time working on the artwork for the album and I am pleased to say I have finished the cover and cd face. I was going to post a preview of them on here but think I will wait until nearer the actual release which now looks like it will be early 2009.

It will be mixed and mastered at the end of the year and all in all I am so excited about getting it out there.

Ok ... that's all really for now. I have loads I want to say but don't want to bore you.

Amongst The Visions

For quite a while I have wanted to make some music videos for my songs and last night I finally got round to doing the first one. It is for a track called Trouble on the Deathstar which will be track 4 on Music to Brush Your Teeth To.

At the moment I think my debut LP MTBYTT will not be released until 2009. I only have about 3 songs to finish, (the album has got 18 tracks on it) and once they are done I would like to give a few copies of the album to my close friends to listen to. I wont listen to it for a month and then revisit it to make sure the songs sound as good as they can be.

Whilst in bed last night I thought I may one day explain a bit about each of the 18 songs in the form of blogs, maybe I will do that during the winter months.

Anyway more on MTBYTT at a later date - for now its all about this video which, is the first of 18 I intend to make - one for each track on the album.

People who know me (yes some people do) will know that I am a Massive Star Wars fan and this track is a kind of tribute to that fact. I dont want to write too much about the track as I will do that during the 'track blogs' later in the year. The video basically features footage borrowed from Episode IV A New Hope and focuses on the destruction of Alderan and then the destruction of the DeathStar V1.

I quite like the way you see the Deathstars power and potential in the destruction of a whole planet, and then its weakness via an isolation duct, I mean come on. If you were building the Deathstar you would make sure it had no weaknesses, let alone one that was so easy to attack.

I digress .... as I so often do.

Here is the video (embedded from my youtube site) and I hope you like it

Who Am I?

Hello Blog Lovers

I was looking around the vast seas of the internet earlier trying to see where I am on Google listings and I came across a Blog by a lady who likes cats and is called Fabpanted Emily. The reason I am writing about this is that she has actually written a post about me, as in Amongst The Pigeons.

I feel rather flattered that someone has taken the time to write about me in a most positive manner. I think the main jist of the post was to hazard a guess at my identity.

It is true that the internet has come up with a few random suggestions such as Moby, Mylo and even Britney Spears. All of which are flattering but far from the truth.

I have posted Emily Fabpants blog link below, so please go and have a look for a more detailed version of her writing. I myself may comment on the post.

But as for who I really am ... well that can wait.

http://emilyfabpants.blogspot.com/2008/05/whos-amongst-pigeons.html

Pigeon Watch 01 : Who let the bird in?

As part of this blog I plan on having a kind of 'Pigeon Watch' thing going on where I will add posts about pigeon related matters in Brighton, Uk and beyond.

This may include photos, stories and silly little things like the text below. You see I work in an office during the day so that I can afford to live as my musical career is yet to take off (as in fly - bird - pigeon) and last weekend someone left a window open in the gents toilets so today this appeared in my inbox from the boss:

All

Please do not open the window in the Gents, it was opened and left open last weekend an a pigeon got in and crapped everywhere.

This is a health hazard and also a potential security threat (not the pigeon - but the wide open window).

I suggest that if you need to increase the ventialtion (for obvious reasons) then you switch on the lights which will activate the extract fan.

Thank-you

It made me smile. I did not leave the window open but do often hear the pigeons outside. There will be more Pigeon Watch blogs over time.

My press [re] lease

Hi again, its me ... I thought I would post my current press release below in case anyone would like to know more about me, what I do, why and how I do it.


CAT got your ear?..

Based in Brighton, Amongst the Pigeons is a place inhabited by soaring loops and the beating of electronic wings. Discovered in early 2005 via the talk-speak places internet people huddle, ATP grew forth.

Radio One’s Rob Da Bank was quick to champion tracks (Firefly and the classic la la la la la laa song) from seminal EP release, ‘wings wings: beat’, which also slunk their way onto XFM, Juice, WCRfm, and Radio Reverb.

Contrary to the posters that have appeared on Brighton streets, CAT was not lost - just hiding, honing, purrfecting…

DJ slots and remixes for upwardly mobile Brighton musical outfits - Miss Pain, Largo & End of Level Baddie - have provided whisker fuelled entertainment since 2006, as has extensive beat-mongering in aid of ATP’s first full length LP.

‘Music to brush your teeth to’ (completed summer 2008) features 18 tracks of blips, beats, samples and some rather special guests, such as Frank Turner, Beans on Toast and Massive Attack vocalist, Debbie Clare.

With samplers being played out to general satisfaction on XFM, Radio 6 Music and Mary Anne Hobbs’s experimental show and a tour being lined up for early 2009, CAT is currently seeking a label to release this new LP into the wild…

Flutter, flutter, miaow, miaow..

First Up

Hello

This is all a bit new to me, I have been locked away in a studio for years making my debut album 'music to brush your teeth to' and someone said to me 'hey cat (thats me!), you should start a blog and let people know what you are up to'.

I told them that I did already have a blog on myspace but they said being as I have just got a new domain (web) and that I will soon be making a proper website I should include this on there.

So I thought to myself, why the hell not?

For those of you that dont know me I will do some more posts over the next few days, weeks, months and even years that will help you to know me better. But all you need to know for now is that I am someone that makes music, dance music and I do that in Brighton.

The myspace listed above has my demos on and if you like them you can go to www.amongstthepigeons.info and download them from there, for free!

Also if you do like them please tell your friends and get them to listen and download, if you know people in the music industry send them my way as I am looking for gigs and labels to help me release my debut lp.

Anyway I have a day job and I should probably get back to that. More from me later.

Cat x