They've gone their own way....

I spent the weekend just gone having the above words going round and round in my head. They are part of a sing called Love Pigeons which will be on the album. My good friend Ollie provided the vocals to me on Friday. He is currently travelling South East Asia and recorded the vocals whilst travelling (on his phone), he emailed them over to me and I have been cutting up 7 tracks of vocals and adding effects, moving bits around and making the song sound damn sexy!

When you make music you seem to spend a lot of time listening to tiny bits of the songs over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. In this case I was working on the last 40 seconds of the track in which Ollie sings 'They've gone their own way'.

I have tried as much as possible to not be there when people record the vocals for the songs. I love the idea of people recording them away from me and then putting the whole thing together. As I say, Ollies vocals were recorded in South East Asia. My friend Tim recorded his vocal track whilst in Spain and others have done the same.

The other good thing about working on Love Pigeons is that once this is finished it leaves me with just one final track to finish and then the album is done. I have (currently) spent just over a year on this album and even though I love it, I cant wait to finish it off and start work on LP2.

I have also been cunning in the way I made this album - the last track I have to finish is the last track on the album ..... so more on that soon!

x

All quiet on the pigeon front

It's been a little while since I last did a Blog. The reason for this is that it has been pretty quiet here at ATP HQ. The debut album is pretty much done. I just need to finish of two tracks and have been waiting to get the vocals for them. So once I have them I will do some magical tinkering and hopefully get the album mastered at the end of the year.

But in other news I have purchased an electric drum kit so will be spending a fair amount of time learning how to play drums and try to use this on the live shows and LP2.

Also dont forget I have a DJ Set in Brighton next Friday 28th November - I start at Midnight!

Demo Review - Rock Migets

I have been sending out a few of my demos to try and get some reviews in order to use them on my press release. Today whilst hunting the net I found my first proper review.

Now I must point out that this review is from a site called 'Rock Midgets' which mainly deals in only rock music. Ruth (the lady that runs the site) warned me of this before I sent the demo but I said I would like to see what the reviewers think anyway.

I have posted the review below.

I think its a fair review but still positive. The CD was listened to and reviewed by someone who likes Rock music and is not so keen on dance.

I will be sending out more demos over the next few months and hope to get one into MixMag via a contact I have made.

Its not often you'll find something championed by Radio 1's Rob Da Bank on these pages, but then music full of these kinds of blips, beats and breaks rarely involve guest appearances and samples from Frank Turner, Beans On Toast or Massive Attack vocalist Debbie Clare. The results of investigating this four track demo are positive; whilst this will not convert the many opposed to button-pushing music as opposed to acts using 'real' instrumentation, the home-made-sounding beats are appealing. Relaxed to the level of chill-out, the layers, skittering beats and radio-transmission samples of excellently titled 'Trouble On The Deathstar' will raise smiles though not the heart rate. The distant sounds of brass add interest to 'Wings Wings Beat'. But it's the odd beats of and haunting singing of Frank Turner that makes 'Larkin About' the highlight. This doesn't rock, but there's something engaging about these ever so slightly blissful tracks that make Amongst The Pigeons well worth keeping an eye on.

http://www.rockmidgets.com/releases.php?&id=3046

...and straight in at Number One!

In Brighton (the place I live) we have a magazine called Latest Homes. In this magazine they have all of the houses for sale and flats for rent. On the flip side there is another magazine called Latest 7 and a few months ago they started having a music chart for local bands. I uploaded one of my demos and not much happened until last week when upon looking in the said magazine I had reached the top of the charts.

Now this week I imagine I have slipped in the top 10 but wanted to get back up to the top again. So this is where you come in. At the bottom of this post I have put a link to my track on the latest 7 music chart and upon pressing play you can cast your vote.

I thank you in advance!

Click here to listen to Deep Housey and to Vote for me

(Re)Mixing It Up

By now I am sure you know that I make music. I put it under the general heading of dance music but I dont know if that is a fair description.

I also do remixes for other musicians. So far I have made two. Over time I want to make more as I really enjoy brakeing down all the parts and then putting them back together in an ATP style. It's like creating some kind of DNA monster. Adding bits, taking bits away, changing parts and generally trying to take the work of someone else and adding my style to it.

The first remix I did was for a band called Miss Pain, they are a Brighton band and I made a remix for one of their songs called 'Kiss, Cuddle, Torture.

Then last week I remixed a track called 'Negative Thinking' by a band called Largo.

I have also been asked to do remixes for some other local bands and will be working on these soon. In order to let people hear my remixes I have set up a myspace page with my ATPRMXs on. The link is at the bottom of this post.

The nice thing about doing these remixes is that it allows me to take a break from working on my own tracks. I can do something slightly different, yet similar at the same time.

Eventually I plan on releaseing these remixes as part of an EP or if I have enough maybe a full album. There is also a numbering system to the remixes I make. The first one was called ATPRMX001, the second one ATPRMX002. You get the idea. I like to keep things organised.

I will add blog posts as time goes on to let you know when new remixes appear. But for now check out the two currently online and if you are a band after a remix please do get in touch.

http://www.myspace.com/amongstthepigeonsremixes

A date for your Diary : 28.11.08

I was once someone else, I used to be a different type of musician. One that played guitar and sung folky songs. For now that's not me. For now I am Amongst The Pigeons.

Yes it is true that I used to write, record and gig under a different name and whilst doing so I released 9 ep/lps and played over 50 gigs.

I miss playing live and hope to get the Amongst The Pigeons live show ready for early 2009 to coincide with the LP coming out. So if you are a person that books gigs keep that in mind.

Alongside this however I can and do DJ. I have not done a DJ set for quite some time but have been asked to do one on Friday 28th November 2008 @ The Prince Albert pub in Brighton.

This will be the first ATP outing in quite sometime. I will be doing a mix of dance/easy listening and will most likely drop a few of my own tunes in too.

So ladies and gents get your dancing shoes on and come down. There will be more info coming in the next few weeks and the night looks really good - there will be other DJs and bands and I will hopefully be doing a live set there in Jan/Feb time!

I am excited to get getting out .... It's been too long. Way too long!

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