Bebo

Daniel Ward-Murphy <danielwardmurphy>

	The Effort, The Frustration, The Video and The Sidelines	263 Tage her
	I’m currently sitting on a train with snow covered fields all around me, listening to Ray Lamontagne’s excellent Till The Sun Turns Black album. I am on my way back to London and I get in 11 minutes before I have an interview for an online music site. The guy has asked me if I can kind of review my own album (hmmm track 1 brilliant, track 2 brilliant, track 3 brilliant...) so I am re-thinking about the songs that have become very well known to me. It is something I find myself doing a bit these days when I am on the way to gigs as I never want to appear to be going through the motions when I am performing them. I had a secret showcase last night at the 12 Bar. It was rearranged gig after the evil snow god sabotaged the one that was supposed to be 7 days earlier and a tiny crowd as I couldn’t promote it with my Borderline gig coming up on Friday. It was rescheduled so that a few industry people could see me play and hopefully some good will come of the good reaction on the night. It was a good gig with Pravin playing Cajon instead of drums and my voice felt nice and free from tiredness or viral attack! After this interview I just need to get back to my house and, besides rehearsing two songs in preparation for my gig on Friday, I have a free evening! I may go to the gym actually as I have just joined one I can’t really afford and I have just succumbed to one of the flapjacks that keep getting wheeled past me. Grrr evil metal wheeling food machine – nice flapjack though –just don’t come back three more times or I may crack again. I always thought ‘Donkey Oaty’ would be a good name for a flapjack..... (get it?...good yeah? No? Ahhh whatever) ------- I have done the interview now – really nice guy – I didn’t really have to review the album much but he enjoyed the 12 Bar gig and he loves the album so I don’t have to worry about him stitching me up! Anyway, tube then gym now... ------- The Borderline gig comes and goes – a fantastic crowd turned up for us and the gig itself was great but 10 minutes after our departure our loyal following are treated to 2 heavy rock acts - which kinda kills the mood a bit in there. It was great to be back on the Borderline stage – several of my musical heroes have played there – Counting Crows, The Stones, Nerina Pallot plus people like Blur, Oasis, and Kravitz. I enjoy a few post-gig drinks but I have stupidly agreed to play football the next day - ouch. One of my believers from the Netherlands has combined a trip to London with attending the gig but he only introduces himself as I am leaving the venue. He doesn’t mind that I haven’t had time to chat much but I am anxious I don’t appear ungrateful for his fantastic support. I feel like I have bitten off more than I can chew right now as straight after a 2-gig week I need to do much more organising and shot-writing for my video to be filmed in a few days time. The make-up artist drops out and one of the three models drop out – luckily they both suggest good replacements – but there are so many things to organise....insurance....tapes.....food  /drink.....checking all the models and dancers know when to arrive and what to bring.....oh and write some of the shots so we know what we are filming. Arrrrrrrrrrrgggghhh.... ------- It’s now 11.09pm on Sunday 22nd February. I open my front door and almost collapse in the hall. I left the house at 9.10am carrying a massive rucksack that is 2/3rds the size of me. The whole day has been like the last 30 minutes of an exam but the people on the shoot were great – the crew, all 3 models and all 3 male dancers were patient and talented, and Pravin, Milo and Jennifer were on great form. We struggled a bit for time and some were suggesting the shoot should run into a second day but that would be a £700 decision, create a logistic nightmare and muck up the timing of getting the complete video – so we pushed on and hopefully got what we need. We have definitely got some great moments in there... I felt a bit punch-drunk the next day but it was nice to get messages from crew, dancers and models (hey it’s always nice to get messages from models) saying how much they enjoyed the whole day. ------- The next few days I can honestly say have been tough. I have been working hard on my day job and then trying to organise rehearsals, handing over the tapes from the ‘making of’, getting subscriber mails/messages from different profiles out to people to let them know about what is coming up and re-building the background/look of my MySpace profile (which one day just disappeared!? Did the company I used just succumb to the credit crunch?). In the middle of this period I met Adam Sieff from Sellaband for a pizza, a catch-up and a chat. It is always good to come into contact with Adam’s positivity and he always talks about and gives feedback on my actual music rather than all the other stuff. There are lots of things to get frustrated and angry about if you let yourself but keeping the whole thing afloat has to be the priority for me. I have been thinking a lot about the next musical stage for me. I have new songs of various stages of completion, I want to take the live show onto the next level but the tasks and frustrations above combined with 4 band members who all have other commitments makes this a hard task. When I checked my e-mails this morning I saw a message which means I have to cancel a rehearsal and try and slot one in the next day (but I don’t know if they have a space and one band member can’t get there until 1 ½ hours in – so it will be a long one if we have one at all!) Writing this blog has been quite easy and therapeutic really as I have done it in a few chunks, listened to good music while I have done it and just tapped away. The down side is that your tone is polluted by your troubles! I also decided in the week that even though I haven’t got much time, I am going to try and find time to do my portrait photography a bit more seriously and a few more simple landscape paintings. The photography is something I really enjoy and the beauty is that I can do it on my own terms and whilst it won’t make me money it won’t cost me much either! That seems like a result compared with my music costs...! I am going to concentrate on shooting up and coming bands, artists, models and maybe actresses, but if I don’t think they are good enough, pretty enough, talented enough or simply annoy me once I won’t work with them... – maybe it is just a position of choice I am craving! ------ So anyway, I only have about 5 stops left of this tube journey so before I sign off I will share with you what I am listening to at the moment. Some of you actively hunt out these songs and enjoy this part so I have carried on doing it. I also get to write two words with no space in between and a couple of random capital letters – so here goes... DWM SongPoint Diamonds & Rust – Joan Baez Fountain of Sorrow – Joan Baez Fountain of Sorrow – Jackson Browne A Falling Through – Ray Lamontagne The Entertainer – Billy Joel If you don’t know any of them the look ‘em up – they are all great and kind of relaxing in their own way! That’s all for now folks and thank you for reading... DWM
	geschrieben von Daniel Ward-Murphy