The Dawn Chorus / The Retrospective Soundtrack Players - Blogging all over the World

My name is Kyle. I am a happily failing indie/punk/folk/country/rock musician from Hampshire, UK. I have been singing and songwriting in The Dawn Chorus since 2005, and The Retrospective Soundtrack Players since 2010. I love these two bands like my brother/wife rolled into one. This blog details the shows I have played with both bands, in chronological order.

Friday, May 26, 2006

 

XXIV - Gosport Sidewalk Club - 25/05/06

Gosport Sidewalk Club
Thursday 26th May 2006

The Dawn Chorus
Moses
Echobeat
Ashford
Momentum

We got through, yay!

Sunday, May 21, 2006

 

XXIII - Bournemouth Opera House - 20/05/06

Bournemouth Opera House (upstairs)
Saturday 20th May 2006

Rushing with Apathy
The Dawn Chorus
Open Room
The Waves
Adam Boucher

Bullet points again i think, for variety's sake if no other reason.....


 

XXI - Portsmouth Drift Bar & XXII - Exposure botb final @ South Parade Pier - 18/05/06

Portsmouth Drift Bar
Thursday 18th May 2006

Deville
The AKA Bans
The Dawn Chorus
Rossco

followed by....

Exposure botb final @ South Parade Pier, Southsea
Thursday 18th May 2006

The Plymouths
The Dawn Chorus
Wiservice
Kid Idiot

As Sean Bateman would say in Rules of Attraction, 'Rock'n'Roll'. Actually, 'Rock 'n' Roll is also the catchphrase of that bristolian Comedian who looks like a lion, Justin something. Irrelevant. So we did 2 gigs in one night, and averaged 0.5 supporters per gig (cheers Clewee). Left for the Drift Bar at about 6, but I got stroppy because I forgot to change my strings after snapping one at the Joiners, and then when I remembered I broke one of the plastic pegs. Then I had to change the strings on the motorway in Neil's car and made myself feel sick. Was considering making myself hurl in the toilets but had a walk in the rain instead which kind of did the trick. The Drift was a bit empty due to The Thursday Thing, the Exposure botb (more of which later), and the new Big Brother. So Rossco went on first and charmed the crowd as usual - but what's a Wonderwall anyway? Just kidding, if I could wail 'Don't let me down' like that i'd be dead chuffed. We did a swift half hour of mostly the more downbeat stuff, and then hot-footed it over to the Pier.

Although there was of course no need to rush since the Pier thing was running a little behind schedule. The place was empty again - we can't really complain as we didn't bring any fans - but as Neil rightly pointed out, the place had the atmosphere of a Goat. Or a Goat's cunt, I don't remember his exact words. As far as dead certs go, Wiservice winning was somewhere up there with Arsenal chucking away the European Cup final, ie more than quite likely. They deserved it though, so well done to the Wiservice.

We seem to keep making stupid fuck-ups recently, why is that? I think we've got a bit over-familiar with the songs and started slacking off a bit. I'm enjoying being on stage more and more as the gigs go by, but I do think an injection of new material will do us good (Same Feeling, The Town and the City, Take the Pain Away, Stay Sober, your time is coming......)

So a re-invigorating night all in all, I hope to be able to do many more 2 gig nights in the future.

Goodnight to my new dead wife,
Goodnight to my Nazi friends

Thursday, May 18, 2006

 

XX - Southampton Joiners - 16/05/06

Tuesday 16th May 2006
Southampton Joiners

Dumbfounded
Salvage
Rockshore
The Dawn Chorus

What do you think of when you hear the name Rockshore? Whorey old man stoner rock? Probably not Jamie Cullum-esque Jazz-lite fronted by a Will Young soundalike. These guys are contenders for the strangest band we've played with, but as several people noted, if he goes on the next series of X-factor he'll stand a good chance. Salvage sounded absolutely enormous, probably due to shovelling stacks of delay onto every song, which can never be a bad thing in my book. And Dumbfounded weren't exactly my cup of tea, but they certainly had catchy moments (although covering Talking Heads when your voice has more than a passing resemblence of David Byrne's might not be the best idea). And us? We were on stupendously early so we didn't get many in, and it was a bit cold so I dropped two pleccys, and i broke my first ever string and had to yank it out of the capo, and we fudged the start of something's changed, but other than that it was cool. Apparently we sounded the best we've ever sounded there, so hopefully it bodes well for June 2nd with Roland Shanks. Look forward to seeing you then. Oh, and as I write this we are about to go and play at the Exoposure/Punch Funk battle of the bands final in Southsea, and my Mystic Meg/Russel Grant eery future prediction is that Wiservice shall win.............

 

XIX - Hampshire Rose, Waterlooville - 15/05/06

Hampshire Rose, Waterlooville
Monday 15th May 2006

The Dawn Chorus
Hobos and Eskimos
Cymbiotic

Yeah we won again! We love you Widley! So it was pretty dead and empty but not a bad gig. Captain Eager forgot the words to Winter again, just when we thought he'd gotten over that particular habit. Interesting coversation between Simps and one of Cymbiotic:

Simps: 'Nice set, what's your band's name?'
One of Cymbiotic: 'Don'
Simps: 'Don?'
One of Cymbiotic: 'Yeah, Don'
Simps: 'How'd you spell that?'
One of Cymbiotic: 'D-O-N, Don'
Simps: 'Your band's name is Don?'
Don: 'No, my name is Don'
Simps: 'Oh'

Friday, May 12, 2006

 

XVIII - Exposure @ Portsmouth Havana - 10/05/06

Portsmouth Havana Bar
10th May 2006

The Deads
Hold Fast
The Dawn Chorus

The night i forgot how to play guitar. Luckily we didn't take any fans to witness me clunking away like a spastic tosser. I couldnt even blame it on being pissed. Oh well, on the whole we seemed to play ok, started ther set with Escape for the first time ever and it went pretty well. But what a tough crowd! Proper slow hand claps. Hold Fast were wicked, one of the best bands we've played with. Unfortunately Keef had to leave early so he couldn't do his Bez thing with the Deads. I also saw 80% of Joel's arsecrack when he bent over at one point, which is a memory i may have to have surgically removed. Watch out ladies of Portsmouth. Next week we are stupendously busy, with Widley on Monday, Joiners on Tuesday, breather on wednesday, Drift bar on thursday, Morrissey on friday (watching of course), Bournemouth opera house on saturday, liam frost on sunday (hopefully). Oh and i just found out that we are playing with Roland Shanks soon, which is very exciting. See you soon :)

 

XVII - Portsmouth Hogshead - 04/05/06

Portsmouth Hogshead
4th May 2006

The Masters
The Dawn Chorus
Angelgear

Mr Rossco put this one on, and I hope it whips up a bit of interest in the future months. Soundcheck was a nightmare, couldn't get any sort of decent sound level so eventually we all ditched the monitors so that the vocals could be a bit louder. Apparently it sounded good, although the gigs with no monitors are always hard, i always feel like im shouting. Angelgear had changed half their band and had a right little Knoppfler on guitar, and the Masters still seem to be strangers to any kind of subtlety, but that is their undoubted appeal. We tried our best to show the Portsmouth massive that we really do have more than one song, but i'm not sure if they're convinced yet.

Friday, May 05, 2006

 

EP2 on the way

Our second E.P is completely recorded, with trumpet, violins, much handclapping, shouting and screaming. Provisional details:

'Shocking developments E.P/Something's Changed E.P'

1. The Man that I Held in my Arms
2. Everest
3. Something's Changed
4. Escape
5. Winter
6. Little Pinpricks

Thankyou to everyone who helped out, I absolutely love these recordings and I can't wait to get them out there.

 

XVI - Winchester Guildhall Tavern (Winchester Massive botb final) - 27/04/06

Winchester Guildhall Tavern
April 27th 2006

G.R.O.O.V.E
The Dawn Chorus
Bodyhost
Citizen

Yay we won again! Properly chuffed. I'm not going to pretend that i'm not bothered cos i was well happy to win this. There's a review from the paper here http://www.nqsouthern.com/digitalpublication/digitalpublications/index.cfm?dpid=109§ion_id=741&article_id=4997 Citizen played first, and although there was obviously a hell of a lot of Ar***c M****ys in their style (sorry boys), they had the energy to get away with it, and they also gave our turquoise tele its first ever live outing when they broke a guitar. Bodyhost were punishingly good in a Datsuns/Stooges mould, i thought they would win, and groove brought the funk (simps was loving the slap bass). We got to do a stars in their eyes and play again after we won, which was bizarre and fun. And they made us pose with our instruments on stage which was completely embarrassing. But we loved the night on the whole, and we can't wait to get inthe studio for a weekend to record some more songs. Whoo!

 

XV - Portsmouth South Parade Pier (exposure botb) - 26/04/06

26th April 2006
Portsmouth South Parade Pier (Exposure botb)

Hudson 10
The Dawn Chorus
The Plymouths
The Masters
Wiservice

Must stop being so tardy with these blogs. Ok so this one wasn't exactly that memorable. The Plymouths and wiservice went through. Wiservice were very good and tight, white boy dub, bit of scratching, mention the word 'wiservice' as many times as possible. And the Plymouths were very fashionable and quite Bravery-esque, although they would probably despise me for saying that. The pier is a pretty terrible venue though, it would probably be amazing with 100 or so people in there, but it gets pretty echoey and lifeless when it's empty. This sounds very bitter doesn't it? Those bastards. To be honest i've left it too long and i can't really remember all that much, except that Hudson 10 have my car mats stil.

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