Left At The Lights Strategy Meeting 01-03-05

PRACTICES
Ideally, we should plan to practise twice a week as default position
Tuesday evenings at Bob’s or Marcus’, and a 3hour slot on a weekday in the studio at UWE. Marcus will speak to Bill Braddick about this, once Frank has talked to BBS about his timetable for next session.

We need a band diary for holiday planning etc.

Bob has a DJ mixer – need to explore then functionality, but might be a useful piece of kit for us

Planning What We Do In Practices
We should aim to cover a third of the list every practice, with most effort on the songs that need “Even More” work

SONGS NEEDING A LITTLE WORK(SET LIST/CD CONTENDERS)
Memory Lawn
Lazy
Wine Gum Kid
Standing Underneath The Moon
Grockle Song
Winter

SONGS NEEDING LOTS OF WORK
Hoping For The Day
Spring Fever
Retinal Detachment
Melancholy
Autumn Song
Downtown Somewhere
Where Have You?
Stained Glass Rain
Icarus

SONGS NEEDING EVEN MORE WORK
Compass Rose
Vinegar
Moving On
Power Cut
Floods At Lyons
Time, Words and You
Salt In The Wound

SONGS TO BE DEVELOPED!
Philadelphia
Star Struck In The Moonlight (prestidigitation, indeed!)
Chess Song


PLAYING LIVE
We should practice playing standing in a line (i.e. not looking at each other)
Need to address:-
Order of songs
Patter between songs
Stage discipline
Coping with disasters (e.g. broken strings)
Arrange Open Mic nights
Gigs
Live arrangements vs recorded arrangements

CD
Contents
5/6 tracks for promotional/selling CD:-
Memory Lawn
Winter
Moving ON
Hoping For The Day
Where Have You (Soup)?
Lazy

Arrangements for CD
Sequencing only if it emerges “organically”
Recording production advice – Marcus to discuss with Stephen Allan

Practise using click tracks

Tempos
Need to decide

Sheet for every song
With settings for bass/mandolin/guitar/amps/key/tempo/arrangement. Need a proforma

Artwork
Do it ourselves, take our own photographs etc.

Possible album names, song titles &/or lyrics

• "I've got hundreds of parameters, dirt on my Wheatstone bridge." (Blues)


• Keyboard Soup


• The Gazebo Effect

Holidays and other absences

FRANK
in US May 21st - June 5th 2005

MARCUS
on holiday/scholarly activity July 4th - August 29th 2005
on holiday 12th September - 16th September 2005
on holiday 14th November - 18th November (or some other week in first semester of session 2005-06)

BOB

Notes from practice of 19-04-05

We decided that we needed to decide in advance whether the session would be a practice (i.e. working on songs to get them better) or a rehearsal (i.e. playing as if we were in performance).

Set lists for the gig on May 13th are as below (+ = basically OK, NP = Not Played on 19-04-05, notes included after song title as appropriate):-

FIRST SET (no keyboard and basically set from Maynard Terrace Street Party of 3rd July 2004)
Memory Lawn +
Spring Fever +
Lazy +
Hoping For The Day +
Compass Rose + (play a bit slower - "Girl from Ipanema" speed)
Icarus +
Standing Underneath The Moon +
Grockle Song +
Winter +
Wine Gum Kid +

SECOND SET (K = keyboard, otherwise mandolin)
Where Have You K +
Power Cut (Bob needs to practice)
Time, Words and You +
Melancholy K + (Do more slowly - Bob intro)
Downtown Somewhere K NP
Autumn Song K NP
Stained Glass Rain K NP
Salt In The Wound NP
Vinegar NP
Floods At Lyons NP (needs work)
Moving On NP

Marcus is to record Compass Rose, Moving On and Autumn (Guitar and vocal) for practice purposes
Frank is to record Retinal Detachment (Bass & vocal) for practice purposes

Marcus is to contact Folk House about Open Mic night on 1st May.
Bob is to contact Rob Williams about arrangements for 13th May (stage? wet weather venue? amplification? large cheques for band?)...

Left At The Lights practice schedule

Tuesday 19th April 7.30 pm - 10.00 pm Maynard Terrace

Tuesday 26th April 7.30 pm - 10.00 pm Maynard Terrace

Wednesday 27th April 1.00 pm - 4.00 pm UWE studio

Tuesday 3rd May 7.30 pm - 10.00 pm Maynard Terrace

Wednesday 4th May 1.00 pm - 4.00 pm UWE studio

Tuesday 10th May 7.30 pm - 10.00 pm Maynard Terrace

Wednesday 11th May 1.00 pm - 4.00 pm UWE studio