Set lists and the irradication of silence between songs...

Could've been a Doctor!

This gross mass of scribbles is my futile attempt at trying to organise what hell I'm gonna do for my next show. I have six weeks to try and get myself from being a nervous wreck on stage with four songs, shaking legs and no banter to someone who can confidently hold a stage (even just a little one)  for 30 minutes in front of total strangers and come out the end of it looking at least a little pro.

The first trial of this period will be getting my own songs together. there are three new ones which have started forming in my mind and with a little nurturing and effort they should turn into something worth while. My judge these days on whether a song is working is by singing them to Summer, if she smiles at me then it's good enough to me. Fits and crying means it's a no go!

"This one gets 7/10"

That'll bring me up to seven original songs I hope that's enough and my quick bit of maths tells me it should be fine. I also have three covers which shouldn't be much of a problem.

The next bit is going to be trickier.

So I have been playing in bands for a long time but I have never had to worry about the issue of deathly painful silence once a song stops. Usually the drummer will do a few licks, or a lead singer will chat, and if he plays an instrument then another member of the band will chat whilst he tunes and organises himself. But doing the solo thing means there's none of that. If I want to take a drink, or sort a capo out on my guitar, or quietly die a little from an overabundance of nervous energy then it completely breaks the flow of my time up on stage. Back in the day I learnt that the secret to a good show is having it feel liquid, like every piece of the show flows into the next without the audience having realised that the transition has been made. But how do I do this without support?

Well my first idea was to turn the act into a dual acoustic punk/standup comedy routine. There are a few reasons why this was a stupid idea, the first of which is that I am not a funny guy. I am fairly quick witted and have been known to come out with funny observations on occasion but the issue is that it is always accidental. I am never deliberately funny. And I don't have a sense of humour that translates well into standing in front of a crowd delivering a dialogue. So that went out the window.

What I have decided instead is to try something a little more modern, and that's is what I have come to think of as "onstage micro-blogging". I guess I should try and explain that purposefully vague term....

Wise words!

In todays world we like our information neatly packed into bite sized snippets that our brains can process quickly and move onto the next. It is truly an ADD age we are in and more and more the way we expect things to work on the internet is the way we want to deal with things in real life. So the plan is to have a particular observation, doesn't necessarily need to be humourous but I may try, that takes no more than 20 seconds to say in between each song. This will give me (hopefully) enough time to sort my shit out but also will make an audience pay attention to what I'm talking about just long enough for them to want me to start doing something else. It doesn't sound like anything new but I see artists go either way with the "talk between songs" thing, you can ramble, but then you either need to be extremely interesting or have fans that will not care what you're saying. This will be about having something structured to say in a very specific timeframe that will essentially trick someone into listening to me. By the time they realise they aren't that interested in what I'm talking about I'm already playing another song so they don't mind the fact they just had to listen to me talk rubbish at them.

Anyway like I say it's just an idea but it seems to be the most reasonable way to get over my issue....

unless I need to drink.....

Bugger!