Saturday, October 02, 2010

Daring To Be Live (On Video)

The last month has seen me and Charlie play some fab gigs. We made our way up to Bristol to play on the same bill as the amazing Less Than Me and awesome The New Root (Kate Bush meets Radiohead - my current favourite band!) at The Croft, we rocked The Montague Arms with Charlie's band as Cowboys and popped up in The Ritzy in Brixton to recreate the sound of AM radio (we had a crackly mic lead... still played a great set though, even if we say so ourselves). It's been fun and exciting, we really feel like there is a momentum building up behind our music and we're looking forward to all the gigs coming up. We've even found time to get on the radio (Charlie's been on practically every internet show you can imagine - and I've been on Radio Sydenham) and we've got a fab show coming up on the 15th October on Resonance FM. We've also started recording some new tracks with the mighty Haydn Callow on drums and Alex Lofoco on bass, look out for those in about two months.

For those of you who haven't been able to make it to a show we have been videoing our sets and it's time to share a few of those with you. Charlie and my shows are not just about the songs, we also like to think that we have a bit of a stage presence and our on-stage banter can sometimes be very amusing in itself. So I thought I'd start to include a bit of our chat so you can get the full Dare To Be gig experience! We do hope you get to see us live very soon, as that's the best experience of all!

Let's kick off the videos with the song that starts our set - Dance. These are all from our gig at The Elixir Bar on the 29th September.



Technical notes (for those that love that sort of thing): Charlie's guitar is a Martin Alternative XT played through a collection of effects including a Boss Flanger that you can hear at the start. My guitar is a Taylor 314ce played directly into the desk. Charlie's auto-tune effect is a Boss VE-20 and all my voice effects (delay, harmonies, doubling and flanging to name but a few) come from a TC Helicon VoiceLive 2. Last, but by no means least, the tambourine is played with my foot! Check it out.



This one features another of Charlie's songs - No Good For Me, this time complete with her intro explaining what the song is about. Excitingly for us we got a spontaneous round of applause before we'd even finished the song, love it when that happens. Also listen out for the coffee machine trying to join in towards the end!

That's all for now on the video front, more songs to follow.

If that's whetted your appetite then do come and see us live, check out our live dates here:

http://www.daretobecharlie.com/

or tune in to Resonance FM (on FM and over the internet) on the 15th October at 10pm (BST / GMT+1) to hear us play live.

Daren
xxx