I definitely wasn’t expecting this. The Irish Times contacted me this week, they had read something on my blog. They asked if I would be interested in writing about why I said I was going home to vote in the General Election on February 26th.
I wrote a piece and it appeared online and it also was printed in today’s issue of the newspaper. I can’t wait to get home to get my mitts on a copy.
You can read the full feature, which also has contributions from other Irish emigrants here:
We’ve been hard at work putting together 27 videos for an Advent Calendar, this was today’s.
Sam Nafie and Dan March are two Australians who are based in London. Daniel was in for a solo acoustic session a couple of months ago and we were so impressed that we asked Daniel to come to do another track for us for Advent.
This time, Daniel brought along his mate Sam Nafie for a rendition of the David Bowie / Bing Crosby classic, ‘A Little Drummer Boy’.
Sam has a great voice but Daniel’s guitar playing is outstanding. The audio was also recorded for broadcast for Premier Unsigned at Christmas. Have a look…
Sometimes you meet artists who just have it, they have it without even trying. If you want to call it the X Factor, do, but it’s something special. One such artist is Becca Folkes. For Christmas we had some people come into the studio at work and perform a Christmas song. Some did originals, other take on classics.
I never heard of Becca Folkes before that but herself and the people that surround her have everything down to a T! They know what they are supposed to be doing, they’re pros. They come, don’t complain, get stuck into the session and when they the rehearsing stops and the performing starts, they ooze quality, with Becca, the shining star front and centre.
An incredible talent, remember where you heard the name first!
I recorded this track, Mr Phil Maltz, did the magic with the cameras and lights and shiny things..
Enjoy
Thought I’d share this with you. About ten days ago, Natalie Phillips came into work to record a couple of songs. On this particular day, I in particular, was faced with a challenge. This had to be a very quick session. Natalie was coming in for 2 and I had a meeting, that I couldn’t get out of, at 3. Plus I couldn’t be late, as I was late for the last one, because I had been recording a session that ran over.
Natalie arrived a little after 2, and myself and Phil Maltz (camera and lights) set up. I had a problem, there seemed to be something wrong with every cable I picked up. After costing myself an extra 5/10 minutes going through cables, I literally had 20 minutes to get two songs recorded. After a very quick soundcheck, literally a verse and a chorus of one song, we went for a take. Against time, every second counts and as the song was just kicking in, the guitar player stopped ‘Sorry, I made a mistake’. Trying to remain calm, it’s now 15 minutes to meeting time. We started again and flew beautifully through one track. Then Natalie asked ‘Do we have time for another?’
One take, ‘Silent Tears’ was filmed and recorded and I have 5 minutes to spare before the meeting. Great performance from Natalie too.