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Still doing fine…

By this time into my run at last year’s festival, my average audience size was less than half what it is this year, and I’d had one fairly duff night when I was just exhausted and wasn’t sparkly at all.

this year audience figures are up (28 in last night), I’ve played well and talked vaguely funny bollocks each night, and things are looking good. I now have three special guests booked – Guy Pratt on Friday, Julie McKee on Saturday, and Ronnie Golden on Sunday – three very fine performers, all with their own excellent shows at the festival, coming to enhance my gig in an entertaining way.

Last night’s gig went well again – some press peoples were in, so we’ll see if they like it, but all in all, it was a fun gig with some laughs, and a particularly bizarre version of MMFSOG (which I’ve started explaining for some reason – just seemed like a funny story, I guess…. maybe I’ll post it here one day.)

The audience looping percussion bit of the show is working really well – the resulting track, which I tend to take down similar lines each night, is a fun little improv thing, and often very strange, but it’s great to hear something coherent emerge out of the random collection of squeaks and utterances from the various volunteers.

My other big acheivement yesterday is that I managed to avoid pissed people for the entire day whilst flyering. I’ve just taken to not even offering flyers to people who look like they might have been near alcohol in the last 12 hours, as a self preservation method… It worked.

However, I did see a rather slow moving chap who was inadvertantly covered in posters by some over zealous theatre company. The second direct marketing fatality of the festival – suffocation under layers of earnest Shakespeare and sellotape.

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First two special guests booked…

One of the things I really want to do this year was get a few people up to guest on a tune or two on my show – Edinburgh is such a cool festival for meeting new artists and launching new projects that it’s great to get a chance to collaborate with people who are here to do their thing too.

My first couple of guests are now booked and as close to confirmed as you can be in Edinburgh – on Friday night this week, Guy Pratt will be sitting in, playing a bit of bass with me – Guy’s an outstanding musician, and has a fantastic show of his own on here at the Fringe.

And on Sunday, Ronnie Golden will be singing a song – Ronnie’s here doing a show with Barry Cryer – their show last year, Men In Beige was without a doubt one of the funniest comedy shows I’ve ever been to – two comedy geniuses at their best. Ronnie’s a ludicrously versatile singer, so I’m looking forward to hearing what he does with What A Wonderful World.

There’ll hopefully be one or two more still to be confirmed…

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Alright, everybody out.

Some dickhead set off the fire alarm at the Carlton Hotel midway through my gig last night! Just as I was getting to the end of ‘What A Wonderful World’, the damn thing went off and we all had to vacate the building!

Other than that, it was another fine gig. The audience was 26 – that’s how many were there, not their combined age – which I was really happy with on a non 2 for 1 Tuesday. i was expecting about half that. And they seemed to really enjoy it too. Seems like word is getting out, finally.

It was especially good to have that many people in, given that I started flyering two hours later than usual, TSP was tied up with friends for a lot of the day (well, she was busy – I’m not sure what kind of kinky stuff they got up to, to be honest), and then it rained so I missed out on another hour or so of flyering later on.

The one bit of flyering that I hate the most is dealing with drunks. It’s particularly tragic when you get someone who is completely shitfaced at 4 in the afternoon, who comes up thinking they are really funny and says something really really stupid. I’m pretty sure that kicking people in the plums when you’re out flyering in Edinburgh is technically illegal, so I’ve refrained from dispensing with them that way. I just back away slowly and try and spin round to talk to someone else…

The other foxing thing when flyering is the nature of people’s verbal responses, ranging for cool gutteral sounds of either acceptance or rejection through to such gems as ‘No, I’m alright thanks’ – well, I’m not trying to sort your life out, just give you a sodding flyer!! even better, ‘No, you’re alright’ – I know I’m alright, what are you my therapist?? Though worst of all is just the withering look, like I’ve just offered them a plate of poo. It’s a flyer, you’re walking down the royal mile in Edinburgh during the festival, WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU EXPECTING????

For the most part though, it’s nice that my flyer works – way more people look at it then take one, with one variation on the accepting monosyllabic weirdness sound. This is good news. Having a great flyer that has all the info you need is so vital it’s not funny. I’ve had quite a few people ask great questions like whether or not the concept for the flyer was mine, implying that I told a designer what to do, when if fact I did the whole thing. this year I didn’t also do the photography, which I did last year (well, I did the one on the front – the one on the back was that lovely yellow and black one that Dominic Bentham took at the Troubadour gig). It’s nice to have people assume it was a pro – it’s like the one time (which obviously had now become lots of times in Stevie folklore) when someone asked TSP where she had her hair cut, when in fact it was me that did it. They couldn’t believe it. or something. Maybe it was small-talk, but I like to think they were hoping to go to the same salon.

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Fine digs in Edinburgh

There are a few things that seem to be consistent across most people’s Edfest experience – sore feet from flyering, paranoia about a ‘nil points’ on the ticket sales front, fretting about bad reviews, drinking too much and staying in overpriced horrible accomodation.

Well, sore feet I have – though not too bad, and I do feel myself getting fitter as the days go by, and I’ve lots weight…)

Audience figures have thus far been well up on last year, and I’m reasonably positive about the rest of the run.

Not a single press person has booked a ticket for the show as yet, though I did ring a couple of papers this morning who seemed at least slightly interested in sending someone along. but it does mean I’m only worried about audience reviews, and the one I’ve had so far has been just fine.

Drinking too much? Well, I’m driving in each day, and playing at 11.15, so no drinking for me at all. My Edfest alcohol consumption for 2005 thus far has been one glass of wine in the Jolly Judge on my first day here.

And as for a place to stay – TSP and I are staying with Gareth and Jane, a finer place to lay one’s head is not to be had in all of the Scottish lowlands. It’s warm, spacious, and Gareth’s a geeky pedant who prints off corrections to my blog and brings them up to me. And they say vicar’s are meant to be rushed off their feet. He also has a slightly unnerving fetish for 80s metal, and a their bath is so deep and long that it’s more of a canal than a bath. I’m thinking of installing a lock halfway along it so I can reach the taps in a boat. There’s a tow-path along the side of it, and I stubbed my toes on an old shopping trolley this morning.

It’s a great place to be – and I have to bite my tongue when other peoples are telling their tales of woe regarding paying £400 a week for a hovel.

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Monday night

Another fine gig – I thought the crowd was going to be a bit smaller given that it was a Monday, but once again we were over 35 (36, to be precise). The audience-vocal-percussion-loop track went very odd thanks to the jazzshark starting the loop with a couple of (albeit very accurate) dog barks. The sounds that followed were equally strange, and the whole thing went very odd. But it worked, and went down v. well. I’m getting into a bit of a stride with the show, which feels good (though apparently last night I slipped back into an old habit of twiddling on the bass with the sound off while I was talking – a bit distracting for the audience, and one that I thought I’d got out of… must try harder).

Flyering is becoming more fun, as more people stop to say they’ve had the show recommended to them by friends. Weird flyering moment of the day was when the owner of The Pleasance (huge venue complex on the fringe) came out to ask me not to flyer outside his venue. I was about to get all defensive and tell him it was a public street and I could do what I like, when he said I’m happy for you to go inside and flyer in the bar if you like’! What a nice man. The spirit of the festival, indeed.

Still haven’t got to see any shows. Tonight will be an interesting one in terms of how hard we have to keep working, given that the last two nights have had a ‘two for one’ ticket promotion running, and now we’re back to normal, so we’ll see if the numbers stay up, or if we drop back again.

Met a lovely lady in the Fringe Press office who will hopefully help point press peoples my way. I’ve not had any reviews so far at all, which is odd given how well the show is going. Must work harder to make that happen (if you’re a press peoples reading this, PLEASE COME TO THE SHOW!)

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Sunday night in Edinburgh

Two gigs today – one a waste of time, one lots of fun.

Day started out much the same as any other Edinburgh day, with loads of flyering and postering. last night and tonight are ‘two for one’ ticket nights, so lots of shouting ‘two tickets for the price of one tonight!’ at peoples.

But before my own proper gig, I’d been asked to play at the Fringe opening party (it wasn’t that I was chosen especially – they’d sent out a request for musicians interested in playing, and I’d emailed back). I was told I’d be in ‘the music room’ which was different from the other stages mentioned in that it didn’t end in the word ‘Bar’, which was promising. A promise that failed utterly to deliver. The band on before me was a Stone tribute band, for whom it was the ideal setting. Lots of very drunk people talking loudly and dancing. Yup, ideal Stevie solo setting.

For the record, I HATE BAR GIGS. with a passion. I generally won’t play solo in a bar for less than £250. I hate the idea of playing for free in venue where the venue are selling shitloads of booze, making a fortune and I’m in the corner playing my music for audience who couldn’t give a shit. This was everything I hate in a gig. I guess I should have been more clear in what I was expecting. Anyway, I only gig a 15 minute set, and got the hell out of there.

The ‘proper’ gig tonight was lots of fun. It took a little longer than usual to set up as I had to rebuild the rack after playing at the party, but the audience was lots bigger (35 tickets, plus a couple of friends who got in free), and they seemed to love the show (I now have a couple of text votes on my edfringe.com webpage ).

Here’s hoping the numbers stay up now, as word of mouth starts to spread… methinks I’m not going to get that much traffic from the Fringe party…

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Another day of megaflyering and a good gig

Day two – more flyering. LOADS more flyering. Got rid of more flyers in one day than any human being has ever got rid of in a day. It’s official. No, really. The flyer situation in central edinburgh during the festival is mad. I’m sure I saw a dead child under a pile of flyers, overcome by the weight having got carried away trying to collect one of each. Many flyerers try to flyer eachother, which just means you end up confused as to which pockets contain your own flyers, and which contain someone else’s, and end up giving out the wrong flyers. It’s nuts.

The stunts people pull to give out flyers, ranging from dressing as the Elephant Man to singing songs from the show to, allegedly, a couple of blokes flyering butt naked one year and being arrested! But I shan’t be copulating with any farm animals on the Royal Mile just to pull a crowd – for me, a smile, a furry coat and a picture of the bloke doing the flyering on the flyer seems to work. And last night it got a few people in. It was always going to be the smallest of the gigs, given that a) the fest proper hasn’t started, and b) tonight and tomorrow are 2 for 1 ticket nights, so no-one who’s here for longer is going to pay double to see the show last night. Still, there were about 11 people in, who were all well into it, very friendly, and the audience sampling thing went marvellously well again.

The one problem I had was that the previous shows were running 25 minutes late, and I didn’t realise til I went on that I had no idea what time I should finish, and ended up stopping a few minutes short of my time. I’m hoping no-one felt short changed (if you were there and you did, come and find me and we’ll sort out another ticket for you to see the show). As it was, I played well again.

My shoulders and legs are now getting very tired from all the walking and carrying big bags of flyers. My legs were particularly exhausted last night as some dickhead had spilt beer on my rack backstage and not cleaned it up, so I got it all over my fingers five minutes before I was to go on, which meant running up four flights of stairs to wash my hands and back down again. Not what I needed after 10 hours on my feet.

Tonight has got the biggest presales of the run, so I’m hoping for a big audience – it’s the official opening to the fringe, and I’m playing at the Fringe party too, so it should be lots of fun, and a bit of a rush to get everything sorted (I needed to steal bits out of my rack to be able to use them for that gig, and will have to return them to the rack before my show tonight, in the same five minutes where I’m setting up my rig from scratch.. I kid you not…)

So I’ll no doubt let you know how it goes.

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First gig!

Soi that’s gig number one out of the way, and it seemed to go pretty well. Not a big crowd by anyone’s reckoning (17), but above the Edinburgh average (11), and more than I had on my first day last year! It’s very odd becoming one of over a thousand acts vying for people’s attention and money, when usually I’m the only thing on on an evening in that venue, and just have to be better the TV and worth the drive to the venue. When you’re up against the cream of British comedy and some fine music as well, it’s all a bit more daunting.

Still, the gig itself went well – as it was a fairly small and intimate crowd, I was able to experiment with a new addition to the show, a bit of audience participation. Here, I got various members of the audience to come and make percussion sounds into a mic, which were recorded into a blank loop of about 6 seconds long, with the output turned down. So neither the audience or I could tell what was happening as the sounds were being recorded (they had no idea what was going to happen at all). I then picked up a bass, turned up the volume and started to play along with the rhythm that came out of their sampled noises – 6 sounds in all, forming a particularly weird and stilted funk rhythm, which I was fairly easily able to shape into a groove and start layering. A hugely successful addition to the show, and one I’m going to have fun with each night – it’s nice to have something completely new to add to the set.

Didn’t get round to playing the John Martyn cover – really need to have a bash at that tonight, if I remember. Did the tune for Eric, which went well, and ‘What A Wonderful World’ which has become a staple of the set over the last couple of months, but wasn’t in the set last year. So I’m happy with the amount of new material.

The links all seemed to go OK – the Snoop Dogg story went down v. well as usual, and I even explained (for the first time ever onstage) the story behind MMFSOG – just seemed to fit with the general comedic thread.

All in all not a bad first night – a few things to tighten up, and certainly room to move things around a bit, but I’m definitely happy with how things went.

the one thing I forgot to mention was the text-review thing, where you can text a star rating for a show, by sending them the show code and a rating – there are little cards explaining this in every venue, so please pick one up and vote for the show if you were there (the show code is BASS)

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