When The Tea Runs Out

When The Tea Runs Out is the tilte of one of the songs I am recording at the moment. Yes, almost nearly a year since I started playing acoustic guitar, I am actually recording what could loosely be regarded as an albums worth of material. Basically, what I'm doing is recording everything I have played live, plus one or two other tracks in one hit over a few days that will probably get released about February time to coincide with the anniversary of my first solo gig in Sheerness (Here)
I have debated doing this for a while and thought that as I have no one but myself to answer to, I will do as I please and being offered the services of a local sound engineer to record and mix it for sod all, I jumped at the chance. What else was I going to do ... No thanks mate, I'm going to pay a few hundered quid per day to go into a studio so I can get pretty much the same sound as your gear and listen to someone who doesnt know me or my sound telling me what they think is best and pay for the preivilidge ... I am not that fucking daft. So DIY it is and a nice pleasant change it is as well.
So after the guitar led day one its time to do some guide vocal. I think I may be getting a cold, four songs in and my voice is croaky as fuck. Time to have a quick mixdown of one of the tracks - pick the roughest one of the lot and mix - result - not too bad ot too good either - here it is and will only be here for a little while




Two weeks later and most of what has been recorded has been scrapped. Including the above track as I did not feel that it was good enough. A sit down with the sound guy and a good think is what is needed. I still plan to have something out in February but whether it is an album or not remains to be seen.
One good thing came out of it tho ... I got a new track which I will be doing live at the following dates.

Im on early for all of them and all of them are free entry.

November
1st - Garlinge (Nr Margate), The Rodney supporting Black Rose
8th - Ramsgate, Red Lion supporting Cozy Dunts
14th - Canterbury,  Maidens Head  - TBC
15th - Sheerness, The Castle supporting Ted Dibiase & The Million Dollar Punk Band, All Flags Burn,
                                                              The   Half Wits, Deanos Hose

December
20th - Ramsgate, Elephant & Castle supporting Cozy Dunts, The Shammed

And more next year

DeKadanCe - Identified CD release

What is this, two posts in one month this must be nearly a record, well actually it's the new DeKadance CD - the project I have been working on with Kaya from Decadent Few. It is a 7 track mini CD and is available for download now or CD from Saturday. We are both a bit pleased with the end result and will be playing tracks from this at The Castle in Sheerness this saturday. See you at the bar



Normal service will be resumed next month

Terms & Conditions Apply

Terms & Conditions Apply is the title of a 3 track digital single that was released this week which includes a brand new track called Drip By Drip - the song is about the DRIP (Data Retention & Investigatory Powers) act - do a search for it if you don't know what it is - and how we have already given away our rights by just clicking agree on everything that comes on any digital device without thinking about it - check out this link about the new Facebook messaging service where you give them the right to record you and snoop on you coz you clicked OK without thinking - but this blog isn't about that it's about music so here is the new track with two others - free to download enjoy.




Terms & Conditions is also available here:


 
A couple of weeks ago I did a sneaky gig supporting a rock / metal covers band. Due to go on about half 8 I hammered a couple of pints down my neck and was then duly told i was going on at ten. A fair few pints later and I was very merrily pissed and did my set - to some people who had waited around to see me and a load that hadn't. No mass exodus for the door - that surprised me and I even done a cover version for my mate Davee Wild who had sadly died two days before (I will miss the Cider fuelled phone calls Davee and the best gigs in canterbury - Rest In Punk my friend) not having done a cover (unless you count the ones with DeKadanCe) i opted for Subvert by Zounds. I was very surprised at the reaction which was phenomenal considering this wasnt a punk gig and was very pleased it went down well too. Hope to do another gig at the Red Lion as I have enjoyed both gigs there.
Here is the setlist from that gig:

You're A Terrorist Still Called Scum
Go Back To Sleep
 Race To The Bottom
This Means War
 Pissing in The Wind
 Generation iDiot
Subvert (Zounds cover)

Sorry no pictures or videos from this gig - there is a video apparently but I havent seen it.

I have a gig coming up next Saturday 16th August in Sheerness as support to Monica & The Explosion - should be fun. See ya at the bar.

Billy Bragg On Steroids

"Billy Bragg on steroids!!" - Yes, that is what I was called at this weekends gig in Folkestone. I have no idea where the bloke got that from but that is how he chose to describe me to the guitarist of Surgery Without Research. I must admit I am quite amused by it (Thank You Terry).
The gig itself was a bit of a nervous one even tho I know all the people in the bands and half the audience, I was on second, after the wonderful Deanos Hose and their psychadelic experience. I had, up til now, gone on first and was just getting used to that and as I had done gigs before I shouldn't be nervous. Even so, this kind of gig was still new to me and I am still learning but I had done this before so it was easy, wasn't it?
I went on a bit over confident and the nerves showed straight after the intro to the first song when I completetly forgot the words and had to start again - first bloody song, I was a bit annoyed with myself. I re-started and things went a lot better, I even managed to do a very rough version of a new song called "When The Tea Runs Out" which although I struggled a bit with it, went down very well. It will go in the set but needs working on so maybe not for a couple of gigs, a quick check on the time and I did one more, bloody hell my half hour went quickly. I got called back for an encore so maybe it wasn't as bad as I first thought.

Set List:
1. You're A Terrorist
2. Still Called Scum
3. R.I.P (Riot In Progress)
4. Go Back To Sleep
5. Race To The Bottom
6. When The Tea Runs Out
7. Generation iDiot
8. Pissing In The Wind (encore)

I wanted to do Question Authority as well but I still hadn't learnt the words and didn't really have time so ditched it. I actually enjoyed the gig even tho it was probably the hardest one to do yet. I must have enjoyed it as I was buzzing about it in the morning so much that I even managed to write a new song and wanted to try out a new (to me) way of mixing the guitars. I recorded it on the Tuesday night, mixed it and uploaded it on Wednesday. I was way pleased with how the guitar had come out and will have to try mixing like that again. Its still a bit rough but here ya go, have a listen. Personally I think the mixing is better on this track than previously. I'm still very much a learner on both the guitar and a DAW but am enjoying the journey and the different ways of doing things, so no doubt there will be fuck ups along the way as well as moments of almost genius - I am looking forward to both.
After I had uploaded this someone else  tried to describe it as "Hardcore Acoustic - If there is such a thang" - we shall see.



Please feel free to download this or any other track from the soundcloud page. If you use this in a radio show or podcast - please credit me and and let me know - Thanks Russ Crimewave.

Are You having A Crisis?

Actually for a change, no, I'm not having a crisis. It is a line from a tribute track to Poly Styrene from X Ray Spex and one of the tracks I have been working on for the new project which has finally been named DeKadanCe. Its just acoustic guitars and the wonderful voice of Kaya (Decadent Few / Youth In Asia) whose idea this project was.
It all started when I was supposed to be supporting Decadent Few at my second gig at the Birds Nest when we rehearsed three songs to play as DF's bass player was very ill and they had to pull out of the gig. They went down better than was expected so we decided to record them. Five tracks later and we are so happy with them that we released Identity as a free download on the third anniversary of Poly's death. The other 4 including a very different version of Identity will be released as a CD single very soon. No vinyl yet as we can't afford to do that. Hope you enjoy.



Please feel free to download this or any other track from the soundcloud page. If you use this in a radio show or podcast - please credit me and and let me know - Thanks Russ Crimewave.

Pissing In The Wind

After the disaster that was last year and losing two entire hardrives I decided to start again with the recording. Pissing In The Wind was never going to be the title of a track just the title of this blog but it seemed like a wasted opportunity so here ya go. Its a song about how we, the people have to pay for absolutely everything whether we want to or not and was written instaed of the Christmas song that was going to be recorded.
I have also been offered a few gigs this year and will put the dates up in due course when they are confirmed. Unlike the tracks here I will be doing these gigs acoustically, me, a guitar and my big mouth should be interesting.

This track will be one of six that are going onto a CD and download and will be given away free soon as the artwork is done and I can afford it. Here is the tune - with the lyrics.

 
 Please feel free to download this or any other track from the soundcloud page. If you use this in a radio show or podcast - please credit me and and let me know - Thanks Russ Crimewave.



Every day you pay the price,
You pay for someone elses life
You pay for someone elses dream
To earn yourself some self esteem
You pay to live and stay a slave
With the tax you pay on the wages you're paid
You pay for the prison where you're sent
Got caught and you pay for the rules you bent

We're pissing in the wind, Pissing in the wind
One step forward two / three steps back
We're pissing in the wind, Pissing in the wind,
The Union Jackboot marches on
Pissing in the wind

You pay for the Queen and the priveledged few
You pay for the hold they have on you
You pay the bills of corporate greed
And the bonus for the boss thats guaranteed
You pay for the government you vote in
You pay all the time for their wages of sin
You pay for the army and pay for the police
You pay for war and you pay for peace

You pay for this and you pay for that
You pay for it all as a matter of fact
Everyone will pay coz nothing is free
They'll soon make you pay for the air you breathe
You'll pay with your blood and pay with your sweat
You'll pay with your fears, hopes, dreams and regrets
You'll pay the price, lets not pretend
You'll pay with your own life in the end.

Riot In Progress

Rather than clog up the Urban Fallout Soundcloud where you will find three of my tunes I decided to have my own account so I can upload whatever I want, when I want. Instead of repeating the same tracks here I have uploaded a demo version for a song called - R.I.P. Riot In Progress.
The lyrics for this song were originally written for The Warriors who I played bass guitar  for until recently. Not knowing if it was ever going to be used or not and after a couple of aborted attempts at rehearsing it, I decided to rewrite the tune and demo it up myself. This was demoed at the same time as Still Called Scum and another as yet unreleased song. I sent it to a few people and got quite an entusiastic response from it other than the usual "yeah, its alright" response I was accustomed to with whatever I sent out for opinions. After writing a couple more tunes and playing this a few times I decided it was not good enough for what I wanted so it will not be going in a live set or for that matter on a CD or vinyl at a later date but i thought it was worth hearing so here it is.



Please feel free to download this or any other track from the soundcloud page. If you use this in a radio show or podcast - please credit me and and let me know - Thanks Russ Crimewave

 I am not going to be posting this out on various social network sites but please feel free if you like it

Generation iDiot

After posting Still Called Scum on the internet I wrote a few other songs, mainly a load of crap but a couple of good songs came out of it and I posted them to a couple of people I knew to get some feedback from them and to see if I was heading in the right direction.
The thing about sending them to your mates is that they will do one of two things, tell you the truth or lie profusely just so they don't upset you or piss you off in any way. Luckily I have mates that will be brutally honest and they said that with a bit of work the new songs could be really good. I decided against posting them on the internet as they need to be worked on a bit before I did so and set about writing some more.
My changing of the chords on an acoustic was getting better, it still wasn't good as I was missing strings, hitting bum notes all over the place and still couldn't play a C or F properly. But I was going to damn well carry on and would get my fingers round those two bastards sooner or later.
I was playing electric guitar as well, swapping between them so that I could play on one what I played on the other or so I thought. Nope, i found it easier to play barre chords on the electric and open chords on the acoustic, I was struggling with  barre chords on the acoustic but was going to persevere.

Generation iDiot came about one afternoon while I was in a pub trying to have a conversation with someone who insisited on checking their phone and using it pretty much contstantly. Its pretty frustrating when you are trying to say something and the person you are talking to is texting or in this case updating their status on Facebook while in the middle of  a conversation. How frustrating and annoying and more to the point - bloody rude. The other thing that annoys me about modern technology is people taking ipads to gigs to film the gig. You're at a gig to watch the band or whatever not to stand there watching the entire thing thru an ipad whilst filming the gig - show some respect please.
I mean who takes an ipad to a gig ... this bloke obviously

Like the previous song, Still Called Scum, this was entirely played and recorded by myself, I even managed to work out some harmonics on the electric to give it some dynamics, rather than a straight forward chordorama thrashalong song.





Please feel free to download this or any other track from the soundcloud page. If you use this in a radio show or podcast - please credit me and and let me or Urban Fallout know - Thanks Russ Crimewave

Still Called Scum

I used to play bass guitar for a fairly well known Punk or Streetpunk band until damage to my right hand prevented me from playing bass and I had to leave or go into retirement as I put it. The damage wasn’t bad enough to stop me playing completely but enough to stop me playing what I loved in a live situation - my bass.
Frustrated at the thought of not playing again if it got worse, I went to the Doctors showed them what was wrong and what caused it and the result was that there was nothing they could do. It was not bad enough to have an operation on it to sort it out, until it got worse. I didnt want it to get worse, it was bad enough as it was. No more live bass for me - I was gutted.
I was miserable as sin not playing my bass. After a week or two I started messing about on an electric guitar I had at home and found that I could sort of play a normal guitar without the damage getting worse, which was a result, so I set about learning to play one properly.
Not being able to play guitar very well in the first place was one of the factors in me picking up a bass many years ago. The other was the fact that I had a one thrust in my hand, told I was shit at guitar and  I was playing bass in a band whether I wanted to or not - seemed like a good idea at the time, so I did.
Many years later and I'm back where I started, playing guitar very very badly.
Basically, I know how to tune a guitar to play it with one finger and plenty of distortion to cover up my inadequacies and had managed to play second guitar in a band for a while before it came to an end but actually playing proper chords was a bit alien to me.

I set about learning some basic chords in Summer 2013 and to make life difficult for myself, decided I was going to learn the whole lot on an acoustic (as averse to an electric) guitar. I didn't have an acoustic guitar and not being able to afford to buy one, I did what any musician in my situation does ... I blagged one.
Having never picked up an acoustic before, I was a bit surprised when I worked out the shapes fairly easily, moving between them tho, that was going to be the bugger. I have rather large hands that are used to a bass guitar, 2 less strings and I only had to use one finger at a time, now I had to use all of them together and on six skinny strings and a smaller guitar neck, I figured the easiest way of learning how to play proper chords would be to write a song.

I have been writing lyrics on and off for years so that wasn't going to be a problem. I knew how to construct a song as I had learned that in the few bands that I have been in so it wasn't all alien just the chords and moving between them bit.
I had also recently started using a new bit of music software, or D.A.W. to record stuff onto so it was going to be a whole new learning curve from start to finish. So I set about writing some lyrics and tunes. Very clumsily and very very basic. E, A, D, F, C, G were the chords I learnt first and badly - I still cant play the F or C or change between them very well, the E  generally turns into Em (one less finger you see) and the A gets barred (1 finger instead of 3) but i struggled on for a month and it started to get easier but only a bit.

This song is the result of my first efforts and this was recorded in August 2013.



Please feel free to download this or any other track from the soundcloud page. If you use this in a radio show or podcast - please credit me and  and let me or Urban Fallout know - Thanks  Russ Crimewave

This was and is  the start of a different journey for me which I am going to share from time to time.
I will be sharing songs, lyrics, photos, pictures, thoughts, ideas and basically anything that I think is  relevant along the way.  If you want to praise, heap ridicule or just say something then either comment or don't. Cheers