Friday 29 December 2006

Live At Last

So, we did it, our first brief live performance. Went pretty well although I think our nervousness was apparent in the first song. There are some pics on the main page HERE .

What else? Well I also picked up an order for a booster pedal which will be the first pedal I have built in a while. Hopefully now that I am at the end of my driver training I will be able to devote a bit more time to pedal building. To that end I have also started work on re-housing and modding a wah pedal for Rollasoc.

During the dead (and, frankly boring) time between Christmas and New Year I have been working on a song and have pretty much finished the music - just need Chris to come up with some lyrics. I have recorded this one by mic'ing up the Valve Jnr. and I'm pleased with the results.

Happy New Year,
E.

Friday 22 December 2006

Shock, Horror and Christmas

Hello,

Here is a brief end of year round up / hopes for next year type thing.

It's been a very strange year indeed. We had a rough plan at the start of the year of what we wanted to achieve. Some of which we achieved, some of which we didn't.

New jobs, house moves, bereavements, relationship implosions etc seem to have conspired against us this year.

We managed two of our three planned EPs. EP3 has been mostly written, but is waiting to be recorded. The proposed album is probably, (and I guess) 50% written and this will probably be our main focus in the coming months.

We did the first Hair Thieves live perforance since 2002 this week at an open mic night at The Lounge in Bridgnorth.

We did three songs, Break the Casino, Apotemnophilia and a cover of The Connells song 74 -75. Not much, but at least it is a start.

So hopefully, we'll do a lot more of that, get the album fnished and the next EP out and then search to expand the line-up so we can do some full gigs.

Shame Christmas has got in the way, I think the next few months are going to be rather exciting. I'm rather looking forward to it.

Hope you all have a very happy Christmas and an excellent new year.

Rollasoc

Tuesday 19 December 2006

Tonight.....

Tonight.....
......we are off to play a short acoustic set at a bar in Bridgnorth. Woo hoo!
E

Thursday 7 December 2006

The winter Chills

Quick update.

I've now moved house, out of Telford, and I'm in the midst of wiring up the studio in the spare bedroom. This is going slowly due to a) other house things to sort, b) other social commitments c) been putting it off since it is a pain to do. Been doing a little bit each day, so hopefully by the weekend I can start recording again.

E has sent me a new song he has been working on, in the meantime.

E and I checked out a local (to me) Open Mic night a couple of days ago. Hopefully at the next one we will either get up and play a few tunes together or I'll get up on my own. (Depends on E's work pattern).

So we are going to rehearse this weekend, ready to ramp things up again in the new year.

Later

Rollasoc

Saturday 11 November 2006

All Systems Go

Quick update since it appears we are not up to much.

Humm, we are not up to much. Basically, I am moving house, out of Telford, just down the road to Bridgnorth on the weekend of 18th / 19th November, so almost all of my musical equipment has now been packed away.

So we will resume writing, recording and rehearsing at the end of the month.

We have started rehearsing the first three songs for an acoustic set. So at some point in December or the New Year we will go out and play somewhere. Quite looking forward to that.

I'll post again, when I'm back up and running in a new weeks.

Later

Rollasoc

Saturday 4 November 2006

Shirtbuttons

Tomorrow Chris and myself are off to the NEC for Music Live 2006. I've got a few things to look at this year, mainly I hope to pick up an Epiphone Valve Jnr amp. I might also keep an eye out for some cheap monitors to plug into my Toneport. Plus I will inevitably buy loads of strings and things.

The Hair Thieves have spent a few hours rehearsing some songs in an acoustic stylee. It is entirely possible that we will one day soon be playing in front of an adoring crowd. Or possibly two old drunks and the barmaid. With Chris moving house soon we haven't ben able to do much towards recording the album but we are both working on material for it.

Now I'm off to the pub for my lunch

E

Saturday 28 October 2006

Brief Update

Still quiet on the Hair Thieves front.

The video for Shorewards is now complete and can be seen on the main Hair Thieves myspace page or at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awTr1sRIygk

I'm very happy with how it turned out, but due to the song's short length a lot of material had to be cut out. Maybe I'll do a directors cut extended edition at some point in the future.

E is working on a video for one of our other tunes, using a different package. He did show me some of the ideas he has for it last week.

We had a little rehearsal / writing session last week, which went quite well. 3 songs were rehearsed, and didn't sound too bad. Just need to practise them a bit more.

We played with a new song E is in the process of writing. It is coming together slowly but getting there.

Recording of the album has temporarily been mostly suspended until after I move house. Haven't got a date yet, but I am viewing a property in the next few days, so hopefully it should be sorted very soon.

So whilst we are not recording I am using the time to research a few lyrical ideas for the songs that need lyrics. More on that at a later date.

Later,

Rollasoc

Saturday 14 October 2006

The Western Front

Not much to report on the Hair Thieves front. Things a bit slow, with me busy packing for my impending house move, and looking for a house to move into and E having his shifts moved around.

Guy has supplied the lead vocal to a track called "The New Opportunist". I had a brief go at editing it down to fit the track today, since the version Guy sang over is longer than the current version of the song. It just needs mixing, so that will be the first new finished track for the album. Hopefully the mixing will be done in the next week or so.

I have been working a bit, on what will hopefully be the first track on the album. It is in essentially two separate parts, that merge into each other. Part 1, has been written and demo'd for about 15 months now. It just needs actually recording properly. The 2nd part was just a verse part only but I've added the initial chorus to it. At the moment I'm thinking this chorus will be different to the other choruses sonically. So there is much to do. Lyrically, the concept is there and I have a load of research papers and the like on the subject matter and a few mind maps on directions it could take. I just need to get down and write them now I have a sort of direction the music is going. Musically, it is quite a departure into sort of industrial dance, but hopefully with melody. We shall see.

This week, I also started re-recording Apotemnophila for the album. I love the original but it is full of little mistakes, the obvious one being, if we do it live, Ian will play the arpegiated bit and me the leads. The EP1 version was recorded the opposite way around, since I had recorded most of it, as E joined the band, so I'd like to rectify that in the new version.

I have also been working on a video for the lead track off EP2, namely "Shorewards". I have about 20 minutes of video material, that I just need a spare day to sit down and edit it, now I have it in a format that my video editing program will allow me to use.

Humm.. Reading through the above it appears I've done a bit more than I thought. Oh well.

Later

Rollasoc

Friday 13 October 2006

All Quiet

Not much happening on the music front right now. We have plans and good intentions to start recording the album and work up a live set however progress on both is minimal. Chris has several real-life issues to deal with that are keeping him away from music and I am tied up with work / too lazy to do anything. We did meet up last night but then spent our time in the pub.

We did talk about recording something next weekend though so progress will be made. Oh yes, one good thing: Guy has given me his vocal for New Opportunist.

Spent a bit of time today making up a circuit board for an auto-wah pedal. It is inevitably going to be called the "Phunc -E" and will be available for sale in a couple of weeks no doubt. And it is purple!

E

Sunday 17 September 2006

Rehearsing and everything.

Well, a very quick update, now EP2 is out and things.

"E Weird" has been getting mostly, good reviews on Garageband and was played on the Radio Ophans podcast last week (Episode 63)(http://radioorphans.blogspot.com/).

Today, we have finally started cobbling together a live set. At the moment this will probably entail 4 songs off EP1 & EP2, two brand new tracks we are working on (one for EP3 and the other an album track) and 4 or 5 non obvious covers.

We shall see over the next month or so, how we get on with the cover versions to see which ones stay and which ones go.

Also, I've started cobbling together the various bit of music we have written towards EP3 and the album. So we can in the next few weeks assess where we are at with both of them.

Later

Rollasoc

Thursday 31 August 2006

EP2 out now!

The new EP has been released this week. This is imaginatively titled EP2

It features 4 tracks

1. Shorewards

2. The Mighty Fall (feat. Tim from The Evan Band )

3. Baited Breath

4. E Weird (feat. Simon Mann on bass)

The new EP can be purchased for download for the pricely sum of $2.99 from our DEADLINK store. You can also buy it bundled with EP1 for $4.99

We have had some very nice things said so far about the EP, which is nice. If we get any reviews I'll put them on the site.

We had this posted about "E Weird" by Martin on Garageband

"A whole song created with guitar is not exceptional. But this one is. I really, REALLY like it. The melody is breathtaking and the performance of both bass and guitar is above standard. The guitars sound is gentle and warm, the sound is like early 90's post rock bands like my bloody valentine, tortoise, mogwai and sigur ros. The reason why I like this kind of music is because it is a perfect soundtrack for being calm and relaxed. It's instrumental and the production is warm and dreamy. I love this kind of music and i really love this song. Great work."

We have very few physical copies of the CD left. Message us if you want a copy and we'll see if we can come to some financial arrangement. ha ha.

Later

Rollasoc

Thursday 17 August 2006

Getting there slowly

EP2 is currently mostly mixed. The aim is to get it finished this weekend. Live with it for a week, then make the disks and put it on the net.

We are just waiting for one part from a special guest to arrive at the weekend and we can start mixing the last track properly. Then there are a few bits and bobs to do and then it should be done.

E has done a great job of the cover. Subtle indeed.

I might try and post a song (or two) on the myspace site sometime in the next week.

The track listing is as follows

1. Shorewards

2. The Mighty Fall (feat Tim from The Evan Band)

3. Baited Breath

4. E Weird (feat ???)

We will be producing a very limited amount of CD-Rs of the EP, some of which might be made available for purchase in a few weeks. It will also be downloadable from one or more websites (like Soundclick).

Once the EP is out, work will start in earnest in finishing writing and start recording the Hair Thieves album. This will probably include Apotemnophilia from EP1, (though this will be re-recorded), Shorewards from EP2 and eight or nine brand new songs.

It will not include any Hair Thieves material previous to EP1.

The other aim is for a new website design. At the moment, part of this redesign will mean the tracks currently available for free download are removed and put in a secure area that only the mailing list can download from. We might also make available "work in progress" mixes of the new songs.

We might allow (some of) them to be streamed from other sites though. So grab them whilst you can or join the mailing list.

We shall see.

As E stated in his blog, after a few aborted attempts at putting some lyrics to a tune we recorded last year (known as "Fuzzy"), he farmed the lyrics out to Guy, (who co-wrote with E "Break the Casino" on EP1). Guy has sent us a great acoustic version of the song now called "The New Opportunist" which I'll see if I can post at some point, so people can compare it with the final version.

Later

Rollasoc

Saturday 12 August 2006

Mix a my toe, Sis?

Just a quick update: Spent a couple of hours with Rollasoc mixing the tracks for EP 2. Almost there now and they are sounding rather good.

On the gear front I have just bought a Line6 Crunchtone overdrive pedal which will go on my "B" board. Also put a few distortion pedals up for sale.

E

Sunday 6 August 2006

Chaos @ the Urn

After much careful thought and several rewrites, we have finally decided that the lyrics for the song formerly known as Fuzzy were simply not good enough. Fortunately I had foreseen this being a problem and many weeks ago sent a copy of the music to my old friend Guy. As I hoped, he has come up trumps with a fantastic set of lyrics and an acoustic demo to boot. The song will now be called The New Opportunist and will feature on either EP 3 or the album, or maybe both.

I have some time off now so I can give Rollasoc a hand with the mixing of EP 2, ready for release at the end of the month. I have also found time to do the artwork and am pleased to report that it continues with the theme from EP 1. Maybe one day the frogs will return.

E

Sunday 16 July 2006

Progress

After a break of many weeks I have finally recorded my last guitar part for EP2. It took much longer than anticipated due partly to the odd timing of the song and mostly due to me not having picked up a guitar for about 5 weeks. Ah well, got there in the end.

My time in Cardiff comes to an end in a weeks time so hopefully that will see The Hair Thieves start to make real progress towards wherever it is that we are heading

Oh, one last thing: I have just bought one of the Behringer TU100 tuners for � and very nice it is too. Excellent value if you don't want to spend � on the Boss.

E

Sunday 2 July 2006

England Out. HT In

With England out of the world cup now, work can now restart on EP2.

I've listened to what we have done so far for EP2 and EP3 and after consulting E, we have decided we are not entirely convinced by one of the tracks for EP2. Musically it is very strong, lyrically it still needs a lot of work, or complete rewrite.

So we are putting that track on the back burner for a while and promoted a track from EP3 to EP2. This is currently in very basic form, so a mad rush will now ensue to get it recorded.

Having taken three weeks off, for the world cup, it is really nice to be able to get back into recording mode again. Bar the odd time I've picked up my guitar, over the last week or so, I've been really itching to get back to it.

I did plug everything back in yesterday before the England match, and recorded a new idea for a song. We shall see how that progresses.

From E's blog, he has had his first attempt at actually driving a train. Cool....

Right back to the grindstone....

Rollasoc

Friday 2 June 2006

Nearly there

All this study has left very little time for music but fortunately most of my parts for EP 2 are now recorded so my absence shouldn't hold the process up too much. All I have left is one short noisey guitar part. Just puts a bit of extra pressure on Rollasoc.

Actually Rollasoc has done a bit of a round up of our current "works in progress". When it is written down it is surprising how much we have written in the last couple of months, certainly enough for another EP, and half an album to boot. We have even started work on a song based on a poem written by my sister which I am particularly pleased about.

Wish me luck.

E

Sunday 28 May 2006

British Weather

Well, I've been away to, mostly rainy, Cornwall for a week. To be fair the weather was just what I needed. It meant I could actually get some work done...

I managed to read three books, watch several Anime series, write some lyrics, learn php and MySQL and visit the family. All in all a successful week.

We've spent some time this weekend recording "The Mighty Fall" for EP 2. E has recorded part of his guitar track and I've been playing with some recording techniques and not really finishing anything. Plus slightly struggling with the free time of the ending, which is throwing me slightly.... (Need more practice).

I spent some time with Tim (who co-wrote the track) during the week and he has informed me he has changed his band's name from "The Dedheds" to "The Evan band". His Myspace site is up, but hasn't any content. I'll post the link soon.

We also spent part of this afternoon working on a track for the next EP. A little acoustic number, with some guest lyrics. More details to follow as things take shape.

Later

Rollasoc

Saturday 13 May 2006

The Mighty Breakthrough

E has started his own Myspace site which contains his very own blog. This will, where appropriate, be also put on the main Hair Thieves site. Please check out his site, music, pictures and blog.

I'll probably set up my own Myspace site, since I have other non Hair Thieves stuff I want to blog as well as well as a few other things I want to share.

Tim, of the Dedheds has finally sent the drums and vocals for "The Mighty Fall" and I'm chuffed to bits with what he has sent me. So over the coming weeks we can finish recording this track. It is probably the heaviest hair Thieves track for a while.

As E stated in his blog, we have finished the lyrics for the track I've been struggling with for a while. I feel much better about it now. I just need to record the vocals and we can then, mix the track. I'll tell you the title when it's finished, just in case we rewrite them again..

Anyway, lots to do....

Rollasoc

Thursday 11 May 2006

Land Ahoy

This is an insight into how The Hair Thieves work, and why it takes us so long to get anything finished

Yesterday I added a second guitar part to "Shorewards". The net result of this is that EP 3 is at roughly the same stage of completion as EP 2. To add to the confusion we are going to spend some time on Sunday playing with a few ideas to be released much, much later on an album. Did any one say "focused"?

Still, no worries, eh?


E

Sunday 7 May 2006

Erm.....

.....so here goes then. I don't really know what this place is going to be used for yet; if it gets used for anything at all. I'll probably post a few comments about how The Hair Thieves is progressing from my point of view and maybe a few words about my progress in my new job - I have just started as a trainee train driver.

Hair Thieves: Chris has just sent me a demo of a vocal he has added to some music that I wrote for our forthcoming EP 2. Not 100 percent sure about it yet but we will make it work I'm sure

E

Saturday 29 April 2006

Spam Spamity Spam

Well April has been a most bizarre month. Easter, Family tragedies and other surprises.

Work on EP 2 has resumed after a couple of weeks of complete shut down.

The instrumental is getting there. I've almost finished recording my parts and have asked a special guest (maybe two) to add some bits and pieces. At the moment, it is called "E Weird", which was the initial working title, based on the fact it is E's ideas and it is darn weird.

Lyrics are almost done for another track. Which has been a bit of a struggle, but coming together slowly.

I'm assured the drums and vocals have been recorded for "The Mighty Fall" by Tim of the Dedheds. Just waiting for them to be sent up from Cornwall so E and I can record our parts.

E requested that we re-record an old Hair Thieves song for the EP. Which we shall start re-recording tomorrow... More on that soon.

E's work schedule isn't as bad as originally feared, so live performances may now happen later this year rather than next year. Once we have expanded the lineup further. More on that towards the end of the summer.

We have also started writing two new tracks. The first is called "Shorewards", which came about after I went around E's for a cup of tea and he handed me a bunch of random lines of lyrics. Next day, whilst noodling, I came up with a guitar part and luckily, his bits of lyrics fitted nicely. Less than half an hour later, I had recorded a rough version with drums, bass, guitar, vocals and accordian(?). It still needs some work to flesh it out further.

The second, untitled, song, E has been sending little MP3s of it during the week to me. It has a great little riff on it and I'm looking forward to see what he does next with it.....

In a mad "retail therapy" moment, I've bought a new guitar. Oh dear...

Later

Rollasoc

Sunday 26 March 2006

Daylight Savings time

Well, its the end of the month, so I thought a small update was in order as to the progress of EP2.

The instrumental is going well. E has put his guitar tracks down now and we've spent a couple nights this week, going through my ideas and trying to work out what goes and what stays. It has been a real pleasent experience. I believe we mostly have my parts worked out, I just need to practice them, until I can play them without mistakes, since the nature of the effects on them, means I probably won't be able to fix any mistakes later....

Lyrics are going slowly for the track we have music for, I'm mostly having difficulty with trying to ignore the very melodic bass line and come up with a counter melody that I can actually string a sentence into.

The rest is temporarily on the backburner, now E is away during the week.

Rollasoc

Saturday 11 March 2006

Time Flies by when you are a driver of a train

Ok a quick roundup of the last month. EP1 has been released and we have totally sold out of copies. We may make some more at a later date? We have had some very positive feedback from the vast majority of people who have heard it.

If you didn't get a copy, iIt is available to download for a small fee from

DeadLink

Work has begun on the next EP. The aim to get this finished and released by the end of May, (maybe end of June knowing us).

At present we have a half written instrumental, which we will start recording properly tomorrow, a complete track minus (some) lyrics and a rough demo of a collaboration that took place last August between myself and the singer/drummer of Cornish band The Dedheds. We are just waiting for the singer to record his drum and vocal parts.

Ian has gone and got him self a nice new job, although this means that he will be spending the vast majority of the next year in Cardiff training.

So the plan for the next twelves months will revolve around us mostly writing new material for more EPs and the album. Plans to start gigging and expanding the lineup in the summer have been put on hold as we see how the next few months pan out.

We have been offered an acoustic gig sometime soon, which we have started rehearsing for. So a few acoustic gigs over the next year might be the way forward, depending on work commitments.

Rollasoc

Sunday 12 February 2006

The Mighty Fall

Well the new EP is out. The original 50 nice coloured (Pink, Orange, Green, Blue and Purple) CDs I believe have all gone now and I quickly had to press up another 20 not so nice black CDs (there may be two or three of these left).

If you didn't get a copy it is available to download in MP3 format for the tiny sum of $3.99 from

DEADLINK

So there we are all hyped up and ready to launch into writing and recording EP2 when disaster strikes. E goes and messes one of his fretting fingers up at work and can't properly play for a couple of weeks and I go and get myself Tonsilitis and have been mostly in bed for the last 3 days.

So that's that until everyone is better again.

Right where's the Lemsip

Saturday 28 January 2006

Home Made Hit Show

Apotemnophilia has currently been added to episode 10 of the Home Made hit show.

http://www.homemadehitshow.com/

Please go to the site and listen to the show.

Rollasoc

Thursday 26 January 2006

Where did it go

Humm.. I did post a new blog item last week, but it seems to ahve disappeared off the site. Bizarre that.

Anyway, Happy New Year.

The Hair Thieves have regrouped for the new year and are finally putting the finishing touches to the new EP.

The track listing for which will be (not necessarily in this order)

1. Apotemnophilia
2. Break Casino
3. Girl with two names - Acoustic
4. Boeotia

The aim is to finish up any additional recording over the next couple of days and spend about a week mixing and re-mixing it. So hopefully next weekend we should be at a point to start producing the actual disks and mailing them out.

The artwork is also currently being put together as well.

So if you have applied for a free copy expect one sometime in early February. If you haven't applied for a free copy, goto http://www.hairthieves.com and join the mailing list and I'll send you details on how to get a copy.

Apotemnophilia has been receiving favourable reviews from a review site and others who have heard it. We have been tweaking it a bit based on their comments.

My favourite comment on it so far has been from Mr Robin Page whom summed it up with the following comment.

"Fantastic. For some reason I want to chase gibbons with a chainsaw... hmmmm."

Anyway, best get back to it....

Rollasoc