Look how excited the rest of the band look!

… I played electric guitar with a band last week. That’s right, the inaugural rehearsal of the Tom Slatter Band took place at the Amersham Music Studios.

The last time I played electric guitar in a band was a one-off gig that was supposed to be a warm-up for a steampunk festival that in the end never happened. Before that, I couldn’t tell you. Probably we’d have to go back to when I was in college.

Amersham Music Studios are the premises of Michael Cairns who played drums on my album Happy People, and on the up-coming new album as well. Michael is playing kit for the gigs as well, and we were joined by Keith Buckman from The Far Meadow and Gareth Cole who’s played some acoustic gigs with me before.

How did it go? You know what, it went pretty well. It was a weekday evening after a long day at work, and an annoying commute for all involved. So given the lack of energy we might have bought to the studio, actually it was sounding pretty good.

The set list is a mixture of songs from Happy People, a couple from Three Rows of Teeth that I’ve always wanted to play live, Some of the Creatures… and a version of Wizards of this Town, a song that will finally appear in recorded form on the next album later this year.

Thankfully, it turns out if you get good people in the band, things go really well, everyone learns their parts and things are relatively painless. If I’d known that before maybe I’d have put more effort into it before.

Or maybe not. It’s a lot of effort.

Anyway, come and find out for yourself if I ever learn the solo to Some of the Creatures… at the first show in London on 28th March:

Tickets can be purchased here!

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PS. I think I’ve finished mixing the album. Possible final mixes have been sent to the Evil Record Label boss and he hasn’t sent me any death threats in response. So watch this space, a new album might be turning up interfrasticly.