We played a gig!

The first Tom Slatter Band gig happened last Thursday at The Fiddler’s Elbow, as part of a triple bill with IT and Circu5.

Did we do well?

Yes, we did!

I’ve wanted to play some of these songs with a proper band for a very long time. Three Rows of Teeth was released in 2013 and this was the first time that Mother’s Been Talking to Ghosts Again and Dance, Dance, Dance have been played live.  It was also the first time Some of The Creatures… has been played in its entirety, rather than the truncated acoustic version. I even got the mad guitar solo right, which I wasn’t expecting (and which made up for the mistake in Mother’s where I forgot to repeat one guitar bit).

This was the first time I’ve played guitar and fronted a full electric band for a very, very long time and I’m really happy with how it went. Partly that’s because Michael, Gareth and Keith played a blinder (yes, the only big mistakes were mine, unsurprisingly). But also it’s because of the audience. Were there hundreds of people? Of course not! But were there more people than I expected? Yes, there were and plenty of them came along specifically to see our set. The Immoral Supporters were out in force, tentacle fingers and all, which really made my night.

The other acts on the bill were also really good. Circu5 played a great set that was equal parts prog cleverness and singalong choruses. Here’s a link – I really like the song Stars in particular.

I’d seen IT before at the Bedford in Balham a year or so ago, so knew I was in for something proggy but with a groove and pop sensibility that you don’t always find in the genre. They definitely didn’t disappoint.  Highlights for me were ‘Revolution’ and ‘Hands

I can’t deny, I thoroughly enjoyed myself at this gig. After more than a year off stage, this was an exhilarating return to performing. Thanks to IT and Chris of the London Prog Gigs facebook page for making the gig happen.

I’m really looking forward to the next gig which will be in May at the Raising Steam steampunk festival May 10th-12th in Bromsgrove. We’re playing early on the Saturday afternoon, at about 1pm.

All the info is at this link.

Live at last

Next week’s debut Tom Slatter Band gig (we’re not calling it that. Are we calling it that?) includes a couple of songs from Three Rows of Teeth that have never been played live before:

Mother’s Been Talking To Ghosts Again

This is a tale of duplicitous spiritualists hoodwinking the bereaved and gullible. It’s got bits in 4/4, 5/8, 6/8, and three flavours of 9/8. I didn’t write with so many different time signatures to annoy Gareth Cole, but I am glad they’ve had this effect.

Dance Dance Dance

This is a song about dancing in the face of annihilation. Which, let’s face it, is what we’re all doing. Of course, a song about dancing has to have a chorus that’s difficult to dance to. So it’s in 5/4. Of course.

Three Rows of Teeth is an album of sci-fi rock songs, and I’ve wanted to play them properly for years. Next week at the Fiddler’s Elbow is going to be great.

Or awful. There is some difficult stuff here. It might be awful.

Lyrical themes – Dreams and nightmares

There are definitely recurring themes in my songwriting. I tell stories, I sing about murder, about steampunk monsters and body horror, about being at a distance from the real world.

Dreams and nightmares turn up more than once. Here are three examples.

Three Rows of Teeth

This is song is all about dream logic. We start off riding in a hot air balloon, which is then torn to pieces by some horrific sky creature with three rows of teeth. We tumble down to the ground only to be confronted by more monsters. This second set of monsters are evil living church steeples with spindly legs and gaping maws.

It is a strange song, even I am prepared to admit. But one with a great riff in the middle.

Spinning the Compass

The title track from my first solo album is similarly dream-like. Inspired by the Alfred Bester novel, The Demolished Man, this song is from the point of view of a person who finds their world vanishing and shrinking around them, until the very physics of the world shrinks and vanishes and stops making sense. It’s about being unsettled, feeling as if the world simply doesn’t make sense any more.

These Tiny Things Are Haunting Me

This is a fun little song about the tiny monsters that dance about at night, nibbling at your toes and haunting your dreams. The same monsters might be about to return on my next album…

My new album (out soon, I promise!) will continue the theme of nightmare songs.

None of these by the way, are actually based on real dreams. I very rarely remember dreams, but I do know that like lots of people I do have really weird dreams. Most of these songs have lyrics that turned up while I was very awake, most often while playing with various word randomisation techniques. The oddest ideas can occur in the most normal circumstances.

Thanks for listening!

For the first time in five years…

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.