Here’s a flyer for the next gig:
Hope to see you there!
Tom Slatter’s Sunday Bootleg Episode 2: Ghost of Jeremy
Tom Slatter’s Sunday Bootleg Podcast Episode 1
I’m doing a new podcast. I have loads of recordings from gigs hanging around, so I thought I’d share them and tell you some of the entirely true stories that happened at these gigs.
Here’s Episode 1: A Big Egg
Creating the Artwork for Fit the Fourth
Joe has written a blog post about how he created all the artwork for Fit the Fourth. Click here to read it!
This image is several different views of my tentacle puppet stitched together. I really like the way the light plays through the slime dripping of the tentacle. Slime makes everything better
Gigs
I have some live gigs booked
December 5th at the Art Cafe Winchester
Doors at 7:30pm. It’s free entry. Here’s a facebook event.
January 23rd 2016 at The Yellow Book in Brighton
This is a great steampunk venue. Doors at 7:30pm. It’s free entry. Here’s a facebook event.
February 13th 2016 at The Boston Music Rooms.
This is the ‘big gig’: an evening of BEM music including The Gift, Twice Bitten, JH and myself. It’s gonna be ace. Tickets are here. There is also a facebook event
I’m really looking forward to getting out of London for some of these gigs. I’m hoping to get to other parts of the country and keep up the pace of about one per calendar month (I know, that might not sound a lot, but it’s plenty when you’re balancing it around full time work!).
If you’re able to come along, please do, it would be great to have a nice turn out. If you can’t but you know people in London, Winchester or Brighton who might want to come, please let them know!
It’s halloween. Here are some of my murder ballads.
I have written one or two songs the subject matter of which could be desribed as a tad dark.
What the Orderly Saw is about a hospital orderly interrupting some criminals and being shot dead
Nightfall is about the hunger for human flesh that we all feel. Go on, admit it, you want to taste long pork.
Self Made Man is about replacing your body parts with mechanical alternatives in a bid to escape whatever it was that happened to your wife.
Ironbark is 20 minutes long. On average, that’s one person dead every four minutes. “5 men know where the bodies are buried, here in Ironbark”.
Ghosts in my Dreams is about your guilt over the bodies you’ve left behind.
In Some of the Creatures Have Broken the Locks on the Door to Lab 558 everyone dies. Everyone.
Secret CD
Sending out CDs. 
Can you get one? No. These are only going to people who open every email from my mailing list. Ha!
My first print interview…
… of course also exists online.
‘Tom Slatter is a quintessentially British eccentric with a quirky imagination who has produced some of the most innovative progressive music in recent years.’
Now that’s getting quoted everywhere.
Turn the metronome off!
I’ve been enjoying the new Iron Maiden album.
In particular I like how it sounds like a band playing together in a studio. There are little things, like the occasional fret buzz, or hi hat count ins between sections that another producer might cut out in the name of ‘perfection’.
I don’t think they’re playing to a click track – the tempos aren’t metronome perfect. In fact I’m just listening to ‘The Red and the Black’ and the tempo has sped up or slowed down a little three or four times since starting typing.
Rock bands should record like this.The only reason I can think for not doing so is if you’re Fear Factory and playing songs about evil robots. Then you can sound like a machine, cos it makes sense. Everyone else? Turn the bloody metronome off!
Of course, not having an actual band I am forced to use click tracks. Needs must. I try and leave little mistakes in and have changes in tempo where I can. When recording ‘Some of the Creatures….’ I recorded guide tracks that were deliberately loose and a bit rough around the edges timing wise – musical rather than robotic – and recorded the real parts with that as a guide.
Perfection isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
A Year of Stuff
Doing some planning for creative projects over the next 12 months.
Titles have been redacted, but I have on my plate four albums of new music, two writing projects, and re-releases of my previous steampunk albums with bonus tracks n stuff. . smile emoticon (It’s me putting stuff on my plate. I needn’t do any of this. Is this excessive? It might be).