Get Frank are go…
Tonight myself and Nick play the Victoria. Here’s a video of Nature Boy that we recorded the other day during practice
I’m playing glock and Nick is on guitar tonight. I might play a little precussion, however I’m a rubbish multitasker.
Its £3 NUS or £4 without.
Last night I played an impromptue set for visiting London based act The Rileys. According to my friend and Burn’s head of music, Fuzz, two of the guys from the band came into the Burn studio to mention the gig and asked if she knew a potential support act. Fuzz called me. I had to go it alone without Nick but It was great fun. I’ve played the Bar Academy with Pyschonaut before (on bass) but playng on a stool to people not there to see you is a different but rewarding experience….and slightly alienating when you have two of the headlining act cheering directly in front of you. As singer Joe said, “It’s like a private gig!”
Don’t forget you can download some of my demos for freeness here.
Hope you see you tonight – come and say hi…
Frank x
If you see Atom/Business Time/Get Frank’s first gig
…I sent an email to Adam of Atom and His Package and got a response!
Apparently my email asking the retired musician to come play in England so I could sing on track ‘Head (she’s a)’ made his day, but unfortunately he has no plans to make a trip any time soon (or ever it seems!)
In other news I’m still searching for judges Burnfm‘s BOTB and getting messages from interested acts. Burn is sounding pretty er… ‘hot’ right now and I’m rather chuffed with everyone involved and their hard work.
I’ve got lots of work atm but I can’t help myself from watching Flight of the Conchords constantly! The new series is on Youtube…and I’m a tad obsessed. I even played ‘Business Time’ on my radio show on friday.
MOST IMPORTANTLY!!!!
I’m playing my first gig as Get Frank on thursday at the Victoria on John Bright Street (behind the Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham.) It’s a Bohemian Jukebox in the City event organised by musician Ben Calvert. I’ve recruited friend/ Burnfm Head of Specialist Nick Mannix to play guitar for me so I don’t completely crack! I may play something aside from singing but haven’t decided yet. I really need to find someone to do precussion and someone to play glock and keyboard but haven’t got any takers as of yet. I should probably advertise but haven’t got a clue where to start…..
PLEASE COME! Any Q’s just email me or comment…
Frank x
frankiepromotes@googlemail.com
FREE FOR YOU!
I’ve popped some tracks in/on my Get Frank Soundcloud for you to download and enjoy at your lesiure.
If you like please come along to one of my gigs, at The Victoria on the 26th February or The Yardbird on the 8th March (both are in Birmingham.)
Also feel free to pass the link/tracks on. They aren’t the greatest recordings (just stuff I did in my room!)
I’m hopefully putting a band together for the gigs too so hopefully I’ll have a nice new and improved sound!
(Get) Frank x
Burnfm…back with a band?
A couple of days ago I finally decided to GET ON WITH IT!
‘It’ being the first Burnfm.com Battle of the Bands. We’ve scheduled it for the 26th March (thursday before term ends.)
I’m currently on a desperate search for the organisers of Vale Fest so that I can negociate a slot on one of their stages for our winner. I also need to find some willing judges who are passionate about finding new and up and coming talent. I feel it is important for people to show their enthusiasm for Birmingham produced music as this is one of the issues raised by organisations such as Gigbeth.
We’re looking for about 5-10 acts. The amount of songs they play will depend on how much interest we recieve. If we have 10 then I’m currently pondering whether to get them to play one ‘crowd pleasing’ cover and one of their own songs (so the judges can really pick up on whether they have that ‘special spark.’
I’m going to have talks with members of Rock Soc, Indie Soc and the newly launched Band Soc to try and see how the event will work and how to get people involved….
Any ideas please comment or email me…
On other Burnfm.com stuff we’ve been back online for nearly a week and finally have some stings and beds in place which is lovely! We’re going to sort out more marketing and start talking…!
The most important thing to get off the ground is the computer system which our Tech guy, Michael Barton has built us an automated playback system. He just has to correct a bug in the program and then we’ll all be able to put music on the system and really get things off the ground.
HURRAH!
Frank x
Fancy editing…
I’ve often watched videos on Youtube which are cut together to show the musician performing each of the instruments in the song. Two notable musicians who are very good at this are Julia Nunes and Jenny Rafferty.
I think the usual way of making these types of videos is to use editing software and mixing the vocal tracks using the program. I filmed myself with iMovie recording each track with garage band (I wasn’t going to use a mixing desk as I don’t really record covers. they’re just a Youtube thing.) I then matched up the videos with the finished track and cut it together fairly randomly! Sometimes getting everything in sync feels like more trouble than its worth but because I can hear the actual singing in the videos, its fairly easy to match up.
Hope you like. I welcome suggestions for songs which you think I should ‘Get Frank’ up
x
Nature Boy…in my back garden.
We had a go in the back garden!
Frank xx
Created in Birmingham wins Best UK Blog
Created in Birmingham has won the 2008 Best Uk Blog in the Weblog awards.
Hurrah!
This has pretty much entirely been down to Chris Unitt who has been entirely dedicated to the site for over a year and is now handing over editorial duties to Kate Spragg. Thanks also must go to fellow nominee Pete Ashton who gracefully told all and sundry to vote for CIB rather than himself. Also to everyone who facebooked, twittered and blogged about voting for us. There’s a list of heroes on this CIB post.
I need to get in contact with Kate and sort out if I am still contributing to CIB, and I definitely want to but having had to start doing heaps of coursework I have been a bit on the quiet side! I still want to do interviews though, specially as now I have a portable camera, filming will be much easier.
If you want to see any of the interviews I’ve done for CIB you can see them by clicking on the following hyperlinks:
Photographer and Birmingham Live! founder Steve Gerrard
Clare Edwards of Gigbeth Festival and Conference
Musician and Birmingham Jazz Manager Mary Wakelam
Again, well done to Chris and everyone else involved
Frank xxx
My blog of the er…weekend?
Today I read fellow ‘Ward surname sharer’ Andy Ward’s blog and decided that you should too…
ta da!
Looking for my Nature Boy
This is an early incarnation of ‘Nature Boy’ which I wrote with my friend Fuzz. I was teaching her some simple chords for uke and she told me about a scenario which she wanted to turn into a song and hey presto!
When Fuzz was still at school she was ‘in love’ with a boy and wrote about him in her diary etc… One day she got him to participate in an art project for her. She took him to a park, put lots of jewellery on him and took a photo. To create her final composition she plastered diary entries over the picture. I haven’t seen it as I think Ikon gallery kept it after it was displayed (I need to check with Fuzz.) But I thought it was truly a lyric worthy tale.
Right now I am experimenting with finding a ‘video editing style’ on Youtube and currently favour a Bob Dylan style quick edit/written notes. My shtick is that my updated version is environmentally friendly as it doesn’t waste paper! I need to find a ‘nature boy’ for the video to do put jewellery on basically! He probably needs to emcompass an ‘indie’ boy style (Think Topman—cardigans and the like.) I could use more than one boy, I’m not sure yet. My audio recording is still shabby and has a maraca, keyboard and ukulele on it. There was something quite joyful about making it, I enjoy it’s raw feel. I’m not a pro so why pressure myself? Currently my recordings are so I can experiment visually. I’m hoping to make a great video for ‘Disappointed in Me‘ and another for ‘Whoops.’
Here is a music video which uses the style. This song has inspired me to start the ‘Fake Project’…but more on that another time.
This song, ‘Fake Joe Lean’ is simply about the idea of saying that someone you may be attracted to looks like someone else. For example if you’re trying to explain what someone looks like in a conversation you may say ‘he/she looks like so and so.’ I like to call these people ‘fake’ not because they are, but because they become a lookalike for someone well known often without even knowing it….
If you know anyone who may fit the bill give me a shout!
Frank x
Get Frank 