Banging them out 1 a day at the moment… Enjoy the croon

This Special Night

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GK

A bit of a break from the norm…. Here’s a new tune for ya….

This Old Love

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I always have been, and, probably always will be transfixed by this absolute jewell…. I fall in love every time it whispers lazily upon my undeserving ears. It’s mesmerizing, truly haunting and astonishingly beautiful.

To say “They don’t make them like this anymore” would be an understatement of epic proportions. The old desert island discs would definitely contain this masterpiece.

Take it away Frank:

If you and I haven’t seen each other in a while and you want to meet up for a drink, I’m exhilarated by your presence and in awe of your company… But please donate the money to the people who really need it…. Please

http://www.helphaitinow.org/

If you research successful songwriting guidelines, pop psychology suggests:

• Rhyming on line 1 & 3, 2 & 4 or a mixture of the two are essential to create ‘events’.
• Using chord structures around the 1st,4th & 5th note of a scale is the foundation of a solid song structure.
• The sandwich of ‘A’ ‘B’ ‘A’ ‘C’ structure is instantly recognisable as ‘pop’ and hence follows the guidelines set out by the Beatles, all the way down to Kings of leon and beyond. (*Pop is not a dirty word… Sinatra and Hendrix were both pop-ular artists)
• The hook is the roundup of everything stated prior.

There are dozens more rules and guidelines which offer the persistent songwriter the tools in order to edge the art of creating a song slightly towards the rigidness of science without compromising on the origination of artistic integrity… The context and destination  of a song, however, is a subject which rarely gets spoken about.

One realisation which I have recently stumbled upon came from the great Pat Pattison who discusses how people respond to mental stimulus in the form of art and music. If you ‘Tell’ somebody something, they are likely to retain less than if you illustrate the points, settings & scenarios and let them draw their own conclusion. Colourful language, setting a scene, demonstrating who, when, where and why are all a lot more powerful than telling people ‘what’ and assuming they will ‘get it’….

Let’s say you were listening in on a conversation and you heard a lack of descriptive vocabulary explaining “he said, she said” and it was all very dormant with respect to the intrigue of language, we would be inclined to stop listening. We don’t know who these people are, we don’t know under what circumstances the conversation took place, and we don’t have any insight into the when’s where’s who’s and why’s.

Take the flip-side of this scenario and the conversation goes on to explain what these people looked like, what emotional situations had happened to instigate the debate, what relationship these people have, the who’s the what’s the when’s and the where’s….. Now we are talking about songwriting.

The biggest thrill for me, and the reason i continue to write songs is for that brief moment when somebody approaches me and says something to the extent of “This song expresses exactly how I feel but I didn’t know how to say it” or “This song describes my boyfriend and I down to a T, it’s like you wrote this song for us”. This reward is staggering for me and drives me on to write more, but it is important to point out, for the relevancy of this post, that this scenario arises because we put feelings and emotions out there, via song, drawing pictures with melody and chords and offering people resonance with certain aspects that apply to their life in the same why a psychic would use a barnum statement to the extent of:

“You can be a very considerate person, very quick to provide for others, but there are times, if you are honest, when you recognise a selfish streak in yourself.”

It applies to everyone, everyone can imagine that this rule/statement applies to them. This is the effect we look for in successful songwriting. The most successful writers of our time have tasted success because not only are their chordal, melodic and structural musical ’sciences’ in place, but their words resonate with a vast range of demographics and cross genres because they connect with people on an emotional and story telling level.

I continue to create music in the hope that I can one day connect with you on such a constant, creative plane.

In peace and love

GK

There’s nothing quite like the turn of a new decade to put things in perspective, inevitably giving us the ability to get altitude on our lives.

I wish you all a happy new year and the determination to have the best year of your life… Bring on 2010 !

GK

6 days until christmas and man have we been busy. 15 shows in 19 days and the xmas break promises to be a short one before we are back on the road again.

The guys are currently editing videos of the live shows to fit in with a documentary we are shooting and thought I’d share some footage of a impro session with you from Rich’s astonishingly beautiful balcony with a staring role from the beautiful Chyla (Making her screen debut)…. Enjoy

Hiya !!

For those of you who couldn’t make it down, here’s some pics from last couple of weeks gigging.

Saturday:

You can’t beat a good wedding… Beautiful bride, proud mothers and fathers, comical speeches, fantastic food, plenty of Love and as always, great music !

Myself and Andy played an upbeat 2 hour duo gig at an old mill in Surrey. It was a perfect day, beautiful weather and everyone seemed to love the music… I can’t think of any better way to spend a Saturday, I will have some footage for you soon… The first dance was an interesting one… Damien Rice – Blowers Daughter! Anyway, everyone was thrilled and we ended up doing another 30 minutes over our allotted time and we were offered a free bar. Sparkling water all round, not a drop of alcohol passed my lips ! oh, and Blackpool won.. Mission Accomplished, perfect day!

Sunday:

I am honored to have played a part in the LSO & RCM music festival that was hosted right next to the Tower of London after the sunday picnic. Granted, the majority of the music was classical/opera which is truly awe inspiring, even though I couldn’t understand it because it was all in Italian… Anyway, I played a short 20 minute set of new tunes (with a couple of covers thrown in) and did an unexpected cover of ‘Barcelona’ by Freddie and Montserrat Caballé. The average age of attendees was over 40 so the response was extra special when I got a standing ovation at the end of the set… The first one ever… Amazing !

Tuesday:

Prohibition St Katherines Dock is always an amazing gig and I’ve been playing there solo pretty much every Tuesday for the last 6 months or so. This tuesday was a particular treat as it was rammo because the weather was absolutely glorious. Unfortunately, you can’t see it in this picture, but there are a load of boats and yachts in the dock just to the right. When the weather is nice you could easily mistake this little hidden gem as being in Monaco… Darling !

Wednesday:

Well, it’s not eveyday you can say you’ve played a gig in one of the most prestigous landmarks in the whole country…

Following on from a number of really cool gigs in the area, I was invited to play on Tower Bridge in the heart of Londons city for a ‘Heaven and Hell’ themed night. Little did I realise, that the gig was actually up on the top of the bridge walkways, the same place the apprentice finalists had been only one year previous.

This was an amazing show and a totally unique experience. There were jugglers, fire eaters, harpists, them random statues who stay still for ages then scare the crap out of you when they move… allsorts of radom lighting and other technology laden wonders in order to keep in check with the whole heaven and hell theme of the whole evening. Much fun had by all, tremendous night and tremendous party… I’m sure there were afew rough heads the morning after !

Photography by Simon Harvey – Blitzimages.co.uk

Saturday:

This is the Living Room in Regent Street (W1). Andy and I have been playing duo gigs here for afew years on a prime time saturday. It’s always a great atmosphere down here and is surrounded by some of the hottest places in town, The Ice Bar (just behind the camera), Strwaberry moons (Cheesey Pop & Cheap drinks means this place is always packed) and Soho literally across the road.

We usually play an hour and a half set which gives us a massive amount of freedom with respect to what we can play.. Some new stuff, some old stuff and loads of covers rangin from Kings of Leon, The Killers and Coldplay to The Who, The Beatles and Pink Floyd…. With some 90’s classics thrown in for good measure.

The David Bowie album below was shot at the same venue we are playing at (The Living room straight ahead). It looks slightly different now but it used to be a post office back in the day and you can tell it’s the same building…. Some would say we’ve walked in Bowies shoes, some would say we’re just a ‘Space Oddity’ (sorry)

Thanks for taking the time to read this post and please feel free to head down to a gig at some point in the future, they are all listed here on the gigs page

Cheers

Glen

P.S. If you want to get in touch with me, please email me on info@glenkirkham.com

P.P.S I’ve organised a European tour going down in December so if you fancy booking some dirt cheap flights and heading out for a mini break, nows the time to book it (Dates and Venues will follow)

P.P.P.S If you haven’t signed up for your free album yet, please do so. Read the post below and you will see why…..

P.P.P.P.S It’s FREE !