On a shoestring project, quest to record pun rock band Boneyard Bastards first CD and perform first 100 concerts. On this journey we will learn the ins and outs of music business and share it with you.
JPKALLIO.COM will be rocking the Sweeney's basement this Friday, it's a line up of some great kick ass music:
Basement Sweeneys Fri 6th July with. ALICE CAN'T TURN LEFT 11.00. JPKALLIO.COM 11.45. PAGAN RIOT 12.30.
This is going to be our only show this summer.
After this gig we'll be scattered bit all over the place:-) Seba will be on drum duties with Seanie Vaughan Music, Patryk is playing the bass with the Pimps and Gimps Fanpage, I will be on the road around Europe with Sliotar and Qra is joining us on bass for three weeks as well. I'll be documenting some of our tour madness at Sliotars facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/sliotar.
After the summer we'll be back in action again in full swing:-). I thought long and hard this, even though it's not that big deal. Starting from next Tuesday I will be on the road and in "Sliotar mode" and I want to concentrate on the tour, the concerts and documenting the tour with videos and blog posts on Sliotars web site www.sliotarmusic.com. Due to these commitments I have decided to take a break from writing this blog for the duration of the tour. I also do feel the need to get bit refocused with this blog and I think the break will do world of good to me:-)
But I will post links to our tour stuff as they appear on Sliotars website, just not to loose the contact with every one here as well. So I suppose it is time to wish every one a great summer. Hope you all have a good one, I know mine will be mad one anyway;-) and I'll talk to you after the tour. J.P.
I am sitting home and waiting for UPC service guy, while
writing this. I have had a forced break from all the promotion work
for the past few days, due to loss of internet connection. As a
result I managed to fix my bicycle, that has been on my to do list for
a long while and instead of working all hours of the night I actually
caught up on some well needed sleep:-). In a way good timing, as I
have one of the busiest weeks of Sliotar's calendar ahead of me. St
Patrick's day gives us all an excuse to have a party and no one does
it quite like Dublin. Sliotar will be holding court in the
Porterhouse in Temple bar, we call it a Sliotarpalooza. We'll be
there Thursday 15th 6-10pm, Friday 16th 6-10pm, Saturday
17th 6.30-1am and on Sunday from 4-11pm. Of course on top
of this JPKALLIO.COM is rehearsing intensively, getting ready for our
first stint of concerts in 2012, photo shoots and all the other
promotion. So busy to say the least:-)
Many musician friends of mine after hearing about Sliotars
schedule have said with a sigh “oh I wish I could do that”. So I
thought to shed a bit of light on few so called secrets (only people
who don't know this, or refuse to believe it call it a secret) and
home truths, while I already feel sorry for my fingers;-). I am
fully aware of how lucky I am to be playing in Sliotar and get to
play live as much as I do, to travel all around Europe playing some
amazing gigs and also some not so amazing... But here are the details
of the so called “secret” recipe of how Sliotar got there. I
would say the number one key to the bands success and longevity is
our residency in the Porterhouse, this has given us an opportunity to
play live every week for the past 16 years, out of which 12 I have
been there. This has made three musicians in to seasoned pros when it
comes to performing live. People often ask me if I get nervous before
a concert With Sliotar? No I don't. Sometimes if there is lot of
hanging around I get anxious, but not nervous. I have gotten on to
stage in front of nearly 3000 people or played on live TV and as long
as that unit is around me, I am right at home as we have done it
literally thousands of times. And I am not saying this here as to
boast, I am trying to explain that to get to the point where you can
step on front of any audience without having to deal with nerves, you
just need to do it a lot. And with Sliotar we did, we took any gig we
could to get the name out and to play to new audience. We still do
this on tours if we are in a new territory. And still today my best
bit of advice to any band is to play live as much and as often as
possible. When no one knows you, it is not a time to pretend you're a rock star
and to think you are better than this or that gig. And unless you
have done those 100 or so pub gigs where you got comfortable playing
with each others live, you are not ready for that big festival stage.
Everybody wants to skip this and just get to do those big gigs, but
it is a learning curve and there is a big reason why you need to do
it. Big festival stages are where the cracks show, so make sure you
fix them first before you get up there. Personally I think the sign
of a great musician is when you can get on a stage, have a crap
sound, everything that can, will go wrong, but you still deliver a
killer concert. You need to learn that your personal needs and
comforts are not important to the audience. Once the show starts, you
just get on with it no matter what happens. We have had everything
gone wrong with Sliotar over the years and when it does it makes for
a tough gig! But you get on with it. We have had problems with power
in some areas of Eastern Europe where the power supply just wasn't
steady enough and kept knocking out our front of the house speakers,
we have had paraffin sprayed all over our instruments by the guys
doing a fire shows before us (there was no one coming near us with a
cigarette that day), we have had every imaginable situation go wrong
with the drums, kick pedals falling to pieces, cheap rental kits
hardware collapsing, Des having to wedge drums against each others
and taping everything together, but still doing a kicking show, we
have had broken tooth, foot, ribs, ligaments, torn muscles, squashed
knuckles, blood... lots of blood, food poisoning, serious chest
infections, high fever, nervous breakdowns, electrocution... And still, the show always
went on. Sixteen years a go if you would have thrown one of these
things at us, we probably would have freaked out and the gig would
gone down the drain, but now we just get on with it. And that level
of confidence in your self and in your fellow band members only comes
from playing lots of live shows. So play at any given opportunity
anywhere!
As to JPKALLIO.COM, we are still quite new band. But surely my
and the other guys past experience should make it a breeze to get to
the same level of confidence? No! We still need to get used to
playing live together as a unit, we need to get used to covering each
others backs when everything goes down south, we need to get past our
individual needs and start thinking as a unit, that's what bands are
made of. This is why we set our selves the 100 concert challenge in
the first place:-)
So there you go, sorry for once again running away with my rant,
but hey... Now for a few bits of quick updates. Well as I mentioned
in the beginning of this post, Sliotar will be celebrating 2012
Paddy's day in the Porterhouse here in Dublin from 15th to
the 18th of March. Also this week good friends of ours and
a brilliant band Mike Got Spiked are playing an album launch show in
the Industry (downstairs in the Mezz) on the 15th of
March. These guys are brilliant! Check out their new video
JPKALLIO.COM has a busy April planned as well:-) here is the gig
list so far: 4th April Sweeney's, 13th April
Adelaid bar, Sligo, 19th April Submarine Bar, Crumlin,
20th April Slaughtered Lamb in Swords. More on the way;-)
So that's a lot to digest for this week, hope to see you over
the weekend and back here next week. Happy St Patrick's day every
one!
