[Wildly off topic]: Drums and Drumming

This is very much a one-off post, I think, in that it's nothing to do with communication or libraries, but is instead about drumming, my other passion. I only ever get to play drums in rehearsals or gigs because I can't set a kit up at home, but I think about drums and music about 90% of the time... 

I started drumming when I was about 15 or 16, having previously played trumpet, and found it the most liberating and exciting thing I'd ever done. It all felt very natural and I got quite good quite quickly - sadly because I've not had lessons and don't have much self-discipline, I've not really improved that much since then!

I've played in all sorts of bands, spanning all sorts of musical styles - including a live drum & bass / jungle group, which was amazing - and for the last few years it's been nice to go back to where I started: a good old fashioned rock'n'roll covers band, called Lightbulb Moment. We're actually playing the prime 9pm slot at a small festival this weekend, and amazingly my favourite ever originals band that I've been in, Western Scifi, are reforming for this gig only to celebrate 15 years since we recorded our album. I cannot wait.

Western Scifi & Lightbulb Moment are playing at 8pm and 9pm on the main stage

In Lightbulb Moment we play the songs we really like rather than the usual party band stuff, and in Feb we went into the studio to record four videos - live takes of some great covers. They're finally online and I'm so excited about them I'm writing this drumming blogpost, and embedding them below.

I recently created a Drums section to this website. It's hidden in that it's not listed in the main navigation along the top, but if you're interested there's more videos, audio, and a drum related bio, all accessable via the Drums homepage: ned-potter.com/drums/home.

Here are the vids. The first is Grace by Jeff Buckley - it's one of my favourite songs of all time (and that was the case before I had a daughter called Grace!) and because it's Jeff Buckley it's a really hard song to do well. But our vocalist, Chris Harte, is pretty amazing on this track and I'm so happy with how it came out. Unlike the other vids below this one has a very Ned-cam heavy visual mix! Thanks to Dave (our keyboard player, co-lead singer, 2nd guitarist and video creator...) for making this for me.

The next tune is something a little more conventional - Don't Matter by Kings of Leon. A short, sharp burst of rock.

I've never been a particular fan of Ocean Colour Scene but Dave brought this tune in for us to do and I really like it. It has twin vocals all the way through, it rocks along, and we made a nice stabby ending for the drums to mess about over the top of... This is called Hundred Mile High City.

And finally the last tune we recorded was Message in a Bottle by the Police. We were all a bit ragged by this point, and we'd only learned the song the previous night, and it's actually a different arrangement to the original version which complicates things further! But in the end it turned out okay. I even sing some of the 'Sending out an S.O.S's at the end...

So there are the new videos. If you've got this far, thank you for sticking with me on this drumming tangent... My entirely-drum-focused Instagram is @ned_potter, the same name as my Twitter.

Any other librarian musicans out there? Leave me a comment with some links to your stuff!

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And finally, if you've made it this far, here's the header pic in full, which is my favourite picture of my drums which, forgive me, I really, really, love...

A photo posted by Ned Potter (@ned_potter) on Feb 21, 2016 at 2:52am PST

Off-topic: A charity gig in York this Friday

Info pros of the North! I would love it if you could come to a gig this Friday, 10th of July, in York.

This is, of course, way off-topic, and normally I wouldn't be using this blog to ask people to come and see me drum. But this is a special gig we've put on to raise money for the Eye Department at Birmginham Children's Hospital - they look after Grace, my 1-year-old, who has a rare form of eye cancer. (In fact, we'll be in Birmingham on the day of the gig itself for her to have laser treatment as her main tumour has become active again, which isn't exactly ideal timing.)

So, if you're near to York and free on Friday, the gig will be in the City Screen Basement Bar which is very nice, especially compared to most venues I gig in, and the doors are at 8pm. I play in a band called Lightbulb Moment and we do rock covers from across five-and-a-bit decades - so there will be some Foo Fighters, some Beatles, some Kings of Leon, a Jack White tune, a bit of Kinks. Songs we like, basically.

It's also our singer Graham's final gig before he moves away, so it'll be emotional! We'll be on stage at around 9:45 I'd imagine - there'll be a support band on before us, too.

Tickets cost £10, and I'd recommend heading to the City Screen’s site to book yours in advance as we've already sold quite a few and the Basement Bar isn't massive. Every single penny of the ticket price will be going to the hospital, so potentially we could raise several hundred pounds, which would be amazing. There'll be a lot of librarians coming already (from my work) so, you know, you'll be in good company...

Here's the poster. Would be great to see you there!