One Louder…

Finally got the letter through making it official even though I’ve essentially doing the job for a couple of months now. I now have to administrate finance systems as well as production systems and look after the infrastructure. Things so far have been mentally busy but at least I can’t say that I’ve been bored at any point.

On the music front, Geko have pretty much wound down now. It’s probably quite good timing because I don’t have the hours to put into it anymore. I was listening to some of our records the other day and although we’ve allways been much better live than recorded, there is a lot of stuff I’m very proud of and it’s great to have things recorded and video’d to keep the history alive. All is not lost though, as Hannah and me are still very keen to keep going. We’ve hopefully recruited a new drummer and in the new year will be looking to start a new project

We’ve got the confirmation letters from both the estate agents through that everyone solicitors have begun soliciting, so hopefully we’ll be looking to move house in the middle of July. End the end, we went for a nice little 2 bedroom semi in Shirley, only about 10 minutes walk from where we currently live. I think the best thing about it is that after looking at about 15 houses, it was the only one where there were no annoying niggles - Living room too small, bathroom accessed via bedroom etc. It’s also in really top shape, so although we will redecorate to our tastes, there is no work needed initially.

The sellers dug their heals in with the price but luckily the flat sold for the valuation (actually slightly higher than I thought it would) and we have an excellent buyer who is paying cash so hopefully there won’t be any niggles

In other news, the reality that I’ll be 30 soon becomes ever more obvious as I’ve now entered my 30th year. Had a nice evening in a Japanese restaurant with friends which was perfect after the adventures of the previous weekend at Mark’s stag do - Pics to follow when I renew my Flickr membership.

It’s been an expensive couple of weeks after a miscalculation on my behalf led to a taxi journey that cost £58 which I only managed to get down to £45 by an embarrasing sob story and plenty of piss taking by Joy! Then the next day, some chav smashes the passenger side window of my car and 2 others parked next to it. Now most people who know me would say that I have a fairly positive attitude with things like this, and I certainly think the police have got far more important things to be getting on with than investigating a smashed window. What I did find a really needless waste of resources is that after informing me that they wouldn’t be taking any action, I was asked to answer all sorts of questions on things like my age, ethnicity etc and was also visited twice by “Victim of crime” support officers who offered all sorts of councilling! The last thing I want to do is sound like a middle aged Daily Mail reading London taxi driver, but I really think that public services would be improved by focusing on the resources themselves, rather than bureaucracy and target levels.

On a positive side though, I’ve hopefully secured a nice little source of games by reviewing them on a website belonging to work. Joy did the first review for Mercury Meltdown Revolution on the Wii which you can read here. I really enjoyed this game on the PSP but it plays fantastically on the Wii-mote and is definately recommended.

Finally, after a bit of a lull on the Geko front, we’ve changed rehersal studios to Planet Sounds in Southampton, as noone actually lives in Winchester anymore. Although the whole place smells and feels full of damp, there is a lot more space and I think it will definately be a positive move We had a gig last night which was the first time that I’ve not been driving to for ages and I used the oppertunity as a scientific experiment to establish whether or not my playing ability would be affected by the intake of many pints of lager. The conclusions so far seem to be that it does, but it’s funny.

Been a bit quiet on the old band front lately, but we’re getting back into the swing of things, and have recently recorded a couple of new tracks. They are going to mastered at Valley as soon as we’ve built up enough funds in the band account!

Sleep On It

Dirty Little Lover

Bulletproof

Hope you like!

Thanks to Suze for dispelling the myth that the top end of town is only for the Burberry clad masses by inviting us out the the Fruit Bar.  After really enjoying Zen a few weeks ago, the Fruit Bar may even have topped it for interesting places. The music has a nice balance as you don’t notice it, but it adds to the atmosphere and the furtiture is interesting and comfy (with cusions!)

We had to duck out a bit early as Joy was running a 10k race in the morning as I was recording. We managed to get the majority of 3 tracks down and with the mix and mastering done, I think they’ll come out OK. You can have a sneak preview of 1 of the tracks here.

http://www.geko-online.co.uk/songs/sleeponit.mp3

Meanwhile on Saturday we are playing the Bang Bar in Basingstoke.

Just got back from band practice after taking a few pictures, and I thought I’d give a little plug to Ben and Valley Studios. We have been practicing and recording there since the beginning and it has always been awesome. Ben is one of the most positive and passionate musical people I know and if you are ever in need of a studio or sound tech, I can’t recommend him highly enough

Click for his Podcast

Pictures

http://www.geko-online.co.uk/images/geko_in_paper.pdf

Had an ace gig last night with Manchester based Karva Checkpoint (Singer Kate is an old friend). They were really awesome and the most unique band we’ve played with in a long time. Checkout their website http://www.karvacheckpoint.com/ for some MP3’s. I’m sure (hope!) they wont mind me saying this, but live they sound even better than their recorded stuff.

A few pics of last night on my Flickr

Got this email today

> This is info regarding your video from Astoria ( Emergenza final 2006 ). 
>
> Every band was filmed with multi-camera digital system ( 3 cameras ) and
> live mixed down to a master digital tape. 
>
> So, it’s a TV style video ( different angles, close up shots, drumm shot, 
> etc. ). 
>
> Very attractive videos, thanks to a big stage, great lighting, audience and 
> above all . . great bands. 
>
> You can use your video for promo, web or CD-ROMs. 
>
> YOU CAN BUY YOUR DIGITAL MASTER TAPE ( mini DV ) FOR ONLY 65.00 pounds. Any 
> small mini DV camcorder can play back this tape and also, it can be 
> transfered very easy on DVD. 
>
> IF YOU NEED A DVD TRANSFER PLEASE, ADD 20.00 pounds on top and you’ll get a 
> mini DV master tape plus, TWO DVDs ( DVD-R & DVD+R ) for total price of 
> 85.00 pounds. 

Lets just to a quick bit of maths here. We’ve bought on average 65 people per gig, for an average cover price of £10 (65 x 10 x 3) = £1950. On average, they have had about 4 pints each at £3 (65 x 4 x 3) = £780. So that’s over £2500 we’ve put their way.

Nick & Maria who were with us in the southern rounds were helpful, friendly and accomodating all the way, but the London branch didn’t reply to emails or pick up phones and were generally useless all the way through. 85 quid for a 10p DVDR?? pffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft.

In other Geko news, we had 2 really good gigs at the Joiners and Savanas over the last few days. It’s awesome playing again without the stupid competative mentality of a subjective artform and being able to talk to other musicians genuinely again

Not that were bitter mind…..

It’s been a very busy week for Geko. We have 2 new songs ready to play that we put the finishing touches to on Monday night, then 3 gigs in 4 days taking us from the Isle of Wight to London.

First was O’Neils in Reading on Thursday. To be honest, this was the least fun of the three, there was a lot of rushing round, no real stage and a fair bit of rivalry between the bands, which has put us off doing battle of the band type events for the time being. Nevertheless, it’s always cool gigging in new places in front of new people, and we were well received.

The Ryde Theatre on the Isle of Wight on Friday proved to be the biggest suprise of the week by blowing away our expectations! The stage was huge, the sound was fantastic, the venue was awesome and the bands were amazing. There was even a dressing room, complete with a fridge full of beer and munchies! The only slight downside was there were not the number of people there the venue deserved, although everyone who was was really friendly. We met 2 genuinely nice bands in Bastila and Little Trophy who we would love to gig with again. I managed to get a few shots of Little Trophy who were on after us.

Finally Sunday night was the big one - Emergenza UK Final at the London Astoria. Unfortunately we didn’t win this time, we suspect that were just weren’t what they were looking for as almost all of the other bands were a lot heavier than us, as was the previous winner. It was still great for the experience of playing at a venue like that. Despite a stressful coach journey up and only arriving 30 minutes before being due on stage, we all felt really comfortable playing at a venue this big. The main thing was that we managed to give away a lot of promo CD’s and things to promoters and event organisers and the girls did an excellent job of selling Geko CD’s.

Onwards an upwards anyway, we have plently of things lined up including a gig at the Joiners on the 10th August where we’ll be hopefully playing 2 new songs for the first time ever which are right up there with the best material we’ve written

Thanks again to everyone who has supported us, not just this week, but this whole year has been amazing and the majority of our success has been because of the huge support of everyone - You are the best

Well, the Hampshire Chronicle anyway