The People's Republic of South Devon

It’s lovely to be back! Hope you all had great holidays filled with sunshine and fun stuff.

Really looking forward to telling you all about my summer madness. I’ve been all over the place doing lots of wonderful musical bits and bobs and although the beginning wasn’t so much fun it’s all looking much, much brighter now.

In the first week of July I had to do one of the hardest gigs I think I’ve ever done, which was playing a song at my Grandfather’s funeral. We were pretty close and it affected me a lot more than I thought it would.

Sadly I’ve had a few people pass away in my lifetime and it’s one of those things that never ever seems to get any easier. I wanted to contribute something to the service, but didn’t really have any idea of what that might be. I’m a bit allergic to public speaking so really didn’t fancy that at all.

My Granddad was so enthusiastic and supportive of my music and regularly played my albums on his computer (once he’d figured out how to open up the CD tray that is). So I thought it would be fitting to play a song. My Mum thought it was a great idea too, so we sat down together and decided which would be the best track to play. We chose a beautiful song called Never Die Young by a singer/songwriter that both my Mum and I love called Lori McKenna.

I had the weekend to learn the words and music. In the back of my mind I really had no idea if I’d be able to do it, or if I’d just loose it completely. But I really wanted to do something special and it took more mental power than I realised I had to stay totally focused on what I needed to do.

There were quite a few peeps at the service which was nice. I played the song completely unplugged and the acoustics in the room were really gorgeous (perhaps on a different day I would have been able to appreciate that a little more lol). I got through the song and it was extremely scary but I’m so pleased I did it.

The weeks after the funeral I really had to try my best to move forward. When anyone passes moving on is about the hardest thing to do. You want so desperately for life to stop, or even just pause for a moment while you get your head around what’s happening. But it won’t let you, and at the time I really hate that… but it’s most defiantly a good thing. Someone once said to me that you owe it to that person to get up, dust yourself off and get back out there and be the best you can be, and it’s so true.

So with that in mind I hopped on a plane and headed to my next gig which was in Stuttgart, Germany.

I was due to play on an enormous wagon that would be passing through the streets of Stuttgart as part of a big festival called Stuttgart CSD. Apparently there were around 250,000 people there but as you’ll see from my Vlog I was trying very hard to stay upright on the moving wagon and also not poke some-one in the eye!

Here it is if you fancy checking it out:

There’s also footage from a wonderful gig Elli and I did in Zurich, Switzerland. We’re going to be releasing a live album and we recorded the tracks for it in this studio to a small audience. I’ve never done anything like this before so was really looking forward to seeing how it would all work out. I took all the tracks home with me and mixed them in my little studio. It was interesting for me to have to mix things like the audience, which I’ve not had to take into consideration before lol It’s now currently being mastered by a good friend of mine (Chris at Audio Antics: www.audioantics.co.uk) and so far it’s sounding pretty cool.

Along with these live tracks Elli and I wrote a song together which will also be featured on the new album. Elli came over to the UK and we recorded this song in my studio.

I wasn’t too sure how the writing process would go, seeing as how I do 99.9% of my writing on my own… but Elli is so easy to work with and the whole process flowed really well. My friends Sally and Neil very kindly let us use one of their newly converted barns at Burrow Farm which meant that we were right in the middle of nowhere surrounded by beautiful farmland, perfect for creative thinking!

After many hours of noodling our new song was born, looking forward to letting you hear it

In between all this I’ve also been working on tracks for my new CD. I’ve been trying my bestest to make it sound as acoustical as possible and I’ve found that using my live room, my dual valve compression unit and my new pre-amp seems to be a pretty lethal combination.

I’ve also been making full use of Kartha (my cajon) and a lot of the tracks feature my Schlagwerk cajon brushes which allow me produce a softer groove that isn’t too invasive.

I recently uploaded a few clips to Sound Cloud if you fancy a listen:

Same Old
Day by funkeegirl

Until
Tomorrow (Album Version) by funkeegirl

Over the Summer I’ve had lots of fun ‘Katie’ gigs as well as gigs playing cajon & bass for local singer/songwriter Nicky Swann. Next month I’ll have the best of both worlds as I’ve got two gigs supporting Nicky and then playing in her trio, yay!

Tickets are available for her gig at Chagford Village Hall on October 1, then the following day at 4.30pm I’ve got a gig in Germany… eeekk! Think I’ll be feeling a little sleepy

The first of our Nicky Swann trio gigs (featuring Mr Paul the keys man) is this Saturday (September 17) at The Blue Walnut Cafe in Toquay, pop along if you’re free!

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