CALLING ALL PHOTOGRAPHERS!

CALLING ALL PHOTOGRAPHERS!

  We want to collaborate with you! You might have heard from some wanton source that we're recording an album.  In light of what we're making, we'd like you to get your nice cameras at the ready and take photos of beautiful sunsets, sunrises, or just take photos that might involve the sun in a surprising way.

  Take your photographs, and then get them to us, either by e-mail, Facebook or Twitter, or however you like, and hopefully it won't be too long until we can reveal all. (Also, if you have any photos already that fit this criteria, send them on!)

Thank you in advance, lovely folks, we can't wait to see your sun-based photographs.

Happy snapping,

John xxx

Unexpected Sunshine and Mattress Trebuchets

  Arfternoon.

  I'm almost a bit disappointed, because I'd managed to write two blog entries on consecutive days, and was really hoping for a third, but it didn't quite happen.  I'm the sort of chap that always hopes to get into a good routine - early nights, regular shopping, remembering to do my laundry at respectable intervals - but never quite manages it.

  And it's always once I've managed to, say, get up at 7am on two days on the trot that I think to myself "Yes, finally!  I've turned a corner!  All these unwanted lie-ins are a thing of the past!" and then wake up the next day at least an hour later than I wanted, resulting in a frenzied gallop around the house, grabbing stray pieces of clothing and trying not to fall up the stairs.

  I once worked as a senior member of staff in an independent record store, and over Christmas we would pull early shifts in order to get through the backlog of deliveries that used to logjam the staff quarters over the Festive period (there are probably many and varied stories I could tell you about the time I spent working in that lovely old shop - no longer with us and is currently a bland Virginmedia death-hole - but I can't remember any of them right now, so will try and stockpile them for future blog entries).  My early-morning shift was due, and I went to bed early with that reverence you can only achieve when you know you are doing a Good And Proper Thing, you know, instead of staying up all night and playing computer games until you can hear the dawn chorus of birds in the park outside your flat (this has happened - again, another story).

  That reverence is something else, isn't it?  If you really want to be smug at yourself, make a cup of tea to drink in bed while you read a chapter or two of a book.  That night, I did all that (I might have been trying to read Lord Of The Rings at the time, I have only ever made it to the end of the second book, and the chances of me getting beyond that have have gone past slim - I console myself by knowing what happens after having watched the films with my folks, but that's a bit like making yourself feel better about not having read Wuthering Heights by saying "Well, I've listened to Kate Bush..."), and I went smugly to sleep in anticipation of getting up early and arriving at the shop at half-six in the morning.

  In much the same way that nothing feels quite like that early-night smugness, nothing matches that shot of adrenalin when you wake up and look at the clock, only to discover you should have left the house.  It's as if you've actually been thrown out of bed by a mattress-mounted trebuchet.  If you've ever leapt out of bed following one of those startling moments, ask yourself how you never actually hit the wall when you got up.  I awoke at 8am, a full hour after I was supposed to be at the shop in the first place.  I raced around my flat, picking up stray clothes and calling a taxi, with that breathy panic that you know you'll still be feeling long after you apologise to your boss.  I was hanging up the phone to the taxi firm (and, unfathomably, trying to pull a sock over my head), when I remembered that my early shift wasn't today.  It was tomorrow.  It was, in actual fact, my day off.

  So there, in three paragraphs, we have covered the key facets of human existence: smugness, panic and relief.  I often feel that these three states of being are the cornerstone of humanity.  I will quite happily continue to believe this until someone knocks me off my perch, but until then, I will keep excitedly chattering about the record I'm making.  (Wow, I didn't think I'd be able to get this blog entry on-topic - miracles do happen!)

  The excitement gathers apace.  Our producer Dan re-tweaked the rough mixes from what we recorded on last weekend, and I sat down the other night to listen to them.  It's all a bit thrilling, to hear someone working on stuff that I've written, to make it sound nice.  It makes me think about what's going to happen with it when it's all finished, and what I hope people will think about it when they hear it.  It also makes me wonder what I'm going to say about it once it's finished.

  I mean, why does anyone make music?  At a guess, because they have something to say, and feelings to express, because they want to be heard, because they want to move people in some way.  They want to be identified with, to know that they aren't on their own.  Music is that thing that, when you hear something that you connect with, makes you feel less alone in the world.  That feeling when you listen to a song that makes you think "This is exactly what I am going through now," that puts a spring in your step and gives you the strength to keep moving forward, is invaluable.  Nothing matches it.

  So we'll keep going until it's finished.  And I will keep talking about it.  I don't want to give too much away about the record, but if I'm going to tell you anything about it that will leave you intrigued, I will tell you that it's called 'Unexpected Sunshine'.  Was that exciting?  I hope so.  (It certainly bloody was for me, leastways!)

  I shall go now, I plan to watch a Rich Hall DVD and get a good night's sleep, as Angela is coming round to practice some songs.  Wish me luck, and let's hope I don't need my bed-mounted catapult come morning...

Lots of love,
John xxx

A Whole World Of Exciting

  Good day to you,

  It seems so long ago that I was smack-dab in the middle of an existential crisis.  It was a couple of years, now that I think about it - directionless, frustrated, and somewhat alone.  I knew what I wanted, but didn't know how to get anywhere close to it.  Bit by bit, that frustration and solitude have been beaten back, and I didn't realise until now.  (In fact, I had pretty much forgotten that period altogether, until the night before last.)

  I was playing the occasional open mic, and had been pointed towards a radio session with Moorlands FM (thanks to Paul, who is now playing bass in the band), which had played a massive part in properly reigniting my passion for music, and I started writing songs again.  I started to reconnect with myself, and the songs came fairly regularly.  I wanted to record again, I wanted to play shows, I wanted to really get my stage legs back.

  As the songs came, they started to fit into a theme, which was one of optimism for the future mingled with sadness at the immediate past.  These songs persisted, and would begin a process of me writing potential tracklistings for an album that I would never get around to recording, bar a couple of demoes.

  More songs came, superceding older, less articulate ones, and lists were rewritten and rewritten until it started to get ridiculous.  By 2012 I had about 30 songs, some more relevant than others, and still no demoes.  I also had regular bouts of listless near-depressions up until then (I hesitate to call them depression, although it was close - I have seen depression up close, in myself and in others, and am not keen to trivialise it), and regularly felt like I was in a catatonic limbo.

  What it came down to was that I had a glut of ideas, for albums, for EPs, titles, videos - you name it, I was thinking of it - but no good outlet for any of them.  My ideas had outgrown my scope to make them into a listenable thing, music was the one thing I could do, and I was fast struggling for ways to make it creatively satisfying.

  Cue Angela Lazenby, Paul Hancock and Matt Tyrer.  The band assembling was a first step - my songs became exciting again, the company and friendship was a tonic, and their ideas and talent were like a spark.  Then Angela & Paul got studio time at Tremolo sorted, and that first day in, last Saturday, opened up a world of possibilities.  Ideas that I have can be passed among the band members, and going into the studio means we can try them.  On Sunday, it dawned on me that the one thing that had been dragging me into a fug of nothingness was that I could think of, say, an introduction to the Record I Would Never Get To Record Properly, and there would be no way of making it.

  Today, I can text Matt and say "What about putting trombone on 'The Tallest Tree', and he can reply "And how about full brass section and a choir on the last chorus?"  This is a whole world of Exciting, isn't it?

John xxx

Day One...

  Happy Monday, Blogwatchers!

  On Saturday, we went to Tremolo Studios in Silverdale, Staffordshire, to begin our debut record.  Everyone was shattered, as the night before we played our debut headline show at Bad Edit venue in Burslem.  (It was such an amazing night, thank you if you were there and enjoyed our set - there was dancing, good-natured shouting, and we enjoyed every single song.  I woke up on Saturday morning stiff of leg after a very boisterous night, it's safe to say I was highly elated, as were we all!)

  Being in the studio was an amazing process.  As I wrote this in my notebook, I was listening to the rough mixes of the day's work.  We recorded bass, drums and guitar tracks for three tracks, and then recorded proper vocal tracks for the one of those three, including harmonies.  The other two songs have guide vocal tracks, which were made during the drums and bass takes for Paul and Angela to follow.  For those takes, Paul, Angela and I essentially played live, with my guitar and vocals done as guides, and then my guitar and vocals got replaced with proper, polished takes.

  We've set a high standard, I think, both musically and personally.  One song, 'Don't Tell The Folks Back Home' had their tracks recorded in one take, and the work we did on all three songs was pretty swift, good-natured, and accurate.  And laughing - so much laughing.  We are a jolly band.  We're back in next week to do the vocal takes for the other two songs, and add more detail to everything, and then a month later to get more basic tracks done for the rest of the record.  Dan Rowley, who runs the studio, is a great guy and it's an absolute joy to work with him, I'm really enjoying this.

  The really hard thing is going to be keeping a lid on all this work until it's ready to be released, because we're so excited about it, it's sounding amazing already.  I've never been so excited!  I can tell that the record does have a title, and a set structure, but you'll have to wait to find out what it is!

Have a lovely week everyone, stay happy!
Love,
John xxx

The time is almost upon us...

  So, tonight will be our first headline show at Burslem's Bad Edit.  I'll be honest, I can barely sit still, I'm bobbing up and down in my chair.  I really can't wait to see Frank Cerioni and Delamere, and REALLY can't wait to play for you all.  Matt, Angela and Paul have worked so hard, and I ask you to give everyone who takes to the stage your attention, applause and love.  Everyone is amazing.

IMPORTANT BIT
Tickets will be available on the door at Bad Edit, but the Buy One Get One Free offer was exclusive only to tickets from us personally.  Please don't expect the venue to run the same deal, the tickets are £5 each.

Finally, our tickets have all but sold out (there is a tiny handful left from us, if you want them), and from the bottom of our hearts, THANK YOU for supporting us, and helping us on the road to making our debut record.  We love you for it, and will do our level best to give you a show you'll enjoy.

See you tonight,
John xxx

Finally, I believe that I am happy...

10th February, 2013.  L-R:  Paul Hancock (bass), Angela Lazenby (drums, vocals), John MacLeod (guitars, lead vocals), Matt Tyrer (keyboard, synth, accordion, melodica, vocals)

  There has never been a better time to get back on the blog "horse" than now, has there?  So much happening, so little I can actually say.  Not because I am legally obliged to keep schtum, you understand, but because you know how it is.  You tell everyone you are going to do a thing, and then things change.  Always the way, like the day before you have a week off and someone asks what you are going to do with your time.  You tell them "Well, I'm going to record some demoes, maybe have a trip out somewhere for a day, tidy my house, see people, y'know, do the things I don't get chance to do normally."

  Those words don't half come back to haunt you on the first Monday back, when you recall spending at least half each day in bed, and the other half moping around the kitchen, eating toast and forgetting to do the shopping.

  I was very glad, then, when I returned to work from a week off that had been very, very productive and fun.  The first couple of days, I didn't see anybody, had a massive amount of me time, and that was enough.  From Wednesday onwards, I busied myself with band business, we all went to Folk Club at Keele, where I pogoed circuitously and did two revolutions before I had to start singing again, and where Angela knocked my pint over with her face and managed not to get herself any injuries whatsoever.  The glass didn't even break!  As she said the following day on Twitter: "Drummers are so hard, we glass ourselves!"

  The following night we had our first full electric practice, where we went through songs we hadn't played as a four-piece, ironed out creases from songs that we hadn't yet been able to fully realise, and just gave our repertoire some welly.  We talked over ideas for recording, among other things, and by the time I went to bed, I was so excited I couldn't actually sleep.

  We had a gig in Birmingham on the Sunday (which is where the above photo was taken, by one Lewis Bloor), which was an acoustic set, and we had a lot of fun playing it.  Every time we've played, we all seem to have a transcendent moment during 'Six Bodies, Strange Noises' (which I can't wait to play on Friday night - more on that later), where the music just happens, almost unconsciously.  And thus ended my week off.

  Last night we all went to see the incomparable Nerina Pallot play at The Glee Club.  The Pallot is, seemingly, a regular character on this blog, but then she is also a big source of the heart of what I do.  Oddly, I am unsure of whether her musical fingerprint is audible on my songs, but emotionally, she's there.  One or two songs of mine are direct responses to hers, and with the advent of her new EP, 'Lonely Valentine Club', I think another song has seeded itself in my brain.  As yet unwritten, but I know it's there.  This was the first time I'd gone to a Nerina show with folk, and so there we sat: Angela and her husband Dan, Paul and his partner Marlz, and Matt.  This was a solo acoustic set, preceded by the stylings of Samuel Taylor, a regular pre-Pallot performer whose solid guitar playing is complimented by a steady voice and a clear lyric.  

  Nerina arrived onstage and launched into 'It Starts' a song about finally being happy and finding true love, and listening to the lyrics, I found I was thinking "That's how I feel about the band now!" which I am fairly sure is a good thing.  Anyway, the show was a joy to be present for, as ever, and there was a rather emotional moment partway through, when her husband Andy popped up to the stage to tell her that their son was okay (he hadn't been very well), which lead to a few tears of relief from Nerina, and the acknowledgement that "I was really worried, because he's the love of my life," (a sentence that stood out amongst all others) before composing herself and playing the best rendition of 'Human' that I've ever heard her play.

Nerina Pallot meets The John MacLeod Band, smiling ensues.

  And that brings us to now.  We are on the home stretch to playing our first ever headline show, four months after starting to play together.  I would never have said it would be possible, but two things brought us here - love & enthusiasm.

  At this point, I would consider breaking out a few choice epithets on the nature of life, love and happiness, but I really can't be arsed.  Like with the gig, I dreamed up some ill-thought-out offers on tickets to try and cater for people who may only want odd numbers of them (oh my, the hare-brained ideas I have, and valiantly try to put into practice, while all around me watch with mute pity), and it got to the point where I couldn't be bothered to repeat them all ad nauseum, so have just kept it to "buy one, get one free".  That's all it needs to be.

  One more rehearsal to go, then it's Bad Edit, Burslem, this Friday.  We have support from two great acts, and the whole night should be lovely.  I'm eager, really.  We go to the studio the day after, to make a start on what will be our debut LP record, and there are other ideas floating about in the ether, as mentioned earlier, that I am desperate to talk animatedly about, and at length, but for now, be content in the knowledge that we are as excited as I hope you are.

This Friday - we want YOU to be there.  Make it happen.

  I will sign off now, in the hopes of retaining some of my composure.  Lots of love to you all, if you're reading, and yah-boo V-signs if you're not reading, which, if that is the case, you won't know about.

Um, yes.

John xxx

I don't pretend to know what you want

Good evening, blogwatchers,

  MAN, IT'S COLD.  I just had to open with that.  It's easily forgotten how arduous January can be, and I'm sure you're all being reminded of it as you desperately clamber into your houses, where the heating is on, and press against your living room radiators for all you're worth!  I have just done exactly that, after going to see Faux Feet play at The Sugarmill.  Chatting to their frontwoman Sian about songs afterwards, in response to me enthusing about one of their songs called 'Tribes' (which I can't share with you as it's not been recorded or filmed yet!), and I started to tell a story, which I never got to finish, which is, in part, why I'm telling it here.

  I react really strongly to songs.  My earliest memory of this is going back quite a few years to when I was living with my parents, a silly-headed lad in my late teens (approaching my twenties).  I was really starting to listen to music, and had fallen very much in love with Crowded House.  They were songs that evoked strong imagery, had soaring choruses, and just embedded themselves in my subconscious.  'Distant Sun' was a song that was so uplifting in it's choruses and harmonies that, one night, that optimism and beauty just went straight into my heart, and I found myself crying, happily.

  The next time that happened was under a strange setting.  I was, once upon a time, engaged, and was staying at my fiancee's parents' house for a week (they lived quite a way away, it's a long story). I got on well with them, despite some quite serious ethical issues with what was a simple-yet-complicated situation, and had, in the course of that week, discovered Eels' 'Electro Shock Blues' record.  The thing I connected to with Eels (especially with this record) was this one man who had suffered so much grief, yet although these songs said "Things have never been worse", they also said "but they will get better".  There we sat, in a living room heated by a small log fire, in the middle of the Welsh hills, television on, and I was trying to be happy whilst fuming so vociferously at aspects of the world, that I put my new copy of 'Electro Shock Blues' on my CD walkman, in company, and stared at the TV, wondering how this whole thing would ever straighten out into something resembling happiness, when 'Climbing To The Moon' started.

  The corners of my mouth started to twitch, and I couldn't swallow properly, and I had to leave the room.  I lay in the spare room with the lights off and cried as quietly as I could.  I know that I wasn't crying just at the sadness of the song, but at the beauty with which it was articulated.  It is a beautiful song, no doubt about it, and the emotion of it (and subsequently the whole last half of that record) is there and very, very real.

  The main crux of what I was trying to say to Faux Feet's Sian (and it is curious going from that previous part of the narrative to this, as there is a shared name involved, which has just amused me no end) revolved around the band Jimmy Eat World.  I daresay most people in the UK's introduction to them was the record 'Bleed American' (which was, for some reason, renamed to be an eponymous record), and this was certainly my introduction to them.  I found it to be loud and exciting, and tender, by turns.  Stirring is probably a good word to use, and the same goes for their next records, 'Futures' and 'Chase This Light'.  Digging backwards to their previous records, though, wasn't especially revelatory, save for two songs ('For Me This Is Heaven' and 'Just Watch The Fireworks', both of which can send me into reverie).  This week I bought their most recent album, 'Invented'.  It's just as musically tight and well-produced as ever, but it lacked, for me, the emotional punch and the weight of those previous albums.

  But I know that feeling when it comes, when a song is bursting with life and feeling, and that Faux Feet song, 'Tribes', is loaded with it, because every time they play it, a small flutter goes from my chest to my throat, and I smile.

  It's funny how different songs can get into your head and affect the way you feel, and how other songs just don't do that at all.  It's even more amazing how one can be moved enough to write music oneself.  The songs I write, for example, I really hope that they strike a chord (sorry) with whoever listens to them.  Each one comes from a personal place in one way or another (yet have I to master the art of writing narrative songs that tell a story not belonging to me, and I couldn't honestly say it's a skill that I can imagine myself learning - I am in awe of the Colin Meloys and Tom Waits' of this world for that reason), and they tend to wear my heart on all their sleeves.  It is the music that has made me cry, and laugh, and think, that has made me want to keep writing and playing songs.  It has, in various songs over the years, shown me true feelings, and in doing so hand-delivered a way for me to keep expressing myself in turn.  It's almost as if music, that almost intangible force, is passing a message on, and has been for centuries, through all the myriad people that have put pen to paper, and hand to instrument (although quite what happened as far as speed metal goes, is a bit beyond me).

  I'd like to raise a glass to all the music makers, the people who make us happy, sad, and most of all, not so alone in the world.  It's these reflections of life that give us hope, tell us everything is going to be okay, and that it doesn't matter if we worry, so long as we know that things work out in the end.  I couldn't go a week without hearing the songs that make me stop and have a bit of a happy sob.  I've listed some of them below, why not list yours in return?

Goodnight, sleep well, and keep singing.
Love,
John xxx

Music that has made me go a bit wobbly

• Crowded House - Distant Sun
• Eels - Climbing To The Moon
• Barenaked Ladies - War On Drugs
• Ben Folds Five - Selfless, Cold & Composed
• The Mutton Birds - Last Year's Shoes
• Jimmy Eat World - Hear You Me, For Me This Is Heaven
• Jeff Buckley - So Real, Grace
• Erin Mckeown - Aspera
• Lamb - Gorecki
• Bright Eyes - Landlocked Blues
• Queens Of The Stone Age - Everybody Knows That You Are Insane (that bit in the middle where Josh Homme sings "I feel nothing, am I better yet?" is just powerful)
• Gemma Hayes - At Constant Speed, Keep Running
• Cathy Davey - Sing For Your Supper (those harmonies!)
• Liam Finn - Second Chance
• Nerina Pallot - Learning To Breathe, Human, Blood Is Blood, and the entire 'Year Of The Wolf' record
• Dead Radio Society - Untitled #2
• Bon Iver - Towers
• Lisa Hannigan - I Don't Know
• The Do - Too Insistent
• Clint Mansell - 'Welcome To Lunar Industries (Three Year Stretch)' from the 'Moon' score (I think soundtracks deserve their own separate hall of fame, which I can't be bothered to do, as I've been writing this for a while now, and it's late/early, depending on your perspective.  Can you measure a person's personality by how they view this time of day?  A bit like the glass half full/half empty, if they say it's late or early at 2am, what must that tell you about their personality?  If a person just says "It's 2am!" that could either mean they view things in a very literal context, or it could mean that they've been trying to sleep and it's probably time to stop playing the drums.)