Katie Marie Photo taken by Lisa (Indigo Blue Photography) and edited by Sandra (Soul Photography)
So you all geared up and ready for Christmas next week?
I’ve been doing pretty much everything else BUT getting ready for Christmas – which to be honest, isn’t really that unusual for me. Pretty much every year I say the same thing… ‘*this* year will be different! I’m going to be all prepared and not leave everything until the last minute blah blah blah’… but before you know it Christmas is round the corner and I’ve done squat diddly towards getting ready for it (grrr).
I always mock those annoyingly organised souls who seem to have it all wrapped up (pardon the pun) and sorted weeks (or even months if you’re like my brother) before the 25th… but, if I’m being honest – deep down I’m highly envious of their organising skills of plenty and always hope that one day I will learn the ways of the organised person (but generally speaking organised plus Katie don’t usually go well together in a sentence).
I have to say the bits and bobs I have been doing that aren’t at all Christmassy have (not surprisingly for me) been of a musical nature and have been oodles of fun.
Last week I had a super fun gig at a lovely venue called Tavistock Wharf. It’s a nice size, not too big and not too small – with a really chilled atmosphere. There were lots of super attentive peeps and the sound was perfect. All in all a really great night.
I’ve also been doing lots of videos just lately for my Youtube channel. The first being a drum jam featuring my Roland Octapad and my beloved Yamaha QY70 being used along side my Yamaha Stage Custom drum kit.
As explained in my little video, this is the old Roland Octapad II which was released in 1989. It’s a MIDI controller so you can plug-in pretty much any drum machine or sound module that takes your fancy.
I’ve always loved my QY70 and this seems to work really well with the Octapad as you’ve got lots of cool retro sounds to play with.
Here’s what happened:
Next on my list of vids was recording a Christmas tune. I have to say I’m not really that up on Festive songs but as always love a challenge.
I went online and started checking out different songs to hopefully get some inspiration but it took me ages to decide which one to pick. In the end I went with a old classic, Silver Bells. I discovered in the process of recording this, that it’s completely impossible to sing the word ‘Christmas’ in a cool and non cheesy fashion lol But this was a really fun tune to play and actually nice to play something a bit lighter in subject matter than the usual dark songs I enjoy singing.
See what you think:
…and last on my video list was just a quick run through of the features on the Roland VR3. This is such a beautiful piece of gear that I really can’t wait to stream live gigs with. Some of you might have seen my previous article all about the various features of the VR3 and I’m sure that even if you’re not a musical person you’ll enjoy this vid… as not only does the VR3 look totally cool when switched on but I’ve also gottwo glamorous assistants in the form of my doggy Molly and her best friend Gemma (but I have to say they don’t really appear to be that excited about it all)…
So I’d best start thinking about getting ready for Christmas (even though I’d rather spend all my time playing music!). Thanks as always for reading this far and if I don’t see you before I hope you have wonderful and restful Christmas filled with lots of good stuff.
