Day 122
Saturday April 22
So, Tuesday done and we have our second full London show tonight in The Red Dog Saloon in Hoxton Square, Shoreditch at 6pm. I have high hopes for this. Not so much the actual gig itself, more that Adrian really seemed to get my pitch when I spoke to him. It’s just possible that finding a regular venue could be a big part of the journey to building a very real audience. It could start here as well as anywhere else.
Until we arrive. Oh damn. The place is a restaurant. It really didn’t look like one when I came in here and spoke to him. As soon as we see that, me and Maja are like, ‘No. This isn’t going to work.’ We wait for Adrian to extricate himself from being very busy and then just tell him, sorry, but no. Oh. What are we going to do now? We were all set up for this. Maja has it. Let’s go do the Now Hustle. Why not?
This first leads us into two bars in this square. Both seem like they could really be something. For one of them, we get talking to the security guy on the street, and he then offers to show us the place. Cool. It goes back to another place, back to another place. There are the private rooms. And then through another door, and oh. You’re in a full on music venue with a huge stage and a room that could hold up to 200 people. All from that little frontage that we first saw. The place is huge. Definitely worth coming back to. We’re not yet quite able to fill a 200 capacity venue, but maybe we could play with someone who could. Just thinking out loud, this could be a place to come back and maybe trial something out front and get to be known by the management. Then…
But the place is empty right now so we don’t Now Hustle it. We thank our guy for his tour and onto the next. Which is another venue on the corner of the square advertising live music. Again, no manager to talk to and again, it’s empty right now. But again, very worth coming back to.
Out of the square and onto the main streets and we head for a bar called The Reliance that I’ve had my eye on in my previous hustle sessions. It’s right round the corner from where we live, and is a lovely looking single rectangular shaped bar with a kind of alcove out back, and has a totally simple bar feel to it. So many of the bars round here are supercool with distinctive features and offerings, and that really is all great and interesting and a big part of what makes Shoreditch Shoreditch. But it’s also cool to find a place like this that looks like it’s not trying at all. Just come in. It’s just a bar.
I came in here last Monday but the manager wasn’t around. I was told he might have been in later that day, but then I got the Red Dog gig and called it a day with a memo to come back here some other time. Well, now is that other time and here we are.
We’re met just inside the door by Mario, the owner, and he immediately comes across as quite gregarious and open. We give him our pitch and he’s all, why not. Come and do your thing. So we do. Not to too many people but the short, sharp four song set we play is very well received by the people that are here, with one guy in particular coming over to join us at the bar afterwards. He is madly enthusiastic about us. A great example of one fan at a time. And he buys us a beer. As he’s chatting, he says, ‘To make it as a new band you need an edge.’ Oh yeah? Inside I’m telling myself just to swallow whatever he’s about to offer as advice and be graceful. Then he adds, ‘You guys have that edge.’ Oh. Thankyou very much. That’s OK then. ‘All you have to do now,’ he continues, ‘is just get out there and keep getting out there.’ Which, as you can see, we’re doing, we say to him both in our own ways. ‘Yes. Yes you are. It’s fantastic to see.’
Now he tells us about the area he lives in now – Hastings – saying it could be a great place for us to try. Yeah. Once we start venturing out of London to hustle, this could now be high on our to do list. It’s right on the south coast, about a two hour drive from here. Maybe a bit far, but maybe still worth bearing in mind.
A little while later we get to talk to Mario who’s been busy upstairs in the kitchen turning out what looks like excellent pub food. He’s really happy with what we’ve done here tonight and we suddenly realise the place has got busy. He seems to realise at the same time and says, ‘Do you want to play again?’ He laughs to show he’s joking and we laugh too. But we think he really would have been happy if we had been here to play to this newly developed crowd. ‘A guy came in here a while ago and also asked to play on the spot,’ he says. ‘He emptied the place. After that I said I’d never say yes to that again. But then you two walked in. All humble but with a very good energy.’ And he really wanted to see where that could go. Well, here we are. He says he’ll be going away soon as he generally gets quiet over summer. The place will still be open but he won’t be here. When he gets back, he says he’d be very open to talk about us coming and playing here again and see how it goes. Just like that, out of such a false start of a night, we’ve potentially opened a venue for ourselves. Right round the corner from where we live.
Around the same time, Matt calls. He and a group of friends are heading to Shoreditch to go The Big Chill, one of the nightclub type places just off Brick Lane. Would we be up for it? Absolutely. Turned a gig down, gone out and got another one and played it, and now into Shoreditche’s Saturday night life. Tomorrow really isn’t going to get much out of us.
Day 123
Sunday April 23
It really doesn’t.
Day 126
Wednesday April 26
Maja decides we should go and try an open mic tonight. I have one on my list. All About Eve in Camden Town. And it’s on. Cool. We head down there for sign up at 7, with the thing starting at 8.
Arriving we meet the host Paul who’s just setting up and he asks where we want to go on the list. It’s currently empty, apart from his name at the top to start. All down the left hand side are numbers for the slots. I ask what he’d recommend and he says that he could say slot number four or five, but if I write our name there, the next person could just choose six and so on. Oh OK. You really can’t be too cute or second guess-ey about these things. So I say we’ll help him out and go first. After him of course. In what is a full night of performers, our slot at the top of it all is the peak for attendance so, totally unexpectedly, we do get the best slot. I told you you couldn’t second guess these things.
So far at open mics we’ve asked people to select songs at random for us to play. Tonight we’re using it to try out a few new song, or at least lesser established songs – Give Me The World and Without A Gloria. Give Me The World competes with My Game My Rules for the heaviest song we have, and I certainly think it’s our most intense. Then Without A Gloria is more mid tempo with a warming gentle start. It’s a real contrast to go from the huge ending of Give Me The World into the delicate openings of Without A Gloria. We still haven’t fully connected with either of these to comfortably play live, but no matter. Both still totally hit here tonight. People really buy into the intensity of it and come along with us for the ride. Then, when Without A Gloria comes in, they’re there for that as well, their emotions segueing as effortlessly as we click from one mindset to the other. The room really is with us. For the third, we’re back to the cards and How You RocknRoll gets picked out which gives us a really good sprint to close it out.
As the evening is coming to an end, Paul comes up to us and says, ‘I’m going to put you guys on again so you can headline the thing.’ And he does. And we do. For just one song to end the night. We don’t go to the cards for this one. As soon as he says it, we both know. We’re doing I Like You (Better When You’re Naked). The cheers are still going on at the close of this song when Paul announces to the room, ‘I think we’re going to need another one.’ Well, what can we say? I think it makes quite the statement that after closing so strong with a song of our choosing that we now return to the randomness of the cards and let someone else pick what we’re going to finish with. The Cat comes out. Oh yes, this is a massive end to a really cool evening. And yet again we’ve been asked to close an open mic after playing it for the first time. This also happened in Germany.
A big part of playing open mics, and going to gigs, is having the chance to meet and talk with other songwriters and performers and just people in general. We get speaking to someone now as things are winding down who’s keen to see how we’ve been getting on gigging. When we tell him our model of just turning up and hustling to play there and then, he says he’s never thought of that and has never heard of anyone doing it. ‘I’m sorry but I might just have to steal that one,’ he says. Me and Maja jump in and say the same thing at the same time. ‘Yes, please do steal it.’ The next bit of course we don’t say at the same time. That would be just a bit strange. But our general message to him is, Tell everyone else you meet about it and tell them to do it. If more people are doing this it might make it a bit easier.
And there’s more after this. Bar manager Tom tells us we were really entertaining and should come and play again. I get talking to him and tell him how we generally operate and he likes the sound of it. The result of that, with Maja away in Sweden next week and for most of May, is a loose arrangement for me to come back sometime soon, have an afternoon coffee with him, and see where that takes us. Let’s not jump the gun, but yes, let’s. Saturday gave us the possibility of a regular venue in Shoreditch, or at least a conversation to be had. Now we have an in in Camden. We also have possibilities in central too. Shoreditch, Camden, central. I think those three areas are the key to breaking London open. Not counting The Dial Up in March, tonight brings our gig count here up to seven. A reminder. The Dial Up aside, Mike’s Acoustify on Sunday April 9 was our first London show. That was two and a half weeks ago.
