Up in Arms!

Wow! Only just recovering from an absolute stomper of a gig at the Salisbury Arms, Purewell last week. Thanks to Darren of Simply Guitars for inviting us. Now, we didn’t want to say too much at the time but two of the band were making their State of Undress live debut: Simon Crabb on double-bass and Penny Austin on Violin and percussion. Well, had I not told you it was their first time playing live with us, you would never have known. They were superb! There was a great atmosphere in the pub and the audience was terrific. It was lovely to see some familiar faces in the audience too – great supporter and mentor Peter ‘Foz’ Foster, his fiancé well-known local artist Teri Goodison, Russ Gannicott from fab local band Nemesis, excellent singer songwriter Chris Tempest (catch him at Shenanigans in Boscombe on Sunday 31st Oct and The Cellar Bar on 5th November) and local poet and jazz critic Fiona Heyes. Great friends one and all! What a brilliant evening! And I knew Simon was a lad after me own heart when at the end of the gig, walk-in wardrobe under one arm and pipe in hand, he turned to me and said ‘ So it’s all back to yours then is it Charlie?’ Once we’d started raiding the kids’ chocolate buttons and Rob (soon to be our sound engineer) got the port bottle out, well, you just knew it was going to be one of those nights! Fell into bed at 4 o’clock…..! Well, we had a lot to celebrate! Seriously, there’s something really special happening in this line-up. The sound is now so textured and varied without ever being cluttered ..but I’m not going to say any more about it, just come to one of our gigs and hear for yourselves. The next one is at The Green Room, Portman Hotel, Ashley Road, Boscombe at 9.00pm. And talking of gigs,…..

London Gig
As you know, we make our London debut at The Borderline, Manette Street, London WC1. at 8.00pm We are doing a 40 minute set of original music in support of well-known Australian duo Barb Waters and Cyndi Boste. Do check them out. There’s also happy hour from 7.00pm. What more do you want? If you take a State of Undress piece of information about The Borderline Gig, you can get in for the reduced entry fee of £5.00. State of Undress and a couple of Australians as well? Gotta be worth it! Anyway, if you download this entry or the gig list from our website, that should do the trick. We hope to see you there.

State of Undress
supporting
Cyndi Boste and Barb Waters
at
The Borderline
16 Manette Street
London WC1

on
Saturday, 13th November
at
8.00pm

Entry £5.00
with this flyer

www.borderline.co.uk

www.stateofundress.com

Seminars, Songs and Six-footers!

It’s been a few weeks since I last wrote the blog but I’ve loads to tell you.. As you know, State of Undress take this song-writing business very seriously so the guys duly packed me off to attend a seminar run by the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters. I had a really great day. Met some great people and learned a lot too --- mostly about persistence and luck being as important as talent!! There were some frustrating moments like when one ‘expert’ says ‘Don’t send in a finished, polished product – just a voice and a guitar is enough’ followed almost immediately by another ‘expert’ saying ‘Strive for the most polished, well-produced and professionally presented demo as you can’ Well, take your pick.Considering one of the panellists said ‘I receive about 40 CDs a day and I don’t listen to a single one of them ..’, I guess it doesn’t really matter! That apart, they did have some great panellists including fab songwriter and radio presenter Tom Robinson. He DID listen to our Undressed CD, said some really positive comments about it and took the time to give us some very sound advice and guidance. An all-round good guy! Check out his website www.tomrobinson.com and tune into his programme the Evening Sequence on BBC 6 Music.
There’ve been some exciting developments in the State of Undress line-up. We were very conscious that we were missing something on the bottom end. As you know, Felix lives a long way off and can’t always get to a gig. Claire’s bodhran is fantastic but can sometimes sound a bit lonely without any other rhythm section. We didn’t want to go down the traditional drums and bass rock combo so thought we’d try something a bit different. A double-bass! We didn’t hold out much hope of finding one but Lady Luck must’ve been shining on us .Simon Crabbe has joined us complete with 6ft instrument which he carries around in a powder-blue walk-in wardrobe! It’s really brought a rich, velvety, subtle depth to the band. Simon makes his debut with State of Undress at The Salisbury Arms, Purewell on Thursday, 21st October.
Although the main State of Undress line-up is growing and evolving, we do sometimes like to get back to basics and do a duo gig. So we were delighted to be invited back to the New Forest Inn at Emery Down this week. If you don’t know this pub, you really ought to check it out.(02380 282329) It’s a beautiful, traditional pub serving great food and full of atmosphere. Our fab friends David and Sarah had an excellent meal there whilst listening to us. What’s great about this particular pub gig is the intimacy of the venue and the warmth of the welcome we get from the regulars there. We love it. We tried out some new material too – a song which we have literally just written called ‘Morning Glory’ which went down really well; a beautiful song written by our great friend Peter ‘Foz’ Foster called Take Me to the Leader – both of these will be on the next album – and , by special request, Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush! We are nothing if not versatile!
That’s all for now. Catch us at our next gig with our full band line up at The Salisbury Arms, Purewell on Thursday 21st October. Hope to see you there!