Ooh La La!

State of Undress
SilverDream
L'Encre de Coni
Malcolm French Fashion Icon
Well, since Save The Whale Week, we've been rushing round all over. We returned from Scotland just in time to unpack our gear, pack it again and go off to France to play at a little outdoor event at St Macoux Vienne. This was organised by Mike Boe of La Roc Musique Association. He used to run a music pub in Derby before moving to France to enjoy their sun, food and wine. Mind you, the weekend we were there, the weather was no better than here. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We set off at 5.30am to catch the 7.00am ferry from Portsmouth to Caen. We had the world's worst crossing early on the Friday morning - there wasn't a loo not being used. And as I was lying there, prostrate on the floor, the ferry rolling from side to side, the bar closed because all the bottles and glasses were crashing to the floor, I was thinking 'That's it. I'm getting a day job again. No gig is worth this.' Probably lost a few pounds though - so there's always a bright side. Anyway, we were going in convoy - 4 vehicles - 21 of us in total - although my mum, sister, Dee and Susan had gone ahead the day before - we're getting a bit like the Rolling Stones: all of the entourage, none of the money! We stopped off at Poitiers Airport to pick up my brother who had flown in from Australia - he wasn't going to miss out on a weekend in France with us all - and finally arrived at Mike's and Diana's about 5.30pm to find the rest all sitting on the patio in the sunshine with the wine already uncorked. How else would we find them? My sister and Dee were almost on their knees. Mike had had them practically building the stage! And before we could settle for the night, there was the little job of putting up the tents. Our tent was my birthday present. It was still in its box. Just as well David was there or we'd have been sleeping under the stars! Sam and Glen hacked back the undergrowth behind the barn and set up camp very happily amongst the thistles and brambles. Those two just love the outdoor life! My brother slept in our old tent affectionately called the pimple - supposedly a four-man sleeper but only if you're a hobbit. Everyone else slept in various places somewhere in Auntie Di and Mike's beautiful rambling chateau - including our bass player Malcolm who slept under the dining table on a pile of cushions. We slept like a log ...apart from the four kids who somehow ended up sharing our tent and were playing games on their mobile phones and performing competitive bodily functions as only boys can do; my brother blowing up his mattress - again! - with the electric pump at three o'clock in the morning as it had quietly deflated over a couple of hours; and next door's cockerel - which was seriously in danger of becoming a feather duster - joining in the dawn chorus from 4.30am. Apart from all of that, a wonderful night's sleep. We woke to a shimmering summer's day and had a lazy morning - the guys slipped off to Ruffec Market whilst I was on kid duty and working on the set list. A typical and gorgeous French lunch of cheese, cold meats, tomatoes, fruit, bread and wine of course. And then off down to the site to help Mike with the stage. Well, he and the girls the day before, had done a magnificent job. The stage was fantastic and the site absolutely beautiful - a park next to a lake, the stage under the trees.If the weather stays like this, we thought ... That night, after yet another fantastic meal, we sat out under the stars and had a little acoustic rehearsal, which turned into a bit of a singalong, a really lovely, magical evening. The next morning, we were up and loading the sound equipment on to the lorry by 6.30 and down to the site. But, oh, what had happened to the weather over night? Where had the glorious French sunshine gone? Mike had ambitiously told the other two bands to arrive at 8.30am for a soundcheck ... I think L'Encre de Coni finally got a soundcheck at 1.00pm - but no matter. The gang had brought down loads of sausages, bacon, french bread and flasks of tea and coffee and a cold box of beer so we were all OK. David was brilliant and took on the role of project manager and finally it all came together. L'Encre de Coni went on first. A really interesting band, with didgeridoo and mournful violin with some hard-edged, angst-ridden songs - they'd go down brilliantly at world-music festivals and venues. Excellent. And then came SilverDream - more mainstream, with a really tight rhythm section - drums and bass were fab - and their singer, Julie, has a great voice very reminiscent of Dolores from The Cranberries. Both are definitely bands to watch. Then we came on. Very different from the others. We played happily in the rain. Chatted to the audience in our somewhat stilted French. We asked them if they wanted us to stop playing as it was piddling down. But they wanted us to continue. My sister magicked a couple of large umbrellas out of thin air for some of the die-hards; we handed out the shaky eggs and a great time was had by all who were willing to brave the elements. I have to say Mike produced a great sound for us too. Then it was back to the house for Susan's home-made curry. It was Alan's birthday so we had copious amounts of sparkling wine and candles in the pudding. We'd bought him a satnav so we can find our way to gigs...! Next day, back in the car for the long drive home. We were all booked on to the same ferry .. except our car managed to miss it as we'd stopped off for a rather pleasant little lunch at a typical French bistro and spent rather longer over the wine and coffee than we intended! Certainly a weekend to pass into State of Undress legend.

Yet more photos of Save The Whale Week!

Underneath the arches in Saxon Square

Some of the audience waiting for the sun - which did eventually come out!

Spellbound at the Half Moon

Sam - having a giggle

Egg anyone?

Enjoying the intimate gig in the gallery at WDCS Wildlife Centre

Violinist, Sam, chatting to some of the audience in Saxon Square

Here's Chris Carnegy from Original 106FM interviewing Charlie Rose from State of Undress and local environmental campaigner, Tony Gray

In Newcastle City Centre in the shadow of Earl Grey. Anyone for a cuppa?

Escaping the rain with an intimate little gig in the gallery at the WDCS Wildlife Centre at Spey Bay, Moray Inverness!

Here are some photos of Save The Whale Week

Hi

Here we are at the Half Moon in Putney at the start of Save The Whale Week!

We're Back!

And now it’s back to reality! But let me finish telling you all about it. We woke bright and early to a slightly overcast but dry Saturday morning and wandered out on to the beach for a little exploration. We did our bit for the beach clean-up: brought in an old petrol can and a plastic carrier bag; had a good look at where we were playing outside the Ice House – stunning location with views over the bay – back to the house to get organized and then on to the café for a mega-breakfast before we set up outside ready for our afternoon gig. Oh, the best laid plans of mice and men and all of that…! Halfway through breakfast the heavens opened and the rain came down in heavy grey sheets. Non stop. All day. Everything was completely washed out. No beach clean. No people. No outdoor gig. But, being the true professionals that we are (basically just a lot of musical tarts!) we thought ‘We’ve come here to play, so we bloody well will!’ and we set up a little stripped down acoustic gig in the gallery just off from the shop – Keith on African drums and percussion, Malcolm plugged into Alan’s acoustic amp – just as well we’d done Leith FM the day before – and we played to a handful of very wet people. And d’you know what? It was great! And it was just lovely to be there at the Wildlife Centre and to see first hand the dedication of the staff and volunteers. Even overnight on the Friday there were volunteers out on a boat monitoring the dolphins. Anyway, as we were in the area, that night we decided to visit Universal Hall at Findhorn – home to the great Mike Scott of The Waterboys. Findhorn is an eco village and spiritual retreat and Universal Hall is the arts centre on site. That night it was hosting a sell-out concert for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. As you all know, we are a bit cheeky so we set off to find the manager to see if we could get a gig. Well, we found him. A lovely guy called Peter; we had a chat; gave him a CD and a copy of Red Waters and he’s asked us to phone him in September. We then stopped off for a meal at the Brewers Fayre travel place near by; got chatting to the manager there and she said that if we were up there for a gig at Findhorn, if we played for her as well, she’d give us all accommodation and feed us and water us for the duration. We thought that was a pretty good night’s work! Back to the cottage – still raining of course – a glass of wine and a chat and then up at the crack of dawn to set off on the long, rain sodden journey home. The guys did brilliantly swapping drivers every two hours, plenty of snacks and cups of tea and we arrived into the transmission area for Original 106 in time to hear them repeat Monday’s interview from Saxon Square and play Red Waters again. That station has been brilliant to us. And so now, it’s all over … except we’re all rushing round because we’re off to France on Friday at 5.30 in the morning to play a little outdoor concert over there. There are 21 of us going over. We have warned France! And although Save The Whale Week has now finished, the Stop Bloody Whaling Campaign continues as does Red Waters. The song will be available to download for months yet and we are planning to put some film footage behind it for UTubes and myspace etc To download Red Waters log on to http://www.foppdigital.co.uk or http://www.apple.com/itunes to learn more about Stop Bloody Whaling log on to http://www.wdcs.org to keep up to date with what we’re doing check our website http://www.stateofundress.com.
A bientot! (just getting into the spirit of things…)
Charlie

We're Still Having A Whale of a Time!

..... And now it's Saturday morning and I'm writing this sitting in a cottage right on the edge of Spey Bay. We are at the WDCS - Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society's Wildlife Centre. It's very beautiful - much bleaker and wilder than our own lovely Dorset coast but totally wonderful. So to continue where we left off ... what did I say about a curry and a beer being the end of a perfect day?? Never again. I definitely was not at my best the following day! Keith, our drummer, who is obviously a man of the world, managed to open the door of the bus and chuck me out on to the grass verge all in one swift, seamless movement. But then, as I said, at least one person has to be violently sick or it's not a proper tour!! Still the show must go on...and it did! Newcastle was a splendid setting. Right in the heart of the town centre playing under the shadow of Earl Grey. It was a steaming summer's day - the sunshine has followed us wherever we've been - and Paul Wappat from BBC Radio Newcastle came along at 12.15; did an interview and then we played Red Waters live on air from Grey's Monument. The gig was great - we weren't entirely happy with our sound - we were missing the Noizy Boyz - but it still went well, we had a lovely response from the audience and Newcastle City Council were very happy with it and had had some very positive comments from the general public. We sold some CDs and gave out lots of information on the Stop Bloody Whaling Campaign so, all in all, a great success. Then it was back on the bus and on our way to Edinburgh. Now, I was very concerned that I'd not managed to generate any radio coverage for Scotland but I'd taken all my press books - the Music Week Directory and the Unsigned Guide (both books a must for any aspiring band like us) and on Wednesday evening ,driving along, I managed to track down a little radio station called Leith FM. Leith FM is a community station that covers the whole of Edinburgh and they were delighted to hear from us. What's more, they were quite happy to squeeze all the band into the studio. So as soon as we arrived in Edinburgh, we made for Leith studios (upstairs from Leith Dockers Club - if we'd known that we might have organised another gig as well!). We had a great interview with Mike Templeton, they played the CD of Red Waters, sang Morning Glory live with just acoustic guitar but all the band joined in the chorus and it went so well they invited us back for the following day. We stayed overnight in another lovely flat - this time provided by Hannah from the WDCS - and the next day we were up and ready to do our gig at The Forest Cafe. We had to stop at a drum shop en route - Keith has an inbuilt homing device - he can sense a drum shop within any five mile radius - we also needed some more shaky eggs ( there's a surprise) as we'd lost a few in Newcastle! And then on to The Forest Cafe. What a brilliant place this is! So receptive to live, original music and does fabulous food. It's a cafe and arts venue run on a co-operative basis, huge squashy sofas, artwork all around, a real community feel, just great. They made us so welcome and, although there was only a modest-sized audience, we really had fun and they loved our music. You can't ask for more than that. We will definitely go back there again but to play an evening gig. Then back to Leith FM where, this time, the whole band played live on Lynsey's show Leith Talk. Keith brought his African Drum, Malcolm plugged his bass into Alan's acoustic amp, Sam and Alan just played acoustically into the mikes and I sang. D'you know what? It sounded bloody good! We played Spellbound and Ain't Nothin' live and they played the CD of Red Waters too. We had a really good long interview with plenty of opportunity to talk about the Stop Bloody Whaling Campaign and how Red Waters came about. Playing live as the whole band in the radio studio was a first for them and for us but, it was such a great experience, that alone would have made this whole trip worthwhile. Then it was back in the bus and on our way to Spey Bay. What a beautiful journey, winding roads through craggy mountains, waterfalls and lochs and as it's solstice it was still light at 11.00pm. Eerily beautiful. We stopped at a lovely little Italian restaurant in Aviemore and finally arrived at the WDCS at close on midnight. A cup of tea. Watched a bit of Glastonbury live...I tell you what, they're not having a better time than us..into our sleeping bags and all ready for our gig on the shores of Spey Bay! If you want to know more about Red Waters and Stop Bloody Whaling, log on to our website www.stateofundress.com or the WDCS www.WDCS.org.
Och Aye the Noo!
Charlie x
State of Undress

We're Having A Whale of a Time!

Well, it's already Wednesday evening half-way through Save The Whale Week and I'm writing this in the back of the bus about an hour outside Newcastle. What a great week we're having! It all started on Sunday evening with a gig at the Half-Moon in Putney. It really is a lovely venue - friednly, intimate, great acoustics and a brilliant sound engineer in Doon from the Moon! We took a small group with us - big thanks to Chas for driving the bus - and just had an excellent night. Redvers Bailey, a young extremely talented singer songwriter opened up the evening, and got everything off to a flying start. We had terrific support from the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society in the form of Cherylle and James who distributed information about WDCS and the Stop Bloody Whaling Campaign, passed round the collection boxes, danced, jigged and shook their eggs and generally had a good time! With a sit down, listening audience we had an opportunity to do some of the songs we don't always get to play suich as Song for a Boy and Beyond Repair which was great for us but of course we still ended up with a bit of a party going on! I fell off the stage during Until Today - how uncool is that? - possibly the highlight of the night. (when we're rich and infamous and I'm answering the Observer questionnaire and they get to the bit 'What's you're most embarassing moment?' ..I'll be able to tell them!) We got back about 2.30 in the morning and were up at 5.30 to do an interview and live session for BBC Radio Solent's Breakfast Show. Now, we'd already discussed with them what they'd like us to do. The idea was they'd play the CD of Red Waters; we'd have a bit of a chat about Save The Whale Week and Stop Bloody Whaling and then we'd finish off by playing Morning Glory - very apt for a 7.30/7.45am slot we thought. Anyway, we had a quick run through of Morning Glory in the kitchen with a cuppa just to warm up the old vocal cords; arrived at the studio; had another quick rehearsal of Morning Glory in the waiting room so we were all primed and ready for it; went into the studio; Adam the presenter chatted to us, put on the CD of Red Waters, let it play for about 20 seconds, stopped it then announced on air 'Now that was just a taster of Red Waters. In a few minutes, Alan and Charlie are going to perform the live acoustic version. What?? ***!!!? Talk about in at at the deep end. But we did it and it was fine! Raced back home to get ready for our gig in Saxon Square in Christchurch at lunchtime. We'd arranged to meet the Noizy Boys, who were doing our sound, in the Square at about 11.00am. It was raining; we had no cover and no contingency plans for the weather.But we crossed our fingers, hung on in there, set up between showers..and d'you know what? The minute we were ready to start playing, the sky brightened, the sun came out and Monday afternoon turned into a glorious summer's day. Chris Carnegy from Original 106 came and did a live report from the gig - which Sam our violinist heard at 3 o'clock in the morning when she was driving home (how rock n roll is that). We had a fantastic afternoon; we drew a real crowd and some of the die-hards who had come to Putney the night before, came to support us in Christchurch too. It actually turned into a magical afternoon. So much so that when we got home, we just had to open a few bottles of wine in the garden to celebrate! The next day found us at Hounsdown School in Totton to do an after-school gig for parents and students. This was probably one of the most extraordinary but fun events we've done. Instead of just playing, their teacher, Mr Weller, asked if we would talk to the children about our songwriting and how we put a song together. It's certainly given us some ideas for working with young people in the future. An early night and it was back in the bus for 9.00am as we had a live interview with BBC Radio Oxford at midday. We wanted to leave ourselves plenty of time in case we ran into traffic problems or got lost. However, Malcolm our bass player has a new toy - a satnav. And, bloody hell, it works. Unless Alan's driving, of course. He insists on saying 'I'm sure we should be taking this road ...' completely ignoring poor little satnav who was nearly exploding with frustration. but three days of getting to places unruffled and on time have convinced him of the wonders of technology. So most of today has been spent travelling stopping off at Radio Oxford and then BBC Radio Nottingham for the drive-time show finally arriving in Newcastle at about 10.00pm. Here in Newcastle we are staying in the most beautiful apartment with views over the water and the park with a church steeple to the left; castle ruins in front; and a lighthouse to the right. We have to say a huge big thank you to Anne and Richard from Shoofly for making us so welcome. A curry and a beer at close on midnight and I reckon that's then end of an almost perfect couple of days! BBC Radio Newcastle and a gig in the town centre tomorrow.... If you want to know more about Save The Whale Week and Stop Bloody Whaling log on to http://www.stateofundress.com or http://www.wdcs.org Red Waters is available as a download single with all proceeds to the WDCS from iTunes and FOPP (http://www.foppdigital.co.uk)
Charlie