We did a very enjoyable gig at the Hoy in Leigh on Sea a couple of nights ago where a two (out of three) of Dave's sisters turned up and we featured a lot of the new songs on the tenor guitar.

Today we recorded some more parts (mostly vocal) on 'Making It Work' and the song's sounding good. We have definitely drawn a line here though, and we will record no more new tunes before sorting out our new album.
Unfortunately progress towards a finished album will still be slow because we both have summer holidays coming up before we can get round to the running order, cover and mastering...

It seems we haven't finished creating yet for the new album. Yet another song was written on the tenor guitar last weekend and we recorded a pretty good version of it today. This time Dave is singing 'Making It Work', which is a fairly folky sounding song and on the mp3 sample we are doing it pretty much as we will do it live - with Dave playing the tenor guitar and Boo on the bass. We'll be adding a bit more to it next week but have a listen to what we did today.

This will be the 17th song we've got recorded for the album and we really must stop! Every time we start thinking about mastering and running orders for the new CD, out pops another one. Sorry! We'll try and control our creative juices.

Making It Work (working mix)

<Proof that we had a good time in Colchester last night (check out the shorts!) at the Headgate theatre - thanks to everyone who came and to James for keeping a lovely venue running so smoothly.

We'll be up in that area again for our next gig on Tuesday 3rd August at the Hoy at Anchor near Southend... so if you can stand seeing us twice in such a short space of time - see you there!

P.S. There are a couple more pictures from this gig the pictures page and also some hi res ones on the publicity page.

Colchester tonight and Croydon last Monday were the gigs this week, so we've been getting the tenor guitar integrated into our set. All 4 songs currently written on it are now in there and sounding good. We've now got a couple of big sounding songs on a very small sounding instrument which we're going to do at the Headgate theatre tonight. Looking forward to it!

Only just discovered that our guestbook hasn't been working for about the last 9 months. We thought no one loved us... now it's working again so... pleeeeease leave a message!

We had a great time at Wivenhoe folk club last night. It's difficult to interrupt the recording process with a gig sometimes, but this one was worth it! Wivenhoe is a small but very well attended and enthusiastic club and we had a lot of fun. It was so hot it was almost like doing a sweaty old band gig, with strings becoming manky in a matter of minutes!

We'll be back in the Colchester area again on the 17th at Acousticity (see gig page), so hopefully we'll see one or two of you there again soon.

We've stopped fighting about who is going to sing 'I Do Not Believe', and Boo put down a great version of the song today (hear experiment below). The song has been captured early... with just enough familiarity to play it well and with feeling, but not enough for it to have become merely a task.

We also recorded a good version of 'Love Lies Bleeding', which features another Boo vocal on another new song. These two numbers bring up Boo's quota of vocals for the new album dramatically and it marks the end of most of the recording for the new CD. There are overdubs left to do and some mixing... oh and the cover to sort out, but we're nearly there folks. This has been about 3 years work for us with lots of new stuff coming up on the rails in the final furlong. We've really been enjoying it and I don't know what we're going to do when it's finished...

Boo continues her latin percussion journey by means of a guiro. This potentially jokey instrument was added on a revisit to 'Some Day' today. A piano was recorded on the same track yesterday by our old friend Harry Bogdanovs.

A busy day today with a brand new song written this morning in 2 hours and tried out by each of us having a go at the vocal this afternoon. Here is a bit of Boo's version of 'I Do Not Believe'

I Do Not Believe (Boo's try out)

This is Boo today adding a cajon part to 'Prophet's Warning' which is the second song written on tenor guitar we've now recorded.

Here is a monitor mix of what we did. It features the first known example of Dave using a plectrum!

Prophet's Warning monitor mix

We've not had many samples lately, so here is an mp3 of our latest work on a new song called 'Loneliest Man In The Western World'. It's the first appearance of Dave's new tenor guitar on a track with two more written on the tenor yet to record.

Loneliest Man In The Western World

We played all 3 of our new songs at Orpingon Folk Club last night and they seemed to go down really well, so we made a start recording them today. These are in addition to the 12 tunes we have completed and we are heading inexorably towards a conclusion to the next CD... but it's always 27 steps forward, 25 steps back.

Two new songs written on the tenor guitar ('Love Lies Bleeding' and 'The Prophet's Warning') are nearly ready for a gig and should soon be recorded. Boo sings both of them and we were working out harmonies today.

The latest recording for our new CD ('Oh Don't Desert Me') is a chirpy bluegrass tune, which is sounding great and was recorded more or less live. It should be a good contrast to the other tracks.

We're often accused of not keeping our publicity pictures current - anyway here's an up to the minute shot of Dave and Boo on a day out.

You can read a review here of one of our previous trips a couple of months ago by Rock n Reel in Northumberland.

Getting down to some serious mixing and recording. 41 mins of music for the new CD consisting of 11 songs so far, so we're now into the realms of recording a couple more tracks and then leaving one or two out if necessary for our quality control department.

Today we were recording 'Oh Don't Desert Me' which is a fun track to do at gigs, but it remains to be seen whether it will fit in with the rest of the album. The only way to record it is live like on a gig. The picture on the right is not an alien being, but Boo getting into the spirit of the thing...

Mike Harding played our song 'Stuff'' again on his show tonight because people had requested it after hearing it there three weeks ago. It's a song from our new album which we haven't finished yet but which should be out in a few months time. Thanks so much to anyone who took the trouble to send him some feedback for us.

If you want to do it again you can tell him on his contact page here. This seemed to work last time! Maybe he'll play it again next week...
You can listen to this now on the Dave and Boo iplayer.

Today we were sorting out some final bits on a few of the songs for our next CD... some harmonies, replacing a cajon part, a new lead vocal and Boo trying to sound like Charlotte Green(?!!)

Boo had some nice compliments about her 'radio voice' after our little broadcast on local radio (see below), so we thought we'd try getting her to do a disclaimer as Charlotte at the end of 'Stuff'... nearly!...

Boo's Charlotte Green overdub

Despite the 'Atheists Hymn' we maintain Dave is not the antichrist, it's just that he was given these beautiful illuminated horns after a visit to a night market in India... they seemed to suit him somehow.

Beelzebub was last seen scootering across the fields in the dead of night with horns still glowing brightly.

After a really enjoyable gig at Hitchin FC last Sunday and Dave's holiday in India, we're finally getting back to our recordings. 11 completed tracks now for a new album plus a couple more to do.

Dave's tenor guitar has been renovated while he was away and is getting it's first outing on Sunday at Twickenham FC. The first new song to be completed on it is 'The Loneliest Man In The Western World' and this will get its world premiere at the weekend. Click here for the lyrics.

Here is our spot on BBC Three Counties and Essex radio last Monday with Sue Marchant. If you missed it and want to hear 30 mins of us chatting, playing 2 songs live and a rough mix of 'Stuff', you can listen to it here on our...

Dave & Boo iplayer

If you enjoyed it, please email Sue and give her some feedback for us. Thanks!

We're on Radio Cambridgeshire at 9.10pm this evening with Sue Marchant (see below). If you're not near Cambridge you can listen live online if you click here.

update (30/3/10) SORRY! This program was not on Radio Cambridgeshire... it went out on BBC Three Counties and Essex radio only. This is NOT what it said in BBC schedules. Click the iplayer link above to hear it.

If you didn't catch our song 'Stuff' on Mike Harding's show (see below), you can listen to it on our...

Dave & Boo iplayer

If you like it then please give Mike some feedback for us on his contact page here. Thanks!

We haven't had much in the way of radio plays, but we now have two programs coming up with a bit of us on them:

Mike Harding came to our gig in Bolton recently and liked our new song 'Stuff' which he has promised to play on his Radio 2 show on Wed March 24th at 7pm (even though it's not available on a CD yet - sorry!). Should be second song in, and if you like it, then please write to Mike by clicking his contact page here. Thanks!!

Our other bit of radio is with Sue Marchant (left) who we met at a gig at CB2 in Cambridge and we'll be on Radio Cambridgshire at 9pm on Mon March 29th. We'll be playing a couple of tracks live plus maybe one or two more from our CDs and demonstrating our dynamic personalities. We'll also be plugging our gig at Hitchin FC on Easter Sunday (4th April) where we'll be sharing the bill with Liz Simcock and her band. This now seems to be an almost annual event for Liz and us and it's going to be a great night - it always is! (tempting providence isn't it?!!)

Marko (the phantom film maker from Coventry) has put another old clip of us on YouTube, so I have now put it on our 'UsTube' video page. This one's also from 2002 (see below) and it's of the chaotic but popular banjo instrumental 'Traffic Jam'. We may get round to recording this properly one day - if we can ever summon up the requisite amount of energy needed when there's no audience!

Yet another video surfacing. This time of 'Serenades' at our gig last week at Acoustic Routes in Cambridge (thanks Bernard)
We're recording this tune for our new CD this week. We'll put an mp3 of the recording in progress shortly.

We were sent some old video footage this morning from 2002, which might interest the guitarists out there, with Dave trying to remember some of his old tunes plus an old rendition of 'Amsterdam' (and others if you go to YouTube). Click here to go to the video page or click one of the pictures.

We returned home today from our 'wild weekend' tour of the north of England. We met some lovely people in Bolton, Northumberland and Southport. Can't wait to do it again! Here are some snaps of us bickering our way up the country with really up to date navigation... more on the pictures page.

Etal village hall	Bothy FC Southport

Read the Bothy review - thanks Clive!

Dave's new song on tenor

guitar has been completed but not recorded and is now called 'The Loneliest Man In The Western World' - not autobiographical he says... but who's listening?!!

We're going to wait until a bit more gets investigated and written on the tenor before unleashing it at gigs... and there is our wild weekend tour coming up next weekend: 3 north of England dates in Bolton, Southport and Northumberland (details here). Dave was a bit worried that he couldn't play a normal 6 string guitar after so much playing on the tenor. Should be alright by the 5th though...

Got some serious recording done on Boo's new song 'River Runs Deep' today (click here for mp3 sample). Guitar, banjo, vocal, harmony vocal and cajon were all put down all neat and tidy with the parts we worked on before Christmas.

A new song has appeared thanks to Dave's new tenor guitar called 'Life Goes On'. A few lyrics missing at the moment but almost finished. This probably means a pickup will have to be fitted to the Gibson TG-25 for gigs, which will probably mean changing its adjustable bridge to a fixed one... oh dear.

River Runs Deep monitor mix

Here's Dave and a friend from a couple of days ago.

We're trying to keep going during blizzard conditions and we dutifully rehearsed today for a gig on Monday which may or may not happen depending on the weather. Keeping our fingers crossed...

We also worked on Boo's song 'The River Runs Deep' which will get an outing shortly but probably not for the next gig. You can find the lyrics here.

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