WHAT'S NEW?
28th
January 2008 – Long time, no update
Crikey, it’s some time since
anything new was written here. So, what have we been up to? Some highlights.
·
The “new” album has been a great success. Well received, a
bit of radio play and selling well.
·
Mersea Music Festival in July with Slade headlining.
Altogether a strange experience – a MASSIVE PA System, a real sound engineer,
belly dancers, and we were the only act to request a soundcheck. We went on
much earlier than advertised and consequently most of those who came to see us
missed us. We can only apologise.
·
The beer festivals at Clacton, Chappell and Harwich were
great fun as usual (I’m sure they’re getting busier).
·
We were invited to appear at a multi-cultural festival in
Barking, representing Great Britain!
·
An open air gig on December 8th in
Walton-on-the-Naze had to be abandoned at the last minute – freezing cold,
driving rain, force 8 gale, stage awash. Went to the pub instead.
·
A whole bunch of venues new to us, most of which we’ll be
revisiting this year.
·
I finally threw out my old grey and white stripey stage
trousers. Only now does anyone tell me they had become see-through when lit
from behind. I’m now sporting a new, similar pair but in lovely red and white
stripes.
·
Looking forward to this year, I can’t remember ever having
so many confirmed gigs at this stage of the year. Looks like my new stage
trousers are going to get quite a bit of wear.
15th
June 2007 – A busy week
The first week in June got a bit
out of hand. Gigs accumulated to the extent that we ended up playing six gigs
in just eight days. Yes, most touring bands do that sort of thing all the time
but they’re a bit younger than us and they don’t have to act as roadies as
well!
·
June 1st – Trimley Sports & Social Club, Beer
Festival. Very enjoyable, large enthusiastic crowd.
·
June 2nd (lunchtime) – Eastbury Manor House,
Barking. A lovely day, so good that the entire local population hot-footted it
down to the coast, leaving us to play to the staff and stallholders.
·
June 2nd (evening) – Private party in Great
Baddow. Hot and exhausted. Humped the gear up loads of steps. Dreadful
acoustics. Voice on the blink. I ended up sounding like Joe Strummer!
·
June 4th – Private event in Harwich. Strength
returned, a very enjoyable evening with a nice crowd.
·
June 7th – Thurrock Beer Festival. Huge PA rig.
It sounded very loud but clear. We don’t often get the chance to play through a
large rig with a good sound engineer so we were really looking forward to this.
Halfway through the second number the local sub-station failed, plunging us and
several nearby streets into silent darkness. After twenty minutes hanging
around we had to evacuate the building so left after playing for just six
minutes.
·
June 8th – The Black Horse, Stratford St. Mary.
From the sublime to the ridiculous. A tiny country pub. Small but very
appreciative crowd.
·
June 9th – went down the pub then off to see someone
else playing – The Amazing Mr
Smith – a genius!
23rd
April 2007 – Lots Happening
It’s been an eventful few months
and I’ve been a little lax in updating this page. Partly because the venerable
Onion PC blew a gasket and cyberspace was off-limits for a while, and partly
because of yet another holiday. “We had a lovely time, thanks for asking”.
Ok here goes…
·
“Change at Thorpe-le-Soken” has been released as a single –
details here
·
Airplay – BBC Suffolk, Big L, and a number of Internet radio
stations have been playing the single and various tracks from “Show us yer
Kipper”.
·
The “Forthcoming Gigs”
list is getting longer and longer. Recently we’ve added Cromer Folk on the
Pier Festival, several beer festivals and rather improbably, a gig
supporting Slade at the Mersea
Music Festival.
·
“One Railway” have asked us to unveil a new station
nameplate at Walton-on-the-Naze on May 8th. For years the signboards said
“Walton-on-Naze”, missing out the important “The”. “One” railway have taken
this opportunity to correct what has been a source of irritation to many of the
town’s residents - the cover of the single illustrates the point nicely, hence
our being asked. Click here
for more details.
30th
January 2007 – Getting “Down with the kids”
We’ve been coming under pressure
from a few sources, notably Nick’s 11 year old son, to create a “MySpace” site.
Apparently “All the bands do it”. So we’ve caved in and put together one of the
most restrained pages you’ll see. It’s a bit of a pain trying to duplicate
everything that’s on this site, so we’re not going to try. Instead, we’ll use
the site for what it does best. We’ve loaded some songs from the new album and
a couple of video clips. The “Friends Comments” section could get interesting
if the contribution from The Flinknappers is anything to go by.
Don’t expect it to stay bang up to
date with information.
31st
December 2006 – A new album!
The Onion Band are first and
foremost a live band. We’ve usually been disappointed by our studio recordings
as they can’t capture the energy and spontaneity of our live performances. We
came up with the idea of playing in a studio using our full live rig and
recording that. The results were impressive so we decided to press on with a
full album. Two sessions at the end of February and the bulk of the basic
tracks were done.
We’ve had several abortive
attempts at recording a new album over the years so we didn’t set out to tell
anyone what was going on apart from the vague mention on this page (see Dec 31st
2005 below). Just as well, for after the initial burst of activity work stopped
for over six months. I suffered a series of illnesses including an ear
infection, which rendered me almost stone deaf for several weeks (goodness
knows how I managed the gigs in March). Then there were the inevitable holidays
and the stifling heat of the early summer. After constant nagging from Nick we
completed the basic tracks in September. Overdubs were completed in late
November and the album was mixed immediately after. Then editing, mastering,
track selection and running order. The first copies rolled off the production
line on December 30th.
Forthcoming Gigs
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