Firstly, thanks for everyone’s overwhelming support for the video I posted in December. It’s up to 1200 views on youtube which is a record for me, and the response has been very positive. More of these to come! If you haven’t seen it yet please go watch it, and maybe even share it with your friends and family (Facebook is great for this!). The song is available for sale on itunes and other major online distributors.

There are some incredibly talented singers and musicians at my uni - one I’ve discovered is Marie Dahlstrom. She’s got a lovely voice and plays the type of music that really floats my boat - kinda neo-soul, lots of jazzy elements. She runs a music night near Barbican and I’m supporting her this Thursday if you’ve got a free night:

“First Thursday” - Thursday 2nd Feb
Native Tongue
13 - 17 Long Lane, Barbican, London EC1A 9PN
£5 entry, 9pm start.

I’ll be playing an acoustic set, along with Marie playing in a stripped-down acoustic-style and two other artists. It’ll be a quality night, hope to seeya there!

Peace

I’m extremely happy about how it turned out, as well as extremely grateful for all the help I’ve had putting it together. Special thanks to Ben, Aimée, Graeme and Dan for playing, and Hermione for letting me use your mic and recording interface. And J for letting us use your room!

If you like the song I’ve also released it as a single on itunes and amazon, you can buy it from those links (the amazon link is the UK site but it should be available internationally). Also please consider sharing the video on facebook/twitter etc, I’m hoping it will do really well online for maximum exposure. I’m looking forward to doing more of these; it took waaay too long to edit the video and get the mix and mastering right, but at least next time I’ll know what to do.

My next gig is the 10th of January, and we’re back at The Horse in Waterloo. If you missed my last gig (December is crazy, admittedly) do come on down to check out my songs with the band, it’s hot!

7:30pm, Tuesday 10th January, £5 entry.
The Horse, 124 Westminster Bridge Road, Waterloo SE1 7XG.

Hope to see you there! Merry Christmas all, have a safe and festive holiday

Stephen

Tuesday 13th of December (live music from 8:20pm, I’m on stage around 9:30pm)
The Troubadour
263-267 Old Brompton Road, London SW5 9JA (nearest tube Earls Court)
£6 entry

I’ll be joined by my amazing band and it’s an extended headline set, so you’ll get to hear the entire back catalogue of my songs on one night! Hmm, probably just means I need to write more…

I’m quite looking forward to playing at a night that I’m not running (for a change), it’s a lot of work and stress promoting and running music nights! I think I’ll do a gig once a month and alternate between playing established music venues and running my nights at The Horse.

This one wont be live-streamed sorry, but here’s a little video of a stream I did earlier today, demonstrating some strange noises with my new guitar pedal:

Hours of fun. Too many hours of fun, when I should be doing my transcription assignment, or buying some new slippers. I’ll leave you with this photo of the river Thames that was taken recently at a shoot for my new single. London can be kinda pretty hey?

The single (This Town) is ALMOST done! The video looks great, the recording sounds hot, I’m just getting it mastered so it should be with you in a matter of days - I’ll let you know.

Peace

Stephen

Things just got crazy. I started back at uni two weeks ago and it’s been mental - I didn’t quite realise how relaxed my summer was until now. Second year is going to be a huge push, it’s a LOT harder and a LOT more work. That said, I’m enjoying every minute of it and am excited about actually getting good at my instrument. Speaking of which…

Chatting to a friend today made me realise that I’m switching over to electric guitar. I love my acoustic and the ‘play wherever’ element, but for proper guitar playing, I’m going to have to move past just playing chords the rest of my life. I’m leaving my comfort zone - eek! I’ve had many a moment over the last few weeks where I’ve become painfully aware how little of my fretboard I know, and how unwilling I am to take a solo. Time to start some serious practice.

And yes it’s gig time again - we’re back at The Horse on Tuesday the 1st of November with a fresh set of talented and lovely people on the bill:

• Candice Casagrande - acoustic folky fairy tales
• JayP - First appearance ever!
• Hermione Fricker - acoustic folky fairy tales plus cello
• POCA - piano driven pop - FULL BAND!
• Stephen Hay (yup that’s me) - FULL BAND! UPPER CASE!

First 24 people through the door (doors open 7:30pm) get a free bottle of beer, how cool is that? Venue: The Horse, 124 Westminster Bridge Road, Waterloo SE1 7XG. Closest tube: Lambeth North, Bakerloo line (just turn right and cross the road, it’s around the corner past Costa). Alternatively, watch online at my ustream channel, we’ll be broadcasting the whole night live from 8pm GMT.

Entrance is £5 on the door (or a donations above £5 if you’re feeling generous!) with all proceeds towards my uni fees. If you watch online and enjoy the show (or just wanna be awesome) you can also donate via paypal here:  http://www.heystephen.com/savethestephen/.

That’s it for me folks, I’m going back to practicing my guide tones and arpeggios…

Hey, check it out, I recorded a John Mayer videosong cover. If the image above doesn’t work, find it on youtube here. Me and (brother) J bought a new camera recently and have been playing with the HD video functionality, it’s super nice! I’m rather excited about it; lovely sharp video quality, and that shallow DOF which makes it look pro. Mmm, mmm. So yeah, I’m dabbling in film…

My plan is to start working through my originals (and a few covers like the above) and record them with video for youtube, including drums, bass, piano, shakers, rubbish bins, seagulls and whatever else needed to make it sound phat. Then I’ll release each song (covers excluded) as a single on itunes/amazon etc.  I’ll let you know as soon as the next one is online. Or just subscribe to my youtube channel. Link link link.

Also I want to let all you lovely people know about my next gig:

Tuesday 4th October, 7:30pm
The Camden Head, 100 Camden high Street, London NW1 0LU
£5 or more donation

I’m still trying to raise the funds to pay my uni fees, so I’m hoping to keep running monthly live music nights indefinitely. It’s been fantastic being able to give people who are still new to the game a place to play their own songs to an attentive audience, and I’ve even been able to broadcast the gigs online on ustream. This was particularly useful when a bunch of young hooligans decided to go on a vandalising rampage and brought London to a standstill back in August. Very inconvenient. So use the handy calculator to work out what time/day 20:00 GMT+1 on 04/10/11 is in your timezone, and tune in here to watch!

The lineup:

Q&A - http://damascuslights.tumblr.com/ - brand spanking new acoustic collaboration
Aimée - http://www.facebook.com/OfficiallyAimee - acoustic/folk/pop with gospel and soul influences
Jessie Malcolm - Groovy acoustic pop with a powerful soulful vocal
Stephen Hay http://www.facebook.com/stephenhaymusic - not that great really

And to top it all off we’ll be jamming out some all-time favourites with a jazzy twist to finish the night with a bang. See you there - Whammy!

Somehow I’ve managed to pull together enough money to apply for my visa next month, thanks to a bunch of amazing people who have helped me out. It’s pretty humbling accepting help, as I’ve said. A friend of mine was saying she was in a similar position a few years ago, but has since come out the other side and was able to help me out. “Just pay it forward” she said; such a cool idea right? I love the idea that one day I’ll be the one helping friends in need. One day! But back to reality… I need to pay back the people who have lent me money for 2nd year fees, and also start working towards paying 3rd year fees which will be due this time next year. The fundraising continues!

I’m quite excited about my next gig. I’ve found what seems to be the perfect venue for running my live music nights, and I’ve even managed to convince the owner to install a wifi router for upstairs, meaning I can now stream the gigs live on ustream! So now you can all enjoy the music and get involved, even if you’re on the other side of the planet.

Date: Tuesday 9th August - bear in mind this could be different in your timezone.

Time: 8pm start GMT+1 (London summer time), doors open at 7pm. If you’re coming in real life, please come early so you don’t miss the start. Use this handy calculator to work out what time you need to be online.

Venue: The Horse, 124 Westminster Bridge Road, Waterloo SE1 7XG. Closest tube: Lambeth North, Bakerloo line (just turn right and cross the road, it’s around the corner past Costa). Alternatively, watch online at my ustream channel.

Entrance: £5 or more donation, proceeds to the Save the Stephen Foundation.

We have a fantastic lineup of newcomers and old friends alike playing and singing for your aural pleasure:

Zelia Mazele
Jessica Mally
Stephen Hay
Ben Southam
Aimée Mutambo

See you there!

I know it’s late notice, but I really want to try this. On Saturday I’m running my first living room live broadcast performance. There’s not really an easy, short way to say that, is there? Basically I’ll set up some gear in the living room, hook up the webcam and stream a live acoustic performance direct to you. You don’t even have to get out of bed to watch!

It’s more for the non-London folk who aren’t able to come to my regular fund-raising gigs, but of course anyone is welcome to tune in. I’ll be joined by the amazing Ben Southam on keyboard, who will also feature a couple of his wicked original songs. Make sure to keep an eye on my twitter feed for live updates etc.

The details:

Where: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/stephen-hay (you’ll have to watch an ad, sorry about that)

When: Saturday the 16th of July, 8:30am London time (GMT+1) - you’ll want to work out what that is in your timezone, here’s a handy calculator. The performance will last around 45 minutes.

Just cause I’m a nice guy, here are some alternative timezones: NZ: 19:30, Tokyo, Japan: 16:30, Sao Paulo, Brazil: 04:30 Ouch, Too many timezones in the US and Australia, work it out for your own state

Ooh, don’t forget this is another Save the Stephen Fundraiser, check out the link for details.

Hopefully see you online on Saturday!

]]> http://www.heystephen.com/blog/2011/07/testing-testing/feed/ http://www.heystephen.com/blog/2011/07/um-help/ http://www.heystephen.com/blog/2011/07/um-help/#comments Mon, 11 Jul 2011 23:18:38 +0000 Stephen http://www.heystephen.com/?p=517

The fundraiser gig on Friday was ama-zing! Such a great vibe, thanks to everyone who came down to support. All the acts were riveting, they had us under a spell. And the venue; I’m gonna say it, the venue is perfect. It’s the right size, it’s reasonably central, close to the tube, it’s walking distance to my house, they have in-house (albeit basic) sound system… I’m totally booking that place again. I like the idea of running regular nights at the same venue, and building a reputation of quality music and good vibes. This could be the start of something great!  The next one will be the 9th of August, put it in your diary now and I’ll announce the lineup shortly.

Financially speaking these events have been successful, but haven’t come close to my initial enthusiastic goal of £1000 per event. So far we’ve averaged about £300 per event, which isn’t half bad when you compare it to £40-80 I might get for playing regular gigs for other promoters, but means I’ve had to re-think my fundraising strategy a bit. I’ll definitely continue running them, but now it’s crunch time.

I have about a week to raise £4000.

This kinda scares me a bit. And not necessarily in the “Ooh, this is an exciting challenge!” kinda way. It’s more the “Oh my goodness I’m going to die if I have to spend my savings on a flight home” kind of scaredness.

The way visas work is I need to have sufficient funds in the bank to pay for my uni fees in full (plus £1600 for living costs) for a period of one month, shortly before I make my application in mid-August.  At that point my uni fees will be due, but wouldn’t need the £1600 in the bank. So the one month period of being rich starts in a few days time. And I’m feeling far from rich!

I really appreciate those who have come to my gigs, and even donated from abroad, and I do hope to completely fund my studies independently by working and running music nights over the length of my studies, but now unfortunately it’s a cashflow thing. I’m looking for people who have savings they can spare for one month (or maybe longer). If you think you can help please give me a call or email. If you want to just make a contribution towards the project, feel free to hand-deliver a large sum of cash in an unmarked briefcase, or use paypal / CC at www.heystephen.com/save-the-stephen. Appreciate your help on this one.

One last thing - I understand some people haven’t been able to get to a gig due to living in a different country as me. It’s quite a poor excuse to be honest, but to make things slightly simpler I’ve decided to try out a live webcast gig, performed and broadcast online from my living room. Again, I’ll post here with more details once I’ve got ‘em.

Thanks guys, I love you all

The last gig at the Fiddlers Elbow was so much fun! I played twenty-something songs for four separate acts on four different instruments. Three other solo artists played with their bands and showcased some incredibly heartfelt, clever and hilarious songwriting. Our uni band played a kinda-ropey but well received set to crowd of die-hard  later-stayers. And playing my music with a band was sick! It was a huge shift in the right direction for me, and it was such a blessing to play with such pros.

Since the gig I’ve had all my end of year exams (which went OK, not great but OK) and our end of year performance, which was ridiculously fun. I feel like after our year together we are really locking in as a band. Good vibes from these guys, it’s like a family. I really hope we can do more together in the future. So with my exams and performances out of the way, I’m pretty much free for the summer, weird…. Still need to find some full-time work, hit me up if you know of anything.

I guess this means I have some time to get creative which is very nice. I want to finish a song that’s been on the shelf for a long time, about “home” and what exactly that means. I also want to record some band versions of my originals and maybe some covers, filmed as I record and put together for youtube, Pomplamoose style. (Check these guys out, awesome stuff). I’ve been playing with my electronic drum kit some more and am slowly working out all the kinks (i.e. my poor laptop not being fast enough!) but am finally getting a reasonable sound. On Saturday I started tinkering and came up with this little groove below:

Funky Wahwah Groove by Stephen Hay

Pretty basic but gives you an idea what is possible. Also, I really like funk.

Also, I’ve booked my next fundraiser! Details:

When: Friday 8th July - Doors open at 7pm, live music from 8-10:30pm
Where: The Horse, 124 Westminster Bridge Road, Waterloo, London SE1 7XG (Lambeth North tube (Bakerloo line) or one stop from Waterloo (Jubilee, Northern & Bakerloo lines, & overground trains)

Feel free to RSVP on the Facebook event - it’s helpful to know how many people to expect. The lineup:

Painting Elephants - www.myspace.com/paintingelephants
Stephen Hay - www.heystephen.com/music
Hermione Fricker - www.myspace.com/hermionefricker
Bryony Foale - www.myspace.com/bryonyfoalemusic
James Perkins - http://www.reverbnation.com/mrjamesperkins
Jo & Quincy - http://damascuslights.tumblr.com/

I’m really excited to be getting more people on board with this project, it’s cool to see it growing to more than just about raising money. I love seeing talented and creative people doing amazingly at different points on the journey - come along, I think you’ll be impressed. Entrance is by £5 or £10 donation to the Save the Stephen Foundation, as per usual.

Peace, yo

The first gig I ran was a huge success - we jam-packed the little upstairs music venue, all the musicians were amazing and everyone seemed to really enjoy it. After costs we raised about £500 towards my uni fees which is amazing! I’m totally humbled by people’s generous donations - thanks! So now I have about £3500 to raise to pay for my 2nd year uni fees. That’s not a small figure, but hopefully with a bunch more events I’ll scrape through by the seat of my pants (sorry, trousers) and start 2nd year debt-free. Speaking of which…

My next gig is coming up soon and I’d love if you could make it. I’m calling it “Kind of a big deal” cause it kinda is - it’s a great venue, a BIG venue for me (150 capacity) and this time I’ve booked bands, or solo artists with bands, as opposed to acoustic-only artists. I want to push my music more in that way - aiming for a fuller, produced and professional sound. I’ve enlisted some incredible and generous musicians to play for me, and also to feature on the night. It’s also my uni band “Sharp Eleven”s first gig outside of uni, which we are all pretty excited about. Here’s the important stuff:

Friday the 27th of May, 7:30pm - 12:00am.

Venue: The Fiddlers Elbow, 1 Malden Road, Kentish town, London NW5 3HS.

Entrance is by donation as usual - I’m suggesting £5 or £10 which I reckon is cheap for a quality music night like this, but I would say that! All proceeds go towards my uni fees, please donate generously, but of course if you can’t afford much don’t feel pressured, I just want to see all your lovely faces there.

The lineup, in no particular order:

• Stephen Hay (that’s me) - listen at www.heystephen.com/music
• Daniela Hogger - www.myspace.com/danielahogger
• Ben Southam - www.bensoutham.com
• AnnaJo - www.annajo.co.uk
• Sharp Eleven - Find us on Facebook

I’m also in the middle of writing a new song about being caught up in the sights and sounds of this city - you know I’m a big fan of London, I’m not gonna lie to ya. Another first for me - I’m getting the amazing Aimée Mutambo to sing feature vocals for it, super excited! If you’ve heard her sing you’ll understand why. It’s a bit jazzy, I like it anyway - here’s a little sample.

Enough about me, how are you?

I’m a pretty determined young chap. I’ll have you know I fixed our shower curtain AND loft door recently. This, however, is pretty ambitious, even by my standards. I’m planning on continuing my music studies here in London. No, I AM continuing my music studies here in London. There, I said it. I’m going for the full three year BMUS music degree; the course I’m doing now is a one-year HNC certificate course. This means a few things: I need to really nail this years course, as well as do a conversion course which allows me to jump straight into the second year of the BMUS course. So I’m gonna be busy.

It also means I need to raise a heck of a lot of money. £7500, or thereabouts. How much?!? Who has that kind of money? And can we please be friends? I have some money in New Zealand from some work I did there, and from selling my drum kit, but nothing like this. As it is I’m barely covering my rent, let alone saving for school fees - so in comes the master plan. Instead of playing any old gigs, I’m going to start running my own. I find a venue, I book some willing (and generous) artists, and put it all together. I did something similar in my hometown last year, but this will be a first for me in London - I’m pretty excited.

Doing the rounds in the unsigned music scene in London can become a bit of a drag, playing the same venues and trying to impress promoters etc, all for a pretty small profit. At least this way, I figure I can have a decent go at raising enough money to put myself through uni. I guess in a way it also means I’m my own boss - I play where I want to play, and for as long as I want (both within reason), but of course I have all the risk of a promoter. Control freak? Yeah…

I’ve set up a Facebook page if you want to join up right here, and if you’re in London, I’d love you to come to one of my events, the first one coming up soon in March. Watch this space…

Hello, yes it’s me again. It’s been a while so I thought I’d update you all on musical things. My plan is to write a super-short update and give you some music to keep you happy until next time, but somehow I doubt I can keep this short… Here we go anyway:

Since last post I’ve been busy. I played a concert in my tiny hometown of Kerikeri, NZ (love you!); the night was nothing short of a success, with tickets selling out the day before, my fellow musicians and I making relatively few mistakes, and I think I can say people seemed to really enjoy it! Thanks again everyone who came, we had an amazing time. Here’s a short highlights reel if you couldn’t make it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i-h0gvC5T8

Shortly after the gig I flew to Japan for a holiday and to catch up with some friends. There’s some photos on facebook if you want to see what I got up to, but perhaps something more interesting  would be my foray into famous landmark performances. I played my song “Awkward” whilst crossing the Shibuya pedestrian crossing in central Tokyo, check out the footage below or here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_oTZghu2QE

Aaaand now I’m (back) in London, studying music performance on guitar at LCCM, being really challenged and learning from some amazing tutors (and students!). I’ve played one gig so far, for a friend of mine who runs the music website and live music night Cherry Ekko. They actually recorded it too so please if you have time, go to http://www.cherryecho.com/downloads.asp to download my four-song live EP. So many links, gosh I’m really sorry.

I’m not that sorry.

So now I’m thinking ahead. I’m going to try and focus more on the band-sound more and more, I feel like I can really get my soul/funk/jazz style across a whole lot better that way. So now I need to find band-members, which is what I’m working on in the background.

(Almost) enough from me, I’ll leave you with this: http://bit.ly/aC63at. Yup, another link. This is a song I wrote for my friend’s birthday. If you don’t know her already, perhaps you’ll feel like you know her after hearing it.

Enjoy!

I’m still experimenting with my sound and getting loads of inspiration with my new Spotify subscription - why didn’t I do this earlier? I’ve been listening to heaps of Neo-Soul, nu-Jazz and everything in between. Lovely. Discovered John Legend, Erykah Badu, James Taylor Quartet, all very inspiring. If you’re into soul or jazz I’d definitely recommend them.

Also I’ve been reading up a lot on music industry people’s advice for people like me, starting a career in music. One thing I think I need to work on is songwriting - I’m so darn fussy (and lazy) it takes me months to write a song - I need to start churning out a song a week, even if it’s rubbish, to give me heaps more practice. I can always bin them or re-use the good bits, but I think my perfectionist writing style is slowing me down. I give you full permission to hold me accountable to this!

Hope you enjoy the track, the lyrics are on the youtube link.

Until next time…

Stephen

PS Tickets are selling fast for my Kerikeri gig, make sure you grab yours soon before they sell out. Here’s the Facebook link: http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=140115529332793

Hey world - so yeah I’m in New Zealand. You probably know already, but just in case you didn’t. I came back about a month ago to attend some weddings, say hi to the family, hang out with some mates and renew my visa (not necessarily in that order). In September I fly back to London (after ten days in Japan, woohoo!) to start my guitar course and get back into the swing of things music-wise. I have been busy though, in more ways than one - I’ve almost finished a brand new song just for you so hopefully I’ll be able to record that soon. I’ve also been planning a gig here in Kerikeri where I used to live - It’s on the 20th of August if you’re on this side of the planet, details here or on Facebook.

It’s been great being home - flip, New Zealand is stunning! I had the privilege of taking some photos for my mates wedding recently, and although I’ve seen it all before, the scenery here is crazy-pretty. Seriously. You don’t appreciate it till you leave it and come back. Oh and stars! On a clear night they look incredible.

I want to rant a bit about songwriting, I apologise in advance for the following spiel. I guess I’ve been thinking a lot about my music and where it fits - like if you were to give it a genre or put it in a box, what would it be? I like to think I’m kinda jazz-influenced pop, but there’s bits of funk in there, some kinda-R&B grooves, some soul maybe? What is soul? What is pop? Is pop a dirty word? What is a dirty word? Who am I?!? I’ve been thinking, and probably too much.

It has been interesting analysing some different musical styles, and I’ve learnt a bit - for example, I don’t HAVE to change to chord sequence in the chorus! (or the key signature, but I’ll need some serious rehab to work that one out of my system). Some recent revelations: I don’t HAVE to limit the length of vocal phrases to keep it “catchy”, I don’t HAVE to stick to the ABABCB structure (although I probably will) - in fact I don’t HAVE to do anything! Ah, that feels nice to write.

I think I just matured slightly, artistically speaking. Wow, that sounded vain. Oh well. I’m gonna write music that I like, and if I’m lucky, other people might like it too. Screw genres. Where’s my guitar/notepad? I’m gonna work on this chord progression that changes key twice every bar…

It’s been a little while, but I’ve finally finished the next addition to my free acoustic album. It’s called “Awkward” and it’s pretty self explanatory. I played the old version of it at the Proud Galleries in Camden, but have since tidied up the verses to make them fit the vibe of the song better. I’ve been wanting to write about the subject for quite a while - it’s just so universal! Everyone is stuck in those painful situations from time to time - maybe someone unintentionally insults someone else present in a small group setting, or perhaps everyone is made uncomfortable by one person who goes a bit far with some off-coloured joke… you know what I mean. So hopefully this song captures that feeling anyway.

The mp3 is (of course) free for download, just right-click this link and save the file to your music folder: http://www.heystephen.com/music/Awkward%20-%20acoustic.mp3. Alternatively, you might want to download the whole album, just go to www.heystephen.com/music and enter your email address - you’ll get an email with a confirmation link to download it. Oh yeah, lyrics are here: http://www.heystephen.com/music/awkward/

Hope you enjoy it - let me know what you think!

Until next time

Stephen