British Council/PRS Foundation Musician in Residence - Changsha, China 2014 Changsha 10/9/14 Ive joined a Chinese rock band! Well...kind of. Ill be joining local Changsha rock band DA MU as guitarist no.2 for their Orange Isle Festival performance on Saturday. I made my way to our meeting today full of trepidation...not really knowing what kind of musicians they would be or to what extent I really wanted to abandon my original plans. I was concerned I might get sidetracked from my other goals of performing my own material, recording and doing some collaborative song writing. I was also aware that they were rehearsing for their high profile gig and when I had met the band leader John yesterday I hadnt really been able to tell if they actually wanted me to join in or were just being polite. So I came in to the session today with the plan to join them for one song in their set and avoid placing too much pressure on them or myself. After a bit of an awkward start we all started to have a lot of fun. Their music is very different to mine and not a style I would have set out to make but it was really enjoyable. Ive not taken the guitarist role in a band for about 20 years and their nineties and noughties (to my ears) influenced alt rock really took me back to the 90s and my years playing in a rock and blues band around the pubs and clubs of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. I seemed to slot in quite easily and so before long it was decided Id join them for their whole set and we were laughing and joking a lot. Ive even been upgraded to guitarist no. 2 plus backing vocalist! Im singing bvs in Chinese! We shared moon cakes and M and S humbugs and had a great afternoon. Theyre a lovely friendly bunch and all music teachers and very good musicians. I left them rehearsing some of their other material and tomorrow I have a day to myself to learn the songs and make some plans of my own for the rest of my stay. Friday we have a kind of dress rehearsal / soundcheck on the actual festival stage and on Saturday the show itself. Im starting to think this is a far more interesting life experience than playing my own show...Im off to buy a neon lycra onesie.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 13:06:43 +0000