Lyrical thoughts...

Dabbling with some new lyrics, strikes me i could be describing my brain every time I lose the car keys! :)
:(Steve):

View from the back: my drum kits (and some drum history lessons!)

Hi! Steve here. If you’ve been to one of our recent gigs you will have seen I have a new drum kit, which made me reflect on the background stories to the drums I’ve owned.

My 1^st drum kit: Stratford Besson ‘Shaftesbury’

I started drum lessons back in 1979 I think, with my parents expecting it to be one of those many passing fads that teenagers have... not realising I’d still be playing after all these years. After a while I’d saved up enough hard-earned cash from working on a milk round (paying around £6 for a Saturday) to buy the blue kit you see in the photo, for £160 from someone in South Hornchurch.  I was so excited I probably would have bought almost anything I could afford, and being pre-internet I knew absolutely nothing about it except it was manufactured during the 1960’s as some of the drum ‘skins’ really were animal-skin rather than plastic. You can also see the vintage from the skinny cymbal stands in the photo. I was very proud of my drums, but they couldn’t look more different to the drums of the 1980’s which were getting ever larger and more ludicrous (see Capelle below) with cymbals sky-high and steeply-angled tomtoms.  These days it’s gone full-circle and yet again we have lower, flatter toms and cymbals (much easier to play fast)- my old kit would have fitted in perfectly. After around 5 years learning the ropes I sold it, hopefully whoever has it now gives it the respect it deserves. 

In writing this article I thought I would find out more about its history. According to web sources Stratford Besson originated in the mid-nineteenth century in France before locating to London in the mid-1930’s, and being bought by Boosey & Hawkes in 1948. It became a sister brand to Ajax and English Rogers (sister in turn to the famous US Rogers brand). My kit came with 2 Ajax cymbals (I can still remember the sound of one of them!). Most of the components were interchangeable and from the same factories. Interestingly, I found online a collector had a rusty Besson 1930’s snare drum (see photo), with identical ‘marine pearl’ coloured wrap and badging to my 1960’s kit, although improvements were made over those 30 years to the metalwork. The Besson brand disappeared at some point but has recently resurfaced in France, specialising in brass instruments exactly as it first started. Whether it’s fashions or factories, strange how history repeats itself.

Melanie Tri-Fantom

Also in my photo, you can see at some point I also added a curious black triple-tom arrangement manufactured by British brand Melanie. At the time Remo’s ‘Roto-toms’ were fashionable and this seems a simpler competitor. I still have it! I’ve never really found much use for it though as I could never find a comfortable position for them. Apparently they were popular with some reggae artists such as Sly Dunbar.

As a side-note, the Fantoms were supplied with a rugged stand made by the French brand Capelle, who most famously supplied some outrageous looking drums in their ‘Turbo’ range. A music shop in Hadleigh had them and I can still remember coveting a scarlet set similar to the photo. They also made a very unusual inverted-spring kick drum pedal I tried and admired. They had the wild look I was aiming for, but were far too expensive for a school-kid. Perhaps for the best as reviews suggest the extra size has little impact on sound, and the Capelle brand seems to have disappeared.

 

My 2^nd kit: Pearl Export II circa 1987

Well, what to say about this kit? The Pearl Export was the best-ever selling drum kit of all time, I believe because Pearl (from Japan) were innovating hard while the competition slept, pouring R&D money not only into new design features but also to their purpose-built factory in Taiwan. The Export was perhaps the most solidly made kit you could buy then at that price, and the investment paid off with a good ‘booming’ sound despite being made from cheaper wood. The funny thing with being so popular is I still keep seeing them everywhere! Pearl has recently reintroduced the range at around £500, which is amazing value as I seem to recall they cost the same price back in the 1980’s! I bought my kit from a friend (hi Stuart if you see this!) who bought it new. I’ve always looked after this kit and as it sounds great I expect to get many more years use from it. At the time of writing it’s recently returned from a month rehearsing in my office basement up in the City, culminating in a pub Xmas gig with colleagues.

 

My 3^rd kit: Drum Workshop (‘DW’) Design Series

So, after about 25 years I finally decided to get another kit! Well, I guess some people get a sports car in their middle age. It’s my first ever kit bought brand new, and the choices open to you these days are staggering. Everything is so much better made than it was years ago, competition and clever design has made it a buyers’ market. They say that 80% of what you hear with a drum kit is down to the heads (skins) and tuning, so I thought long and hard deciding what was I after to improve the remaining 20%. In the end I decided I wanted the warmth and long decay that maple shells would offer, wanting that 20% of the sound to go ‘boom’ as much as possible, and my budget suggested either the Gretsch Renown or this kit. DW have always been innovative since forming in the US in 1972 and take great pride in delivering something special for their customers (they are principally known for their special order custom kits), and the final two things that made me settle on the DW: firstly this kit might have to last me another 25 years, so I wanted the solid build DW are well known for (the shipping weight of the kit with stands was a whopping 75kg), and secondly DW are known for their shell technology meaning a deeper, longer resonance. Whenever I’ve seen and heard a DW kit in the flesh I’ve been impressed and deciding between the Gretsch and DW I felt  was that the brand appealed: I wanted something less ‘corporate’ than the historic brands. In the latest twist DW have bought Gretsch drums and hope to improve build quality.

Quite simply it sounds amazing, I'm looking forward to recording with it soon! With the addition of Duncan's arty skin it looks pretty cool too!

If you've read through this far then thanks for listening!
Steve

Blogging Along Nicely.

Greetings Tempestuans.

With 2014 coming to a rapid close, I thought I’d post a few lines to sum this year up for me and to also disclose one or two of my own personal goals for 2015.

This year has seen my first live gig.......ever....... with several more following on. I wasn’t too sure what to expect from performing, other than to get the massive buzz that everyone seemed to be going on about once it was all over. However, it seems that in this regard, like many others in my life, things just ain’t too normal for me. Once we’ve set up our stuff, all I want to do is get on and play. I have no massive nerves or anything, which I am always grateful for, but rather a hunger to crack on with it. When I’m on stage, the buzz is great, but once it’s all over I just want to go to sleep. The first time this happened I was really disappointed. I’d heard from other performers that I’d be really pumped up and buzzing from the show, but all I did was fight my eyelids until I hit the sack. It was then I discovered that I get my high the following day. Those of you who know me will be well aware that I am famous for not waking up until after 11am, whether my eyes are open or not. The beauty of this trait for me was that as I started to get my brain functioning the following morning, I started to recall what had happened the night before. The downside to this trait though is that by the time I had got to work I was grinning from ear to ear like some special kind of idiot, which gave me quite a bit of unwanted attention I can tell you.

So, in a year I have gone from someone who really had no idea if he could pull this live performing thingy off to someone who appears to be able to. It could just be that people who have seen us are just being kind, but the comments we have received have all been positive. For that I would very much like to thank you all.

For me I would like 2015 to expand on our growing list of cover tracks and get cracking on what can easily be described as an original album of material just waiting in the wings to be completed. I’d very much like to get into a studio and record our work, which is something I now the rest of the guys are eager to do, and take up an offered opportunity to get some video work done as well. I’d also like to get the chance to play a larger variety of venues, with both known and unknown audiences, so if anyone out there has any ideas of where they’d like to see us play (positive suggestions only please) then please let us know and we’ll see what we can do.

Finally I’d like to end with a big thank you to everyone who has taken the time to see us perform. It is only with your support that we can grow in the way we very much want to.

I hope you’ve all had a very Merry Christmas, that you’ll all have a great time over New Year and I wish you all the very best for 2015.

Take care and thanks for reading,

Nic x

Soon be Christmas!

Hi All,

Been a while but it's been a busy time for all of us; oh that we could do the music thing for a living!

We've been working up some new originals and Nic's song has finally made it into the set which means that we're all now represented and it's added yet another style to our already eclectic mix! How do you agree on what genre you play as a band if you have five writers all with widely varying styles? One thing is for sure; whatever style we play, it will always have the Short Tempus 'sound'. Keep an ear out for 'Stalker', 'Too Old For This' and 'Back In The Game'. Up next on the 'to do' list are another one each from Gilles and Steve with 'Raised By Wolves' and 'I Don't Mind' respectively.

We're also working up some new covers form The Jam, Iggy Pop and The Cult which will be making an appearance soon..............once we've got our collective heads into making them Short Tempusised.

There'll be some changes in the New Year as I'm going to be working back in the UK and that means more rehearsal time, more gigs and hopefully some studio time. Having an EP at least out there would mean that I'd have something to show my grandchildren if nothing else! It's going to be odd being back to traffic jams, long days and high taxation but all things must end sooner or later.

I've been lucky enough to make some good friends out here and touch base with some old ones. The Blues Project, far from being over, will continue and I'll be flying back as often as I can to rehearse with the guys and play a few gigs. I may even to be able to persuade them to come over and play a set with ST once in a while.

Only a short catch up this one so it just leaves me to mention that we're playing Asylum in Chelmsford on Saturday 22nd November. Looks like we're on late but there's two other bands on before that'll be worth watching so come down. Entry is free and it's a purpose built venue so it should be good all round.

TTFN

You Speak Music?

Many years ago my Dad (wise man, superman, mentor, best mate and all round hero) said to me that learning to play an instrument would be one of the best things that I'd ever do. I was six and generally not overly impressed with this point of view but went along with it on the basis that if the old man said it, it was a command from god rather than a mere request. So I learned to play the trumpet and along with that, how to read music and all that lovely theory that goes with it. Dad's rationale was that music, in any form, is a door opener, an icebreaker if you will and he was bang on as usual!

Over the years I've been in and out of love with music but always end up coming back to it like a prodigal son and music has always forgiven me. After the bands of my youth I never really thought that I'd get involved in the scene again but I did. It never really went away, it just bided it's time, waiting in the wings for me to rediscover it. How lucky am I that so many years on I get a second chance?

Anyone that's not involved will struggle sometimes to figure why we are the way we are about our craft. Nic has already alluded in his blogs to his somewhat late arrival into the circle and for a while he was enjoying what he was doing but maybe didn't realise why it's such an important thing. Then he wrote a song and heard the band play his work for the first time. The look on his face as we finished it was only topped by his words, "Now I get why you do this." And that's all it takes, one seemingly insignificant thing and you're hooked for life.

Does it work as an icebreaker, a connector of seemingly very different people? Hell yes! I've met a lot of really smart, funny and interesting people through it. You speak music? Yes? Then we're friends for life. As a consequence you get the chance to help the more inexperienced up the ladder a bit and sometimes, if you're very lucky, to play with really good musicians who just make you better simply by being with them and recently I've been that lucky.

Musicians often have connections with several bands often playing different genres. I'm very blessed with Short Tempus as our set is quite broad in terms of genre but one thing that I've always wanted to do is play in a pure blues band. That for me is the essence of everything we do as a rock band, that is our origin and without the Robert Johnsons, Muddy Waters, BB Kings of this world our music scene would probably be very different. So when a friend, colleague and damned good muso says "I really fancy starting a blues band" I'm there! A few calls to find a guitarist (as it happens he's the guitarist from one of my mates other bands) and a keyboard player (also a colleague) and the deeds done. Five tracks each from the huge collection of blues out there, an alcohol fueled meeting in a pub to firm the details and suddenly I'm in a blues band in Guernsey without much of a clue as to how I got there! The challenge, in the cold light of day, is a simple one; learn twenty tracks to a playable standard in four weeks and to a gigable standard in two rehearsals. Big ask? Yes, but I know the other guys are more than good enough to do it so I'd better be too! Game on!

In the meantime the work with ST continues, working up more original tracks and covers and playing as many gigs as we can get. One of the great things about personal side projects is that they can often add so much to the main thing going on by broadening your experience.

Anyway, the next gig's at the Essex Arms in Brentwood on Saturday 18th October. Doors at 8pm and, as usual, it's £4 on the door. See you there then!

TTFN

Dunc

Not Getting Too Blogged Down.

Well hello again my fellow Tempestuans (I’m gonna make this stick if it kills me). It’s been a while since my last blogging effort but I’ve been a bit tied up of late between work, decorating, recovering from work and decorating and generally feeling a bit under the weather. Never fear though, like the proverbial bad penny I’m back and clicking away at the keyboard in a somewhat misguided attempt to bring you kicking and screaming into the mindset of the rock legends that we are verily becoming (at least in our befuddled heads if nowhere else).

Since we last spoke…………well, typed and read I suppose…………..OK, at the very least I typed…………….we’ve had a few more gigs under our belts. Duncan has already told you about what I lovingly refer to as our world tour of the vicinity of Brentwood, where we did two gigs in two nights. It was great to compare the two nights, as one was a completely unknown crowd and the other was a regular venue. Both nights went down a storm, the second for very different reasons to the first, but I won’t repeat what has already been written about by others. You can look back and check it out yourself. Even I can do that and I don’t have a clue when it comes down to this tech stuff.

It has now been six months since our first gig at The Essex Arms in March, almost to the very day in fact, and I’ve been thinking back over what we have done during this time to see if I’m still getting the buzz from doing it that I hoped I would. I’ve got the lyrics and timings of 30-odd songs jammed into my head, with the prospect of another 6 new ones ready to roll out next month (5 originals and 1 cover), and the ever present self doubt about my ability to get them across to an audience in a way that doesn’t embarrass us. I’ve turned 44 this year, a week before our first gig in fact, and I’ve never done anything like this before (for details see previous afore mentioned blogs). This singing lark doesn’t come easy to me, unlike general playacting and fronting out, and I have to really work at it to deliver the way I do. Now I know what you’re all thinking, you’re thinking “my word, if that’s what he sounds like after working at it……………….” which could be considered a fair point of view. I am my own worst critic and when I hear our stuff played back I always find fault with what I do, and I suppose I always will, and when you are up there strutting your stuff you can’t hear what you really come across like. I think what I’m trying to get across is that we as a band are reliant on your support and honest critique about our deliveries and I for one would encourage anyone to let me now where they think I’m going wrong and take on board any advice offered to correct it. If you like what we do, then great, by all means let us know because we love being told how great we are, but we also need you to let us know when things aren’t so good because we can’t fix what we don’t know’s broke.  As for the whole buzz thing, damn right I’m enjoying it. When we are up there in the swing of doing what we do, I love the energy that I get from performing to a crowd (or small-ish group depending on you point of view) and it’s fantastic when they respond by dancing and singing along to us. Then, the following day when my mind recaps on the night’s events, I get the buzz again. I’m bloody loving it!!

I think I’ll always have that self-doubt issue, but in my mind that’s a good thing. It’ll keep me grounded and make sure I don’t get complaisant about what we are doing. I’ve been to gigs where the artist relies on past glory to carry off a mediocre performance and I hate it. The classic mistake of pointing the mic at the crown for them to sing your own signature chorus is old, tired and in my opinion a liberty. I don’t want to get to the point where I’m thinking that it’s just another show and coast through it. If I ever got to that point, I’ll jack it in.

I’d like to finish off this little onslaught of diatribe with a word or two of thanks. Firstly a word to Three Birds Blind, Two Faced Serenade and Miss Alie for playing with us over the past couple of months. It creates a bigger variety of music for our audience to listen to and provides a great value for money night out.

Secondly, a shout out to all those who are following us on the interweb, Facechat, Twatter etc. If you can come and see us at some point, it would be great to meet you and have what I like to refer to as a proper chat. For those that can’t, then we are hopefully making progress towards getting our stuff on the site for you to download or listen to in the future.

Finally, a big thanks to everyone who still come out to support us when we play and join us on our journey. When you are up there on stage and see people you know walk through the door to see you perform, it really does humble you. It’s even better when you see them stay until the end of the show, because as we all know, loyalty only goes so far.

Anyway, that’s enough from me for one sitting. I’ll catch up with you all again soon. Thanks for reading,

Nic

x

The view from the back (of the stage)

Hi everyone, Steve here, hope you're enjoying the summer! 

Thought I'd say a few words, starting with an apology (having seen that recent photo on Facebook) to anyone who sees my grimacing during the gigs, someone commented on my 'stage face' but honestly it's just me battling exhaustion- I don't even know I'm doing it :). Anyway noone really sees me at the back do they? Ah probably for the best. 

Also, sitting at the back next to smoking amps seems to be becoming a regular feature, I'm gonna carry a fire extinguisher if the others expect me to carry on while they smoulder.

Hope people have been enjoying the gigs and look forward to seeing everyone at the next one, I'm trying to figure out how I can get up and dance too- why am I always the one sitting down? 

Hope you like our antidote to all the cheesy music that seems to surround us these days from repetitive radio stations and nauseous adverts. We're certainly not trying to make deliberately obscure music but want to offer something more "authentic" than the drama-school wannabe-gangstas, diet-rockstars, twee-folksters and Disney-dance-acts that seem to make up most radio play. Surely it can't be long before the public gets to grips with all the new technology so we aren't locked into the narrow range of music the industry rams down our throats. Vive la revolution! 

Er, why does everyone keep asking me to stop ranting? 

Anyway, see you soon!

:(Steve):