Three plus one

Two gigs in a day again on Saturday, we opened the day for We Shall Overcome xmas special for the second week running at The Station in Ashton-Under-Lyne, and then on to The Kings Arms in Salford for 'What's The Alternative...?' Those of you that were there will have noticed there were four of us...
Ann-Marie Crowley has supplied backing vocals on both sides of the new single and will be joining us live whenever she can. Its neat to have the original 1989 layout back again with dual vocals and also means we can reintroduce some female voiced songs from the old days. We're all pretty damn excited about this.
We'll be back live in the new year, but that's it for 2015 now. We're back in the studio tonight and still cracking on with recording for the new album. 

Set list 2pm:
I Can't Say
Checkered Land
Love
Day In Day Out
Shut All The Clubs
Girl On The Roof
Maid Of The Grey
Sit By The River
There's No One There


Set List 8pm

Uhrwerk

Chalk Circle

I See You Everywhere That I Go

Only Everything

Seen It All Before

I Can't Say
Checkered Land
Love
Day In Day Out
Shut All The Clubs
Girl On The Roof
Maid Of The Grey
Sit By The River
There's No One There

Black Sonic Revolver launched their 2nd album at 'WTA?...' and played a storming set too.

Ivory Blacks and WSO

Thanks Glasgow; Ivory Blacks was good and a remarkably smooth trip there and back - see you again!

Set List :

Checkered Land

Shut All The Clubs

Seen It All Before

Maid Of The Grey

Girl On The Roof

Love

The Wargame

Sit By The River

There's No One There

 

We were out again on Sunday, opening the day at The Station in Ashton-Under-Lyne in the We Shall Overcome xmas special week, good to be involved again and we're back there on Sat 5th for another one before our 'What's The Alternative?...This is!' gig

WSO set list: 29Nov

I Can't Say

Girl On The Roof

Seen It All before

Checkered Land

Shut All The Clubs

Day In Day Out

Love

The War-game

Uhrwerk

Sit By The River

There's No One There

Scotland and more

Moving into the final phase of the year and into the next phase of everything else; the new single has just been sent off today to be mastered. More on that later.

Our first gig in Scotland is in Glasgow on Wednesday, we're back at We Shall Overcome festival twice inside a week on 29th and 5th both gigs at The Station in Ashton and our second gig of the day on 5th is with Black Sonic Revolver at the last 'WTA?' of the year.

After that its recording again later in December to get moving along with the second half of the new album. And, adding nuances, plus a whole other dimension to what is already there.

We got work on four new songs underway at the last rehearsal and there are still more to follow.

Ticking along nicely.

Need to get moving on the single artwork and a video.

Killamonjambo heating it up at 'What's The Alternative?...THIS IS!' on 14th Nov.

The Speed Of Sound set was:
Only Everything, Overlooked, Shut All The Clubs, Day In Day Out, Checkered Land, Love, Uhrwerk, The Wargame, Little Miss Restless, Maid Of The Grey, Seen It All Before, Girl On The Roof, Sit By The River, There's No One There

Black Sonic Revolver have their 2nd album launch at the gig on 5th December.

WTA? November

We're live again on Saturday (14Nov) with Killamonjambo as our What's The Alternative? guest, seven piece hot ska funk to wake up the night. Ignore the chill in the air outside as Killamonjambo bring their raging hot ska-funk to Manchester.  August 2014 saw the release of their debut studio album “Fiesta Moon Landing” which reached number 16 on iTunes reggae/ska album chart. 2014 saw their Glastonbury debut on the Avalon Café and Croissant Neuf stages following which they were hotly tipped by BBC Radio 2’s Jonny Walker.

And The Speed Of Sound start the next five live shows of the solar year.

Studio shots

Three days out of five in the recording studio, with the other two involving a gig and a radio show... thats a pretty good weekend... Black Italia wearing black, Red Italia wearing red & Paul's turn in the fish tank.

Loads more to do, but we're getting there; the third album is happening.

Riotous assembly

The latest 'What's The Alternative?...' night saw The Jade Assembly play to an appreciative audience

at The Kings Arms, new sound man Andrew did a superb job.
We wheeled out a couple of still evolving songs again, we change things round, we play things differently, we improvise and explore them; doing that in rehearsal is very different from live, released into the wild is where they mature and take on lives of their own.

This was gig twelve for Paul, achieved in under four months and while he was unable to play for a four weeks of that. He's settled in now.

Real music for real people.

The Speed Of Sound set list:

Overlooked
The Changes
The Moment Is Now
Checkpoint Charlie
I Can't Say
Checkered Land
Only Everything
Maid Of The Grey
Day In Day Out
Shut All The Clubs
Love
Girl On The Roof
Sit By The River
There's No One There

recording and radio

Its intensely busy at the moment and as a lot of that is recording it is exceptionally good, we're back in the studio again twice this week starting work on some more. Its been a triple dose of radio with Radio Woking, 6Towns Radio and IURFM (in Northern Ireland) all getting in on it, thanks to Sean Cooke, Alan May and Gerry Martin for playing us. Comparisons to Nick Cave, Lou Reed, Bob Dylan and David Bowie were/are all acceptable and entirely welcome. We have one more gig in October and then we'll be concentrating on the recording side for a month and hopefully we'll have a new video brewing soon too.

A large part of the last week has looked like this, with the amps mic'd up and recording in progress. We still managed two gigs in the same day at The Station in Ashton-Under-Lyne and The Thirsty Scholar in Manchester as part of We Shall Overcome festival, last weekend. Big thanks to Pauline Town and Martin Mellor for organising the two WSO gigs we that played and it was a pleasure to be involved. Severe backlighting ensures Paul won't be recognised from that photograph.

set list: The Station

Uhrwerk

Checkpoint Charlie

The Changes

Girl On The Roof

Overlooked

I Can't Say

Sit By The River

There's No One There

set list: Thirsty Scholar

Checkered Land

Love

Little Miss Restless

The Wargame

Day In Day Out

The Moment Is Now

Seen It All Before

Sit By The River

Ruby Friday

An absolutely fantastic gig at Ruby Lounge on Friday, special thanks for the dancing and for buying CDs, thanks to The Transmitters and extra thanks to The Chords UK for playing and making it such a great night. And also thanks to Alan May of 6Towns Radio's 'Glory Boys' show and Paul Lomax for their photographs.  
All ace-ness apart from the sound engineer falling off the stage and twisting his ankle before we started; hope its better Chris! Massively appreciated that you kept going through the pain
Set List:

Day In Day Out
Seen It All Before
Checkered Land
Checkpoint Charlie
I Can't Say
Maid Of The Grey
Love
Girl On The Roof
Sit By The River
Shut All The Clubs
There's No One There

 Chris Pope and The Chords UK

The Transmitters

Femme Fatal

Saturday's 'What's The Alternative ?...' gig with Nina Gerstenberger was tremendous, big thanks to all of you that turned out to see and to watch her film that we screened between sets. Regulars know we like a collaboration and we played Femme Fatal with Nina taking the Nico role but doing it in her own style. This is exactly what live music is about. Unique and ephemeral passing moments.
Set List:
Checkpoint Charlie

I Can't Say
Shut All The Clubs
Girl On The Roof
Day In Day Out
Little Miss Restless
Maid Of The Grey
Seen It All Before
Sit By The River
Femme Fatal
There's No One there

Three sets in 15 hours

Thank you to Doncaster for dancing and getting what we we're doing on our first visit there - you were great, Scootfest is always a blast and was even bigger this year and we did something we haven't done for three years, we played a cover... Next its a 'home' gig at Kings Arms Salford with Nina Gerstenberger  and then with Chords UK at Ruby Lounge Manchester.

Doncaster setlist:

Glide On By
The War-game
Checkered Land
I See You Everywhere That I Go
Checkpoint Charlie
Substitute
Love
Seen It All Before
Sit By The River

and
the 2nd set:

I Can't Say
Chalk Circle
Only Everything
Girl On The Roof
Maid Of The Grey
Day In Day Out
Overlooked
Femme Fatal
Shut All The Clubs
Little Miss Restless
There's No One There
Uhrwerk

back home at 03:30 then out again to get to an 11:00am soundcheck at Haslingden... we did think about driving straight there.
There were cool sets from 5ft Fez and The Transmitters too

Scootfest setlist:
I Can't Say
Checkered Land
Chalk Circle
Checkpoint Charlie
Girl On The Roof
Maid Of The Grey
Shut All The Clubs
Day In Day Out
Love
Substitute
Little Miss Resltless
There's No One There

Elizabeth Gaskell photo-shoot

We had a photo-shoot at Elizabeth Gaskell's House - one of Manchester's hidden gems,

In the drawing room, having a cup of tea in 1860. This is the room where apparently Charlotte Bronte's overwhelming shyness made her hide behind the curtains to avoid a visitor while she was staying with the Gaskell's.
It is exactly the kind of room where its tempting to climb through the looking-glass and see what we found on the other side but we resisted.
Huge thanks to EGH for making us welcome.

back in real time

We've finally caught up and are back where we were in September last year and the new album is starting to get beyond the demo stage at last. Dan Astles and Carrie Lawson with Aziz Ibrahim stepped in at the last moment - and massive thanks to them for doing so when The Remnants couldn't make the trip up north, we'll have another gig with them next year instead.
Set List :
I See You Everywhere That I Go
I Can't Say
Checkered Land
Chalk Circle
The War-game
Only Everything
Uhrwerk
Maid Of The Grey
Girl On The Roof
Love
Seen It All Before
There's No One There

September is a busy month, back in the studio recording and four gigs, stay tuned for updates
And big thanks to David Meyers for these live photographs.

Real Music for Real People

It was an immensely pleasurable 'What's The Alternative?...' gig on Saturday, and great to be able to say "It will be Chris Pope on after us" fantastic to have him here again after such a long gap (1980).

set list:

Seeing It All Before
Checkered Land
Love
The Wargame
Little Miss Restless
Only Everything
Chalk Circle
Uhrwerk
Girl On The Roof
Maid Of The Grey
Day In Day Out
I Can't Say
Checkpoint Charlie
Sit By The River
There's no One There

Chris did a mixture of Chords/Pope/Solo and NEW songs, starting off with Something's Missing and ending on Maybe Tomorrow... and dedicated one to TSOS "playing real music for real people" - thanks! all fantastically intimate and I'm still smiling. Brilliant stuff.

Indian Independence Day 'may' have been celebrated after the gig with curry.

We're back again for more on 22nd with The Remnants and their dirty garage fuzz.

What's The Alternative?...August

Two August What's The Alternative gigs: 15th is Chris Pope in his first Manchester/Salford appearance for 35 years playing a solo set ranging from The Chords, to Pope and Chords UK then 22nd has pure dirty garage punk from The Remnants making their northern debut.
The Speed Of Sound have been working on some new and reanimated material too so there'll be new stuff a go-go, and with Paul the new drummer everything is sounding new anyway.

 

back to the Fringe

Our second Greater Manchester Fringe gig of July had Millie Manders (between Tramlines on Friday and Blackthorn Festival on Sunday) and The See No Evils (two days after supporting The Sonics) and our second gig with new drummer Paul. Thanks to Fringe (and to the Kings Arms) as it draws to a close for another year.

set list:
Uhrwerk
Checkered Land
Sit By The River
I Can't Say
Girl On The Roof
Maid Of The Grey
Love
Day In Day Out
Seen It All Before
There's No One There


The See No Evils:

Millie Manders:

Next? Chris Pope on 15 August

What is What's The Alternative?

Its physical and its out there in the real world, the fixtures for the next six months poster has the full listing 'What's The Alternative?... THIS IS!' is a regular live music event hosted by The Speed Of Sound with an array of top quality hand picked visiting artists also playing. Next there's another Greater Manchester Fringe gig coming up, an electric triple bill, followed by Chris Pope playing his first Manchester/Salford gig for 35 years, a solo performance ahead of Chords UK... with another six before the end of the year. Its Quality, quantity, energy and all totally non-mainstream... What's The Alternative? THIS IS!

Day In Day Out live acoustic version

A bit of video from 'What's The Alternative?...' IndependenTs Day: this is the acoustic version of Day In Day Out, it was strange loading the car up with so little stuff for this gig, no effects, no amps a refreshing change and change is what keeps music live. 
Day In Day Out was written in 1988 and is from the first album The Speed Of Sound At Tree Level.

IndependenTs Day at the Fringe

It was a hot night at Kings Arms on stage and off at IndependenTs Day; the "What's The Alternative?..." acoustic special for Greater Manchester Fringe, ending with a grand finale of everyone singing Sympathy For The Devil in a completely unrehearsed and spontaneous closing shot.

The Speed Of Sound opened proceedings with an acoustic drum-less set

Love,
The Wargame,
Seen It All Before,
Day In Day Out
and
returned three hours later for the finale.

Troy Fridge played his first Manchester gig for 25 years and delighted with his beautifully quirky Diana's Kiss about building a time machine to visit Diana Rigg in 1966 and Wishing Boy... a song so memorable that it reminded Jason Edge he'd seen Troy at The Witchwood in 1989

and a rare treat as Rob Coleman was coaxed out of his reclusive-ness to play 
Luke Gallagher performed songs from his forthcoming EP as well as starting his set with the highly appropriate choice of Heatwave followed by Richie Syrett's remarkable blend of Anglicania 

 

Una Baines and her current band Poppycock gave a completely eclectic set ranging from flute driven incense powered floating gossamer lightness to jungle rhythm fuzz drenched menace.

 

Jason Edge of The Electric Stars did a solo set (partly accompanied by Louise Turner on backing vocals) giving an airing to new songs from the as yet unreleased second album as well as stripped away versions of Stoned Again and Isolation from the first.

Turner performed her own set with just piano accompaniment including new songs from her imminent debut album before the grand finale closed the night. Spectacular. A whole festival packed into one evening. And certainly in the words of The Electric Stars it was Beautiful Music For Beautiful People.

 
If you missed the acoustic special the electric Triple Bill is 25th July also at the Kings Arms.