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.