The first band time I played in a band was in the early 1990’s. They were called Full Confession. There had been a few bands before them but this was the first time I had even been involved in anything other than a glorified jam session.
Looking back it is easy to see how much has changed as this was an age before Mobile Phones were an everyday item and the Internet had not yet become a mainstream commodity. It is fair to say that these 2 items have changed the world so they have had a huge impact on the music industry and the life of musicians.
The first show we played as a band was a slot at on old pub in Tipton. The promotion of gigs in those days largely consisted of word of mouth or posters. We were quite lucky with this as our singer was a graphic designer so we were never short of posters or flyers. Nowadays the majority of promotion is done by the use of Social Media. Every band has a Facebook and/or a Twitter account. Normally this level of promotion would only occur if you were lucky enough to be featured in a Newspaper article.
It is through the use of Social Media that Pseudo7 were born. Simon and Paul had been playing together in bands for a while but had just started to venture off on their own and were looking to complete the line up. Simon put a request on Facebook asking if anyone knew a Bass Player, the old guitarist of Full Confession tagged me in to the post and Simon and I started to chat via Messenger. Shortly after we were joined by Matt (Drums) and Sue (Backing Vocals). When you consider that in the past I have been part of a Band that have split up simply because they could not find a Drummer then I can only embrace the use of Social media in this instance.
As a band when you first start out it is always a good idea to break the set list up by throwing in a few songs that everyone will know. Over the years we have tried our hand at quite a few cover versions. I remember having to go out and buy a CD by a particular band just so I could learn the bass bits to one of their songs. I must have spent hours pausing or rewinding bits of a track just so I could work out exactly what was being played ready for the next rehearsal. To a certain extent I still do this but nowadays I can refer to Bass Tablature on line. When I have felt particularly lazy I have used videos from YouTube to get an actual real time tuition session from another musician. This is such a fantastic tool that having this when I was just starting out could have really helped me.
Once a band has a few gigs behind them or they have got used to playing the songs, it is a natural progression to record their music. Back in the Full Confession era this meant a trip to a recording studio. This is normally a very expensive experience but at the time it was totally unavoidable if you wanted to get your music heard outside of the live environment. To get a 2 or 3 track demo tape it could mean a whole weekend in a studio listening to the same song over and over again as different members of the band take their turn to record their section.
Once you have recorded the music and had the final mix then there was still the small issue of actually getting people to hear it. This meant mass production of tapes or CD’s, cover art and then distribution. All very time consuming and expensive.
Nowadays you can pick up some really good recording software for bargain prices and once you get used to it you are able to create a reasonable demo tape for very little outlay.
After a few months Pseudo7 made their first recordings. We used the rehearsal studio and the recording software that Paul has on his Laptop. Over the course of a few weeks we managed to get six songs recorded and Paul did the mix down during his spare time (well, he committed time to the project).
Almost as soon as the final mix of the songs were completed they were available on our YouTube channel and Soundcloud as well as being available on the website.
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