Thanks to J...
'J' kindly covered all gigs already booked and did a
stirling effort in learning a set of over 40 songs in
less than a week. He also had to put up with Paul
during this difficult time...
Guitar Collection Grows...
... back in the land of nice things, Paul would like
everyone to know that he has added another few guitars
to his collection.
These are, a beautiful Gibson J45, a Tobacco Sunburst
Takamine 444, another 5 string Music Man Bongo, and to
top the lot an incredible Ernie Ball Family Reserve
Stingray. Only 50 of these have been made, and Paul is
very happy to be the proud owner of one of
them.
He was overheard saying something like, "Credit crunch?
eh? What's a credit crunch?'
Music School Closes
A Brief Update
Lucky for him he was next door to the Ulster Hospital
and was taken where he underwent initial tests and
scans. From there he was transferred to the Royal
Victoria Hospital where he underwent an operation. This
appears to have been successful although he is still
very stupid and grumpy. He will be undergoing a period
of convalesence but he is improving.
David would like to thank everyone who has sent their
best wishes for a full recovery and especially
colleagues Helene Sloane and John Steen who promptly
organised an ambulance and got him to hospital pronto.
Without their prompt attention the outcome could very
well have been different. Guess that First Aid Training
really works! He would also like to thank the excellent
staff at the Ulster Hospital and Royal Victoria
Hospital, especially the staff on Ward 4F
Neuro.
Free MP3's now up...
The extra benefit for you of course is that they are all FREEEE. Had we been able to pick a good number of them we would have compiled them up into an album and charged you for them! So that'll teach us to be more decisive in the future
There are now 19 free tracks on the Music Downloads page so hurry along and get them before we decide to take some of them down again. Some of these never got round to getting the full treatment so are still basically in demo form. A few have been published to various publishing houses, and some have already been included on compilation albums. One track, Hand's Up, even got as far as been on the shortlist for an album by a Canadian female Country singer.
Happy New Year!!
Well it's really a bit late to wish you all a very
happy new year, but it is wished anyway, have a good
and healthy one. This is just a short, quick line to
let you all know that very shortly we will be uploading
some FREE MP3's by The Collectors for you to download.
Don't say we never give you anything! In the meantime,
why not head over to the
Downloads
pages and get yourself some FREE funky Power of Ten
wallpaper to glorify your computer desktop. Thanks to
Tommy Irvine for designing and providing the
wallpapers.
And don't forget, come back soon to get those FREE
MP3's to add to the ones already on the
Music
downloads page.
He's at it again...
The bass player is never content, always making
attempts to upstage real guitarists. It's not enough to
have a load of six string instruments that he can't
really play, but he has to keep adding more and more to
his rather
lovely
collection.
Paul has only gone and bought another few guitars to
make us all jealous and mutter things like 'how many
guitars can you play at one time anyway?" and "I'm
happy with my Kay Custom Classic...".
And if thats not enough, two of the guitars he added to
the collection are, well, guitar collections in their
own right. Two Line 6 Variax guitars are now being
lovingly wiped with Mr Sheen and a yellow rag, one bass
and one real guitar with six strings. as I'm sure you
know the Line 6 Variax guitars are modelling jobbies
which digitally model some of the worlds greatest
guitars (which he already has so what's the flippin'
point?..just remember he's a bass player which I
suppose is a good enough excuse).
So, instead of adding what would normally be considered
4 guitars, he's basically doubled his collection when
you include the dozens of modelled guitars whose souls
have been harvested by Line 6. Good stuff.
The other guitar is another Musicman Bongo, this time
white, to go with his other Musicman Bongo, that time
black. He even drove to Scotland to get the thing from
a fellow eBayer (who in actual fact took possesion of
one of Paul's other basses in a sort of dodgy, meet you
in a car park in Stranraer sort of way. Swapshop was
never like this.) This could be a sign that Paul is
about to embark on collecting the same model of guitar,
only in different colours. Hooray. Can't wait.
Don't be jealous, just go and look at them
here
if you haven't already.
Guitar, Bass, Drums and Keyboards lessons.....
After taking a very short break, it's all go again for
David Irvine, with the re-opening of his Rock Music
School. The schools were closed for a couple of weeks
during the summer but are now preparing for opening
again on 6th August. Teaching kids, young and old,
guitar, bass, drums and keyboards, David and his team
of tutors are looking forward to preparing the pupils
for their next live event (probably around Christmas
time) following the success of the summer event in the
Stormont Hotel in Belfast. Around 300 parents and
friends watched the pupils rock through a set that
included songs by Deep Purple, Green Day, The Beatles
and Snow Patrol to name but a few and raised nearly
£1500 for the Northern Ireland Childrens Hospice.
Now David is also hoping to add a special 'Adults Only'
hour in one of the schools so if you are feeling the
need to satisfy the urge to learn how to play guitar,
bass, drums or keyboards and live in the Belfast and
Dundonald areas then visit the main school site
at
www.clivesmusic.com
and go to the schools pages. Then simply click on the
big yellow star to book a completely FREE taster
session and the schools manager will get back to you to
arrange a suitable date and time for the
lesson.
No Hot Ashes - Annexxe - Alliance
For quite some time now there has been speculation on
No Hot Ashes reforming to do a couple of gigs. Well,
that ain't happening (not yet anyway), so the next best
thing is a collaboration of a couple of ex-No Hot Ashes
members, and a couple of ex-Annexxe band members !!
Paul Boyd, David Irvine and Stevie Campbell from No Hot
Ashes and Eddie Currie, Brendan McCloskey and Stevie
Campbell from Annexxe (...hey wait...Stevie!! You're
such a tart!! ) got together for a jam and a bit of a
laugh. The result is Alliance, a rock band dipping it's
toes into the sea of time, playing classic rock covers
and some nearly new tunes!
The guys have been loudly putting together a 40 minute
set to perform at The Rosetta Bar, Cregagh, on Friday
10th August as part of a charity event. Unfortunately
Davey Irvine is unable to make the gig due to other
committments but is gutted that he can't be part of it.
"I'm gutted not to be parted of it" said
Irvine...However, he is hoping to get some time in the
future when he can look forward to playing with the
rest of the guys.
Word has it the band are sounding really pretty good,
and thoroughly enjoying it, looking forward to pulling
shapes and rocking The Rosie. Be there on Friday 10th
August to bear witness. And come back here to get a
review of the gig and hopefully some pics.
Broadband service provider change...
We lose all contact with the outside world from
tomorrow as we are changing broadband provider. We
currently use PIPEX who have been very reliable, but
thought we would give Talk Talk a go as the service is
free. Problem is that PIPEX account gets closed on the
23rd Feb, but Talk Talk can’t have us up and running
until the 2nd of March at the latest. So hopefully all
will go to plan and we will be back online before then,
but these things aren’t guaranteed so a bit
apprehensive to say the least.
Not to worry, it will give us an opportunity to do some
offline blogging and other site stuff, and then blast
it all live in one go. So keep in touch. AND..we'll be
back with some photos and news of an important event
!!