10:35am off to a flying start

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the beautiful chaos of the studio

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enter joe, our new pro-juicer

"I'm joe."

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FDP

We are entering 'Phase 2' of FDP, the Flags Development Program. Some songs have been written to the point where they are being brought forward to the band for further work, and Joe Reeves has started to join us once a week with the role of the producer, or Pro Juicer as he likes to be referred.

With every week, we are tailoring our work dynamic to get the best out of each other. We are learning new tricks that help ourselves and each other to produce better music and the result is an accelerated output of quality material.

We had been successful in having our track '54' chosen by Sound On Sound magazine to be the subject of Mike Senior's article Mix Rescue, to be published in the March issue next year. Hopefully this will come at the time when we start to promote our live sets.

Our meeting with a producer in London a while ago taught us to start generating a fan-base locally, rather than through music venues miles away. We have experience of playing empty halls as a result of our hastiness to 'get out there', and even though that may still happen in the future, it will be a lot less likely if we play local pubs close to our current fans. 'Phase 3' will be breaking free from the local circuit, once our fan-base starts to grow into London.

These local live shows will no doubt be longer than our half-hour sets we have prepared before, which means we need more material. Ideas for covers have been floating around, although they need to pass a few tests before being chosen. Namely, they need to be recognisable; have a sing-along melody; and for us to be able to play them either differently or better than the original. Obscure covers may be good, but people can get bored listening to an hour-set of unfamiliar material. In pubs, more people like to be able to hear a song they know and to sing along, and perhaps even throw their knickers at us. Shotgun first pair.


A recent trip to Turkey

New Methods, New Music...

For the last couple of months we've turned our attention from gigging to writing. We want to create a new set that's not limited to the conventions of the rock/indie band setup. The main tool in doing this is my new toy from ebay. It's a novation x-station, and is a midi controller, synth, and audio interface in one keyboard. When plugged into a laptop (running ableton live), it's a recording studio in one box. It means that, in the writing stage, I can record loops and have them play back instantly, build up layers, apply effects, and create new sounds using the hardware synth, or with any virtual synths. I'd also be able to use it live. It removes previous boundaries, and opens up a limitless space in which to be creative. This is a great thing, although having no limits does make finding a starting point harder; when you've got the whole world to explore, how do you choose a place to begin. This is a challenge that I enjoy. In fact, writing music is my favourite part of being in a band. It's starting with a seemingly blank canvas, and building something beautiful, exciting, honest, and expressive. It's an incredibly rewarding process.

We've also changed the way we write music as a band. In the past, we had written most of the songs together. This had worked well to a degree, but had also meant that sometimes the ideas and thoughts behind a song would lose their focus, as more people were interpreting one person's ideas and taking them in different directions. Now, we all work on our own, seperate ideas, and occasionally bounce them off each other. This is the stage that all our new songs are at at the moment. The plan is that when one of us completes a song, it will be shown to the rest of the band for tweaking and developing.

We've probably got about 15 seeds of ideas between us, and we're just starting to see some of them grow into the rough, beautiful forms of songs. It's an exciting time, as our sound is changing and leading us along paths we didn't expect. Such is the exploratory nature of songwriting.

The Next Phase

Last weekend saw us perform at the Boileroom, Guildford along with Ozzy band The Hungry Kids of Hungary. We were given free noodles and beer from the venue. Our first rider!!!! Also our first 'decent' green room. It had a sofa and a dodgy 1960s TV. We felt right at home. The Hungry Kids of Hungary were really nice guys. A few days after the gig they were scheduled to play The Great Escape Festival before heading on to play more dates for their tour.

I set up a meeting with a potential manager called Ville Leppanan from a company Tower Bridge based company called The Animal Farm. The meeting went really. From it we have drawn up a six month plan, which begins with us writing 20 brand-spanking, shiny new songs. We will be working with our friend and producer, Joe Reeves, to record the best three songs. Each song will be released at regular intervals during the course of 2011 while we tour around the country.

In the mean time we are still waiting for our album version of 54 to be mixed by Mike Senior. Joe is currently mixing the radio edit and we have locked ourselves away to write. It's been really nice to relax and just focus on being creative. This is what we've been desperate to do this whole time. We will be testing out some of our new material at the beginning of August and then again at the end.

The Circus Has Come To Town

So we have gained two more members. A guitarist called Rich and bassist Alex. Time will tell if they are going to be a permanent fixture in the Flags army... However, it's looking promising as they both seem to be gelling well with the rest of us.

Our first festival as the band turned into a comedy of errors but in a Circus tent. Not only was it freezing, raining and miserable but moments before we were meant to go and play Pete locked Dave's keys and all our instruments in the car. Good one mate! It wasn't a total disaster because the AA man saved us and we played a pretty tight set. We also met some really cool guys who did the sound.

A few days later we played at Fighting Cocks in Kingston. Back in the day that was the first venue we had ever played. After the rather relentless sound check we headed to The Bentalls Centre to do a test run of our music video concept. Dave had to play the djembe really loud in the shopping centre until he got escorted off the premises. It was amazing!