Live at Proud Galleries, Camden this Friday 13th November

Hi gang,

I've just returned from New York and am preparing for my next Temposhark gig this Friday night 13th November at Proud Galleries in Camden. We go on stage at 11pm as it's a headline slot, so be prepared for a serious party! We're also hoping to have the first ever screening of the new music video for forthcoming single 'Bye Bye Baby'... I get the final cut tomorrow from director Ben Charles Edwards.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COME TO THE GIG, PLEASE EMAIL temposhark@gmail.com with ANY NAMES FOR THE GUESTLIST, as this will mean your entry to venue will either be FREE or REDUCED ENTRY! The first 20 people will get in free, after that it costs £5 before 9pm, £8 thereafter.

Lots happening on the Temposhark front this month, don't forget the brand new single 'Bye Bye Baby' will be out worldwide from iTunes, Amazon and all good digital stores from Monday 23rd November.

In the meantime, details for Friday's gig are as follows:

Temposhark headline gig at Proud Galleries for ’Tales Of The Unexpected’ On stage at 11pm, Friday 13th November 2009. http://www.proud.co.uk
Address: Proud Galleries, The Horse Hospital, Chalk Farm Road, Camden, London, London and South East NW1 8AH. Nearest tubes: Chalk Farm or Camden.

R.x

Free acoustic gig at GAP, London this Friday 25th Sept.

Following on from their Number 10 place in the electronic chart on iTunes UK, Temposhark have teamed up with GAP to perform a special live acoustic gig at the "GAP 1969" pop-up shop off Carnaby Street.

The gig is FREE and starts at 6pm SHARP on Friday 25th September 2009. Be there for 5.30pm to get your place to watch the band. http://www.gap1969.com/ Address: GAP, Kingly Court, London, W1B 5PW.

This is a special celebration gig for Temposhark as their single ’The World Does Not Revolve Around You’ out now from iTunes, Amazon and all good digital stores. Download here: http://bit.ly/U1ufr (2 track single) and http://bit.ly/31kqrS (music video).

New single out 14th Sept and launch party

Hi gang,

My brand new Temposhark single 'The World Does Not Revolve Around You' is released on 14th September 2009 worldwide from iTunes, 7Digital, Amazon, Napster, Rhapsody and all good stores.

The music video will be revealed next week so keep an eye out at www.myspace.com/temposhark to find out when you can see it first.

To celebrate the single release, we are throwing a single launch party gig on Monday 14th September at The Fly on New Oxford Street, nearest tube Tottenham Court Road. Do put this date in your diary! You can order tickets online now at www.curiousgeneration.com or you can email temposhark@gmail.com to be added to the paying guest list. Support comes from The Good Natured, my favourite new singer - she's amazing!

I'll write soon, looking forward to sharing all the new music with you!

Rob.x
www.temposhark.com

Temposhark team up with GAP

Temposhark have teamed up with GAP to celebrate 40 years of the fashion label.

Temposhark will perform an exclusive live acoustic gig at GAP’s pop-up shop off Carnaby Street at 6pm SHARP on Friday 25th September 2009. Be there for 5.30pm to get your place to watch the band.

Find out more at http://www.gap1969.com/ This new website launches on 9th September and will include some cool Temposhark stuff. In the meantime you can sign up your email to ensure you get all the info.

This will also be a special celebration gig for Temposhark as their brand new single ’The World Does Not Revolve Around You’ comes out in digital stores worldwide in September.

Live in London Tuesday 28th April 2009

Hi gang,

Temposhark perform live in London next Tuesday 28th April 2009 at Hoxton Square Bar and Kitchen. 2-4 Hoxton Square, Shoreditch, London, N1 6NU.

Please note: We're on stage at 8pm sharp and will be performing a 30 minute set including 6 songs from my second album (to be released later this year).

To get your name on the cheaper entry guestlist please email: temposhark@gmail.com

If you can't make next Tuesday's gig, we're also performing a few more London gigs during May and June, to see dates visit: http://www.myspace.com/temposhark

In other news, my brand new website will be coming in June. In the meantime there's a new webshop which is now live: http://temposhark.bigcartel.com

This store accepts Paypal and although priced in UK Pounds, your Paypal will automatically convert into your own currency once you pay. So anyone from anywhere in the world can buy Temposhark CDs and Merch! :)

Finally, if you are using Twitter, you can follow me at http://www.twitter.com/temposhark

Thanks for your support and I look forward to seeing you at the gigs!

Rob.x

Win tickets to the Cookham Festival - 4th May 2009.

Temposhark.com have 3 pairs of adult tickets for the Cookham Festival 2009 concert (each ticket is worth £15 each) to give away in a competition!

To be in with a chance of winning one of the 3 pairs, send an email to temposhark@gmail.com
with Cookham Competition in the subject line and the answer to the following (easy peasy) question in the body of the email message:

What was the name of Temposhark's debut 2008 album?

Good luck! COMPETITION CLOSES ON MONDAY 27th APRIL. The 3 winners will be announced that day (Winners must pay for your own travel/accomodation to the festival, we only offer free tickets, no expenses). For more info on Cookham Festival visit: http://rockthemoor.blogspot.com/

In other news, I am re-launching Temposhark.com next week, starting off with a little holding page which will eventually grown into a brand new website! This will include a new forum for all our supporters to hang out and chat! :)

Plus, our next live London gig (with new keyboard player Leila MacFie) is on Tues 28th April in Hoxton Bar and Kitchen venue at 8pm, it's the first slot so be there EARLY! We will be performing 6 brand new songs from my forthcoming second album.

Love to you all.
Rob.xx

"I've Got The Power"

This morning, my alarm went off at 5.30am to get me out of bed in time for our sound check for our live gig at Sony Ericsson's 'Run To The Beat' marathon.

I picked up Mark at 6.45am and we drove down to Greenwich where our stage awaited. We performed for a whole hour, as thousands of runners ran by! We were filmed by Channel 4, so keep an eye out for the documentary later this month.

Even though it was raining quite a bit, we had a real laugh - I will always remember doing our soundcheck at 8.30am and watching loads of people peering out of their front doors looking VERY confused as to what was going on - it's the first time we've woken up a whole street with our music!

Mark filmed this video clip before our soundcheck. I'd just discovered this random luminous yellow sign and our sound man selected the PERFECT song to play whilst testing the speaker system! Check out the AMAZING passersby who decide they wanted a photo, gotta love them!!! If you've seen any of our previous Podcasts, then some of you may remember I've danced to this song once or twice before:



Sean and I finished writing and recording vocals for the new song on Friday and Saturday, and it's already sounding powerful at this early stage. I played it to the lads this morning before we went on stage, it's definitely the emotional heart of the new album...

Back to Canonical tomorrow for more recording...

"Play It On Your Speakerphone"

October is here... which means it's my birthday VERY soon!! Not that I'm trying to throw you all a hint or anything!!!???!!!

Today was another busy one... and *drum roll* - Song 1 is now complete and sounding HOT! I'm very happy - it was just a case of adding some special touches today, a little fine tuning...

I had to leave studio at 4.30pm to go to a band rehearsal on the other side of London for our gig on Sunday for the marathon event. I played Song 1 in my iPhone on the tube journey and then again in my car a few times on way back from rehearsal and it sounded great so we're definitely there!

I'm very happy it's passed BOTH the iPhone and the car test, as Sean will explain in a minute... this is the KEY to greatness!! :)

Plus, Sean has just emailed me the final edit as an MP3, which kick started the following reaction - me dancing like a mad freak around my flat, as my iPhone blasts out Song 1 on its mini speaker system! It works, it really works!!! :)

I Wanna Dance With Somebody!!!

Band rehearsal tonight was great - hadn't seen the lads for a little while so was cool to catch up... at first it felt a tiny bit mad to suddenly be singing all the songs off our first album, as my head is now so into the future and the new album, but it was good as it reminded me where I was and where I am now... the new music is definitely a step forward, and I'm feeling energized by the new developments musically... and I can't wait to get going with Song 2 tomorrow morning!

Mathis on drums.

Mark Ferguson, at tonight's rehearsal.

Luke Juby and his keys.

And my rehearsal mic, tonight.

***

Sean McGhee writes the blog: "I like tall speakers, I like small speakers". Thus spake Cliff Richard in the inestimably wonderful "Wired For Sound", and how right he was. People listen to music everywhere and on anything nowadays - hi-fi, lo-fi, no-fi - so it's important that to ensure our songs will work well on pretty much any speaker. Genelec speakers are my monitors of choice and they deliver a good sonic picture overall.

Wow, it's a speaker! An actual speaker!

But mixing on one set of speakers isn't enough. Piling into a car to check out a mix is a well-worn trick, and we did that plenty of times on "The Invisible Line" - the trick is to try and get the bass so deep that the car starts spontaneously bouncing up and down like in a hip-hop video. But now we've got to deal with laptops, iPods... even phones. How can we ensure maximum listening pleasure for all?

With all this in mind, visitors to Canonical this morning would have been treated to the sight of me bouncing around the studio whilst listening to a rough mix of Song 1 on my mobile phone. It seems ludicrous that I want my fantastically funky, layered mixes to work just as well on a crappy little phone, but I have to be realistic about how people will listen to the record when it's done.

McGhee's magic mobile!

In the old days (i.e. the 1990s), the speaker of choice for this job was an unassuming square brown box called an Auratone. More commonly referred to as Horrortone, they were designed to emulate a crappy AM radio speaker, so you'd have one to listen to the mix in mono. They were nasty, but if your mix sounded great on one of those, you knew you'd nailed it.

So, the phone is just the modern equivalent. Happily, Song 1 is now sounding rocking on phones, computers, cars and headphones. Now, I wonder what it would sound like on heavy rotation...? :)

Song 2 tomorrow. Very excited!

"It's Contagious, What's The Latest?"

Hiya!

When I arrived at the studio this morning, Sean and I listened back to yesterday's vocal session and I decided to re-sing two lines in the opening verse, as I wasn't happy with it. It just didn't feel right somehow so we had to get it perfect. Really happy we did as the whole track sounds great now - really in-your-face!!

Sean's been adding in lots of new production today, it's all started to really come to life. It's a lot beefier than the previous demo version, much clearer... In short, I love it sooooo much... and show this by repeatedly doing silly dance moves every time something in the track excites me!

***

A blurry Sean, tonight.

Sean McGhee writes the blog: Ah yes, the eternal problem of how to make the song sound amazing. We've been lucky so far, as almost everything we've written already has enough going on musically to suggest a clear direction for me. Song 1 is no exception; it's built over a very simple groove, so my aim is to make it as big and funky as it can possibly be without adding too many parts.

This is hard, as it means that every tiny detail you add has to be exactly right or the whole thing tumbles to the ground. Fortunately, my groove muse has been hanging out with Timbaland and 80s Prince today, so I've managed to add some cool parts into the track without disrupting its relentless flow. Often I'm trying to add something that's almost invisible - it should make you want to move your body (to the rhythm of love) but without screaming out, "LISTEN TO ME" or, heaven forfend, getting in the way of the vocal! (.....which = a very happy Rob!)

I always work with a "scorched earth" approach; I can tinker around with an idea for a short while, but if I'm not happy it goes in the bin. Partly this is because I don't like flogging a dead horse, but mostly it's because I'm very easily bored. I do feel that making record should be fun (at least some of the time!) because if we don't enjoy it, neither do you. I should be bouncing up and down at the computer or shaking my hips at the keyboard if we're getting it right - and if I'm not, the part goes into the bin and I try something else. Rest assured that you will be spared footage of my dancing... for now...

We think that we should have Song 1 nailed by the end of tomorrow. Fingers crossed...

***

I meant to say earlier, I chatted with Mark, Mathis and Luke today as we're doing a gig on Sunday for Channel 4/Sony Ericsson's event on Sunday, 'Run To The Beat' - it's a half marathon to music, where people run for their chosen charity, and us bands play live as they run by to encourage them. It's a free event so come down to Greenwich and see us perform - a little warning though, we're on VERY early for a Sunday - we're on our own dedicated Temposhark stage (number 6) in the MORNING at 9.55AM during the run!!! :) But we'll rock out as we always do, so it'll be a fun way to wake up for us!

More tomorrow!

R.xxxx