Ahhh! How sweet! Looks a lot like love, don’t you think? Only… why’s the dude wearing a skirt!???
At last Saturday’s White Lion gig, I played a couple of new, never-played-in-public-before Gary Stewart Smith originals, along with a couple of have-played-in-public-before-not-that-anyone-noticed Gary Stewart Smith originals. Couldn’t tell you if they went down well or not. At least I didn’t say “this is one of my own” before I played them. Though on second thoughts, maybe folks would’ve paid more attention if I did.
The two new songs I played were an up-tempo three-chorder (oh if only all songs could be just three chords! How easy guitar-playing would be!) entitled At My House, and a pretty, finger-picking-y number called Looks A Lot Like Love. Poor Looks A Lot Like Love got drowned out by a lot of drunken babble (from the audience this time, not me). So to make up for that, I’ve recorded a quick demo version which I post here.
The guitar track was one take, and I think it sounds quite good. Managed not to miss any important notes at any rate. I took a few goes at the vocal track, it was a struggle to hit the highest notes. The final take, I almost got there – Neil Young would be proud. And hey, it’s only a demo. Hope you can spare 2 minutes 45 seconds of your life to give it a listen.
I reckon closer to James Taylor than Neil Young to my ears. Not that you couldn’t do a take Neil Young, it’s just that this has a James Taylor vibe to it. You need a Folk night somewhere, not a boozer. Even the Lion in all its quaintness isn’t really the right venue – no, I’ll rephrase that, it would make a great Folk type venue but the Sat night regular/passing trade isn’t going to be the right one.
I was doing something very scary last Saturday night at the time you were doing something a lot more gentle.
Funnily enough, I only just moved this song to the same key as I do James Taylor‘s Fire and Rain, though to be honest, I was thinking more Roddy Frame than either JT or NY.
Agreed, I do need to go and find the right audience for my original stuff. There are folk/songwriter nights out there, I just gotta get of my backside and turn up. I’m sure they’d quite like me.
Have you joined a new band or something?
There are definitely folk nights out there. It’s a growing interest and has widening gamut of music that it accepts under the ‘Folk’ category. I mean, Robert Plant at the Cambridge Folk Festival a couple of years back – even Joe Strummer & Mick Jones? It goes to show that there’s a wider range of acceptance than a lot of genres. A broad church indeed…
Last Saturday I had to dep for a friend’s band at The Swinging Arm in Birkenhead. It was a very much a Rock gig and one I’d like to do a lot more if the chance arose.
Do you think “Folk” just equates to “plays an acoustic”? Even by the old standards, if Dylan was Folk and Simon was Folk, then Smith is Folk too!