Daffs are coming

log

Finally I have carved enough time into my arm to write you kids some words..

When we last met, er, I can’t even remember probably pre Christmas.

It’s gone quick but the Daffodils are creeping up and I’m starting to come out of hibernation. I tend to try and stay in after work for the whole of Jan and half of Feb, approximately Feb 15th is when I feel ready to leave the cave.

Post Christmas is spent locked away writing and recording in my little hub of a studio, (I’m yet to name it – it was called the Rose bed, then HQII)
I’m in the second stage of completing the album process, and this will be my third album. The first stage for me is to get 20 songs down in basic demo form, voice, guitar/piano.
The second stage is to get them all arranged with basic beats/sounds/general srtuctures etc…So that’s what I’m in the middle of now..

Then comes the exciting bit, finding a producer to help mould it all together, finish the words and polish.
Then finally, spend a few weeks with it, Mix it, tweak it and master it. Then out it pops, not sure how but I’m aiming to get a bit of funding from somewhere and release a limited 1000 then we’ll see what happens.

‘What does the new stuff sound like?’
I hear you cry….
Well, from constantly Djing and spending a few toes in the dance music arena I’ve been influenced by a bigger sounding beatier sound.
‘Oh shit – bandwagon jumper’
you moan….
I know what you mean, with this current crop of ‘Electro/dubstep/waffle’ music being championed it does make me have a little cringe, and even as I write this I’m watching all the bigging up of the electrodubstep new breed by all the same DJ’s who were championing Guitar music until it became apparent they would lose their jobs if they continued….it’s all music dough….
It’s not electro but I’m not going to ignore the benefits that tougher beats can provide, so I’m hoping for a happy medium, it’s hard to achieve the middle ground I seek. I think Steve Mason does it well. Guitar based songs within a framework of electronic musical arrangements.

So there you have it, for those of you who didn’t get the second one ‘Suburban Timebomb’ why not!! I need to break even on these things to progress with more manufacturing so get spending. It’s still available from me etc etc.
There’s also a few solo accoustic gigs left.

dates

16th March – Newcastle under Lyme – Old Brown Jug
23rd March – Wimbledon/London – The Grove
27th March – Pivo Pivo – Glasgow
28th March – Paisley Arts Centre – Paisley

I don’t intend to perform much solo guitar stuff after these, I’m hoping to be able to start performing the new stuff, with a kind of backing! Don’t run! it’s not like karaoke, well I suppose it is a bit but I’m just getting bored of playing timidly on an accoustic. I need some more power so I’m using my telecaster and some backings. It might not work but I want to try it. I can’t tell you how hard it is as a performer when you’re playing with an accoustic and trying to get some meat out there to people that need to be shouted at.
It’s ok if you have all your fans there that know your songs or if you’re playing pub knees up shouting stuff, but trying to combine guile and melody on an accoustic is a challenge….for me anyway.

There’s a little snippet of the new sound in the members area of my site, just put in your email.

Expect new and interesting things experiment in the live field!

What else….

Er, I met up with Patrick the other day, we spent some time setting him up with his online stuff so go join him .
He’s currently lining up some gigs for us both in France so that’ll be a fun thing to look for around May time. He played some of his new songs!! wallop, can’t wait to hear them.
I’m twisting his arm to play on my 3rd album, almost there with the twistage…

Also I’ve uploaded a little preview of my new sound in the members area of my site.

DJ

I’ve had a few blinding DJ outings recently, the first being in Bern again, club Bonsoir, this club is ran by ‘The Roundtable knights’ an Electronic music group from Bern, top guys and top club. I have a total freestyle policy there, wherever the night fancies going that’s where the tunes go.
Another stormer for London Guns in Traunstein, Germany, we turned up not knowing how it would go, but it was probably one of the most buzzed crowds we’ve ever played to. Can’t really remember much but our two hour set turned into five hours, and I played UB40 against an electro thing, which sounded ace at the time, but I’m now thinking I was probably very drunk and it sounded total shit….but it was a ball.

Again, I apologise for the lack of re-edits on my site, I have a blur one ready to go but I just haven’t got round to it as I’m being absorbed by LG, RKCIII and something else which I can’t tell you…

As always, keep up the support, spread the word and keep on consuming.

Asian Roses

Adam Ficek DJ

So here we are again, the album’s out, I’ve been touring around the world and it’s nearly Christmas, as I write this I’m just preparing some re-edits for my Dj set in Hong Kong tonight, I’m also playing a solo accoustic show before, so it’s a double whammy tonight. Last night I was in Kuala Lumpur, only a brief stop but I had a real hoot playing out in one of the best alternative clubs there, it’s always a bit tricky knowing how to approach sets in different countries. In the UK if I’m booked to Dj an Indie night I kind of know what roads to go down, the same with an Electro set. Outside the UK it’s a slightly different story, you can’t rely on the hits in the same way. It’s a real ‘think on your feet’ scenario, it all turned out fine though, there are always the classics which translate wherever you are!

The night before KL I played a shop opening in Singapore, the corporate side of things can be hit and miss but I managed to inject some British bounce into the shoppers shopping…hopefully.
I also managed to sort loads of press for the album so who knows, RKC could be a regular SE Asian occurrence, there’s already plans a foot to come back next year and hit Tai pei, Bejing alongside a return to KL and Singapore.

Other recent ventures in DJ land, er let me remember, I had a last minute call to go and play propaganda in Leics, at the moment Propaganda is the super club of indie, it’s one of those places where people are there to have a knees up, nothing too pretentious or uber cool just a right good time. It’s a place to throw the big tunes in, I generally pull out the big guns and use my own re-edits of the the indie hot shots, you know the ones.

Where else….

Bern again, Bonsoir, one of my favourite places, I seem to have grown my own unique fanbase there now, I’m back again in Jan. Again it’s the perfect club for me, as always I like to keep things evolving and due to my lack of attention span the soundtrack to the night is one of a meandering sonic tomfoolery weaving lumpy electro into 60’s swing.

RKC

Did I mention the album is out now, we didn’t get as much press as we hoped but there were a few bits floating about, the most impressive for me was the uncut review. check it out page 99 of this months.
I don’t think we had much airplay but as I have previously ranted about on here, if you don’t have a radio plugger then it’s a lottery, the same goes for a PR. That’s why I get really excited when I see my stuff written about. It’s all done for the love.

So here’s a nice french press snippets.

French (Don’t forget French ones, I’m playing PAris on the 12th of Jan Le Truskel and Joseph Gibert see here for details)

Now go buy it

As I mentioned earlier, these past few months have been pretty hectic, and I’m really looking forward to spending a good few weeks in my studio doing some serious writing of my next record.
It’s going a little more electric and tough, in a ford escort kind of way.

But before that…… I need to finish this blog!

The UK tour.

Hopefully those in the know from this rambling would have caught us live, it all went surprisingly well apart from a few police interventions.
It’s a tall order working up a band to perform songs that I have generally created all the parts for but the players stepped up to the mark so big thanks to

Johan
rachel
Mark
Toryn
Sam

It really was an achievement, stressful but a great experience from the booking of splitter vans, driving of splitter vans, losing Ogidan, finding Ogidan, losing ourselves in Glasgow discotechs to finding ourselves in front of a packed house in London. A real treasure.

So what next for RKC you ask. Well, I want to take stock and work out where I want to go. I’ve got about 13 songs demo’d up but they need some knocking about, the new stuff is much more electric guitar based which has come from me having a much better recording set up in my studio now. Before, I was limited to using a dictaphone to write with so the songs were subsequently accoustic chords and accompaniment. I can now layer stuff up in Logic or Ableton and sing over the top giving me a much wider pallette to work from. I think the immediate future is a more stripped back type affair. I feel I’ve done the big instrumental vibe with horns and strings and I want to return to basics and get some of this grit out my system.

ADAM FICEK SOLO

If you still fancy coming to watch me play some songs there are a few other solo live bits in the diary so go here to check them out, I intend to do a few more solo stints in the new year I’ll be road testing new stuff so I might break out the leccie for a few numbers.

If I don’t see you before, have a cool yule, and if you’re stuck on what to buy your chums for chrimbo then you know where to go.
And also…..I know that some of you are involved in small indie stations and blogs etc, if you want to do anything send me a link and I can ask the grown ups if they’ll let me.