Diary

5/4/12 : RIP Jim Marshall

RIP Jim Marshall - my VS100R has served me well - 15 years and counting!


24/3/12 : Recording and writing

After taking some time off at the start of 2012 we've been back to the practice rooms writing new songs, which is all going to plan! We've always been very slow at getting songs ready for recording, and then even slower at actually getting the recordings finished - which is why we've only managed to release two EPs in three years (!). This year though we're determined to have an album ready (if not actually released). We have 10 unreleased tracks in various states of being half recorded or just about written but not recorded yet. Last night I was recording concertina and vocals for one of them and I'm quite excited about how it's all going.

We've also started booking some gigs, though we won't be doing as many this year so we can concentrate on recording. We're excited to be playing at LeeFest again in the summer, and excited to be supporting Laura Gibson at The Lexington next month. We also played a one-off electronic gig at the Wonderland club night. Jonny Drumsticks was away in Spain so we played a set with drum machine drums programmed by me - we played a few of our usual tracks plus tried out two new ones 'Smoke' and 'Stars Are Ripe' and also played a couple of old ones - 'Up For Air' and 'Disappear'. It was good fun to try out the songs in new ways, and good to play electric guitar again - but I think we'll stick with real-life-Jonny rather than robot-Jonny.


20/3/12 : Gambia video diary

While I was away in Gambia I made a video diary - it's ongoing at the moment (as-in, it's taking me ages to edit all the footage!) but here's a video diary playlist of everything so far...


15/2/12 : Africa

We took a bit of time out in January as I was off to Africa for a month with some of the Wonderland Crew (we run a club night in London Bridge together). Nine of us took a trip to the little village of Madina Salaam in The Gambia, down in the south-west corner of the country. This is where Wonder Years is based - the charity that the Wonderland club night has been raising money for over the last few years, and the charity to which all our profit goes directly. We paid for our own flights and spending money but took with us the thousands of pounds that has been raised thanks to people buying tickets to our events. We then spent this money via the charity on a number of important projects including paying entirely for the foundations and lower walls of a new school building and the completion of building of staff houses for the teachers to live in. We also bought materials for us to repaint the existing school buildings, build paths, run jewelry making workshops and other craft workshops and set up and start a self-sustaining necklace making business.

We also of course got to help out with other things (we made some teaching aids for the school, fixed some old laptops for their office, took new photos of the teachers, and my friend Ian even gave a few English lessons!) and meet the villagers and staff - we met so many great people and made loads of new friends. Oh, and we found time to go to the beach and swim in the ocean of course too ;-)

It was an amazing trip, and it really made me realise how the money raised by the club night does make a big difference. And of course, if anyone else wants to take a trip to the village, we highly recommend it! Email me if you are interested and I'll try to persuade you to go!

You may also be please to know that while I was there I avoided re-writing all the band's songs to include bongos, though I did write a new song with lyrics based around campfires - I recorded a demo of it last week but we've not worked on it as a band yet. I think it might be a good one though!

So now it's 2012 and we're all back to rehearsals - we're going to concentrate on writing and recording this year and aim to get an album written. We have four new songs we've started recording and six or so new songs we're in the process of writing. We're excited about them - can't wait to get them recorded and ready to play to people. Mark.x


29/11/11 : Keston Cobblers' Club Orchestra Part 2

Here's the second song by Keston Cobblers' Club which Nick, Derek and I joined in with when they did their Club Orchestra earlier in the month... this tune is called 'Parade'.


24/11/11 : Keston Cobblers' Club Orchestra

A couple of weeks ago some of The Lost Cavalry took part in the Keston Cobblers' Club Orchestra - where 55 friends and fans got together and performed a couple of their songs. It was a great day and a really inspiring idea! Here's the video of the first song...

And a week before that, we headed down to their house and played one of our songs with them in their half-finished conservatory! And here it is...


20/11/11 : Wirefresh Interview - Snow City Radio

I was asked by tech blog Wirefresh to write some words about how I went about making the video for Snow City Radio - you can read it here: www.wirefresh.com/heres-how-to-make-a-fantastic-professional-music-video-for-under-50-80.


6/11/11 : Autumn 2001 stuff

It's been a busy summer for The Lost Cavalry - we've been writing and recording and our new EP is the result - well, half of the result - four songs are on the EP and four more that we've been working on aren't finished yet but we're working on it! Whenever I write things with any expected dates they always turn out to be vastly wrong but our plan is to release our first album next year, hopefully that will happen.

Our first EP was quite folky and pleasantly wandering, but our new EP is more direct and hopefully a bit braver - and the four new songs we're working on recording now are currently sounding different again. We're going to work on them over Christmas and see where they go...

But, before all that it's the release of Snow City Radio! The EP launch gig is going to be pretty special - we have our old friends We Walk On Ice joining us (the band we recorded the song 'Disappear' with, for the Eardrums Pop label) and our new friends Keston Cobblers' Club, who we recently recorded a couple of live acoustic videos with - we travelled down to Keston one night last month and all played together performing one of their songs and one of ours: 'The Flood'. Hearing our song played with the Keston guys playing trumpets and tuba was pretty emotional to be honest - the first time we played it through and the brass joined in was a pretty special moment. We're also going to be joined at the EP launch gig by Derek Yau playing cello - Derek played on the EP and will be a welcome addition to the night.

So yeah - the new EP has been a lot of work, especially the mixing process, but we're happy with the results and in particular I think 'The Flood' is one of the best things I've ever mixed, from a producing point of view. Take a listen yourself and see what you think! It's out in two weeks time, so hopefully we'll get some good reviews and maybe some radio play... fingers crossed! Mark.x


23/8/11 : LeeFest 2011 Video Diary

A little video diary from last weekend - at LeeFest 2011 with our Mobile Cavalry Contraption - and a chicken.


19/8/11 : Harmonium

Harmonium

The most recent addition to The Lost Cavalry's family!



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Contact:

For any project, big or small - or to ask any questions at all, please contact me:

  mark@mixedcasesspaces.co.uk