Cloudy with a head of Steam...

Well it was quite a while coming but we did our first full set for since October 2007.  We Stepped into the Breach at short notice to complete the bill at October's George Sessions in Daventry. Paul was drumming with The Rainhouse who were to close proceedings later. So following on from our recent Multibuy get one band get one free gigs, we thought a Cloudy set would be a good thing.

Two years on it was grand to play all these tunes one after t'other again,
the occasion saw some experimentation too - the first time some of these songs had been subjected to Nashville High-strung guitar which worked particularly well with Paul's basslines. I actually ended up playing more of the set than expected on the Nashville guitar as yet again I managed to snap a string at the start of Girl in the Moon. The Nashville guitar is quite an ear grabber with its pure chiming crystalline sound so it wasn't the end of the world...

It was great fun to play a full set with Mr Creedy once more and I only made him cringe with crass song intros the once. (No Good Reason in case you're wondering) Just like old times :)  there was an entertaining moment when instead of playing one of the two different versions of "Happy To Stay with You " Paul knows... Cloudy or No Time Wasters,  I came up with a hybrid third way of playing it;) 

We were in pretty good form by all accounts, and later on the night was rounded off by Jim, Al and Paul, this time on the drum stool with The Rainhouse. Highly enjoyable. Thanks to Adam and Gary for having us over to Dav.

Set List

1. Red Sky
2. Too Soft Spoken
3. Lovely Day for A Change
4. All of My Life
5. All Over Town
6.No Good Reason
7. Son of A Gun
8. I'll Be Happy to Stay With You
9. Girl In The Moon
10. Must've Seen It Coming
11. Come Down With Me

Weapons of Choice:
Paul: Arrowhead Custom bass
Jon: Yamaha CPX8 (tracks 3-8) Yamaha CPX7 Nashville High Strung (Tracks 1-2, & 9-11)

Hopefully there will be more Cloudy to come, and when we know, we'll let you know

Cheers

Jon and Paul
Cloudy
 

Cloudy with a chance of recall....

Paul and I took ourselves down to the friendly hostelry of the Rover for their regular Tuesday Acoustic night. Players sparse on the ground tonight and other commitments meant we couldn't stay all night either - so on early for a 6 song Cloudy set.

Set List
1. Lovely Day For A Change
2. All Over Town
3. Girl In The Moon
4. Come Down With Me
5. Must've Seen It Coming
6. Son of A Gun
.
Some of the songs hadn't seen band action since 2007. I think they were glad to be let out to play ;) Great fun. And of course there's still lots more where they came from;
as long as I can remember some of the more difficult ones (Like "All over Town" for instance....)

And Paul got some guitar repair work from the event host, so that ain't bad...

Weapons of Choice:
Jon: Yamaha CPX8
Paul: Arrowhead Custom Bass

Next: Who knows? When we do, we'll let you know.....

Jon and Paul

Cloudy

Clouds are closing in again...

Very pleased to announce that Paul and I will be doing the occasional Cloudy appearance locally in the near future.

this comes after a week where we performed twice with next to no notice, once for the first time as vox/acoustic guitar (me) and drums (Paul)

Tues 15th September The Rover, Northampton

Set
1. "Kind of Love"
2. "Red Sky"
3. "Happy to Stay With You"
4. "London Bridge"

Weapons of Choice
Jon: Yamaha CPX8
Paul Mapex Drums, Zildjian cymbals

and then in our "classic" formation of vox/guitar and lead bass.
on  Saturday 19th September
at the Royal Oak, Blisworth

Set
1. "Lovely Day for A Change"
2. "Girl In The Moon"
3. "Must've Seen It Coming"

Weapons of Choice
Jon: Yamaha CPX8
Paul: Arrowhead Custom bass (built by Mr Creedy's own fair(?) hand)

they were brief, but really great fun, so more of the same but different is planned.

We'll let you know when and where. ;)

Cheers,

Cloudy.

Well its been a quiet year so far for Cloudy ... mainly as the No Time Wasters are so busy busy busy....

In fact some songs which may be familiar to long-time Cloudy afficionados can still be found in the Wasters' sets - but are now very different in their arrangements and dynamics thanks to the No Time Wasters's unique powerpop feel.

Anyway due to a rare conjunction of stars - and the unavailability of the Wasters' regular drummer Chris Nicholls - For one afternoon only! For Northampton's annual Twinfest Music Festival - On Sunday 20th July Mr Alistair Sutcliffe, bassist of the Wasters will be joined on stage by me, Jim Mooney and Paul Creedy - the original line up of Cloudy! although the multi-talented Mr Creedy will be occupying the drum stool for us this time. We've been rehearsing and it sounds pretty tight. If you're around Northampton get yourselves down to the Racehorse garden for 2pm this Sunday 20th July to see us open the last day of the fest.

Should be one to remember :)

Cheers

Jon

Cloudy (and the No Time Wasters)

One of our more attention grabbing songs, that I would never have co-written without Mr Creedy's inspiration is called "Must've Seen It Coming".

Suffice to say, I didn't.

Still, all things good and bad either come to an end or change beyond recognition.

Change is Life.

About time I got used to it, really.

JD

Saturday 20th October 2007, the day England didn't retain the Rugby World Cup.

Some 300 odd miles from Paris-St Denis, and several hours earlier, perennial underdogs Cloudy took to the stage at the AK Promotions all dayer at the Wig and Pen. "Northampton's Oldest Music Pub" it says on posters around the walls, well in its previous incarnation as the Black Lion it hosted many a band, including the Housemartins. but that stage is long gone. the toilets are pretty much the same though... Truth to tell, the portents looked none too bright for today as numerous technical and PA problems delayed our performance.

Nonetheless as we were close to home, and it was an unseasonably sunkissed day, Friends and interested onlookers came (thanks to all of you) and we did our level best, as ever to entertain.

It was great to get a good long set workout - it had been a couple of months since we'd played for over an hour live. Initial feedback suggests there may have been a little mid set "sag", but I guess that's inevitable when you're trying to ensure that the more dynamic uptempo material is bookending the set with the more "considered" songs in the middle to give both audience and band a respite and some contrast.

Anyway we gave it some reet welly again as we hurtled headlong towards the end of the set, and the appreciation shown by the audience was gratefully received.

Set List

1. Lovely Day For A Change
2. Son Of A Gun
3. All of My Life
4. Girl In the Moon
5. Red Sky
6. It's All Over Town
7. No Good Reason
8. Red Shoes and a Sky of Blues
9. London Bridge
10 Death of Me
11. Afterlife
12. I'll Be Happy To Stay With You
13. Must've Seen It Coming
14. Come Down With Me

Bass Weapon of Choice: the ubiquitous MM4 Bongo (Grey)
Guitar Weapon of Choice: Yamaha CPX8 (Natural)

No musicians were harmed in the production of this blog. (Yet)

Next: Coventry Uni - Friday Night Live at SU Bar 54, 23rd November.

Avanti!

JD

Cloudy made their first venture into the wild south west of Northamptonshire, to this historic market town of Brackley and the Greyhound, venue for the performinroom Brackley nights.

These chilled, largely acoustic events are hosted by the prodigiously talented Tristan Pate and the upstairs bar of the Greyhound has a bit of a funky coffee house vibe going on accentuated by the day glow moderne furniture.

Other acts tonight included host Tris, The Tim Grover Project, cover duo Adam and Chris, and Josh from Real Rabitzkins.

Felt somewhat rusty tonight after a couple weeks off, and the intended set list required a bit of modification mid flow after I made a bit of a pigs ear of "Tunnels of Love". But the rest of the set hung together pretty well and it was great to give a live debut to my Taylor 310, which going by compliments received afterwards, sounded pretty damn good.


We weren't run out of town, the audience enjoyed it and we got home at a reasonable hour. Can't be bad.

Bass Weapon of Choice: MM4 Bongo (Grey)

Set List

1. Lovely Day For A Change

2. All Of My Life

3. Son of a Gun

4. Tunnels of Love

5. Girl In The Moon

6. Red Sky

7. Must've Seen It Coming

8. Come Down With Me

Next: Some concerted rehearsing polishing up our two, hour long sets prior to 12th Oct, STOP PRESS prior to the whole shebang being called off that is, due to double booking, - not because of us I hasten to add .....vvv disappointed. actually dejected would be more like it. Days like these you just wonder... onwards and?

JD

Dear Cloudbusters,

 

In the interests of social networking experimentation, I've set some groups up in the hope of stimulating further discussion, whether Cloudy related or not.

(well actually I set one of them up a well over year ago and did nothing with it!)

 

 

Cloudy Myspace group: http://groups.myspace.com/cloudylater

 

 

Cloudy Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5577236509

 

 

And lastly but by no means least this, our Blog…..

If it's one way communication you prefer then why not subscribe to our myspace blog….?

 

 

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ConfirmSubscribe&friendID=25700510

 

 

Please note: no animals or children were hurt in the production of our internet presence.  It'll be intriguing to see which of  mysparse or farcebook has the best "legs"... 

 

 

All the best,

 

Jon

 

Cloudy 

"Cloudy?  Here?  on my myspace? captured live?  on video? with our reputation?.....Oh well...."

Mondo thanks to Karl for a capturing a little clipette of us in solid gold easy action on "Red Sky" at the recent "Party on the Pitch" gig in MK.

Enjoy/endure - you know it's what we're all here for ....

the other place ....BTW there's a now a Cloudy group on facebook  - so if you're on there please do search us out and come and say hello!

Jon

 

Twas' the night before Paul's Birthday, when an assemblage of good souls, having already partaken of fine curries, (Dangerous Experiment 1: more of which later) headed along for Cloudy's first venture to this new acoustic night, hosted by the lovely Ms. Jo Horne - who we first played alongside at Cloudy's earliest outings at the Brampton Halt Acoustic Night waaaaaaaay back in 2004.

The venue, the Swan and Helmet, is one of those rare beasts, a cosy pleasant Irish bar themed local - that actually feels like a real Irish bar. (and I should know,  a number of my relatives have run and continue to run real Irish bars in Ireland...) 

A really great night - I don't know, but perhaps it was the air of good natured cameraderie engendered by Dangerous Experiment 1: feasting (and unfortunately farting) amongst friends that set us up for our short but decidely sweet set.

Dangerous Experiment 2: - Paul selects Set List on the fly.

Certainly made life interesting, especially when Paul chose "All Of My Life" which we haven't played for a couple of months and which, for some reason, I always struggle with the lyrics with! Still it went down very well indeed. Those who've seen us a few times commented on how well this group of songs worked together. (duly noted ...thanks :) )

Set List

1.Lovely Day For A Change

2. Son of A Gun

3. All of My Life

4. Girl In The Moon

5. Red Sky

Friends said "you really gave that some welly tonight..." (which we did) Audience loved it, and Landlady Teresa promptly offered us a full gig on the back of our performance (date TBA) so all in all, a rather good night. (Dangerous Experiment 1: sulferous post-curry extrusions excluded)

Bass Weapon of Choice: There is no alternative really,  MM4 Bongo (Grey)

Next: Due to the Postponement of the Wig and Pen gig we've got a couple of weeks before the Performin Room Brackley at the Greyhound gig on the 30th September. 

Accordingly, we'll probably try to squeeze in some impromptu live performances along with Recording and maybe even rehearsing some new material (gasp...)

Stay Tuned...live long and prosper...

JD