Species 8472 has been part part of ITSOM for a while now; ITSOM has transmogrified itself into IT'S ON and we played the IT'S ON stage at the Isle of Skye Music Festival last Saturday.  And it was COOOWULL! 

Well, I say, 'we'.  Actually Clare couldn't make it so I played the gig with just a piano and a laptop for company . . . and found it really worked!  At least the piano and the vocal was live and I really got into it and so did the audience.  I played mostly new stuff that's still in the works (mainly cos I could remember the chords as I've been recording these songs recently!).  Some of these new things have already appeared on the MySpace page - stuff like 'Chewing My Leg Off' and other new stuff'll be up there soon - I played a new one called 'Scale Model' which will be finished soon.  It was nice to see oldies like 'Scarburst' worked well live too.  I always thought that was one of our wackiest songs and I've been amazed at the positive reaction it's had and the way it got used as the ITSOM theme-toon.  I was genuinely flattered by that.

It was good to meet up with Alex MacLeod from IT'S ON and Cuillin FM - had a laugh and talked again about doing a radio sesh - must get on with that.  Alex tells me the ITSOM remit has now expanded from just the west coast to the whole of the Highlands, so I guess there'll be more Species 8472 gigs in the near future.

And after all that, this week I gotta finish this new song we've been commissioned (how cool is that ?!) to write for the AQA album called 'Can You Cry Underwater?' so I'd better rev that computer up.  Even if I am having to do it with only one reverb working cos one of my Alesis Midiverb's went on the fritz again last week and had to be sent back to Digital Village (AGAIN!).  Still, I'm probably guilty of putting too much reverb on things anyway so I guess I'll just have to slum it with one Midiverb!

Anyway, thanks to anyone and everyone who came along to the gig.  I had a great time.

Alasdair