So my band's tour with our mate Dave Hughes starts today in London at The Bull & Gate. Fingers crossed for an ace tour.

You should follow us on twitter for updates:

@adamboucher
@davidahughes

Hopefully see some of you on tour!

Taken during the first support act, Islet at Koko last night. Los Campesinos! were excelent. I would like the 80s back please...

Howdy interweb folks. Things are moving along nicely at the moment. Lots going on...

At War With Melody

Firstly, I just 'released' my new four song CD - 'At War With Melody'. By 'released' I mean I put it up here on my website for you to download entirely free. Aren't I nice?

It was recorded towards the end of last year on my lovely new Pro-Tools set up. I spent a while procrastinating but it's finally all done. Most of the tracks were recorded pretty quick but I spent ages dicking around and making minor tweaks to the mixes as if I were Axl Rose with 'Chinese Democracy'. I even considered calling it that at one point, but then realised that would be shit.

For the geeks out there, I recorded it with a Rode NT1a condenser mic into an mbox and Pro-Tools. I also used a Shure SM57 a bit too to get a stereo recording on the main rhyhtm guitar parts. The only exception is 'Corey Feldman's Girlfriend' which I kind of cheated on. Well only kind of... The song was originally recorded with the same mics but on a Tascam 788 digital 8 track a few years back for a compilaition. I always liked the feel of the recording but hated the vocal (it's really shit!). So I wanted to include the song on this release and instead of re-recording everything, I imported the acoustic guitar, bass and harmonica tracks into Pro-Tools and re-recorded the vocal. I think the end result is infinitely better than the original.

I don't have much of a clue with recording but I reckon this release turned out good. Find out for yourself on the free music page of the site.



The artwork was done by the awesome Naomi Scott. Thanks Naomi. She plays in a band called Naomi Hates Humans. You should check them out cos they're seriously great!


Adam Boucher & The Dead Set - Demo

Also, my band 'Adam Boucher & The Dead Set' have just finnished a four song demo which you can also download for free on this site.
We set up a couple of Rhode NT1a condenser mics at one of our band practices to record the band playing live minus the vocals. That was recorded onto Logic by Mr Bass player extrordinaire, Jon Zarych. I then recorded a second guitar part and a vocal for each track and sent them over to Jon mix (ah the wonders of the interwebs).

The end result sounds damn good to my ears. It's quite rough and ready but gives a good idea of what the band sounds like.



and finally....

TOUR!!!

Me and the band are heading out on tour in the second week of March. We'll be touring with our mate Dave Hughes, who'll be accompained by the awesome Judith Harron on backing vocals.

Dates are below. Please come and show your support. It's going to be fucking ace and I'd hate for you to miss it! We'll have actual physical copies of the band demo and 'At War With Melody' with us and Dave with have some special new merch too.

We're still looking to fill the Thursday thanks to not one but two gigs falling through! If you can help or know anyone who can, please get in touch (email adam-at-adamboucher.com). We'd be happy playing a house show to a handful of lovely people. My band are touring electric but we're happy to strip it down to acoustic if need be. We would of course all love you forever if you can help.

9th March - The Bull & Gate, Kentish Town, London
10th March - The Mothers Ruin, Bristol
11th March - NEED A GIG!
12th March - House Show, Newcastle, benefit for Radical Bookshop.
13th March - All Day Addistock, Wednesbury

More info is up on the gigs page.

In other non-me news, aren't the new albums by Los Campesinos! and Alkaline Trio fucking awesome?

Bye for now!

From our first band gig, at The Water Rats on 9th November 2009.  This is mid-set, when I got 80% of the audience up on stage for a photo.

One day, I hope that Adam Boucher & The Dead Set manage this level of brilliance...

My current favourite interweb find. Allison Weiss is ace.

Listen here:

allisonweiss.bandcamp.com/album/was-right-all-along

Read here  - allisonw.com:

Howdy folks,

So tour plans are going well. But we still need some shows to fill it up. If anyone has any ideas of places we could play/promoters who might be able to put us on, please get in touch (adam-at-adamboucher.com). The tour is with my three piece electric band 'Adam Boucher & The Dead Set' and Dave Hughes playing acoustic (with backing vocalist and maybe others - not sure yet!). Any help to fill the dates is hugely appreciated.

Adam Boucher & The Dead Set / Dave Hughes UK Tour type thing...

Monday March 8th - nothing booked, any ideas?
Tuesday March 9th -London TBC
Wednesday March 10th - nothing booked, any ideas?
Thursday - Hornby - TBC
Friday - nothnig booked, any ideas?
Saturday - Birmingham - TBC

I'm starting to try book a UK tour with Dave Hughes and myself (plus my ace band The Dead Set) for March of 2010.

Dave Hughes plays folky punk music, influences from Mischief Brew, The Clash, and Phil Ocs.
www.myspace.com/davehughesmusic

We've got a rough idea of travelling through the following places (city names are rough approximations of the area of the country we want to be in on those days):

Mon 8th : London
Tue 9th : Cardiff/Birmingham
Wed 10th : Manchester
Thurs 11th: Bradford
Friday 12th : Glasgow
Saturday 13th: Newcastle/Durham
Sunday 14th: Nottingham/or somewhere else further south

If anyone can put us on on or knows a decent promoter please email adam-at-adamboucher.com or dave-at-davehughesmusic.co.uk if you think you can help. Thanks.

Ladies and Gentlemen of Interweb land, I present the future of music. The band to watch next year:

When I was 14 or 15 I discovered rock music. There's nothing quite like that youthful discovery. I was a huge fan of a band called Skin. No, not the singer from Skunk Anansie. Skin were a four piece British rock band, of the same era as Thunder and Little Angels. In other words, they exisited just when hard rock was dying in the mainstream.

The very first gig I ever went to was Thunder, Skin and b.l.o.w. (featuring various members of Little Angels, but decidely more bluesy) at the Poole Arts Centre. Thanks must go to my parents, who showed they loved me by not allowing me to go and see Vanilla Ice when I was a nipper, thus meaning my first gig was a life changing experience. Oh, how different it could all have been. It was the best gig I've probably ever seen (and I've since seen Coldplay... no really! tee hee. I'm not proud of it... Idlewild were the support act).

Anyway, Skin started off a bit cock-rock (but really fucking good cock-rock not Gun) and got progressively heavier, and better and better with each album. Sadly they split up in 1998. I was gutted but at least they went out on a high musically.

Skin and more specifcally their guitarist and main songwriter Myke Gray, were the main reason I picked up a guitar. Myke always wrote great songs, while having the annoying ability to play the living shit out of the guitar. Myke, you are a total bastard!

So, times change and people move on. I've never stopped being a fan. The songs mean as much to me today as they did back then. I listen to way more different types of music these days, but Skin remain.

Anyhoo, earlier in the year Skin got back together to play Download. They played a few warm up shows and I went to both London warm ups at the 100 club. Despite the horror of the tube strike being at the same bloody time, they were easily the best gigs I've seen in all the time that's passed between that first gig and now. Unbelievable. Even a stupid Warriors-esque journey home to West London couldn't ruin such a perfect night.

After those gigs all signs pointed to Skin carrying on. I secretly hoped they wouldn't 'do a Thunder' and shit all over their past (slightly over the top, as Thunder did some good stuff when they reunited, but never lived up to their old self). I wasn't too concerned, but you know, this is the band that defined my teenage years.

I needn't have worried of course. They announced a tour and CD/DVD. I ordered my DVD and CD to collect on their recent tour and headed off to Leamington Spa to see them for the third time this year. They played a flawless set. I was like a pig in shit. Seriously good. The four new songs on the CD are all excellent and the DVD is suitably ace.

I guess this blog post is hinting at passion and inspiration. I sometimes wonder why I play music, or why I'm not doing it more professionally or why I can't do this or that. I sometimes get pissy when nobody's listening to me when I play... but listening to Skin reminds me of the pure joy of music. Thanks must go to Myke, Neville, Andy and Dickie for providing that. So much of who I am revolves around music. Christ knows where I'd be without Skin.

So all you people out there talking about buying this or that song to stop the X Factor pleb from getting to number one, please save your money and support a real band by buying some of their merch. Skin have self financed and there's a million talented bands out there doing the same. Get inspired.

Skin are on Spotify. You should check them out. I recommend Experience Electric as a starting point:

open.spotify.com/album/7FdZ6ANds3JfS7nFfwnWPT

then check out their site and buy their new acoustic CD: skinfreak.co.uk