Leslie Rich: News

This Sunday, July 25th, the Hounds Of Finn will be releasing their new CD, Songs About Men In Boats, in the Poetry Room at Kieran's Irish pub in Block E, downtown Minneapolis. We will be greeting everyone, signing CD's and doing give-aways from around 4pm and then performing the album around 6pm. It's going to be a great bit of craic and a relaxing early night. Please consider this an open invitation to join us for some great food and particularly excellent music!
We will be also schmoozing with record company types, signing our new contract with New Folk Records and mingling with some of the great Caribou people that are current champions of ours right now.

If you are not able to make it out on Sunday, then please make sure and put August 13th at 4pm in your calendar to catch us open the main stage at this year's Minnesota Irish Fair.

A little Of The Ready are back at their adopted home bar this weekend, O'Donovan's.  Strike the stage at 9 (Irish time... meaning 'ish') both nights.  Glad to be home!

Thank you so much, everybody, for coming out on Saturday night and indulging me and the wide variety of music I do.  I had so much fun playing with everybody - And Renatta, it was an absolute pleasure! - And getting a chance to play you some of the new tunes.  For those of you that pine hearing the original acoustic stuff, you should know that I'll be performing at Peavey Plaza on June 18th before the Hopefuls... Nothing like sitting around, avoiding the evening time rush hour and listening to some great music.  5pm, June 18th, Peavey Plaza, 11th Street and Nicollet, Downtown Minneapolis - There'll be food and beverages available, too.

You know, I was talking to Mr. John Wright the other day while we were in the middle of recording for the Hounds' CD and we were discussing the fact that for the most of us, being a musician is about trying to find that balance between art and entertainment.  Part of our time is about trying to show off how incredibly awesome we are as performers and writers and the rest of the time is spitting whiskey at each other and trying to make you dance!  You find after a short while that the more boisterous the audience is, then the more of the whiskey spittin' there is and that is much harder work - when it comes to our "art" the hard work has already been done, now all we need is for someone to sit back and listen.

The last Hounds' show was at the new Kieran's on Block E and was definitely hard work (that paid off), so it's with a small amount of relief that this weekend is a show at Charlie's in Stillwater.  Yes, I know, it might SEEM as if Stillwater is a long way away, but it's really not and the ability to be able to squeeze into thast little room and get a chance to hear us talk and communicate is such a breath of fresh air.  Come up and see us.  The food's good, the craic is mighty and the music is altogether triumphant!

You know sometimes on special holidays that's all you really want... A wee cup of tea and a nice sit down with something sweet. But actually if you're lucky you'll get to write and record a bit of music, stuff it into 86 sleeves and 100 jewel cases, perform a little on breakfast news TV, drink a loch of beer, wine and whiskey, sing along with three bar's worth of adoring fans (albeit with a little liquid encouragement in their part!), run around town laughing with the mates you love the most, put a little ready in your pocket and stumble into bed, exhausted, at the end of the day with someone adorable (and preferably curly headed!) and fall into a nice 15 hour nap! I might have just given myself a bit of a presideion there folks!...

 

This was written in the blog, but I put it here too, in case you missed it...

So, I thought it would be beneficial to explain what's happening this St Patrick's Day, so you can plan where you want to go, and what music you want to hear.  Rumor has it that A Little Of The Ready might be starting the day off down at the Best Buy headquarters for a mid-morning showcase to allow the Irish community in the BB HQ to rightly celebrate. This is all being coordinated by a Scotchman, if that makes any sense!  If this comes to fruition I will let you all know the time and place, so that those of you that are able to visit, can.A Little Of The Ready will be at their home venue, O'Donovan's, from 1pm until 4pm, dressed accordingly.I will then be running over to St Louis Park to do a set with Hounds Of Finn at the new Irish pub over there, Cooper (Yes, it's not plural, it's just plain old Cooper) from 5pm until 8pm.We'll be firing up the jet again and racing downtown to the brand new Kieran's to close out an awesome day of music from 9pm until bar close.  The new address for Kieran's is 601 1st avenue in Block E on the site of the former Bellanotte restaurant.I'm looking forward to dressing up and rocking out (er... so to speak!) and getting to meet you all and wish you all the luck for 2010!

 

Happy New Year everybody - Thank you so much for coming out and supporting me and the Hounds and the Ready last year. I picked up a pretty sweet axe from Santa and have some plans cooking for some amazing music this year.

I hope you get everything you wish for this coming year and decade - It's like a whole new set of rules this time every year. It's a wide open, huge big blank page - so, congratulations in advance for chasing down those dreams!
Please come up and say hi at the next show you make it out to.
I'm expecting new recordings all around this year, so feel free to badger me for those, too.

Don't be too disappointed that we don't have robot maids, personal jet packs, or holiday condo's on the moon - I promise it'll be this decade though!

Leslie

So, I'm tearing my hair out at 4:46pm on the final Monday before Irish Fair, with the CD mix and master just not working out right, and my deadline for Copycats Media is 5pm. For the fourth time the vocals put the levels over the top in one or two places and my head is full up and I have no idea what to do... No. I'm not going to share with you any secrets of the mastering process, of which I am pretty mediocre, I just messed with it a little more, stared it in the eye and said, sorry... Done! Turns out it wasn't a bad decision, with only one or two loud vocal parts in Foggy Dew.
The thing that mattered most, I think, about this whole process is that we did it ourselves. We bought a Presonus Firestudio and Michelle taught herself by fire how to work it and find her way around Logic and between us we managed to stumble, roll and hop to what we think is a win. We did all of the artwork ourselves, redesigned the Hounds website and threw together a few pieces of merch. You know, you put your heart and your soul in, because it's something you love and don't trust with anyone else, and if that means that we might only reap average rewards, we know that heart and soul doesn't cost the same as owing it to a record, or management company... Plus you know, and I know, that what you put in, you get back out again... So, here's to global dominance! Actually it is pretty good, so you should pick up a copy at www.houndsoffinn.com

There was a rare and unusual sighting of the great, ostrich-like bird Rocketus Soulum Choirus up around the Dubliner area at University and Vandalia in Saint Paul this past Friday. It seems that its migratory patterns should guarantee regular sightings for the next two Wednesdays. Due to its nocturn habits the best time to catch a glimse of it will be between 9:30pm and 1:30am.
The Rocketus' song is quite unique, being somewhere between country and rock usually with a lo-fi, bedroom, acoustic, singer/songwriter quality, but recently it's had attributes of a slacker, Irish pub song nature. Normally quite pleasing to the ear, this new sound has an added attraction that needs to be heard for a better understanding. The Dubliner's less than city-priced beverages have also been known to add an extra quality.
Rocetus is not a shy bird, so no visitor limit has been placed on the local ornithologist community. A great opportunity to see this rare and glorious creature.

There is a new, slim-line and rather snazzy audio player at the top of the page... Look! See it?

I have had to turn the guestbook off due to the uncontrollable spam I get sent there. It's made me really sad because I love hearing from you at the site. You can still contact me through the site, it's just a little more convoluted.
The people that somehow get kicks out of randomly screwing with the internet, peoples web sites and EVERYBODY"S e-mail need spanked on the nose with a rolled up newspaper... Maybe the baby Jesus will bless their mucky souls seeing as it's his birthday!

It's been a while since I've been under the old gray sky - I'll be hanging out at The John Hewitt in Belfast on the 17th and 24th of November... Maybe playing a few tunes and most certainly drinking some fine German bier! I might even get a chance to stop off in London to see my good friend Joan Coffey open for Thea Gilmore.

If any of you read this regularly, then you might be interested to know that my good mucker Joan Coffey is in town and playing tonight (Tuesday 7th) and next Tuesday (14th) at the Dubliner. She will also be at O'Donovan's this whole weekend (Though I have my own show at the Dubliner on the 10th) and I will be joining her on Saturday. She is also performing at The Acadia on Saturday 18th and most likely will join the Damn Few for a few tunes at Jake O'Connor's on Friday 17th. You will miss the chance to experience what is always for me an exultant experience!

A while back, Immortal Recordings Ireland - The label that Leslie was on back in Belfast - called to say that they were going to put a compilation CD together called Time To Be Proud to celebrate 30 years of Good Vibrations - A punk label formed in 1977 by Terry Hooley, a one eyed record shop owner, to recognise the great punk bands coming out of Northern Ireland at that time.

The idea was that each band involved - Including past and present bands of the Immortal label - would record a track from the Good Vibrations back catalogue and also provide one original and they wanted Leslie to take part.

There were a lot of great tunes available to choose from and originally Leslie wanted to do The Cops Are Comin' by The Outcasts, but it had already been chosen and so the next one to jump up for attention was Belfast Telegraph (One of the main local newspapers in Northern Ireland) by Shock Treatment

For the original Leslie chose What You Close Your Eyes For, one of the tunes that he wrote to perform with The Damn Few.

With MJ at the helm, without being distracted by having to drum, it took two days to record everything up at The Space. Jason Wahl played bass and provided engineering and lyric expertise, Mike Hinton from indie jerk rockers, Jack Ruby provided drums, Mollie Clancy sang backing vocals, Annie Newman from The Damn Few played fiddle and Ogre Peterson played harmonica. The following people spent time advising, smoking, laughing and yelling - Tommy The Touch, Stacy Revards, Dan Laubech, and half of Orange Blank

Anyway, it's all done now with the tweaking and the twitchings...

...there's been worse!

So, go. Listen. Be Free.

Sorry, but it's only streaming for now - You can always get it on the CD

I just picked up the new album, Struggles And Lulls today by my good friend Joan Coffey. If any of you have ever missed her when she's been here in Minneapolis playing for us you could always read back at some of the posts I've put up here about her. The new CD has left me a bit speechless and I'm not sure I could even really talk to you about it here, other than to tell you that you can get it at CD Baby or through her web site (www.joancoffey.com). She has been such an inspiration to me in the past both as a friend and as an artist, but this time the inspiration has left me at a loss as to how I feel about my own work. I'm not going to cry and winge about it, because I already did that by myself in the car on the way to a practice/hanging out session with Jay at the space tonight, but I'm hoping that in the coming months I can get a much clearer picture of what I want and where I'd like to be and this CD might just help. I also don't quite know what you should expect of me during my own imminent struggles and lulls, but I'll wipe my stupid face and tell you that you should really pick Struggles And Lulls up both for helping support astoundingly good independent artists and because she'll open up a spot in your heart that you can then possibly fill with whatever it is you truly desire.
www.cdbaby.com/joancoffey - www.joancoffey.com

Saturday morning, 9am, we're at the space, MJ bitching about all the work there is to do before we can get started, but even he soon got into the swing of things. It took us almost three and a half hours to get the space set up for recording, but pretty soon we had Mike Hinton from Jack Ruby rattling through the old Northern Irish punk tune, "Belfast Telegraph" and our own, "What You Close Your Eyes For". You could see that every body was enjoying themselves - It really is nothing at all like real work - , mostly because MJ was pulling the greatest sounds out of his new iMac and Jay just seemed to have the magic touch with setting up the mics. Sunday saw us bring in Annie, Mollie and Ogre from The Damn Few to lay down some gypsie groove and Topher (Orange Blank) along with Dan (Skullcranes - RIP), Tommy from the carpet cleaning company next door and anybody else that was lying around, did a bit of Belfast street yelling for Belfast Telegraph. It's all go now, don't you know! Expect that MJ and myself with have it mixed sometime at the start of next week and we might give you a snippet or two on here sometime shortly after that.

Annie from the Damn Few and myself played at The Dubliner tonight to maybe eight people, but I'm not sure I've ever had so much fun. Between the fantastic PA that The Langers Ball lent us, Daz's great Guinness, the hilarious rockabilly version of Dirty Old Town to the girls doing a Mexican wave, I'm not sure what was better. The next Damn Few show is at O'Donovan's on the 18th and 19th, but if for some reason you can' make it out for that then be sure to catch Annie and myself at the Dubliner again on the May 6th.

Tonight, for the first time in I'm guessing close to a year, Jason and myself will be down at the space to rattle through a couple of things for recording. Immortal Recordings contacted me a while back concerning a new CD, of an old Good Vibrations Records punk tune from their back catalogue and one original. If you've been out to see me recently it's been with either Pete McCauley and myself as the Hounds Of Finn, or with the traditional band, The Damn Few. I'll be incorporating that style into these two new recordings and in fact, if you've been out to see the Damn Few recently you'll have caught us playing one of them, What You Close Your Eyes For. A big bowl of Pho is in order to start the proceedings off tonight, but everything should pick up pace right after that. I will be putting the tracks as they develop up on the music page, but I'm pretty psyched to be starting and pretty sure they'll kick up a little storm when they're done!

Hope you all are enjoying the holidays, or at least anticipating a tremendous 2008.

I'm booked solid with The Damn Few and with Pete McCauley for the first half of the year, so you should see me around the Midwest a fair bit.

The band now has the time to settle down a bit and hopefully turn into something pretty unique.

I'll also be utilising my singer/songwriter win at Beaners Central in Duluth and starting recording some acoustic tracks for the band to play. I have a whole bunch of people interested in adding thier own skills to the recording including a fine slide Dobro player, drummers, upright bassist, guitar players and singers, including of course Annie from the Damn Few. Caleb, Jay, Mike and Mollie will all of course be adding their own mark to the proceedings.

Oh... and roll on Butte, Montana!

Happy Christmas

Due to some unfortunate timing issues with some of the other musicians in my circle, or maybe because of the alignment of the stars or the moon in its first quarter, tonight I ended up in a bar in Hopkins, Minnesota. Hopkins is a pretty and typical American town of 17,000 in the suburbs of Minneapolis. Tonight I was faced with an hour and a half show at the Mainstreet Bar And Grill - a place that normally provides a few hours of cover music for its dance hungry patrons every Friday and Saturday night. I couldn't really provide that of course, but did my best, with the help of Jay, Pete and the drummer from tonight's other band (Jack Ruby), to provide something they could perceive as worth their while. I threw in some David Gray, some Mellencamp, some Beatles and a dash of Dylan and had the most fun that I have ever had performing. The people of Hopkins and the few people of our own that came out provided cheering, clapping and some dancing and so here I am at home, with some beer in my belly and cash in my pocket. If I ever had any doubts about my choice to chase this dream, tonight I feel completely. Re. Born.
I'd like to thank everyone that came out and provided a little sustenance for my soul.

"Fling yourself into the flow. Don't be afraid. The whole logic of the universe is contained in daring. I had to throw myself into the current, knowing that I would probably sink. The great majority of artists are throwing themselves in with life preservers around their necks! And more often than not it is the life preserver that sinks them".

The above quote is attributed to Henry Miller and kindly donated to me recently by the ever tuned in John T Stewart.
One evening, on the staircase of Area 52 here in Minneapolis, dressed in a kilt and denim jacket, JK in a Tinkerbell outfit (minus the wings), we were talking to Mr Jason Wahl wearing a perfectly normal black two piece single breasted suit and tie... wearing a mask. Jay was apologising for not making it to JK's next rollergirl bout and suggested catching the next one. That'll be on the 18th, JK mentions to Jay's apology face. He then informs us both that he and the Skullcranes will be in Iowa city that night.

I've never been to Iowa city, but suddenly wanted to be there more than anything. Over the next few days I realised that, although I think you are all fantastic friends and fans, what I want most is to be able to turn to you and tell you that I can't possibly make your party/auction/rollergirl bout because I too am in Iowa City. It doesn't have to be Iowa City of course, it could be anywhere, but I realised that unless I apply the above quote now I'll NEVER get to Iowa City.

A huge THANK YOU to everyone that made it out to Kieran's last night.

I have this thing about live music. Basically, although we spend most of our time buying and listening to CD's, and the musicians of us (probably) spend way too much time trying to capture our music in a recording, the thing that really matters is when you get that moment seeing an artist produce a bit of magic on a stage. Like catching Led Zeppelin at The Fillmore West in '69, Jeff Buckley at Sin-e before getting signed, the Sex Pistols at Manchester's Free Trade Hall in '76 or Jimi Hendrix closing Woodstock (the list could be endless) it's all something that you can't possibly re-live, re-capture or relate to anyone else. It would always just be a bit of spark and magic that you carry with you.

I think last night was one of those times for me. I enjoyed being part of it myself, but the main thing for me was to be party to Finnegan's high musicianship reeling us in, Joan Coffey taking the city (And us) apart song by song and the Skullcranes musical abandon, bringing to me to tears with their irreverence and class. Things like that can't be planned – the right people in the right mood, the right musicians on top form and the sound system behaving itself (All down to Jay and the boys for getting it set up right) – It could be all down to the gods, stars or feng shui. You would just never know.

Joan will be back in the Cities sometime in the future, and we may well have other nights like last night then, but if you didn't make it last night I just couldn't possibly re-live, re-capture or recreate it for you!

Joan Coffey is coming to Minneapolis on Tuesday 28th March. She's as Irish and as awesome a singer/songwriter as you'll ever meet. She'll be playing two glorious shows at O'Donovans on the 31st March and the 1st April. I will be joining her on stage for these performances for three 45 minute sets - So, if you're out for the night somewhere and you want to have a nightcap before going home, then you should pop round to the bar. Music starts at 9:30. There is also a show at The Acadia on the 5th. There will be more, and I promise to keep you updated.

We've been having so much fun in the studio at the minute, recording about one track every session. All of the songs that I've written since moving here all gel really well and I think the rest of the Rocket Rejects are feeling it too. So far we've had a bunch of extremely roudy sessions recording, The Battle Done, The Driving Seat, Invincible and a re-recording this week of Do You Wish Sometimes... We've recruited the help of Pete McCauley from the band Eddie Mac to do some guitar work and he's just awesome. Caleb Peterson from Diesel Jenny has also been sitting in with his flute, harmonica and a wonderful box of tricks. As we get work done I'll keep you informed - Inbetween having WAY too much fun.