Guitar recording

So we've been back in the studio for the last couple of weeks cracking on with the album, and we've been getting on with some guitar recording. Here are some photos.

Stu's been Guitaring...

...Nath's been engineering...

...and I've been Ukuleleing.

Lena Smith Band Christmas dinner

So we had a lovely christmas dinner cooked by me and Stu, lots of fun was had by all, the food was delicious (even if I do say so myself) and the pudding was flaming. Here are some pics xxx

2012 News

So, I'm going to start this post off with an apology for being totally rubbish with this whole blogging thing. I've got absolutely loads and loads of Lena Smith stuff to talk about.

I think the last time I wrote on here was about June or July and I'd just written 'Blink of an eye'. Well loads has happened since then so I'm going to tell you all about it now.

The main thing that I have been doing this year and since my last blog update was starting recording with Stu at the amazing Beliefspace Studio.

During August we set ourselves the challenge of getting down the Drum and the Bass parts to 24 of my songs. Nathan and Marcin were absolute pro's and nailed it every time.

We made quite a lot of exciting plans production wise and decided on 14 songs for an album.

Next up was the Piano recording which went smoothly after ironing out a few piano creaks and squeeks. Next up in the pipeline is the Guitar Recording, then we're going to have a little bit of Brass and Strings on some of the songs. We're going to be using the awesome Badcore Horns for all our Brassy needs. Finally the vocals, which I'm really really looking forward to now.

During this time, I've also had a few solo gigs and a massive band gig for my 30th Birthday. I played for the first time at the B-Bar back in October and it was lovely. I highly recommend playing there if you are a musician or going to eat there and listen to lovely music if you're not. It's such a chilled out and cosy vibe.

In October I took part in the new Lionface music video which I'm really looking forward to seeing when it's out.


I turned 30 at the start of November, and to celebrate on the day, we played a full band gig at the JSV.

The amazing Ship's Cat, and Black Friday also played for me and a very good night was had by all.

I had the honour of supporting the brilliant Singer/Songwriter Jazz Morley as part of her 'Stories' UK Tour a few weeks ago at the B-Bar. Also supporting her was Frank Franklin and Calvin Thomas who were also excellent.

So we're just about to start all the guitar recording for the album over the next few weeks so I'm going to try and keep up to date with this blog and bring you some lovely photos of guitars and studios and shiny things.

I've also written a few new songs over the last couple of months and have recorded some more zoom recordings of those as they're not going to be recorded at least for the moment as part of the album or as other releases.

You can find them here on Soundcloud.

Blink of an eye

Here's a song I wrote yesterday called 'Blink of an eye'. It's inspired by a very lovely friend of mine and it's about how sometimes, when crappy stuff happens, it changes you and you have to to re-find yourself again.

Blink of an eye

Here are the words.

Half verse intro
Verse 1
Something in your life, takes you by surprise,
Takes you by your hand, and shakes you where you stand.

Pre-Chorus
Caught you way off guard, swept you off your feet
Good or Bad it’s hard, to find yourself released

Chorus
From the person you once knew, who slipped away in the blink of an eye
and you’re left with a stranger, and you wanna go back and hide  

Verse 2
Never searched so far, never searched so wide,
find out who you are, in the river wide.

Pre-Chorus
Caught you way off guard, swept you off your feet
Good or Bad it’s hard, to find yourself released

Chorus (double)
From the person you once knew, who slipped away in the blink of an eye
and you’re left with a stranger, and you wanna go back and hide  
as the person you once knew, who slipped away in the blink of an eye
and you’re left with a stranger, and you wanna go back and hide  

Verse 3
Never searched so high, to find a better sky
tryn’ to stop the roll, when life knocks your soul

Pre-Chorus
Caught you way off guard, swept you off your feet
Good or Bad it’s hard, to find yourself released

Chorus (double)
From the person you once knew, who slipped away in the blink of an eye
and you’re left with a stranger, and you wanna go back and hide  
as the person you once knew, who slipped away in the blink of an eye
and you’re left with a stranger, and you wanna go back and hide  

M8
Searching so deep that you just can’t sleep
and the questions burn through your mind
feeling half blind like you’ve lost your mind
and the answers you just can’t find

PC Instrumental
You find yourself released

Chorus (double)
From the person you once knew, who slipped away in the blink of an eye
and you’re left with a stranger, and you wanna go back and hide  
as the person you once knew
as the person you once knew  
as the person you once knew

dBs Music Showcase

Last night The Lena Smith Band played for the first time at dBs Live (formerly The Hippo). We were asked by Olly Wickes to play as part of the dBs showcase that he was organising.

Olly, Jim, Chris, Matt, Luke and all the technical crew were absolutely brilliant. It was all really professional and we had a fantastic time.

Cut2Media took some fantastic photos of the night.

Cut 2 Media 

It was a really eclectic evening of music.

We were joined by  'The Invisible Opera Company of Tibet' who are described as "A pschedelic deepspace politico-spirito rock thing subtly infused with a hint of jazz and a twist of gnome",  'Ben Solo', descrbed as "Ambient Bliss" by The Wire magazine, and 'Matt Vinyl'.

You should check out all their stuff here;

The Invisibles 
Ben Solo 
Matt Vinyl

 We're really looking forward to hearing the digital download of the night in a few days, as the whole lot was recorded, and as a little taster, we have the live version of our song 'Iceman' that was taken from the front of house mix, and recorded and mixed by Chris.

You can hear it here.
Iceman (Live Recording)

Massive thanks to Olly for putting this on and to everyone who was involved, we absolutely love it.

Ladies Night

Last night at Black Jacks I played my first gig of 2012. It's taken me six weeks to come out of hibernation this year but it was definitely worth the wait for me because it was a brilliant night, I had a really good time, massively enjoyed playing and it was a really positive start to my gigging year.

I had planned about 40 mins worth of my songs to do but ended up doing about an hour I think because I was enjoying myself so much and seemed to go down well. (I think) ;) I aired three of my newest songs as well which was cool and they were received positively so I'm happy. If you want to hear some of my songs you can find links to them and other stuff about my gigs etc. on facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/TheLenaSmithBand

I'm also playing another gig at Black Jacks in two weeks with my full band which I am massively excited about.

Anyway that's enough about me. Last night was the first of, hopefully more, ladies nights at Black Jacks.

I had the privilege of playing my set alongside three awesome ladies. Josie Boucharde, Chloe Hood, and Lizzie Corish.

Josie Boosh, the Pixie Rocker, kicked the night off with an absolutely foot stomping, rocking set of originals and covers. She's an absolute musical firecracker with powerful vocals who puts her own unique, and epic stamp on her songs. She finished her set off with an awesome rendition of 'F**k It' which we all sang along to.

After Josie, Chloe was up next. I hadn't ever heard Chloe play before so was really excited to hear her set. She started with a beautiful cover of 'Ain't no sunshine' and the first thing I thought was, "F**k me, that girl's got a voice". She has a seriously effortlessly amazing voice, she played a mixture of her own songs and covers and every song was beautifully executed. 

I then played my set, followed by the brilliant Lizzie C who rounded the evening off with another incredible effortless performance of both originals and covers. She can play any song and make it sound amazing, my personal favourite of her set was 'Tears dry on their own'  as a tribute to Amy Winehouse. She played a range of different songs and really demonstrated her versatility as a musician and performer. You can find out more about her here:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lizzie-C/136078576493758 

I highly recommend that everyone should go and check out these awesome awesome ladies as soon as you can, trust me you will not be disappointed. I was really proud last night to play alongside these talented women and to be a small part of the lets face it, pretty awesome female music scene in Plymouth. 

Sing You To Sleep

Here's a new song that I wrote recently. I was writing something to some lyrics that Stu had written and I came up with this minor lullaby type thing. He realised that I'd used words that he'd already written a song to so I decided to keep the music and the melody I had come up with but write my own lyrics. As the music has quite a melancholy feel to it I decided to stick with the idea of a lullaby but with the words reflecting the music so it's about being lonely and not having anyone to sing a lullaby to you.

It's recorded with my new Zoom recorder, I'm just getting the hang of where best to position it on my piano. There are a few creaks from my pedal and a few rattles from the inner bits and bobs but I think this gives you the idea.

http://soundcloud.com/lena-smith/sing-you-to-sleep-zoom

Hello 2012

So I know I'm a few days late but I've only just stepped out of my post Christmas/New Year food, drink and film coma.

I'm really excited about 2012 and I have lots of plans. I never make New Years resolutions, I don't believe in them. They're basically just decisions aren't they? and just because we're in a different month and that month happens to be the first one of a different year doesn't mean that we're suddenly going to find the decisions we make any different from when we make them normally so I kind of think that if you really want to change stuff about your life then you should do it whenever, not just at the beginning of a new year.

I also think that when you make decisions about things that you want, unless you actually make things happen that are achievable along the way, these things aren't just going to fall in your lap so you need to keep working away, keep making plans and actioning them.

Anyway, I am excited about 2012 and not because I have any New Years resolutions but because I am going to be continuing to see the outcome of some of the plans that I started working on in 2011.

So in 2012, for Lena Smith I would like to;

-Do lots more gigs with the band

-Do lots more gigs solo

-Keep writing songs

-Record and album or maybe EP (not sure yet) This will have lots more orchestration and stuff on it. I really want to get my teeth into a bit of brass and string arrangement and other orchestral stuff in my music. I have already done some of this, just need to write it and find the players to record.

-Look at the possibility of a mini tour somewhere abroad, maybe America.

Woohoo!!! Roll on 2012 :)