A lovely weekend and our first review

This weekend was one of those weekends where, as a musician you really appreciate why it is you do what you do.

On Saturday night we had our pretty much annual James Street Vaults gig. It's always one of my favourite places to play being our local and there's always a friendly face or two or three or four in there.

We did a lovely full set with all our favourites in there. It was a good turn out and as an originals band it's always difficult to get new faces in the door but there were quite a few and we seemed to go down well which always makes it worthwhile :)

It was also our first gig with new band member Elani Andrea on backing vocals and acoustic guitar. She did brilliantly, danced up a storm with Trina, and also did a fantastic support set before our gig and it's a pleasure to have her in the band.

After Saturday night we were up bright and early for another gig. Geoff Heap is a great local promoter of Live Music and is always putting on events around Plymouth to showcase original music. Sunday was day 3 of his Level Up festival at the roundabout and we were first up on the bill.

Despite being on at 2.00 on a wet and windy Sunday it was a good turn up and our set went down well. We were also lucky to have the Evening Herald's live music reporter Ellie Hudson-Hopton there to review us.

You can read her review here :)

Lena Smith Band review

We're very pleased with it and I'm very proud to have a band full of such lovely and talented musicians to play with. I feel very lucky :)

We finished off the weekend hiding away from the storm with a big lovely roast and a front room jam  <3

I am the worst blogger in the world.

So it would appear that I am terrible at writing blogs. I can barely keep up with myself and so the whole idea of trying to relay all the things I've got going on in writing for you fine people to read is quite frankly ludicrous.

There has (almost) literally been a million and one things going on however and basically it's all very exciting and has been keeping me busy and so I feel I should write it all down or as much of it as I can more of a record for myself if anything.

Big news number 1; The Lena Smith Band debut EP (which was going to be an album but is now going to be two EP's) is completely finished, recording wise and we're now at the stage of mixing, mastering to follow, the artwork is on the go which is being done by the super talented Holly Partridge. You can check out her music and artwork here. https://www.facebook.com/HollyPartridgeMusic

Then it's just a matter of getting out to people's lovely ears. There are loads of beautiful friends and family members who are all fantastic musicians that have been involved in this EP who I am very grateful for.

Something I have been aware of lately is just how lucky I am to be surrounded by such awesome people and such awesome musicians. On a serious note I have in the past not been in a place in my life where I have been able to throw myself into music and I do really value where I am now. There are so many people I am blessed to play music with and give me so much encouragement that I really am incredibly grateful and I don't think I could be fulfilling my dreams one day at a time if it weren't for all these people :) <3

Okay so that's enough of the soppy stuff ;)

I'm trying to put together in my head all the things that have been going on recently, I guess a lot of it has been EP related but we've also had some excellent gigs with the band over the last couple of months, and I'm insanely happy about how those have gone and excited for future gigs.

I was honoured to be asked by one of my old school friends who is an incredibly talented designer to play at a fashion show he was hosting of his own work alongside some other amazing musicians and performers. I was given the song 'Blackman' by Hazel O'Connor to perform which I enjoyed immensely. I roped in the lovely Dan from Freshley Squeezed and Badcore Horns to play with me and an amazing night was had by all. You can watch th full show here. http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DwAxXnDTQw4w%26feature%3Dshare&h=9AQEk55FT&s=1

Last week I did a 'live in session' from Beliefspace Studio in justjamit.com. I can't remember if I've talked about this is in my blog before but it's basically a live gig from the studio that can be watched online. Last week's one was (in typical me fashion) quite complicated but despite logistical stresses of it we had a fantastic time. As opposed to the first one I did which was just Lena Smith solo, this one was Lena Smith and guests. I am very lucky to come from a musical family and my dad who also plays the piano came and did a guest spot, he played the piano while I sang a few songs. We also had the fantastically talented Elani Andrea play a few songs with me, Elani has just joined the band singing backing with us and we are collaborating on other side projects together. We also did a sort of acoustic version of a few of our band songs. Stu and Marcin were on guitars, I was on piano and Nathan was on Cajon and tambourines instead of a full kit. We also had studio guests in with us and despite a few technical hitches at the beginning it went very smoothly even though we were all boiling hot and very sweaty ;)

Mini post

Just a little short one  :)

We had a really productive meeting with the lovely and very very talented Badcore horns yesterday. They listened through to the songs and my ideas and came up with some brilliant ideas as well for songs that I hadn't come up with ideas for so all in all I am very excited now about getting the horn parts all recorded. I realise I said the word ideas waaaaaay too many times in that sentence :)

Today I wrote a zombie song! Can't wait to record it, very pleased :)

The year begins

So, January and February are pretty much non-months as far as I'm concerned. They sort of fly by in a cold and dark way and not much happens during them. So March for me is what I consider to be the proper start of the year.

The Lena Smith Band kicked off the year with a gig at the roundabout pub. It was a for a brilliant cause; the 5 mountains for 5 years festival event which was raising money for men's cancer charity Orchid.  We had a great time and hung around for a bit after our set and got to see a brilliant new band called Horse around Home, I thoroughly recommend checking them out because they were absolutely brilliant.

I say that we haven't really been getting up to much during January and February but we have actually been working away on the guitar recording for the album at  Beliefspace Studio.  It's very nearly finished and sounding excellent.

Next on the list is recording the Brass and String sections on some of the songs. I have been writing away which has been brilliant, I don't have as much time as I'd like usually to sit down with pencil and manuscript paper and write music in that way. I absolutely love doing it as well so I have really enjoyed writing all the parts for the brass and strings. Next week the Badcore horns are coming in for a meeting about it all. Very exciting!

I did actually have one solo gig booked for the beginning of February but a small person sneezed all over me at work and so I was out of action for a week with the Flu and had to cancel (sad times) but luckily the B-Bar were most excellent about it and I have another one booked there for the 4th of April which I am very excited about (Happy times).

One of the reasons I am very excited about this is that I have been working hard on learning all my own lyrics. I appreciate that this sounds a bit stupid, you'd think that when you write songs you'd know your own lyrics but not me, I've always got a bit muddled with my words so I've spent some time really learning them and I've also been learning a few little cover songs to stick into my solo sets which I find very exciting. Exciting and a little scary but mostly exciting :)

Last week I wrote a new song which I hadn't done for a few months, what with all the recording, my songwriting has taken a bit of a back seat. It's always lovely when a new one comes out and I'm very happy with this one. It's called 'On my mind' and you can hear a live zoom recording of it here .

At the weekend, Welshy and I took a little visit to London to go to the 'Inside Abbey Road Lecture' We saw lots and lots of amazing things, and it was so exciting to be in a place where so much amazing music has been created and where so many talented and inspirational musicians have been.

(Some random old men crossing the Abbey Road crossing)

Next up band wise is Volksfest which I can't wait for, we're on on Sunday 26th Time TBC and we'll hopefully be doing some of our more recent songs.

So lots and lots to be excited about :) Yay!!!

Thank you for reading

Lena xxxxxx

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 :)

A song and a new toy for Christmas

For Christmas this year, among other lovely things, my clever husband bought me a Zoom H1 Handy Recorder. For those of you who don't know what this is, it's a handheld recording device that you can record onto and upload straight away.

Here is a link to a page about it for more info. http://www.samsontech.com/zoom/products/handheld-audio-recorders/h1/

The great thing about this is that previously, when writing songs, I have been using a proper old school tape recorder stuck on the piano in front of me to get down ideas when songwriting. For those of you born before the 90's you will remember that the quality is very poor, rustly and crackly and although it was good when you were recording your songs when you were 7, it's not very good now.

 So my new Zoom is going to massively help me with songwriting. There are loads of things I can do with it and I have a feeling that creatively it is going to be invaluable. I can just jam around for ages, upload it straight away and listen back, picking out things I like etc..I can quickly play and sing a new song and send it straight over the the band members, and we can use it in band practice when jamming around ideas etc.

Anyway, here is my first go on it. You can change the levels and things and do loads of other stuff I haven't entirely figured out yet but this is it literally just sat in front of me on my piano and uploaded. Miss Crazy Lady is a song that I play with the band with all sorts of cool guitar effects, cool harmonies and stuff so it's a bit lacking with just voice and piano but this is the gist of the song.

http://soundcloud.com/lena-smith/miss-crazy-lady-zoom

Listen and Like!

You can listen to my songs on either my SoundCloud account  - http://soundcloud.com/lena-smith
or Reverbnation - http://www.reverbnation.com/lenasmith

It would be awesome, if you could head over to my Facebook page and 'like' us there too. - http://www.facebook.com/TheLenaSmithBand

Lena Smith Band Photoshoot with Elina Photography

So the beautiful and lovely Elina was down in Plymouth for a few weeks before Christmas and asked me if we would like to do some Promotional photos of the band while she was down. So I jumped at the chance.

We all turned up at Clash and Clash Studios in our finery. Joe Biddle, musician and owner of Presspack Recording Studios next door had kindly donated a few musical bits and bobs as props and Elina made us feel really relaxed and took some absolutely awesome photos for us. Here are a few.

Lena Smith Band Xmas

Last night we had our first official Lena Smith Band Christmas. There was roast, alcohol, festivities, crackers, Christmas pud and great company. I even got to set the pud on fire! Horray for Christmas pyromania :)