Halligan’s blog

On Steve Write in the afternoon (Tues 28th Aug) the reports of various festivals over the Bank Holiday weekend ended with Janie Lee Grace commenting on Greenbelt.
By far the best act, in her opinion, was After the Fire in the Performance cafe - the very same gig that our Rob was guest vocal for.

I've had this stinking cold the last few days. I dosed up for Greenbelt and had a good time there. If you came to any of the shows then thanks.
The first one in the Tradecraft tent was rather manic - totally in the spirit of Greenbelt. I played alongside my mate Gareth, andn we were joined by the incredible Yvonne Lyon and Greenbelt veterans After The Fire.
The next was a guest spot with ATF in the performance cafe. It was packed, testemony to the impact that ATF had on the scene a number of years ago. The last gig was in G-Music and I must say i felt a little more at home there. 20 minutes of banging away at my songs. There was a signing session after that, meeting folks. Delirious were doing the same thing next to me so I got to poach some of there line. Some people even asked me to sign Delirious CD's even when I told them I wasn't part of the band. How weird is that?
All in all a good day. Thanks if you dropped by to see me.
Rob

The Scottish shows were pretty fine and dandy. A stunning turn out at Inverbervie I must say. Looking forward to the gig there again in October.

My car wheel went wobly on the way back but I got home. It's a long way. I'm fast selling out of Dark Clouds Fighting cd's, which is good but i need to pull out my finger and get the next one rolling. I've been gigging a lot of new songs and having people ask what CD they're on.

They will be on, I promise.

I'm going to get my mate Pete Banks from After the Fire to work on it with me. We should have something presentable by the end of the year.  In the mean time, i may be doing an EP with Gareth Davies-Jones especially for th Fairtrade tour. possibly recording a couple of live trax at Greenbelt.

Anyways, the next gig is tomorrow in Upminster. It's Youth festival, lots of abseiling, canoing and stuff with live music thrown in.

After that here's the list for the summer...

The Scottish shows were pretty fine and dandy. A stunning turn out at Inverbervie I must say. Looking forward to the gig there again in October.

My car wheel went wobly on the way back but I got home. It's a long way. I'm fast selling out of Dark Clouds Fighting cd's, which is good but i need to pull out my finger and get the next one rolling. I've been gigging a lot of new songs and having people ask what CD they're on.

They will be on, I promise.

I'm going to get my mate Pete Banks from After the Fire to work on it with me. We should have something presentable by the end of the year.  In the mean time, i may be doing an EP with Gareth Davies-Jones especially for th Fairtrade tour. possibly recording a couple of live trax at Greenbelt.

Anyways, the next gig is tomorrow in Upminster. It's Youth festival, lots of abseiling, canoing and stuff with live music thrown in.

After that here's the list for the summer...

Haven't played it for ages. It's a Yamaha 420 and I got it around 21 years ago. It's still so nice to play, despite having been slung over my back and marched around the country/world.
Instruments do a have a bit of a life of their own. When you pick a guitar up you know what style that guitar likes to be played in. So you play that style. I think a good player is someone that can coax any style of of a stubborn instrument!

Who are the last five people you called on your cell phone?

The last outgoing number on my phone is 111111111111111. I had my phone in my back pocket and I think I sat on it. Just looking back now and I think I called all sorts of people last night by sitting on my phone including Woody, Palmer and Chris C. The most creative number has to be 9*6#4796#47*7.
Before that was a call to Phil at the Fletch. I put on a showcase at his pub last night only to find that when I got there the PA wasn't set up. Not to much of a problem if it's an acoustic show but this was a couple of pretty loud bands - [DWEEB] and Little Girl Screaming.
But after running around for an hour, experimenting with plugs and sockets we got things working and the show went on. But in the craziness I guess my phone must have been calling all these random numbers.
Iggy was  somewhere there as well. He'd fixed my car (rear nearside wheel bearings needed sorting) and now it runs like a dream.
The Celturian, also playing at the gig, needed directions to the pub and then Mandy, who runs a charity that works with special needs kids. I've been doing some music stuff with them. On Wednesday they were working with Horses and wanted some music to train with. One of the strangest gigs I've had, standing in a field playing my guitar to  people leading horses around in circles!
Oh the excitement of a rock'n'roll phone...

Recording at LampPost

Not sure what to do. I went to the states a couple of months ago and recorded five trax with my mate Al at Lamp Post Studios in Long Island. It was cool to do it again. the first CD I did there, the New York Sessions, came out really well and had some great reviews and radio play.
But this one doesn't seem to hang right. A couple of years ago I would have been happy with it, burnt a few copies myself and printed those incredibly annoying sticky labels and handed a few out at gigs for a couple of quid. But now there's no excuses. I have a load of good new songs, some recorded and some maturing as they're gigged. I think that's the problem with the latest New York songs. They were new songs that hadn't found their own identity and we're perhaps a bit premature.I don't thing all of them will live that long in fact, they'll be outlived by some of their younger siblings that have been well nurtured in the unforgiving toilet circuit that is gig life.