Charitable Lads

This past weekend has to be the band's most successful one yet, having played both Newhampton arts centre in Wolverhampton and the Wharf bar in Walsall, we certainly left a strong impression on the audience we played to. Both gigs went down very well , the Wharf was great as it was such a local venue to us and literally everyone we knew was there . To keep the band momentum up we have hit practice hard this week as the gigs are coming thick and fast! We have plenty of exciting news to share with you over these next few weeks as the band continue to progress. However for the meantime we will be preparing for another gig this Sunday at "Compton in the park" charity festival at Wolverhampton West Park in aid of Compton hospice.

Express & star!

"hard work doesn't go without recognition"... A phrase which is often used these days which couldn't sum this post up any better! Massive thanks to journalist Jenny Ormsby for her article in a west midlands local paper the express and star on our band "The Assist". The article covers all aspects of our band from what we do in our everyday lives , to what we plan to achieve as a band! We see the article as a fine advertisement for the band and gives the public an insight into what personalities are present within the band! Finally we also see the article as a great chance for everyone to become aware of the upcoming gigs we have in the next few months! UP THE ASSIST!

Gigs!!

After a considerable amount of time away from social media we've been focusing on live performance in order to be fully prepared for a busy upcoming schedule , weeks of practice have payed off as we now have managed to complete our 45 minute set which will be played at numerous venues around the midlands in the next few months or so.
Gigs kick start this Friday at Newhampton arts centre in Wolverhampton where we will be performing with four other live bands, the following night we are then straight back at it with a gig supporting great local band Two 'N' Eights both night are set to be full of great live music and a lively audience. Later dates have also been arranged such as the 5th of July we are at the O2 academy 3 in Birmingham and to finalise our latest gig line up we finish on the 19th headlining the sunflower lounge before we then begin work for summer festivals. If there is anyone who would like to come to any of the gigs be in touch!! Below is a picture to just give you a bit of an insight into the dramas that occur in practice... Hence the broken guitar!!

Alterations

Having made changes to our band structure changes to our music were also going to happen , we believe to highlight the progress made throughout the year , steps back as well as steps forward are needed. All band members have agreed that in order to progress further the current recordings which were released earlier this year are to be taken down , having reached a high band chemistry writing music has became that little bit easier , alterations have been made to our previous tracks and new and improved versions will be released later this month. the removal of all previous media material is a step back however in order for you to see the progress we have made as a band , the re-recorded tracks as a four piece must be released, to end on a positive note here's our very first fan cake!!

From The Jam Gig

Last night we played our first gig as a four piece supporting 'From The Jam' at the Robin 2 in Bilston. the night flowed well having arrived on time at half 6 to complete our sound check and enable ourselves to spend a little time backstage. Once again we would like to say a big thank you to both Carl Windsor and Toby Fletcher for the backline support and music knowledge they shared with us. Being the first of two support acts which were playing on the night we still however managed to play to a crowd of around about 200 , we believe that our music fitted the bill very well on the night and went down a treat with the crowd there , although the second support act had a genre of music which wasn't best suited to the audience there they also put on a very good show. in the next coming weeks having established our set our main objective is too begin to push through with as many gigs as possible.

New Line-up

Got some important news  we are now a four piece band with the addition of a very talented bass player and the replacement of our previous drummer .The band now consists of Ben Faulkner on drums , Jak Baker on bass guitar , Ryan Stanton on lead guitar and Mikey Stanton on vocals. Our previous drummer left because of commitment issues, our new members have added so much to our music and we can't wait for you to hear our new stuff!

Single Release

As Followers of our blog you know we've recently been recording and we've now got a great sounding demo, we have now planned our first release as a band. we will release the song 'Nicole', it will be avalialbe on itunes and also physical copies will be made. To coinciede with this release we're doing a video shoot and also a number of gigs. we're really excited by this and to get you in the mood here's the artwork for the release, let us know what you think!!

Social Networking

The progress keeps on coming as this week we enhanced our social presence. We now have an up an running facebook page which you can find at www.facebook.com/theassistband. We also are now on Soundcloud  at https://soundcloud.com/#the-assist. We hope everyones that has followed us from the start can continue to support us on these sites. We've had our music tab up for a few days now and we still want as much feedback as possible, so feel free to drop us a comment.

Logo

 

We made another huge step today as we finalised our logo; it was designed with the help of inDrecords. We Believe a  logo is very important to a bands image as it is often the first thing people associate you with. We're also hoping to put our logo on merchandise like T-shirts to sell at gigs.

 

 

 

 

 

Recording Part 2

We turned up to this recording session with great enthusiasm having been looking forward to it all week. As we had gained some experience we felt really comfotable in the studio and we were making great progress. within this last week we have managed to complete 3 songs a high standard, however this didn't come easily, spending 7 straight hours in the studio without a break eventually catches up on you. we had a great time and nothing beats hearing your song played back to you for the first time. we've now got a music tab where you can have a listen to two of our latest tracks.

 

 

Recording

Today we had our 1st ever recording session, we desperately needed a demo so we can show everyone our music. The recording process began slowly as it was a multi-track recording; we had no experience of playing to a click track or playing on our own without the rest of the band supporting us. We spent 4 hours their today and managed to complete one song. We had planned to complete more than just the one song, however we was a little too ambitious with our aims and didnt truly appreciate how long it takes to master a song to perfection. If we were to give any advice to anyone wanting to record it would be to certainly get the right producer. Our producer Carl Windsor has amazing experience touring the world in a tribute band The Complete Beatles, he knew exactly the sound we were after and he directed our song brilliantly. A big thanks to Carl and the work he did with us today , we look forward to continuing our work with him over the next few weeks to get more songs recorded. The current track we are working on is 'Be Yourself' and we hope to be sharing it with you by the end of this week!!!

Exciting Plans

This week we decided upon trying a new rehearsal space, our current studios were taking our young age and lack of experience for granted by overcharging us and giving us poor quality equipment. The new reharsal studio we tried was Unit 7 Studios in Dudley (picture below), we found that practice was very efficient with great equipment, a laid back atmosphere and affordable prices. we spent three hours there and i'd go as far as saying it was our best ever practice, this sets us up well for our biggest gig yet at the Flapper in Birmingham tommorow night. were in the process of booking more gigs and were also planning on making a progression checklist outlining important checkpoints for us to achieve. Last week we also hit 1500 blog views which is another great milestone!!!

Gig Update

As a band we're currently trying to get as many gigs as possible to build our fanbase. Next friday the 22nd we will be returning to the venue that gave us our first gig Bloxwich Bookmark to their prestigous open mic night where we will be playing our full set for only the 2nd time. We have also secured a massive gig supporting Two Days Late at the Flapper in Birmingham on Thursday the 28th of February. The gig is being put forward by PWS promotions and we would like to thank them for this opportunity. We have been allocated our first ever set of tickets to sell, and they even have our name on!! If you would like to attend our gig at the Flapper get in touch with us on our new contact page.

Line-up complete

Last Friday night we played our set in full for the first time, we got some great feedback but also some constructive criticism.An often occurring subject was the lack of depth in our music without a bass player. This week we decided to put an end to this controversy and finally insert bass into our music, our lead singer Mikey has challenged himself to learn bass. This week we also hit over a 1000 page views on our blog and continue to gain more followers on our Twitter https://twitter.com/TheAssistBand

A Progressive Week

It's been a week full of progression for us as we reach the end of our first month. Firstly we've been rehearsing hard and have finalised our live set, the set consists of 7 original songs and lasts around 20 minutes. Our set will be played live in full for the first time tonight at woody's music bar in Cannock/Hednesford, it's for a Battle of the Bands competition so it should be a great experience. Our blog has also had some changes as we continue to improve the layout and look, the most notable change is the new picture page. Finally we have created a twitter account where you can follow our progress at https://twitter.com/TheAssistBand

Our First Live Performance

It was all very last minute as we turned up at Bloxwich Library for their Open mic night, they had an amazing set up with PA system ,stage and full drum kit so this was a great opportunity for our first performance. We got threw in at the deep end and went on stage first. We were all nervous but everything went perfectly, we played two songs Be who you want to me and The Stories. We couldn't of asked for a better response as the organisers of the event asked us if we'd headline a future show!!. A big thanks to Bookmark Bloxwich for this opportunity!

New Video Blog

Haven't posted in a while as we've been working away at our introduction video. You can find the video at the link posted above, it's got some samples of our tracks and gives you an insight into who we are. We also recently hit over 500 views and would like to thank everyone who's followed our progress so far!!!

The Assist

From Venezuela to Australia

It's mad to think that within under a week we have reached 286 views, we've even had views from Venezuela and Australia!!  Just 5 days ago we began this blog, we are more than grateful to those who have taken time to review our page and share our ambition. We continue to work hard during practice and it shouldn't be long until we have some work to share with you. Recent practice and progress in band chemistry has resulted in the booking of a recording session at our local studios with aims to record our first song. After family and friend orientated feedback we can also safely announce that the name of our band has been declared as The Assist. we believe that the confirmation in our name is a strong statement and we can now push on to further broaden our reputation by opening up social networking pages on sites such as Facebook twitter etc. The idea is to have all pages set up and running by the end of the month as well as our first song so that you'll be able to hear what we are all about. Recent posts have been written by guitarist Ryan , however we have came to an agreement that further input should be put into the blog from both I, Mikey and drummer Will .

Thanks Mikey.

Naming our Band

Naming a Band can be the most challenging part, a great name is vital. Our first idea was to take inspiration from the Arctic Monkeys and have an animal in the name, this lead us to Otter Freckle. We liked this for a few weeks then realised it wasn't for us, after reading many articles on choosing a band name we decided to take inspiration from a song name; we came up with Tumbling Dice (Rolling Stones) but then realised there were a few 60's cover bands with this name. Our next step was to stop over thinking the name. last week when in the studio we got a lot of reverb off the PA system and thought we'd came across a great name, after a quick internet search we realised every other band seemed to be called The Reverbs. We then decided our band name needed to mean a bit more to us so we decided to reflect football in our band name. Our first idea was The Deficit, but we figured it could be easily misspelt. Our latest idea is The Assist. We're still putting thought into our band name and want to make sure we get it right, any feedback would be appreciated.

The Youth of Today

First of all the process of writing this blog has been painfully slow as my whole estate has been without internet. The youth of today decided on new year's eve to burn out the estate's junction box, its a sign of the times and leaves us without internet until the 11th of January!!! We've been practicing hard and trying to get to the studios at every opportunity, weekends are manic as we all play for different football teams on a saturday and sunday.Yesterday we went straight to the studios in our football kits looking the part! Here's a picture of us practicing from last week: