The Swiss Talent Blues Night
Posted on 19 January 2012, 12:36.
Swamp Train is competing for the possibility to “present their live qualities during the Swiss Talent Blues Night on 27th March 2012”!
Who would have though that there would be so many competitions within the world of the blues? It almost feel like that’s all we’re doing these days.
If I understand correctly, we were invited to this one because of our participation in the 1st Swiss Blues Challenge last September. But in this case the good folks of Basel’s Blues Festival have organized a web voting competition in order to “promote the local blues and support emerging Swiss bands wishing to perceive their chance of introducing their music to a wider audience” as well as giving them a chance to play during the festival (the first prize). But before that we need to be among the three bands who receive enough votes to make the cut.
This internet voting stage takes place from January 12th to February 13th 2012. So it would be great if you ran over to the Band Voting 2012 page and cast your vote! Hopefully for us ;-) but don’t forget to check out the other cool bands too.
Merry Merry Indesign
Posted on 8 January 2012, 14:07.
Most of my holiday season was spent in front of a screen learning the basics of Indesign to finish Swamp Train’s album cover. Hopefully this knowledge will be useful in the future because it’s hours of video watching, forum & help reading, not to mention taking notes and finding them again. Plus the fact that my 4 year old pc isn’t quite as powerful as needed, slow, slow, slow…
Still after a couple of days tryout I took advantage of the 20% off on updates offer to dump the adobe graphic suite standard onto my version of Photoshop. I must admit that I kind of like the way Indesign works even if it’s possibly one of the least user friendly programs that I’ve tried. And having it and the rest should cover all of the file types I now get asked for when I work on posters, logos and stuff. Plus the learning curve is so steep that it wouldn’t be worth it to learn your way around and not have the programs installed.
This turned out to be a good thing since it enable me to help my mom work on one of her children’s books when I visited my folks over New Years. She has been using Indesign since last spring which is an amazing thing if you think about it, I mean: she’s my mom..! :P
You can check out Elstir Editions to see some of these and find out more. Fact: she draws, writes and publishes her books (and a couple of games too) on her own (except where stated otherwise of course).
Anyway, the above flier/poster is for two Swamp Train “Valaisan weekend” gigs on the 28th & 29th of January, on the sunny terrasse (we hope) of the Hotel Alpina Fiescheralp in the snowy Fiescheralp ski resort! And if you are in the area don’t miss the Friday evening concert (27th of January) at the Lounge & Bar Bellagio in the lovely alpine village of Bellwald!
And stay tuned for the Swamp Train album launch date; more info at Swamp Train’s concert date page!
Washboard Gloves Sneak Peek
Posted on 5 January 2012, 17:48.
2012: year of the washboard glove. :-)
I’m certainly looking forward to getting a pair of these!
A Swampy Brew
Posted on 20 December 2011, 13:39.
A little Swamp Train update:
We’ve been practicing new songs. Although in the long term the plan is to be playing a majority of our own tunes with the Blues you have to know the classics so we’ve been working on both.
We finished mixing the album last month and since then I’ve been working on the cover art. And a hard trip it has been to satisfy all the band members, myself included. Fortunately it is now coming together nicely it seems and the end is in sight.
We’ve figured out most of the bar-code stuff and are comparing the various ways to offer downloads.
The challenge for me this week is changing my photoshop made file into the correct pdf format for the printer. Amazing how time consuming all the reading is but hey…
Meanwhile it’s time to start getting ready for a big album greeting party that is now planed for early February, which is why we spent yesterday brewing up a tank of what will hopefully turn into a tasty dark brew. I admit no experience in this sort of thing besides watching how it was done one day recently, so I mostly stirred when told to stir and lifted and carried and cleaned… But I can say how much I’ve enjoyed tasting some of these homemade brews in the past.
You can check out the pictures in our Brassage d’une Swamp Stout FB album.
Strictly Jug Nuts
Posted on 25 November 2011, 11:17.
Sigh… seems like everything is keeping me away from this blog these days…
Anyway, took advantage of a few spare minutes to browse around looking for some good music (preferably with a washboard or rhythm bone player) and stumble on the Strictly Jug Nuts who had the good idea to upload a video of their winning the 2011 Chicago Battle of the Jug Band (sorry can’t find a link for this event).
Enjoy!
:-)
Updated to add: Replaced the first video (which was removed) by the above much longer = more music one.
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