Rayman Pirate-Community

SamBeckett94 wrote:Hopefully, you might get the chance to hear some jazz from me and the band.

That'd be interesting to hear, more interesting than game soundtracks (to me).

I would love to do Jazz with my Band.

Do you have any recordings? A myspace page maybe or sth? Any info about your band?

Who me, or Sam?

Mine, no. We have only just started out. We're still a college band at the moment.

Both, actually.

Oh well, that's a pity, good luck anyway.

Thanks. I am the main composer for the group, and I have a lot of great songs written. Just gotta get out there and play them live and start to get known.

Cool, what genre(s) do you play in?

Rock and Indy type music. Heavy, but not too Heavy Metal if you know what I mean.

Heavy, like... hard rock? Like Deep Purple or perhaps.. AC/DC?

Nah. Kinda like Oasis and Queen kind of music. I have full distortion, and use power chords etc.

Ah..

So you don't play piano that much anymore?

To answer Matyuv's first question; no, I'm afraid I don't have a MySpace page or anything like that. Unfortunately, we have the instruments, but we don't have the recording equipment, not even a computer microphone. That's why it might be a while if you actually do get to hear anything from us - we still need to get the equipment for recording.

We do cover a lot of songs, especially Charles Mingus songs and Charlie Parker songs (not the harder Charlie Parker songs, he was too fast for even the best of the best of the sax to keep up with - absolutely stunning).
But, we only play at the local pub at the minute. We do cover a lot of game themes, as we sometimes try to mimic the style of Mr. Bungle (not to much, mind). We pretty much nicked our Super Mario Bros. theme directly from them we liked it so much, we just added a bit more on it. Most of the time we do instrumentals (mostly jazz), but when we do do sung songs, Frank (who plays electric bass and double bass) sings. Unless we're doing John Lennon's Imagine. I love that song so much, I insisted that I always play the piano and sing along to that one. I'm not that great as singing, but it's good fun, so I couldn't really give a toss. Really, the only person in the band that can't sing well enoughto pass off as good is our drummer, Dominic. He can drum, but he can't sing. A friendly bloke though. Nice to be with.

Sorry to bore you, but I always enjoy to talk about the people I work with, and I'm afraid that I have another paragraph on them:

As you know, Dom plays percussion, and Frank does most vocals and bass instruments.
Geno plays the guitar (most of the time we use acoustic, but we try to squeeze in some electric too when appropriate. He also plays the banjo, but we've never let him use it in a live performance. It really doesn't go with the sound of jazz or ska.
Jamie plays the keyboard and a lot of piano. On certain songs, either me or Frank play the piano, but Jamie is certainly the best at it. His improvisations are stunning. You just listen to Snake Davis' keys player - they're more or less on the same level. It's a privelage to have our Jamie playing with us.

Finally, I play woodwind, occasionally bass, and occasionally piano. And the odd guitar. Not much, though. I'm no good a guitar.
In a lot of songs, I play the tenor sax, also a lot of the alto sax. I tried the curved soprano sax once, and I never touched it again. Nice sound, but I can't get into playing that one.

I'm afraid we're guilty of doing some rap, BUT NOT rap as you know it. We make up an instrumental, then lyrics (an unusual way to structure it), then speak-sing the lyrics. It does not follow the usual beat of rap. Really, it's jazz with lyrics that are merely spoken in.

Cool... Hopefully you get some recording equipment soon then =D

honestly, do you reckon you're any good? not trying to be mean or anything, but what do you think of your own band?

Well, I've always had trouble recognizing what I'm good at, ever since I was a little kid, so I'm not sure about myself. I mainly play the saxophone.
I do however know that the other guys are good. They're all competent musicians - all of them can play, and all of them can come up with lovely little melodies. There's not a single song that's come from us that one of us haven't participated in making. We get some pretty interesting results.

well, if they're all good, they probably wouldn't keep you if you sucked.

I'd love to show my levels on Raymabn designer-i'm the ultimate designer!!!

I wish i could.

Uh yeah. So anyway, me and my band are headlining at a popular venue in our local area in a months time!

Cool , maybe u can record some videos?

That would be awesome ^^ By the way, a friend of mine and his group will start recording soon, maybe I could post tracks here. They play a wide range of music, from heavy metal to visual kei.