Celebrating Summertime.

It’s been a long and lonely winter. A season turning into another, days passing into silence. We still have that London feeling on our eyes. Walking along the canals with our dearest friends, breathing deeply the big city’s flavour. Staring blinded at the night lights.
And then, all of a sudden, it’s all here. We all know that making a record is a waiting game… it has his own timing. So you start one day warming the tubes of your amplifier and then wait for weeks on a pressing plant order. But in the end, this is that time of the season. The time when everything comes together.
Of course, it wouldn’t be now. Or even tomorrow. Summertime is always a tough challenge for musicians, most of them are out there playing at festivals, and so are the people.
The Silent Strangers being not the average type of band, we don’t like playing outdoors. Besides the weather concerns, we believe the sound kinda disappears when amplified outside of a club. Some soul is missing, and once it’s gone it’s hard to make it back. So, we really don’t care that much about festivals, or gigs, for what it’s worth. The good news is, we had a lot more time to finish our winter-expected stuff.

In the next few days we’ll have the result of all the hard work in our hands. It will take several weeks to put it out, but you could be sure it will be out there on the stands pretty soon after summertime will be gone.

So we’ll have things to celebrate. And I hope you’ll have that, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OK, it’s time for some news.

Last week has been a superb, huge, amazing (also tiring, and a bit high) week in London. We had the chance to collaborate with some of the best musicians out there, and what came out from this is a very special album. A very important one as well, the first we completely crafted outside our homeland.

But it was worth every effort: not only is Gizzard Recording a time capsule where we have been able to play the best music we ever made, but we met and worked with two special people like Pete O’Dublo Bennet and Ed Deegan, the Kings of Hackney Wick. They’re our heroes, our brothers and a model to follow. They taught us the importance of giving everything on a take without paying too much attention to the useless details…  More, we have been lucky enough to collaborate with one of the best musicians I ever met in my life, Southend-on-Sea’s pride Dave Dulake. He showed up on a late morning, gave the songs an extra uplift with his “thin man” piano sound and the evil Hammond playing, and then disappeared like a dream. No wonder he played with such fantastic bands like The Phroggs, Virgo Intacta and… that English bunch of lads… yes, the one that wrote that hit… oh yeah: The Kinks!!!

All these people, along with our 5th member extraordinare Gerry Ranson, taught us a lesson that everybody must learn. Play loud, play tough, and stay true. Nevermind the bollocks.

We can’t wait for the album to come out, it’s a thing that we really would love to share with everybody.

Other than that, we had the pleasure to play in such fantastic clubs with fantastic bands:  The Ex-Servicemen Club in Leytonstone, thanks to Ramblin’ Steve and the whole What’s Cookin’ organization, where we opened for Mark & The Clouds, a great outfit that brought back the time to 1969 when Love was for free and music meant something (unlike these days).

We also headlined The Blues Kitchen – Camden, a fantastic spot with the best music you’ll ever hear played by a d.j. (any d.j.), thanks to great people like Joe Cushley.  I even danced like Ace Face, almost 20 years after the last time I did it.
Then, last but not least, we played The Others in Stoke Newington, where we had the great pleasure to share the stage with two amazing acts – Garry ‘The Slideguy’ Smith that is by far the best folk/delta/downhome blues player I’ve ever seen live, and our (from last week on) road pals, Colchester’s finest Mollys Daggers, Those lads could destroy you in many different ways, and let you bleed on the floors begging for more. I tip my hat to you, fellas! Come on over to Italy!!!

That’s it. Enough? I don’t think so. We’ll have some more in the next few days. Be ready.