What I love about the Tom Gee Band is that we’re not interested in making a quick pound or two, being minor celebrities for a week and never heard of again. We want to create good quality music that makes you feel glorious. There’s a sense of longevity in that sentiment that no amount of fortune or celebrity can get you.

Last Friday saw the revamped Tom Gee Band in action at the Library, Leeds as part of the 360 Club night.  The feedback that we have received from it, from both the audience and other bands, has made all our hard work over the last few months completely worth it.  This was and still is a huge relief as the whole show was filmed as part of the BBC Introducing programme (which will be broadcast in a few weeks- we’ll let you know). From a personal standpoint, the one thing that has been evident right from the beginning of this new band is the incredible sense of energy that we all convey when we get together and play. Listening back to the recordings of last Friday’s gig that same energy, excitement and enthusiasm is still there. It feels great to be part of such a wonderful project with such a varied bunch of brilliant and creative young musicians.

The next gig we have is at the infamous Adelphi club in the sunny climates of Hull on the 16^th of February. If you’re about and want to listen to some good music, or want to try and prove me wrong (you won’t), then definitely come down for listen. Sounds good to me.

Well, it’s afternoon technically but I don’t really care. I’m very pleased to announce that we are Tom Gee Band and we are 8 beautiful people strong; David Sudall, Jim Jamm, Gavin Stevenson, Joe Roughton, Matt Newby, Laura Popperwell and Bridie Burkinshaw. And me, but yeah. Sort of goes without saying doesn’t it?

We have a gig at the Library with our good friend Richard from the 360 Club. It’s 27th January a Friday night in Leeds. Get down for a chance to be on the Suzie’s Rendez-Vous video! AND our 2 new tracks will be available. AND it’s the first full band gig. AND it’s going to be awesome, fun-filled and groovy. One last plug, please please please like the fan page on facebook if you don’t already. If you do already muchas gracias. The new year looks exciting and hopefully we can make it as good as last year. Not much to follow is it really? UK & Ireland tour, 02 Arena, new EP….just casually. Crack that one out again? You bet. Here is a video of our misdeeds at the O2 last year. Thanks for your support from 2011 and as for 2012? (Cue cool sign off line in Lethal Weapon style) I’m gettin’ too old for this… doesn’t really work does it?

Schmeh (there’s an underrated word, yes it’s word) I’ll leave you with this gem, courtesy of Mr. Jamie Moore. Enjoy and See you soon.

Hasta luego

TG

We launched the new EP Roots on 26^th June at the 360 Club in Leeds (the EP was mixed by Roni Szpakowski of Peak USA…in Chicago) and then played a load of gigs around the UK over the next two weeks on our “Get Out of Bed” tour.  We then managed to sell over 250 EP’s (which certainly helped the finances…mixed in Chicago) We’ve since sold over 150 songs on itunes and had a couple of tracks played on a Canadian radio show. (Chicago…huh?)

Then, you know, casually, we went to the O2 for the Live & Unsigned Grand Final, didn’t win but had an amazing time.

The next Friday Dave, Jamie and me received our degrees, Jamie from Hull Uni, me and Dave from Leeds College of Music. Had lovely day with our families, not forgetting Dave (Thad), who is probably a better musician than the rest of us, or at least he thinks he is, who is still working towards his forthcoming engineering degree. Multi-talented ba*%&rd.

Starting to book gigs for September once the August holidays are over. So keep your eyes peeled for new songs, new gigs and new band members! That’s all I have for you now.

Love and thanks for all your support. Let’s keep it going.

TG

So we rocked up on the day of the audition, cranked out What’s She Gonna Say and got told to stop playing half way through. Not the best of starts. We went to wait outside and watched the organisers come out one by one to explain that various bands hadn’t got through offering feedback on their performance, things they can change and improve on. To be fair we were relaxed, didn’t really expect anything to come of it. “Tom Gee?” We all looked up. “Yeah you guys are through well done.”

So 2 months later there we were in the Regional Final on the 27th March at Dewsbury Town Hall. Lots of fans turned up to support us, people were nervous, still practicing before they went on. We were relaxed. Again. It’s not that we didn’t care I guess we just didn’t expect anything to come of it. So you can imagine our surprise when our name was called out saying we were through. I think that’s when it hit me that we were one step from the O2. That was a good feeling.

Sunday 8th May arrives, The Willows in Manchester. Again a huge crowd there to support us. Cracked out a Beyonce cover before the opening track of the new EP Roots called Little Late. Video here! (http://youtu.be/LZ_2s-nlbY4) And the final act going through to the Grand Final of the Live & Unsigned competition 2011 at the O2 Arena is….Tom Gee. Get out. No it’s not. No it really is. Wow.

Thanks to everyone who has supported us along our journey and thanks to those who are coming down on Saturday to see us. For those of you that can’t make it you can still show your support by texting unsigned62 to 84222 or watching the youtube video! http://youtu.be/LZ_2s-nlbY4

It’s Wednesday for God’s sake, the gig is on Saturday and it really hasn’t hit me yet. One thing for certain though; I can not wait.

See you Saturday.

TG

Live and Unsigned Votes Needed

Can you believe it’s just over a week to the Live and Unsigned Grand Final. Obviously the performance on the day is paramount but there are other factors taken into consideration; there are also competitions within the competition.
There are two ‘Video Views’ competitions (MUZU.tv and Youtube) and a text vote competition.

Text Voting is now live for the National Grand Final of Live and Unsigned 2011. As well as performing for the judges on the day, the public have the opportunity to vote for the act who they believe should win Live and Unsigned 2011.

Each act has been allocated a specific code (ours is unsigned62) and the public can now vote via a text, for the act they want to win.

In order to win Live and Unsigned 2011 we must be within the top 3 Judges scores. Those acts not in the highest judges’ scores cannot win! Those acts in the top 3 get their scores ranked and added to the audience text voting. The acts with the combined highest ranking will be the winners.

We have consistently been in the top ten leader-boards for each competition – So help us in the final push. Anything you can do would be great. View the videos a few times and if you’re feeling flush text our code – unsigned62 to 84222 (we’ll remember when we’re famous!!)

We have a competition running to win two free tickets to the Live and Unsigned final. It’s free to enter just click [HERE]

And the winner of Live and Unsigned 2011 is……….?   Go on you know you want to!

See you at the O2 – Thanks for everything

TOM

Tom Gee – Manchester 8th May 2011 on MUZU.

Live and Unsigned website

Live and Unsigned Leaderboard

The o2 Live and Unsigned page

Live and Unsigned facebook page

Live and Unsigned on Twitter

For some of the guys this was the first time they had been in Ireland – They all now want to come back. The gig was great and the crowd fantastic and a big shout out to Lisa McLaughlin for looking after us so well.
We finished, rushed for a bite to eat and then due to the complete lack of parking near The Mercantile we legged it across to ‘The Sunday Roast’ gig (instruments in hand.)

And the night just got better the crowd were up for the craic, they sang, clapped shouted for more – we absolutely loved it. Thanks John (Brereton) for everything.

We didn’t finish until after midnight – running back across Dublin to the van then a 30 mile journey to Nass, Co. Kildare where we still had to set up tent!

We arrived at the campsite about 1:40am; was the overnight security guard grumpy? – “Aghh no boys yer grand!” He’d reserved a pitch next to a street light to help us with putting the tent up and directly under the CCTV camera because he figured we’d have a lot of equipment in the van. God don’t you just love Ireland? (Jobsworths don’t seem to be allowed in the country)
2:30am big zeds all around! What a day!

So fresh from the EP Launch we ventured over the border, well Manchester. The Night & Day to be exact, a cracking music venue. This was one date Dan couldn’t make so after bumping into Mr Dawkins at the 360 gig we asked him to step in – “Yeah man, I’ll vibe it,” he said – So that was a yes then!

It was good crowd, happy to make plenty of noise which is always good. It’s nice to know your audience is actually listening.
We must mention Jonny on the door (top man) and a particular thanks to Joe for working wonders on the sound desk – Cheers guys.

I really like the feel of ‘The Night and Day’ we really must go there when we’re not gigging – It’s that sort of place. The feel to the whole place just works somehow.

We altered the set a little and tried a few things out and they worked. Then it was back in the van and back to Yorkshire.
You can check out the video blog so far [here]

Next stop Liverpool!

Okay there were no rocket-propelled grenades but we did launch the EP, sell CD’s and get recorded by the BBC! Yeah really – the performance was recorded for BBC Introducing and will feature on Alan Raw’s show, which goes out on BBC Radio Leeds. Alan is a well known supporter of new music. He had us on the show previously for the launch of the ‘Speak Easy’  E.P. and we’ll be back for an interview next Thursday – don’t miss it!

It was a top night with three other great acts: Neve, Nigel Passey and Love of the Brave [There was something familiar about the guy on the semi-acoustic but I can’t put my finger on it!]. The 360 club is just a proper music venue which attracts a real appreciative and discerning audience who thankfully seemed to love it.

We played all four tacks from our new E.P. ‘Roots’ and they went down a storm and exclusive, hot-off-the-press, CD’s sold really well (thanks Karen and Chris). A massive thanks and well done to Dan, who really was the man, stepping in for Jamie and keeping the Get Out of Bed Tour alive!

Thanks to Richard for promoting the evening, we appreciate it, and to Pete on the sound desk for making us sound so good!  It was great to see Chris Dawkins and Kenny Higgins in the room. A really big thanks also to everyone who came to support us on an epic night – The E.P. Launch, the official start of the Tour, and our last home-county gig for months!  Yep, now we’re off! First stop Manchester. Tonight we’re at the Night ‘n’ Day, Manchester if you’re about pop in and see us. Sunday we head for Liverpool (Django’s Riff a brilliant venue) then it’s off Darn Sarf!

We’ll keep you posted here and in the picture Gallery.

Following last night ‘Roots’ is now available on iTunes. So check it out on the music player below then mozy on over to iTunes and get your very own copy, why don’t you?

However – On Sunday we shot and edited a promotional video for our E.P. Launch. On Monday after getting the EP mixes back from Roni I took them down to Warwick Pilmer & Tony Bonner at Clipstore in Kirkstall to do the mastering. Took all afternoon but really pleased with the finished product. 

Left the boys at Clipstore to do the copying and printing of the CD and went home to upload the tracks to iTunes ahead of the launch on Friday.  Finalised the design for the inlay and passed to printer so everything in place for Friday.

In between all this we were setting up the rehearsals which are pretty intense all this week, getting up really early (9ish) and playing all day at Bluewood Studios.  Sounds great, everyone moaning, laughing and eating pizza! 

Tickets for the EP launch at the 360 Club going well so should be a good crowd.  First gig on our “Get Out of Bed” tour when we are promoting our Live-and-Unsigned Grand Final performance at the O2.  So with me somehow doing all this at the same time I just can’t be a “Real Man!”

When the bard penned the immortal words ‘All the world’s a stage’ I wonder if he had the White Horse in mind. You see there isn’t one! But that’s fine – we like it like that. One week on a pitch in front of 14,000 people the next at the end of a room with 100 or so in your face.

It was a great atmosphere you really know whether your audience likes you or not when they’re so close you can tell what aftershave they’re wearing. Feedback is fairly instantaneous when people are two feet away.

So it’s somehow all the better when an intimate crowd like you, especially when they’re a Yorkshire crowd. A county renowned for forthright views and demand for value for money echoed in the Yorkshire Mantra you can hear across the county – “How Much??”

The reaction to the new tracks from the ‘Roots’ E.P. was particularly satisfying. When it came to an encore the crowd asked us to play ‘Broken Bridges’ again – so they definitely liked it then.

All-in-all another great local gig at the start of the tour before we venture out of the Shire!