For those of you that don’t know, and even for those of you that do, we, being the Tom Gee Band (TGB), are releasing our 5 track EP, Better Things to Do, on 14 June 2013 and to coincide with its release we are having a bit of a shindig at the HiFi Club in Leeds. I thought that I’d take the opportunity to explain a little about the EPs creation, from writing the songs to the recording process, and also to explain to you why we would all really appreciate your support at the HiFi gig.

A little over a year ago Tom brought two new songs to the table. In lieu of proper names and various other terribly mundane reasons we dubbed them ‘Bluesy Song’ and ‘Monkey Song’, names that have stuck in spite of having actual, proper, serious, grown-up names for them now. What followed was our compositional process of playing, recording our thoughts, listening to the recordings in between rehearsals, and repeating until we had something that felt good, and concrete (in this time we actually observed the same process fora song that I wrote, which was recorded in our first bout of studio time, but that was left out of the Better Things to Do mixes. It’s at this point that I am contractually obliged to say that the reason for this has definitely NOTHING TO DO with Tom feeling threatened by my songwriting prowess, and I am IN NO WAY bitter about any of the decisions that we have ever made collectively as a band, so just let it go, please).

I actually took a series of these rough recordings with me when I went on holiday last summer and, in a mildly obsessive way, listened to them near enough everyday, composing (or reworking) some of my parts whilst away and completing them on my return.

In between late August and December 2012 we continued to rehearse and gig regularly, testing these tunes alongside the tunes already in our repertoire, tweeking any bits that didn’t work so well in the live setting.We were fortunate enough to play some absolutely fantastic gigs during this time, including our second appearance at the infamous 100 Club in London, and the Exchange in Sturminster Newton where we supported the fantastic Jo Harman and her utterly ridiculous band.

Our first recording session for the EP began the weekend before Christmas 2012, at Active Audio Recording Studios, in Harrogate. Accompanied by the hilarious and equally talented sound engineer, Dan Mizen, we embarked on a long weekend of recording the various parts for the three tunes we had been rehearsing. For those of you who’ve been in the studio, especially when you’ve been there with a group of your best mates, you will know how easy it is for tempers to become frayed. It’s a real testament to the bizarre, and grotesquely calming influence of Dan, and I suppose to how much we all really loved the tunes, that whilst we were all shattered by the end of the recording process not once did we have any Take That-esque bust ups, which was lovely.

Having 2 songs in the bag (I think that I may have mentioned that we chose to discard one, which is absolutely fine, no qualms there) and after relocating to a new rehearsal space, we began writing again. This was actually a very productive period where we were in the position to choose from 3 or 4 new tunes to flesh out. We eventually decided on 2 of the new songs, one of which is still to this day affectionately known as ‘Sweaty Slutty Summer Song’ (the exact name is a little ruder), in conjunction with a revamped tune of Tom’s that he composed back when he was still a wee lad of just 17 years.

Back to Dan we went in late March 2013 to record these three new tracks. We all worked really diligently over the four days we were there,actually finishing the instrumental parts well ahead of schedule. In between songs Dan played us excerpts of artists whose production style he was going to try to emulate on our tracks- Dr. John, Finley Quaye, Dave Matthews Band, John Mayer, Marvin Gaye…

I can honestly say that I have never been more exhausted than I was at the end of each day in that studio, and I’ve run (and completed) “fun” runs in the past. And part of the worry is that because these songs are things that you obsess over, and I really mean obsess insomuch as it’s all you think about and listen to for extended periods of time, you lose your objectivity over them and you have to put your faith completely in everybody involved in the writing and recording process. Whilst we’ve not played the recordings to anybody else yet,we did play the new songs in our recent set at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival and the response from the crowd was just incredible; I’ve never bought into the notion of describing an atmosphere as electric, but that’s exactly what it was like- just phenomenal. It was just so rewarding to know that our hard work over the last year hadn’t been in vain.

The purpose of this little note is not self-aggrandisement,rather it’s an attempt at trying to convey just how much time and effort TGB have put into these tunes. This gig at HiFi on 14 June is a really big deal for us, not just because HiFi is a club that we all really admire, but because it’s our first home gig in ages and it’s a chance for us to show off our new tunes to our friends. The reason I’m making such a song and dance about the whole thing is that I have too much respect for my band to let us play to an empty room after the amount of work that has gone into creating this EP. As such, we would all really appreciate your help in packing out the club, and give us the chance to play our tunes to a room full of beautiful people (feel free to come if you’re not beautiful, we’re pro-equality in all walks of life).

If you book the tickets online from (http://www.tomgeemusic.com/eplaunch/) then you can get into HiFi for the meagre sum of £3. That £3 gets you entry to HiFi where you will see three bands, with TGB headlining those acts, and you then get FREE entry in FunkSoulNation which, if you’ve not been before, is the BEST funk and soul night this side of the Atlantic.

If you like what you’ve read and you want to show a little bit more support then feel free to ‘like’ the status accompanying this note, or go the whole hog and share this note if you think other people would be interested in reading it.

Thank you very much for your time.

Love,
Jamie