If you’re in a hurry, the headlines are: I Supported Frightened Rabbit.  I Released my EP.  I Played some more gigs.  I did a House remix of Don’t Lead Me On from the EP and plan to do more.  I played a live radio session.  I’m writing a lot of new songs at the moment.  The gallery below has more details for you, just hover over a picture for some narrative or click for a closer look.  First up is a video from the FRabbit gig!
-Stephen x

Benjamin Barker Sessions ~ 02/07/2011 from Dylan Drummond on Vimeo.

Thanks to everyone who’s bought the ‘Memories + Tragedies’ EP so far…if you’d like to get yourself a copy it’s now available online from:

• iTunes
• Spotify
• http://stephenflavahan.bandcamp.com

 And from the following shops: 

• Groucho’s, Dundee (Highgate)
• LOVEmusic, Glasgow (Dundas St)
• Avalanche Records, Edinburgh (Grassmarket)

Lastly: I played a live session on Celtic Music Radio, online and broadcast MW.  You can catchup listen at http://t.co/7sqz1Fs Pretty much an hour of music, chat about Scotland qualifying for the World Cup, a few live tunes & chat from me and one track from the EP.

At the risk of cursing myself: I’m writing at a rate of noughts at the moment, completely loving it and raring to get the new stuff out live.  Where the first EP mostly evolved from songs I could play a reasonable rendition of live and on my own, at the moment I’m getting to write with the luxury of knowing “I have a live band to play this stuff with”. As a result the new tunes are probably a good bit punchier and less navel-gazing.  But I’ll let you be the judge of that when you see them live.  In the mean-time check out the EP cos it’s all you’re getting!

OK, twist my arm, here’s that house remix I did with my ex-Scottish Unis Basketball team-mate Daniel Donnelly who is an excellent house DJ and remixer.  More of these to follow. (4:19 to 5:00 is my favourite bit)

There are 3 tracks to preview and download now, ahead of the release on Thursday 16th June 2011 when all 7 tunes will be playable in their entirety.  I’m also bundling in some sheet music, video and things with both packages.  The EP will also be available from iTunes and a few independent record stores in Scotland from the 16th of June.

I really hope you like the songs.  Some of them have been a long time coming, and some are so recent that they were bottled at source in the studio.  I’m not going to explain/celebrate/defend them too much, that’s where the listening is hopefully fun for you.

At every stage of putting the release together there have been decisions to be made (song selection/artwork/where to record/with who), and contributions from other people, which have turned a clutch of my tunes into a finished piece of work.

I’m not claiming I got all of the decisions right, but I certainly don’t regret any, and the contributions others have made to the album has made it better than I could have fairly hoped.  I’d like to specifically thank Doug Walker and Innes Morrison for breathing life into the thing and sticking with me through this whole effort.  Marcus Mackay, for skilfully and patiently producing an album from the sounds we were capable of making.  Carlo Acosta, for lending his skills on trumpet at short notice and with good humour.  Rachel, for absolutely everything.  My family and friends, for encouraging me at every turn to keep on with this thing.  I also would never have started this thing without my Dad and I’d not have finished it without my Mum.

If you do decide to buy a copy, thank you very much for your support, I hope you get something out of it and enjoy listening to it.  I’m pleased to be getting to share my music with people and every download/CD purchase goes into the war-chest to fund the next one.

I had a gig with The Boy Who Trapped the Sun and Vic Galloway (BBC Radio Scotland) in December.  And then they both got snowed-in to their respective houses.  On the bright side  I got the ‘headline by default’ slot and Jim Gellatly (Amazing Radio/The Sun) took the reins as MC and was really enthusiastic about the set. 

Photo by: Katie Anderson

I also met Rose Parade who were standout nice lads with some great tunes and they invited me down to Ayr to film a ‘kitchen session’ with them which will hopefully be later on this month.

I supported Bombay Bicycle Club at Daft Friday at the Glasgow University Union.  Easily the biggest gig we’ve played in terms of headline band and event (Daft Friday is a 100 year old black tie event that goes on till 6am on the last day of uni term before Christmas) and I was one of only 3 acts playing the main Debates Chamber stage. 

Unfortunately at our stage time of 9pm the doors were still shut to the Debates Chamber.  Since every minute delayed starting was coming off of our set, probably not BBC’s, we opened the doors ourselves and Pied-Piper-ed in a crowd over the course until we’d gone from zero bodies comfortably into triple figures.  Not quite the sweaty 1400 capacity we’d convinced ourselves it’d be but good craic anyway.

Boxing Day saw me on stage at the Doghouse, Dundee opening for The Law playing a solo set.  The Law are a cracking band with some properly anthemic tunes, I’d mentioned them in a previous post  and even booked them when I was running an event for the Glasgow Uni Sports Association.

Their new album has just been finished, keep an eye out for it.

I met Miles Kane…top guy, very like a suit-era John Lennon and one of the most natural performers I’ve seen with a guitar and a mic stand. Impressed.

A chance meeting and some indirect channels got me in touch with Marcus Mackay of the Diving bell lounge recording studios about recording my EP.

Photo by Innes Morrison

He’s bloody excellent.  With credits for Snow Patrol/Frightened Rabbit/The Reindeer Section/Three Blind Wolves/Bronto Skylift/Sparrow and the Workshop it was just a question whether I would be any good.

4 photos by Innes Morrison

2 days of recording and editing bashed out 7 tracks, including a couple of one-take acoustic tracks, to make up my EP.  They’re just finished being mixed, and I’ve got the artwork done to boot.  Hopefully aiming for a mid-May release and tour to boot, watch this space. 

Photo by Innes Morrison

My brother-in-law has opened a gentleman’s barbershop in Dundee: Benjamin Barker – Gentleman’s Barbershop. Quality guys cuts, wet shaves, the whole lot.  As a little side-project, Keith has also started the ‘Benjamin Barker Sessions’, intimate music shows in the shop with a mix of up and coming and established bands and the whole thing gets taped. 

I played at the launch party/first session and again two weeks ago supporting The View there who played it as a secret show to maybe 40 people.  It was a way for them to make a couple of live session videos for promoting their new album ‘Bread and Circuses’. 

Photo by: Rachel Lindsay

The album’s on repeat in my car and it’s really really really good.   Closer in style to their debut than the horizon-pushing ‘Which bitch?’ but still builds on their catalogue with a mix of poppy anthems, big ballads and quirky dittys. 

The repeat listens helped when I was roped in to soundcheck with them because Kyle and Keiren were running late.  But the boys did turn up and zipped through some new tunes and finished with a raucous version of  The Beatles’ ‘The Best Things in Life are Free’ (“especially if you’re from Dundee”) and the place went bonkers.  A right good gig. If I get a hold of the videos soon I’ll point you to them.

4 photos by Innes Morrison

First off, The View playing at the QMU in Glasgow on their UK tour.  I’d mentioned in a previous post that I’d come back at least once to talking about The View since they’ve been such an influence on me as an example of how to get yourself to where you want to be in music, and I’ve seen them do it at close enough quarters to pick up some tips and get an idea of what it takes.

It’s not too much to say that the success of The View has had a bigger cultural impact on the City of Dundee than anything else that’s happened during my lifetime.  I know… that does sound like a lot.  But it’s true.

Since their star started rising, the average hair-length of Dundonian males has increased 4inches.  There’s been an explosion in the number of bands: some inspired directly by their musical output, some inspired to rebel against it and take Dundee music in a different direction.  My take is that most have been jolted to action by seeing ‘one if their own’ become successful. 

In Bangalore, India, every schoolkid wants to get into IT.  Arbroath High School has a successful basketball programme, so year on year the whole school aspires to play and excel at basketball in a country otherwise dominated by football.  Dundee now has a visible example of success in music, and it’s making kids pick up instruments.  

Jute, Jam and Journalism had all but left town, and the young generation weren’t going to be buoyed by the sight of a dock-bound wooden ship or medical advances happening behind closed doors at Ninewells Hospital.  For a city that was losing, or had lost, it’s self-image, having a local cultural output get national acclaim let young people reassess what they thought Dundee was and what their own horizons were. 

And for the band leading the renaissance to have swagger, and personality, and a strong Dundee accent, and a chip on their shoulder about whatever you want to talk about, the effect was magnified ten-fold.

I used to play in a band with Keiran (Bass/Vocals) and Pete (Guitar) and I’ve known Kyle (Vocals/Guitar) and Steve (Drums/Barfights) since I was 6.  I got to catch up with them before the show and they’re still doing their thing, still hungry, still got something to say and prove.

As for the show, I don’t think there’s a better live band in the world right now.  Their second album ‘Which Bitch?’ shows they’re recording material better than 99.9% too.  In gig, the crowd still has a riotous/religious response to them.  And I don’t see it slowing down any.  Up The View.

Beach House I know very little of personally.  And I didn’t go to school with them.  But their music is beautiful.  If Teen Dream (Not to be confused with the Katy Perry album Teenage Dream) is not in your music collection go out and get it.  In fact if it is but it’s not in your CD player right now, playing, go and buy a second copy and play that one.  Buy it on tape too.

I wouldn’t be surprised if I never see such a fantastic band, so at the height of their powers, in such an intimate gig ever again.

Me in brief: After putting the hours in, my KORG is now gig-ready. 

I debuted it last night at MacSorley’s…easily my best show, easily the least a pub has been bothered.  Can’t win ‘em all!

Very excited about Pivo Pivo on Saturday with Vic Galloway and The Boy Who Trapped The Sun. 

Audio Lounge is definitely my favourite rehearsal space. Great rooms, great kit and great owners. £3/hour during the day and 90p for a roll and sausage. 

Finally, I’ve managed to get the opening slot at at The Doghouse in Dundee’s Boxing Day gig, which is probably the closest thing I’ll ever get to a homecoming gig.  Although I never played at the Doghouse when I lived in Dundee.  And The Doghouse has since moved to a new set of walls from when I saw my first ever gig there (Elbow, fyi) and it became The View’s crucible.  So not exactly a homecoming.  More like visiting a childhood friend’s parent’s new house.  Whatever, I’m really glad to be playing at what is one of the biggest gigs of the year in the Dundee music calendar.

PS – Dunno about where you are, but the weather here’s been sh*t.

7 photos by: Darren Eggenschwiler

Managed to fit in another slice of musical hero spotting slash meeting. Jose Gonzalez last month and James Walsh of Starsailor this month.  He played a stormer, took spontaneous requests mid-set, went the extra-mile sourcing a string quartet just for the Glasgow show and played a mix of Starsailor anthems and some great new material.

They say you shouldn’t meet your heroes, but so far mine have been, without exception, very cool.  I think the context of a Glasgow gig has a way of localising visiting musicians too.  Jose Gonzalez, Swedish and with an Argentinian background, got cheered on during his encore with “Go on yersel’ Joe”.  James Walsh was re-dubbed “Jim” for most of the show at Oran Mor.  Great city, Glasgow.  Not many like it.

I got the chance to hear my friends Craig and Richard’s band, Poor Things, live for the first and second times.

Stage Left?  Stage Right?  It doesn’t matter…they’re Poor Things, they’re ambi-turners and they’re here to knock your chuffing door down.  A home crowd at the GUU Open Mic and an enthusiastic mixed one at The Captain’s Rest got to catch a band with some sparkling songs and enough hooks and swagger to make a proper show of it.  Eyes peeled, people.

I made my last planned investment for a while too… World, this is Bess. Bess, the World. Got her ever so slightly 2nd hand (we’ve all got baggage) and I now need to adjust to the fact she’s a thoroughbred electric (Fender Blackout Telecaster) and needs regular exercise beyond frets 1 through 4.  Bar chords count, right?

I’ve upgraded my recording software from Audacity to Cubase LE4 (bundled with my interface) and I’ve been putting in the hours along with Doug on drums to start rough-drawing of the EP.  As soon as it’s fit for you, it’ll be up here.

Last but definitely least… Mis-placed graffiti or warning sign that the nation’s baker is being controlled by insurgents? Opium/Steak bakes…they’re both more-ish. But I’m guessing someone was just being a tw*t.

My mum and my big sister (not pictured) organized a walk across the Tay Bridge, Dundee (pictured) in memory of my Dad and raised over £13,000 (not pictured) for pancreatic cancer research

 I went to see French Wives and Two Door Cinema Club at Glasgow University Union during freshers’ week and they were both magic.

Played at The Liquid Ship with Innes on bass.

I had a week’s holiday in La Palma, Canary Islands (it was sunnier than this most of the time)

I went to see Junip play at The Arches, Glasgow…saw Rachel Sermanni playing support who’s friends with James Mackenzie and The Aquascene who I mentioned in an earlier post.

  And best of all got to have a chat with Jose Gonzalez, who’s one of my musical heroes.

Tested out Lo-fi studios in the city centre for recording a 4-track EP, nice place and friendly staff…expecting to book some engineer time in a fortnight.

 And last but least least, my next gig is next Thursday at Gallus, Glasgow…

The booker Martin says:

“I saw Stephen at Bar10 a few months ago and said I would fight him if he didn’t come and play. Excellent performer and lyricist.”

Come along and find out if he’s smoking reefer or not.

If you haven’t heard of them, SXSW and MIDEM are events where the music industry (or a good portion of it anyway) descends on Austin, Texas or Cannes, France respectively for a week of meetings, discussions, gigs and parties.

For bands with a bit of a following in their own market they’re a unique chance to catch some international attention and maybe even sign on some dotted lines.  My friends ‘The Law’ from Dundee, who I managed to book for a show at the Glasgow University Union last year, have played there the last two years and it lead to them getting a song placed in a George Clooney film trailer from it (click their logo to see it)…

I managed to blag my way in to the ABC and while the talk definitely wasn’t geared for me at present (I’m about £8k and several good festival appearances shy as it stands) it was a good chance to meet other people working, or hoping to work, in the music industry in the Glasgow area.

Specifically, I got to bump into, and apologise to, Ben from ‘Over the Wall‘ who months ago I’d given some drunken banter about the genuinely impressive quality of his moustache.  Turns out he’s in an amazing band too, check out the great video (click on the picture) for their song ‘Thurso’ which will get stuck in your head for ages.

Anyway, on my way out of the door, I bumped into the promoter from Pivo Pivo, Gary, who told me someone had just been talking to him about booking me.  Let’s bear in mind that at the moment I’ve played less than a dozen shows in the last year and have zero recordings of my stuff on the internet.

It turns out that the friend of a promoter had been at the BOX show last saturday and recommended me for a gig in December supporting ‘The Boy Who Trapped The Sun‘ (a band I was watching play at the Snow Patrol gig at Bellahouston Park only weeks ago) and hosted by BBC Radio 1′s Vic Galloway.

Roll on December.

PS – I fixed the bad karma of Bar Ten last night: Played a good set, finally met Dochan who’s thrown me several shows on nothing more than a prayer and got a headline show at Gallus booked up for the end of October from local musician, blogger and promoter Martin McGlauchlin who was at the show. 

Anyway, back to Scotland… played BOX on Sauchiehall street last night, easily the biggest crowd I’ve played to (obviously school talent shows and ‘turns’ at family parties not-withstanding).

The place was rammed since it was a saturday night right in the town centre and through some unsolicited heckling (“Brown-eyed girl!”/”Gies Kasabian!”) we managed to get through a pretty good set.  Though I’m fairly sure it wasn’t rammed because they knew Stepehen Flavahan was playing: promotional mis-spell of my name vol. 3.

Being the third show with Doug on drums, we decided it was all getting a bit too easy and threw in a new tune ‘Figured It All Out’ (if you want to know what I figured out, come to a show) which had him clambering out from behind his kit to play a second guitar and sing some backing vocals.

It was also the first show for Innes on bass since putting down the lens (photos courtesy of Innes’ camera and his girlfriend Katie!).  With 2 hours notice that he was able to play (I’d initially been booked to play the show just me plus drums) he turned up and landed the full set. 

We managed to get the Kasabian Hecklers dancing after their intial grief had passed.  I also got an enthusiastic offer to play a session for a local student radio station from a girl at the gig…I’ll let you know if anything comes of that.

The band after us were Motherwell-based ‘Mistake Face‘ who we’d grabbed some food with before the show.  Good lads and they put on a tight show about 5 times as loud as ours to close the night.

Shout out too to the boys from ’Johnny Reb‘ for coming along to see the show.  They’re good pals and definitely a band to try and catch before they get massive.  September sees them heading off to Portugal to record an album with Boz Boorer, long time bass player and musical director with Morrisey.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Two gigs just confirmed for me today…thursday night at Bar Ten, Mitchell Lane (off Buchanan St) from 9pm, and Thursday 16 September at The Liquid Ship, Great Western Road - both free entry.  After that I’ll be taking a short gig-break to get into the studio to record.

The difference was pretty marked from my first solo effort there and made for a much punchier show.  We got a great response from a decent-size crowd, and Innes, who’d come along purely to take some photos, came up at the end offering to play bass with us.

Photo by

 2 Photos by Innes Morrison

Later the same week, I had a gig at the Liquid Ship’s ‘Free Candy Sessions’, which is normally an acoustic night but we decided Doug should come along to play on a stripped-back kit with a set of rutes (light drumsticks). 

Again, it wasn’t a massive crowd but the room really got into the tunes with us.  It was fun for us too because with one live show and plenty of practices under our belts together, I knew we could play the set no problem, so this was a chance to muck around with the songs a bit…changing up their rhythms to fit the acoustic mood better and keep them fresh for us.

Last Thursday I had a gig at Bar Ten on Mitchell Lane in the city centre (very cool wee bar by the way)…and I was f*ckin terrible!  Awful performance.  Was a bit gutted about it at the time.  Everyone was nice afterwards and said they’d really enjoyed it, but there’s plenty of bullsh*t flies around straight after a live show and I just knew myself I was a bit sketchy. 

Not to worry though, one poor show doesn’t make me want to jack it in…it just reminds me I need to be sharp for every show.  I think it being the first show without drums since starting to practice with Doug meant I was left hanging where I’d gotten used to a drum fill and I miscued a few times being my own metronome.

The Bar Ten guys kept the free Red Stripe coming long after my set though, so I had a good few with one of the other acts, John Rush, who has an outstanding voice (www.myspace.com/johnrushsolo) and we talked about the small gig circuit and trying to carve out some breaks for yourself as a musician in Glasgow.

Then on my way home I nestled into the re-heated bosom of the golden arches for a burger cuddle.

It’s just like the old adage…”Rome didn’t have an amazing gig every day”…or something like that.

PS – I got comp tickets to see Rod Stewart at the SECC last week, he was great.  Great performer and an absolutely unique voice.

PPS – I also stopped by King Tut’s last week and saw Glasgow’s most up and coming rapper, Kobi Onyame.  Definitely a guy on the rise, and I got to see my mate Ifedade playing some excellent session drumming for him.

PPPS - Sorry for the super long post, I’d let a few things I wanted to write about slip past and I’m probably gonna be busy for the next while so expect some radio silence.  To make up for both counts, here’s a pic I took in my local takeaway about 3am after the liquid ship gig with Doug, it absolutely made my night.

I’ve got a logo, I just haven’t posted about it yet and I’ve just changed my site’s header banner to match.  I’ve bought the domain  http://stephenflavahan.com and mapped my blog to it (It cost about £15 for two years which I thought was pretty decent).

I’ve been learning a bit about wordpress.com versus wordpress.org and now realise that I can’t fully customise my page (I just want to change the green font to black or blue) without paying for an upgrade.  I’ll live with that at the moment but will be updating my myspace to match next.