The Woodenboy Blogcast

There’s a cool article in today’s St Andrews Citizen about local singer/songwriter Beth Wilmshurst, who I blogged about earlier this year after recording her 3 song CD. Jester Studio gets a nice writeup that I’m really pleased with! Read the article here.

Oh… and it’s inaccurate too, Beth isn’t through to T in the Park yet, though it wouldn’t surprise me if that happens really soon.

I’ve just recently finished a few weeks of intense recording with two A Capella groups from St Andrews University, The Alleycats and The Accidentals. It has been a lot of fun, topped off by an excellent album release party at The Byre theatre. This is just one track from The Alleycats’ album “Meow That’s What I Call Music 5″.

 

 Ready Or Not: Play Now | Play in Popup

I haven’t posted in a long while because I’m working hard on 3 projects at the moment. One is a church worship album that I’m producing and playing on, the other two are A Capella groups from St Andrews. A LOT of fun but a lot of work!! Will post samples as soon as I have something ready

I was asked to compose music for a contemporary dance production for Dundee School of Contemporary Dance which will be performed on stage this Thursday & Friday night. It’s the first thing of this kind that I’ve ever done, and I’m quite pleased with how it sounds! I’m catching the Thurs night performance and hopefully I can grab a video of it to stick up here later on so you can see the other half of the collaboration.

© 2007 Jesse Duley

Subscribe in iTunes:

STAR FM is back on at www.standrewsradio.com, and my show is back on from 10-12 on Saturday nights. Tune in!

I’m writing this particular post from my hotel on 46th Street just off Broadway in New York City!  I’m having an absolutely amazing time but my poor feet are suffering as we’ve walked pretty much most of Manhattan over the last few days, taking in a LOT of the city’s sights, including the awesome view from the top of the Empire State Building.

Anyway, on Marie’s birthday yesterday we went to see Mary Poppins on 42nd Street/Broadway.  Marie couldn’t believe I’d bought tickets but in actual fact it was a great show!  Great performances from the cast, the inevitable hilarious attempts at cockney accents by American actors, and an orchestra that featured a guitarist who used an e-bow a lot.  Trust me to notice such things.

What I’m gutted about is that I don’t seem to be here during any of the good gigs at places like Birdland, Blue Note, Iridium, Sweet Basil, Village Vanguard or any of the other awesome clubs in New York where the likes of Mike Stern, Wayne Krantz and Ben Monder hold residencies.  I guess they’re all on vacation or something.  Ah well, something to come back for!!!

Here’s another random track from the demo CD I’ve been working on for my drummer friend Andrew Scott’s audition CD.  This one’s just a bit of fun… think 70s action TV show!

Last night my friend, who is just about to start working for Nonesuch Records, took me to see the first UK gig by the Punch Brothers. I have to admit to never having known much about Chris Thile, who turns out to be the most phenomenal mandolinist I’ve ever heard. Enjoy this amazing video!

• fxPansion have just released BFD2.  Redesigned from the ground up and featuring something like 55GB of drum recordings, this is a SERIOUSLY good library of drum sounds.  I’m having a lot of fun with this.
• Spectrasonics are now including all of their SAGE Expanders with Stylus RMX Expanded.  This is such great software for creative beats programming.
• I was sent a free upgrade to Sibelius 5 because I bought version 4 in the short while before it’s release.  Although Logic Pro has scoring features, they don’t even come close to what Sibelius has to offer.  I love this new version too.
• I’m still loving Logic Pro 8, it’s the best version yet.

I’ve been helping my drummer friend Andrew Scott record an audition CD for music college, for which we’ve been writing snippets of music in various styles. This is my favourite piece, based on some improvisation by Andrew on the drums, and also using the V-Drums to play the synth bassline. All the other instruments are played by me. Enjoy!!