Schools Tour

Present: Ad, Eg, Fea, Tom

Venues: Stanmore Primary School, Winchester; Winchcombe Primary School, Newbury; Hagbourne Primary School, Hagbourne; Rehearsal Studios, Newbury

An early start for a gig saw the band turn up at Stanmore School for 0900hrs. The boys made their way straight to the assembly hall while teachers made cups of tea and coffee as a welcome. There they hung around for the children to file in before being introduced to the school. The rapturous and enthusiastic applause was a bit of a surprise, but set the boys up for the rest of the day. Though it was very worrying to hear, and quite difficult to play through, some very out-of-time clapping by a few hundred children.

Oh, and by the way kids, no. It's not a violin, it's a ukulele.



For the next venue [Felix's school] Dominic joined up with the show to play drums. The band set up with plenty of space and when the children came in and settled Fea turned the whole show into a lesson of music and of co-operation. Nice. As an example of how awful not cooperating can be, he [seemingly off the cuff] asked each band member at a time to play a song that was different from what any of the others were playing. The cacophony got the point across before the set was embarked upon.

The children were so excited they were becoming 'unsettled' and the teachers who were sitting next to their classes, down the sides of the hall, were often making incursions into the crowd to get variously excited kids to sit down properly and behave.

The applause and cheering after each song was loud, appreciative and uplifting. It was as if Loopy were a proper pop band doing a proper gig to proper fans. Not that any of the band members would have admitted this, of course.



And onto Hagbourne. Eg's wife Shelley's school. Again, a similar reaction to each and every song. There was one kid who sat in the middle of the crowd with an amazing hair do. Like a white man's afro. One little boy came up to Tom afterwards and started talking 'Guitars'. One girl came up to Ad and looked up at him to ask if he was Scottish.

Not all the children in the front rows enjoyed the experience all of the time [front left].



The day ended with a rehearsal at Uprising Studios, Newbury - in preparation for the Gig at the Bear. Every one tired, exhausted and realising they couldn't possibly be a proper band doing proper tours.

Final Practice before the Schools Tour

Present: Ad, Eg, Fea, Tom and Dom

Venue: Uprising Studios, Boundary Road, Newbury

Ran through the songs to be performed at the three schools this coming Friday. All written on the lovely, fresh-smelling whiteboard. Using the pens with the unloseable caps.

Dom bought the boys a can of pop each during the break, seeing as they had behaved themselves so well.

Eg went home to write reports. Dom left at the same time. Ad, Fea and Tom went to a local pub for their post-Practice pint. They talked about the album cover; the arrangements for Friday's giglettes; Loopy-influenced nostalgia for the WAGs and Ad using North Moreton's The Bear as a kind of launch party venue. Tasteless.

Tobacco Mule, Kevin Whately for drummer and Massive TV Screens

Present: Ad, Eg, Tom

Lots of out of tune guitars this evening. Eg's scribbling down of all the wrong chords didn't help matters.

Eg's return from Dubai sees him playing Tobacco Mule for Ben. Ad and Tom's estimations for the non-duty-free price are way off Ben's reckoning. Eg wishes he'd charged him more.

Post Practice Pint Pub Prattle - Vegetable bar snacks; Loopy the Musical; Loopy television show ideas; how Eg could use Facebook; putting letters after your name; Job titles on business cards; massive television screens on back of aircraft seats - try not to be put off by what your neighbour is watching; Massive television screens in small hotel rooms; Eg's MBA presentation; Tom's busy work schedule; new Loopy T-shirts; the Chesterfields; which actors would play the band in Loopy The Musical - Tom imagines Kevin Whately would play Gi - Ad hopes for Jake Gyllenhaal for himself - Eg proposes Graham Norton for Fea.

Assembly Sessions Mixing and The Tommy Cash at Fulsomski Prison Gig that never was

Present: Ad, Fea, Tom

While Eg is nomadically roaming India marketing his merchandise to the membership of the Mumbai Magnet Massive it's time to mix and master the Assembly Sessions.

[Hmm?]

Problems encountered included things like;

• Ad, having tried to compensate for his backing vocals' volume by moving away from his microphone, has left Ben trying to compress them without picking up the rest of the noises in the room - something like that anyway;
  
• a very squeaky piano pedal halfway through the tracks;
  
• a terrible & rushed rendition of 'The Smile'.

Remarkably, Ben managed to remove the popping distortion of Fea's over-enthusiastic intimacy with his microphone during 'Hearts Pumping'.

Still, the intention continues to be one that foists this output upon the band's unsuspecting fan base. Whoever she really is. Or he.

Ben rightly points out that these 'Assembly Sessions' should be released after the album is ready/released/available/'out there'. Otherwise people will associate the songs with these versions rather than the actual superdooper studio versions. The boys reluctantly concede this point.

Ben's always right.

Git.

While Ben mixed and mastered, the three Loopy attendees scuttled off to the back room to rehearse for the Schools Tour on Friday 10th July. They think they've licked that tricky middle eight in 'Just Can't Get Enough'. Well, Tom thinks he's licked it at any rate.

'Sky Above My House', 'Sparkle You', 'Kingmaker' were also worked on. Interrupted by red wine and Tom's recollection of the time he was invited to play for a Polish Prison Warden at his prison in Gdansk. The Tommy Cash at Fulsomski Prison Gig. Perhaps.

Ben and the boys also tried to work out why there was a consistent 'dropout' at 4m 21secs on the 'Hearts Pumping' recording when it doesn't appear in the original Multitrack Session. To be continued, no doubt.

Some 'Karaoke' versions of the tracks were mixed for popcast bedding music purposes.

Other Practice Prattle: Loopy Number Plates; Deputy Head interviews; £36.30 a week for two people to live on; M&S bean salad that everyone could enjoy a little while after Tom had eaten it; Coach Trip on Channel4; putting on gigs with kids; pregnant ladies and their heightened sense of smell; ukulele'ing a campire sing-a-long.

[pictured - Coach Trip Tour Guide Brendan: Felix in 10 years]

The Assembly Sessions

Present: Ad, Eg, Fea, Tom

You're ten. At school. It's morning. Before lessons.

You 'single-file' into the Assembly Hall for the usual morning's mediocre musical moments with a resentful teacher on the piano. The head teacher spends the next 20 minutes trying to whip up a bit of enthusiasm for yet another feebly voiced rendition of 'All Creatures Great and Small'.

Well, as a treat, as a taster of the forthcoming album "Doing Somersaults", and as a gesture towards the forthcoming 'schools tour', Loopy spent this evening recording their own 'Assembly Sessions' while Ben was in the control room mastering the real thing.

These recordings will be freely available to visitors of the Loopy website.

Tom added some trumpet sounds to 'Corner of Your Mind' and a minor adjustment was made to 'Hearts Pumping'. Eg and Fea popped out to get some beer but were too late and returned with a bottle of Ribena and some tic-tacs. Ad and Tom recorded a small interview with Ben which will be available in the next Loopy Popcast.