bodega – Page 2 – Ferocious Blog

From Without (from within)..

Eeee! New Ferocious Dog songs ON MY PHONE!!

After a pretty full-on weekend of Ferocious Dog and a Monday morning fresh after the school holiday it was always going to be a bind to get to work this morning. Once I’d arrived and grabbed a sneaky breakfast I was settling down to get my to do list beaten into shape when my phone rang. It was Dan which was rather unexpected so I grabbed the phone and excitedly said yes when he offered me the chance to listen to a few rough-cuts from the new album recordings.

A link to Dropbox was duly texted through and after some faffing around I fashioned a way to have a crafty listen to the tracks whilst finishing off a Powerpoint presentation. Some were already surprisingly familiar from the live performances, some less so – one mentioned in a teaser post by Waggy on Facebook a few days ago. My remit is to review them without giving too much away – particularly the tracks that have yet to be aired on the tour as yet.

I’ve not quite decided how to tackle this so I’m free-typing on my keyboard in the hope that inspiration strikes. I posted earlier about listening to Ferocious Dog giving you the urge to drive fast – this evening I was home from Solihull in around 42 minutes – normally I’m happy if I’m not too far north of an hour. The new stuff, even pre-mastering, is clearly pretty heady stuff… I get the chance to hammer it to death over the next few hundred miles I drive to start to learn some of the words. I’d best start watching out for speed cameras.

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Freeborn Al / 13th April 2015 / Band, Gigs, Music / 0 Comments

The real derby day this weekend was in.. well.. Derby!

Scotty - proving to be a bit of a hotty with the Ferocious lady folk

Scotty – proving to be a bit of a hotty with Ferocious lady folk

Folk might’ve been getting excited about the Manchester derby this weekend, but for Hell Hounds derby day was the day before (although Dan at least I imagine enjoyed United’s 4-2 triumph over City this afternoon – nice belated birthday present!).

Derby is not far off a home town gig, really – and it shows, whilst Bodega sold out in around twenty minutes tickets for the gig at The Hairy Dog in Derby were gone in a little under an hour too I believe. Plenty of Hell Hounds made arrangements to congregate in places prior to coming together at the venue, for me I was continuing my weekend of being an itinerant hobo and staying with Lisa and Paul (along with Rachel) so I travelled into Derby with them, but not before meeting their newly acquired ferret!

It was straight to the venue via the chippy on the corner for us with Mel, and then once at the Hairy Dog, a rock bar with the venue upstairs, catching up with the countless friends out in force for the gig. Dave, a friend of Lisa and Ferocious Dog virgin, met us outside the bar, after sinking a few beers Dean elected it was my turn to go up on the surfboard – more on that later, a fairly unconventional and ungraceful performance on that front.

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Freeborn Al / 12th April 2015 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

The aftermath..

The day following a Ferocious Dog gig is usually a mixture of nursing a hangover, ringing ears, counting bruises and reviewing the steady stream of Facebook notifications that start to flood through as assorted pictures, videos and statuses are posted by similarly content but somewhat broken people. I guess most evening events are quite similar really – that morning after post-mortem helps re-live the excellence of the night before!

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Freeborn Al / 11th March 2015 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos, Videos / 0 Comments

Coming of age..

Getting ready to unleash hell!

It’s become a total musical cliche to talk about ‘that difficult second album’ – when would-be songwriters are faced with something other than drawing upon all their life experiences to date to pour into a debut album. With Ferocious Dog, given the slow-burn development from covers to own material to recording, then this task might seem even more gargantuan. Whilst the recordings are still the preserve of the select few until mixed, pressed and released – the first showing of the new stuff at Bodega last night bodes very well indeed!

Spending most of the gig in the eye of the mosh pit storm it’s nigh on impossible to appreciate the subtleties that undoubtedly exist in the new material. Fecking fast and energetic would be the easiest nutshell summary. It was frenetic, crafted and loud – my ears are still ringing! It makes the arrival of the forthcoming album all the more eagerly anticipated to me to get a chance to get a bit more up close and personal with the new songs.

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Freeborn Al / 8th March 2015 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands / 0 Comments

One more sleep!

You’d think after countless gigs you’d get a bit immune to seeing familiar performers repeatedly. Of course, seeing the Levellers in Buxton last night proves that’s not the case – and it’s certainly not the case with Ferocious Dog. Not to mention this will be their first outing with their new line-up in their home city, and playing tracks from the forthcoming album – so it’s not just a normal gig!

In case you missed it the Left Lion interview with Dan is online now, as is another interview he did with Nottingham Live – so if like me you’re pacing around anticipating tomorrow then give those a read to tide you over! They both really help to underline the fairly monumental few months the band have had – I was particularly interested to read Dan’s take on the shift in members.

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Freeborn Al / 6th March 2015 / Band, Gigs, Interview / 0 Comments

The tour countdown is on..

As the weekend comes to a close it’s definitely a time to contemplate the week ahead – and glossing over the not inconsiderable excitement I have at going to see the Levellers film screening and acoustic gig in Buxton on Thursday, there’s the small matter of Ferocious Dog commencing their tour on Saturday night at the sold out Bodega gig.

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Freeborn Al / 1st March 2015 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Thoughts / 0 Comments