Happy to Feed a Smile!

I thought I would drop in and tell you a little about one of last weekends shows. January is always a bit strange with gigs and venues for working musicians. So many venues end up cancelling music or even closing all together which has a massive effect on my life as a full-time musician and of course on the venue owners too! I ended up having a few more dates available than usual this January and I was asked to perform an online gig within the virtual world of Secondlife. This time it was a little different though, as it was a Benefit or Charity Gig for Feed A Smile and Live & Learn in Kenya. I hadn’t played any Charity shows in Secondlife so thought I would check out the charity and what they provided and I decided to go for it.

 

check out these smiles 🙂

 

Here is how the gig works, people donate in a currency in which every 100 lindens (Secondlife Currency) exchanges to purchasing 1 hot meal. It is a really great way to view the show, rather than seeing the money exchanged and thinking about totals raised and it makes it so much more fun and engaging. During the live show, there is a board behind you which tells everyone how many meals you have managed to raise throughout the 1-hour show within the virtual world.

DennyMac on stage!

The full fundraising mission for Feed A Smile was 2 hours long for Sundays edition and there was a great musician performing in the hour before my own show called DennyMac who was a fantastic guitar player and played some great songs including some lovely instrumental original music he had written. After both our shows were finished and the donations were counted up we managed to raise an amazing 110 hot meals. How unbelievably amazing is it that with just 1 hour of my time performing a live gig, from the comfort of my own home, this can make such a huge difference and impact these lovely little kids, who are in need in such a huge way.

So yeah! I’m looking forward to working with them again in the future and helping out in any way I can and I’d just like to say a massive thanks to everyone who helped put this all together especially Brique, Lo , Sparkie, Robert, Lo Bloch Management, DennyMac and of course the lovely listeners who turned out for the show!

Il leave you with a little live video recorded by ‘Robert 69 little’ at the show! Go out there and be awesome my friends and do something great today along your way!

Amazing Adventures Always – Jason

 

 

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*bleep* you! I won’t do what you tell me!

In April this year, a post went up on Facebook by someone I didn’t know asking if any musicians would be able to record an acoustic cover of ‘Killing in the name of’ by Rage Against the Machine as a commission job for a couple who wished to have the song played during their wedding ceremony as they walk down the aisle.

 

Rage Against The Machine

 

A lovely friend of mine and music lover Sian saw the post and dropped me into the conversation with a lovely recommendation. I got chatting with the person who was dealing with it all for the couple and sent her a few YouTube videos over to check out my channel and before I knew the plan had been set.

So, my challenge was to cover ‘Killing in the name of’ and do it acoustically and send them the finished song. This week I’ve been getting busy in the Shagnut Studio Shack with it and to be honest it has been not only challenging but great fun as well! I love working like this and especially on something I would probably have never even had thought of either.

We’ve been sending posts back and forward in a group chat and checking out the progress and at the minute it’s pretty much there now. I am gonna add a little more guitar and some harmony in there and I reckon it’s sorted. I posted a snippet in the group yesterday and they are sounding over the moon with it so far so.. good news for me!

The wedding is on the 29th July this year and I’ve also decided to release the cover as a single on the same day of the wedding as a little hi-ho to the lovely couple who got me to work on this project and it will be out on most major platforms online! There will be a little explicit language so, unfortunately, no kiddies can listen in hahah!

Hope you are all well out there and looking forward to hearing the finished song!

Jason – Shagpile Music

#amazingadventuresalways

www.facebook.com/shagpilemusic

 

My new Covers Album is out now and available on Spotify

 

May you never (YouTube)

I have a new cover video up on my youtube channel this week! A cover of the amazing John Martyns ‘May you never’

I first heard a friend of mine performing this song at an open mic and buskers night I hosted with We Steal Flyers and the song stuck with me. I couldnt stop playing it as I was learning it. The rhythm and fingerstyle is so much fun to dabble with.

I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoy playing it!

Jason – Amazing Adventures Always

www.shagpilemusic.co.uk

The Sound of Silence

15.7.2016 The Sound of Silence – Johann Reichart the Executioner

In January of 2013, I performed a cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘Sound of Silence’ for my YouTube channel of videos. Sitting in my kitchen and recording it live whilst I practised.

Lately the band ‘Disturbed’ did a cover of the same song and it seemed to send quite a lot of traffic to my video with people commenting and telling me ‘Disturbed brought me here’ and the video is now heading towards 38,000 views…. now the good bit!

A month ago I got a comment on there by ‘MrBeck322’ saying ‘Love it!!!! Can I use your cover song in a video?’ and of course I replied with a yes but not knowing really what it was going to be used for.

A month later and I get an inbox with a nice message from Peter on my Facebook page with a link to a video. The track was used in a brilliant trailer for a theatre play about the last executioner of the Third Reich who was Johann Reichart and I had a look into what it was all about.

Johann killed 3165 people and among them were 250 women with a guillotine. Reichart is from a family of Bavarian executioners. He tried to escape his family tradition tried his hand at many different jobs and kept failing when people found.

When Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party rose to power, the enemy’s and death sentences were piling up so they needed an executioner. Reichart was the most successful in the business by this time and was rising to fame for being the fastest executioner of that time!

He was also know for being concerned for his victims. He never wanted them to suffer so he developed ways to increase the speed and changed technical procedures of the execution to aid this.

After the second world war he was imprisoned by the Americans for his role in the Third Reich but knowing they had a master executioner in custody and lots of Nazis which were waiting to be executed, the Americans decided to use Reichart to rid of his former bosses.

After that he had to go through his denazification haunted by his deeds and he became a depressive, his only son committed suicide and he died lonely and hated.

Here is the brilliant trailer they created for the Theatre production.

After a little bit more communication back and forth over Facebook, we discussed maybe writing some music for future productions and it all seems like a brilliant connection that came from nowhere. One minute your sitting recording a practice session in your kitchen and the next this. Great and unexpected things can come from such simple decisions you make.

I hope you have an amazing adventure filled time ahead and that you enjoyed reading my own latest adventure. Thanks for reading!

Jason

#amazingadventuresalways

We can be Heroes! Just for one day!

Waking up yesterday morning (10th of January) was a bit of a strange one and a sad day for so many people around the world.

I often have a lot of trouble sleeping and switching off from things and thoughts when I’m at home and I have never really been the kind of person to enjoy going to bed, sleeping and waking up,  although I feel like I am needing some kind of sleep a lot more than I have through out my whole life lately. If I lay on the couch with a movie on then you can pretty much guarantee I wont make it through it (even if I reeeeeeally want to watch the film) but sleeping when it is silent, is a lot of the time virtually impossible for me. If I do fall asleep whilst watching a movie,  I usually wake up once the film stops and quiet sneaks in.

Two nights ago I watched ‘American Ultra’ and I made it the whole way though it! Arrrrrr-yeshhhh!  It was a great film by the way. I then sat up and did a little work on the laptop and poked around Youtube a little afterwards. I headed upto bed around 3am and lay there for over half an hour staring at the ceiling, tossed and turned about the bed whilst my little noodle did silly things and I realised there wasn’t much chance I was gonna drop off to slumber land. I headed back downstairs, made a Batchelors minestrone cup-a-soup and decided to watch another movie to see if I could drop off and settle.But…. I watched that one all the way through too! I think I headed to bed somewhere around 5.30am and still didn’t feel tired at all, maybe just a little delirious! This can also be fun sometimes though  Muuuuahhahahha!

When I woke in the morning, some point heading towards 11.30am, I was kinda feeling like my head had been trampled on by a large heard of baby pink elephants. My normal morning routine, once I can eventually open my little sleepy peepers and focus is to grab my phone from under my pillow and see what time it is, see if I have any lovely messages from anyone, reply to all of those lovely messages and then open up facebook or twitter to see if the world exploded or imploded whilst I was asleep.

David Bowie had died of Cancer at the age of 69 and Facebook and Twitter was filled with feeds of the news, photos, his life, peoples sadness and his music! I was feeling a little ‘Ughhhh’ when I arrived that day and when I read the news, it didn’t help any and got me thinking about the whole Big ‘C’ a lot and how many lives have been taken lately from friends, family, the family of close friends, people in the public eye and also about people who are suffering and dying with the horrible and horrific disease right now in my life too. I have no idea what happens when our number is finally up and we slip out of this crazy world and I don’t think anyone will ever know and I feel that is part of the beauty and mystery of life. Hopefully it isn’t the ‘End’ but if it is, then I think I’d still be happy with that when my own time pops around the corner.

Although I wasn’t a massively huge fan of David Bowie, I loved a lot of his music and he was an astounding songwriter and musician. I loved his originality and how he brought that to his music and his personality. I used to perform some of his songs live and have spent lots of time learning them and listening to them throughout my own years. The response inside the online social world was amazing as it pretty much took over the whole internet and still is as I write this. Bowie left an amazing timeless legacy behind him and this will never be forgotten.

I pulled myself together, jumped up, grabbed a lovely coffee and thought about how lucky I am to have such an amazing life at the moment and great people around me who never fail to inspire me and support what I love and do. My family, friends ,loved ones, my two beautiful healthy babys, my own health, my freedom, a home and of course… ‘Music’ , without this and its many, many forms I think I would struggle to exist!

this morning at 2am, after reading different articles about Bowie online whilst I was listening to his music I decided to grab my pencil and sketch my own little tribute to Mr.Bowie for sharing his music and life and for being such an inspiration to millions of lives around our tiny little world and here it is!

My pencil sketch and little smily tribute to “David Bowie”

So…. before you run off, why not have a little think about a few things and try to leave here with an awesome smile like Mr.Bowie has above. I’ll give you a little point in the right direction with a few questions below to get the cogs turning.

What are you going to leave behind? What are you thankful for today? How and who can you inspire? How can you be a Hero today?  When is the next blog post coming from Shaggy? hahhaa… sorry I couldn’t resist!

Thanks for reading once again! We got there in the end didn’t we … phewww! I’d love to hear what your thoughts are in the comments below and maybe your own personal experience of Mr.Bowie if you have one. See you soon and keep the smiles alive!

Amazing Adventures Always as Mr.Bowie hopefully heads off on a brand new one!

Jason

 

 

 

“Outside In” review by Sleeping Bag Studios

The brand new album “Outside in” from Shagpile is available worldwide from the 12th of July and you can pre-order it on the 22nd of June from iTunes which will give you a free sneaky track nice and early so you can hear what the fuss is all about!!

We just recieved the first review in from Sleeping Bag Studios in Canada for the new album and we couldnt be more pleased with the write up. You can check it out below!

Shagpile – Outside In – Album Review

Well now!  I suppose a “Happy Anniversary” or sorts, is due to all involved today…

When we first started reviewing independent albums on the site, we were led to a tiny-two piece band way over in the UK called We Steal Flyers, and we reviewed their album Sidecars & Sideshows as we broke new ground of our own alongside this excellent duo.  And now after nearly a year has gone by, we get to experience another side of that band…errr…well, to be specific – one side of We Steal Flyers.  Jason Vare, aka “Shaggy” has come back to our site, in a new solo project called Shagpile with a debut album called Outside In – and we couldn’t be happier to have this gifted singer/songwriter find his way to our pages once again.

Now…I’d say that it’d be safe to tell fans of We Steal Flyers that they’ll certainly love what Jason has done here on Shagpile’s debut album.  The music is the beautifully toned and melodic mix you’ve come to know from him in WSF, but this album really goes the extra length in highlighting just what an important and integral part of the songwriting he is both in his band and in this new solo effort.  For fans of great storytelling in song, for those that like melody found in acts like Iron & Wine or David Gray – this new album, Outside In, is definitely made for you.

I’m a huge fan of genuine emotion in music – and I’m no dummy either.  Authenticity has been packaged and sold in the music industry for years and it can be tough to cut through all the bullshit we are served with daily.  I like it when music doesn’t sound forced.  I like music best…when it’s as REAL as this album is.

There is a fantastic quality in Vare’s voice that is completely addicting.  It’s not just the moments when his UK accent breaks through, no, it’s not that simple – this is a man that understands melody.  I think what I love most…that quality that I’m absolutely loving over here…are those tiny moments where he breaks slightly…or drifts away into the music.  Check out the Shagpile track “In The Morning” and you’ll get exactly what I mean.  On this track he attacks those vocals with powerful and trembling emotion…like…it almost sounds like these words meant so much to him that even recording them out loud nearly put him into tears.  Followed up by the isolated but hopeful-sounding “Smiles From The Dead,” I’m nearly in tears myself.  Vare should be incredibly proud of the beautiful recordings captured on Outside In, and the album itself should serve as a standard to the singer/songwriters out there; this is how you do it right.

Lyrically he’s writing from the inside-out to bring you from the Outside In.  Each track feels like he’s laying his soul’s-worth on the line; “You” and “Storytime” come along early in the album in real highlights.  Musically, this guy is always 100% spot on as well; a truly gifted and incredible acoustic-guitar player.  And it takes that kind of player to be able to make songs like “My Zombies” work!  I’m mean – this is acoustically driven music!  How in the hell did a zombie-reference get in here?  You’ll hear what I’m saying though – this track not only works, it’s a bloody-fantastic tune.

I’ll fully admit however, that when the tempo even picks up slightly…I’m almost waiting for him to drop it out and go slow again.  It’s not that tracks like “White Devil” or “My Zombies” will let you down – they won’t at all, and the album truly needs that diversity he’s planned into the flow to make the dynamics work as well as they truly do.  It’s just that Vare does SLOW so damn WELL!  Each example of him bringing it to a minimal place on tracks like “You” or “In The Morning,” show the real songwriter that exists inside him.  As the album closes on the epic “4am Lullacry” – it would take a lot to convince me otherwise…when this guy slows his music down, the world slows down with it…and it should.  It should stop completely…just for a moment, pause, think…and listen.

I’d go as far as saying you simply won’t find real emotions more genuinely recorded than you will on this album.  Vare has put his heart & soul into the songs on this Shagpile record, a common trait in all of the music he makes, which is something we now know ourselves.  Quiet, beautiful & acoustic doesn’t mean that music like this shouldn’t be out there making more noise all over the world, and it’s always my hope that truly fantastic songwriters like Jason Vare get recognized for their efforts by the masses one day.

There’s a really talented artist here, everything I’ve heard from his band to this solo effort has shown a commitment and dedication to beautiful songwriting beyond compare.  If he stays on this path and continues forward strong with this same dedication and heart in his music, no matter which project he chooses will have a massive chance of becoming known worldwide.  And each time the track “You” comes on…I get chills just realizing I could very well be listening to one of the most recognizable voices of our musical future to come.  Beautiful.  This album…is purely beautiful.

Jer @ SBS

Check out Shagpile at Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/ShagpileMusic
And be sure to check out what ELSE this guy gets up to in his band We Steal Flyers:  https://www.facebook.com/westealflyers

Update!! The Big 3 OOOHHHHH!!!

Well the 2nd album “Easy To Read” has being going well .. and im now working on a few tracks to kick off the 3rd.. I have one recorded and a few i’ve been playing around with so hopefully that should be here in the middle of the year sometime! Ive also added the new mailing list which is managed by Fanbridge for regular email updates about happenings in the world of Shagpile. You can find this on the contact page of http://www.shagpile.org.

Ive also added a Giglistings page for my Online Gigs in the world of Secondlife to the homepage as well so you can now check for upcoming secondlife gigs .. for all you SL peeps!! Ive also added them to my giglistings on the myspace page aswell.

Ive got some great gigs coming up too as part of the Acoustic Magic Team this year supporting some great artists.. The first being Greg Griffin of the band “Proud Mary” on the 17th May , another is Chris Helme who was the voice of “The seahorses & The Yards” and a great one which I cant wait for is Mark Morris of “The Bluetones” which is gona be fantastic! The Marc Morris one will be @ The Steamboat in Blyth.. If anyone is wanting tickets for any of the gigs just contact me by email… These are all happening this year.

Also il be having my 30th Birthday bash at the Isabella on the 15th of may and theres gona be loadsa live music for the Bellacoustic night Special.. including Hague, Daryl Burns, Snatchbag , Clear Blue Skies, William West, Micky Oliver and myself… so drag ya butts down and sing Happy Birthday TO SHAGGY!!!!

WEHEEYYY!!!!!!!!! Well they reckon life starts at 30.. il tell you my verdict after the weekend.hahahhaa

Cya for now .. Shaggy!