High five kings and queens

"The high five is a celebratory hand gesture that occurs when two people simultaneously raise one hand, about head high, and push, slide or slap the flat of their palm and hand against the palm and flat hand of their partner. The originator of the high five is a subject of controversy.^[1][2] In the United States, there is an initiative to celebrate the third Thursday of April as National High Five Day.^[3]"


The high five is our greeting, our celebratory gesture, and a sign of rocky nest love (please see the photographs below, hopefully demonstrating what it may look like to receive a high five from each member of the band). If you bump into any of us in the supermarket, down the street, or in our local music emporium, we will only be too happy to provide you with a physical demonstration of this wonderful gesture. If we're too grumpy and refuse, you can report this to the high five hotline: info@therockynest.co.uk

Love from the nest xxx

Stop Nest Animation

March 2 - Stop Nest Animation

This might take a while to load properly, so give it a minute, but here is a stop nest animation of some of the band arriving at practice tonight at lovely Arc.



- Jonny Nest

Tuesday Night is Practice Night.

March 2 - Tuesday Night is Practice Night.

Oh yes it is.

Which is great news.

I love practice night, it means I get to hang out with seven lovely people and play music for hours and hours. How ace is that?

We do it on a Tuesday each week because, with eight of us, if we try to move it around and play it on a different night, it's tough to get everyone in the same place at the same time.

Tonight, I'm going to try to get some pictures and write about it later.

Basically, we go to this place called Arc, which is where Hannah Nest works, and they are lovely enough to allow us to practice after hours.

It's a lovely big triangle of a building and everything sounds great in there.

Also, we pay into the tea fund, and that means we are allowed to drink their tea and coffee. Yey.

Yey, practice night.

- Jonny Nest

Giving people the chance to hear your music.

March 1 - Giving people the chance to hear your music.

I was going to write this as a message to a friend, but I got part way through and thought it would make an alright blog post instead.

Earlier today I bumped into the friend I was writing to, James of Late Night Fiction outside Jack's in Beverley where we'd both gone to buy our respective lunches. We had a chat about gigging, touring, recording and the rest of it, as we tend to do whenever we bump into each other. (We work on opposite sides of the same street).

James was telling me about an event he had been to, where people from the recording industry, including someone from Polydor, were talking about the internet supplanting CDs in terms of music distribution.

Pictured: CDR production in full swing at Rocky Nest Towers.

Bands like Vampire Weekend can now climb high in the charts using 85 per cent download sales, something which would have been impossible just a couple of years ago. The line James heard was that due to the way the internet has changed things, it might be only a couple of years until the humble CD goes the same way as other now-defunct formats such as the minidisc, the tape and yes, even the wax cylinder.

It sounded really interesting, especially when we in The Rocky Nest are working towards producing a CD (rather than a CD-R) and all the costs that entails. I went away with plenty to think about.

Certainly when I buy a CD, it only tends to have a lazer hit its surface once - as my computer converts it for MP3 use - before it is filed on a shelf to collect dust. Call me old fashioned if you like, I still like having the packaging and artwork, but that is a small concern next to the music.

It took me a few hours, but a counter-argument occurred to me... and I'm sure I can't be the only one thinking it.

I know it might sound like I'm stuck in the past, but I honestly think gigging bands, and especially those without label-support, still need CDs.

Why?

This is in no way a criticism, but labels like Polydor can definitely monetise their operation through iTunes. This is because they have a roster of artists - Athlete, The Black Eyed Peas, Eminem, Lady Gaga, The Saturdays, Yeah Yeah Yeahs (just going on the front of their website) - who are going to be heard in a completely different circumstance than ours.

Many people hear the music of these bands when they are at home, on music shows and channels, on the radio, on adverts, and as incidental music in films and TV shows. Some of them might think "Yes, I like this, maybe I should download it" and there it is, the objective is instantly met.

For bands gigging independently, the aim of the game is often less about making money (because to be fair, just as we don't have the same resources a label has, we also don't have the same overheads) and more getting our music out there and hoping it strikes the same chord with listeners as it did with us as we wrote, played and recorded it.

The first step is to make sure people hear the songs, and it's really up to us to make that as easy as possible.

There is no magic bullet, and most of our recordings are only going to be picked up through getting out there as much as possible - going on tour, playing plenty of gigs, all-dayers and festivals.

So, what we need to do is make it as easy for any person at a gig to actually go home with the music we'd like them to hear. While playing, we need to be able to say something along the lines of: "This next song is on our CD. If you like what you hear you can buy a copy at the table at the back there... or just grab one of us as soon as we're off this here stage."

I think, you could also offer people the chance to go home and download your track, and they might think "Hell yeah, this band is ace, I will definitely download that."

But then they might have a couple more drinks, go home, and wake up the next day, maybe get a coffee, and forget to download it.

Not all of them, obviously. Some of them will remember. But I would be willing to wager that by not offering immediate availability, you will see a drop in the number of people listening to the music.

Basically by offering a download instead of a tangible CD, you've put a big barrier in the way of the audience member actually getting hold of your music, and that just doesn't seem a great idea.

I'm not saying bands shouldn't put their music on iTunes, I think that is also a great thing to do. Perhaps there is a forum out there of people who are interested in you, or people who keep an eye on you because they heard you a year ago, and they will grasp with both hands the chance to download the track. But for most bands, it's the gig goers who are the most likely to connect with the music.

I know, not normal blog fodder, but it got me thinking.

Maybe someone should do a trial, record two singles of roughly equal quality, pop one on CDR and one online, plug them both at gigs, and see which ends up being played more on Last FM.

Hey, maybe put one out on wax cylinder too, while you're at it, hit the all-too-often-overlooked 19th century demographic.

- Jonny Nest

Practice is ace.

February 25 - Practice is ace.

Practice on Tuesday night was ace. We gathered together as many amps and microphones as we could find, and did some live recording.

There was a crescent of amps around the drumkit - a range of shapes and sizes, it was impressive to behold.

We had loads of fun - I should have taken a picture for blogging reasons, but in amongst the playing of music, I forgot.

Sorry more-than-likely-imaginary readers, I am a low-class bloggist. I'll make sure to get a picture next Tuesday.

In the meantime here is a picture from a previous practice. Admit it, you can't even tell the difference.

I think this was in the summer at some point. It's quite light, and this was definitely an evening.

I picked this one of Wendy and Tom, because they look so happy and because in most band photos Wendy is hidden behind the rest of us, that's not very fair.

We also did an ace new song. There used to be another song with the same name, but it's very different now.

...You might already know this, but unless there is an over-riding reason to cancel we tend to practice each and every Tuesday. We've found that if we don't have a regular rehearsal slot it can be quite tricky to get all eight of us together.

We can spend a whole week each saying which days we are and aren't free.

There are just too-darn-many of us, clearly.

Maybe if there were more days than The Rocky Nest members, then we could sort this out.

Essentially we need an extra two days a week. I propose that they are placed between Saturday and Sunday and are counted as part of the weekend. Now, what shall we call them?

- Jonny Nest

What are the Rocky Nest Listening to Right Now?

February 21 - What are the Rocky Nest Listening to Right Now?

Hello everyone! I am Sally Nest, and I am poorly. Whilst the rest of the nest are in talks this very afternoon about our grand schemes for making our first pop video (very very exciting) I thought I would make a start on my blogular feature which can be easily done from the quarantined space of my bedroom.

I just asked everyone what their favourite song was currently and am going to post them up here. Since there are 8 of us, that is alot of ear candy for your very own ears!

I wasn't going to have winners, but Paul Nest is the winner at the moment for naming a song that I can't find the original of on Youtube, the obscure bugger that he is! I can only find a cover. Now, fingers crossed I embed the youtube videos okay and here we go!



1. Will Nest: Nite Becomes Day - Citizen Cope


2. Paul Nest: The Little Black Foal - Jake Thackeray (THIS IS A COVER)


3. Tom Nest: Everything Merges with the Night - Brian Eno


4. Wendy Nest: My Teacher Died - Diane Cluck


5. Izzy Nest: Jungle Drum - Emililana Torrini


6. Hannah Nest: Love is Strange - Mickey and Sylvia


7. Jonny Nest: Swans - Camera Obscura


8. Sally Nest: This Sweet Love - James Yuill


I hope you enjoyed our first installation of random ear candy! I'm going to check on my super spicy soup and get myself tucked back up in bed!

-Sally Nest

Mixtape magic

February 20 - Mixtape magic

On Thursday three of us, Han, Paul and I, went along to see one of Mikey's gigs That Exploded as did loads of our friends.


As well as getting to watch sets from Leeds' i concur, and Hull's Misshapen Lodge and Dead Sea Diver.


I'd not seen the Lodge before and I really enjoyed it. Known for being experimental, I wasn't sure what the Lodge'd be like - I sometimes have a tricky time when it comes to art with sound. But for my money when it comes to the blurry line where sound-art meets music, they were definitely where I'd want them to be.


You could hear influences from all manner of genres, and all sorts of bands in there. They also did the best dealing with a heckler ever. They gave him a massive wall of sound to the face.


It was lovely to see Dead Sea Diver too. I'd seen Landseer before, also featuring songs by Chris, but it had been ages, so this was a welcome return as far as I was concerned. I'm hoping for lots more gigs soon. Also Dead Sea Diver is a much better name.



But the other thing happening that evening, aside from the live music, was myriad recorded music being passed around.


Tom Wiles, one of the Lodge members, had instigated a mixtape swap, which Hannah and I took part in, alongside a fair few other people.


The tape I picked out of Tom's satchel was actually made by the very person whose idea it was in the first place.


This picture is the tape which Tom made for me.


I understand that as of just now he has also started a blog about this mixtape swap, called The Lost Art Of Making a Mixtape.


I thoroughly endorse the mixtape idea. It was a huge nostalgia trip to make a mixtape, I hadn't done that in years. And now I get to listen to a load of music selected by Tom, which I am really enjoying.


It really does bring home to me just how niche and gentle my taste in music in. Lord help the mixtapee who retrieved the tape I had put in Tom's bag.


(Pictured is the inlay of what Tom put on the tape I got)


One of the things which surprised me about the whole process, and I suppose shouldn't have surprised me at all, was how tricky it is to pick up C60 cassettes these days. There were some C90s out there, but I really wanted C60s.


After trying all the charity shops in Beverley on a lunchbreak, I eventually resorted to eBay. Who would have thought fifteen years ago that the blank tape would become such a tricky to find commodity by now.


Anyhow, I'm looking forward to future mixtape swaps now.


Hey Han, whose tape did you get?


- Jonny Nest