Posts Tagged: gig

2021 Summary

December 12 drums, gig, jacob hilton, john seaton, remote sessions, samuel lane, samuel nicholson, session, studio, vineyard worship

It was great to properly get back to work this year as restrictions were lifted and the world opened up. In the summer I finally started playing shows again, as well as continuing to record both remotely and in studios throughout the year. Here are some highlights from the past 12 months.

Live

My first gig back after a 14-month break was a joyous London headline show in May with Samuel Nicholson. After working on a record with Sam last year, I loved playing his amazing songs in a live setting with the same band. Despite some restrictions still being in place (limited capacity, all seated), it was a really fun night with an attentive and appreciative audience, and led me to realise how much I’d missed live performance!

In August I played David’s Tent festival for the first time with Samuel Lane. It really is a special place that you can only experience by being there – 72 hours of continuous worship with thousands singing together is an amazing thing. We had a killer band made up mostly of our St Albans Vineyard worship team; it was great to be there with close friends as well as catching up with other pals from around the country. Definitely one of my favourite gigs, and I look forward to hopefully returning soon.

Studio

I got to visit some new studios this year, starting with Brighton Electric in April with the lovely John Seaton. We tracked a single with producer Matt Fury, who I worked with last year on Lydia Evangeline‘s ‘Strange’. John and Matt were both a pleasure to work with, and we got some great low and crunchy tones in the studio’s spacious live room. This was also my first in-person session since the start of the pandemic, so it was refreshing to actually be in a room and collaborate with other humans again!

I worked with John again later in the year at Lightship 95, as well as another artist called Electric Pylon Radio. Lightship is an incredible studio located on a boat moored on the Thames that I’d wanted to record at for a while – in addition to the unique setting, it has a lovely vibe and lots of fun vintage gear to play with. Check out the finished EPR track here, produced and mixed by the great Giles Barrett: https://soundcloud.com/electricpylonradio/start-again

Remote

I did more remote sessions this year than ever before, making the most of my new space at The Factory Studios in Harpenden. I got to work with both old and new friends from around the world (including Italy, USA, Australia and Hong Kong) on a variety of material, all of which I’m really proud of. One of the highlights was this track for singer/songwriter Jacob Hilton, which suited my musical taste down to the ground:

Another was ‘Prayer Of Consecration’ for Vineyard Worship, produced by Rich DiCas. I’ve been involved with the Vineyard movement for almost 10 years and grew up listening to its records, so it was a joy to finally get to play on one. I’ve worked with Rich before as part of Marc James’ band and we always connected musically. I enjoyed the chance to work with him in a different capacity here – thanks for the call Rich! I was really pleased with how this song came out, with a beautiful vocal performance by Olu Meduoye.

You can check out some of my other favourite remote recordings here, and do get in touch with any enquiries:

I’m looking forward to more of all this next year as things continue to open up and the music industry bounces back. Huge thanks to everyone I worked with in 2021!

2018 Summary

December 12 alex tinlin, call me loop, drummer, drums, gig, harry phillips, longfellow, martin luke brown, memmy, omyo, session, simon treasure, studio, thunderson

2018 was a big year for me both professionally and personally. Here are some of the highlights.

January

The start of the year brought a session at AIR, a legendary studio which has always been on my bucket list. I played on a couple of great songs with singer/songwriter Martin Luke Brown and guitarist Matt Zara which are yet to be released – stay tuned.

February

View this post on Instagram

Went with the old faithful for today’s tracking

A post shared by S I M O N T R E A S U R E (@treasuredrums) on Feb 28, 2018 at 9:11am PST

In February I was busy with remote sessions from my own space, tracking for artists including Alex Tinlin and Thunderson. One of the tracks I worked on was mastered at Abbey Road and is available here.

March

View this post on Instagram

18 hours in Berlin with @omyomusic

A post shared by S I M O N T R E A S U R E (@treasuredrums) on Mar 3, 2018 at 9:28pm PST

This year I started working with pop duo OMYO as their MD and drummer, which has been a lot of fun. We played a show at the nHow Berlin in March.

April

April took me to LA with Longfellow to play a showcase at MusExpo, a prestigious industry conference. It was great to play my first US show and explore LA with the lads. We also released two new singles in 2018, Plasticine and Therapy, both out on Spotify.

May

I’ve continued to play with Samuel Lane regularly at the Vineyard Church St Albans. In May we played a set at Big Church Day Out festival, including several tunes off Sam’s new album The Difference. The record is fantastic and features drumming by Aaron Sterling, one of my favourites – was a treat to dig in and try to do justice to his parts.

June

This month brought the first OMYO headline shows with a full band, in London and Oxford. Both were really successful, and it was great to see everything come together after lots of planning and rehearsals.

July

View this post on Instagram

Just finished two glorious days of tracking for @blustinjoseph’s EP with @danielwheeldon at the helm and @charliethorntonagram on bass. Can’t wait to hear the finished record

A post shared by S I M O N T R E A S U R E (@treasuredrums) on Jul 18, 2018 at 10:32am PDT

In July I worked on a great EP by another Vineyard worship artist, Joseph Blustin, with my pal Dan Wheeldon producing. We tracked drums, bass and guitars at Dan’s studio in St Albans, then keys and vocals at Canvas Studios in Birmingham with Dave Plumb. The EP is now up for pre-order here.

August

I was fortunate enough to play several festivals with Call Me Loop this summer, including RiZE in Essex, where we played the second stage, and Belfast Vital. The latter was my biggest show to date, supporting Zara Larsson and Martin Garrix with a 20,000 strong crowd.

September-October

View this post on Instagram

Great time tracking a couple of @memmy_strat’s tunes at Livingston the other day with @mottsyj at the helm

A post shared by S I M O N T R E A S U R E (@treasuredrums) on Oct 27, 2018 at 2:44am PDT

I was busy with traditional sessions over this period, working with Harry Phillips at Resident Studios in Willesden and Memmy at Livingston Studios in Wood Green. My new Gretsch USA kit sounded lovely on both.

November

View this post on Instagram

Had a blast with the gang at @callmeloop’s headline show last night. Here’s a cheeky band moment from the end of Association

A post shared by S I M O N T R E A S U R E (@treasuredrums) on Nov 17, 2018 at 6:23am PST

November featured a headline show with Call Me Loop at Camden Assembly, her second to date, which was sold out and went great. It’s been a pleasure to work with Georgia over the last couple of years; looking forward to more shows in 2019.

December

View this post on Instagram

Last one from @thebookhousestudio, wide open and high for some Bonham flavours

A post shared by S I M O N T R E A S U R E (@treasuredrums) on Dec 29, 2018 at 10:32am PST

Towards the end of the year my buddies Tom Hill and Ian Hansen set up a new studio in SE London called The Bookhouse – I spent a lot of the month helping them out and doing some tracking there. It’s a relaxed, vibey space with high end gear, check it out if you need anything recorded.

Lots more to come next year; follow me on Instagram and subscribe to my YouTube channel to keep up.

Festival Season

May 5 call me loop, festival, gig, longfellow, omyo, samuel lane, summer

I’ve got a nice run of festivals this summer with a few different projects, so thought I’d post the dates here. Come and check them out if you’re able to.

5th May // Live At Leeds // Call Me Loop
17th May // The Great Escape // Call Me Loop
26th May // Big Church Day Out // Samuel Lane

7th July // Festival Of 50 // Longfellow
14th July // Thame Town Music Festival // OMYO

4th August // Neverworld // Call Me Loop
17th August // Rize // Call Me Loop
24th August // The Big Feastival // OMYO
25th August // Vital // Call Me Loop
27th August // Manchester Pride // OMYO

2017 Summary

December 12 drummer, drums, festival, gig, holiday oscar, istanbul agop, LOOP, lucio & dina, marc james, music, recording, remote sessions, session, simon treasure, studio, tour

This time I thought I’d just pick a few of my favourite moments from the year.

Favourite Gig

Playing with Holiday Oscar at Bestival in September was a real highlight. Everything came together for this show – the vibe was super relaxed and fun, the band gelled together with minimal rehearsal and the crowd responded really well, singing along by the end of the set. I loved recreating Charlie’s songs live and choosing which kit/percussion parts to play. I ended up with different implements in each hand for every song, using a mixture of sticks, brushes, mallets, tambourines and a shaker as in the above track.

Favourite Tour

https://www.instagram.com/p/BVNiuZHFDzd/?taken-by=callmeloop

In May I went on a short European run with LOOP supporting Jonas Blue, hitting Cologne, Amsterdam, Paris and London. As well as playing drums, I edited the above tour video. It was amazing to play in new countries and some great venues, my favourite probably being Luxor. We sustained a few technical issues, but these were all overcome and the shows went great. Tickets for LOOP’s first headline show on 17th January available here.

Favourite Session

I recorded drums for Lucio & Dina Santana’s album Amor/Love in July. We tracked 11 songs in an 8 hour session (including setup), which is the most I’ve ever done. With the exception of one song I hadn’t heard any of the tunes before, so it was a case of listening to the demos, briefly discussing parts, doing 2 or 3 passes then moving on. Despite the time constraints it was a really rewarding session and I’m pleased with how the record came out. Stylistically it ranges from CCM pop/rock to more acoustic songs and even bossa nova on one track. My ’70s Ludwig kit sounded perfect in the room we used, and it was great to work with Marc James again, this time in the role of producer.

I’ve also done more remote session work this year – get in touch via simon@simontreasure.com to talk about recording drums for your project.

Thanks to everyone I worked with in 2017, looking forward to more next year.

2016 Summary

December 12 atiptoe, band, gig, harry phillips, longfellow, LOOP, marc james, recording, session, studio

This year was another busy one, filled with fun and varied gigs. Here’s a little of what I got up to with the 5 main projects I’m involved in.

Harry Phillips

In January we tracked Harry’s first album, English Americana, at Resident Studios. Several songs were recorded live as a band, which is always a great way to work, and my vintage Ludwig Super Classic sounded beautiful in the live room at Resident. Drums for some of the other tunes were tracked remotely at my studio space, which worked well – Tom Hill did a great job of mixing the record. English Americana got some airtime on BBC 3CR over the summer, and we played a few shows in support.

Atiptoe

Atiptoe released our mini-album +Venture in May. I put a lot of work into this record, from writing, recording, playing drums and keys to designing the artwork and editing promo videos, so it was great to finally get it out in the world. We then went on tour with Redwood, hitting Brighton, Bristol, London, Nottingham, Hertford and Bracknell. I’m taking a step back from playing live in the band – it’s been an amazing 6 years with some of my closest friends and I’m really proud of the music we’ve made together, but my energy’s focused on other projects for now.

LOOP

I started playing in LOOP’s live band this year, and got to do some great London shows and festivals. I also took more of an MD role on this gig, creating playback and designing a setup that would best recreate her electronic pop sound. Playing-wise the gig is very different to everything else I’m doing, with much more of a focus on precise parts and sounds. LOOP had the Introducing Track of the week on Radio 1 in December and is releasing an EP soon through M:UK; I’m looking forward to working with her more in 2017.

Marc James

Marc launched his album Promise in October 2015 but it was this year that we promoted it extensively, playing shows at churches all over the UK. I grew up listening to Marc on the old Vineyard records and love his music, so it’s been an absolute pleasure to get to play drums for him. Towards the end of the year we also got involved with Dave Griffiths’ Big Window tour, taking worship music to secular venues in cities including Oxford, Southampton and Bristol. Each night featured sets from Dave, Marc and Danny O’Callaghan, all brilliant Christian artists and songwriters.

Longfellow

Longfellow played our biggest headline show yet in February, at Bush Hall. We then spent the rest of the year working on our debut album after signing a publishing deal with Cooking Vinyl in June. The record was tracked at Toy Rooms studio in Brighton with producers Andy Britton and Mike Rowe, who were great to work with. We pulled each song apart and worked on their arrangements; once these were set, we recorded them live as a band and then overdubbed other parts as needed. It was amazing to have more time to experiment with tones and parts, and I’m really happy with both my playing on the album and how it sounds as a whole. Look out for the record next year.

Follow me on Instagram and Twitter @treasuredrums for regular updates.

News | October 2014

October 10 aaron, atiptoe, gig, sir real, studio, tour, youtube

My site has just returned after a big redesign, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to write an update post.

GIGS

Recently I’ve been doing a variety of gigs, including theatre shows, functions and also working with a great artist named Aaron. We’ve done a few fun London shows together, and I also played drums on a track from her forthcoming EP.

NEW VIDEOS

Three new videos were recently released on my YouTube channel. I went to a big house in the country and added drums to some great songs that didn’t already have drum tracks. Huge thanks to Phil Clarke for use of the manor, Johnny Treasure for filming and the numerous people who lent me gear to make this possible.

You can find the videos on YouTube or on my Video page.

ATIPTOE

Finally, Atiptoe went on tour this summer in support of our latest release, the ‘Sir Real’ single. It’s a split with Patchwork Natives, and is available here at Failure By Design Records. Tour was fun; ate lots of burritos, met lots of cool people and played some great shows. We made a video set to the B-side of the release, ‘Tripoli’, that you can watch below.

Enjoy the new site!

Germany

July 7 festival, Freiburg, Germany, gig, Janelle Monae, Patti Smith, Rae Kelly

So on Tuesday I’m heading out to Germany to play ZMF Festival with Rae Kelly! Loads of other cool acts are playing, including Patti Smith and Janelle Monae, and it should be amazing. I’ll also be recording some video of the trip, so watch out for that.

Head to http://www.facebook.com/raekellymusic to hear a few of the tracks we’ll be playing.

Picture below from rehearsals…