For a songwriter, having time on your hands is not an issue - so the last year of lockdown has meant we could turn those whirring brains to something big!

Well... here we are 3 singles in, with at least half of the album mastered and we thought it might be fun to let you in on our working methods. We have already covered the birth of our album 'Kartoon World' in an earlier blog (check out The Creative Process Behind Magic Money Tree with some more info and a link to the demo of the 2nd song in The Korgis Status Report Mid-2020) so we will leap frog on to where we are now - and more specifically the first 3 singles. This is Al Steele by the way. James Warren, John Baker and myself wrote all of this album with some input on a couple of songs from some third parties.

1) The Ghost of You

You will notice that all the videos begin with scrolling text. That's because this is a 'concept album man!!!' Each song fits into a time period between 1980 and 2030 - yes we are commenting on the past, present AND projecting into the future!

By about May James Warren had started coming into the studio and we began working on various bits of songs - some scraps and pieces I had and some he had. However this song was a new idea we built from scratch, based around a few simple chords and an infectious drum loop that James brought in. He also had a rough tune for the verse. When James went home I carried on working on it, and quickly wrote the chorus sequence. The whole song really felt like it belonged on the dance floor, so initially we went full pelt on this idea. The middle 8 to me was a stop gap that I thought we should replace but everyone seemed to like it - so it stayed. I did like the idea of it being a tongue twister though!
Here is what the early dance version sounded like!
The Ghost Of You - Dance Version - DEMO!
Knowing how the rest of the album was shaping up, I thought it would not quite fit in, so we went for a more synthy 80's thing and that gave us a bit more scope with guitars as well.
Here is James talking around the time of the release.
James' thoughts on The Ghost of You
We chose this as a first release because we thought it might be a little unexpected, and we certainly didn't want people to think this would be a Korgis album to pass people by! By single number 3 we are really starting to rattle some cages!... but I am getting ahead of myself! Here is the video and final version of The Ghost of You - we managed to sneak every member of the 8-piece band in there!
The Ghost of You - Single version

2) Bringing Back the Spirit of Love

This song looks back at the peace movement of the 60's when even the guys wore flowers in their hair and love was most definitely the answer. Well anyone with any modicum of sense knows that it still is! We wanted to write a modern day revolution song.
This started with an idea I sent to the guys to think about and embellish. As you will hear, the lyrics and the end sequence changed as we went along. Here is me in Studio 2 at Shabbey Road bashing out the idea on a travel guitar!
Bringing Back the Spirit of Love - Original idea
Hashing out the rest of a song can be a long and arduous process - unless your name is James Warren. Just before he left the studio one day I said, 'James, we need a verse for Bring Back the Spirit..' He replied 'Shall we do it now?' 10 mins later we had the verse and bridge section of the song. Again I think I went straight on and put down the basic verse instruments in a rough form - but I know the original guitar stayed. Why reinvent the wheel eh?!
We pieced the songs together with each person coming in separately. The exception being Jay, Emmy and Ava, our backing vocalists (a band in their own right called Born to Win) who were their own bubble. There are MASSES of vocals on this song. I reckon the main block of the chorus has 18 vocals not counting the extra lines that come in at the end! Drums were done in  blocks of 3 or 4 songs a session. James and myself did basses and electric guitars and John did lots of the acoustic guitar parts as well as about a million vocals! Nigel came in and dubbed grand piano on the song giving it a real Paul McCartney flavour.
Before we finally got the master stage James went through the whole song adding little bits of guitar/keys here and there - and RIGHT at the end, I went back to my original idea which was a kind of oompah oompah stick it up your jumper type rhythm but reinvented as a rap/rant to ramp up the song to the end.
James has been mastering these at home - and doing a grand job as well. There will be a different mix for vinyl - a more open 70's kind of thing - you know before we got into the loudness wars? Here is the vid - this will be preceded by The Kartoon World Overture where we will have our familiar space scroller text. Enjoy!
Bringing Back the Spirit of Love - Single Mix

3) Time (Song for Dom)

This started with something James called Fantasy Waltz. He had been tinkering with things in Glenn Tommey's studio in Bath. It was from the start a very odd piece and reminded me very much of something Stackridge might have done. I really liked the original lyrics but James insisted they were just nonsense and suggested we re-write. He was of course one of the principle writer's in Stackridge before himself and Andy Davis went and formed The Korgis some years later. Here it is!
Fantasy Waltz
It kind of reminded me of a clock and as our artist Leah Darknell had already drawn a cartoon about a Paul or drummer being drawn into a magical clock, it seemed the idea might work. I am not altogether sure when the idea for it to be about Dominic Cummings came about - I would like to be clever and say because it fitted the timeline of the Concept Album, but it was before that idea had solidified - possibly after I had added the chorus section. The chorus lyrics are just a play on works of all the phrases that include time in them - and I reckon the onion was the same one The Beatles were talking about when Lennon sang 'Well here's another clue for you all - the Walrus was Paul.'
In case anyone gets the wrong end of the stick - this is not an anti-Brexit song(!) but more an observation on how Dom changed the political tools when he began to use Cambridge Analytica to massage the Social Media and reach out to the untouchables that no-one had been able to reach before. He was, and still is, a very clever man. Whether he has been a change for better or for worse only history will judge.
Now it was really starting to sound even more like Stackridge and we really put our prog heads on. Lurching into the rock section in the middle really made the song for me. The tune is the same - the chords are the same - but we are suddenly back in the era of ELP and Genesis! John does a great vocal here and in the video he is furiously pedalling an exercise bike that obviously is going nowhere... there is perhaps a statement there! The epilogue where Dom eventually goes to heaven is also something that makes me smirk.
'Repent if I could, do you think that I would?... when the good life is just for the chosen one'
Here is our very prog video!
Time (Song for Dom)

Anything else you would like to know please ask away in the comments section below. Feel free to share!
Can't wait for you to hear the whole album. Keep in touch - drop us a line in the contact us tab if you want.
Have as good and safe a time as you can - until we meet again in person at a gig - WHAT'S ONE OF THEM?!!

Well we are almost at the close of 2020 - Can't Wait! we hear you exclaim!

2020 certainly has been a year to re-assess things, and we have done just that.

Although we weren't really planning it, here we are 13 tracks in (lucky for some!) to a concept album. It is called Kartoon World and through the eyes of The Korgis charts the evolution of humanity from it's very beginning (around 1980!) all the way through to 2030. There are high points and low points, but it begins and ends with love! The opening track 'Bringing Back the Spirit of Love' is already out there as a single and sets the tone admirably. In case you think it will be a one trick pony, check out the other single 'The Ghost of You' to be reassured. The album is as varied as the roots of it's members and some of the songs are very reminiscent of Stackgridge... did we hear a few Hooray's going off in the distance there?
 

We are also having to figure out what to leave off the vinyl version!... because YES!... THERE WILL BE A VINYL VERSION!
We didn't just want to take our pop mixes and put them on the black stuff though - we wanted a return to a much more open sound, so the record version (can we use that term?) will be a different mix. Also because the track list will be different, not all of the songs will link together in the same way.

We also took the opportunity to look at the boring business side. In an effort to 'get down with the kids' we started to research the streaming sites and were flabbergasted to find that we have an enormous following on Spotify and Apple Music. On Spotify alone we have over 10,000 followers and around 400,000 listens per month! Some other mouth-watering statistics include, back in April last year, more than 18,000 people were listening to Everybody's Got To Learn Sometime at the same moment in 92 countries! The other real surprise is that worldwide our second most popular song is 'Don't Look Back' having been a massive hit in South America. There wasn't even a video made for this song - maybe that is a project for the new year - a new version and a new video!

The bottom line here is that we are mighty encouraged that there is still a lot of interest. Of course the people who signed up here knew it all along, and we thank you for that!

James, John and Al have been hard at work mixing and mastering the new songs and we can't wait for you to hear them! The plan is to bring out another few singles and hopefully spring the album on you March or April time. Perhaps the world will be a better place for that and many other reasons at that time!

When all this is over we are going to come round and hug you all personally! 
It just remains to wish you all a happy and safe Christmas.

James, John, Al, Paul, Ava, Jay, Emmy, Dave and Nigel.

Hi guys, and thank you for being so patient in these trying times!

We have had many people asking which gigs are on and which are off. Obviously our lovely little tour of The Netherlands went by the wayside as did The 100 Club gig. The 100 Club is tentatively scheduled for September 3rd - but we are possibly being a bit hopeful there.

Sadly our dates at The Cavern and Black Dyke Mills are being postponed. We will be looking for dates as early as we safely can, but no point in making predictions on that as yet.

James and Al have also had to postpone the James Warren and his Mighty Miniature Orchestra gig, as even if The Rondo were to miraculously reopen by July 3rd, we would not be able to physically rehearse this rather complex show. When it happens it will be spectacular though!

We reckon our gigs have been getting better and better, so it has been very frustrating to be cut off in our prime - if you can talk about people of our age being in our prime!

Something we are crucially aware of, is how precarious the future for all venues is, when we eventually come through this pandemic. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that a venue cannot survive on half full houses if there were to be enforced social distancing. We are rather hoping that it will be left at the discretion of each person to judge how safe they feel and not legislated, as that will be the death knell for many venues. Maybe a good way to look at it is, when there is more chance of being run over by a bus, than of catching Corona Virus, then perhaps that is the time to go out again - and those stats will be with us probably sooner than the press would suggest.

In the meantime we have been going through a bit of a creative spurt with two new songs released - albeit with a few more Korgis to add to the final versions! There are also a good few new songs peeking over the horizon. John Baker and James Warren got together last week for the first writing session, and James & Al have begun regular writing/recording slots. Other members of the band will be brought in when it becomes more feasible to do so. In case you missed it here is the 2nd release - the 1st one being covered in a previous blog. As there are such a lot of conspiracy theorists raising their heads at the mo, we thought the video could reflect that. Rarely has there been such paranoia coming from all directions!
This Is A New Low

Our resident creative art genius Leah Darknell - she animated the video of Colours - has been coming up with a series of cartoons called Keeping Up With The Korgis. This is a somewhat fictitious account of what we have all been up to during lockdown. Here are the first two... and if you want a to see them unfold then head over to Keeping Up With The Korgis. She says there are also Easter Eggs, but it is way past Easter so no idea about that one!!!
We will post them there slightly earlier than on Facebook and Twitter.

We really hope to be able to catch up with you all in person before too long, and before we all go STIR CRAZY!
Meanwhile stay safe - only you can know what safe feels like for you. We will continue to listen to your thoughts and try to base our return to gigging on when the time is right for the majority. A great gig is not really a great gig without an audience!
Thanks for being patient with us during this time.
James, John, Al, Paul, Nigel, Emmy, Jay, Ava and Dave.

Shortly after The Korgis album 'This World's For Everyone' Andy Davis formed a band to perform some of his solo works. He called it The Andy Davis Band! This was the only album released with this lineup, and the CD has become about as rare as rocking horse manure!

FEAR NO MORE!... as Andy has repackaged and re-released this classic album. It looks and sounds great! Here is an email link to grab a copy - only £11 including postage.
GET A COPY FROM MIKE WEBB

There is also a link (via Facebook) to a live video of one of the stand-out tracks 'Baby Good For You'
Baby Good For You

Grab yourself a copy - We have played ours 3 times already and it only arrived today!

 

When the lock-down for Corona Virus suddenly came into play in March 2020, James Warren and Al Steele were right in the middle of a bout of songwriting sessions, and creating musical arrangements for the forthcoming James Warren and his Mighty Miniature Orchestra gig. 

When we realised that we could not physically get together our collective brains started ticking as to what we could do remotely. Equally cut short were String Sessions for Liverpool band Exhibit-1, and main man Chris Hopkins and Al were talking on Messenger when the slightly outlandish idea was put forward that one of us would start a song and then pass it onto the other. James was invited to participate, and the ideas started rolling. 

The first one came in from Chris, called ‘This Is A New Low’. Carrying on in the political vein, Al put forward the verse called ‘Magic Money Tree’. Almost simultaneously, James wrote a fantastically tuneful chorus and Chris sent through a very dark middle section. On the same day Al also completed a very Floydian 2nd section for ‘This Is A New Low’. 

Both songs seemed somewhat reminiscent of a couple of the tunes from Stackridges ‘A Victory For Common Sense’... a thought that did not go un-noted, as Al had previously brought Exhibit-1 to the attention of James, for the band’s similarity to Stackridge. 

Al began to mix the various files for ‘Magic Money Tree’ as they were sent through - splitting Chris’ long section.  into two halves and key changing the 2nd half into an outro. All 3 parties then added various layers of harmonies. 

James and Al had been experimenting with the meeting app Zoom, and talking about the possibilities of ‘green screen’ video via it’s Backgrounds and Recording facilities. Al filmed his sections in this way, with an old shower curtain on the wall. Fortunately the fish on the curtain didn’t show up(!) and a backdrop of money was shown in its place. Al’s shirt was quite close to the colour of the fish curtain, so it disappeared completely, letting the money backdrop show through. The random  appearance/disappearance really adds to this rather manic Farage-type character. 

Exhibit-1 are exclusively a studio band - something they have in common with the later Beatles period! - so there was a tiny bit of resistance to going public on film. After explaining how a towel could be a green screen, they sent through some footage with the accompanying text... ‘If you think this is bad, then you should have seen the other 12 takes!’... adding ‘We make the original Batman series look like a convincing, well-acted drama’! 

Have You Seen The Colours

Leah Darknell - the artist who created James Warren’s ‘Have You Seen The Colours’ video - animated a ‘Magic Money Tree’ in which she hand drew every note of money, and made them shake in a random way. As this was to coincide with James’ chorus we would need the man himself to tackle the old green screen challenge! After several Zoom sessions where there did not appear to be a clear wall nearby, and he couldn’t find anything tall enough to hang a beach towel on, we settled on filming against a cream wall... not ideal but would have to do. As it happens it created a rather interesting effect of making his silhouette disappear, and he blended into the blue sky seamlessly! 

We all felt that this would make a rather splendid Korgis song, and the plan is when lock-down is finally over, the rest of the band will dub in their bits. 
Here is the Youtube link - and hey!... please subscribe. 
Magic Money Tree

As we were nearing the completion of the video and the final master, James sent across another FIVE pieces of music that could be taken much further. Chris has already begun work on one of them. 
So here is to the future, where we can actually write together in the same room!... but thank you to this isolation, we know that we can still bring things together even when we are apart! 
Let’s hope the whole world can do the same... 

THE KORGIS

2020 was shaping up to be our busiest year yet!... but as they say 'The best laid plans of mice and men...'
Of course in these troubling times, our first priority is for safety, both of the band and our lovely concert goers. It will therefore be of little surprise that our gig at The 100 Club on May 16th, while not yet cancelled, certainly has a huge cloud of doubt hanging over it. Even the most optimistic of people are not seeing the end of our lock-down in sight by May. Likewise our 3 dates in Holland are just as doubtful.

We will of course hope that by July people are able to travel a little more freely, which means we can possibly make our gig at Black Dyke Mills on July 18th, our Korgis Brunch get together in Bradford or Halifax and the Cavern gig on the 19th. We will keep you updated here and of course Facebook and Twitter.

In the meantime James and Al have been busy arranging the music for their self-indulgent side project James Warren and his Mighty Miniature Orchestra. More of that in a separate blog, but suffice to say that more than half the songs have not been performed by The Korgis live, and there is a VERY healthy percentage of un-played Stackridge songs in the set list. This is scheduled for July 3rd at The Rondo Theatre in Bath, but of course The Rondo is currently closed... until they are not! Watch this space!

The first thing we may do is a Facebook Live event where we play a load of back to back videos - some live - some old - some new - some classics. You get a chance to comment live as they play and most of the band will be there to answer questions etc.

If we are still in lock-down come the middle of May - providing it is safe to do so - we are thinking of streaming a live concert - internet only. Of course this will be free - but if you wish to support it, then we have some very fine merch available from our various websites. I seem to have the monopoly on that at the mo!!! Hot sales are the 40 Years of The Korgis T-Shirt. Al Steele Website  Anyone who signs up thekorgis.com is eligible for a discount code on anything on the Al Steele site including all Korgis merch. Use the Contact Us form and we'll bung it across to you.

Most importantly keep yourselves safe, especially for those most at risk. Keep a healthy supply of Korgis/Stackridge/DLM/James Warren/Mutter Slater Band music nearby - always good in an emergency! - and we will see you out the other side.

Best and warmest wishes, Al Steele

So, finally after 40 years The Korgis got to play Bath ( Where it all started). In all fairness, James did play The Theatre Royal one Sunday night in 1982 ( with Backing Tapes) but for a 8 piece korgis Band taking the stage at this great Little Venue ( Chapel Arts Centre) it really was a special moment. 

Great organisation by the staff at the venue. Our Sound engineer Ed had already set up Mics and Lines in exactly the right parts of the stage and the Soundcheck went really smoothly. 

Mr Al Steele and of course the Wonderful Ceri Darknell had done an amazing job with the Set. New 40 Years banners and Vintage surrounds for The Korgis TV’s. 

All set to go then. Of course we knew it was a sell out but hadn’t expected Old Friends who hadn’t managed to get a ticket to be stood waiting outside on the off chance that there would be some returns. Luckily most ended up happy and tickets were found.

Atmosphere was building when our support for the night Mr Matt Owens took to the stage around 7.55 to warm up the crowd. He did a great set, and had the foresight to get an audience shot on his phone. When the time came for our entrance around 8.35 the wonderful crowd were purring in anticipation.

Right from the off there were incredibly happy faces both in the crowd and on stage. I feel that we rose to the occasion and took the eager audience through Old Stackridge, Korgis and even Beatles Tunes throughout a total of 1 and half hours on stage. All interspersed with banter, anecdotes and general mischief and merriment. 

At 10.30 and after a rousing rendition of “EGTLS” we took our Bows only to be greeted with huge cheers for “More”. 2 Encores followed including a very well received rendition of Freheit’s “ Keeping the Dream alive” and then it was time to say goodbye.

Everyone in the band enjoyed mingling with the crowd afterwards, catching up with Family, Friends and old acquaintances that in some cases hadn’t been seen for 25 years or more. 

Personally, I slept really poorly, full of adrenalin and excitement at what had just happened and also memories of the 40 or so years I have been singing and making music with Mr Warren and the incredible memories we share. None better than this great night!   

Bring on Norwich, London and Holland next!
See ya! John

2019 has been a great year.

Looking back to 2018 when we really only played a couple of gigs - enjoyable and encouraging though they were - this year has been a roller-coaster!
Starting off in Yorkshire and then to a sell-out at London's 100 Club (which was a real blast) we felt like the band had really locked together and we had cemented our onstage persona. Followed by the beautiful venue Ropetackle on the south coast, and then to Bath at The Folk House. We also had the pleasure of Barry Walsh opening for us in superb style.  What a great night that was! Finishing off our Spring/Summer tour with The Globe in Cardiff - home turf for the Welshies - of which I consider myself one! - was fab. Thanks to the friends who made it along, and also to my long-term mate Lee Cottey who was a wizard on the sound. Then on to the lovely Selby Town Hall. Got to say the crew at Selby were second-to-none. They coaxed life into their giant video screen, so the films we had prepared looked fantastic.
For our last two dates of the year - imaginatively titled our 'Winter Tour', we started at Acapela in Cardiff. This was the unveiling of a new show, and brought in some OLD classics such as Stackridge's 'Freindliness', and the 'Fine Vintage Korgis/Stackridge Medley'. It was also the first show utilising multiple TV's - not without it's teething troubles!! The opening sequence can be seen here - excuse the wobbly top TV image. I superimposed it to simulate what it looked like on the night.

Opening Sequence 2019

Finishing off the year in style at The Wharf in Tavistock, in front of a lovely appreciative audience, brought us to a lovely end in 2019

Where do you we go from here?

Next year is the 40th Anniversary Tour.
'Everybody's Got To Learn Sometime' was the worldwide breakthrough The Korgis had been waiting for, and to celebrate James Warren has a brand new stripped down version of that classic song. Details of where to get a hold of that to follow soon.
We are also looking at a new stage set to incorporate some of the images of that original single cover.
Come along and see what we did with it!!
Dates for the diary

Jan 18, Chapel Arts, Bath
Mar 13 Epic Studios, Norwich
May26 100 Club, London
May 22  Luxor Live, Arnhem, Netherlands
May 23  Boerderij Cultuurpodium Zoetermeer, Netherlands
July 18  Black Dyke Mills, Bradford 
July 19th The Cavern, Liverpool

The reinstated Backstage at the Green, Kinross and one more Scottish date in the Autumn - plus much more as the year goes on!

Thank you for being with us on our journey so far, and hope to bring you LOT'S more in 2020!

Merry Christmas and a fab 2020
Al Steele

Friday at Tavistock was a fantastic gig... the band starting to really gel now.

We even had a dep Keyboard player in called Julian Tucker. What a musician, played sax and flute as well.

Looking forward to celebrating 40 Years of the Korgis next year – 2020 and where better than Bath – Jan 18th - where it all started and the hits were recorded.

I am really pleased with my latest purchase, this fantastic sounding Fishman amp. Sounded great at The Wharf, Tavistock. Great little Acoustic amp blasting our 60 watts but very light and portable.

If anyone is interested , my previous Korgis Acoustic Amp the Much favoured Marshall As50R is for Sale. Reverb not working but other than that sounds lovely - £50 and it's yours!! Message me here, using the Contact Us link.

Very pleased to confirm that The Korgis live band is getting better all the time!

I think starting with our gig at the absolutely delightful Acapela venue in Cardiff recently and continuing on to The Wharf in Tavistock, we've definitely turned a corner performance-wise.
Everyone in the band is now very comfortable with what they're doing and exuding a new-found confidence; it feels great.
Even playing without our regular keyboard player Nigel Hart at The Wharf, (he was already booked elsewhere), didn't seem to phase any of us.
Undoubtedly the brilliance of stand-in Julian Tucker helped in no small measure, but it's obvious to me the band is absolutely up-for-it and raring to go.

We are also lucky to have such a wealth of diverse material to choose from - very skilfully set-listed by Al.

Al of course is a formidable guitarist, arranger and techno-wizard as well as repertoire organiser - where would we be without him?

Not only that, but how about the amazing energy contributed by Ava, Emmy and Jay ("Born To Win")?  I always wanted to be in a band with proper backing vocals and now as I near my 70th year it's finally happened!

Talking of vocals, it's also working fabulously well having my mate of 40 years Johnny Baker singing some tracks and generally beefing up my vocal efforts. (Although speaking as a committed vegetarian I wish Mr Baker would lay off the beef and hit the tofu instead)

And I'm loving playing bass to Paul Smith's utterly dependable drumming and being inspired by our recently-enlisted keyboardist Nigel Hart's incredible virtuosity.
It's all fallen into place; I reckon 2020 is gonna be the best year yet!