Out of the Bedroom is having a festive break – see you all in 2019! 🙂

Out of the Bedroom is now on its Christmas holidays! We’ll be back in the The Safari Lounge on Thursday 9th January 2025. We hope you have a happy, peaceful and restful festive season and we’ll see you in the New Year.

For your information, here’s a note received from someone other than the Edinburgh Free Fringe that some of you may be interested in. OOTB doesn’t take responsibility for the accuracy of this message.

If anyone is interested in playing in the Free Edinburgh Fringe Festival and/or slots on the Pear Tree garden stage in August check out  www.freefestival.co.uk and email alex@laughinghorse.co.uk

If you fancy performing in the Free Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year and/or on the Pear Tree garden stage in August, drop the organiser Alex Petty a line: alex@laughinghorse.co.uk  It’s great fun, you do not have to pay extortionate fees to hire a venue at festival time and your only real outlay is £20 for single shows or £40 for multiple shows in the Free Festival programme and website.

PS: Apologies but I made a mistake with the cost of advertising in the Edinburgh Fringe programme … not sure where I got the £70 figure from but it’s a quite a bit more than that, especially now that the 27th March early bird discount deadline has passed. So this bit of the message is incorrect:

If you are really keen you can also pay £70 for a one off entry in the Fringe Festival programme which could boost your audience numbers and pay for flyers with which you can merrily annoy locals and tourists alike, but Alex can tell you more about all of that.

FAWM.org - 14 Songs In 28 Days!

Can you write 14 songs in 28 days?

Even if you think you can’t, you might surprise yourself, and even if you don’t, you might still end up writing some good songs. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m talking about February Album Writing Month, the annual challenge to write 14 songs during the 28 days of February. Here’s the official press release:

THE FAWM.ORG CHALLENGE: 14 SONGS IN 28 DAYS

International Songwriting Event Gears up for 7th Annual Event

Russian composer Igor Stravinsky once said, “work brings inspiration.” Or, as writer Jack London put it, “You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” For songwriters, February Album Writing Month (FAWM) is that club. Thousands of musicians worldwide are preparing to brandish their guitars, pianos and notepads to participate in FAWM, the annual challenge to compose 14 new songs in the 28 days of February. This year, the organizers are upping the ante, setting a collective goal of songwriting of 14,000 new works in all.

In 2009, over 2,000 musicians signed up for the FAWM challenge, penning 7,375 new songs, instrumentals, and works of sound art in the shortest month of the year. Since its inception in 2004, FAWM participation and musical output has roughly doubled annually, so the 14,000-song mark seems well within reach.  By January 12 of this year, nearly 3,000 have registered from all U.S. States and dozens of foreign countries including Norway, Australia, South Korea, France, and the United Kingdom.  FAWM is the largest songwriting challenge of its kind.

Some so-called “fawmers” are musical hobbyists, while many are professional touring musicians and recording industry professionals who use FAWM as a much-needed creative exercise.  The idea began when Burr Settles, a singer/songwriter and then-graduate-student in computer science, completed a short novel as part of the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenge in November 2003.  Realizing that there was no songwriting equivalent, he and three friends challenged each other to write a song every other day in February 2004, using an informal weblog where they posted demo recordings and constructive comments throughout the process. Due to the public interest that followed, Settles opened the challenge up to over 100 participants in 2005, which continued to grow steadily ever year since.

The website, FAWM.ORG, serves as the hub for the project, where fawmers can post audio or video demo recordings of freshly-penned songs, and give one another feedback.  Participants can track the progress of songwriters they know and admire via the website’s “watchlist” feature.  A real-time jukebox, allows fawmers to listen to new streaming music as it is added to the site, organized at random or by musical genre.

Collaboration is also rampant in the FAWM community. Many songwriting novices receive help by joining forces with more seasoned songwriters whom they meet through the website. Other collaborations spring from a desire to try something different. For example, Seattle jazz pianist Becca Palm casually expressed interest in writing a heavy metal song on the website forums. Within 24 hours she had composed and recorded a track (entirely by passing files over the internet) with a speed-metal guitarist from the Netherlands called Sapient Network. The track, titled “All I Am,” can be heard on 14 Songs In 28 Days (Vol. 5), the latest in a series of annual “fawmpilation” CDs released by the project to raise operating funds.  Last year, over 500 of the songs born out of the challenge were collaborations.

For more information:

http://fawm.org
http://myspace.com/fawmrocks

I’ve just been forwarded this opportunity for Scottish songwriters who are 25 years old or younger. Here’s the press release, take this opportunity while you can…

Burnsong, in partnership with Mattie Foulds’ Mobile With A Home (producer/drummer for the acclaimed collective, The Burns Unit) today offers a brand new opportunity for young up and coming Scottish songwriters to record their first demo, working with industry professionals in this fantastic new recording studio. 

The Burns Unit’s debut album, Side Show, garnered glowing reviews upon its release in August 2010, with live performances taking Cambridge Folk Festival by storm, and has subsequently been nominated as one of  the albums of 2010 by a number of sources including Ian Rankin, Vic Galloway and Spiral Earth.

Produced by Mattie Foulds, the album grew out of a songwriting retreat devised by Burnsong, an organisation whose aim is to  nurture and promote songwriting in Scotland. On the first date of The Burns Unit’s 2011 tour, Sunday 16th January, at their Celtic Connections gig in the Old Fruitmarket, Mattie will announce the opening of this great opportunity to follow in the band’s footsteps.  

“I’m delighted to be supporting three young Scottish songwriters in taking their first steps into the music industry by recording a high quality demo in my new recording studio, Mobile With  A Home”.

The anonymous competition entries will be judged by fellow Burns Unit members, Karine Polwart, Emma Pollock (Delgados), Michael Johnston and Kim Edgar, and a panel of music industry experts including Scottish songwriter and lecturer David Scott (Pearlfishers, BMX Bandits) and music industry consultant Ronnie Gurr. With funding support from Creative Scotland, the winning songwriters will then work in collaboration with Mattie Foulds to plan, record, mix and master their  first professional recordings, which will help them to progress in their music careers.  

To enter the competition, which opens on Burns Night, 25th January 2011, young people aged 25 and below should go to www.burnsong.org where they can follow instructions to upload up to three entry songs, of any genre, for consideration by the panel of judges. 

The competition will close on 28th February 2011 and winners will be announced via the Burnsong website in March. 

For more information, or to set up an interview, please contact Mattie Foulds onmattiefoulds@mac.com , or  visit: www.burnsong.org  www.theburnsunitband.com

Ben Young, one of Edinburgh’s best singer-songwriters till he moved out of Edinburgh, has a 24-day songwriting project coming up: 24 songs on a solstice theme, to be written and published on youtube and also at The Atheist Advent : Solstice Songs on a Godless Guitar. I will certainly be keeping an eye on that. If you’re not familiar with Ben’s music, i suggest you check him out, and if you are familiar with his music, you’ll need no prompting.

While we’re at it, let me just mention OOTB number 373 which will be taking place on Thursday 17th December in the Tron Cellar Bar. It’s our long anticipated XMAS XTRAVAGANZA we will be letting our hair down and partying it up. Covers are allowed, even if they’re christmas ones, and we can’t stop you from coming along in fancy dress! Make a note in your diary and dust off your glad rags, it’ll be a stoater.