It’s Out of the Bedroom 402 this week, only 98 OOTBs to go till the next “hundred” celebration. this week it’s Furious who’s our featured artist, so come along to The Tron this Thursday and hear Furious exemplifying his music for half an hour, and also soak up the eclectic vibe of the other OOTB performers.

Before i go any further, let me tell you that Visual Opinions reviewed OOTB 401, yay! You can read the review here, you can see a huge array of photos of the night here, and if you just can’t get enough reviewage, they also reviewed our special event The Secret Bedroom a couple of months ago too. I think they’re reviewing the next couple of OOTBs too. If you want to be an OOTB reviewer, then get in touch with Visual Opinions through their website, or talk to the reviewer at OOTB this Thursday.

Now, other interesting events… On Saturday 24th July, at The Lot, you can hear (for £5) Matt Norris and The Moon, Audigy, Andrew Norquay and Dan Gillan. In the words of their facebook event: “It will be a brilliant night of acoustic music, please come and support our very talented local artists.” and that’s an early gig, 7pm start, 10pm finish.

On Friday 23rd, you can see Cam and the HP at The Radical Road at 229 Willowbrae Road at 9pm, not sure if it costs to get in, but it’ll be extra special because they were due to play a gig elsewhere last week and it was cancelled, so i am sure they’ll be on extra top form this week.

I know it’s on Thursday too, but anyway, Graeme Mearns Band, DLS, Shields Up, and DATS are all playing at the teamFUDGE Leaving Party (which is also the Muckle Sandwich issue 4 launch party, i think) on Thursday 22 July. It’s at 7:30pm at Henry’s Cellar Bar. Should be a riot actually, but officially we still think you should be at OOTB instead.

There’s festivals on every week too, it being summer, this coming weekend it’s the Wickerman Festival down in Kirkcudbrightshire. Quite a few Edinburgh acts are playing there, mainly the ones i know are on the acoustic village stage. I’ll be playing there at 12:40pm on Saturday with Sam Bradley on bass, and Andi Neate is on on Friday, anyway, if you’re going to the Wickerman fest, check the acoustic village stage out, it’ll be good, i guarantee it.

There are lots of other events on this week, obviously, there’s The Listening Room at The Blue Blazer on Spittal Street/Bread Street, it’s on Sunday, get there before 8pm if you want to play in the open mic section of the evening. I played the feature slot there on Sunday just gone, and it was an awesome experience, i can’t recommend this open mic night enough, to be honest, it’s great. Tonight (Tuesday) the Cruz Bar on Leith’s Waterside are having a free open mic night too, their nights sound like they’re picking up, so maybe check that out too. There are a lot of other music events on too, facebook’ll tell you, now it’s summer there’s events spilling onto the pavement on every street corner! Anyway, see you on Thursday!

Calum Carlyle
Out of the Bedroom

I arrived early to the basement bar of The Tron. There were already a few musicians kicking back in the corner and the event organisers were busy setting up the stage and recruiting the nights entertainment.

I feel at this point that a brief introduction is necessary. Out of the Bedroom (OOTB) is one of Edinburgh’s best open mic nights, with a reputation for spawning new artists and finding great talent. The basement bar provides an intimate setting and helps to ease artists from their bedrooms to the stage. OOTB has regular acts, who use the venue to test out new material, but also proudly presents debut artists, many of whom are playing in front of a live audience for the first time.

This Thursday was the first event that Visual Opinions attended and woe betide us for not being there last week when OOTB celebrated its 400^th evening. We would like to extend a massive congratulations to the crew and urge readers to come along with us from now on, so that you might be there to get your cake at OOTB 500!

So Out of the Bedroom 400 was indeed an all star extravaganza of epic proportions. It was also the culmination of a lot of people helping out and making the night excellent in spite of a handful of minor setbacks. Huge thanks to everyone who pulled together and made it an excellent night, you all know who you are!

This week at OOTB it’s Ms Fi and possibly The Misfits! with a selection of jaunty Edinburgh songs (they might not all be jaunty, no form of contract is implied or given!) – but anyway, we should be back in The Tron (after our brief sojourn to the City Cafe last week!) but if you get to The Tron on Thursday and we’re not there, do try the City Cafe, because you never know…

We didn’t have OOTB 400 reviewed by visual-opinions.com in the end, perhaps we can put it down to the general chaos and confusion of the night. Of course, once more all i can offer are my apologies that we promised a review, and it didn’t get done. Anyway, i’ve got hope that the OOTB reviews might make a comeback at some point, but i’m making no more promises, because OOTB’s facing some interesting times ahead, and unfortunately reviewing is not something we have the resource to commit to at the moment. Hopefully you’ll all understand, and as i say, hopefully the OOTB reviews will return in the future. Let me just say now, if anybody sends me a review of an OOTB night in time for the next mailout (ie: before the Tuesday following the night in question) then it’ll definitely go on the website. If you really want your performance reviewed though, you may have to bring your own reviewer along!

Next Sunday (the 18th) I’ll (Calum Carlyle) be playing the featured set, accompanied by Sam Bradley on his six string fretless bass, at the Blue Blazer, on the corner of Spittal and Bread Streets in Edinburgh, just off Lothian Road. There’s an open mic section from 8-9pm (as you know) and then it’s us from 9-10pm. We’ll be playing songs from Honesty And Thorns as well as a few other songs of mine. Oh yes, and while i remember, now’s a good time to join my mailing list because you’ll get a free alternative version of “No Use Looking Back” with the next mailout, as well as more alternative versions in the future.

Free croissants! You know Word Of Mouth cafe on the corner of Leith Walk and Albert Street? They do have open mic nights every occasional Friday, and they’re usually excellent too, but this week, they are giving away a free croissant with every takeaway coffee, to celebrate Bastille Day which is on Wednesday 14th July. They’re doing the free croissant every day this week though, so pop in as many times as you like!

Now, two things are happening this Tuesday (13th July) that i wanted to mention (though i mentioned them last week too), first of all it’s Niall Connolly at the Roxy Art House at 8pm, he’s an accomplished acoustic
performer, and he’ll be doing the final gig of his tour in Edinburgh. Also on Tuesday 13th July, it’s the fourth Regent Showcase. These are on every month, on the second Tuesday, at The Regent at the top of Abbeymount near London Road. I think they start at 8pm, and it’s free to get in. There’s comedy this month from Graeme Thomas and tons of music by performers that will be both familiar and new to OOTB regulars.

Steven Tonge‘s band Supermarionation are playing in Bannerman’s (212 Cowgate) this Wednesday (14th July, you know, Bastille Day!) at 8pm. Don’t be fashionably late, they’re on first! They’re followed by Revelry and Sister Bitch, who aren’t OOTB regulars as far as i know. Anyway, get yourselves along there, according to the poster it costs £small to get in.

One other thing i wanted to mention to you is our new OOTB Youtube channel! We do sometimes have people videoing performances at OOTB, on an ad hoc basis, and what we’ve started doing is getting people to sign a release form so we can put some of them on the web for you all to experience again. So, there are a song each from Sam Siggs and Karen Edward so far at www.youtube.com/edinburghsongwriters
and hopefully there’ll be more videos added as time goes on. Enjoy!

Finally, now i know i pimped this last week, but really if you’re a songwriter, go and sign up for the 5090 songwriting challenge – it’s a unique opportunity to be part of a seething online community of rabid songwriters. They’re all really helpful and supportive and if you upload recordings of your new songs they’ll all give you helpful feedback on them. It really is invaluable for a songwriter in my opinion. here’s how many songs i’ve done just this week based on the inspiration from that site. Join up now! 🙂

It’s Out of the Bedroom 400 this week! it’s our first (and only?) covers night of 2010. Learn some covers, especially covers of someone else you’ve heard at OOTB, and come along. There will be cakes, it’ll be reviewed by Visual-Opinions.com. It’ll probably all run hideously off-schedule, but that’s rock ‘n’ roll! I’m certain it’ll be memorable. Come along, and in years to come, you’ll be able to say you were there. Mark my words, it’ll be an all star extravaganza of epic proportions.

One thing i really wanted to mention to you last week, and forgot, is the 50/90 Songwriting Challenge. Can you write 50 songs in 90 days? Even if you think the answer’s ‘no’, do you want to be part of a thriving online community of songwriters, all writing songs simultaneously, collaborating, commenting on each other’s work and generally egging each other on? Check out the site, anyway. I’ve already written three songs since 5090 started on Sunday, only 47 to go!

Now, other interesting events… Two things are happening next Tuesday (13th July) that i wanted to mention, first of all it’s Niall Connolly at the Roxy Art House at 8pm, he’s an accomplished acoustic performer, and he’ll be doing the final gig of his tour in Edinburgh. Also on Tuesday 13th July, it’s the fourth Regent Showcase. These are on every month, on the second Tuesday, at The Regent at the top of Abbeymount near London Road. I think they start at 8pm, and it’s free to get in. There’s comedy this month from Graeme Thomas and tons of music by performers that will be both familiar and new to OOTB regulars.

There are bound to be some other events on this week, obviously, there’s The Listening Room at The Blue Blazer on Spittal Street/Bread Street, it’s on Sunday, get there before 8pm if you want to play in the open mic section of the evening. On Friday, there’s the McEwan’s Ale House open mic night, starting at 9pm on South Clerk Street, across the road from what used to be the Odeon. There are various others, but to be honest i think we’ll let them do their own email publicity for once. 🙂 See you on Thursday!

It’s Nyk Stoddart giving us the featured set this week at OOTB 398, in the Tron on Thursday (I’ve had a lot of people emailing me recently asking where and when OOTB is, check out our info page if you’re at all unsure of our particulars. So, Nyk Stoddart’s going to be playing songs from his next CD, some of which you may have heard, some not. He’ll also be accompanied by a mysterious and enigmatic cypher on the bass guitar so get yourself down there and check out the uniqueness.

Also, i wanted to mention to you something you might find very useful if you’re a songwriter, it’s The Ten Tips For Songwriters e-book, now available for FREE online. It features ten tips each from 18 songwriters (so 180 tips in total!), and it’s quite an enjoyable read too.

Out of the Bedroom 400 is nearly upon us (it’s on the 8th July) and it’s our first (and only?) covers night of 2010. Learn some covers, especially covers of someone else you’ve heard at OOTB, and come along. There should be cakes too. Not only that but there should be the return of the Out of the Bedroom reviews!!!!!!! Yes, you read correctly, OOTB 400 to 403 will be being reviewed, or that’s the plan anyway, by the good people at Visual-Opinions.com. So if you want to be reviewed, come along during the month of July, and if you would like to write a review, then get in touch with Visual-Opinions.com here.

Here’s something you may like, it’s a song being performed live by Thorn’s Musical Journey, in Colorado last month.

There are bound to be some other events on this week, obviously, there’s The Listening Room at The Blue Blazer on Spittal Street/Bread Street, it’s on Sunday, get there before 8pm if you want to play in the opn mic section of the evening. This Friday too, there’s the McEwan’s Ale House open mic night, starting at 9pm on South Clerk Street, across the road from what used to be the Odeon. There are a lot more gigs than that though going on. This week, i’m going to let you all figure them out for yourselves. Read posters! Go and see bands you like and listen to the other bands’ sets too! it’s all good clean fun. And then see you at OOTB on Thursday.

Calum Carlyle
Out of the Bedroom

The remarkable Joe Roberts filmed this at OOTB this March. It’s Audigy, who are great. Enjoy!