As you may or may not already know (through the wonder of Facebook), I was chosen by public vote to be one of 40 unsigned acts to be pushed for a spot in the UK Top 40 as part of the Storm the Charts campaign. Just like Rage Against the Machine got to No. 1 at christmas, they’re now trying to get 40 unsigned acts taking up a spot in all 40 chart spots! Exciting huh?
The kick off is today and I would super, super appreciate you clicking on the iTunes link below and sparing 79p to buy my song ‘Fists At The Sky’before midnight on Saturday 3rd July.
If you can spare any more pennies, then do try to buy as many songs off that list as you can to support the other acts. Please forward on to as many people as you can too…
Love & thank yous!
Donna x
ps. Hopefully the song will be for sale in other online outlets soon too! Will update if so!
… gave me the gigging bug again, bad. (Above pic was the bonny view from the coach in the highlands) I just wanted to say a heartfelt thank you to all those who made it along to my shows, especially the Edinburgh one last night which ended up being packed out! Some people were asking me about song names that night & which tunes I used the looper on, so here’s my setlist from that gig for those peeps:
1. We Believe In Something Unusual
2. Rings & Fences
3. Fists At The Sky
4. Soul Worth Mending
5. The Nothing & The Numb (looper tune!)
6. You Can Leave The Light On
7. Breathing You In
8. Kiss Me You Fool
9. Tonight You Belong To Me
10. Beauty Of Choice (looper tune!)
———— encore yeeeehaw ————-
11. Logic Kills The Fire
I’d also just like to put a massive shout out to The Banana Sessions again for being the best backing band I could have wished for at the gigs. I really adore those guys, and if you haven’t checked them out already, you really ought to because they are utterly, utterly brilliant (best caught live!) Their songwriting is coming on in leaps & bounds every time I see them. Here is their Prodigy Medley for those who haven’t yet seen it:
I very excitingly have two new upcoming gigs in the gigging diary in Edinburgh & London!
Wednesday 24th March 2010 The Lexington, London Charity Fundraiser w/ the brilliant Albany
Saturday 27th March 2010 The Roxy Art House, Edinburgh Opening for the incredible Chris Bradley at his ‘At The Outpost’ album launch
There’s a hey for every time I wanted to post a blog this year but didn’t manage to. I have been real busy, time is whoooooshing by. March??? You must be havin’ a giraffe. I remember when the 6 week school summer holidays felt like an entire wonderful neverending year long. They say time flies when you’re having fun though eh. Drum roll for the musical update (which I am typing up on the train en route to my homeland!)…
Three gigs I am playing in Scotland over the next 4 days:
Saturday 27th February @ The Old Bridge Inn, Aviemore
(Vist the Old Bridge Inn website by clicking here)
Sunday 1st March @ The Halt Bar, Glasgow
(See the Facebook Event page by clicking here)
Tuesday 2nd March @ Medina, Edinburgh (Acoustic Edinburgh headline slot)
(Acoustic Edinburgh website is here)
I kick started 2010 with a writing session with my lyric-writing collaborator Lindsay Skinner in Exeter. Hilariously, or perhaps worryingly so, we have been speculating the presence of some sort of divine intervention signalling to us that we really should not be working together. It took us MONTHS to finally hook up in the same location. The first attempt to meet up, lindsay ended up being rushed into hospital on the day, terribly ill. The second time, the day before we were due to meet, Lindsay was in a car crash in London. Then the third time, it snowed and snowed and snowed and snowed, and pretty much all the trains to Exeter were getting cancelled at short notice due to the severe weather conditions. Determined, I got on my train anyhow, and thankfully made the last possible late night connection in Reading to exeter! (And watched High Society for the first time on the train there – marvellous) And so Lindsay and I finally got to write face to face… I felt pretty rusty, out of the writing loop because I’d spent the end of 2009 just rehearsing, rehearsing for live shows. However we finished a new tune that I’d been pottering around with for the best part of 3 years, and went about further developing a few others we’ve been working on. I’ll hopefully be debuting our newest done & dusted collaboration at my gigs in scotland this weekend. The other tunes we’re working on, I sure am excited about.
At the end of January, my silly sausage friend Jenny skyped me some lyrics in the hope I’d help her pen a tune (as a birthday gift) for our awesome mutual friend (& her bestest friend in the whole wide world), Lee. Always up for a musical challenge, I set about conjuring up the music & a melody (in a mere-but-not-quite-personal-best 20 mins!), and a few days later we set about making a recording of it at my place. We had such a bloody laugh. And then made Lee cry when he listened to it. Mwahahaha. Hear the song in a wee video jenny made:
Two of my dearest, most talented, determined, hardworking and most ‘believing-in-me’ friends in the world have taken it upon themselves to support me in getting my music to a wider audience. I am immensely grateful to be working alongside them now. Consequently, I have been spending quite a bit of time working on a mighty To Do List that they have drawn up, and have been excitedly participating in ‘Team Maciocia’ meetings with agendas, presentations and minutes and everything. You will probably start to see the wee fruits of our labours so far appear around here sometime soon… and in the meantime, you can get following the Twitter feed they have set up for my musical adventures and ‘Like Me’ on Facebook.
There have been numerous musical discoveries and inspiring gigs attended so far this year!
I have been following Anna Calvi since seeing her support Carina Round last year (my jaw about hit the floor). Went to see her for the 3rd time in January.
Tune-Yards BLEW MY MIND too live in glasgow earlier this month. Guttingly, i had to leave to catch the last train after only 4 songs, but still – totally worth it! Fell in love with her album in january.
Went to see Marina & The Diamonds this week in London. I was bowled over when i saw this video last year:
I am currently playing the Local Natives album to death. God i love this radio 1 performance, the lyrics to this song break my heart:
This brought me absolute delight at the end of last year:
And finally, if you aren’t YouTube-d out yet, i shall leave you with the best of Thumper and the STALKING CAT!
This is another just for fun cover i recorded recently with Anna Gibson (trumpet) & The Banana Sessions frontwoman Roberta Pia (backing vox). It’s my bad self on vocals, ukulele, melodica & shaker. I have been absolutely in love with this song ever since I saw Bernadette Peters & Steve Martin perform it in The Jerk (above piccies!).
——————————————————— Tonight You Belong To Me
words & music by billy rose & david lee
I know (I know)
With the dawn that you will be gone
But tonight you belong to me
Although (although) we’re apart
Your part of my heart
And tonight you belong to me
Way down by the stream
How sweet it will seem
Once more just to dream
In the moonlight
My honey I know (I know)
With the dawn that you will be gone
But tonight you belong to me
Way down, way down along the stream
How very, very sweet it will seem
Once more just to dream
In the silvery moonlight
My honey, I know (I know)
With the dawn that you will be gone
But tonight you belong to me
Just to little old me
———————————————————
Sadly I again don’t have time to blog all that I wish to boohoo… but I will sign off by spreading some more musical love. I am currently learning the bass parts for my debut one-off gig as a bass player for The Banana Sessions (so excited!) This ‘ere is a video of their Prodigy Medley as youtube favourited by The Prodigy themselves just yesterday!!!! Go watch it ‘cos its ruddy bloody great.
lotsa dovely love
Donna x
ps. I played a wonderfully enjoyable Love Music Hate Racism show on saturday in brixton with my friend Halle on cajon. I am SO glad to say i feel I am finally mastering my box of ridiculous FX pedals onstage. Aboot time eh. Thanks SO much to all who came down & supported the performance & the cause. I had a bitchin’ sambucca hangover the next day *shudder*
When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you
If your heart is in your dream
No request is too extreme
When you wish upon a star
As dreamers do
Fate is kind
She brings to those who love
The sweet fulfillment of
Their secret longing
Like a bolt out of the blue
Fate steps in and sees you through
When you wish upon a star
Your dreams come true
———————————————————
I bought Pinocchio on DVD last week to celebrate and I’ve watched it 3 times already and every time it fills my little heart right up. Then just 5 minutes ago I sat one of these daft online tests to determine which quite interesting dead person I was and got ‘Hans Christian Anderson, Author of Fairy Tales’ which fits my song choice tremendously!
And oh, everybody!I must not forget to tell you about a show I am playing in the spirit of Love Music Hate Racism next week on Saturday 5th December at The Windmill in Brixton. I’m on at 11.15pm till 11.45pm. Here is a link for more details and to buy tickets. And for all you facebookers, here is the Facebook Event page.
You know, winter really knocks me for six. I’ve had to dedicate a whole chunk of time now to sleeping like a hibernating bear. I don’t wanna have to sleep, I wanna be making music muthahubbardwinta.
But, its ok… cos I already have my next tune ready and mixed and everything It’s a duet with Roberta Pia and a cover of another of one of my most favourite songs in the world. I’ll post it up super soon. I have so much exciting stuff to blog about too when i finally get the chance.
Hello! my trusty good vibes! I hope you are all are well. I’m just dropping by quickly (sadly without a new recording in tow as I have had to focus on rehearsing this past week or so) to say I have a show this saturday at one of London’s most beautiful venues, The Union Chapel. It kicks off at noon sharp and is FREE OF CHARGE to get in. Check this place out its incredible, this is when bjork played it:
I’ve got to hit the hay quick, long day at work tomorrow, but before I go let me share a few lovely things with you…
I read this week that watching footage of cute animals is scientifically proven to calm, destress and make people happy. I don’t know if this particular video will calm you because it doesn’t really calm me but I can’t stop watching it OH MY GAWD HE IS SO OUTRAGEOUSLY CUTE!!!! AAAAAAAAAHHHH! I want to eat him.
I’ve been subscribing to this guy & his band with his girlfriend – pomplamoose – for about a year now, this is his most recent videosong. They continue to be my youtube heroes. The guy’s a freakin’ genius.
Here is a funking brilliant Pomplamoose cover:
And probably my favourite off their album:
This never ceases to make me really lovely happy:
Thanks for all your wonderful feedback to my last tune, I really, really appreciated it so much and I’m sorry again for not yet having replied to emails. Just been so busy at work and rehearsing. Special super thanks to Cesar in Peru who within a week sent me an acapella cover of it! Ha! THAT put a mega grin on my face. I was practicing tonight with dave for saturday’s show and it’s made me very excited to one day record that particular tune with the backing of a full band on it. YES.
I have 4 new recordings on the go at the moment including proper versions of ‘Kiss Me You Fool’ & ‘Some Things Have To Be Believed To Be Seen’. I’ll try and get them finished and up over the next week or so!
It’s a duet with Roberta Pia and a cover of another of one of my most favourite songs in the world. I’ll post it up super soon. I have so much exciting stuff to blog about too when i finally get the chance.
