Goodnight Astor

A Busy Week

Goodnight Boutique — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 11:16:13 +0000

Tonight will mark the third night in a row that Goodnight Astor have played live this week! Wednesday night saw us play at open mic night at The Swan With Two Necks, last night at The Old Millstone alongside Bleeding Hands and The Cut Out and Keeps and tonight, we shall be back at The Swan for Battle of the Bands!

What better way to kick off your weekend than with some local music? Proceedings kick of at 8pm – hope to see you there!
More details can be found on the Facebook event page!

Expect a blog with pictures about what we’ve been up to very soon.

This Thursday!

Goodnight Boutique — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 10:07:41 +0000

This Thursday, you can catch us playing at The Old Millstone in Macclesfield. Live Wire is a new indie bands night held at the local pub, and playing to kickstart it along with us are The Cut Out and Keeps.

This will be our first proper gig of the year, after we had to pull out of one we had scheduled in January due to half of the band falling to the clutches of the flu. We’re excited to get out there and maybe throw some fresh music out there.

It’s free entry and starts at 8pm, so if you’re in the area you should come down, get a bevvy and enjoy some live local music.

https://www.facebook.com/events/225971977497679/

Recording

Goodnight Boutique — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:04:05 +0000

Our recent focus has been getting some tracks recorded and posted on the internet to share with you, the person who’s taken time out to find out more about us. We started off this week recording a cover at home, which you shall be hearing very soon and then last night, we went into the studio to work on our own material.

We worked on two of our songs, The Gambler and The Lord. In the afternoon, we had made a few tweaks, ironing out our harmonies so they’d sound top notch in the studio. Lots of work was put in (we didn’t get out of the studio til 1.30am!) and so hopefully with a bit of production wizardry they’ll be audience ready.

Inspiration – Agatha Christie

Goodnight Boutique — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:00:12 +0000

It’s not just other bands that have helped us to craft our sound, our music has been heavily influenced – lyrically - by literature. As a band whose music could most simply be described as ‘a murder mystery set to music’, who else could be cited as an inspiration than the queen of murder mystery herself!

Agatha Christie’s novels are full of intriguing twists and turns, of curious characters and scenarios. She wrote her stories in a way that keeps you guessing the identity of the murder, and how they got away with it, right up until the big reveal. We hope that we can bring even a glimmer of this to the story that our album will tell.

We’ve been working on recording a cover lately, and will be in the studio working on our own material this week!

2011!

Goodnight Boutique — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 11:33:18 +0000

Although we wrote a good deal of the foundations of our music quite some time ago, 2011 was the year we really kicked off Goodnight Astor, playing our songs live for the first time!

We had a real good time at every performance, each one building up our confidence as a new act more and more. Thank you to every single person that has supported us, be that through watching us play, offering us a gig, listening to one of our live sets on Canalside Radio, reading a blog or by interacting with us over the internet.

Expect a continuation of 2011′s progress into 2012 kicking off with a gig at The Swan With Two Necks on Saturday 7th January. Also, in the last week of the year we finally got hold of a new microphone – so those of you who happen to stumble across us on the internet will soon be able to hear properly what we’re all about!

Wonder what other exciting things 2012 has in store for us.

Pumpernickel!

Goodnight Boutique — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 14:52:02 +0000

Last Friday, we headed to The Snow Goose, bringing our unique mix of murder mystery and music with us to support an event called Pumpernickel. They were raising money for a children’s heart charity, with a raffle full of lovely goodies and a lucky dip. Hopefully lots of money was raised as it was a great event for a great cause.

The Snow Goose is a lovely little pub in Macclesfield with a quirky atmosphere. The walls are hung with the work of local artists, there are a dozen spinning wheels as decor and this beautiful hand-painted piano. Laura definitely has her eye on one of these! If only a real piano was portable.

As we sat in The Snow Goose, the snow began to fall thick and fast – our set ended on a very apt cover of White Christmas. This snap of the snow is admittedly taken back at headquarters, but we were so excited about the prospect that we couldn’t operate the camera.

Thanks for reading, expect more blogging soon!

Goodnight Astor

Our week

Goodnight Boutique — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 17:43:14 +0000

This week, we decided to have a big old recording day. As previously documented, we’ve had some troubles with our microphone. He’s very temperamental and of course, on the day we were striving to be productive – he did not want to play nicely. We thought through our woes and turned to our handy old microphone and made a lot of progress with the recording of our song, The Dancer – which we also decided to shake up with a new jazz-inspired intro. Lots more recording will be underway in coming weeks as we really want to get a demo together for the world to hear!

We often like to pop by Open Mic Night at The Swan With Two Necks – it’s held every Wednesday and it’s a great way to hear some local music and meet some interesting souls. This week was pretty quiet and we ended up playing a mix of covers and our original songs for quite some time.

The evening ended up in the somehow traditional jam – that night an interesting version of Twist and Shout was born of us, Bleeding Hands and our friend, Laura Hooley – who can sing a mean version of Summertime. Luckily, it wasn’t captured for more people to enjoy/endure..

Tonight, you can catch us at The Snow Goose, at an event named Pumpernickel. There’s lots going on and they’re raising money for charity so definitely pop down if you can. It starts at 7pm, we’ll be playing between 9pm and 10pm. It’ll be one of your last chances to see us play live in 2011!

Goodnight Astor

This week!

Goodnight Boutique — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 09:27:56 +0000

Hello dear reader,

It’s been quite a busy time for Goodnight Astor recently, we love it! We’re hoping to get some recording done this week – let’s hope we don’t run into too many troubles with recording equipment this time.

On Friday, you can catch us playing at The Snow Goose in Macclesfield at Pumpernickel, an event raising funds for the Children’s Heart Federation. It promises to be a fantastic fundraiser, with a raffle with some amazing prizes on offer, DJ Mash’d and a lucky dip. Pumpernickel starts at 7pm and runs through til 11.30 so there’s plenty of time for you to pop down and show your support. We shall be playing from 9pm, so we hope to see you then!

You’ll notice that our site now has a page listing when and where you can see us play, so keep an eye on that. If you are interested in booking us, drop us an email at goodnightastor@yahoo.co.uk

Thanks for reading,

Goodnight Astor

A musical influence: Queen

Goodnight Boutique — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 12:37:31 +0000

Whenever we get asked about musical influences, the bands we name are more often than not from a couple of decades back, when popular music was arguably at its most creative, far departed from today’s lyrics about partying hard placed over some tasty beats. Of course, this is a sweeping generalisation and there is some wonderfully crafted stuff around, but for the purposes of this blog, let’s stick with the generalisation.

A band notable for their lyrical creativity and theatrical flair are Queen. We love them for the way their songs will often take the form of an interesting narrative, weaving intriguing tales for the listener. This is something which we have undeniably taken an influence from in our style, our own songs constructing a story for you to follow and make deductions from.

Queen’s musical stylings incorporate influences from a huge range of genres, creating an interesting and unique sound – something which again, leaves us big fans!

Of course, when talking about Queen, you can’t fail to mention Freddie Mercury’s performance style. He’s one of the most iconic frontmen ever, his confidence and stage persona something that every performer can try to draw upon.

So, thanks for the inspiration, Queen!

A bit of news – tomorrow, as part of Winterfest, we will be performing in Macclesfield town centre at the Christmas lights switch on! Wrap up warm and come see us play at quarter to four. The event starts at 12, and lasts until 8pm – so there’s chance to see lots of brilliant local acts, such as Hot Vestry, Alter Ego, The Royals, Pia Burrows and Martin Boulter. Hope to see you there!

More exciting things!

Goodnight Boutique — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 14:50:42 +0000

At the moment, heats of Take It To The Maccx Competition are taking place – a competition in which acts are competing for a chance to perform at the opening celebrations of WinterFest. Last night, we went down to Fresh to play in the third heat, alongside acts such as Hot Vestry, Dirty Money No. 5 and Forever and a Day. We performed two of our own songs, The Doctor and The Gambler, interspersed with our unique spin on The Beatles’ Come Together, which is one of our favourite covers to perform. To be given that platform to get our music out there was really great, so thanks for the opportunity, Take It To The Maccx!

Quick reminder, this Sunday, we will be playing at St. Michael’s Church with a whole host of other acts. The event begins at 12.30 and runs through to 3.30 – you can catch us at 12.50! Come along and enjoy some homegrown music.

Lastly, a further date to add to your diary! On the 9th December, we will be playing at an event named Pumpernickel will be taking place at The Snow Goose in Macclesfield from 7pm til 11.30! It’s all in aid of the Children’s Heart Federation and anything raised on the night will be doubled. There’s going to be live music, poetry, a DJ and a raffle of lovely things – so you should definitely come down and show your support! We’ll be on between 9 and 10.

Hope to see you soon!
Goodnight Astor