#theraspberryjam

[theraspberryjam]

Thank You so much

Well, we are not on the road this weekend, as we are still on our mini break, but we just wanted to let everyone know how much we appreciate you all!!

In the 13 months we have been together you have helped us reach:

over 2100 likes on our facebook page over 500 followers on twitter & over 10,000 video views on our youtube channel.

Also you have turned out to see us more than once and YOU the make The Raspberry Jam show what it is!! We never thought we would experience gigs like we have! Thank you for being so supportive!

We have met amazing people while being on the road & we call you all friends!

Again, huge appreciation from us to you & we will be back on May 16th!!

Cannot wait to see you all soon

Marcus, Dave & Lloyd

[theraspberryjam]

1 more Sleep & The Raspberry Jam 1st Anniversary show is here!

I cannot believe it.  The Raspberry Jam 1st Anniversary show is tomorrow!!  It is going to be a great night & we promise to give it our all! Last night we rehearsed an absolute fan favourite classic last night (Wed 12 March) with Northern Lights.  The Guitar Wizard & Songstress as they are also known as are extremely talented & for a duo they can set a room alight with their talent & sound! So here's the low down of our rehearsal last night.  LLoyd brought pop corn chicken and a krushem from KFC.  Marcus rocked up making an entrance as only he knows how.  Abby isn't feeling too well, so she pushed through the pain barrier. Sunnie worked out the tricky parts of the song & Dave helped, well more like took credit for it.

The one monumental thing that happened, apart from achieving a great cover, was that Dave managed to break a Kazoo!  How is this possible I hear you ask, well the answer is simple!! Dave's either hard or full of hot air, but anyway we got to buy a new Kazoo now! Nice one Dave!

We will post pics tomorrow of us setting the staging and getting ready for the biggest show of The Raspberry Jam's 1 year life! See you all tomorrow Marcus, Dave & Lloyd

[theraspberryjam]

2 More Sleeps to Go!

In exactly 2 more sleeps it will be time for The Raspberry Jam 1st Anniversary Show!

A massive thank you to everyone who has bought tickets and made this event a sell-out.  We are extremely appreciative & shocked by the response of our Raspberry Jam friends.  We wouldn't be where we are without you & we owe you all so much.  We will try to say thank you this Friday's at our 1st anniversary show & it is shaping up to be an incredible night!   Last night (Tues 11th March) we had our rehearsal with The 2 Tones. The 2 Tones are extremely talented and their technical ability mixed with vocal harmony heaven makes this acoustic duo a joy to watch.  So last nights rehearsal started off a little sketchy, as we are attempting something a little different & something that really shouldn't work.  After battling through the first 40 mins, things began to come together & I can proudly say we have a great finished product. The vocal harmonies, word pronunciation, rhythm section all mixed with guitars, mandolin & of course the ukulele help this song sound slightly different to what you may have heard before.  I don't know if the performance will be as sassy as Jay Kay's & Anastacia's or as sexy as Timberlake's and Kylie's Brits collaborations, but if we nail it right on the night, it will be great!!

Tonight we embark upon a rehearsal with Northern Lights.  Here goes to creating another masterpiece for the The Raspberry Jam 1st Anniversary Show.  Excited doesn't begin to describe how I'm feeling right now. Dave - Ukulele The Raspberry Jam

[theraspberryjam]

1st Anniversary Show - Karma Detectives Rehearsal

Well as most of you probably know, we have our 1st year anniversary show coming up on March 14th.  Rehearsals are well under way and last night we had a rehearsal with one of our band friends 'Karma Detectives'. We've decided to cover an all time great, a classic & after last night it is sounding good.  I'm biased obviously, but the Karma Detectives did put us through our paces.  It was a Raspberry Jam rehearsal like no other.  After 2 or 3 attempts we normally give up and look for something else, but not the Karma Detectives.  They made us stick it out & I'm happy to say that I'm glad we did.  I can't see this kind of perseverance happening in a regular Raspberry Jam rehearsal, but it was one practice that is for a very special occasion, so we'll let it slide. We all worked hard, but 2 very important things came out of the night.  Marcus has renamed Andrew Dyer - Mr Tinkle!  Andrew kept piling the pressure on Marcus to play an octave higher on the guitar & were simply not used to technical arrangement, so in jest (& a little frustration) Marcus shouted 'Easy now Mr Tinkle'.  I don't know whether or not it will stick, but I for sure will never forget that moment. Ross has been dubbed The Harmony King, because wherever possible he is looking for harmonies and getting as many people involved in harmony mayhem possible. We're having so much fun putting this show together for all our Raspberry Jam friends & it will be a great night of music and memories! If you haven't got your ticket sorted yet, get down to The Four Winds, Aberavon or contact us to sort this for you.  Tickets are only £5. We'd love to share this night with you. Marcus, Dave & Lloyd The Raspberry  Jam

Rehearsal Time - 3 hours

[theraspberryjam]

So I've neglecting this for a while!

Hello Raspberry Jam friends / blog readers,

So as you can see, I wasn't a great blogger over Christmas/New Year and the beginning of 2014. I must change this.  The good news is that we have been working on plans for 2014.  One announcement is coming very soon! But more about that in a post shortly. So The Raspberry Jam decided at the end of 2013 to play a number of new & different venues in 2014 compared what we had done previously.  It has been a privilege to meet so many new great venues & some amazing people.  Lots of new venues and new people still to meet & we're very excited about it. Its mad to think that Lloyd (percussion) has now been with us 7 months. Time has seriously flown by!  We going to be updating our set list as much as possible this year to keep The Raspberry Jam show interesting and enjoyable.  The challenge of new songs every month will keep us on our toes & make sure your night of entertainment is new and fresh. We've also met a number of musicians while on the road & this year we will be working with a lot of them in many different ways.  Everyone loves a good collaboration. We'd like to know what you would like from us this year?  What songs you would like us to cover at gigs?  What do you want to see more of? & what do you wish to see less of? Get in contact with us, either on here, facebook or twitter. Speak very soon with big announcement.  Incredibly excited! Dave

[theraspberryjam]

What's coming next?

Well obviously Christmas & New year, but what is next for The Raspberry Jam!  We have a very busy festive period and we will be meeting a lot of you on the road this December.  It's been great to meet so many of you & we are extremely grateful that some of you have been to watch us more than once!  We've learnt a few new songs for the Christmas period & we are ready to take them to the road beginning with this Friday.  

Talking about meeting people, we bumped into The Call Centre staff at a charity event, Colin Charvis in Swansea, Phil Bennett at Parc Yr Scarlets, Sam Evans (Big Brother Winner 2013) at a charity event & last but definitely not least we bumped into Lucy Leanne, who was a contestant on everybody's guilty pleasure 'Take me Out'.  Who doesn't love a bit of Paddy?

We have some interesting ideas which hopefully will come together as firm plans in 2014, so please stick with us and keep following our updates.  We are landed that we have over 900 likes on our facebook page & our target to end 2013 is to finish with over 1000 likes by New Years Day!  We also have over 250 followers on twitter,  so we would like to ask you, to please help us by sharing our posts & tweets.

The opportunity to play every weekend and to meet you lovely people is all down to you.  Without The Raspberry Jam friends turning out to watch us, venues wouldn't book us and we wouldn't be on this mad rollercoaster, that is The Raspberry Jam!  What started off as a 3 minute filler for a community day has grown to proportions we never thought existed.  Thank you to everyone who has come to watch us & also a massive thanks to the WAG's for letting us do what we love every weekend! Looking forward to what is next Marcus, Dave & Lloyd (Blog written by Dave) Gigging time of weekend ending 1/12/13 - 12 hours:

[theraspberryjam]

How was playing Parc Y Scarlets?

The Raspberry Jam show and adventure just keeps getting better and better!  We've played Oakwood Park, The Four Winds roof, Penderyn Whisky Distillery & now we've played Parc Y Scarlets, the home of Welsh rugbys Scarlets! We were invited to play in The South stand before the game, at half time & after the game.  We also got the opportunity to watch The Scarlets take on Ulster in their Pro12 fixture.  I (Dave) sat next to the Welsh rugby legend that is Phil Bennett.  I had to double check it was him mind, being the big rugby fan I am. Lloyd the Ospreys fan couldn't make it this weekend probably best for his safety!  So, Sunnie Davies the guitar magician from Northern Lights joined us to play percussion.  We also took part time Max Boyce impersonator Liam Hughes with us, to help in the roadie division. We had to get to Parc Y Scarlets a lot earlier than most of our gigs, to clear security and also to set up without thousands of people in the way.  When we arrived and got through security we had to ask where we needed to go to unload the car, between us and the security guy we had a little misunderstanding somewhere & we ended up doing 3 laps of the stadium.  It was a lovely drive!  Eventually after driving around, security phoned up and got us to the right drop off point.

After setting up and parking the car, we ventured into the club shop, bought programmes, because we were in it & Marcus purchased a scarf (huge Scarlets fan) & Sunnie bought a Scarlets beanie (not such a big Scarlets fan).   We played for an hour before kick off to a great group of people.  Half time was loud & on estimations we must have played to maybe 1500 or more rugby fans.  At the end of the game we played for an hour and had a great blast with the people who stayed behind with us.  A massive thank you to them for staying behind to join in with us!  Liam Hughes stepped up from his roadie role and stepped into his Max Boyce impersonator role & changed lyrics, to fit the day we had experienced and the Scarlets fans loved it. We met some amazing people that day, chatted with the staff in the lounge, after they had clocked off and hopefully we are going back to Parc Y Scarlets very soon.  We all had an amazing day & it is a memory I will never forget.  Thanks Scarlets for the huge opportunity! Also, The Scarlets beat Ulster, don't ask me what the score was, I haven't got a clue! Speak soon Dave

Gig Time - 9 hours with setting up

[theraspberryjam]

Who abused Lloyd about not being able to do a Wookie?

Friday night was memorable for one reason and one reason only! The genius drummer that is Lloyd Williams got abused by retired Welsh international rugby player - Colin Charvis! Lloyd was abused by Colin Charvis for not being able to do a wookie in Old McDonald had a Farm!

It was such a funny night watching Colin Charvis impersonating a wookie and amplifying the sound in his empty San Miguel glass & then shoving the glass in front of Lloyd and pressing him to do the same.  He failed miserably though! We will all never forget this evening & who'd have thought that Old McDonald would be such an important part of The Raspberry Jam show.

We never thought Lloyd would be challenged so much either but it keeps him on his toes! What's next in the mad Raspberry Jam world?! Talk to you soon

Dave

Gig time hours this weekend - 16 hours