An update. . . because its been a long time 26/11/10

Hello everyone
I know its been a long time since my last post, while we haven't made as much progress as we could have everyones had their problems which prevents sucessful practices. . .

etc etc

a few weeks back we had 3 band practices in the same week
and we did really well.

currently everyone in the band has something written for one of our songs, we've made recordings and editing is now taking place. However I beleive another recording of the whole band may be necessary to get this song done right.

I get a lot of feedback about the lack of vocals in our music, rest assured progress has been made in this area, I've heard stevie singing and I'm impressed.
when he gains yet more confidence and we have a solid weekly practice I know we can get a lot done and produce some awesome music.

In other news my guitaring has improved :)
I'm geting back into playing my acoustic guitar and I like experimenting with various guitar tunings and how they affect the sound of the guitar.

I am just rambling here, however freelance isn't dead is the point I'm trying to make.
We haven't made any youtube videos in a while, we either don't have time for them or toms HD camera is full.

fear not I beleive I'm getting a HD camera for christmas so I'm going to be doing a lot more freelance based videos for our youtube profile.

I think thats enough for now
I'll probably edit this post later

How things are right now 04/09/2010

Stephen here: I want freelance to get going again, yes we've failed the target of getting a song done by the end of the 6 week holidays, there are reasons for this and I'm not blaming anyone.
We started well and with good intentions we got 3 practices in and then things slowed to a halt.
Me personally?

I’m still optimistic

Because the way things look eventually we will get a definite weekly place to practice and when that happens we will be a lot more active than we’ve ever been.

Even though the jury is still out on making Amy a member of freelance or not (nothing personal I assure you) that in itself will resolve in time.

But that’s a status update. . .

Also I’d like to wish Laurie the best and hope he will be able to rejoin us as soon as he is able to. I’m not going to go into any specifics as It’s not my place to do so and I’m not sure he’d appreciate it if I did, but just know that I can speak for everyone involved when I say our thoughts are with him. He’s been a good friend to us and we thank him for all the work and effort he puts into freelance

All of that aside, future still looks bright I know I’ve lost contact recently with various members but like the majority of you I want to get the ball rolling again.

I know there’s been some tension with regards adding Amy Whetton as a member of freelance.

I’m not naming any names but the long and short of it is there are concerns over band direction and how adding another guitarist would affect group dynamics.

Me personally? 90% of me wants her to join it would add so much to the band there’s a lot of potential awesomeness that could happen through her joining \m/ I know I’m not alone here there are other members who would love to see Amy in the band

There is 10% of me that is listening and beginning to agree with arguments posted by other members of freelance. . . yes I can see where you’re coming from, things would change but I’m willing to see where that would go. . . burnout 3 suddenly springs to mind. . .”trading risk for reward”

And hey if it doesn’t work then fine I’m wrong ridicule me if you will, I won’t mind in that event.

But so far an agreement we’ve all come to is that we’re giving Amy one practice to see how things are and if it works out or not we will make a decision then.

Exactly when that practice is, is another question entirely. . . with both Russ’ house and tom’s house out of the equation the only remaining house until Stevie’s is fully sorted out is Luke’s house. . . its asking a lot from him to keep using his house, and for that I’m at least saying thanks I know other people have in the past also said thanks but I’m saying it right now.

Now I’m going to ask Luke at some point if we can use his house the first weekend after school starts for me. . . that will be Saturday 11^th September 2010

If he says yes then I’ll tell everyone in the band and we will work out whose going etc whether or not this will be Amy’s trial practice or whatever. . . the fact is just like my media A2 research on soap operas it will be done later and not just yet :)

I’d like to say thanks to the 120 fans of freelance on facebook, I’ve noticed we have a lot of foreign fans from places in the world like Malaysia, Korea and other places, thanks a lot for joining us! Now I’m not sure if you all meant to join a bands facebook page, you may have us confused with freelance business ownership. . . but that’s beside the point thanks anyway for joining.

Also I know a few people on the fans page are there just to see us fail you’re there to take the Mick I know you’ve never liked us. . .so sorry to disappoint you but we’re not packing up just yet \m/

I know who I’m talking to there and I’m sure they know too I’m not naming any names as that’s just bad sportsmanship lol and it doesn’t matter what you do in life there will always be someone who doesn’t like you. If you honestly think that everyone likes you and the world revolves around you then you’re a fool who needs counselling

Anyway

Thanks for reading, I’m Stephen Wilcockson lead guitarist of this band we call freelance see you all next time \m/

not really to plan 31/07/10

saturday morning everyones ready for practice, I wake up about 9.20 thinking today will be awesome

band practice was slow to start and quick to finish with a shock!

well pre practice I set up my guitar and played a lot using various tunings and effects on my new strings (which sound awesome)

at this time stevie was busy picking everyone up

anyway it turns out russ' sister called his mum and told her that we were having band practice at his house which she wasn't happy about, weird really considering shes seen us have practice before without any problem.
anyway russ mum rang russ and really wasn't very happy at all. . . so me and luke had to pack up before dave, tom or stevie showed up!

big shocker

so when they showed up we had to explain everything to them. . .

so really the rest of the day we hung out playing tekken 6 on russ' xbox, it was a good day.
Me and dave played on acoustics which didn't cause a problem , so some work was done
we're slowly seeing, or rather hearing stevie singing which is always good, progress is being made people.

I'm currently talking to luke asking if we can use his house for next practice because we have a target of getting one original song fully complete for the end of the six week break.

so a slight bump in the road, we hope to be back on track soon. \m/

lyrics look good for the various originals we have planned, I'd post them but nothings concrete yet and I don't want anything to get stolen

so yeah I'll update hopefuly next week after practice

you're all epic for reading \m/

Stephen Wilcockson - Freelance - Guitar 1

This week on Guitar casualty . . . erm I mean Band Practice 24/07/10

Hello people that read blogs. . .

Todays practice began about 11.30 or something like that. . . however tom was on holiday and dave . . . dave was not there for whatever reason.

It was at Luke Good's house and I think everyone was happy to have Laurie back on board after months of being unable to join us at practice due to illness. But hes back now and everyone wishes him well. we now have our main tech dude back \m/

we started well. setting up the instruments we had, my guitar, luke's guitar and stevie's keyboard, setting up for the first time in a while lauries pc \m/

We then compared the effects pedals that luke and I own. . . we have 2 now :) things can only go well now
I have the zoom G1X
Luke has what I gather is a step up from my model, he has the zoom G2.U . . . Or something. . . it looks like an updated version of mine, sleek design black more dials, I think it had 5 dials :)

Laurie and stevie worked on a tracklist for songs we're working on put them in an order for an album
"WHAT?" I hear you say, "You're just some N00BS why are you talking about albums?"

my answer, "its a future landmark that we can work towards"

"WHY DON'T YOU GUYS MAKE A FULL SONG? YOU GUYS FAIL AT LIFE!"

my answer: "shut up troll, we get things done when we get things done, we're aiming to have a single song finished with all five members vocals and all by the end of the six week school holidays"

anyway, back to practice:

I went over the guitar part of petroleum with luke for a good while over and over, just to make sure we're both getting it, which went well, all we need now is for both of us to get it to a state where we're both playing in time and its fluid.

I predict great things :)

over time we stopped doing that and began exploring our effects pedals looking for new interesting effects that either link together or sound cool
After a while I wanted to tune my guitar down to drop D then a further half step for each string
I got all the way to my E string and TING string snapped

crap

so we quickly packed up my guitar and set off in the car to get money for repairs and to get to sutton to hardy smith music

and so racing at the speed of. . . overly congested traffic we made it to sutton

cue casualty theme

then we parked up outside hardy smith music and I told them about my guitar, string broke somethings wrong with the pickups etc

he said restringing it without work on pickups will be £15 which I thought wasn't bad
however if work is needed on pickups not just cleaning he'll call me and tell me a price

I remain optimistic, I've asked for 12 gauge strings so they'll have to change the tremelo for use with the new strings
however it means I can drop tune easier and new strings always sound awesome

so then we went to argos got laurie a new keyboard for his pc for a tenner

then we went back to luke's and hung out for a bit.

work on the guitar should be done for monday he'll call my house with news, when that happens I shall call stevie and we'll go get it . . . thanks again dude lifesaver

ok thats about it, slight argument going on with barsby as to wether we should use this blog or twitter. . . seeing as this has been updated more in 2 days than twitter has in 2 months I'm gonna stick with this blog. . . but for the sake of everyone why not just use both?
it would reach more people using both and both are good ways of tracking progress


ok then, if I don't update tomorrow with some more history of freelance then I'll update next week for practice at Russell's! . . . or when I get my guitar back

Freelance news!

Good evening sports fans . . . no I'm not starting like that. . .

Welcome to the official Freelance blog, written and edited by the lead guitarist Stephen Wilcockson (other members may join in the writing/editing of this blog)

ok . . .

right. . .

here we go: Hello :) if you've never heard of us, well I can't blame you (we're not that big yet)
Freelance is a (insert genre here) band from Kirkby In Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, the East Midlands, England, Great Britain, Europe, Planet Earth, somewhere in the milky way. . . yeah

the members are as follows in order of when they joined the project/band (whichever you prefer)

Stevie Williams - Lead singer/keyboard player (2007 - present)
writer of lyrics 1 (2007 - present)
Facebook admin (2009 - present)

Thomas Colledge - Rythm Guitar (2007-2009)
writer of lyrics 2 (2007 - present)
Drummer (2009-present)
Facebook admin (2009 - present)

Andrew Barsby - Drummer ish (2007 - 2007) . . . for about a week or something
Tech person/youtube channel admin (2010 - present)
Facebook admin (2009 - present)

Stephen Wilcockson - Lead Guitar (2007 - present)
Communication person (2007- present)
Facebook admin/ youtube channel admin/blogger admin (2009 - present)

Darren Vatcher - Drummer (2007 -2008)

David Whetton - Bass/ acoustic guitar (2009 - present)
Facebook admin (2009 - present)

Laurie Holmes - Tech genius/ audio record (2009 - present)
Facebook admin (2009 - present)

Luke Good - Rythm Guitar (2009 - present)
Facebook admin (2009 - present)

Russ Armstrong - "Gigsetteruperrer" (2009 - present)


:) yeah thats everything.

I say 2007 because thats when the IDEA for Freelance first came to, if I'm honest I don't have anything from back then but we did record some stuff . . . but its gone now so meh but thats where it all started. 2009 was where things really took off though and when it became public knowledge that we're a band.

If I'm honest initially I didn't want to join a band, didn't think I was good enough, thought I'd be wasting my time, but I really enjoy what freelance does and Its fun. It says I joined in 2007 but really it was months after stevie and tom came up with the idea for it, an unamed band when I showed up, it wasn't until I joined that stevie and I thought of the name freelance. . . it sounded good and it made sense, because of how distant we are from other people. . . take that to mean what you want but what I mean is we're loners all of us, its nothing bad we just prefer to be out of the way, independent . . . and so freelance was born. . . I'd go on to talk about the rest of the history but thats a story for another day/post

if you find this blog by chance and you aren't a hacker then please check us out, we're all over the place now :) but if you've seen the link from either youtube or facebook, welcome :) I'll be working on this blog over time. . . either after practices or when I feel like talking about freelance, so please check back, I'll talk about band progress, history and what we hope to accomplish.


Freelance on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Freelance/351308389631?ref=mf

Freelance on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/freelanceuk

Frrelance on twitter but not really used (barsby's department) :
http://twitter.com/freelanceuk12

bear in mind twitter's not been updated in about 2 months :)


yeah . . . see ya