August newsletter..

So having finally completed my detailed procrastinations the lawn is looking a bit like my beard now) I’d like to welcome you to the first instalment of the land of the blog/stream of consciousness from me (Andy) here at singsongalong HQ in Leyton studios (aka my flat).

Well I guess some of you are teachers, who have just started to actually relax after the end of term craziness, and some of you may be parents, just starting to come to terms with the fact that your children are no longer occupied from 9-3 Monday-Friday. Either way, I trust that you all are enjoying some of the nice weather that has decided to finally make an appearance. (Cue the thunderstorms...)

So the week after my school broke up was spent turning my living room into a green screen filming studio and shooting as many evenings as we could manage before Bracken left us at the end of July to spend the summer in Toronto. So, as some of you may have seen on facebook or instagram (andy nunn – the one with the big hair, so friend me up!) we spent most of our time getting dressed up as EYGYPTIANS, POMEIIIANS (sp?), DINOSAUR EXPLORERS, TOYS, DEEP SEA DIVERS, MAIDENS AND KNIGHTS. Needless to say, my neighbours called the police to inform them that there was a disco-dancing dinosaur in a garden flat in east London. Mr Attenborough was also notified, however has declined to comment on the recent heated debate on whether or not dinosaurs actually preferred dub-step. Luckily I managed to find a keytar (or guit-board) that had been put in storage in 1983, and used it to funk up the proceedings.

We bade farewell to Bracken at an impromptu performance of a few of our greatest hits at a lovely place in Kennington called the Toulouse Lautrec bar (go) and we even managed to get some members of the audience to don Viking helmets and do a bit of heaving and ho-ing with us. And a few singers were recruited to sing four part harmonies in the encore which was a great help to me, as the piano I was playing was starting to get a little drunk by that stage of proceedings and kept moving about under my fingers. Very inconsiderate of it I thought.

So this summer Bracken and the super talented Alex Simmons (aka the dancing singsongalong ninja star) will be editing our next batch of videos: ROMAN NUMERALS, VOCTORIANS and ANTARCTICA, so watch this space! Whereas for me, it’s the writing desk (piano) and the recording studio with my great pal Ian Kellet. And I have decided to set myself a bit of a target so that I don’t get too comfortable over the holidays. I am going to attempt a SUMMER-SONG-A-DAY challenge, which I shall be posting about on the blogsphere. (Address t.b.c.) This is where you guys could help me out. I already have a list of topics that teacher friends have requested that I write songs for – but I don’t have enough. So please – let me know what you want, and if your idea gets written and recorded, you’ll get a free backing track. Also, if any of you out there have written songs, or poems and want to join me on a writing/jamming session – get in touch!

Finally, I know it’s a bit early, but I want to start talking about CHRISTMAS! I don’t mean shopping, I mean getting your children involved in a crazy attempt to get my singsongalong Christmas single into the charts. I will be recording the backing track over the summer and getting Bracken’s wonderful voice on top, and wee are going to open a competition up to school choirs, classes or whole schools who want to be on the record and in the video. Something to mull over when we all get back to school in September – which is when I’m going to be writing the next exciting instalment of the singsongalong monthly newsletter.

Thanks for reading, and congratulations if you made it all the way to the end. 10 points to you!

Andy