Rain Rain, Go Away!

Oh well.... After a day of dull conditions, the heavens opened at 6pm, leading to the cancellation of the Fair E'en gig. A bummer for us, but not too bad as we have another one tomorrow night. I felt sorry for the kids in some of the other bands; for some of them, this would have been their first chance to play in front of a real crowd. Never mind - better luck next year!

Why Does it Always Rain on Me?

Oh dear.... Just over a day to go to our first outdoor gig of the year, and (of course) it's raining. The forecast for tomorrow is more showers, and the BBC weathermap shows a black cloud with rain, but with the sun peeping out from behind it. However, Friday's forecast is sunny, so here's hoping that it starts to clear up on Thursday evening.

We played outdoors at Dunfermline Glen for the Civic week last year - we had sunshine for our set, but literally 5 minutes after we finished, the heavens opened..... maybe we shouldn't have played that Travis song!

70's night in Edinburgh on Friday, so I'll update over the weekend with comments and (hopefully) photos from both gigs

Keith

A Brief History of Frank and the Twins

So, who are Frank and the Twins?

1992: Neil (drums), Keith (guitar) and Simon (bass) are part of the "house band" at Spider Systems in Edinburgh. They play one less-than-triumphant gig at the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh, but call it a day when Neil leaves the company. However, the aforementioned three decide they enjoyed jamming on Rush tunes to annoy the rest of the Spider band so much that they want to keep playing together, so recruit Ken Snowden (Guitar) and Steve Hunter (keys), who'd both played with Neil and Simon previously in "Rumour Has It". They spend the next couple of years practicing occasionally, but never venture out in public

1995: Steve leaves (the time honoured Musical differences.... we were musical, Steve wasn't) and the band (still without a name at this point) decide to refocus on playing covers, the better to get some gigs.

1997: The band consult an oracle (oh alright, a list of random band names from the Web) and come up with the snappy moniker "Frank and the Twins" . What can I say?..... it was either that or "Tubes of the Giants"

August 1st 1997; Frank and the Twins make their live debut at Girsey Nicols in Bo'ness... and people actually seem to like it... even people we didn't know!!! :-)

1997 - 2001; F&TT continue to gig around Fife and the Lothians

2001 - 2003; Keith moves to the USA, and his place is taken by Alan Condie on vocals, keys and guitar. The band continue to gig

2003 - 2005; Keith returns from the USA and rejoins the band, boosting the numbers to a 5-piece (2 Guitars, Bass, Drums, Keys). The band up the gigging frequency with semi-regular slots at Somewhere Else in Dunfermline and Behind The Wall in Falkirk

March 2005 - present; Simon moves to Australia, and is replaced by Les Nicolson on bass. Lineup is now;

Keith Aitken - Guitar, Vocals
Alan Condie - Keys, Guitar, Vocals
Les Nicolson - Bass, B. Vocals
Ken Snowden - Guitar, B. Vocals
Neil Wilson - Drums

First Post....

A Blog? For a covers band? Who's going to be interested in that? Well, maybe no-one, but it'll be an interesting experience (for me at least!)

I'll use this to document the ups and downs of gigging in a covers band. It's not rocket-science, but if nothing else will keep Simon (Bass player Emeritus and band witch-doctor) up to date with what we're doing while he's in Australia.

More soon.......

Keith