stephen dodds.de

One week to the Schlossbrücke gig in Leinstetten. It would be great to get a lot of people down to this one. Conny & Tom who run the place have been wanting to have a ‘music night’ for a while, and I am the guinea pig (Versuchskaninchen) I suppose. I’m looking forward to it and I hope it is a success for them.

Btw – there was a problem with the Schlossbrücke link in the gig list, but I have fixed it now. (The program had changed the ü into a u!)

Hope to see you there!

Oh, there’s a pic and a kind of review of the Vfr Sulz gig here. I think I will have to change the header text of the blog to:

home of the 40 something singer/songwriter, guitarist with fireball, ambassador of the pub singalong, collector of backhanded compliments….

Had a very relaxing summer, taking it easy and not doing so much. Back in the saddle again now though…fully fit and ready to go.

Two private parties to play in September, and then on the 30th, I will be playing at the Goodbye Summer party at the Sportheim in Sulz. Should be great fun.

October promises to be busy too – I will be playing at the excellent Cafebar in Rottenburg, which is always a great night, on the 8th. On the 15th it’s back to the exclusive Secret Location in Stuttgart, and then on the 28th I will be playing at Gasthaus Schlossbrücke in Leinstetten. More details on the gigs page. Fireball are having an extended summer break – We all were on holiday, and now Bob is on holiday until October, so our next gig is at Die Halle in Reichenbach, on 11.11, followed by Biddy Early’s in Stuttgart on 19.11.

Relaxing for a couple of weeks and catching up with one or two things – back soon!

Thought I’d just check in after what has been a busy month – not so many gigs, but lots of private stuff, and of course work.

The Horb Gartenschau gig was great – I got the best of the weather, and there were quite a few people there who stayed around to listen. Next one is on 13.08 when the flowers should be in full bloom, and I’m hoping to get something in the press first, and maybe have a nice time there again!

Fireball will be playing at the Ebersberger Schlossfest on 11.07 – here is a link to their page. We’re hoping for a great gig!

Otherwise I have a lot of private parties coming up and not so many public gigs I’m afraid. Highlights will be an open air gig organised by Cafe Passage in Nufringen in July, and also an opening party in Pfalzgrafenweiler in early July.

Please keep checking the website for updates, and come up and say Hi if you see me!

Sorry – gig tomorrow night at the old school Secret Location is cancelled – I am sick at the moment. Hope to reschedule it and will let you know.

check out the audio / video page – just uploaded a new video taken at the secret location!

More to come…

Another year has flown by, and suddenly it is 2011. Thanks to everyone who reads this website and comes to the gigs – it is always good to see people at the gigs!

It is a quiet start to the new year, and after we have all recovered from eating and drinking too much at Christmas, Fireball will be playing at a private party in the East of Germany on 15.01. Other gigs include:

• Fireball at Biddy Early’s in Stuttgart on 05.02
• Solo gig at the secret location again on 12.02 (read the last post carefully, or just ask me where it is if you want to come down).
• Fireball at The Adler D’Onofrio in Eislingen on 19.02

Keep reading the site and the newsletters and hope to see you at one of the gigs soon.  I hope to have news of more soon…

Stephen

Well, it’s summer, I’m on holiday (kind of – just don’t have any work!) and so I am listening to more music than I normally would, and rediscovering some stuff I had forgotten.

I am currently grooving to:

I’ve had it – Aimee Mann

On another blog someone is posting about music videos from one UK TV show Top of the Pops. This got me thinking, and as I was growing up in the UK in the 70s, there were only two shows – Top of the Pops ( TOTP) and the Old Grey Whistle Test (OGWT). The OGWT dealt with older classic bands, and was wasted on me as a young kid. Now of course I love to watch old clips of bands before one of them died or they split up or whatever, but back then TOTP had the current hits and was much more interesting. Then in 1982 came The Tube on  Channel 4 -  a new live music show on a new channel, and after that I became a bit blasé about live music, especially as I was playing it myself and seeing other local bands by that point. But I still remember the moment that just blew me away. This was at about 0,28″ of this..when the guitars kick in.  We had heard of them sure – they were all over the papers, getting banned everywhere, and we had even heard the first singles, but this was the first time we had actually seen them, and I can’t describe just how thrilling that was to a 10 year old boy!

…for me at least. It has been hectic, with lots of new work – which is good – I need it! But also lots of gigs – still waiting for photos from most of them* – but so far we have had a solo gig at the Alte Schule in Stuttgart, which was great, and one at Oscar’s Esslingen, which was not so great. Even Fish day on Tuesday couldn’t pull the crowd in! I also played a couple of parties which were excellent – one for a friend’s 50th, and the other with Fireball in a hotel on the shores of Lake Lucerne in Switzerland. I / we were very well looked after at both, and I’m thinking of doing only parties from now on!

On Saturday just gone, Fireball really hit our stride at the Rainbow in Altheim. Once again we were competing against a local music festival – better scheduling next time please!! – but we rocked the place. Don’t miss the next one there.

Next Friday (30.04) we are playing at the Bräu in Leonberg again. We’re definitely going to rock that place, so be there early if you want a good spot.

*If you come to any of the gigs and take some pics, then it would be really cool if you could send some or link to them, so that I / we can use them here or on the Fireball site.