Chris Skoyles

Monday, March 12, 2012

Band hope for luck of the Irish on St. Patrick's Day

Copy of a recent story I sent to the local press to promote Colour Me Blind's upcoming Irish-themed gig.

Band hope for luck of the Irish on St. Patrick's Day

This coming Saturday, thousands of revellers across the country will be out in their droves, raising a cold pint of Guinesss and toasting to the luck of the Irish.

Yet for party-goers in Golborne, St. Patrick's Day celebrations will come with a certain rock 'n' twist as Leigh-based funk-rock band Colour Me Blind take to the stage at The Millstone on Harvey Lane on March 17th to perform a special tribute to Irish artists past and present.

The band, originally formed in 2007, have earned a reputation as an energetic, entertaining live act thanks to performances across the country including support slots with artists such as The Levellers and Dr. Feelgood, a headline appearance at The Shires Show in Shropshire and many home-town performances at venues such as The Musketeer in Leigh, often noted for their crowd-participation and mass-sing-alongs.

It's this feel-good factor which the group plan to bring with them to The Millstone when they give traditional Irish favourites such asThe Wild Rover, Black Velvet Band and When Irish Eyes are Smiling and many more their own unique rock 'n' roll twist.

Colour Me Blind drummer, Stuart Skoyles, 20, said:

"At a lot of pubs and clubs you're likely to find a traditional Irish band playing all the old classics, but we really wanted to give people something different, so we'll be playing all those well-known songs in a way that most have probably never heard them before.

"We think it would be great if we could get songs that have entertained for generations out to younger audiences, helping to pass them down to new generations the way they have been for years.

"Even for those who aren't so keen on the traditional stuff, we've still got plenty to offer as we'll be playing a good number of popular songs from Irish groups like U2, Snow Patrol, and yes, even Boyzone too!'

The band, completed by guitarist and vocalist Danny Werner (20) and Sam Clark (18) on bass, promise that their one-off Irish-themed show will also include games, prizes and a chance for would-be rock stars to join the band on stage.

Entry for the show is completely free and Colour Me Blind are due on stage around 8.30pm. For more information, see www.facebook.com/colourmeblindband

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Talking events with St. John Rigby College students

Colour Me Blind join us at SJR for an acoustic set

I had a wonderful time last Thursday talking to students at St. John Rigby College about the trials and tribulations of staging a music festival.

I’ll admit things were a little daunting to begin with, if only because the very first question put to me was ‘Have you ever had an event go badly?’

A wry smile drifted gently across my face as the words fell out of my mouth:

Well yes, actually, the very last event I ran was utterly terrible, but hey, I’m definitely the guy to tell you all about how to run a successful event.

Ok, so it wasn’t quite like that.

I did fess up that Giggin’ for Higgins didn’t quite draw the kind of crowds I’d hoped for, but I also managed to turn that into what I hoped was a useful nugget of advice not only about timing and location, but also about learning from past mistakes and using those lessons learned to ensure further success the next time round.

Things were much more positive from that point.

The students, tasked for the first time with organising the college’s annual Rigfest event, were polite and a joy to speak with as they grilled myself and my colleague Andrea on all aspects of pulling off an event; from marketing and sponsorship to catering, stage production and much more besides.

Answering those questions with tales not only from Haigh Fest, but from other events such as Millstone Rocks, I did my best to ensure that I passed on the best possible advice I could.

Haigh Fest may not be on the cards this year, but I’m still keen to see live music thriving in our small part of the world, and it always warms my heart somewhat to find young people so enthused about getting some bands together and putting on an event.

Of course, I’ve always enjoyed working with young people, though usually I’m meeting with them to help run journalism skills workshops or talk to them about a web project we’ll be working on.

Having the opportunity to come and talk to young people about music and promoting a show was something of a new experience for me, though one that was very much enjoyable.

That said, I did have some practice.

I’ve had a number of conversations with several fledgling bands and music promoters over the past couple of months and have always been more than happy to pass on any advice I can when asked for it, and this is something I’d be very keen to do more of in the future.

Indeed, I’ve already spoken to a small number of people about organizing some kind of ‘Promoting a Music Event’ seminar/conference with guest speakers at some point in the future.

With a marathon to run at the end of April followed by another jaunt to my beloved Minnesota, I haven’t been able to give this a great deal of thought just yet, so it’s likely that this won’t happen until later in the year, but it’s certainly something I plan to look at more.

I may even get Colour Me Blind involved again.

Yes, whilst arguably the most important part of our session was helping the John Rigby students with their festival, I’m quite prepared to say that the most enjoyable aspect for us all came when my boys Colour Me Blind dropped by the classroom to perform an impromptu acoustic set, entertaining the class (and later the entire college cafeteria!) with a number of tunes which helped bring our morning to a fine finale.

A big thank you to all the staff and students at St. John Rigby College. See you at Rigfest!

Graphic design: Busted

As simple as this was to put together, I'm still rather pleased with it. I created this for a piece of work I've been doing providing online information for young people on smoking, to tie in with No Smoking Day 2012.

I needed an image to go with a page which aimed to 'bust' myths about smoking and, well, this was the result.

I'll release this under a Creative Commons license (CC-BY-SA 2.0) so feel free to use it as long as you pass on the credit.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

More Diamond Fest coverage

After posting the first article from the Wigan Evening Post yesterday, here's some more coverage from the Wigan Observer.

Again, I'll write about this festival very soon. Possibly over the weekend.

Friday, March 2, 2012

Diamond Fest coverage

I'll blog more about this upcoming festival soon. Until then, here's some press coverage we generated in the Wigan Evening Post earlier this week.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Ruready2 banner graphics

Tasked with the challenge of completely revamping Ruready2.com, a website which provides young people with information on health services, I knew that I had to start with the graphics.

The idea was simple. These banner graphics had to be bright and colourful to appeal to the youth audience, yet not so garish and over-the-top that they distracted from the content or looked bad.

I followed the same basic idea I'd used when making the LINC Online banners, keeping the site's name (also completely redesigned) on every page, but letting the name of each individual website section take precedent.