As you may have noticed, we’ve had some free time these past few winter months (thankfully over!) as we made a deliberate decision to stay out of the cold and work on a whole new set of material. We’re just polishing up the latest batch of new tunes and will be giving them a trial run in the coming weeks. We’ve dug deep in the classic rock bin to grab out a big handful of songs by artists like Prince, Eurythmics, Bangles, Meatloaf (Paradise by the Dashboard Light!), Billy Joel, Rick Springfield, Journey, Steve Miller, Bon Jovi, ACDC, Fleetwood Mac, Kings, Genesis and Rush. We’re pretty excited to bring a new sets worth of new music to our fans and hope you come out to see….rather hear the results. Which brings me to part 2: Our new sound system! Recently acquired and ready to hit the road, we’ve purchased a Mackie Line Array HDA series of speakers. 8 -total 18”subs / 6 -mid high cabinets. These self powered beauties are very efficient and have the ability to really deliver a great sound in any environment and can rock when we turn them up to 11. They also make our life a lot easier when it comes time to move them as they’re more compact and lighter. it’s a win-win. Hope you come out and listen…. yell “turn it up” :>)
Wanted to make our fans aware we’re working on songs for a second CD. We’re slow but sure and determined to get some new music to you. Looking at a couple of different options actually. We’ve also been rolling around the idea of a live CD of ours (and your) favorite cover material. -this is where you come in- What songs would you like to hear on a live CD from us? That’s right…. we want you to email us with your suggestions. Obviously, we’ll probably release songs that we’ve been doing for awhile that have become your favorites (Mama Let Him Play, Go For a Soda, Never Been Any Reason) that aren’t on the radio everyday and you can’t get on CD from the original artist easily. So which ones do we perform that you’d really like to hear over and over when we’re not around? If there’s any others that trip your trigger (even ones we don’t perform) please let us know. We’ll try to accommodate. Meanwhile back to the originals……. We actually have 3 or 4 songs we’ve written and recorded rough some demos. Here’s the deal: We want your feedback. They’re unpolished, unfinished, in various states of completion, and waiting for you to listen to. If you’d like an copy, send us an email to bookings@standinghampton.com and we’ll get you something to critique (if I can get Tony to go along with this!) It gives you an chance to review our creative process and give us the thumbs up or down. I actually got this idea from a Guerilla Marketing blog that suggested we let the fans in on our process so here goes. and I’m hoping it will kick start our creative juices even more so we can get the second CD rolling. thanks for listening and supporting the group. Doug
Just wanted to thank all our fans for making their presence known at all the great gigs we’ve been performing at this summer. And although we’ve had to dodge the rain on a couple of occasions, for the most part we’ve kept dry. Just performed at southern Iowa’s premiere summer event at Lake Rathbun: Summer Splash. There was so much water, you couldn’t see the lake. But other than that, we had a blast. Papers estimated about 2500 were in attendance, and had a great opening act: Three Miles North from …….. well, 3 miles north of Albia. John and Paul and George (no wait, that’s the Beatles) were cooking on some great blues and country tunes. Many thanks to Iowa Sound, Jason, Doug and company for helping us rock sonically. If you missed our RABRAI performance in Charles City, shame on you. It was a night to remember, or forget.. as I’m sure many of the reveling riders did the next day. I’m calculating, but I would guess there were close to 10,000 plus at that show. Again another great opening act: The Dweebs from Wisconsin, whom we’ll be working with in the future to expand our fan base. They rocked well and it was refreshing to hear their take on many of the songs we perform. I’ve got a FLIP camera video of us doing “Don’t Stop Believing” that I will post to youtube soon so you can see all the people singing along. One mishap occurred during the show: a group of bandits initiated a heist of a box of our new t-shirts. Oh well, what you gonna do…. If you read this, and you’re feeling bad just send the $10 or wear it proudly and promote the band, though they probably live in Alaska. Lest I forget, Ankeny Summerfest was another highlight thus far on our schedule. Another great year with about 6-8000 merrymakers rocking along with us. Thanks to Jodi and company for their sound magic, and to Stan Richard for taking some magical photos (which I’m sure will be appearing soon on our website). also got some video from Kevin Nabity that is currently on youtube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLvNUBOAOoY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKEsXPGpmjQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNrd_dLgDNQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_TCdPJRcBE There’s still plenty of summer left to come out and catch the group. State Fair coming up… Firemen’s Convention, the rock keeps rolling.
This last week we received through the mail (via our friend Cathy Jenson) personally autographed photos of…… Sammy Hagar! For those of you unfamiliar with Mr. Hagar and his work (are you living under a rock? or without rock), may we suggest one of his early albums: Standing Hampton! Yes, we like him, and yes, we borrowed his album title as our band name (which he borrowed from Cockney slang) and in the course of the band we’ve performed 4 of the songs on the album. Needless to say we were excited (Devon would say ludicrous -inside joke) and we’re still waiting for him to come sit in with us, but you never know… that day may come. So now you know half the story of where the term Standing Hampton originated. You’ll just have to google it to learn the rest of the story. We know of course most of you are in the know, but we have to initiate new fans as well. rock on!
Hopefully it’s looking like July will be a typical one for Iowa: Hot and dry, but with the usual humidity and bugs. June was an interesting month for us with a few close calls, a rain out, and a good equipment washing. Most of our summer gigs are outdoors (just the way we like it) and yes, we get sprinkled on, or sometimes drenched. But those experiences make for great conversation later on. One year in Pocahontas we saw rain coming from blocks away but couldn’t get tarps up quick enough and everything got soaked (but luckily still worked after we spent half the wee early morning drying it out. Last week in Nashua the rain held off until the last chords of the last song and then the wind picked up nicely and the heavens opened up. We were under a semi-covered stage but a few things still got really wet, including us. We’ll see if it works this week! Tony may have opened up the truck and dried a few things off. Thanks to the sponsors at Nashua, Kim, Mark? and son that stuck around to brave the elements, help with equipment and get wet with us.
Hello! We’ve got a new webpage feature up and running. Our blog! We may not always have something profound or witty to say or a deep subject to comment on, but we’re going to try our best to keep you updated and informed and hopefully somewhat entertained. If you like what you read (or not) or would like to hear from us regarding what type of strings we use or how we hire our roadies, please email. Of course if you’re interested in buying our CD, an mp3, a t-shirt, or booking the group for your function we certainly welcome your email. Let the fun begin…
Greetings Friends! Well, if all goes well, this will end up on our web sites Blog page! Our web dude Chris has set it up so we can simply send an email and it will post on the Blog page. What will they think of next!? :>) Anyway, we hope to be providing you with tidbits, musings, photos, links, and all sorts of other propaganda for your general consumption. As always, we thank you for supporting the band, and hope to see you soon! Tony