Yesterday The Verinos heard that we have been picked to play at Glastonbudget Festival in June 2022. Also BBC East Midlands broadcast a film about the band in their news reports throughout the day, so we were buzzing with people congratulating us and wanting to find out more.
You can see the evening BBC news slot here – the piece about The Verinos is after 22 minutes.
Although most of the bands at the festival are tribute acts, there’s a small stage for local bands and that’s where we’ll be, but hopefully we’ll be well known enough by then to get a good crowd!
The Verinos are now looking for more gigs in the local area; the unglamorous music project is also working with more women to create more all-female bands to play for fun and to record and play live. Get in touch if you’re interested via the comments or by emailing unglamorous music@gmail.com.
Here we are on Sunday 14th October 2021 at the last band rehearsal before our gig today. Keyboard player Vixen isn’t in the photo because she took it.
The best things about being in an all-female band are the friendship, enthusiasm and the unhealthy snacks.
In putting together a website and posters for The Verinos, I’ve done a lot of picture searches for ‘women’ ‘music’ ‘band’ ‘older’ – words like that. And honestly, the images that come up are either a well-preserved Los Angeles blonde beauty earnestly strumming an acoustic guitar on the beach, or a woman in a care home shaking a tambourine as therapy.
Here, Google, please have our picture. This is what some women do in their 40s, 50s and 60s! They go to a rehearsal room, play punk rock and share a picnic on the floor. They moan about the disgusting toilets but that doesn’t spoil the fun!
The Verinos playing live in Leicester at the International Arts Centre, Garden Street LE1 3UA Monday 18th October 2021 onstage 7.30 and also on Friday 22nd October at The Soundhouse Leicester onstage 9.15pm.
Up Yours! is the first song by The Verinos and here’s how it happened …
On 24th May 2021, Vim and Vixen booked a room at Leicester’s LCB Depot in order to write songs for a new band. We wanted to do it in public, so people could see us song writing as they walked past. We wondered whether any cool-looking women might walk past and then we could run out and recruit them for the band. It cost us £6 an hour but we got free wifi, a flipchart and when we bought Grays coffee, it was delivered to us in the middle of the meeting, so we felt like real creatives.
LCB Depot first meeting
We didn’t know who else would be in the band, so had to write a simple song with just one chord. That chord was E, and we guessed the singing had to be a bit shouty. Vixen played her long-form melodica and Vim played all the different versions of E chord that she could – mainly ‘cowboy’ E and barred E at the 7th fret. Then we made a list of the kind of things people might say to us if we got on stage with a band of older women who couldn’t play very well. We knocked it into shape and a 1-chord song was born.
What the hell do you think you’re doing here?
Who let you into this song?
What on earth do you think you look like?
What have you got to say?
Up yours! Up yours! ………. Up yours!
Get over it! Get over it! Up Yours!
Why oh why are you even bothering?
Aren’t you embarrassed …at all?
Get a grip; exit by the gift shop,
What can you be thinking?
Up yours! Up yours! ………. Up yours!
Get over it! Get over it! Up Yours!
Vi, Vixen and VD Verino on the way to a rehearsal
Once we’d got the band together, after our first rehearsal on 5th July 2021, Up Yours! was sounding great, especially with the call-outs and general mayhem, but the one chord was quickly expanded to a classic 3-chord sequence over the next few weeks, because bass-player VD complained that playing just E was boring. So welcome A and B and fancy keyboard parts, and by August, we introduced a key change at the end of the song .. “Just play the same pattern two frets up”
We booked a recording studio 4pm – 8pm 6th September 2021.
3pm With Vi still at work, four of us met and talked about how we were going to do a speedy session. Then we had a cold drink at The Tree.
Volcano, Vixen, VD and Vim
We recorded the instrumental parts for two songs all together playing live and then added the vocals afterwards, when Vi arrived. For the shouty bits, we all stood at a distance round one microphone.
With a rough mix, we were ready to film a video, but the light was going so we quickly went onto the fire escape and played the song again.
We’re amazingly grateful for studio engineering and photography skills of Wong and Hancock which made this easy for us. And we’re back in the studio in early October!
The Verinos had done one rehearsal when we decided to apply to play Glastonbudget Festival. It’s a big festival in Leicestershire consisting mainly of tribute acts. Over the last 16 years, it’s built up to be a big deal with multiple stages. Next one is 2nd-4th June 2022, and some of the less-well known bands are picked via a talent contest audition process at Leicester’s Soundhouse venue.
There will be loads of very competent bands and artists auditioning to play Glastonbudget, but how would a brand new all women garage band do in the process? On July 3rd, we emailed the Director. The argument for having more women in bands at festivals is obvious, but that generally means young women just out of music college, or girls who have a musical parent in the wings. It doesn’t generally mean a bunch of ordinary women only just starting to learn how to play. But that’s us – The Verinos. We’re not bad for a 10-week old band.
But did we get the audition? The first response from Glastonbudget was encouraging:
I like this idea, it sounds like a terrific and inclusive project.
Lets talk more about it, and see what we can do.
Follow The Verinos to find out whether we get to play an audition gig, despite having never played a gig.
Playing in a band was not something most of The Verinos had ever thought possible. Guitarist Vim was at a birthday party in Leicester’s Kayal restaurant and got chatting to VD about punk. VD had just decided to start playing bass and was going to take lessons. Next came Vixen, who could play a bit of keyboards, and her friend Vi, who can sing and shout. Volcano had always fancied playing drums and turned up to the first rehearsal having watched one drum lesson on YouTube and was completely brilliant at it.
The experience of going to a rehearsal room, being extremely loud, having fun with no-one watching is really powerful. The other thing that’s great is playing and creating original songs so that we own and define our art. Our music can’t be compared to some well-known artist’s original version; we are the original version. Our songs are about laughing, being invisible older women, being in a band and just about ourselves really. They’re upbeat, singable, interactive, and we have a lot of fun playing them!
Here’s a photo of us on the way to our first rehearsal
L-R: Volcano, Vi, VD Vim and Vixen Verino on the way to the studio.
The Verinos 