Rock ‘n’ Roll and PowerPoint presentations are two phrases which seldom appear in the same sentence - but a University of Winchester lecturer is seeking to combine them in a new show.
Daniel Ash will explore his musical journey in ‘A Rock’n’roll PowerPoint on Songs’ at Winchester’s Railway Inn next month.
“I’d never been able zoom out and look at the songwriting process until I started lecturing,” said Daniel, a Visiting Lecturer on the University’s Composing Song Lyrics module - part of the BA (Hons) Creative Writing course.
Since starting as a teenager, Daniel has written around 250 songs and he now records and performs under the band name Teenage Waitress.
“The show will be about what I’ve learned about songwriting from lecturing, plus tricks and methods for writing and some stories from my own life which have inspired songs,” said Daniel.
And he decided the only way to bring these elements into a coherent whole was to adopt a ‘slideways’ approach and power up the PowerPoint.
Daniel says the show will be split ‘about 60/40’ between music and talk and will feature “lots of silliness and kazoos”.
He came up with the idea for the show when he realised his forthcoming Teenage Waitress album, yet untitled, might prove difficult to perform live and this would be way of trying out some of the material.
Although Teenage Waitress is a one-man project at the recording stage, Daniel does perform the material with a five-piece band. At the Railway Inn he will be supported by his regular keyboard player Chris Hann.
Like all good concerts, there will be a support act. Also performing on the Power Point will be the University’s Associate Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, Dr Glenn Fosbraey, who will serve up examples of the worst pop lyrics ever written.
Last year Daniel and Glenn teamed up to write an academic book – Exploring Personality and Performance in The Beatles – which drew heavily on Daniel’s experience as ‘John Lennon’ in tribute act The Silver Beatles.
Daniel is currently working on a new book, allied to his PowerPoint show, which has the working title 'It's Not a Superpower - Fifty Adventures in Songwriting'.
His show is on 26 April at the Railway Inn. For bookings and more information visit TEENAGEWAITRESS.PPT – A Rock’n’Roll Powerpoint On Songs | The Railway Inn.
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