Hi friends!

Yesterday I spent the day in central London with a camera crew and my manager Wendy, filming a video piece to go with my new EP and album! It was bucketing down with rain, under a grey cloudy sky… so it’ll look very legitimately British! We started off inside St Mary’s Church, a beautiful, tall church built in the early 1800s near Marble Arch and Marylebone in the heart of Westminster. We filmed the stories behind the songs on the album there. Then after grabbing sandwiches we piled into Wendy’s car and drove around the city center with both camera men hanging out the windows filming the city in motion!

We parked near the River Thames and got footage of me chatting about themes on the album and about life in general. The rain didn’t stop so I pulled out my black and white polka dot umbrella! We filmed the London Eye and the Houses Of Parliament, then drove into the dark and very heart-breaking area of Soho – it has been London’s prostitution district for the past 400 years.

I got out of the car with the camera crew and we captured the explicit and devastating nature of those streets. I shared thoughts with the camera on worship and justice and my passion to see human trafficking ended. We ventured down some very dark, small alleyways lined with prostitutes and pimps. My heart was racing when we got accosted by one of them and told to stop filming as what was going on was private and not to be documented. It was scary and we felt pretty vulnerable…but I am so glad we were able to go there and let our hearts be even more deeply broken by what goes on behind closed doors. Worship and justice MUST go hand in hand – one of the songs on the new album is all about that…so my decision to shoot some film in Soho was one I’m still glad I did.

Watch out for the video! We’ll post some “Flip camera” B roll in the next week or so to give you a taste of what the full version will look like!

Not long til my 3 song EP comes out…. Feb 9th!!

Love,

Vicky

Hello!

This past Sunday I had the privelege of leading worship at an amazing church. “The Rock” in San Diego is the 5th fastest growing church in the USA. During their 5 services every Sunday they have about 12 thousand people coming in and out of their doors.

It was a busy but excellent Sunday – a real blessing to see so many faces and lead them into God’s presence.

Here are some pics!

The view from my mic during soundcheck!

Chris, the monitor engineer, working the board,,,

Right before the doors opened…

Jonny’s amazing guitars… (he has many, but these are two particularly amazing ones! Grestch and Dusemberg….)

Darla on drums…. I love female drummers!!!!

Thanks to my great band!! – Sarah MacIntosh on BGVs, Jonathan MacIntosh on electric guitar, Darla Hawn on drums and Time Devlin on bass. You guys were heroes to play that many services with me in a row!

Looking forward to visiting The Rock again on a Sunday when I’m not leading and experiencing their worship and teaching again. It was great. A special thank you to Stefanie, Regina, Gene, Chris and all the crew for making me feel so welcome

Vicky

Video Blog #2 From The Studio – “Vocal Booth Truth!” from Vicky Beeching on Vimeo.

Hello!

Recording has continued over the past week… its going great!

We’ve got the drums, bass and guitars done on all 3 of the E.P. songs. Now we are just finishing vocals…

I was in the vocal booth yesterday and thought I’d make another ‘video blog’ for you with some behind the scenes footage… hope it makes you smile : )

Love,
Vicky

I had a wonderful, unexpected surprise this past week. My friends from the band “Leeland” – who if you’ve never met them are some of the greatest guys on the planet – were sound checking in San Diego for the Christian Music Awards. They had a few hours free, so they drove to the studio I’m recording in and sang some ‘gang vocals’ on some of my songs. Thanks guys!

Here are some pics…

Lots of headphone cables so everyone could hear and sing along!

The first step for recording was – turn off our phones! (You can see how many iPhone-users we had in the building!!)

Me teaching the songs on acoustic, and people learning the lyrics from their sheets…

Sarah teaching vocal parts… Baby Scarlett watches wishing she could join in the singing!

Some of the songs I joined the ‘gang’ and sang on… Others I just stood and watched as it was a special moment for me to see all those people singing my songs and bringing their voices and hearts to the record.

SINGING!

Jonathan, my Producer, at the desk recording it all!

Group shot! Thanks SO much everyone

Look for my 3 song EP coming out this Fall. Then the full-length album early next year! I can’t wait for you all to hear it.

Also…. Leeland’s brand new album hit the streets TODAY! Go buy it here!!

Are you part of a music community? Do you have people that you play with, sing with, jam with? For any musician or songwriter, a good musical community is a real gift from God. Do you have that or are you praying/searching for that?

Love,

Vicky

Video Blog #1 From The Studio! from Vicky Beeching on Vimeo.

Hey!

So you’ve heard me talk on Twitter and this Blog about recording my new album. So I thought it was high time you SAW and experienced it for yourselves!

Check out this video I made – you’ll get a guided tour of the studio rooms and gear. Then you’ll get to meet my producer, one of my favorite co-writers, my A&R man Jay King, plus baby Scarlett – who makes us all smile everyday!

Question for you – have you done any recording? How did it go and what software/hardware did you use? Or are you someone wanting to know where to start in making a decent demo? Lets chat about recording…all questions and thoughts welcome below!

Thanks for your support and prayers – I couldn’t make this record without you and I hope all of the songs will lead you closer to Jesus!

Love,

Vicky

So I’m still loving my digital camera… It’s one of the best things I’ve ever bought… so much fun! I’m taking it to England to snap some shots of my family and homeland to show you on here

Recently I was at the beach in San Diego and saw a guy flying two cool kites…and some beautiful yellow flowers too… Thought I’d try and capture it all on my Nikon!

Photos always remind me that life passes us by so quickly. David wrote in the book of Psalms that “life is like a vapor, like a shadow, like a mist”. Its here one moment, then it’s gone. Another great quote I read recently was “We don’t remember our life in days, we remember it in moments”. It’s true – our main memories of life aren’t categorized into years, months and days. They are simply snapshot moments of the times in our life that most powerfully affected us. It reminds me to stop, look and let me heart and mind take those snapshots – and to not miss the beauty that’s all around me!

I took the shots above with my 17-70mm lens. I’m testing out a different one – a 50mm – over the next couple weeks (thanks to Jonathan Paul for loaning it to me!).  Anyone got any advice on how to get the best results from a 50mm? I’m wanting to use it for portraits, where the face is razor sharp and the background is super blurry, for maximum depth of field. Should I just set it on ‘Auto’ and snap? Or are there techniques using the different settings like “P”, “A” and “S” that can get me more of what I’m looking for in the photos?

Peace!

Vicky

Hi everyone!

Hope you had a great weekend?

Here are a couple of shots of me co-writing with Stu G, from the British worship band Delirious. We had a great time!

You songwriters reading this….have you ever co-written with anyone else? Do you have any questions about how to make it work easier and better? Any bad experiences?

Peace,

Vicky

Hey guys!

How has your week been?

Mine’s been  pretty eventful – working hard on new songs for the forthcoming record and demoing them as very rough guitar/vocals on Garageband just to figure out if they are full finished yet, and to decide on which key and tempo feels right for each song…

I did an interview with a dear friend and DJ, Heather from KPRZ recently – so here are the pics!

I also did an interview with a friend of mine, Adam Stadtmiller, who is a pastor down in San Diego…. Adam has started a video show where he interviews people. He is calling it “The Roman Underground” and it will be launched online very soon! I’ll be featured as one of the first people he interviews. Adam is a deep thinker, a theologian and asks great questions. We talked about so many subjects that the interview – meant to last 30 mins – went for almost 2 hrs! So it will be split up into different short segments on the shows!

We used BJ (who you saw in my Pasadena and Downey show pictures) and her husband Joel’s house as our film studio….Joel set it up with lighting and an HD camera amd mics….it looked and sounded great! I love that their surfboard is on the wall as an ornament…very “California”!! Here are more pics…. I’ll post the link to the video interviews when Joel and Adam have edited them and posted them online!

My favorite detail here is that Adam has a teapot created specially for the show – with the initials “R.U.” for Roman Underground on it… nice touch! And the tea was good!

Question for you!:

If you could interview anyone. dead or alive, who would it be? And would you have specific questions, or just want to be around that person?

(And you can’t say JESUS!… Or God the Father, or the Holy Spirit!!!)

Very much looking forward to your answers…I feel like I am really getting to know you guys on here – and thanks for diving in SO amazingly on the Once Saved Always Saved post…that made my month!!!! And I am still preparing my reply for it too…I haven’t forgotten!

Vicky

I played in a town called Downey, up near LA on Friday night. It was a great time.

After I played, someone shared about what it means to follow Jesus. He invited anyone who wanted to make a decision to believe in Jesus and live for him, to pray a short prayer with him.

We all closed our eyes and the pastor led us in the prayer, asking that anyone wanting to ‘become a Christian’ should repeat the phrases of the prayer ‘in their heart, to God’.

It got me thinking because I have a lot of friends who’ve ‘prayed the prayer’ at some point in their lives. But many of them now would say they don’t believe in God anymore, or that they kind of do, but they are taking a break from ‘living it out’.

So.. I guess my question for the blog is, does praying one prayer once, mean that you are a Christian forever and ever Amen?!

The book of James in the Bible says that ‘faith without wors is dead’. So if our faith has ceased to show itself in actions or works, does that mean our faith is dead?

I would love to know your thoughts, and the reasons and experience that create your point of view….

And I know for many of us this is an emotional issue, as we all have loved ones and friends who gave their live to Jesus and today are not walking it out… so lets be sensitive as well as passionate.. But I really want your honest opinion

Let the theological discussions begin!

Love,

Vicky

Hi there!

I drove downtown to San Diego this evening, so while I was down there I pulled out my camera and took a few night-time shots of the city. The lights are so beautiful next to the water!

This one above, is the Coronado Bridge. It links San Diego city with Coronado Island.

And a few weird effects I created (for better or worse!…)

This shot of Coronado Bridge wins as my favorite…I liked it in black and white as well as the colored one above…so I kept both…

I really want to learn how to take photos… and I need to get Photoshop rather than good old “iPhoto”! But hey….even if my attempts aren’t awesome, I am trying!!

Any one got any advice for me… I’m using a Nikon D80 and a 17-70 lens. Feel free to let me know if there are other lenses that you’ve found cool….or whether there is other photo editing software you’d recommend besides Photoshop…

Vicky