After a two year absence, I’m heading out to California for the NAMM show in just a week’s time. I’m really looking forward to catching up with the many friends I’ve made at the show over the years. In amongst the schmoozing and nonsense, a great number of remarkable music-loving people come together at NAMM and I always relish the chance to catch up on everyone’s news and make plans for the next year!
I’ve managed to fill up my schedule pretty well, so here’s what’s happening so far:
Thurs 19th - AltBass. at El Torito in Anaheim – the whole bill is Steve Lawson, Chris Tarry, Steuart Liebig, Darren Michaels, Tom Shad – music starts at 7pm.
Friday 20th Jan – BassUp! at Viento y Agua Coffee House – also on the bill Steuart Liebig, Edo Castro, Stew McKinsey, Christopher “C3″ Cardone, Brittany Frompovich, Zen Beer, John Ady, Rod Taylor, and Darren Michaels!
Saturday 21st -AltBass Pt 2, at El Torito in Anaheim again – the bill this time is Steve Lawson, Julie Slick, Gustav Fjelstrom & Tom Shad.
Sunday 22nd – House Concert in Sherman Oaks, CA – message me if you want to come. There may be limited spaces… the amazing Julie Slick will be guesting with me $10 suggested donation…
Monday 23rd – house concert in Newport Beach california – along with a lot of other people TBC.
More details will be added here as and when – if you need info on any of them, please message me via email, facebook or twitter and I’ll hopefully see you or the friends you send my way a a show!
After quite a while off from the live scene thanks to moving house and all the stuffs that go on around that, Lo and I are going to be down in Devon and Cornwall on the 12th and 13th November, playing with the brilliant saxophonist Andy Williamson – I’ve known Andy for ages, and we’ve done a couple of really lovely gigs together over the years. He’s a joy to play with and a delightful man to hang out with, so we’re hugely looking forward to the visit.
Then, on the 24th, I’m playing a duo show in Derby with another old collaborator – Corey Mwamba. Corey’s an exceptional vibraphonist, composer and music maker. The gig I did with his band at the London Jazz Festival a few years back was possibly the hardest music I’ve ever had to play, but also some of the most enjoyable. Here we’ll be improvising, making a gorgeous noise between us, and you’re invited to come and enjoy it with us.
OK, we’re here in New Jersey, playing a house concert tonight. Jetlag is the worst I’ve had in ages, which is probably due to flying with a toddler.
Both Lobelia and I managed to finish up our solo albums before we set off. Which is very exciting!
My new solo album is called ‘11 Reasons Why 3 Is Greater Than Everything‘, and will be out via bandcamp on May 18th, and via iTunes/Amazon etc. not long after that… That picture at the top of this post is the cover art, and there’ll be individual art for each track too, as well as extensive sleeve notes. And of course, I’ll blog some more info and thoughts on it here over the next few weeks. [Read more →]
Plans are now underway for us to return to the US this May/June and play some house concerts. We had such a great time last year on our visit, and we’ve already talked to many of our hosts from last year about return visits.
This week is when we start putting in dates and routing our trip - we’ll be flying into and out of New York, in at the beginning of May, out at the end of June/beginning of July. Aside from time with family and friends, what happens in between is largely reliant on people booking us for house concerts.
Yup, Michael and I are back at Round Midnight! Last time we played there we sold it out, people were queued up outside trying to get in, so I heartily suggest that you call and book in advance.
Playing with Michael is one of my very favouritest things to do as a musician, and listening to him play is one of my favouritest things to do as music fan. So I’m happy as Larry. (Not sure who Larry is, but he must be over the moon right now.)
Here’s a lovely lil’ video from last time we played there:
And here’s our free-to-download live EP, recorded in California a few years back:
Hope to see you there – PLEASE share this link around, invite friends, and c’mon down. It’s going to be a GREAT show, and probably my last ‘public’ show in London before the end of the year… and I think Alex Bershadsky is joining us, which will be cool.
OK, this is going to be fun, and you can help – we’re playing in Cincinnati, in a week’s time (or less, depending on when you read this). So we need your help to get the word out to the lovely people of Cincinnati, OK? [Read more →]
Tomorrow we drive to Nashville – I love Nashville. Some of my favourite people in the world are there. Clever, lovely, talented creative people. What’s not to love about it?
Which is why we’re there for a week in the middle of this tour. We’re doing a lot there. Here’s the list: [Read more →]
We’re off to the US of A this week, taking Baby Flapjack over to his place of nationality, to meet the family.
While we’re there, we’re doing a handful of House Concerts, as is our want.
Here are the first few dates, with links to their Facebook event pages. Please send me a message too if you want to go. These are, for the most part, private events, so the addresses aren’t public, and the people whose houses they are want to know who people are, naturally… So email me, tell me who you are, check out the page, and I’ll put you in touch for more details. (it may be that some of the gigs are either full, or the details are not available for some reason or other – please don’t be offended if this is the case – the privacy and wishes of the hosts win out here…)
We’re just back from a fabulous run of house concerts in England and Scotland. All kinds of good times were had, friends were made, internet chums suddenly existed in meat-space too, and a lot of very fine music happened. Big, big thanks to the truly awesome people who hosted the gigs in Leeds, Camberley and Edinburgh. Expert humans, one and all. [Read more →]
2009 was a fairly easy-going year, music-wise for Lobelia and I. We played a load of US shows in January, and a handful of other shows across the year, but it was mainly pretty low-key stuff.
Gigs:
2010 is already shaping up to be a much more musically-focussed year. I’m in the process of booking some solo house-concerts for the end of March/Beginning of April – the open dates are
March 29th (near Birmingham),
31st (near Exeter) and
April 1st (near Swindon) -
the 30th already has a gig booked in Southampton (more details ASAP).
If you want to host a house-gig on any of those dates, and are near (or between) those places, please drop me a line.
Then Lo and I are doing some duo shows at the beginning of May - on the 6th we’re in Leeds and the 8th in Surrey (more deets soon) – if you’re anywhere between those two, we’d be happy to come and play on the 7th, or either side of those dates. Do drop us a line.
And at the end of May we go out to the US, mainly to take Flapjack to meet the family, but we’ll be doing some house concerts and ‘house consulting’ as well – if you’re interested in hosting something (or putting us in touch with a music school/university) please drop us a line.
Recording:
It’s now nearly 4 years since I released Behind Every Word, and while it’s currently selling REALLY well thanks to Bandcamp’s wonderful download sales platform, it really is time for a new album. So I’ll be working on that very soon – just need to get the tech side worked out. Hopefully will have that available for the US shows.
In a couple of weeks time, I’m going into a studio for a day with Mike Outram – guitar-monkey extraordinaire. No idea what we’ll come up with, but if its releasable, that’ll be out sometime soonish as well.
And then there’s the archive - I’ve got a whole load of fascinating music languishing on hard-drives. There’s a duo album with Italian guitarist Luca Formentini, a strange-yet-beautiful experimental duo album with free improv trumpeter Jeff Kaiser, a quartet live recording with Jeff, saxophonist Andrew Pask and bassist Steuart Liebig. (that last one is really interesting cos I thought the gig had gone pretty badly, then listened to the recording and really liked it )
And there’s also a double album’s worth of live stuff with Theo Travis, recorded on the tour we did after For The Love Of Open Spaces came out. That really needs to be heard. So maybe I should work on that first.
Suffice to say, there’ll be lots of cool music from me this year, if something else doesn’t get in the way.
For now, here’s the album with Theo Travis – have a listen, and then pay whatever you like for it if you want to download it.
After a two year absence, I’m heading out to California for the NAMM show in just a week’s time. I’m really looking forward to catching up with the many friends I’ve made at the show over the years. In amongst the schmoozing and nonsense, a great number of remarkable music-loving people come together at NAMM and I always relish the chance to catch up on everyone’s news and make plans for the next year!
$10 suggested donation…
