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In my time at Bassist, I interviewed John Patitucci twice – once was the one below, backstage at the Barbican, and once was for a jazz tutorial piece, downstairs at Pizza Express on Dean Street. He was a player that was talked of in such revered tones when I was at college – the pinnacle of wikkid bass skillz, and, I think, the first person I ever noticed playing a 6 string bass (when he was interviewed in Guitarist mag in the late 80s) – The bass line and solo on ‘Got A Match?’ from the first Electrik Band album was pretty much the gold standard. He was a nice guy to interview, friendly and full of great answers, and clearly someone who thinks in a very deep way about his playing. This interview followed his second really great record – ‘Now’. The first, ‘One More Angel’ is one of the finest acoustic jazz records of the last 35 years, IMHO, and came after years of impressive but relatively hollow electric fusion records.

…actually, it was 30 years ago in February, but for some reason, someone over on the guardian music blog saw fit today to post a piece in defence of the wonder that is Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours – a pertinent post round here as Lo. thinks it’s a load of old balls, and I love it. Really love it. Dancing-around-on-the-tube-singing-along-even-though-people-think-I’m-a-mentalist love it. It’s an album fueled by extreme tensions within the band, but one possessed of a number of the most gorgeous tender love songs I’ve ever heard (‘You Make Loving Fun’ is in my all time top 20 or so songs).

As the Guardian bloggist says, ’77 is seen as the year of Punk. It was also the year of ‘Bat Out Of Hell’, ‘Saturday Night Fever’ and ‘Rumours’. The biggest bands of the late 70s weren’t the Clash or The Pistols, but the Mac, Queen, ELO, and in the US, the stadium behemoths of Journey, Boston, Foreigner etc… Of course punk was significant, it just didn’t wipe the slate clean in any way at all. It offered an alternative, but thank God it wasn’t the tsunami of disco-crushing, prog-destroying, MOR-trampling destruction that the tainted hindsight of most music journos would have you believe. I’d still rather listen to Chic than the Pistols any day. Sure, I like the Clash, but I’m still not averse to a quick listen through Mr Blue Sky either.

No, the late 70s was no more an artistic monoculture than any other time in music – it was as much about the creative tension-laden folky MOR-ness of the Mac as it was about the New York Dolls rip-off that was the Pistols (I still contest that – aside from The Clash – Americans did punk way way way better than the UK, from The Stooges, and the Dolls through The Minutemen, Blondie and Talking Heads, up to Big Black, Black Flag, Husker Du and on up to Green Day, Rancid and the fake-but-tuneladen pop punk of today.)

So, go and listen to Rumours. With pride. Revel in it, embrace the genius that is the Fleetwood/McVie rhythm section, bask in how Songbird is meant to sound when it’s not being overcooked by Eva Cassidy. Ditto Dreams and The Corrs. And remember that the middle bit out of The Chain is probably the most financially lucrative bit of bass playing in the history of the world, thanks to someone at the BBC’s Formula One production team. Dummmmmmmmm, De-De-Dum De-De-De-De-Dum Dummmmmmmmmmmmm.

wow, you go away for 7 weeks, come back, and find a new prime minister, a smoking ban, a massive terrorist weirdness thing going on, Wimbledon tennis in full swing… Will i recognise it when I get off the plane? Have all the men grown Amish beards? Have all the laydees grown Amish beards???

I fly to New York tomorrow, and then – hopefully – to London on Tuesday. We’ll see what happens with all the mentalism that’s going on in England at the moment… Does anyone have an email address for the nutters with the non-exploding car bombs? It’d be nice to email them, tell them how much they are potentially disrupting my travel plans, and ask nicely if they wouldn’t mind changing their method of protest… I’m sure they’d listen if they heard my concerns about the airlines reinstating the restrictions on hand-luggage…

So, I’m now in Newport Beach, California, staying with the oh so lovely Kerry Getz. Flew here from NYC yesterday, and am, it has to be said, in love with New York.

Spent the last few days in New York being v. lazy and ill. Walking in Central Park, going for dinner in Greenwich Village, going to see Jeff Taylor then Ron Sexsmith play, but having to leave Ron’s gig due to feeling really rough (sad, because he was great… the support, Kim Taylor, was utterly magical too), having lovely times with S & N in their Manhattan palace, taking L. to the hospital with suspected Strep throat, but finding out the expensive way it was a non-serious and pretty much untreatable viral infection requiring salt water gargling and rest, cooking dinner for S, N, L and Janek, playing through a load of Janek’s songs with him on guitar and voice, me on bass which sounded v. lovely, going to see Chris Tarry‘s amazing band featuring Keith Carlock on drums (one of the greatest drummers I’ve ever seen) with L. and the lovely Susan… so much done, while not really doing anything, in a great city, with cheap cabs and 24 hour subway (that’s transport not sandwiches).

And here I am in California, got a gig tonight in Santa Barbara, and then tomorrow i need to a) finish my column for BGM, and b) submit my tax return and pay my bill! eeeek…

but for now, New York, I miss you – California, we’re old friends, so you’d better for on good form…

So last night was my first ever New York gig, at Mo Pitkins – a fabulous lil’ venue in Manhattan. When I got to the venue (with Sue, Nigel and Lobelia), Chris McIntosh (AKA Grandfather Rock, radio DJ and tireless advocate for great music) and Kathryn (LA buddy, now in Pennsylvania) were already at the venue. Soon followed by more delightful and exceedingly lovely people – Janek, Chris Tarry, Suse, Susan Enan, Jeff Taylor, Amy Kohn, Laura from the Fringe, and a handful of other marvellous people.

I was still slightly jetlagged (my set didn’t start til 11.15pm), so the chat between songs was loose and at times probably total bollocks (what’s new there, eh?) but all seemed to go down well The Absolute highlight of the gig for me was doing three tunes with Lobelia – we did Black Hole Sun (in the arrangement that I did with both Cleveland Watkiss and Julie McKee) and then two amazing songs of her’s. She sang like an angel, and wowed our tiny but v. attentive audience. Much more where that came from, fo’ sho’.

The solo bit of the gig went – Behind Every Word, MMFSOG (with extended talky intro and stop in the middle to explain loopage), Scott Peck, Amo Amatis Amare… I’m sure there were others – did I really only do 5 tunes plus the vocal stuff? I certainly finished with Deeper Still… wow, maybe I did – I was talking a lot, that’s for sure….

Anyway, the people there seemed to love it, and it was great to catch up with so many great friends and musicians and to christen a new duo project in such a creatively successful way. I’ll post an MP3 as soon as I can…

So now, onto wandering around Manhattan, meeting lovely people, late night’s talking, late mornings lying in and generally having a fantastic time, before heading out to California for the madness that is NAMM. See you there!

Ahhhh, New York New York – so great they couldn’t be bothered to think of a different name for the state and the city… New Yorkshire would’ve worked…

Anyway, I’m here, staying with the oh so lovely Shark and TH, in their palatial Manhattan apartment. This is going to be a marvellous week, a marvellous marvellous week, fo’ sho. Talking of Sho’..ws, I’m playing at Mo Pitkins tomorrow night, 11pm, $10 to get in – email all your friends in NYC and tell ‘em to come on down!

More soon…

I’m just about to go to sleep, in order to be up at 6am to leave for New York, which I’m very much looking forward to.

And this video clip makes me REALLY look forward to seeing the 2nd One Giant Leap film. The first one is magic. The second one, based on the trailer, looks just as good. Coming to a Soul Space service near you soon…

See you on ‘tother side of the Atlantic, Bloglings, xx

Christmas albums are, for the most part, shit. It’s a fact, and it’s a testimony to the amount of romantic slushy good-will in the air that people releasing them aren’t marched through the streets, tarred, feathered and dumped in a municipal waste disposal skip.

Every now and again, a genius christmas record happens. Fairytale Of New York, for example – possibly the greatest christmas record of all time. Another contender for that title is ‘River’ by Joni Mitchell, also a front-runner in the ‘most miserable christmas song of all time’, it’s a really really beautiful song, and one of the few JM songs that don’t sound really daft when someone else has a go at them.

As indeed James Taylor has! Yay – click here to download his version of River – I might have to get the rest of his Christmas record – if anyone can do unashamed sentimentality without it being mawkish, it’s JT.

Failing that, I’ll do what I’ve done for about the last 10 christmases and let Bruce Cockburn’s ‘Christmas’ album be my only Christmas CD, along with an MP3 of ‘Fairytale…’ – if you can get it, the greatest ever performance of a Christmas song is the version of ‘Cry Of A Tiny Babe’ by Bruce Cockburn, recorded live on the Columbia Radio Hour, with Roseanne Cash and Lou Reed guesting. Lou completely ignores the tune, the meter, everything, and Bruce nearly pisses himself laughing, but holds it together to sing. It’s magique! Yes, Paul, it’s even better than that Wombles christmas record you posted on the forum. It’s that good ;o)

I used to own the GRP christmas album, but you can refer to my first sentence on this blog for my opinion on that one…

Favourite Day is over again til October.

Got there just after 6, so plenty of time for set-up, though TSP was coming from work which meant that the door wasn’t covered for a while (not sure what I’d do without TSP on these gigs – she’s a lifesaver).

I’ve rarely seen so many gadgets and gizmos on one stage, and even then Leo only brought half his stomp-boxes with him! I’ve only seen Jason play acoustically before, so even though I knew he did an electro-acoustic processed thing, I had no idea what that would be, so he turned up with saxes and percussion and a great TC harmonizer an airFX, JamMan and another boss multi-FX. Lots of great noises.

As is customary, I kicked things off solo (No More Us And Them, Amo Amatis Amare, Scott Peck), then Leo joined me for the duo bit. He’s just been working on a project with a ranting mad new york bloke, so had these fabulous and ever-so-slightly scary vocal samples that he brought into the piece. Great stuff.

I had a feeling when I booked Leo and Jason together that the combination would work really well, and I wasn’t wrong – the combination of my setting up progressions, Leo alternating between playing the progression and punctuating it with crazy detuned guitar noises and Jason veering from gorgeous Garbarek-esque soprano sweetness to multiphonics+harmoniser squeals made for some really fascinating music, that often drifted from really ‘out’ to very ‘in’ indeed across the course of a couple of minutes.

The Recycle Collective works so well on so many levels – from giving people who don’t often get the change to play solo to explore that, through to bringing together disparate combinations of players who otherwise might not have met, as well as just playing gorgeous music in a gorgeous venue.

Crowd was fairly small, but I had lots of apologies waiting when I got in from people intending to be there who were ill or called away by mini-tragedies.

Next one is with BJ and Theo, on October 12th – put it in your diary now!

Pretty much impossible to avoid blogging about the anniversary of the events of 11/9/01.

As a subject it’s so fraught with the possibility of being misunderstood in your appraisal of its legacy, to sound callous by attempting to frame the deaths in the context of the many tens of thousands more deaths that have followed based on the lies that the UK/US governments formulated about those responsible as an excuse for invading Iraq…

So I’ll start with my sadness for New Yorkers, for those who knew people involved. I really feel for the American people, the confusion it must’ve caused – the US has been pretty much impervious to attack on its own soil for ever, and all of a sudden, a few guys of indeterminate origin or affiliation managed to hijack planes and fly them into buildings. Thank God the media’s initial insane assessment of the death toll was wildly over exaggerated. Two and a half thousand people dying is an enormous tragedy. One person dying is an enormous tragedy when it’s your dad/husband/son/brother/friend. That’s two and a half thousand individuals with circles of influence whose lives were shattered.

And it’s utterly vital that we rethink the way we view those who’ve died in the middle east to see them in the same way. Because they have families, friends, colleagues whose lives are torn apart in exactly the same way. Because your country has a history of war doesn’t mean that its people are laid back about losing their family members. Because people are inspired to fight against the occupying forces, doesn’t mean that their families aren’t torn apart when they are killed.

Sept 11th 2001 was one day in a continuum that stretches back decades, that takes in the whole Israel/Palestine problem, the Suez crisis, the Iran/Iraq war, the Soviet invasion and repulsion from Afghanistan, and even further back Britains colonial meddlings and pointless wars in the region. Relations between the Arab world and ‘the west’ have been fraught for decades, occasionally flaring up into wars, but often being held in tension for the sake of the oil. Now the two have come together – it’s flared up into a war for the sake of oil.

Sept 11th 2001 stands out because a) it was utterly unexpected by the public (though apparently not by the security peoples) b) it was americans who were killed and c) the killing all happened on one day, not stretched out over a few weeks or months. It was a heartbreaking event, perpetrated by evil people that wreaked massive destruction on the city and struck right at the heart of America’s sense of invincibility at home.

But it was also used as a catalyst/excuse/fountain of lies for our governments to then go and bomb Iraq, making up all kinds of shit about links to Bin Laden, WMDs etc. etc. We all know what’s happened. We know the numbers involved in how many have died, don’t we? – Well, most estimates put it at hundreds of thousands, but here’s the rub – WE DON’T ACTUALLY KNOW. As Tommy Franks said ‘we don’t do body-counts’. We know exactly how many died in the World Trade Centre. We know their names, can see their pictures in memorial books, hear recordings of their last phone calls. The iraqis killed are collateral damage, civilian casualties, a regrettable byproduct of a war that needs to be fought…. Bollocks. They are people, with families and friends and hobbies. They are internet junkies and news-hounds, footballers and model train enthusiasts, people who grow the own food and people who resent paying over the odds for supermarket food. People in poverty and people who are doing quite well thanks. People who love their cars, people who take pride in their new sofa. Just normal people, not saints, not heroes, just people needlessly killed. Exactly the same as the people in New York. They weren’t heroes, they weren’t saints. They were people who worked for multinationals, paying the bills and feeding their families. Just normal people who were phenomenally unlucky, in the grand scheme of things. Unlucky to work in the WTC or unlucky to born in Tekrit or Basra. It’s the same shit. Same death, same grief. The numbers who died on a particular day don’t change that.

So what’s the anniversary/memorial stuff all about? Should we mark it? Of course we should, but we should mark it by vowing to stop provoking mad nutters into bombing, to stop killing, to do what we can to end the pain of loss that families round the world are feeling, the families of civilians and the families of servicemen on all sides. We should put an end to it, and put pressure on military states to end it, put pressure on Hezbollah and on the Israeli government, on the Burmese government and on the Chinese illegal occupation of Tibet. On Mugabe in Zimbabwe and on the Sudanese government. If only the big economies of the world understood the notion of being ‘wise stewards’ of what they’ve been entrusted with looking after.

The fucking nerve of our governments going to war against the Iraqis is so infuriating given all the things they ignore. The barefaced self-interest of it, couched in such transparently bull-shit-laden ‘moral’ terms. Winning the war of hearts and minds requires consistency, transparency, honesty, humility, and a level playing field.

We need peace, we’ve been dragged to war. We need to negotiate and discuss, we instead use threats and bombs. We need fair trade, instead we offer sanctions and political weighted ‘inducements’. We need to empower, instead we enslave. We need to respect and celebrate diversity, instead we talk of tolerance and ‘Britishness’. Wrong at every turn, good swapped for evil, peace for war, doves for bombs.

The long term tragedy of 11/9/01 is that instead of learning lessons for peace, our elected officials have told lies to create war. The worst possible memorial to the people who died there is the fact that a war was started and still goes on as a result of their deaths being opportunistically cited as a reason for an invasion.

Fair is foul and foul is fair.

So we should indeed never forget, but I’m buggered if I can think of any more ways of telling the governments that.