Year: 2003

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Let's go round again…

busy weekend. Have spent a fair amount of time in the last few days recording with Matthias Grob – Matthias is the inventor of the Echoplex, and a stunning guitarist (he built his own guitar as well, natch) and we’ve been coming up with all manner of delicious improv, ranging from ambient soundscape stuff to more funky things through to some scary out noises. All rather marvellous and invigorating. As with all this recent duet activity, I’m hoping to have some up online before too long – now that Sarda is back from the states, maybe he’ll get this server of his happening, and I’ll be able to move my site away from zetnet for eva…

Anyway, I digress – Matthias and I have been looping and chatting for a couple of days – talking lots of what we do, why we do it and how to get it across to people… All very stimulating stuff.

What else? ah yes, saturday there was a party for the 30th anniversary of the Greenbelt festival – a fun event, held at Lambeth Palace (the official residence of the AB of C – a nice gaff, which makes up for the rather crappy salary that goes with the job, as interestingly enough, all Church Of England Clergy are on the same wage, whether parish priest or Archbishop…) Anyway, was a fun time to catch up with lots of GB related chums that I’d not seen for a while.

This week is going to be BUSY – first up, I’ve got a recording sesh on Thursday )(more on that later, no doubt), then Friday night I’ve got a rather fun gig, filling in for the keyboard player in Lovesjones. ‘What, you don’t play keys!” – indeed I don’t, but I do make odd noises with a bass, so will be covering the keyboardish role on bass… then doing a solo set.. at Jazz After Dark in Soho… on Friday night.

Also got to relearn some of the improvs that Theo and I have done over the last couple of months for our gig next Tuesday at the National Theatre. So busy week of learning stuff. Still editing the tracks with theo. And the news stuff with Matthias. And hopefully hooking up again with BJ Cole. And listening through the tracks with Patrick Wood. Blimey, how much recording have I been doing lately???? loads, I tell yer!

What else is new? Oh, The CD shop at Bass Guitar Magazine’s website has started stocking my CDs, which is nice of them.

And a track from Not Dancing (Amo Amatis Amare) is on the cover disc that comes with Bassics Magazine – oh, have I mentioned that already? well, here’s the confirmation that it is indeed Amo Amatis…

Soundtrack – been listening to loads of the duo stuff with Matthias, obviously, and the tracks with Theo, and Matthias’s CD, which is great (out on Pillow Mountain Records v. soon) other than that, Kenny Wheeler’s album ‘Angel Song’ has been going round a lot in the kitchen, and today I’ve been listening to Coltrane’s ‘Complete Africa Brass Sessions’ which is incredible – I put it on to play during Mark’s lesson this morning, and it’s been in the player ever since…

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SLOPS…

If anyone knows the origins of this, do let me know, I’d love to credit it… I got it from the Humans list – a Bruce Cockburn discussion list…

“The World Health Organisation today issued a new warning against non-essential travel to the entire Western hemisphere following renewed concerns about the spread of Severe Loss of Perspective Syndrome (SLOPS). Officials are warning travellers not to visit the UK, the US, almost all of Western Europe, and Canada, following further outbreaks of the disease, which has led to mass panic among the media, thousands of ecstatic children being kept out of school by their credulous and moronic parents, and increased profits for DIY stores as the idiot public rush to bulk-buy face masks and boiler suits.

A WHO spokesman said, “You’d be much better off going to somewhere like Thailand or China, because all you’ve got to worry about there is SARS, and let’s face it, you’re about as likely to die from that as you are to get kicked to death by a gang of zombie nuns.”

The SARS virus has now claimed a staggering 500 lives in only six months, which makes it considerably more deadly than, say, malaria, which only kills around 3000 people every single day. Malaria, however, mainly effects only darkies what speak foreign, whereas SARS has made at least one English person feel a bit iffy for a couple of days, and is therefore considered much more serious.

The spread of SLOPS has now reached pandemic proportions, with many high-level politicians seemingly affected by the disease. The rapid spread of SLOPS has been linked to the end of the war in Iraq and the need for Western leaders to give the public something to worry about. Otherwise, they might start asking uncomfortable questions about domestic issues, and that simply would not do. Anyone who appears to be exhibiting symptoms of SLOPS should be dragged into the street by their genitals and shot.”

Soundtrack – Scritti Politti, ‘Cupid and Psyche’; Joni Mitchell, ‘The Hissing Of Summer Lawns’; Theo Travis, ‘Heart Of The Sun’; Medeski Martin and Wood, ‘The Dropper’; and some Howie Day live tracks from The E-Tree Music Archive

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I Don't Know What You Did Last Summer

right, I’m getting complaints that I haven’t done any top 5s for a while… so, in the spirit of the pathetic suppliment that came with this month’s Q magazine entitled ‘things to do this summer’ or something like that (that included stuff like dressing up as famous people and ‘buy these trainers’ – yeah, right….), I shall give you my alternative top 5 things to do this summer…

  • spend as much time as you can outdoors, but don’t get sunburnt.
  • go and see at least one gig a month by an artist you’ve never heard
  • read. lots.
  • If you’re going to go to festival, ignore all the crappy ones listed in Q that involve having your tent stolen and getting showered with piss whilst watching soem bunch of half-assed stoned clothes-horses play poorly, and instead, go to greenbelt
  • watch all the cartoons at www.homestarrunner.com.

a much better way to spend your time.

And if you want something to do now, email 3 friends telling them about the new MP3 on this site, and suggesting that they check it out before buying all of my CDs… ;o)

Soundtrack – today, it’s been King’s X, ‘Black Like Sunday’ – new album, got it through the post this morning. v. good indeed.

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To loop or not…

To Loop – have a read of this article by david torn, archived on the loopers delight website, it’s very good.

To Not Loop – well, to loop a tiny bit – have a listen to the new MP3 of me and Theo Travis that I’ve just added to the MP3s section on the site. It’s very good, and involves very little looping.

One gig I went to that I forgot to mention was Iain Archer, last thursday at Delicatessen in Reading – Deli, you’ll remember is the club that hosted me and Michael Manring and David Friesen, as well as being where I’ve played with Airstar, Julie Lee and Pierce Pettis, and is run by Evil Harv aka The Cheat, and Jimbob aka Sarda aka TAFKA-The-Man-Who-Knows. Anyway, Iain was brilliant – I’ve seen him play countless times before, and recorded and gigged with him as part of Andy Thornton’s band. His new single and album are out very soon, and are certainly eagerly awaited in this house (The Small Person and The Agen Feline are both Archie fans as well….) Also on the bill on Thursday were Electric Gaudi (used to be called Gaudi, but got threatened with legals by la famile de Gaudi the artiste…) featuring my student howard on bass, and a fine job he did too!

Soundtrack – just been listening to ‘In A Silent Way’ by Miles Davis, streamed from launch.yahoo.com – what an amazing bit of music! must buy the album v. soon. before that, was listening to Lucious Jackson, ‘Fever In Fever Out’ and Muriel Anderson, ‘Theme For Two Friends’ – both very fine albums.

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duets…

What a fine week! – Monday, as mentioned was a day recording with Theo. Thursday was a day recording with BJ Cole, and Friday was a day transfering music from Patrick Wood’s ADAT to my computer, and then recording a bit too. These three duo projects are rather fun and invigorating and are producing all manner of fascinating music. The duets with BJ are from a looping perspective going to be the most technically demanding, as we tend to be heading towards tracks with lots of sections, which is great, cos it’ll force me to learn some new EDP tricks – probably time to pay Andre’s site another visit. Talking of looping – there have been some rather heated discussions on the looper’s delight mailing list the theme of what on earth ‘live looping’ means – does it refer to a technical approach to music making? does it imply anything specific in terms of style/genre/aesthetic? is it enough of a hook to build a festival round? While the discussion has been fascinating, the main bizarre thing about it has been just how upset some people have got with it all – it’s way too easy to let email lists encroach on your ‘real’ life, and also to get disagreements mixed up with personal attacks…

Anyway, duets – lots of cool stuff already played/recorded, and lots more to come. I’ll be editing some of what’s already gone, and will hopefully have some stuff up on the site soon… Talking of duets, If you’re in Southern California, Todd Johnson – solo bassist extraordinaire – is hosting a fantastic series of duet gigs in a coffee shop in the Santa Clarita Valley – see Todd’s Site for more info…

what else? Yesterday – teaching and gardening – gardening should have just involved cutting the lawn, but The Small Person had left a large pile of sticks on the lawn, which last time I’d cut the grass I just cut round. So this time the sticks were still there, and the grass had grown through it, making moving the sticks a bit of a big job. Anyway, I did move them, and cut the rest of the lawn, but was knackered afterwards. How dull was that? you don’t care to you? and quite rightly so, there are far more pressing bits of info you could be reading.

And today? church this morning, followed by a day of musical tinkering – bass practice, listening to duet stuff, drum programming etc. The off to see The London Improvisors Orchestra – lots of very skilled musicians making a very inspiring racket. The ones I’d heard of included BJ Cole (who’d suggested I go along), Evan Parker, John Edwards and Steve Beresford.

Soundtrack – lots of interesting stuff over the last few days. Michael Jackson, ‘Off The Wall’, Holly Penfield, ‘Fragile Human Monsters’, an Esquivel compilation (do a search for him on line – he’s great), Medeski Martin and Wood, ‘The Dropper’, and right now I’m listening to Jeff Kaiser/Brad Dutz, ‘The Order Of Her Bones’ – an experimental duet CD for trumpet and percussion, Jeff’s own pfMENTUM records, which is also the label that released Ted Killian’s fantastic ‘Flux Aeterna’ album.

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quick misc. update

Er, what since last week?

Saturday was Gawain the DJ’s wedding – very nice bloke, very nice wedding. bit of a 50s theme. Even more heartening is that he’s even taller than me, and his now-wife is even smaller than the small person. Good to know we’re not the most mismatched people on the planet!

Sunday went to see Masse play at The Foundry in London’s East End. The venue has a very varied and interesting program of stuff on, but is a bit of a dump… Anyway, Masse – bass and drums duo, both looping, processing, improvising, very good stuff indeed. bass-man jeremy was on top form – lots of Echoplexing, and a great tone from a rather special homemade bass cab. If you get a chance to see them play, jump at it.

Monday was more recording with Theo Travis – the best thing about playing with Theo is that we’re never quite sure what it’s all going to end up sounding like. We re-did one of the ideas from a very early session (when we were recording in mono), and it came out sounding completely different anyway… very nice. We’ve now got about an hour and a half of quality stuff towards the album. We’ll keep going until there’s no filler material at all, though it’s feeling pretty consistent already… We’ve got a gig booked, at the National Theatre in London on June 17th, which you really ought to be at!

Monday night was Jude’s leaving do – leaving do? she’s only going to the US For a few months. But anyway, it was a fun time, catching up with Sarda and The Cheat.

And yesterday was spent teaching and editing the stuff that Theo and I recorded.

That’s all really dull – what else is happening? well, Donald Rumsfeld has finally admitted that they are unlikely to find any WMDs in Iraq – no shit sherlock! Isn’t that what Scott Ritter and Hans Blix said months ago, before you bombed their world to pieces????? Clearly this was realised even before they went to war (why else was the notion of ‘freeing the people of iraq’ only brought in as on of the aims just before christmas when getting rid of WMDs had been the expressed sole intention for the year or so before that???) Anyway, seems that the illegal invasion will soon be recognised for what it was – Blair will spin the whole thing, talk about moral responsibility and all his usual BS. Sincere perhaps but sincerely wrong, sorry Tony. Meanwhile, iraqi kids are stepping on undetonated cluster bombs (possibly containing depleted uranium), and the cleanup is going rather slow. Add to that the Brukheimer-esque makeover given to the ‘rescue’ of Jessica thingie, and you’ve got yourself one seriously morally dubious world situation… Now, who was it who veto’d the instigation of an international criminal court again?

Soundtrack – lots of me and theo, obviously. Right now, I’m listening to Medeski Martin and Wood, ‘The Dropper’ – had heard them before and liked what I heard, but BJ Cole recommended this as the one to get. And very fine it is too… What else? Michael Manring, ‘Book Of Flame’ and Morphine, ‘B-Sides and Otherwise’.

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Gig Sans Frontiers

a telegram about Peter Gabriel’s gig at Wembley

…Ah, Peter Gabriel [stop] At Wembley [stop] With Tony Levin on bass [stop] great sound – best ever at a wembley gig [stop] amazing songs, amazing set [stop] must’ve cost millions [stop] been on my list of must see gigs for years [stop] still on my list of must see gigs for next tour [stop] hope he doesn’t ever [stop]

soundtrack – right now, Moonsung by Sheila Chandra (brilliant), before that Arild Andersen, ‘Molde Concert’; some solo bass mp3s from guys on the solobassnetwork list; Andrew Buckton, ‘Rocket Ship’.

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Show Me Heaven…

…Maria McKee’s biggest hit by quite a substantial margin, was not in evidence tonight… there can’t be many artists who’ve had world-wide #1 hits that they completely ignore when they play live (does Jeff Beck still play Hi-Ho Silver Lining? probably not…) Anyway, it was a fine gig – Maria’s got one heck of a pair of lungs on her, which can be slightly overpowering at times, but she’s a fine performer – when she straps on a guitar, it’s like seeing Neil Young channelling Maria Calas – huge voice, chaotic squealing guitar. a highly compelling combination.

It’s not often I go to a gig when I only recognise one song that the artist does – in this case it was the title track from ‘Life Is Sweet’, Maria’s mid-90s solo album, which was very fine. Would have liked more Lone Justice stuff (Maria’s pre-‘Days Of Thunder’ band with Bentmont Tench – who was, I think her husband?)

Maria famously wrote ‘A Good Heart’ for Fergal Sharkey, allegedly about the breakup of her marriage. Her ex-hubbie (Bentmont Tench I think, but could be wrong) also wrote a hit for Fergus The Shark, about the same subject matter, called ‘You Little Thief’ – differerent perspectives on the same event…

…I might be wrong about that, and it wouldn’t be the first time this week. On Saturday night at the Kashmir Klub, I managed to successfully confuse singer/songwriter Geoffrey Williams with former Shalamar front man and inventor of Michael Jackson’s BAD-era persona, Geoffrey Daniels… an easy mistake to make… ;o) I just hope that Kathy didn’t go bowling up to him making some bizarre reference to ‘making this a night to remember’ – he might have completely misunderstood where she was coming from!!!!

soundtrack – been listening to some stuff from Andy West’s forthcoming project, fwap, which is very good, and also more of the dum dums.

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lots of interesting musical things…

…but first, I must tell you that there are 453 deleted emails in my outlook express right now – I’ve just gone through my inbox, which had near 600 emails in it, and replied to or filed all but 24 of them!! yippee, what a liberating feeling. NOTE TO SELF – must try to stay on top of email from now on…

anyway, music stuff – lots of exciting things. Saturday night was a sad event, the last night of the Kashmir Klub. so I went along with evil harv, sarda and cap’n-birdseye-pirate-ben. we were promised lots of special guests, but no-one was expecting Rick Astley to play. Yup, 80s pop legend, who quit music years ago, was there playing guitar for a friend of his, and was talked into doing a song. So he did ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’, just him and an acoustic guitar, and it was GREAT! His voice sounded marvellous, and the song, stripped of the cheesey late 80s SAW production stood up remarkably well, sounding every bit the multi-million seller it was… For an 80s obsessed pop-fiend like myself, it was a real treat. Also in attendance for the evening – Lewis Taylor, Keith Emerson, Kiki Dee, and a few other celebs…

Then Monday night I went round to see BJ Cole – awesome pedal steel player. Pedal Steel is such an evocative sound anyway, but in the hands of someone with BJ’s skill, it soars. We had a bit of a jam, and listened to lots of tunes, and are getting together again next week – how exciting!

And last night was the best of the lot – went to see alex cook singing ‘The Pirates Of Penzance’. Alex is a drummer I toured with for a few years in the mid 80s, and a very good friend, so the thought of him dressed as a pirate singing light opera was too tempting to turn down. Sad thing was, he was actually really really good. Far too good to be funny. I was hoping for classic am-dram silliness – people falling off the stage, kids crying, out of tune oboes. But alas the singers were great, the band very good, the staging excellent. Far too good for an amateur production. Next time, rehearse less!

So tonight, I’m off to see Maria McKee at Shepherd’s Bush Empire with Evil Harv and Radar. Should be lots of fun.

Soundtrack – Prefab Sprout, ‘From Langley Park To Memphis’; Pat Metheny, ‘Imaginary Day’; Marc Johnson, ‘Sound Of Summer Running’; Rain Tree Crow; The Dum Dums, ‘It Goes Without Saying’; Theo Travis, ‘Heart Of The Sun’; Stevie Ray Vaughn, ‘Texas Flood’ and some forthcoming tracks from BJ Cole’s next album, which are fabulous!

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Strongbad the good

Ok, if you’re on broadband (and perhaps even if you’re not, I’ve not tried it on dial-up), get thee to www.homestarrunner.com – some very bizarre and surreal cartoons, but totally addictive, especially strongbad’s emails – one of the characters answers emails from the public… Truly brilliant.

What else? Had another gig last night with Tess Garraway and Joss Peach in Brighton, which was fun. Due to a misunderstanding with the venue, it was a shorter gig that had been planned, but was much fun nontheless, especially as I had a line from Tess’ voice into my loop set up, so could layer up loads of vocal stuff…

Yesterday I received a copy of Andrew Buckton’s new album, Rocket Ship, which is marvellous. It was recorded at the tail-end of last year, with me on bass, jez carr on piano and buck on guitar and voice. Tom Hooper then added some drums and percussion. There’s a fair bit of E-bow and looping from me, providing lots of atmospherics, including one tune where I do loads of looping and SFX, while Jez plays the actual bass line (as has been noted before, Jez is not only a mighty fine pianist, but a stellar bassist too…) The album is fantastic. Really great songs, very personal moving lyrics, and I don’t sound bad on it either… 😉

Hopefully it’ll be available online somewhere before too long.

What else has been happening? Ah yes, yesterday before the gig with Tess, I was recording more stuff with Patrick Wood – if you have a look at the MP3s page, you see there’s a duet track with Patrick. He’s very good, very very good, and we get together every few weeks to make a good noise. More mad loopy stuff, as you’d expect. Will no doubt be releasing a duo album with Patrick at some point. Still editing the stuff I’ve recorded with Theo… there really ought to be lots of this stuff online, but at the moment, I maxxed out on my webspace, so really need to change servers before I get to add any more. Was all set to move to a new host when sarda said he was planning to get a server. So now I’m waiting for that…

Anyway, when it finally happens, you’ll get to hear lots of what I’ve been up to.

Oh, and on the subject of me and Theo, we’ve got a gig at the National Theatre in London on Tuesday 17th from 6-7.30pm. And then on the same day at 9pm, Rick Walker – the percussions that I play with in California – has got a solo gig at The Klinker, so it’s a fine evening for music – well worth coming to see us, grabbing some food, and heading over to Rick’s gigs. I’ll be at both, anyway!

Er, what else? ah yes, Matthias Grob came to stay. Who’s Matthias? He’s the inventor the Echoplex, that rather amazing looping tool that I’ve got four of. And a great musician in his own right. And an all round top bloke. We’d arranged to meet for lunch with a friend of his up town, but he was late, so I had a very nice lunch with Jenny at the ICA, and then Matthias turned up at my place a bit later on. We went for curry. and he gave me a copy of his brand new CD, which is coming out on my label! Yup, Matthias is the first non-me Pillow Mountain Records release. How does that work? for someone who doesn’t like record companies… well, he’s using the name. Doing all the leg-work himself, but using the Pillow Mountain name out of recognition for the fact that our music bears a similar meditative quality I guess. The looping connection, and just that he’s a top bloke. I’m sure people who like what I do will like what he does. So he’s on PMR. It’ll all be official soon, and on the website etc…

Soundtrack – right now, it’s Andrew Buckton’s album ‘Rocket Ship’ (see above) which has been on all day. It’s great. you need to get it when it’s available. Yesterday I was listening to the new album from Andy Sheppard and John Parricelli, ‘PS’, which is great – guitar and sax duets, some looping/processing from John. All good. Recommended.

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