2005 – Page 25 – stevelawson.net

July 28, 2005

'suspect package' in southgate on a bus.

I guess it was inevitable, with that flat that keeps appearing on the news being about a mile from here, that the police are going to be particularly jittery in Southgate, but right now the whole high street is cordoned off due to a ‘suspect package’ on a bus. It’s almost certainly just some poor git’s lunch, that’s now going to get blown into a thousand tiny cheese ‘n’ salad sandwich pieces in a controlled explosion, and I guess they do have to be vigilant.

It is odd though, walking out onto the high street and finding it deserted by traffic – just a few people wandering around trying to find out what’s going on, and some others going about their business. It made the trip to the charity shop to drop off a load of stuff a lot easier, that’s for sure!

July 27, 2005

Rock Stars losing the plot part 1

So Dave Mustaine from Megadeth is suing Dave Ellefson, formerly of Megadeth for mentioning that he was ever in Megadeth – huh?

So, let me get this straight, Mr E, who was in the band for a couple of decades, and is known as the dude from Megadeth, is not allowed to mention or have it mentioned that he was ever in the band????

What a dickhead Mustaine must be. I’d heard he’d converted to Christianity at some point – certainly some of their later lyrics would suggest that – but it clearly didn’t stop him behaving like a pillock. Why do people get caught up in this bollocks? If only he could see that as far as brand recognition goes, having the name of your band associated with ex-members in a situation where they are being celebrated for what they do (in this case, in an ad in Bass Player magazine) is good for business (and business is good).

All in all, this definitely looks like El Mustaine being twat again. His nuts behaviour and egomania are the stuff of Spinal Tapesque legend in the music world, and this just goes to add fuel to the forest fire that is his reputation for nobbishness.

July 27, 2005

More crap pictures of me in the new t-shirts…

July 26, 2005

Tshirt details –

Here’s a webcam pic of me in one of the t-shirts –

nice, eh?

And they can be yours for a measly Â£12 if you live in the UK, or Â£13 round the world, in advance of the festival!

The sizes available are

Small
Medium
Large
X-Large
XX-Large
and a ladies’ skinny t

All lovely top quality ethical threads marvellousness.

So make sure you put what size you want in with the paypal order!

[EDIT] – OK, so there’s nowhere on the paypal page to do that (doh!) – instead, just email me, or I’ll email you back when I get the order and find out what size you want! Sorry ’bout that.

July 26, 2005

Edinburgh T-shirts are here!!

Right, my edinburgh T-shirts have arrived! How cool is that? Those lovely people at Ethical Threads have got them here four days quicker than they said they would.

So later on today, I’ll post here (and a few other places) about how you can order one ahead of time, and a piccie of me wearing one, so you can see just how lovely they are.

Ooh, how exciting!!

Oh, and if you’re in a band and need t-shirts, you so have to do it through Ethical ThreadsSoundtrack – Lorenzo Feliciati, ‘Upon My Head’.

July 26, 2005

Italy post no. 11 (last one!)

(written 25/7/05 17.07)

So, on the plane on the way home. It turns out there was wifi available in the airport once you’d gone through to the departure lounge, but I met up with a guy from Naples who was at the gig yesterday, so spent the time chatting to him instead of online. So none of this stuff will be uploaded til I get home.

The good news is that I’ve had no hassle at all getting my bass onto the planes on this trip – it remains to be seen if my rack makes it home safely; it’s currently in the hold, at the mercy of the gorillas that throw your stuff around in a way euphamistically refered to as ‘baggage handling’ – I think baggage mutilation or baggage stomping would be more accurate.

Anyway, it’s the home stretch, and I’m hugely looking forward to heading out for curry tonight with TSP and Jez. Can’t wait to be home.

It’s been a very successful trip – a lot of opportunities have presented themselves for further touring in Italy, and I’ll hopefully be back there in November. Which gives me about three months to learn how to explain the story behind Shizzle in Italian.

From this evening though, it’ll be full speed back into Edinburgh, as well as the gigs in Guildford and Berwick, and planning some more dates for September, writing an extended improv framework for a performance at Greenbelt and planning a couple of tours for early 2006 with Theo in the UK and Michael Manring in the US.

…And now I’ve just been fleeced to the tune of Â£4.60 for a particularly hideous cup of hot chocolate (I’m dying for a mint tea – I’ve had none for days!!) and a cheese and pickle sandwich… don’t you just love budget airlines?

Oh, things are looking up, I’ve just noticed that one of the flight attendants has taken that crap-mowhawk-boy-band hair thing one stage further and is teetering dangerously on the boy-band/flock of seagulls cusp. Somehow bad 80s hair makes the journey more palatable.

Soundtrack – Maurizio Rolli, ‘Archivi Sonori’; Jonatha Brooke, ’10 Cent Wings’; James Taylor, ‘Hourglass’.

July 25, 2005

Italy post no. 10

(written 25/7/05 13.13)

Bugger,

can’t seem to find wifi access in Linate Airport! And I’m stuck here for about three hours. Shitty shit.

<10 minute gap>

nope, just looked around and checked at information, and there’s no wireless access in the airport!! How nuts is that? Apart from anything else, surely they are missing a major money making venture – I’d be happy to pay for it, given that I’m here for hours and would really like to get some stuff done. Instead, I’ll have to read a book or write rubbish like this to upload to the blog later on.

I just can’t believe that an airport doesn’t have wifi! It makes no sense at all… grrrrr. A slightly crappy end to a rather marvellous weekend.

And I can’t even check my rack into Easy Jet for another 40 minutes, I’m that early. It’s good to be early, but it’s also good to have something to do when you are early. Ever get the feeling you’re just typing cos you’re bored?

July 25, 2005

Italy post no. 9

(written 25/705 11.28)

just waiting to get a cab from the hotel to the airport, having spent the last hour talking with Maurizio Rolli (fab Italian bassist) and Hiram Bullock (guitarist with Marcus Miller/Jaco etc.) discussing their drummer problems. I love conversations like this – it makes life as a solo artist seem even more appealing, and also shows me just how easy the people I work with are to deal with. I’m feeling very lucky right now both to be able to play solo and to with lovely people like Theo and Jez and Cleveland and Michael and BJ and Orphy and the other friendly low maintainance musical geniuses that I spend my days making noises with.

The rest of the day yesterday went v. well – the Jam For Klaus went really well – I started it with a ebow ambient loop to set some kind of context for it, and each of the bassists added different elements that all complimented the whole and seemed to work as a fitting musical tribute to this local bassist who’d been so tragically killed.

After that jam, a whole other kind of jam – over at the BassZone stand in the expo bit of the day, I set up to play, and was joined by a couple of other Italian bassists, for a version of Highway 1, which worked really well.

And then the last two bits of the gig were Michael playing solo, followed by him guesting with the Maurizio Rolli big band in a tribute to Jaco, playing arrangements similar to those on The Birthday Concert. Maurizio is a fabulous bassist, and the arrangements were really well done.

And now I’m heading home, looking forward to seeing TSP and the Fairly Aged Felines, and getting back on with the process of sorting out my Edinburgh promo. the C Venues art dept. have come back with a whole load of changes to my poster and flyer (layout stuff rather than changing the design, but still a fair amount of work shuffling things around the screen, which needs to be done tomorrow), and I’ve still got to chase up some press and radio contacts for the fest, as well as playing in Guildford on thursday and Berwick On Tweed on Sunday, and fitting in as much teaching as I can in between… it’s all go in StevieWorld!

July 25, 2005

Italy post no. 8

(written 24/7/05 17.18)

Well, despite starting almost an hour late, my gig went very well, thankfully. Another fabulously receptive Italian crowd, some of whom spoke good enough english to laugh at some of the bollocks I was talking between songs (cut down from the usual 40% of the set to just a short intro to each song).

The challenge was doing an entire set of songs on the fretless, something I haven’t done for a while (not counting the film gig on Friday). So the set list went

Grace And Gratitude
MMFSOG
Amo Amatis Amare
Kindness Of Strangers segued into What A Wonderful World
No More Us And Them
Despite My Worst Intentions

Nice long versions of Kindness Of Strangers and No More Us And Them, and more succinct versions of the others. The Seque into What A Wonderful World fits better with the theme of Kindness… than the bastardised version of ‘What’s Going On’ did – will have to feed that back into the set as a stand-alone track, as I do like it, and the fact that very few people ever recognise it. :o)

So now I’m waiting to be involved in a larger ensemble improv, title ‘Jam For Klaus’ – Klaus is a local bassist who was killed in a car accident last year, so everyone is playing a piece together for him. It’s a really nice idea, and I hope it works and doesn’t descend into bass wankery.

Other than that, my work here is done – oh no, I’m lying, I’m doing a little AccuGrooveA/Modulus demo slot later on. The distributors of AccuGroove and Modulus here are lovely peoples, who hopefully I’ll get to work with again some time soon.

Anyway, time to get back to hawking my wares to the receptive CD buying Italian public. We like it here.

July 25, 2005

Italy post no. 7

(written 24/7/05 12.52)

Right, the big band that are headlining the gig have been on stage soundchecking since 10am. It’s now 2pm, I’m supposed to be on in an hour, and there are a whole load of other bands that need to soundcheck as well. Methinks I’m not going to be starting on time.. It’s a shame, as everything else about the organisation here has been very good – the food is great, the hotel is lovely, and there are loads of lovely helpful Italians around offering to carry bags, get food, or help in any way they can.

All that’s needed now is to get the soundchecks finished, but I as lovely and helpful as all the lovely helpful Italians are, that’s really down to the sound engineers…

So meanwhile I’m listening to Michael and the bassist from the big band shredding on some standards. niiiice.

And meanwhile the connection between my new phone an the laptop seems to have been buggered up somehow – every time I disconnected the phone, the laptop had to restart, so I tried using the drag-to-trash way of disconnecting things on macs, but that seems to have deleted the connection between the two, and I can’t see how to get it back. Bugger.

Question – was Donna Lee ever intended to be a big band tune? That’s a hell of a lot of notes to try and get 20-odd musicians to play!