the soundtrack to the day you wish you'd had
Last month’s Bass Player Magazine had a great interview with Matthew Garrison in it – click here to read it – it’s even got .gifs of the musical examples. Good stuff!
Then, when you’ve read it, go and see him play with Gary Husband’s ‘Force Majeure’ who are on this week at Ronnie Scott’s.
Soundtrack – Zakir Hussain, ‘Making Music’; Talking Heads, ‘Stop Making Sense’.
Most of the time, I’m glad I don’t watch much TV. However, missing Channel 4s The New Ten Commandments was a bit annoying. I found out about it on Paul’s marvellous blog, and now really wish I’d seen it.
Shifts in what is perceived as ‘moral’ are fascinating, particularly in relation to Britain now having made the shift into being a ‘post-christian’ pluralist culture.
There are a couple of noteable quotes on the website, some really good, some nonsense.
Into the latter category comes this gem from Janet Street Porter –
‘The commandments can’t be very relevant,’ she says. ‘Otherwise people would repeat them every morning as a kind of mantra to live their lives by.’
Riiight – so everything that’s relevant becomes a mantra? OK…
Here’s the full list –
An interesting list, fairly predictable, and also clearly not a list that most people live by – Live within your means is obviously being ignored big time given the debt levels in the UK, parental respect is pretty low on the priority list, so is taking responsibility for our actions…
The one I’ve bolded up there (my emphasis, not C4’s) is the interesting one, given the ramifications of carrying it out – Treat others as you would like to be treated is such a huge thing to take on. To the point where Jesus reduced the whole of ‘The Law and The Prophets’ to two commandments – love God, love eachother – that’s what the second half of that means. We all want to be treated fairly, to be shown mercy, to be appreciated, protected, have time to enjoy ourselves, to feel safe… How much of our time is spent either trying to bring that about, or avoiding practices that cause the opposite? It’s interesting that most of them are very parochial – lots of things to do with the small stuff of life – family, personal responsibility etc. Very little to do with the big stuff of life – government, global issues, God/spirituality…
Anyway, the Make Poverty History campaign is a chance to do just that – to give to other people the kind of fair deal that we expect for ourselves. None of us would wish the situation that much of the continent of Africa finds itself in now on our worst enemies, so why do we support a system which is making the poverty worse…?
Laziness, inertia, ignorance – I’m guilty of all three when it comes to the problems of people ‘over there’. But we need to make some changes. All of us.
Soundtrack – Zakir Hussain, ‘Making Music’; Carl Herring, ‘Azure’.
England hasn’t produced that many solo bassists, or bassists who front their own instrumental bands under their own name. One of the few – one one of the finest in the world – is Mo Foster. Better known as a session player (Jeff Beck/Phil Collins/etc.), Mo has released a string of really really beautiful solo records, with his fretless bass as the primary melodic voice. He’s great. His last album, Time To Think is one of my all-time favourite bass-feature records.
Anyway, the reason for discussing Mo is that I found a cutting from an old copy of the sadly now defunct Making Music magazine. The cutting is a column that Mo wrote for them about session playing. Here’s an excerpt –
“There’s a certain mythology currently surrounding session work:
1 – It still exists as a career option
I’m afraid it doesn’t. The thrusting, vibrant scene of some years ago has, regrettably, gone. There’s still a fair amount of work around, but it’s almost entirely for artists and producers who happen to be friends – ie it’s very much ‘who you know’. Breaking in is harder than ever.
2 – You must be able to read music
It helps to read and is, on occasion, vital, but for many gigs you don’t necessarily need that particular skil. You must, though, be able to create a bassline from a chord chart and , in some cases, no chart at all – ie your musical ‘ear’ is everything.
3 – You mustn’t contribute ideas to a song but just play the written part
This is nonsense: it’s quite possible both the producer and the artist haven’t a clue what bass does or how it does it and are desperate for your expert input. Een a written line should be scrutinised in case you can improv on it.”
Wise words indeed. Certainly true in my case – all the session work I’ve had has been through friends and chance encounters, not some marvellous mythological network of agencies and management.
Soundtrack – Boards Of Canada, ‘Music Has The Right To Children’.
current number of emails in inbox – 52
..it’s creeping up again, must do some folder-husbandry…
So last night was the third night of going to gigs in a row for me, and another fantastic night out. This one, at The Troubadour, was part of the Andy Thorton/Evinsol records-hosted night called The Restless Horizon, and featured Andy, along with Cara Winter and Deacon Blue frontman, Ricky Ross.
Cara was up first – blimey, I wish I had that much talent at 19!! She’s obviously heavily Tori Amos influenced and had a batch of really nice songs, sung well. Bodes v. well for the future.
After that was Andy – as the more attentive of you will know, I’ve played with Andy lots, including being on his last album. We’ve even gigged together at the Troubadour a couple of times. Andy was showcasing a whole load of new songs, as well as a handful of favourites, and sounded great, as always. He also flagged up the Make Poverty History campaign, and wrist bands were available, which reminded me that I ought to do that with CDs from the shop… Anyway.
The headliner (and the reason tonight’s gig sold out a week in advance) was Ricky Ross – I was a big Deacon Blue fan back in the 80s/90s, and have seen Ricky solo live before, so knew he’d be good, but was still surprised at how good his new material is. He’s apparently been consuming a steady diet of Randy Newman for the last while, as the influence hang low over most of the new songs, but in a really good way. I mean, if you’re going to be influenced by someone, who better than one of the finest songwriters of the last 50 years?
Ricky’s a great performer and story-teller, and I’m really looking forward to his new album coming out.
And then I’ll be back at the troubadour for My gig with BJ Cole next Friday – so I hope to see you there!
Soundtrack – Juliet Turner, ‘Season Of The Hurricane’; King’s X, ‘Manic Moonlight’.
OK, so I was checking out the site of a venue that a friend of mine’s band are playing at, and found this list of events for the week – I draw your attention to the listing for the 28th – “ALL YOU CAN EAT FISH AND CHIPS FOLLOWED BY KARAOKE @10PM” – all you can eat fish and chips?????????? WTF???? I don’t even eat fish, in fact, find the whole idea of eating any kind of animal completely twisted, but I’m still really really wierded out by the combination of this most british of institutions coupled with that most heinous of american serving disasters. It’s like asking if you want to supersize a Vegetable Balti. Just Plain Wrongness.
I mean, OK, so it’s an English theme pub, but still, ‘all you can eat fish and chips’????? no no no no no no no. Stop it.
Soundtrack – Jonatha Brooke, ‘Back In The Circus’.
A two gig day, but I only played at the first one.
It was the lunchtime gig at the RFH Foyer, with the mighty Theo Travis, and it went very well. Well, I wasn’t in the PA for the first couple of tunes, due to me plugging the DIs into the wrong outputs on my mixer (doh!), but with my rig, it didn’t really matter… :o) After that, we sounded marvellous! This duo just keeps getting better and better, and one of the improv/goo things we did today will no doubt end up as a new Travis/Lawson tune. Good stuff.
Here’s a piccie, taken by Jude on her phone cam thingie –
Then tonights gig, which began with a lovely surprise – I was going to see Duke Special and Juliet Turner anyway, but I walked down the stairs at the Borderline to the unmistakeable sound of BJ Cole‘s pedal steel guitar! He was playing in a duo with a singer/songwriter called Laura Stark, and doing a mighty fine job of it too!
After that was Duke Special – Pete’s a great performer, and a truly delightful person. If you ever the chance to go and see him, please take it.
And Juliet, she just keeps getting better and better. Her voice was on top form tonight, the new songs she was playing sounded fantastic, Brian and the-keyboardist-whose-name-I-didn’t-catch were both playing and singing marvellously, and Brian Kennedy made a guest appearance. A truly wonderful night out. They are coming to the end of the tour, but if you’re in Gloucester tomorrow night, or Swindon on Saturday, please go and see Duke and Julie do their respective thangs – gig dates here.
…and I don’t just mean my upcoming gigs! :o)
Gary Husband is probably best known as drummer extraordinaire with Level 42, Alan Holdsworth and a whole bunch of other people. He’s also a stunning piano player, and has assembled a remarkable band under the name Force Majeure, featuring one of the finest bassist on the planet, Matthew Garrison, along with Jim Beard, Randy Brecker, Elliot Mason, Jerry Goodman and other top level fusion cats.
I saw them play last year at Turner Simms theatre in Southampton, and the gig was outstanding – very challenging complex music, but marvellous and uplifting too.
They are back on tour starting this Saturday in Milton Keynes, and I urge you to go check them out – click here for the tour dates, which include a week at Ronnie Scott’s in London, and gigs in Manchester, Gainsborough and Gateshead.
Chances to hear music this great outside of the major London concert halls doesn’t come along to often, so please support it. There’s been a thread on the forum about great bassists often bypassing the UK on their European tour dates – if tours like this don’t get supported, it just proves why we’re so often overlooked.
Tonight’s Jonatha gig was at The Betsy Trotwood, a half hour set, opening the evening (don’t know who the other bands were, didn’t stick around). Another stunning gig – the room was packed, but as it holds about 45 that wasn’t hard (they say the capacity is 60, but I can’t imagine getting 60 people in a room that size!)
Playing songs from the new CD, from Steady Pull and from Plumb, it was lovely to hear Jonatha do a slightly longer set than at the Bedford. She even managed to play a piano with no sustain piano and make it work, which is pretty skillful, if y’all ask me.
Theo and Not-At-All-Evil-Dan came along, at my suggestion, and were both mightily impressed. Also bumped into Andy Piercy, who produced one of the Johnny Markin records I played on in the mid 90s, which was a night surprise. He loved the gig too. Everyone loved it, she’s a genius.
So don’t miss the rest of the London gigs!
Soundtrack – Dream Ticket on BBC 6 Music (who just read out my mini-review of the Jonatha gig).
A trip to the dentist this morning resulted in me coming home with one less tooth in my head than I had when I arrived – how come they take my teeth and then charge me £45 for the priviledge? surely they should pay me for my lovely knackered tooth!
Anyway, there’s now a gaping hole in the back of my mouth where said tooth used to be… it’s been broken for a long time, but now there’s just a space. Fortunately it’s far enough back for me not to end up looking like some kind of solo bass Shane MacGowan (thanks for that mental image, Evil Harv).
So I’ve been eating lots of ice-cream today, as instructed by my dentist. That’s the kind of prescription I like! ‘Take two scoops, 9 times a day’.
Teaching this afternoon was fun, trying to explain bass-ness while not dribbling blood and bits of gum and jaw-bone down myself. ewwwwww
so now I’m sat here, with an empty tub of Haaggen-Dazs in front of me and a dull ache in my jaw (from both the monster injection I was given and the tooth being dug out – that’s got to do some muscle damage…)
Still, I’ve got Jonatha Brooke’s gig at the Betsy Trotwood tomorrow night to look forward to! yay!
Soundtrack – Paul Simon, ‘Hearts And Bones’; John Lester, ‘Big Dreams And The Bottom Line’; Peter Gabriel, ‘So’; Jonatha Brooke, ‘Plumb’.