Year: 2006

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Friday random 10 on saturday again…

here goes –

  • Bill Frisell – Prelude (from Quartet – a really lovely album)
  • The Kinks – Mr Pleasant (from the best of – never before has one band ran the gamut of songs from ‘perfect’ to ‘dreadful’ quite so spectacularly.)
  • Kings X – Mudd (from Ogre Tones – major return to form)
  • Ry Cooder – Paris, Texas (mmmmmmmmmmm)
  • Hinda Hicks – When You Touch Me There (revealing my hidden love of 80s and 90s R ‘n’ B)
  • Steve Lawson/Jeff Kaiser – Track 4 (soon-to-be released duet project I recorded in California in January with trumpeter jeff Kaiser. probably the most ‘out’ thing I’ve ever done)
  • Mark Isham – Part iii (from Tibet)
  • Paul Simon – How The Heart Approaches What It Yearns (from One Trick Pony – another amazing PS lyric and vocal)
  • Finn Peters – Ballad Boy (from the album Su-Ling, just about to be released on Babel Label. Lovely stuff from a load of F-IRE collective players)
  • Paul Simon – Have A Good Time (always room for more Paul Simon, this one’s from Still Crazy After All These Years)
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Myspace gone??

My myspace page has vanished! As has the Recycle Collective one… I’m pretty sure it’s a technical problem with the site, not that I’ve actually been erased, as there are loads of people who’ve lost there’s including The Lovely Rev. G, Unknown Public and Pete Levin – too random a selection of lovelies for it to mean anything in terms of a deletion policy.

So I’m now waiting for it to reappear… come on!

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More recycle bookings…

Been busy over the last couple of weeks lining up the musicians for the new few RC gigs – lots of the people have had on my wish-list for ages are now booked! Yay!

August 23rd – Sebastian Rochford, Andy Hamill and me. This is a bit of a dream line-up. Seb’s one of my favourite drummers I’ve ever played with. We did one gig together in Brighton a couple of years ago, and he listened so well to the loop stuff, and played beautifully. An immensely creative chap, and Mercury Prize nominee last year, no less! He’s in Polar Bear and Acoustic LadyLand and plays with lots of people in the F-IRE collective.

And Andy Hamill. As well as officially being of the nicest people in jazz ever, Andy’s also one of my favourite double bassists anywhere. If you’ve heard either of Theo’s last couple of albums, he’s the low end on there, but has also played with 4 Hero, Carleen Anderson, Shea Seger, Theo Travis, Mark Murphy, Nitin Sawhney, Chris Bowden, Boris Grebenshikov, Cara Dillon, Tracey Thorn, Kylie Minogue, Ben Castle, Ursula Rucker and Harry Hill!

I’ve been wanting to try a trio with drums and double bass for ages, and feel so lucky that the first time I get to try it is with two musicians of this kind of quality. Wow.

And then, as if that wasn’t enough, on Sept 20th, we’ve got saxophonist Jason Yarde, one of the most celebrated young british jazzers of recent times. An outstanding performer, composer, improvisor – a really really interesting musician, who will add something completely new to the RC vibe, for sure. Another huge talent.

And with Jason and I, making a very welcome return, Leo Abrahams – currently out on the road playing guitar for Roxy Music, is also Brian Eno’s guitar monkey, and has worked with Imogen Heap, Nik Kershaw, Ed Harcourt, Paul Simon and a host of other great people. He was excellent last time, he’ll be just as great this time.

And at the moment, it looks like October is going to be BJ Cole and Ingrid Laubrock joining me. How lucky am I? Yay!

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Some very successful Recycling

Well, last night’s Recycle Collective gig was an absolute blinder! For starters, it was the biggest crowd we had so far (more than 80, possibly 90…), the air conditioning was just perfect after the sweatiness of London these last few weeks, and then there was the music…

I started off with a solo set – I sat down to play and realised that all my song-remembering space in my head was full of the New Standard tunes, and I wasn’t sure I could remember my own stuff! But thankfully they all went really well – definitely the best solo set I’ve played at the RC. Finished off the set with a lovely and slightly shorter than the album version of ‘One Step’ with Julie. Fab first set, well done me!

Then came The New Standard Edinburgh set – as y’all know, we’ve rehearsed long and hard for this, and it all went off without a glitch… well, without a noticeable glitch. Small screw up on the play out to the last tune, but I rescued it, and I v. much doubt anyone but Julie noticed. Julie sang beautifully, and the audience loved it. What fun!

And Set three started with two solo pieces by Cleveland Watkiss – the first a baroque counterpoint thing that was just sublime, and the second a dub/drum ‘n’ bass/gospel thing that was equally amazing. Two fine trio improvs finished off the evening, and everyone went away happy, Julie and I both sold lots of CDs (Cleveland is his usual style didn’t bring any merch).

I think Edinburgh’s going to be magique.

If you were there, please write a review, and post it in the comments here, or over in the forum – thanks for coming!

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Directions to Darbucka

Directions to Darbucka, for tonights gig, or any other Recycle Collective gig.

come out of Farringdon tube, turn left, and immediately left again onto Turnmill Street. turn right onto Clerkenwell Road (the big main road that Turnmill runs into) and then turn left onto St John’s Street, after about 300 metres, at the traffic lights. Darbucka is on the right, on the corner of Compton Street, just past the Tescos.

click here for a map

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Rehearsing done, gig tonight

Yesterday was last rehearsal before tonight’s gig for Julie and I – ran through the whole set twice, with only a couple of mistakes (if you’re at the gig tonight, please remind me when Julie says ‘this is our last song’ or something like that, to make sure the ‘Feedback’ on the Looperlative is set to 100%. Thanks). but all in, it’s sounding great, the song order really works, it’s fun, surprising and I think it’s going to be marvellous.

So, be there!

Today is teaching, followed by solo set practice, followed by gig. click here for Gig details

ta ta!

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Too hot to do much…

No, obviously global warming is just a load of made up nonsense. Yup, this being the hottest summer on record is clearly just a fluke. Anyway. it’s far too hot to do anything for long. I’ve been practicing my solo stuff today (next rehearsal with Julie is tomorrow), and working out how to play Blue Planet off the new album, and refreshing my memory on ‘Nobody Wins Unless Everybody Wins’. Sounding good thus far.

The bad part of practicing is that my office/studio/skip is where the ginger fairly aged feline likes to lie as it’s the coolest room in the house, but he’s really not into me practicing, so he leaves, looking a bit pissed off.

He’s doing remarkably well, considering – I mean, he’s not skipping around like a kitten, but he’s looking better than he was when we came back from the vets not expecting him to last more than a couple of days. if he lasts for more than two weeks, TSP won’t be able to come to Edinburgh with me, and while I’ll miss TSP hugely (not only cos she’s great company, but she’s a wizard with flyering and selling t-shirts and CDs!) I am hoping that the little fella is still around and enjoying life. We’re not going to drag things on when he gets to the point where he’s not enjoying life at all, and aren’t going to put him through any more invasive vet stuff like drips and chemo, but he’s looking pretty good at the moment, so who knows how long he’ll last.

Anyway, I’ve been practicing, sending out CDs, emailing and texting people about Wednesday’s gig, and fielding lots of requests to book Julie and I for cabaret type things at the festival – we’ve really managed to create quite a buzz already! Could end up being the surprise hit of the fringe…

Right, back to learning the songs…

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