Year: 2006

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BB news

Our intrepid BB reporter, codenamelizzy, is on a day or two’s sabbatical from writing, and has requested someone to fill in. As I haven’t actually been watching, here’s my predictions for what has happened in the house over the last couple of days –

Day 17

‘the house has run out of food, and George has offered his leg as part of the rationing. This caused another argument with Traci, as she would rather die than eat meat, even meat from people she would rather were dead anyway’

Day 18

‘at maggot’s prompting, Dennis has been requesting a ‘Faria Special’. Unfortunately, his american accent was misunderstood, and BB supplied two horseshoes which Pete had to nail into Dennis’ feet as this week’s shopping task. They succeeded in the shopping task, though Dennis passed out from loss of blood and will never walk again. The housemates are divided on whether it was a worthwhile sacrifice or not. Never one to miss an opportunity, while lying bleeding on the floor, Dennis tried to tell each of the women in the house in turn that sex would cure his feet. None of them believed him, and managed to stay out of arm’s reach to avoid further molestation.

‘Because Chantelle has said she won’t kiss Preston as he has a girlfriend, they’ve skipped that part, and have applied for adoption. Big Brother is hoping to fast track the paperwork and deliver their new child to them in the house. The baby will not be eligible for eviction on its first week in the house, but after that, will be asked to nominate housemates like the rest of them.’

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A day off

didn’t have any gigs or recording or NAMMing to do today, so had a mellow day pottering up the Pacific Coastal Highway – that’s Highway 1. It runs all the way from San Diego up into Oregon, I think (maybe even to Seattle – anyone care to put me right?) – I’ve driven it from LA to the Bay Area before, but never the bit below LA. As I was staying just south of Long Beach last night, I started there and headed slowly up the coast.

There were some lovely bits and some really grim bits – Seal Beach sounded like a nice place, but turned out to be largely just some hideous Naval war machine thing. then there was LA harbour – Steve Brown, if you ever need a location for some kind of post-apocalyptic industrial wasteland for a photo shoot, that’s the place!

and I got all the way to Venice Beach which I know quite well anyway.

Throughout the day I was phoning all my southern california chums, catching up and arranging where and when to meet up. Eventually got through to Kerry Getz, who I’ve played with in London before now, and so we were able to catch up this evening, which was lovely.

And now I’ve found that the house next door to where I’m staying has an unsecured wireless connection, so that’s how I’m online now! Gotta love untech-savvy peoples!

Soundtrack – Francis Dunnery, ‘Man’ (I’m struck once again by what an incredble album this is – the tunes and vocals are outstanding, Frank’s guitar playing is an glorious as ever, but the real revelation is Matt Pegg’s bass playing – some of the most amazing singer/songwriter bass playing I’ve ever heard – his sound, his phrasing and his choice of style is so unlike anything else I’ve heard before. Definitely one of my favourite bass albums.) The rest of the in-car tunage from the last few days – Juliet Turner, ‘Live’ (another glorious album); Foo Fighters, ‘The Colour And The Shape’; OST, ‘Bugsy Malone’; Scritti Politti, ‘Cupid And Psyche’.

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last night's gig

V. fun gig last night.

Well, winding back a few hours before the gig, the day was already marvellous as I got to spend a whole day with Todd Johnson, a fantastic bassist, amazing teacher and a lovelylovely person. I got one bass lesson for the year just watching him playing some chord melody standards. Sometimes I think I’m beginning to get this stuff together, then I listen to Todd…

then the gig – it was in a restaurant, not in a back room but in the main restaurant. The lineup for our set was me, Steuart Leibig, Jeff Kaiser and Andrew Pask – two basses, sax and trumpet and a shitload of electronics. The music got so far out – improv is always MUCH harder to guage with that many players, and it did get overly dense at times, but there were some magical moments, and the relaxed format afforded me the opportunity to step away from the stage and listen to how it was all working. Some lovely noises. Some lovely friends turned up, and the band after were good too, though it was very odd listening to a pretty straight fusion trio after an hour of improv chaos. Much fun. :o)

So today is a relaxing day, currently in a lil’ indie coffeeshop in Long Beach. It’s nice to relax, but time off is time to think about how much I miss TSP and the FAFs. One the one hand I’m chillin’ on the beach, but on the other hand I’m missing out on the fun back home with TSP and the friends that are staying while I’m away… bad planning!

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Sunday in CA

Starting any day with a tofu and tortilla scramble is a good way to ensure it’s going to be a good day. Yum – must get recipe from Jeff.

Lazy breakfast followed by recording – an hour’s duo material, looped and processed trumpet and me doing my looperlative thing. Some amazing music – Jeff uses a looping/processing rig on his laptop, programmed in Max/MSP, which is an unbelieveably versatile set-up. loads of great sounds and ideas coming out – I’m listening the the CDR of it at the moment, unmixed, and the only downer is that Jeff’s signal picked up some radio interference at points. It’s rarely a problem, and in a couple of places sounds very cool, but it’s a shame it’s there… we’ll work with it, edit where necessary. All in all, it’s some great music, and will probably crop up as a download album in the online shop soon.

Also bought myself a US phone today – last year I ran up a MASSIVE mobile phone bill, without actually spending long online at all! So I’ve just bought a prepay phone and a load of minutes, to save me lots of pennies when calling TSP and also phoning chums in the US.

Time for sleeps now.

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Travelblog 2

Well, that was a long flight – about 6 hours in, a woman fell ill, and the plane was diverted to Winnipeg to take her to hospital. Apparently the paramedics on the ground said if they’d tried to make it to LA she may well have died, so we were glad they stopped. But it did make the plane three hours late.

Was planning on going to see Muriel Anderson in concert, and had been invited to sit in on a tune or two, but after the delay, I got to the gig about 20 mins before she started so just said hello, heard two songs and headed off to Ventura.

Staying in Ventura for the next couple of days with Jeff Kaiser – a fab free trumpeter, who I’m doing Monday’s gig with. We’re recording today, and he’s plying me with mint tea to help the jetlag recovery.

The weird thing is missing home already – TSP and the felines have house guests while I’m not here, which is dreadful timing – I get to miss hanging with friends as well as seeing my boys and the small person. I’m having a great time here, but it doesn’t stop me missing home.

Today’s plan is to record some stuff with Jeff, then buy a mobile phone (last year’s namm show phone bill was huge, so I’m going to buy a US phone to save me lots of money).

so, time to get moving!

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travelblog 1

so I’m in the departure lounge at heathrow, waiting for my gate number. Bagel for breakfast, sipping mint tea.

Yesterday was a manic day – first the lost passport, the the found passport (we all like passports have gone astray… etc.) then 6 hours teaching, 5 hours with a bag of poo on my head (actually it was bodyshop henna, but it’s somewhat akin to having a bag of poo on your head. Packing, dismantling music rack and reassembling travel rack, software update for Looperlative, 10 minutes playing with said new software, which rules, one curry, about half an hour of Big Brother (keep reading Lizzy for the real deal on it), and then finally 3 hours of sleep.

A crap night’s sleep before a flight is actually a godsend – I’ll sleep on the plane, and may avert most of my jetlag.

Still buzzing from Thursday night’s gig – I enjoyed every single aspect of it, and good reports are still coming in.

more from LA in a few hours…

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Few more thoughts on last night's gig

So, the format was that we’d do three sets, and each ‘curate’ one of the sets – I started, and I played solo, then duo with Cleveland, then we played as a trio. Next up was Cleveland solo, duo with BJ then trio, and finally BJ solo, me and BJ duo, then trio.

The three trio pieces were all very different sometimes very floaty, but the last one a high energy beat-box-led number – Cleveland’s contribution to a looping set is huge – being able to beatbox, sing tunes, do that tabla vocalisation thing, layer chords… he’s amazing. Couple that was BJ’s remarkable emotional empathy with his instrument – the steel in BJ’s hands has an amazing yearning quality, and my melancholic but ultimately hopefully noodlings, and you’ve got a rather potent mix.

the duos were really interesting, just to see what happens when you take one element out of the trio – the track that BJ and I did was fun, in that instead of ploughing our usual dark ambient furrow, we actually morphed into a country 12 bar! There was a bridge at one point, but I wasn’t looping at all until the last minute of the piece… an unexpected one for us as well as the audience!

I think the most fun for me as a listener was Cleveland’s solo set – he’s only just getting familiar with the Echoplex, and so his looping method is gloriously haphazard, but the end result was amazingly slick – his ability to respond in a group situation spills over to his looping, and he made whatever was happening work. He was just spinning the dial on his FX unit and using whatever sound came up, and coming up with the most incredible layers of vocalese.

All in all, one of the best gigs I’ve been involved in for ages, and two out of two for the Recycle Collective. It’s definitely turning into what I’d intended it to be – the most vital new music night in London!

If you were there, feel free to post your reviews in The Forum or here in the comments on this post…

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Scratch that…

Found it!!!

fuck me, that’s a relief – I was working out how on earth I was going to fill the next two weeks if I’d been stuck here!!

*gulp*

no need to cancel teaching either… :o)

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Not again…

Right, first thing – last night’s gig was a blinder – much fun, great audience response (OK, except the couple that walked out after the first set and emailed me to express their displeasure… fortunately, they appear to have been in a minority of two) – playing with Cleveland and BJ is such a treat – fantastic players, great improvisers, they both listen really well, and the path of each improv seemed to unfold without anyone trying to pull in a direction the music itself wasn’t going in. Most enjoyable.

No time for a longer breakdown now because – the ‘not again’ of the blog title – I’ve lost my passport.

How do I did this??? More to the point, why do I do this??? Every sodding time! Anyone with any ideas where it might be, let me know… I think I’m going to have to cancel my first lot of teaching today, in order to keep looking… :o(

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