the soundtrack to the day you wish you'd had
Am back from another fantastic Greenbelt Festival. I’m just off out to play a show at The Spitz, so haven’t got time for full rundown now, but a few highlights would include Billy Bragg, Beth Rowley, Nizar Al-Issa, Iain Archer, Duke Special, and of course getting to play with the great people I was playing bass with – Lobelia, Sarah Masen and Ric Hordinski – all lovely peoples and musical geniuses.
More later…
So I back at Greenbelt; my 16th, I think… We arrived last night, late thanks to some weirdness with a tent that was being posted to us (was sent to arrive Wednesday, ‘arrived’ Thursday but strangely nobody heard the courier ring the bell at the flat, called the courier company, who offered to deliver it on Thursday, no good, what else? can meet driver, called driver, met driver, suddenly we’re 3 hours late leaving London…) – so we set up the tent in the dark. But it’s up.
Anyway, we wander into the contributors area, and find a little display for a virtual greenbelt band – little figurines of musicians that you can compile into your favourite GB line-up… and one of them is me! That’s it in the picture – nice detail with the painted nails… :o)
The gig today with Sarah Masen went great – lots of fun playing on the big big stage. Now we’re settling in for the night, and are off to see Over The Rhine and Billy Bragg. Hurrah!
I’ve just added a lovely feature to the links page on my site – it’s called snapshot, and it means that when you mouse-over one of the links there, a preview of the page comes up in a little window. It’s very cool, and makes browsing a list of links a whole lot more fun – click here, and go to try it out – it’s probably too long since you last visited my links page anyway :o)
[EDIT] I’ve added it to this blog as well, as I’m sure you can see![/EDIT]
Just found this entry on the time out website – a very nice write up for our gig on Wednesday – all the more reason for you to be there!
here’s what it says –
Steve Lawson/Lobelia + Monk AKA Ric Hordinski
Recommended
Wed Aug 22 , Chilli Fried at Darbucka, 182 St John Street, EC1V 4JZ
Ambient folk-ish jazz from bassist and loop/electronics master Lawson and American singer-songwriter Lobelia, playing a set of bittersweet and melancholic music. Support comes in the form of a solo set of hauntingly powerful ambient/soundscapes from singer-songwriter and guitarist Hordinski.
not sure how ambeint Ric’s set will be, and it’s not a Chilli Fried event, but those are some lovely things to write… :o)
Every now and then I revisit an album and kick myself for leaving it so long between listens – such is the case with Tracy Chapman’s first album. I like everything I’ve heard from her, but this album, written, it seems, in poverty, and brimming with righteous anger is an outstanding debut. Every song is great, the production is sparse but interesting, and her voice is both world-weary and fresh at the same time.
Go on, fish it out and have a listen again…
Been having a bit of a geeky time with my website of late, and thanks to the Google IPN, I’ve been able to add a feed from this blog to the front page of my website – so you can go to www.stevelawson.net and see there at a glance if I’ve updated the blog. You’ll also see there, in the bottom right hand corner of the page, a feed from my Jaiku mini-blog, which also aggregates feeds from my normal blog, my myspace blog, my Flickr page AND a feed from my stumbleupon account for websites that I’ve favourited – so if you just want one feed that’ll bring together everything that I blog about and post all over the place,
Max Roach, jazz legend, bop pioneer and possibly the greatest drum soloist of all time died today.
There are so few great drum soloists, and by drum soloists, I don’t mean metal drummers playing really fast rudiments round the kit and then twirling their sticks. I mean kit drummers who can play solo compositions. Terry Bozzio does it, and there’s a great drummer in Denmark whose name escapes me but I’ve got an album by who does it too, and a handful of others, but Max was the daddy, for sure.
There are so few musicians of his generation left – Sonny Rollins is still going… i can’t think of many other jazz legends that were active in the early 50s that are out there. Every year we lose a few more. I never got to see Max Roach play. I saw Rollins play a few years ago, and though his band were pretty uninspiring, it was still a joy to hear THAT sound, that phrasing live. I got to play with Elvin Jones before he died, at a masterclass – I was rubbish, that much is a given, but it was still a huge honour and i’ve blogged before about what an amazing lesson it was for me in the generousity of spirit of truly great musicians…
Anyway, two bits of Max Roachness – first, here’s Questlove from The Roots talking about Max, and then here’s a clip from YouTube of Max playing a hi-hat solo.
this is another one of those things that are part and parcel of the lives of almost every working bassist on the planet – they spend their time learning songs to play with different bands or artists… except me. I very rarely have to learn songs, given that most of the time i’m playing either my own songs, or improvising.
So this week is both a challenge and a joy, as I’m learning not one but two sets to play with singers next week.
First up is Ric Hordinski AKA Monk. Ric and I first met, I think, on a gig we shared in LA about 5 years ago, where we were both playing solo. Since then we’ve stayed in touch, and I’ve been trying to get him over for Greenbelt. Finally, this year, he’s coming to play! hurrah! And in celebration of that, we’ve got a gig at Darbucka next Wednesday. It’s a double bill with Ric’s trio (with me on bass, hence the song learning) and my duo with Lobelia (much more usual Stevie-Fare, with lots of looped bass and vocal loveliness on songs mostly written by Lo.) Gigs in August are notoriously poorly attended (everyone’s on holiday and doin’ the festival thang, y’see), so if you can, PLEASE come out and see us play! It’ll be a fab show, with proper songs ‘n’ everything! :o)
The second set is with Sarah Masen, which is particularly enjoyable as I’ve been a big fan of Sarah’s music since her first album came out in the mid 90s, and love the way she writes both music and words. We’re learning these songs for a mainstage set at Greenbelt on Friday, which i’m rather looking forward to…
So I think I’ve got 16 songs to learn… oh, and a bass ‘n’ voice arrangement of a Bond theme to do before Greenbelt as well, for a more secretive show… more on that after it’s happened!
And for your listening pleasure, here are some Myspace links to hear what’s in store…
Ric/Monk
Sarah Masen
Lobelia
Me (inc. one tune with Lo.)
enjoy!
Just found this, accidentally, on YouTube – here’s part 1 of the interview, which is in 3 10 minute segments.
Torn, for those of you that aren’t familiar with his work, an american guitarist and sonic architect whose influence runs fairly deep through the stranger end of what I do. He’s also one of the nicest and funniest people i’ve ever met, and more fun to hang out with that just about anyone on the planet.
If you’re investigating his music, all his albums are worth a look, and search under ‘Splattercell’ as well as under David Torn as that was his AKA for a while in the late 90s/early 2000s…
Anyway, the interview is well worth a watch, and his description of playing in an improvising band and his desire to get away from it being shackled to the labels of ‘free jazz’ and ‘avante garde’ reveal why he’d be in the top 3 or 4 biggest influences on what I’ve been trying to do with the Recycle Collective…
…is this!!!
