the soundtrack to the day you wish you'd had
…that there’s a record that’s been at number one in the UK charts for 9 weeks that not only have I never heard but hadn’t even heard of until today! Hurrah! I feel willfully and blissfully out of touch with mainstream Britain, having not watched any of Big Brother this series, and not knowing that Bernard ‘no, really, I’m not a racist’ Manning had died until a month after the fact.
Wasn’t one of the royals in a car crash recently? Charles’ ex or something?
I know, I know – with all this talk of us touring and gigging across Europe and the US, y’all have been wanting to hear some of the duo-loveliness with Lobelia – well, there are now two tracks for you to listen to. Firstly on my myspace page there’s a track of L’s called ‘Happy’, which has been given the Stevie-loopage makeover. It’s a great song anyway, and suits my tinkering rather well..
The other is on L’s myspace page and is a version of Black Hole Sun – it’s the arrangement that Cleveland Watkiss and I first came up with ages ago, that Julie and I used at the Edinburgh Fringe Fest last year, and which L adds her own lovely flava to… Good work, fiddy!
Which all means we’ve got work to do on getting this live album together in the next couple of months…
In the last couple of days I’ve listened to two albums i’ve not heard for YEARS, thanks to the wonders of my iPod – first one was ‘Different Class’ by Pulp, and the second was ‘Being There’ by Martyn Joseph. In both cases, I’d completely forgotten what exceptional albums they are. Common People by Pulp was always a song whose jaunty music belied the incredibly dark social tale in the lyrics (I remember the NME or Melody Maker describing it as a ‘tale of inter-class shagging’, which is a bit like calling Macbeth a story about some mad posh woman…) – the line where they are in the supermarket and he says ‘pretend you’ve got no money, she just laughed and said you’re so funny, I said yeah… but I don’t see anyone else laughing’ is astonishing. Photomonkey Steve, Lorna and I were talking about out-of-touch toffs this lunchtime over coffee, how amazing it is that so many hugely wealthy people have no idea at all how the vast majority of people live… And this song says that better than any number of newspaper articles or documentaries featuring Michael ‘man of the (rich) people’ Portillo… The rest of the album is cracking too, and brings back some wonderful memories.
And ‘Being There’ – Martyn Jospeh’s first album for Sony (he was dropped after the second album) – bizarrely, Sony were trying to market him as some kind of Chris DeBurgh figure, despite the fact that he (along with poet Stuart Henderson) wrote mainly impossibly dark songs about redundant miners and single mothers on the game… Real ‘Lady In Red’ territory there…!! Anyway, again, it’s a really moving album, with some razor sharp lyrics, and a whole load of righteous anger married slightly incongruously with the slick singer/songwriter sound… actually, it’s not incongruous, it just sugar’s the pill a little, in a good way. It’s a great sounding album, full of amazing songs… His next self titled album was equally fab, but Sony really had no idea what to do with him, dropped him, and he’s carried on making stunning records ever since with and without record label support, and acting as opening act to the stars – from cool people like Joan Armatrading to arena-filling shrieking harridans like Celine Dion, Martyn has warmed up the crowd with tales of marital unrest, injustice and exploitation the world over. Hurrah for Martyn. And for Pulp! Anyone heard Jarvis’ record? Is it any good?
So today I went down to the marvellous Institute Of Contemporary Music Performance in Kilburn, to watch a masterclass by guitarist Mike Stern and bass legend Anthony Jackson. It was a mixture of stories, advice, practice tips and inspirational musings, as well as some amazing playing. Anthony was certainly the most animated I’ve ever seen him (which is not a huge amount, but more than just having seen him in magazines…) and was on rare form with his answers to questions.
All if which made me want to go and check them out at Ronnie Scott’s tonight or tomorrow. However, tickets are £36. For one set. And there’s no longer a reduction for MU members. None at all.
There was a time, not as long ago as you might think when it was – I gather – a pound to get into Ronnie’s with your MU card. That made it the defacto musician’s hang in central london. Given that it goes on a lot later than many other gigs in town, it was the place to go once your gig had finished – catch the second set, hang out with some other musos, get a drink, and give Ronnie’s the air of being THE place to be. It’s what Ronnie himself specifically intended for the club.
That all changed last year when the club changed hands. No more reductions, no more staying all night to watch both sets by an act you really love, and no more sensibly priced tickets. Now, I know Mike Stern is going to charge a pretty penny to come and play – he ain’t cheap, but he’s not sodding Coldplay either! Certainly nothing that forces the club to charge such high dollar ticket prices, or to split the evening so you can only go to half the gig. Add to that the disappearance of the best gig in the country which I’ve blogged about before (click the link), and you’ve got yourself one crappy cabaret night out for rich peoples.
Bollocks to Ronnie’s.
Three things have happened since i got my iPod (I don’t mean ‘in the world’ – lots more than three things have happened in the world. I don’t even mean in my life – I’ve done lots of things, I just mean things specific to me owning an iPod)
Firstly, I’ve had a load more time for listening to music, obviously, which has meant that I’ve been catching up on a lot of the more obscure stuff and things I’ve owned for a while but haven’t really listened to much, which translates into me becoming completely obsessed with The Blue Nile – I’ve had three of their albums for a while, but had only listened to them on laptop speakers, which doesn’t do their music justice at all. Stick it on on headphones, and all of a sudden, it’s genius. Going to be lots of Blue Nile influence on my next album, for sure… I’ve also had a listen to Hattler (eponymous band of german bassist Helmut Hattler – rather nice modern electronic soulful dance stuff, not at all what I expected and rather good), Jorane (Canadian singing cellist – lovely stuff) and Mogwai (who I’m going to see tomorrow night at Somerset House – hurrah!).
secondly, it’s made my emusic subscription all the more important – great new music to listen to on the go – so far from them I’ve had albums by Kris Delmhorst, Erin McKeown, Nik Kershaw, God Speed! You Black Emperor,Jennifer Kimball, Rosie Thomas and Petra Haden & Bill Frisell. All fantastic!
thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, it’s given me lots of time to go back and listen to all the projects I’ve recorded with various people that haven’t been released yet – the forthcoming album with Calamateur is spectacular; his songs are outstanding, as is his singing and playing, and it is, I think the first album ever to feature any of my drum programming, on what is definitely the most mental piece of music I’ve ever been a part of. The duet album with Luca Formentini, which I think will be coming out some time next year, is a glorious slice of slightly twisted ambient improv – Luca’s guitar playing and sonic ideas are a really good contrast to what I do – through most of the record it’s pretty clear who’s playing what, as his sound set is quit distinct from mine, but the mix of the two is potent stuff.
The biggest surprise was a live recording from LA in 2006 with Steuart Liebig, Jeff Kaiser and Andrew Pask – a gig that at the time I wasn’t all that happy with; it wasn’t rubbish, just didn’t feel like we’d really created a sound-space that was particularly special. Listening back to the recording, I was very wrong indeed. There are some amazing moments on it. I’ll talk to the players concerned and see if they are interested in making it available somehow – for those of you with an interest in free improv and noise squeaky electronic stuff, it should prove interesting and enjoyable…
And not only that, but I’ve just subscribed to a teach yourself italian podcast, so I’ll hopefully finally get my italian into some sort of loosely conversational shape…
So, today started well – a trip to Guildford, to the ACM to give a masterclass to their degree students on self promotion and marketing. Much of it was about readjusting their expectations regarding what is likely to be an income stream and what isn’t, and where to put your energies in terms of your attempts at promotion – ie. musical contacts and gigs = good, myspace friends lists with a million bands on that don’t even know who you are = bad. Lots of talk about where we discover new music, where we find things, and what we feel inspired to buy and to go and see live. A successful morning.
Lunch with head of bass Stefan Redtenbacher, drum tutor and old friend Stuart Roberts and fellow visiting lecturer of the day, Terl Bryant. Great peoples one and all.
Home for a few hours, then out to teach. New student in east london, good lesson, but the place where he’d said I was fine to park wasn’t… AND I GOT CLAMPED!!! And not by the local council, not for blocking a drive or taking up a much needed space. No, by some venal scumbag private clamping firm, who charged a £100 release fee. It felt like my car had be broken into – there were no visitors parking spaces that I could see (and clearly even the non-car owning residents hadn’t read the signs about the parking, that’s how well displayed they were) but there were also hardly any cars belonging to residents.
If I get a normal parking ticket for running over, or chancing it somewhere, fair enough – that’s £30, you pay it, it’s a shame, but whatever. Not on private estates in Tower Hamlets. Oh no, there trainee nazis dole out clamps… Has there ever been a more self-defeating device than the wheel clamp. You not supposed to park here, so we’ll IMMOBILISE YOUR CAR – huh??? you’ll keep me stuck in the place I’m not supposed to be. Surely if I’m not supposed to be there, there’s a reason why I shouldn’t be, like it’s blocking something, or I’m taking someone’s much needed space. No, that’s all bollocks, it’s just a bunch of bastards who clamp for fun. Like wasps who according to legend sting just for fun (how on earth do you measure the fun quota of anything in a wasp? or for that matter, a clamper…)
To be fair, the kids who came to unclamp it were obviously in their first job, just trying to get on, clearly embarrassed and uncomfortable at what their role was, and the one kid did try his absolute best to get the stickers of the windscreen without leaving any residue behind. Do the firm give them any solvent to remove the sticky stuff? do they fuck.
I wonder what the legality is of carrying around bolt-cutters and removing it yourself? I’m pretty certain that their jurisdiction can’t extend beyond the private property they operate on. The stickers all say ‘it is an offense to try and remove the clamp’ – but lots of things are an offense. Celine Dion is an offense, Kevin Costner films are an offense. Neither sadly are in any way officially criminal acts.
I ought to just put a big notice on my car saying ‘it is an offense to clamp this car’ – I’m fucking offended by it! filthy scum. Why on earth is it legal? It’s a disaster waiting to happen – you need the car to take someone to hospital, to escape a mugger, to do all kinds of things, and some tosser has come round and chained a bloody great metal triangle to your wheels… grrrrrrr, it makes me so annoyed! (can you tell) – and it’s not as if I’ve got a spare £100 to just throw away on such trivial bollocks.
Anyway, the evening ended on a much brighter note (well, not that much brighter, seeing as I’d forgotten my ordinary glasses when I left home so was wandering around Brick Lane at 11 o’clock wearing sunglasses – who’s the twat trying to look like Bono? That’ll be me then…) – it ended with the lovely Showbiz (or whatever the name is that I’ve given her this week), and Chambers, then back to casa showbiz for mac-geekness and ladies’ tea.
…clamped??????
This weekend I did two restaurant gigs, just playing bass with someone else… when I say ‘just playing bass’, of course I took a looper with my (my Akai Headrush for ease of transport and set-up) and ended up playing quite a few melodies, but it wasn’t a me-gig, even though we did arrangements of a couple of my tunes.
The gig were with a guitarist called Luca Sirianni – a fine player and very nice guy to work with, playing a mixture of standards, pop stuff his tunes and a couple of mine. A couple of things about it were noteworthy. Firstly, he found me through MySpace – who’d have thought that any musician would ACTUALLY make some money through myspace – there we were, thinking it was all about collecting a million friends who have no idea who you are, and inadvertently it provides some geniune work! The second is that I get asked to do precious few of these kind of gigs, despite the fact that I a) rather enjoy them and b) am rather good at them – I love playing in a duo setting like the gig on friday (sunday’s was a trio with a percussionist which was just as fun), and I’m kinda handy to have in that I can play tunes, chords and solo pretty well through most things – takes some of the heat off the guitar player.
So hopefully it’ll turn into a few more gigs. I don’t want to end up doing them 4 nights a week – I know too many people doing that and hating it – but it’s nice to get out and play with some new people, busking some cool tunes, and making a lil’ cash.
OK, here’s the deal – head to thealldaybreakfastshow.com, download all 22 episodes thus far, and realise why the internet was invented. Solely to bring the ADBS to the world. It’s genius, pure genius.
Danny Baker and I go way back. Not that I’ve ever met him, just that I’ve been listening to him for decades – first on his weekend breakfast show on Radio 1, then a bit when he was at Virgin, and then again when he took over on breakfast at Radio London, following him when he switched to the afternoons. He is, without doubt, my favourite radio presenter ever, and the most consistently funny media figure I’ve ever come across. The podcast is like him replaying his greatest hits without the shackles of the BBC code of conduct. And it’s amazing. L and I had a 10 hour ADBS marathon on the way from Austin to Nashville and it made the journey fly by.
So go, download, listen and sit mouth agape at the genius that is Danny, Baylen, Amy and the oh-so-strange David Kuo.
So the Live Earth Gig is going on, on TV, on radio, everywhere. And the only time it’s registered on my radar was talking to Oroh last night who’s playing at it with Corinne Bailey Rae, arranging to meet up afterwards…
Why hasn’t it? I’m HUGELY concerned about climate change, a qualified but largely enthusiastic supporter of what Al Gore’s taken up as his cause (An Inconvenient Truthx is definitely required viewing), but the notion of a bunch of largely ill-informed rock stars flying in in private jets to ‘lend their support’ (and prop up their often-ailing careers) is just plain hideous. Claiming to ‘carbon offset’ your private jet useage, and putting low energy lightbulbs in on your yacht does not make you a shining example of planet-saving eco-warrior-ness. It means you’re trying to party as the ship goes down, pretending that planting a few trees excuses your King Kong-sized carbon footprint. And that, my dear bloglings it’s what’s known in scientific terms as complete bollocks.
The organisers are claiming that they are trying to make the whole event carbon neutral and have booked bands in the cities they live in. But they don’t seem to have asked the bands to sign up to any kind of rock star eco-charter that curtails their use of private jets, and commits them to running their tour buses on bio-fuels and selling fair-trade bleach-free merchandise etc. Surely the concert would have smacked less of being a giant photo op for some of the worst abusers of aviation in the world if there’d been some kind of commitment to change, to reducing their own load on the planet – if you will, ‘putting their own house in order’, rather than looking like the bunch of fucking hypocrites they are. And I say this as someone who so far this year has made two return flights over the atlantic, and one return flight to Edinburgh, but who has also done two month-long tours round Europe in the last year on trains, and is committed to continuing that trend, and to not flying domestically (someone else booked and paid for the Edinburgh trip, and I was too slow to change it to a train ticket..)
So there you go, Live Earth – great cause, dreadful way of making the point. Please don’t be fooled by the myth of carbon offsetting – we all need to radically REDUCE our carbon footprint, rather than thinking we can carry on as normal but just plant some trees to make it all go away. It’s not going to work.
I am officially knackered. Jetlag done got me bad, mama… or something.
I’ve got a gig tonight (just a restaurant gig with a guitarist, hence it not being on the gig list), so must get ready, find smart restaurant gig clothes etc. as well as sending out CD orders, and dealing with the speeding fine I got before I went away…
but all I want to do is sleep some more.