Year: 2012

On occasion, I still come across people who are uncomfortable with the economics of ‘pay what you think it’s worth‘. Or ‘pay what you want‘. Or ‘name your price‘. Whichever way you want to describe it.

It’s not really that surprising – we’ve precious little precedent for a transaction like this, especially as it relates to ‘ubiquitous’ products like digital downloads of music. We’re used to things having a fixed price that somehow is marketed to us as representing the value of the thing, and then we choose to pay it or not. If things are available in lots of places then we shop around for the cheapest legal source. Continue reading “Grace And Gratitude & Behind Every Word, now £3 each”

Reviews and comments about my new album Believe In Peace are still coming in. This one cropped up on TalkBass.com from Michael Manring – Michael is probably my single biggest influence in becoming a solo bassist and has been deeply supportive of my music from the very start. In this instance, I sent him a download code for the album but he chose to pay for it anyway! Here’s what he said about it:

“What a beautiful recording! This is perhaps the best argument yet that the bass is a versatile, deeply expressive instrument and in the hands of a brilliant and visionary artist like Steve, is capable of making music of enormous emotional and musical depth. Please buy a copy and share it with your friends and family. I think they’ll thank you for it!”

In other Believe In Peace news, a track from it is featured on the latest Aural Innovations radio show, listenable/downloadable here. Jerry Kranitz who presents the show reviewed most of my early albums on his site, and has been a great supporter of my music over the years (he’s also featured in Dave Gorman’s Googlewhack book, if you’ve read that…)

here’s the album, listen, download, pay whatever you think it’s worth. I’ve got a LOT of new music that needs editing/mixing/mastering and it’s way easier to justify the time it takes if the music is making some money 🙂

Am back from California now, after my busiest trip there ever. Had a great time at NAMM, and a whole lot of wonderful shows, that resulted in about 6 hours of new improvised music that needs mixing and editing for future release. Yay!

I’ll write a full round-up in the next couple of days, but for now, here are two videos that have appeared in the last couple of weeks. Continue reading “Two new videos and some photos from California.”

For those that don’t know, NAMM is the National Association Of Music Merchants – the American trade body for those who make and sell stuff-to-do-with-music-that-isn’t-recordings. 

I’m back there this year, having missed the last two due to being busy being a dad. I’ve really missed it – having attended every year from 1999 – 2009, doing demos on behalf of the various companies whose equipment I was using at the time, finding out what’s new and catching up with the many amazing music-world friends that I only get to see once a year at NAMM or in California if I get to travel around afterwards.

So, anyway, if you’re going, it’d be great to meet up – feel free to send me a message. If we’re friends on Facebook, you can message me there, or tweet me, or email me or just keep an eye out for me around the MarkBass and Modulus booths.

See you there!

Last week, this interview was posted at AlternativeMatter.net. The questions, from John Toolan, about the new album and improvisation, were really interesting to answer – here it is, if you want a read, or click the links above to see it on their sites too 🙂 (if after reading you have your own questions about improv, please post them in the comments).

What inspired you to record and release this particular piece of improvisation?

The recording part was easy – as far as possible, I record every gig, and most of my practice sessions. This is possible because my live and studio rigs are identical, so instead of using a mixing desk to pull all the various looped and processed elements together, I use a MOTU soundcard, which I can hook up to my laptop for instant multi-track recording! It’s made for some wonderful live stuff being captured that in any other setting, we’d have been lucky to get a tape from an audience member of. Continue reading “An Interview from AlternativeMatter about Believe In Peace and Improvisation.”

So, it’s been out a week, and a few nice things have been written about Believe In Peace. Well, a lot of nice things have been said about it, but I’m not about to start linking to all the Tweets and Facebook messages. That’d get weird.

Instead, here are three blog posts that say nice things about it.

The most involved of them is this in-depth review at AlternativeMatter.net – I’ve just done an interview for them too, which should be up in a day or two, and I’ll post here in a couple of weeks.

Then there’s these lovely and encouraging words from the fabulous Laura Kidd, AKA She Makes War.  She’s writing a blog post a week about lovely things she’s found. My album was in week one.

And finally, No Treble wrote this piece – I’ve stepped away from seeing the online bass community as my primary place for conversation here, so I’m hugely appreciative of the bass blogs and news sites that take the time to write about what I’m up to.

Here, in case you missed it, is the album again – it’s been my fastest-selling digital album ever (and that’s without it being on iTunes or Amazon or any of that stuff – this is all bandcamp), and it means I’ll be able to make a healthy donation to Reprieve. (a third of all the money I make on the album is being donated to them).

Here it is, my brand new album, Believe In Peace. Click the play button while you read the rest of this, and download it if you like what you hear:

So, in case you’ve missed the rest of the info about it, Believe In Peace was recorded live in Minneapolis last summer, improvised in an exhibition of art by a wonderful artist called Geoff Bush.

Geoff’s work explores the symbols and themes of the I Ching, focussing on his meta-theme of ‘Believe In Peace’, hence the album title. Continue reading “Believe In Peace – Out Now!”