Steve – Page 217 – stevelawson.net

February 17, 2003

'wake up and smell the democracy!' –

– so said Tim Robbins when asked what message he had for Bush and Blair after the demos round the world on Saturday… I was on the march in London, spreading a little love and a whole lotta throat infection germs (getting worse, BTW…) – will post some of my photos later, but for now, here’s a great piece from the Observer, by Terry Jones, of Monty Python, about Bush’s patience running out…

ah, yet more reviews and accolades! :o)

…did I mention that there’s a rather nice review of ‘Not Dancing…’ in the ‘Bass Player Recommends’ section of this month’s Bass Player magazine? well, I have now – and it’s rather good. I’ll get it typed up soon, and add it to the site…

I’ve also just added another review to the archive, this time from Aural Innovations – ostensibly a space rock site, but it’s a bit broader than that, with some very interesting stuff on it. And I also made it into their end of year best of list – don’t believe me? see for yourself!

I’ve just posted all this info to the ‘news’ page as well – why have I still got this and the news page? er, good question – I guess some people wouldn’t want to wade through all the crap that I write on here just to get the 2% of what I write that actually relates to music (weird though such a thought may seem to you and I), so it’s worth having a more coherent news bit I guess… All those stats on how people engage with websites and how long they stay on them and what leads them to delve deeper etc. are very scary – have I got it all wrong? are they running away in droves, wondering what on earth a ‘blog’ is… do I need a flash intro? Is that really irritating pop-up that invites you to join the mailing list a waste of space, even though my mailing list is growing three times as fast since I added it? all important questions methinks…

anyway, a few hours ago I was planning to do some house work. Then I got sidetracked by… er, well nothing to be honest. Just sitting around, reading articles from www.axisofjustice.org and talkbass.com.

So anyway, on with the tidying – what shall I listen to? er, how about… ah, here we go – ‘Jordan The Comeback’ by Prefab Sprout… excellent.

February 14, 2003

Sleep perchance to… wake up again at 4 in the morning…

Jetlag!

never had it this bad before – three days in a row I’ve woken up at 4.30am, and usually I can sleep wherever and whenever I want… not good. In fact, have spent loads of time asleep since I got back – combination of jetlag, exhaustion from touring, and some sort of cold/throat infection thing I seem to have picked up somewhere along the way. Not dying, but not exactly on tip top form either…

So what have I been up to? not much, to be honest. Still trying to catch up on emails etc. Working on some more gigs for later in the year – newcastle in may, and a london one quite soon, I Think… more on that ASAP…

Saturday, if I’m well enough, I’ll be going on the stop the war demo in London – could be huge, should be huge. The more of the news I see, the more insane it all seems to get. Colin Powell trying to suggest the french are just getting their UN-kicks by stalling? er, no, I think you’ll find they’ve thought you were mad since day one for suggesting this war… Anyway, I’ll be there, infecting everyone with my viral stuff, but hopefully helping to let Blair know we think he’s a dickhead.

Today will be a tidying day – my mum’s arriving later on (coming down for the demo), and the house is a tip.

Soundtrack – yesterday, I just listened to ‘Lessons Learned…’ about six times in a row – definitely my favourite of my albums at the moment, and possibly destined for a CDR release before too long, maybe with another CD of ambient noodlings… we’ll see… Other than that, been listening to ‘The Willies’ by Bill Frisell (excellent as always), ‘Kakusei’ by DJ Krush (down tempo IDM – very cool indeed), and ‘this sentence is true (the previous sentence is false)’ by Sheila Chandra, which, as with all her stuff, is stunning. what else. Oh yes, the new album from Theo Travis, an album of solo alto flute looping called ‘Slow Life’, it’s lovely, naturally, as is all of theo’s music. And lastly, the new album from Michael Franti – ‘Sounds From The Front Porch’, which is just what the doctor ordered as the world heads towards more rich people bombing poor people.

And one last site to check out – www.axisofjustice.org – great site, run by Tom Morello I think, from Audioslave – is the audioslave album any good? been meaning to check it out… very good site anyway. go there and get informed!

oh and by the way, I posted a link to Todd Johnson, the bassist’s, site the other day as www.toddjohnson.com which turns out to be a hocket player or something… anyway, Todd’s real web address is www.toddjohnsonmusic.com – go pay him a visit, and ask him sports related questions… :o)

February 12, 2003

California III – this time it's serious

…or maybe not…

So anyway, 26th was the Echoplex Clinic at Bananas At Large in San Raphael, just north of San Francisco. Nice town, great shop. The clinic went really well, and I stole loads of ideas from Andre LaFosse’s tips on using the Echoplex – if you’re interested in the EDP at all, you HAVE to check out his site with the Echoplex tips page on it, and all his MP3s…

Anyway, the curry after the clinic was lovely, Scott Drengsen (solo bassist from the Bay Area) came along to the clinic, which was great, and Dan and I stayed with Anderson and Laura – very good friends who live in San Raphael. A lovely time was had by all!

Couple of days off spent with Billy-Bob and Mavis which was lovely, then onto the dates with Michael Manring along with the trio – the first of which was at Henflings in Ben Lomond (sounds Scottish, actually just outside Santa Cruz) – great venue, good turn out, lots of very cool music, and a bizarre moment when Rick Walker jumped on stage to join in with Michael Manring’s set…

the Next day we were up in Sacramento (this was a mucho-driving tour). Started out with a radio interview that Michael and I did for KVMR – very very cool station, we did a duo piece and then Michael did Red Right Returning (as featured, uncredited on the new Royksopp CD).

The gig was great – loads of people there, lots of CD sales, the line up was Michael and I (solo and duo) and Orbis (Mike Roe, Mark Harmon and Nick Willow). What a fun evening. It was also the venue owner’s birthday, and his name turned out to be Tim Looper – what a fine coincidence… :o)

Couple more days off, spent in Sacramento, then the gig at the Little Fox Theatre, with Michael and David Friesen. The three of us works really well as a show, so that was very cool. Lots of good people there, etc. etc.

The next show was probably the low-light of the tour – Cafe Du Nord, nice venue in San Francisco, had been looking forward to this. Got there, and noticed in the local paper that it was billed as a singer/songwriter night, with David Friesen and I listed as acoustic singer/songwriters! Huh? Turns out it was double booked, the guy who organised the acoustic night got really annoyed about it all, tried the cancel the night, it ended up with David and I playing truncated sets, and then the acoustic thing happening afterwards. All a bit miserable and a bit of a let down… Oh well.

Stayed in a motel 6 that night, then off to Santa Barbara – very nice town, had a wander round the farmer’s market. Clinic at Instrumental Music (is this beginning to read like bullet points???), which was great fun – the store manager is a friend from last year, Jamie Faletti, so it was great to see him, lots of great questions at the clinic, loads of CDs sold, all good fun.

Next night was another clinic at another branch of instrumental music, great turnout, the whole thing was videoed (bits of it may turn up here, who knows), some cool people there, nice curry afterwards with Jeff Kaiser (avante-garde composer and trumpeter), and some people from the shop. All good fun, good people, good food, good music. yadda yadda…

Ploughing on through busy schedule, the next day, I gave a masterclass at The College Of The Canyons, normally taught by fantastic solo bassist and jazz educator, Todd Johnson. Nice to hear from Todd afterwards that I’d just confirmed all he’d been telling them for weeks :o)

The second low-light of the tour was to follow – clinic at Jim’s music in Irvine – the shop hadn’t even put up a flyer in the shop for it, no promo, no-one knew, ergo very small number of people there. Bit of a waste of time, travelling 6000 miles to play in a shop that couldn’t care less if you were there or not. Still, kick the dust from your shoes and move on. etc.

The following night in Valencia more than made up for the Irvine balls-up. Great gig at Java and Jazz. Loads of people there, including lots of lovely Level 42 fans from the web digest. Todd Johnson, who organised the gig, played a fantastic solo set, then I did my thing, followed by some fun little jazzy duets.

The tour finished off with a nice little clinic thingie for Churchbassists in San Dimas…

All in all, a lot of fun. Well worth doing, loads of good gigs, tonnes of CDs sold, lots of good press (there’s a review of Not Dancing in the current issue of Bass Player magazine, and the loop trio gig in Santa Cruz made it onto the cover of the Santa Cruz newspaper…)

Hopefully I’ll be back in the US before long…

February 12, 2003

California pt 2

…So where were we? Oh yes, gig in San Luis Obispo. Dan and I arrived nice and early, parked up, called into the venue, and promptly got a parking ticket – shabby…

Then headed off to do a radio interview with the local college station, which was fun (it was a film show, so I talked about being influenced by soundtracks… hmmmn)

Had a bit of a look round SLO (great second hand book-shop just across the square from Z-Pie where we were playing!), the Rick and Andre arrived and we started setting up. Opening for us that evening was Hans Lindauer, who had more gear than any solo act not playing stadiums that I’ve ever seen! Rack and racks of stuff, two tables covered in modules and turntables… interesting set, but boy, I couldn’t carry all that stuff around.

Once again, the trio set was very interesting – smallish crowd, but they seemed to enjoy it a lot, which is always good. Sold a few CDs, and then headed off to stay with the Z-Pie owners…

Following day we headed for San Jose, but not before calling in in Santa Cruz to see Victor Wooten – he wasn’t at NAMM, but I’d interviewed him a while ago, and it was sort of on the way and we had time to kill so we dropped in to say hi before his clinic, and he rather kindly announced our Santa Cruz gig which was happening the saturday after…

Headed off to Gryphon Strings in Palo Alto, a lovely shop with a focus on acoustic instruments that has recently started doing bass stuff, including Ashdown amps. Good staff there. Spent about 5 mins playing an upright bass and nearly ruined my hands and arms for the rest of the tour!! Boy, those things are hard to play!

Anyway, the clinic was small, but they were attentive and seemed to enjoy it (can you see a pattern emmerging here???) sold a load of CDs, which was nice, and then went to see a bit of the gig that Andre and Rick were doing with Cara Quinn and John Wagner from Loopers Delight, which was just round the corner and went really well… Stayed that evening with Mark Wright of Accugroove Cabinets – a very nice chap.

Er where next? ah yes, San Jose Museum of Art – a return gig for Rick and I, lovely place to play. Dan and I spent a lot of the day visiting music stores, handing out flyers and him talking to guys about some of the companies he reps for. Then off to the venue. Another cool gig – lots of people there from the dude pit discussion list, which was great – it’s always fun talking to people face to face that I chat with online on a daily basis. So meeting Harley and Lowell and Bob Amstadt and the others that were there was very cool indeed. The trio set was again very cool indeed, solo stuff going down well too, starting to shift a few CDs…

25th (the next day) was a busy day – started out with four sessions at the Christian Guitarist Conference in Castro Valley – one on basic bass skills and advice, one on choosing the right gear, one on more advanced techniques (mainly chordal stuff) and finally a performance set – lots of fun. Dan and I then jumped into our little bass-mobile and headed of to Santa Cruz for the next trio gig. If any gig I do is likely to be full it’s a show with Rick Walker in Santa Cruz. I guess it may have helped that the mayor declared it to be ‘international live looping day’ (your guess is as good as mine!!) but we filled Cayuga Vault and had a fine, if very dissonant and scary set. All in all a fine gig, though there’s always the trade off with playing to a crowd of people who know what you do in that a lot of them already have your CDs… :o)

On the 26th we headed north, and I’ll pick up there tomorrow…

February 11, 2003

There's no place like home…

So, I’m home, safe and as sound as I’ll ever be… Jetlag got me bad though – this is the longest trip I’ve had to the states, and after four weeks over there, my body had adjusted rather well to the time difference, so now my body clock is screwed up. So I slept a bit yesterday afternoon, then went to bed at 12 last night, woke up at 5.30, awake til 8.15, then was asleep on and off til 6.30pm!!!! Am up again now, ploughing through email and trying to rebuild some semblace of a life… Fortunately I don’t start teaching again til next week, So I’ve got time to sort through the mountain of post and email… Fortunately both the small person and the aged feline seemed to recognise me when I arrived home, so nothing to drastic can have happened. Still haven’t unpacked yet though… need to get some washing done…

So what happened while I was in the states? Really sorry for not keeping this thing up to speed – hopefully next year I’ll have a lap top with me and will be more concientious (spelling, harv?).

Anyway – first up was the NAMM show – huge great music gear trade show – equal parts hideous schmooze-fest, and great chance to catch up with musical chums I’ve not seen in ages…

Good people I saw who I already knew – Peter Murray, Geoff Gould, the Modulus and Ashdown people, Ed Friedland, Lee Sklar, Joe Zon, Matt Garrison, Doug Wimbish, Michael Manring, David Torn, Doug Lunn, Vida Vierra, Steve Rabe, Steve and Jill Azola, Mike Tobias, Norm Stockton, Adrian Ashton, Dan Knowlton, Mark Wright, Frank Gambale, Rufus Philpot, Pete McCann, Mike Roe, Dave Pomeroy, Trip Wamsley, Lenny Jordon, Bill Leigh, Jamie Faletti, Dale Titus, Kerry Getz, Rick Turner, Clive Roberts, John Ferrante, Kim Flint, Richard Zvonar…

And Fine people I met for the first time – Elijah Torn, Will Calhoun, Daniella Sheppard, Derry Daugherty, Mike Dimin, Mike Watt, Kira Roessler, Charles Normal and Softcore (his band), Tedd Killian, Chris Tarry, Greg Heet, Dan and Laurie Schinder, Kevin Van Pamel… and lots more in both groups that I can’t remember in my near comatose jetlagged state…

Playing-wise, I was playing at the Ashdown Booth each day at 3pm, doing my solo stuff, and also hanging around a bit chatting to people there… Also played a little on the Modulus stand, with Leo Nobre and then with Bill Walker. Spent a lot of my time at the show just catching up with friends, putting the word around about the gigs and clinics, and checking out new stuff, of which there wasn’t all that much (though Ashdown did have a couple of gorgeous fake-suede bass cabs – very sexy indeed…)

Music at the show that was worth watching was pretty scarce – Ed Friedland was playing some great stuff at the Carvin Booth, and Michael Manring was doing his solo bass twiddling for Zon and SWR and astounding everyone as always. Bill Walker was making a fine noise at the Duncan-Turner Research booth, and that was Matt Garrison spent plenty of time playing at the Fodera booth, playing beautifully. That’s about all I saw…

Evenings were taken up with going to or playing gigs and eating dinner – Thursday was Frank Gambale at The Baked Potato (a bit of a NAMM ritual for me, catching Frank at least once during the weekend), Friday was the bass bash, organised by Dan Elliott who booked my tour, and acted as road manager for me. That was a great event – a few technical hitches (the venue wouldn’t let them start setting up the stage area til gone 7!), and the whole thing over-ran (bit of a NAMM tradition there…) but all in all it was a great night’s bassic entertainment – have a look at some of the pictures from the event at www.bassically.net. I did a couple of long solo numbers (No More Us And Them and MMFSOG) and the Michael Manring joined me for an improv thing that I’ve got on CD, so will hopefully post here before too long…

Anyway, Saturday night was dinner with David and Elijah Torn, Dani, Doug and Vida, and then Sunday was the first gig of the tour at Roccos in Hollywood.

The gig went really well, though the turnout was low (if everyone else was feeling the way I did after four days of NAMM, it’s not that surprising) – we didn’t start til late… musically, we had no idea how Rick Walker Andre LaFosse and I were going to gel, but the trio stuff turned out great. We all did solo sets (the running order was a bit of a shambles but it sort of worked out) then Michael Manring did some marvellous solo tunes, and all of us played together… The nicest thing about it was how inconspicuous the looping element of it all was – last time we did a loop tour, partly due to the limitations of the jamman, the looping defined the music in a very strong way. This time, with the extra subtleties available with the echoplex, we were able to loop in a music more transparent way – bringing loops in and out to allow ourselves to mutitrack, but without having to just build a loop then stop…

A couple of days off on Monday and Tuesday were spent visiting Ashdown, and Dan was chasing up last minute stuff for the tour (he worked really hard and did a great job…), then Wednesday we left SoCal and headed for San Luis Obispo for the second trio gig…

…and I’m going to stop there for a while, or my arms will fall off, or I’ll fall asleep, or my arms will fall off in my sleep, or something equally bad.

anyway, the rest of the story will follow ASAP…

January 31, 2003

still no time to blog

arghhh!!!

way too busy – loads of great gigs, shedloads of Cds sold, thousands of miles covered, stadiums sold out, war averted due to solo bass loveliness, much fun had, muchos laughs had, many good people met. all fun – full report at 10

and now the weather

lovely

January 20, 2003

No more NAMM

NAMM over for another year – it was insanely busy, evidenced by my not being able to get to a computer to blog.

oops, just been told I’ve got to get off the computer!! i’ll write more later… suffice to say, it all went well, the two gigs went very well, saw loads of friends, sold a load of CDs, and generally had a great time…

January 16, 2003

Hotel California!

sorry for the delay posting – I’ve not had that much computer access while I’ve been here.

anyway, the flight was fine, if a little long. and I arrived with all my gear intact (it’s always a little hairy flying with two Echoplexes and my Lexicon MPX-G2 as well as having my bass on the plane as hand luggage!) – anyway, I arrived, and Dan (tour promoter) picked me up at the airport, and took me back here, to where we’re staying. The weather is lovely (sorry for rubbing it in) – it’s hot even by southern californian standards. I could quite easily go outside and get sunburnt in a hour or so…

so what have we done so far? well, we picked up the amp stuff that I need for the tour from Ashdown, I had lunch with my chum Tanya, who lives here but is from Essex and used to write for Bassist. We went to the Baked Potato last night (we being Dan, me and Gene – a veteran chum of all my trips to the States – I stayed wtih Gene and his wife Linda for my first three or four visits to the states, and they’ve become really good friends over the years…)

Today Dan was off doing his gear rep bit, while Gene and I went to SWR to pick up some gear for Dan for the Bass Bash that is happening on Friday night (see gigs page for details), and then went shopping for CDs (now there’s a rare one for me…)

so haven’t done any gigs yet, but have just been getting aclimatised – I fell asleep on Monday evening at 5pm, and didn’t wake til 5am the next day – the worst case of jetlag I’ve ever had coming out here.

needless to say, I’m missing the small person and aged feline loads, but such is the peril of being a touring musician I guess – there has to be a down side somewhere, I ‘spose, and that’s it for me. It’d be great if I could bring them both with me… :o)

Soundtrack – I bought a few Cds with me – Jonatha Brooke ‘Steady Pull’, Joni Mitchell, ‘Travelogue’, Prefab Sprout, ‘Jordan’ and ‘From Langley Park To Memphis’, Unamerican ‘Unamerican’, Kelly Joe Phelps, ‘Sky Like A Broken Clock’, Phil Keaggy ‘Acoustic Sketches’, David Sylvian ‘Secrets Of The Beehive’ Gary Peacock and Ralph Towner ‘A Closer View’… right now I’m listening to one of the CDs I just bought – ‘Stanley Climbfall’ by Lifehouse.

January 11, 2003

Leaving On A Jet Plane

Right, all packed, checked, double checked etc.

The Small Person just cut my hair, which was getting a little unruly. It looks rather nice at the moment, we’ll see what it’s like in the morning when it has ‘settled down’… :o)

Four weeks seems like an awfully long time to be away. I’m kind of looking forward to it, and kind of wishing it was slightly shorter. The opportunity is great, but I will be missing the small person and aged feline a lot…

Anyway, time for bed – I’ve got to leave the house at 7 tomorrow and drag my HUGELY heavy suitcase to Heathrow – you wouldn’t believe how heavy it is! Customs are going to be thinking I’ve got a stow-away!

anyway, I’ll write more from the opposite side of the atlantic… :o)