Yup! Julie‘s back at the end of July, and we’re doing another gig – Julie, me and the wonderful Andy Edwards on drums. This is the beginning of a new series that Andy and I will be hosting – Andy, Steve + 1, tentatively called ‘Steve and Andy’s New Curiosity Shoppe’… August’s show will be announced ASAP…
Anyway, details for the gig with Julie:
[gigpress_shows scope=upcoming artist=17 limit=1]
And here’s all the music that’s currently public from the last time we played together. Enjoy!
…here it is! I’ve been really looking forward to sharing this with you. It’s a 21 minute, 2 song live set from me and double bassist Jon Thorne (from Lamb). It was recorded at the London Bass Guitar Show in March, and I’m massively proud of it:
Some things that you might like to know:
It’s turning into a veritable film festival round here – video #2 for this week went online last night – a demo of three MXR bass effects pedals, and the new Dunlop Super Bright bass strings that I’ve recently started using.
The video itself is about 10 minutes of playing using the effects in various combinations and settings – 1001 sounds (give or take a few) by combining the three effects in different ways (though I didn’t actually change the order!) – it’s pretty long, but is fairly comprehensive in terms of the range of sounds that I use from these three pedals…
The string demo part is most obvious right after the ambient pad part is laid down at the start – the first bit of playing is just my bass through my ever-present Markbass MiniDIST pedal that acts as my preamp, with a little bit of reverb from my Lexicon. That’s my ‘neutral’ sound. If you’re pretty familiar with my sound, you’ll perhaps hear the difference from my old strings – more bite, more clarity low down on the neck… What’s not possible to show on a video is the FEEL of the strings. They just feel great. I’d been using my previous string brand for over 20 years, happily, and was reluctant to even try anything new, but after giving these a try, I’m hooked.
enjoy!
Right, I’ve had a busy couple of days, working on a new cover version. Lobelia and I were talking on Saturday afternoon about which REM song we’d like to cover. The logical answer was ‘all of them’ – way too many great songs to be able to choose. When we got home, I decided to have a go at Orange Crush as my start-point. I played it through once to work out how it goes, and recorded the 2nd time – that’s here:
Then today, I thought I’d do a version for video, and that’s here:
Compare and contrast! It’s a pretty good example of where my bass sound is heading – the layered overdrives and all the gnarly goodness they bring is there in full effect, as well as the more edgy, forceful tone of these lovely new Dunlop Super Bright Strings that I’ve got on that bass. I love them!
More new music a week today – that’s when Diversion is released!
Right, first up, here’s a new thing I recorded this morning, as a tribute to the great Gerry Goffin who died yesterday. He was one half of one of the all-time great songwriting teams, along with Carole King. They wrote SO many amazing songs, but I picked ‘I’m Into Something Good’ to reinterpret for my tribute:
Now, the new album is out on July 1st, is called Diversion, Â and comprises two long duo pieces with double bass genius Jon Thorne, recorded live at the London Bass Guitar Show this year, the first time we’d ever played together.
Jon, as bassist with Lamb, has been a bass hero of mine for many many years, and his own album, Watching The Well, written for Danny Thompson, is outstanding. I’m SO happy with this music, and am looking forward to playing shows with Jon. Here’s the artwork for the album. It’ll be at http://music.stevelawson.net on July 1st!
Not one, but two new tunes! How exciting.
During the time the Julie was here at the start of April, she and Andy and I managed a gig, that was recorded, and a recording session at Kidderminster College, where we also gave a bass/improv/Julie-stuff masterclass.
We’ve got HOURS of stuff recorded, which I’m sorting though. My guess is that the first ‘official’ release will be some bass duets, but here’s one duet from the Kiddy sessions, and the first thing we played as a trio at our gig at Tour Of Song – both are rough mixes, but are just about there. Enjoy!
It’s been a wonderful week of music-making with Julie Slick and Andy Edwards. First our show at Tower Of Song in Birmingham on Sunday night, then a day at Kidderminster College, giving an improvisation masterclass, and then recording some more music and a photo shoot.
All of that will be forthcoming ASAP, but for now, here are some pictures from Sunday’s gig, taken by Rob Groucutt:
Also, if you haven’t heard/bought Julie’s most recent solo album yet, it’s here. You need it:
This is the first in a new pile of videos I’m going to be doing, introducing a few of the effects pedals that I use. I’ve taken the 5 that are in my current live set up, and gone through them. Not just ‘reviewing’ them, but looking at how they interact. That seems a bit more useful 🙂
Oh, and there’s a lil’ improv thingie at the end putting them all to good use.
Enjoy, and if you dig it, feel free to share it around!
OK, two v exciting bits of news!First, my next Birmingham gig is with one of the most remarkable trios I’ve ever been a part of – Julie Slick, me and Andy Edwards.
[ Â BUY TICKETS HERE Â ]
Julie, for those who’ve been hiding for the last 8 years, has been blowing people’s minds all over the world as part of the Adrian Belew Power Trio SINCE SHE WAS A TEENAGER. Seriously. Now still in Adrian’s band, and also in the 6-headed-behemoth that is the Crimson ProjeKct, she gets to swap bass duties with Tony Levin every night. Also a remarkable solo artist, her two solo albums feature her brilliant compositions, bass work and production alongside guests such as Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew, David Torn, Marco Minneman, Pat Mastelotto… A cast of geniuses, with her at the top of the bill. She’s that good. Listen:
Andy Edwards is something of a drum legend – from Robert Plant’s band, he went on to play with many of the UK’s top prog bands: Frost*, IQ, Magenta, and is greatly in demand as a clinician.
I’ve played in duos with both of them, and am excited to see what alchemy takes place with this new band. It’ll be amazing. I promise. here’s the ticket link if you missed it above.
it’s not often that I get to announce a new video that’s already reached 10,000 views. In fact, it’s never. Until now. this was filmed at the Frankfurt Musikmesse, by Gregor Fris of BassTheWorld.com, who asked me to ‘just play’. No looping, no processing, just bass. However I wanted for as long as I wanted. This is what came out. It sounds and looks lovely, I think. The internet seems to agree. Please do share it around if you dig it:
I’ll write more about the making of the video later… but for now, go buy gig tickets! 🙂
It’s International Womens Day! A day to celebrate brilliant women, to acknowledge the massive debt our culture owes to the many millions of women who battled uphill to get past massive sexism and inequality to shape the world we live in. To give thanks for the mothers and sisters and wives and girlfriends, friends and colleagues who teach us and with whom we partner in building lives, culture, society, friendships, homes, communities…
But it’s also a day of reflection, a day of lament, a day to acknowledge that pretty much none of us dudes do enough to correct the imbalance, that we are want to fall back on tropes about slow progress or even to use clever blogposts and Facebook statuses to hide our inactivity behind. It’s WAY, WAY easier to write this than it is to call out some dickhead at work telling sexist jokes, to make a fuss about those situations where women are constantly overlooked, to check our language for times when we put appearance first in the list of things we compliment a woman for, as though they need to earn the right to be complimented on their work by looking the part first.
It’s always easier to sound like a feminist than to act like one. To write inspirational bullshit on the Internet than to get off my arse and do my fair share of the housework, to daily resensitise myself to the systems that enable my male privilege… So don’t take this as a statement of success, but an admission that I’m not where I should be. And neither are you, dudes. No sackcloth and ashes, just take some time to fix some things, OK?
And here, to celebrate the day, is some incredible music by women I’m inspired by and aspire to be like. Geniuses all:
