This is just a quick post to throw an idea out there that we’ve been chatting about on Twitter this evening. I mentioned a short while ago something I’ve been thinking about for a while – the idea of only selling CDs in pairs – “keep one share one” – thinking of it as a way of making ‘promo copies’ count… Continue reading ““Keep One Share One” – Selling CDs in Pairs.”
Kickstarting Without Kickstarter. How You Can Help AND Get Your Hands On New Music First
Fan funding is all the rage right now. I’m sure you’ve seen it, on Kickstarter and Pledge Music. It’s a lovely way of people who dig a particular artist or band helping out with the logistics of making the music happen. There are costs involved in making music, and while they’re less than a tenth of what they were 20 years ago, they’re still there, and the cost of living has gone up massively so time is more expensive than ever.
But it seems to me that Kickstarter is only really necessary if you don’t have anything else that people can pay for if they want to help out. And I, as you well know, have LOADS of music out there already. All of it worth listening to 🙂 Continue reading “Kickstarting Without Kickstarter. How You Can Help AND Get Your Hands On New Music First”
As If By Magic… Three New Albums Appear On The Horizon
Blimey, it really is all go in the Lawson House Of Music. After a fairly long period of relative inactivity, we’re back in full-on music making mode!
What that means is that there are three new albums on the horizon – First up, there’s the duo album with Mike Outram, which I’m FINALLY getting round to mastering. It’s sat there for so long (we recorded it over a year ago) and I’ve been continually listening to the rough mixes that we did (some of which are on Soundcloud) and love it, but for some reason wasn’t in a position to finish it. Maybe I wasn’t sure quite how it was meant to sound… Anyway, it’s now nearly done, and should be out in a week or so… Continue reading “As If By Magic… Three New Albums Appear On The Horizon”
Brand New Track on a Compilation Album
Lobelia has been working really hard of late to put together an amazing compilation album, being sold to benefit a friend of ours who has Multiple Sclerosis and has had a couple of experimental surgeries, that thanks to the Canadian Govt not paying for such things, have cost her a lot of money.
Some remarkable musicians have given of the time and skills to be a part of this, including lots of names that’ll be familiar to you cos I’m a HUGE fan of them – Emily Baker, She Makes War, Kira Small, Peter Katz, Rob Szabo… remarkable musicians all.
The track of Lobelia’s also features Peter Katz on BVs, and me on bass – the bass part is recorded on my Rick Turner ‘amplicoustic’ bass, but I mic’d it up, really close to the neck to get a proper acoustic sound. It’s amazing. I also recorded, mixed, mastered and co-produced the track. Have a listen here, then please do buy the rest of the album below:
here’s the whole album:
A Bit Of New Music By Way Of An Update
Wow. That’s the longest blogging break I’ve had in almost a decade. Sorry ’bout that.
The reason was that I got a fairly last minute call to put together a band for a big in Thailand. Which went brilliantly, and was all kinds of fun.
We recorded it (of course) and the first set that we did was all improv. The first of the tunes from the improv set is up now on Soundcloud. Here it is:
#Phunket Improv 2 by solobasssteve
Now I’m back to sorting out the details for our US trip in May/June. More bloggage soon!
Steve and Lobelia House Concert tour 2011
Plans are now underway for us to return to the US this May/June and play some house concerts. We had such a great time last year on our visit, and we’ve already talked to many of our hosts from last year about return visits.
This week is when we start putting in dates and routing our trip – we’ll be flying into and out of New York, in at the beginning of May, out at the end of June/beginning of July. Aside from time with family and friends, what happens in between is largely reliant on people booking us for house concerts.
What’s a house concert? Continue reading “Steve and Lobelia House Concert tour 2011”
Back To Teaching for 2011!
At the end of last year, we moved house, and are temporarily in Muswell Hill, North London. It’s a bigger place that we were in before, which means I’m back being able to teach bass again! I’ve REALLY missed it, as for the last 20 years, it’s been one of the main ways of understanding what I do as a musician, as well as there being a huge amount of satisfaction in seeing students improve and progress deeper into their own relationship with music.
So, if you’re interested, please do get in touch. If you want more info, most of it is on the bass teaching page here.
And with any luck, there’ll also be a Beyond Bass Camp day or two in the not too distant future – feel free to register an interest in that in the comments below…
2010 – The Year That Was.
Here’s a month-by-month breakdown. As if such a thing were neccessary 🙂
January – Flapjack enters 2010 barely a month old, Lo and I still reeling from becoming parents, so January is a slow-ish month of ongoing adjustments to parentalism. But it does see two new ventures start – First, my work with the department of Social Computing at Imperial College began its first tentative steps, planning a new music discovery/sharing/listening app, that we’ve been working on all year, that’s proved to be all kinds of fun and a great chance to apply the knowledge I’ve gained about the changes in the world of music to a real-world project.
The other launch was the rebirth of ‘New Music Strategies’ – Andrew Dubber wanted to take the ideas that he’d developed on his blog, team up with some ninjas and see where it would go. We met up in Holland to talk over what it might end up being, and came up with all kinds of ideas. It’s quite a remarkable group of people, and NMS promises all kinds of great things going forwards… Continue reading “2010 – The Year That Was.”
Happy Birthday To Me – Help Yourself To Some Music
2010 has been a bumper year for me, musically. Not only have I – as my top 20 shows – found more brand new music that I love than I know what to do with, it’s been an unexpectedly busy and productive year of music-making.
The ‘unexpected’ part is because it was also my first full year as a dad – 2010 is definitely the year of the Flapjack. At the start of the year, he was barely a month old and we had no idea what we’d be able to carry on doing as musicians and how much would have to go by the way-side. Continue reading “Happy Birthday To Me – Help Yourself To Some Music”
My 20 Favourite Records of 2010
2010 has been, for me at least, a bumper year for new music. I think it’s safe to say that I’ve bought more albums released this year than I have in any year for well over a decade. This is a very good thing. That a lot of them were bought direct from the artist is also a very good thing.
Here’s a list of my 20 favourites – not any preference order, that would be futile, and subject to change at a moment’s notice (they’re alphabetical by artist).
Suffice to say, I recommend all of them, with the obvious caveat that if the are from within a style that would otherwise be something you’d avoid like the plague, proceed with caution…
Bandcamp embeds provided where possible… Continue reading “My 20 Favourite Records of 2010”