just moved everything over to the new server for my main site. Haven’t updated this to look the same yet… will sort it later. If any links don’t work… tough. A few things need tweaking.
:o)
cats and websites
Sorry for big absence from blog-world – two big things have been going on. Firstly, and most tragically, the ginger fairly aged feline has been very unwell. You know about the cancer, which at the moment isn’t showing up the way it was, but he’s now got very serious kidney failure, (creatin level of over 800, which is off the chart), and there’s pretty much nothing they can do. We’ve been trying to get his blood levels settled, but he’s not enjoying the renal food and isn’t really improving anyway, so we’re now pretty much resigned to giving him whatever he wants to eat so he can enjoy his last week or two on earth. It’s a horrible horrible moment to reach – it feels like condemning someone to death, even though there’s no way he’s going to suddenly get better. The will is there to keep fighting for him, but he’s got nothing left to fight with. It’s a dark time in Stevie-Towers.
The second hugely time consuming thing of late is moving my website over to a new server. Copying the stuff over was no problem at all – the Captain took care of that in his usual uber-geek cleverness way – but once there, it became clear that OSCommerce wasn’t going to run on a server running the latest versions of PHP and MySQL (like I know what I’m talking about). So, ’twas time to find a new shopping cart – this time I’ve gone with Zen Cart – it looks quite similar to OSC, but I’m assured by geeks who know that it’s more secure, and much tidier code-wise. I’m almost there, almost completely up to date with the shop – it’ll hopefully go live over the weekend, with advanced order on ‘Behind Every Word’ available, which will include the free download album ‘Lessons Learned From The Fairly Aged Felines (Lessons Learned Pt III)’ – I just need to finish mixing that, zip it up into a zip file with some artwork, and maybe a couple of tracks from ‘Behind Every Word’, and it’ll all be on sale then. I’ll then over the next week or so get Lessons Learned Pt I, Conversations, Open Spaces and It’s Not Gonna Happen up for sale, and hopefully replenish the Street Team Stash with all manner of goodies. Busy time for a bassist cum web designer. :o)
Also, just in, I’ve been booked for an open-air gig in Portsmouth (at least, I’m assuming it’s open air, as it’s for a boat race of some kind, and they generally don’t happen in doors) – I’ll posted the deets as soon as I can.
Good times, bad times..
My what a mixed up week!
Starting with the screwed up car – bad times.
Then Tuesday I had a rehearsal with Julie for our gig at the National Theatre on the 31st – got lots of songs done, including songs by Green Day and The Cure. It’s going to be a fab gig. – good times.
Wednesday was another great rehearsal, this time with Andrea Hazell – Andrea’s only improv experience before this was onstage at Greenbelt last year with me, so she came round for a run through before thursday’s RC gig. Working through various ideas we found that Dido’s Lament by Purcell worked beautifully when looped and layered over ambient mush! – good times.
Which leads us to Thursday and the RC gig. The day started with renting a car – Enterprise do a scheme where they pick you up for free as well, which was nice. I then set off to pick up Todd from Peckham. When, after an hour and a half I hadn’t reached the river, I had to admit defeat to the traffic and head back home, leaving Todd to get the bus to the gig! – bad times, but at least I got to have a listen to the whole of the new album on the in-car CD player and check out what it sounds like in another situation. it’s pretty damned fine sitting in traffic music!
Anyway, came home, loaded the rental car, with gear and TSP, and headed down to Darbucka. Got there nice ‘n’ early, got set up and sound-checked, and even the sound check was sounding lovely. It’s safe to say, that this Recycle gig was one of my all time favourite gigs. Y’all know by now the the RC is ALWAYS stunning, but this perhaps even eclipsed the others. I started solo, with a glitch-free version of ‘Behind Every Word’ (first time that my opening tune at the RC has gone off without a hitch)… However, the loop gremlins just hid until my second track – some weirdness going on in ‘FRHU’ but it was still fun. Followed that with ‘Grace And Gratitude’, then got Andrea up to join me. We did two long pieces – the first a wordless improv, and the second was the Purcell – the purity, clarity and power of Andrea’s voice makes for a completely unique duo experience. Like so many people, the harshness of bad opera has left a bad impression on me, but working with Andrea shows just how good operatic vocals can be when performed by a world class singer. A total joy.
After the break, Todd Reynolds was on. I already knew Todd was amazing, world-class. I wasn’t quite prepared for just how awe-inspiringly amazing he would be as a solo performer. This was, without a doubt, one of the greatest virtuoso performances I’ve ever seen – it’s hugely inspiring to watch someone play who has obviously dedicated such a super-human amount of time, energy and love to being right at the top of their game. I can count on one hand the performers I’ve ever seen of equivalent levels of skill and beauty in their playing – Gary Husband, Show Of Hands, Antonio Forcione, Michael Manring… it’s a tiny tiny select group that serve as a wake-up-call to the rest of us to up our game considerably. I don’t think I’ve ever heard violin played like that live, even on video. It was a fairly small crowd for the RC, but every single one of the people there got a major treat checking out Todd’s magic.
And then the improv bit at the end, the musical equivalent of a 70s wrestling ‘royal rumble’, only a bit more gentle and considered. For this, the three of us were joined half way through by Julie, and the transition from the layers and layers of Andreas’ huge expansive voice fading across to the intimate exquisite layers of humming from Julie was definitely one of my favourite improv moments ever.
How lucky am I? Definitely Good Times.
And then today. I took the rental car back, they found a stone-dent in the back door (was it there when I got it yesterday? I didn’t see it…) and charged me £75 for it, making a grand total of £105 for the day’s car rental. Bollocks. Bad times. Then, just as I arrive home, the garage calls and tells me my car’s ready – £666,69. I’m not sure if the number’s significant, but it’s certainly an evil amount of money. Still, they are a fantastic and trustworthy bunch of guys, and it was really nice to get back in our car. It’s the first time ever that the switch from rental car to own-car hasn’t been a disappointment. This is one lovely car, and even with the blown gasket, I’m still hugely grateful to the lovely G and J for selling it to us for a solo-bass-wages sized sum. So bad times on the cost, good times on getting it back.
Then I come home and finally start to tackle the monumental task of tidying my office. – scary times. The problem is, I’m halfway through and need to somehow make it so I can teach in it tomorrow! arrrrggghhh!
Good times, bad times, you know I had my share…
Car-gone
For the last few days, the car has been overheating randomly. On Friday, lots of freaky brown sludge came out of the water reservoir when I took the cap off. My first hunch – not knowing much more about cars than a four year old with some toy ones – was that some had at some point used Rad-Weld or something like that on it, and it had just bubbled up to the top. A call the the lovely G disproved that – he’d owned the car from new, so he should know (though he’s not a vicar anymore, so might be practicing telling really big lies now that he’s allowed to).
Anyway, this morning I took it to those trusty peoples at T&H Motors in Barnet (great mechanics and nice blokes), and they told me that the head gasket is leaking oil into the coolant. Apparently it’s a regular problem with Rovers (I remember my brother mentioning something similar when I first got the car). So, the upshot is that we’re without a car for a week, then without several hundred pounds to fix the car. 🙁
With means I’m going to have to rent a car for the RC gig on Thursday…
The Master part 2
Well, the mastered CDR was great, except two tweaks that needed doing, so a quick call was made to Denis, with further clarification in an email, and yesterday, two v. high res MP3s arrive for me to proof. Sounding much better, this morning I email Denis to confirm that the album’s a goer, and he’ll now send one to me, and one to ICC who are doing the duplication.
Yay!
Two gigs
one mine, one not mine.
Thursday morning I get an email from Todd Reynolds – the amazing violinist who’s doing the RC gig next week – asking if I wanted to go and see him playing at the QEH with the Michael Gordon band that evening. Of course I did!
Got to the gig slightly late due to lack of parking spaces, but walked in to the lovely sound of Max De Wardener and his band. The fact that he was playing Cloud Chamber bowls (a Harry Partch-invented instrument) warmed me to the group anyway, but the music was sublime. Really gorgeous ambient, occasionally minimalist contemporary classical stuff, but with a kit drummer which gave it a post-rock feel at times. Magical stuff.
And Michael Gordon’s band similarly occupied a space between chamber music and post rock, but way more to the RAWK end. I was actually quite surprised as how conventional the assignment of the roles in the band was – bass playing low notes, drums playing typical kit rhythms, keyboards playing pads and ostinatos, guitar doing big guitar and twiddling and violin as the dominant solo voice… not much swapping around within that, but I guess those are the parameters that Michael has set himself to work within, and the music was fantastic. At times majestic, scary, subtle, gentle, bombastic and very clever. A most enjoyable gig. Definitely the kind of thing that would appeal just as much to fans of God Speed You Black Emperor or Sigur Ros as to those of Michael Nyman, Philip Glass etc.
Friday was the me-gig. Well, not just me – it was a duo gig with lovely saxophonist, Andy Williamson. The gig was at Merton College in Oxford, where Andy had studied some time in the late 17th century, and was part of their arts festival.
Merton College is a gorgeous place, though it definitely looks more like Hogwarts than a place to learn modern stuff. I was half expecting to see Prof. Sprout or someone wander out of one of the ancient doorways. The big strangeness was being around students again – the thought that they’re almost young enough to legally be my kids was very strange, particularly when Andy and I nipped into the bar (£2.10 for a G&T and an orange juice???? how do they make any money at all??)
Anyway, the gig went very well – we only had half an hour to play, and the set list was –
Grace And Gratitude (me solo)
Amo Amatis Amare – (andy joined in, doing a fab job on this)
Scott Peck – (a rather different version with extended sax ending with lots of loopage that faded out and left Andy to wander up the venue playing a GORGEOUS unaccompanied sax solo, using the natural ambience of the room to mesmeric effect.)
Lovely – (Andy learnt Theo’s sax line note for note, only played on tenor instead of soprano. Another great job.
and to finish, we did People Get Ready, which we’d played together at the Edinburgh Festival last year.
All in all a top gig – Andy acquitted himself admirably, played a blinder, and the audience seemed to enjoy it. Much fun, hopefully to be repeated fairly soon!
The Master
About two minutes after posting that last blog, I checked today’s mail and found the Master CDR of the album, back from Denis – I’m not sure exactly what kind of alchemical scariness goes on at the mastering stage, but it’s remarkable the ‘sheen’ that it gives to a recording. It’s often a layer of polish that you can’t even predict being there hearing the original, but when you A/B the two, the change is amazing. It’s very similar to seeing before and after photos that Steve Brown has been tweaking – he takes great pictures anyway, then drops them into photoshop and, even on the ones where he’s not changing the background, does these magical tweaks that make everything look shiny and lovely and perfect.
So for the next 70 minutes I’ll be sat here listening through the CD, making sure it all does what I want it to do, and finishing off the artwork so that it can all be sent to those lovelies at ICC to be turned into proper CDs. How exciting!!
Oh, for those of you that care, the cheque finally arrived for the tour with Theo in February… Yay, money! Theo and I can feed our huge families now…
one unsolicited marketing call too many…
Right, finally I got sick of all the marketing calls I’ve been getting – none of which are for me! Who on earth is Mr Claire??? I’m guessing he must’ve had my number before me…
Anyway, I just registered with the
grrrrr.
Anyway, well over 700 plays on MySpace yesterday, and loads of great feedback on the new tune… Just need to get the artwork finished and sent off to be pressed, get the CD back from Mastering, and I can set a release date and put it up for sale… Yay!
New track on MySpace…
Just added a new track to my MySpace page. It’s a track called ‘Scott Peck’, which features the truly marvellous BJ Cole on pedal steel. He’s great, he is.
The bio on the page has been updated as well, to include the info about the new album, and this quote –
“Steve Lawson is a brilliant musician. I’ve known about him and listened to him for many years. He may not be one of the most famous bassists but he is definitely one of the most talented.” – Victor Wooten
Which is nice.
Enjoy the track…
Comments are back!
The comments section of the site has been down for a few days, but is now back up and running, if a little shakily… So please go back and post all those lovely comments you’ve been storing up over the last few days! :o)