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Caught in a flyerless limbo

you know, this leaving the flyers til the last minute thing was a really bad idea. And yes, TSP did point out to me about a month ago that I really ought to have all that stuff finished by now so that it was all ready in good time. Did I listen? Well, yes, but I procrastinated, and there was obviously something really important to blog about, and flyers got moved down the list, and then it was time for lunch, and then I did some bass practice, and that was the end of third day. And Steve looked at it and said ‘oops, didn’t get much done there, then’.

The problem now is that the BIG job before Friday is getting all the flyers and posters out all over Edinburgh, and it’s more than we can comfortably do just on wednesday evening/thursday. Today and yesterday I could’ve been toddling all over the city sticking up posters and letting the lovely people of the Burgh know about the show, so they could come flooding through the doors in their ones and I could go home a newly minted hundredaire!

So today, I’m actually going to stay in Berwick, I think. I was planning on going to Newcastle, but thought that was just too much unneccesary driving, and I was going to go to Edinburgh, but there’s not much to do there yet, so I’ll stay here, work on some tunes for the gig, head into town and buy a shirt or two for onstage (Berwick? stage clothes? this’ll be a challenge) and generally take it slightly easier, preparing for the maelstrom to come.

Had a good play last night with the laptop looping set up. Managed to get it working so that the processing was only happening post-loop, and not to my main bass sound, which was cool, but then that stopped and I couldn’t work out why. And I couldn’t use any pitchshifting as it was way too processor hungry. Methinks this is going to take some major tweaking of latency settings etc. to get it to be stable enough for gigs.

Soundtrack – right now I’m listening to ‘I Don’t Want To Know’ by John Martyn over and over, as I’m hoping to do a version of it on the gig, and am trying to soak up a lot of his melodic stuff. It’s a really simple chord progression, almost too simple, but I’m sure I can make it do what I want to do.

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The perils of a laptop life

the downside of ever switching computers is that all the info that one needs in an email archive is on the other computer. And there were a couple of people who emailed me about wanting to start bass lessons just before I left to come here, and I can’t get to their addresses (trying to talk the people staying at my house through logging on and finding emails on my computer would be pretty much impossible).

So, if it was you, please email me again, but be warned – I’m not teaching again now until the 19th August. After that, I’m booking stuff in now…

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First day in Edinburgh

so I’ve arrived in Edinburgh, and can I find free wifi anywhere? Can I shite. Where I’m sat at the moment, I could get online via the hotel across the road, but their wifi costs £8 for 2 hours, and I don’t want two hours, I want about half an hour and I want it for free…

Anyway, enough about that. It’s great being back in the city, waiting for the festival to start – posters are going up (not mine, sadly, as I was too late getting them printed and won’t have them til Wednesday – what a loser!) and venues are being prepared. My next job is to go and find something to wear on stage – I’ve got my lovely furry coats with me, but want something else groovy to wear too.

I’ve also got to start confirming my special guests for the show – I’ve had a few people agree to come and sit in on a gig or two, but haven’t booked anyone in for particular dates. Must get onto that.

There’s not that much I can do here til the flyers and posters are ready, then it goes mad. And as my show starts two days before the ‘official’ start of the fringe, I’ve got extra work to do to get an audience for the first couple of shows (please, feel free, nay, compelled to come along on the 5th/6th if you happen to be in Edinburgh!)

I also need to try and drum up some more press – sent out another press release this morning, and will see if I can chase up my contact at The Arts Show on BBC Radio Scotland from last year, in case there’s a chance of getting back on there.

If any of you have any groovy press contacts or ideas, please email ’em over!

soundtrack – right now, it’s the retro radio station that’s playing in this cafe (Nik Kershaw, The Stranglers, Diana Ross…), and before that it was a bunch of MP3s that I’ve copied onto my phone to use as an MP3 player – KT Tunstall, John Martyn, The Cure, Talking Heads etc. lots of fun. In fact, after listening to it just now, I thinking of having a go at a solo version of ‘I Don’t Want To Know About Evil’ by John Martyn. Such a great song.

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fine gig in Berwick

Today was my gig at the Borders Green Festival, in Berwick on Tweed. Playing in Berwick is always odd (well, I say always – I’ve only played here twice since I left 14 years ago!!), obviously, as it’s coming back to where I grew up, and today was particularly odd as the soundman was the same guy that did sound for one of my earliest ever gigs, At one of the first ever local band nights at The Maltings In Berwick!

That was with my first gigging band, EARS. Today was a solo gig at a very cool little festival. The idea behind the fest was that it was a showcase for all things sustainable, renewable, local, therapeutic and generally marvellous, so there was a resources marquee with lots of info about local action groups anti-war stuff, environmental pressure groups etc. there were teepees with various things going on in them – a massage tent, a talks tent and a making cool stuff out of old crap tent. There were stalls from a lot of the local fair trade and organic traders, and lots of fun things for kids to do, as well as obivously the music stage.

The music was very varied indeed, ranging from some very fine local folk musicians to a rather good local rock band, to, er, me. A real spread from solo Bach piano to Balkan folk tunes.

In my set I leaned heavily on the floaty soundscape end of things – No More Us And Them, Kindness Of Strangers, Grace And Gratitude, Highway One – nice big long improv-enhanced versions of everything. The big problem I faced was that the sun was so bright, I couldn’t see the illuminated panels on the front of any of the processors, particularly the Lexicon, so was half guessing which sound to use next. There weren’t any train-wrecks, but it was close at times! Certainly a nice warm up for Edinburgh.

Anyway, as an event, the Borders Green Festival was a resounding success – loads more people there than they expected, no disasters at all, some great music, and a fantastic message. Roll on next year!

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Ok, this is mad…

From Jonny Baker’s blog –

Surely this is a really inefficent way to DJ? I guess the unit is just using the iPods as harddrives, from which is grabs the MP3s into its own RAM and is then able to manipulate it, change the speed etc. There must be better ways of doing this… Though, I guess this means that people can bring tracks with them to club nights using a recogniseable protocol… maybe the ubiquity of the iPod will turn out to be a good thing… I still can’t afford one.

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Blog slow-down…

Sorry for blog slow-down over the last few days – just been getting Edinburgh Festival stuff together, all very busy and frenetic. Also had lovely gig on thursday night in Guildford, at the Electric Theatre – great venue, lovely listening audience, and a soundman that I knew when I was at school! Thanks to everyone who came to the gig, it was much fun, indeed. Please feel free to post reviews over in The Forum.

Big news of the last couple of days has been the IRA declaration of weapons decomissioning and and end to ‘all activities’. Response has been mixed from hyperbolic to cynical in the extreme (doesn’t take a degree in political science to work out who said what).

It seems to me to be a great step forward, but given their track record, it remains to be seen how long it lasts, how honestly it will be carried out, and what the IRA members will do now. When you’ve spent your whole life supporting a paramilitary terrorist group, both in ‘the stuggle’ and in extra-judicial beatings, knee-cappings, extortion, robbery and all the other things that are attributed to the various para-military groups on both sides in Ireland, it’s likely to take more than a declaration from your political leaders to change your entire way of life.

As usual, I hope I’m wrong, I hope this is an end to the gangland thuggery of certain areas of Belfast. But methinks this is just another step on an unfinished journey.

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Fairly Aged Angel Of Death?

Uh-oh, the moment we feared has arrived… One of the Fairly Aged Felines brought in a dead baby sparrow last night!

There are few possible scenarios here – obviously, worst case is that he caught it, and is getting into hunting. second worse is that it fell out of a nest and he killed it when he found it on the ground, least worst is that he found it on the ground dead. The Sigfried and Roy logic suggests that he brought it in so that we could adminster CPR, but was too late and is now distraught at the demise of his tiny feathered friend.

We’re SO hoping this doesn’t become a habit… it’s the first time any of our Fairly Aged Felines have brought in anything like that. Usually they bring in lots of leaves, stuck to their fur, but never carrion…

Ah well, time to go get ready for tonight’s gig in Guildford – see you there!

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'suspect package' in southgate on a bus.

I guess it was inevitable, with that flat that keeps appearing on the news being about a mile from here, that the police are going to be particularly jittery in Southgate, but right now the whole high street is cordoned off due to a ‘suspect package’ on a bus. It’s almost certainly just some poor git’s lunch, that’s now going to get blown into a thousand tiny cheese ‘n’ salad sandwich pieces in a controlled explosion, and I guess they do have to be vigilant.

It is odd though, walking out onto the high street and finding it deserted by traffic – just a few people wandering around trying to find out what’s going on, and some others going about their business. It made the trip to the charity shop to drop off a load of stuff a lot easier, that’s for sure!

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Rock Stars losing the plot part 1

So Dave Mustaine from Megadeth is suing Dave Ellefson, formerly of Megadeth for mentioning that he was ever in Megadeth – huh?

So, let me get this straight, Mr E, who was in the band for a couple of decades, and is known as the dude from Megadeth, is not allowed to mention or have it mentioned that he was ever in the band????

What a dickhead Mustaine must be. I’d heard he’d converted to Christianity at some point – certainly some of their later lyrics would suggest that – but it clearly didn’t stop him behaving like a pillock. Why do people get caught up in this bollocks? If only he could see that as far as brand recognition goes, having the name of your band associated with ex-members in a situation where they are being celebrated for what they do (in this case, in an ad in Bass Player magazine) is good for business (and business is good).

All in all, this definitely looks like El Mustaine being twat again. His nuts behaviour and egomania are the stuff of Spinal Tapesque legend in the music world, and this just goes to add fuel to the forest fire that is his reputation for nobbishness.

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