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Great gig with a sting in the tale

Had a very bizarre night last night. The gig was at the top of ‘The Gherkin’ – marvellous building in the heart of London (which isn’t officially called the Gherkin, and if you’re hiring it you’re not allowed to refer to it as such, but do any of you know what it’s really called without using Google? Thought not…)

Anyway, it was a corporate do, with Theo and I providing cool jazz inflected soundscapes while people in suits talked about money and made use of the free bar and munchies. The venue is spectacular – possibly the best view of central london that there is (it’s even higher than the top of the London Eye), and it was a great place to play – the fact that we had no direct monitor meant that we were listening to what everyone else was listening to, and it all felt all the more integrated, and lead to some marvellous music. Good response.

The evening got weird when it came time to leave… when I’d arrived I’d borrowed a trolley, come up the building in the service lift, and made my way painlessly to the venue, and no-one had left any perculiar instructions for later, so I assumed the get-out would be the same… not so.

Firstly, I go looking for the service lift, but there’s no button to call it, so I go back to the restaurant and am told to head down to the lobby where security will direct me to the basement. I go down (40 floors), and security say the only access point is on floor 37 (back at the service lift), and I have to go back to the very top to get it sorted. I complain loudly, and eventually go back, this time I’m sent back to the service lift which aparently has to be phoned for. We stand by the service lift for about 25 minutes, before a friendly soundman rescues us, by telling us there’s another service lift, and that one arrives as we get there. All this time we’re carrying my rack and flight cases around, as no trolley was ever forthcoming.

We eventually leave the building one and a half hours after we finish playing!!!!

A shitty end to what was otherwise a spectacular gig (Theo was particularly spectacular on this one – he’s always brilliant, but did play some sublime stuff. I’m very lucky to get to collaborate with people who play that well and are such damn nice people!)

Soundtrack – Prince, ‘Purple Rain’; Gillian Welsh, ‘Time (The Revelator)’; Green Day, ‘Dookie’; Andy Thornton, ‘Things You Never Say’; Del Amitri, ‘Twisted’; Steve Lawson, ‘Lessons Learned From An Aged Feline Pt II’ (now available as a paid download from the e-shop on my site)

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Don't forget Buy Nothing Day this weekend

In case it had slipped your attention, this Saturday is Buy Nothing Day – Click here to find out all about it, but the basic idea is not to shop…

Soundtrack – Del Amitri, ‘Twisted’; Mary Chapin Carpenter, ‘Between Here and Gone’; Andrew Buckton, ‘Now But Not Yet’ – Andrew’s album is one of the recording projects I’m most proud of. It was produced by Jez, and I played bass on most of it, with Mike Sturgis on drums. We came up with a whole load of really interesting arrangements in no time at all, and the end result is a gorgeous, intimate, devotional album – songs of pain and loss and a faith that carries through all of it. It’s pretty explicitly christian, so if that sort of thing puts you off, I wouldn’t get it, but for anyone else, I’d highly recommend the album.

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Still can't believe he's gone

I know I’ve blogged about the death of John Peel before, but this evening I finally got to watch the back to back documentaries about him that were on a week or so ago (thanks Neil!!).

The first was various celebs who knew him talking about him post-death. The second one was a doc that was made for his 60th birthday – 5 years ago, and what really struck home was that then, when he was alive, he was getting more effusive accolades than most people get when they die. His influence on the UK music scene really is immeasurable. I have numerous records in my collection that would never have been there if it wasn’t for Peel – both those that I bought as I direct result of hearing the bands on his show (The Fall, The New FADS, The Pixies, etc.) and those who probably wouldn’t have reached the attention of the listening public if it wasn’t for his championing (The Smiths, Billy Bragg, Pulp, etc.)

Listening to Peel’s show in the late 80s told me that it was OK to have no boundaries on your listening. Thanks to Peel, I knew metal-heads who bought Ivor Cutler records, and I ended up owning a compilation album called ‘Hardcore Holocaust’, featuring bands like Napalm Death, Extreme Noise Terror, The Electro Hippies and Dr And The Crippins!! The feeling that stylistic boundaries meant absolutely nothing permeated my record buying and my own music experimenting – I bought ACDC records and John Zorn records, Yes albums and Sade albums, Nick Heywards and Charles Mingus, The Fall and Mendelson… I had no boundaries to my listening at that time, and it did me no-end of good when it came to finding my own musical voice. I avoided the musical myopia that people learning instruments often get caught up in, playing along to The Cure and Stu Hamm, The Pixies and Olivier Messiaen.

A huge amount of that can be traced back to Peel and, as was noted in the documentary by Benjamin Zephaniah, the completely matter-of-fact way that he would introduce the most extraordinary music on the planet, juxtaposing hardcore punk with techno, reggae with folk, records from the 30s with electronica from Belgium, Japanese Pop with English protest songs.

I just can’t believe he’s gone. The hole it leaves in the middle of British music broadcasting landscape is crater-sized, with no chance of ever being filled. Johnny Marr commented in the doc that he was a total one off, and wasn’t even training up a protege. There really is no one that can fill that space, and the British radio airwaves will feel the lack of it for ever.

We were exceedingly lucky to have grown up with John on the airwaves – he championed just about everything that’s been intersting in music in the last 40 years. Rock ‘n’ Roll, hippie folk, prog, jambands, punk, hip-hop, electronica, rap, folk, hardcore, techno, indie, protest, african and utterly unclassifiable music. Radio formatting was shown to be the shallow market driven bollocks that it is.

And once again, the second documentary brought it all back to the pain of his wife and kids. Regardless of his legacy, they’ve lost a dad and a husband. I just hope and pray they find some comfort in the way he changed british music for ever.

Soundtrack – Nick Harper, ‘Double Life’; Gillian Welch, ‘Time (The Revelator)’; Mary Chapin Carpenter, ‘Between Here And Gone’; Ani Difranco; ‘Little Plastic Castles’.

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Bassworld.co.uk

On a daily basis, I read quite a few online bass forums – talkbass.com, dudepit.com activebass.com the lowdown lowdown, and Bassworld.co.uk – then bassworld suddenly disappeared last week… this was odd, the error messages weren’t the usual ones that happen when you get a server crash or whatever.

As it turns out, the server was seized by the FBI for hosting terrorist information… I know some of my ranting is pretty left-wing, but I didn’t think I’d trigger that! :o)

Anyway, it’s back up now at a temporary home, if you want to check it out – http://www.bassworld.co.uk/phpbb/

Soundtrack – McGill, Manring, Stevens, ‘Controlled By Radar’.

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Tour blog Pt II

So Thursday – started out with a seminar/workshop/clinic/masterclass (I really out to work out different definitions for each of these so I know what it is we do) at the British Academy Of New Music – run by Access To Music. The National Events Co-Ordinator for ATM is Jono Heale – a fantastically resourceful guy, and a bassist, who has all manner of wonderful ideas for getting interesting bass playing out there to the public, and ideas on interesting bass playing out there to bassists.

The seminar/workshop thingie went really well – at the beginning, for whatever reason, no-one spoke at all. Just sat there, which was slightly un-nerving. But as the students loosened up and started asking questions, it was great. Some really good questions coming up.

So we set off from the school in Bromley-By-Bow and headed over to Petersfield for my fifth (fifth!) visit to Traders this year, and second one with Michael. This was another gig organised by Stiff Promotions – Iain Martin, who runs Stiff is one of those people who if there’s any justice in the world, will be the next Harvey Goldsmith. He books great music, looks after artists, does great promo, loves what he does and has developed a bit of a reputation in Hampshire for only booking quality stuff. Exactly what a promoter should be like. If you’re in that area, you should get on his mailing list, and support the gigs – he promotes shows in Southampton, Petersfield, Portsmouth, Brighton, Winchester – all over that bit of the South of England. support the shows, take your friends, and help it grow!

Anyway, the gig went really well as always at Traders, though there were a couple of flies in the ointment – first was that they’ve installed a pole-dancing pole on the stage at the venue… now, even putting moral and feminist considerations aside (which we didn’t), it made it impossible to play on the stage, and we set up in front of it. Add to that just the fact that it’s a pole-dancing pole, not some root support, and it becomes a real problem in what is otherwise a great venue. I really hope that at the very least make it removeable. I’d hate to see a band try and set up around it.

The other thing was that on the way out of the venue, somebody stole a framed, signed poster of Michael and I that belonged to the venue. Geoff and Patch who run Traders are big supporters of live music, really enjoy it, and have a collection of signed posters from all the shows that they’ve had at the venue, so having one of them stolen off the wall is particularly shitty for them. Please, if it was you, or you know who it was, send it back. It’s signed to someone else! All you had to do was ask and we’d be able to find a poster to sign for you. Please, take it back.

Friday was a day off, so we did what any self repecting bassist does on a day off in London – went to the Gallery – as I’ve said many times before, we’re really really lucky in London to have the two finest bass shops in the world in the one city, with The Gallery and The Bass Centre. Michael had been to the Bass Centre before, when we did our clinic there a couple of years ago, but this time we visited Martin Peterson at his Camden hide-out. It’s a real Aladdin’s cave (particularly apposite in Pantomime season… maybe Martin and Alex should dress as Widow Twanky and Aladdin??) So we spent a good few hours talking bass and trying out toys there.

Saturday, I was playing at The Captain and Tenille’s wedding, which was great fun. The rest of the band was Cathy Burton‘s band. Sadly, my Neuralgia kicked in just before the service, so I had to rush off at the end, to get a Vit B fix before my vision started to go… which was a downer, as the reception would have been cool too.

And Sunday was the gig at The Headgate Theatre in Colchester. The Headgate is a fantastic amateur run charitable venue, with the best acoustics of just about any venue I’ve ever played. Everything sounds great in there.

This was the second of the gigs where we added a Q&A/Masterclass to the beginning of the gig. We did this for Petersfield and Colchester for a number of reasons – firstly, so that we could have a chance to explain a bit about what we do; inevitably, after a gig there are a thousand questions from people about how the hipshots and detunable bridge work on Michael’s bass, about the Ebow, about looping, about my processing, about what strings we use etc… So the chance to answer those in a more structured way proved very helpful. It also meant that we could make the gigs slightly more economically viable. It’s great to be able to play gigs like the Headgate and Traders and make it pay, and this is one way to make it a bit easier on everyone. For both venues, money taken over the bar is a big factor in it working for them, so people arriving early is good for the venue too.

The live music economy is a tricky balance, given that venues need to make money on food and drink, so artists and promoters need to think of ways to give a gigging audience ample time for ordering at the bar! That way everyone wins.

So that was that. Tour over, some great gigs, some fab new friends, great clinics, CDs sold, and the mortgage paid for another couple of months :o)

Then, today, Michael left, about 10 minutes before the postman delivered a box of CDs for him to sell on the tour… DOH!!

Soundtrack – Iona, ‘Book Of Kells’; Cuong Vu, ‘Come Play With Me’; Nick Harper, ‘Double Life’; Patrice Rushen, ‘Straight From The Heart’.

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Half way through the tour…

So, we’re at the half way point of our lil’ Manring/Lawson tour, and having a great time – So far we’ve had gigs in Brighton and London, and a day at the ACM in Guildford yesterday.

Brighton was at the Joogleberry Playhouse – a very cool new venue, which we managed to fill on Tuesday night (no mean feat for a solo bass gig!). Great to see some familiar faces there – our good friend Rich Ravenhill who has organised all my solo gigs in Brighton worked his magic again, flyering, postering, getting the word out and generally being fab. The venue people were great too.

the day at the ACM is a fabulous college, and just keeps growing – new buildings, more students, more teachers… a very cool place. Stefan Redtenbacher, the head of bass, has booked us there before, and it’s always a pleasure to go and give some esoteric inspiration to the students.

And then Darbucka last night – it was my second gig there, and I love it (though they could do with some stage lighting… 🙂 ) – another great turn out, and lots of friendly faces. Good stuff!

My favourite part of these gigs with Michael is the duo improv stuff, not knowing where it could go. The duo set in Brighton was probably the best improv stuff we’ve ever done – loads of lovely ideas, and it all seemed to flow really well. London wasn’t quite so stellar, though there was still some magic at points, which i’m glad we got recorded…

So, onwards and upwards. This afternoon, we’re at the access to music british academy, and then back at Traders in Petersfield! See you there!

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Democracy unveiled…

This quote was sent to me by mini-harv, and does seem somewhat apposite…

“As democracy is perfected, the office of President represents, more and
more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious
day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last,and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

-H.L. Mencken, Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920

Soundtrack – Jing Chi, ‘Jing Chi 3D’; Jimmy Haslip, ‘Red Heat’; The Cure, ‘The Cure’; Moya Brennan, ‘Two Horizons’.

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Grrr

Lots to blog about, but for now I’ll just vent about the stupid bastards who broke into my car yesterday.

Some background info – Had a gig in Sheffield last night, and had arranged to go to Jez’s in Oxford to go together in one car. As we’d be going past Birmingham, we also dropped into Music Live at the NEC, to catch up with some friends. A series of road accidents (not involving us!) held up the traffic all around Birmingham, so we ended up getting to the gig a lot later than planned, but we had left loads of time, so no problem there. ‘Twas a fun gig, a jazz gig for a church that was doing a week of events aimed at just about every demographic group in the area, the last night of it was a jazz gig with a God-talk in the middle (by an Australian bloke, who was very entertaining, it must be said)… Anyway, the drive home was a nightmare too – stuck for over an hour on the M1 behind another accident… A note to British drivers – STOP DRIVING LIKE MORONS!!! FFS, there are more accidents now than I’ve ever seen, and as someone who travels a lot for work, it’s freaking me out, so stop it, OK? No more talking on the phone while driving unless you have hands-free, no more trying to make sandwiches or chutney, or knit or whatever other weird shit you get up to on the motorways of England that causes you to crash. Just stop.

Anyway, got back to Oxford after 2am to discover that the rear passenger window on the driver’s side had been smashed in. Nothing had been taken (obviously the theiving little shits weren’t fans of rubbish 80s cassette tapes), but there was glass everywhere and I had to drive home with no window, and then pay £70 to get someone out to replace it today.

So I got to bed v. late, was up early today to teach, and am back in Oxford today for another jazz gig with Jez. And all I really want to do is sleep.

No soundtrack just now, aside from the sound of my teeth grinding.

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A big clearout…

…of old emails.

I got one of those pesky Windows windows that tells you things you generally don’t want to know on my screen yesterday, only this one told me I only had about 100meg of space left on my harddrive… time for a clearout. As I’d just been trialling a new email client, I thought I’d check how many emails were on my harddrive… about two gigabytes worth is how many – somewhere in excess of 30,000!!!!!!! Shit, I’m a worse hoarder than I thought… Anyway, what proceeded was an email cull that resulted in the untimely demise of over 12,000 emails. We’ll see how many more get the chop over the next day or so.

Now I’m just trying to get it into shape so I can make the transfer to the new client smoothly. Been wanting to get rid of Outlook Express for a while, so I downloaded Mozilla Thunderbird – I’ve been using the Mozilla browser, Firefox, for about a year now, and it’s way way better than IE. So thought it was time to switch my email as well…

What else has been going on? Lots of promo related stuff for the gigs next week, as well as some teaching and admin-type things.

The Small Person and I have watched a few films over the last week or so – Zoolander, Shrek II, and School Of Rock were all marvellous, top films.

Soundtrack – Show Of Hands, ‘Country Life’, Gin Blossoms, ‘New Miserable Experience’; Chic, ‘C’est Chic’; Steve Lawson, ‘Lessons Learned From An Aged Feline Pt I’; Stevie Ray Vaughn, ‘Texas Flood’.

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OK did anyone video it??

Saturday night’s John Peel documentary – I saw the last half an hour, but if anyone video’d it, I’d love to see the rest. I saw it listed in the TV guide and thought ‘oooh, got to see that!’, but was then watching ‘School Of Rock‘ and forgot about the time (that happens when you’re raising your goblet of rock).

So if anyone has it, that’d be great…

Soundtrack – Tom Waits, ‘Real Gone’; Jamie Hartford Band, ‘Stuff That Works’; Jackson Browne, ‘Looking East’.

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