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Shelleyan Orphan on last.fm

One of my favourite bands of the late 80s/early 90s were Shelleyan Orphan – built around a male/female vocal duo, the music was like The Sundays arranged for chamber orchestra – beautiful melodies, lots of Cor Anglais and Bassoon, and, I think, Danny Thompson on double bass. It’s beautiful, but it’s one of those albums I’ve got on vinyl so haven’t listened to in years.

So earlier on, apropo of nothing, I did a search on them, and found that on last.FM, the whole of the ‘Helleborine‘ album – their first album, the one I have – is streamable! How cool is that?? click here to go there and listen to it. It’s magique.

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All I wanted was an iPod…

So, after having been given a ‘circuit city’ gift-card with an unspecified amount on it, I decide to act on one of the things I’d been threatening to do since getting to the states on this trip, and buy an iPod.

We drive to the nearest CC, in Canton, and head in. There are no 80gig iPods on display, so I ask the guy who works there, who’s stood nearby. V. friendly, but as it’s only his second day, he goes to ask where they might be found – it’s all fine, everyone has to start their job somewhere, and I’m always happy for new staff to take a while to work out what’s going on.

While he’s gone, we check the amount on the gift car – $70-something bucks (thanks, Nancy!!!!) – and notice on the wall a sign that says iPod buyers get a $30 gift card included – basically $100 off the cost of me buying one, and even cheaper than lovely friend who works for Mac can get it for me for.

New boy comes back, and rings it up on their computer, but the price is more than it was on their website, so he looks it up, and has to call over a friend to help. Friend clearly knows how the system works, but has THE most offhand disinterested manner I’ve encountered in any shop, other than perhaps Guitar Centre… Anyway, he takes off the difference between shop and web pricing, and then says there’s no giftcard. It’s out of date – what the hell’s it doing on the wall then says I, I’m not interested without it. L is by this time laughing, but close to sitting in a corner rocking and sobbing like Romanian orphan… Supervisor is consulted, OK we can have the $30 off, so he takes it off, then charges us for it, so that he can give us the card. I give it back to him as part of the payment, he swipes it, gets confused by it not having anything on it, then says ‘ah, you can’t spend the giftcard on this’… so only the $70 card will work on this payment, which is OK as I want to buy a perspex carry case thingie anyway.

So we get the iPod sorted, I hand him the carry case and the card, he swipes it and before I get the chance to say ‘er, that says $24.99, it’s only $19.99 on the shelf’, he’s rung it up, so we need to go to the front desk for a refund. Into the queue at the front desk, new boy is now dealing with awkward customer number 2 and has a ‘is my whole working life here going to be like this????’ look on his face. He apologises, but none of this is his fault…

disinterested goon eventually rings up the refund, puts it on the card and hands me stuff, no apology, no nothing.

We leave, happy with iPod, dumfounded that the shop is still open…

Circuit City – avoid unless peoples gives you lovely gift cards.

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Austin to Ohio

So from Dallas to Austin – first night in Austin we spent at a Motel6, seriously low-rent place, but we weren’t actually in it for long… Went down town, found a coffee shop, and then drove out to find dinner, to the Kerbey St. Cafe, for some fine veggie food.

The next day was the first of the Austin gigs, at a place called Cafe Caffeine – a cute lil’ coffee shop, but it was an afternoon show, and not a place where we had any draw, so just a handful of people there. Still, it’s always nice to play, and Brady Muckelroy who organised the shows for us in Austin, played a lovely set, and it was nice to get to hang out with him.

Then the adventure started… just before we played I got a call from Tay – she and the utterly lovely Vicki Genfan were in the Austin area too, and Vic was guesting with Patty Larkin that night at a local studio concert. So I call the venue to try and get tickets, but no-one answers. i leave a message, but we decide to head out there anyway.

The lovely Brady shows us the way, and we get to the gorgeous studio where the gig is being hosted, but it’s sold out. Tay and Vicki come out for a chat, and it becomes clear that a few people who’d reserved tickets might not show, so we stick around and get in just before the show starts! Hurrah! Patty is, as expected, amazing – I’ve got 5 or 6 of her albums, and this is the first time I’ve seen her live. She’s great. Vicki sits in on the last number ( a crazy prog-acoustic thing in all kinds of time signatures), and much love is shared.

We then head back to Austin to the Bananie love-palace – I hadn’t seen Bananie for about 3 years, so ’twas a delight all round. The lovely Schmelen proves to be just as lovely as expected, and the menagerie is full of gorgeous mutant dogs ‘n’ cats. It’s 12.30 but we’s all peckish, so a trip to Magnolia is in order – late night fun ‘n’ games in the Santa Cruz of the South.

Following day, we sleep late, then have breakfast together, before heading out into the sticks to see Vicki and Tay again for an hour or so, before driving to San Marcos for the second of the Austin-area gigs. It’s another coffee shop gig, in Brady’s home town, and he’s clearly got a cool thing going on there, as the coffee shop is full of his friends, fans and family. He plays another beautiful set, followed by Lisa and I. The driving of the last few days, late nights and not enough sleep is starting to catch up and I don’t play particularly well, but it’s a fun gig nonetheless, and there’s a particularly enjoyable duet between Brady and I. L is as fab as always.

The next morning, we’re up at 5, load the car and head out for the longest single day’s driving of my life – 850-something miles from Austin to Nashville. (as a comparison Land’s End to John O’ Groats is 830-something miles).

Back at Nashville and it’s all round the the utterly lovely Trevor and Jenna’s house, where there’s a party in full swing, featuring the equally lovely Marky over from NI (that’s Northern Ireland, not New Internationalist).

L and I are utterly baked after the journey but find some energy to chat to lots of delightful friends old, new and previously-cyber-only, before crashing out early.

Sunday am, off to Downtown Pres. – one of the few churches I’ve been to in the US that I’d consider going to more than once. Followed by lunch back at the Dark’s, with more socialising and fun with the lovelies of Nashville. Eventually we leave from T and J’s at about 4pm, heading out on yes another mammoth drive (515 miles this time) back to L’s brother’s place in Northern Ohio.

And here we are, helping L’s family to move house, hanging out, and trying to regain the energy that was zapped by the tour thus far… we have got two more gigs, one in St Louis Missouri and one in Wisner Nebraska – see the gig dates page for more info.

Thanks SO much to everyone who’s been out to the gigs so far – it’s been really lovely to meet so many great people. Particular thanks to everyone who helped organise the shows – Ralston, Steve in Toledo, Ric Hordinski, Jay and |Crystal, Kevin Ford, Darren and Cindy, Sarah ‘n’ Dave ‘n’ TOGH, Trip and Sarun, Brian, Brady… good peeps one and all.

Go to my Flickr page for some photos from the tour…

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urgent message from 'the simple way'

The Simple Way are a community in Philadelphia, modeling what has been termed ‘new monasticism’ – simple living, working with the poor and needy, setting up micro-businesses that recycle, running after school programs etc… Good peoples. One of the people who runs it, Shane Claibourne, has spoken at Greenbelt in the past – a fascinating and inspiring bloke.

anyway, their neighbourhood was destroyed in a massive fire yesterday, and they lost their community centre, homes, cars… a whole load of stuff. Go to their website to read about it, and if you can, to donate to help them and their neighbours rebuild their lives.

the next installment of the tour blog is coming soon, worry not…

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A rare moment of god-botheringness on the blog…

I don’t often post God bothering things on the blog, but today’s ‘verse of the day’ on the Sojourner’s blog really caught my eye –

“You shall not withhold the wages of poor and needy laborers, whether other Israelites or aliens who reside in your land in one of your towns. You shall pay them their wages daily before sunset, because they are poor and their livelihood depends on them; otherwise they might cry to the Lord against you, and you would incur guilt.”
– Deuteronomy 24:14-15

Back in the 80s people used to talk about believing in a ‘social gospel’ or some other euphemism that suggested there was any other way of reading what it means to be inspired by jesus… with the wealth of stuff in the Bible that relates looking after the poor, looking after immigrants, not pursuing wealth, the dangers of greed etc. etc. it’s a wonder that some people claiming to be Christians can sleep at night…

There’s a magical bit in Amos that says (in The Message) –

” 21-24″I can’t stand your religious meetings.
I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions.
I want nothing to do with your religion projects,
your pretentious slogans and goals.
I’m sick of your fund-raising schemes,
your public relations and image making.
I’ve had all I can take of your noisy ego-music.
When was the last time you sang to me?
Do you know what I want?
I want justice—oceans of it.
I want fairness—rivers of it.
That’s what I want. That’s all I want.”

No wonder so many people are turned off from anything Jesus-related, following Gandhi’s route of being inspired by the sermon on the mount but seeing the church as an agent of the hideous status quo rather than a radical organisation with a deep concern for the poor, for justice… it’s there in the book, just not there in the behaviour of the Bushes and Blairs of this world, making a total bollocks-up of anything remotely justice-oriented, talking a load of shit about their concern for poverty reduction and ‘fairness’ whilst waging illegal wars and backing the IMF and World Bank in their schemes to trap yet more third world countries into privatisation schemes and debt cycles…

grrrr…

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Dallas House concert…

A lovely day in Dallas yesterday – it began late, with a walk up to the Whole Foods market – just under a mile away, in this heat it felt like about three miles, but we made it there and back, and got lots of lovely stuffs for lunch (Jeff Kaiser’s tempe scramble recipe, if you must know, and a delish salad…)

Got back and started setting up for the house concert – because we haven’t been able to fit an AccuGroove rig into the car for this trip, the house concerts have mostly been through various types of Studio monitors (well, Richmond was through a badass Mackie rig with a huge sub, but that was a little out of the ordinary for such things… :o) ) – at Trip’s it was some Tannoy Reveals, i think, which sounded lovely, and last night was a pair of KRKs, which again sounded great. Brian’s house (the host of the gig) is pretty much the ideal house concert venue – plenty of space, good acoustics, and a pool out the back (which we took advantage of in the afternoon before the gig).

One of the fun things about house concerts is chatting to people before the gig starts, or just listening to other people chat, which they do in a friendly ‘having mates over for dinner’ kind of way that doesn’t happen in club gigs, or even coffee shops. All good cultural exchange fun. :o)

The gig itself went v. well – lots of fine playing, another couple of successful improv tunes (I’ve been doing one or two made-up-on-the-spot things on the shows here, and last night did one of them on Brian’s Rick Turner Model 1 bass, which sounded and played beautifully…) L played really well, and the duo stuff was once again my favourite part of the evening.

All good nothing bad.

Of To Austin today, which I hear is a bit of a music town… we’ll see about that…!

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…did you just call me Pardner???

We’re here in Texas. Plano, just outside Dallas to be precise. It seems like a rather lovely place – still strip-mall-based, like so many american cities, but definitely a better class of strip mall than most (and a huge Whole Foods market to be explored…)

We’s here for a house concert tonight – the house is gorgeous, and the concert is going to be marvellous.

Now where did I blog from last? Ah, yes, Nashville – well the Nashville house concert at Sarah and David’s was a whole lot of fun – we set up on their front porch, blankets were laid out in the yard, and we played for lots of lovely friends, surrounded by fairy lights, candles and the sounds of crickets between songs. A most enjoyable evening was had by all, and the duo stuff between the lovely L and I just gets better and better. Her ability to ‘learn’ a loop after one listen is uncanny, and to stack harmonies on something that seems pretty random… She also bought a gorgeous new guitar – a nylon-strung takamine that sounds incredible. Really relaly lovely, and got for a fantastic bargain at Nashville Used Music, or whatever that big shop out on Nolansville road is called.

So favourite things about Nashville? the people, Fido’s, Baja Burrito, the gig, TOGH being there, The Belcourt (Sheriff ElRon and I went to see Rock The Bells – a film about delusional people putting on the last ever gig by all the members of the Wu Tang Clan (though even with ODB being dead, I’m sure they could just get Shane McGowan to fill in, and people would just think Dirty was looking a little pasty…)… Nashville is a town full of good things (and rubbish, it is the home of CCM too, and therefor plays host to much of the most mediocre nonsense ever produced in the name of popular music, as well as the occasional gem…) and certainly somewhere both L and I could live if pushed…

From there we embarked on what i think is the longest drive of my life (yup, I just checked, this was the previous winner) – 700 and something miles from Nashville to Lake Charles Louisiana. Which was, to be honest, a pretty easy drive. Freeways here are much much clearer in general than motorways in the UK, (if you’re not in or around NYC, LA, Chicago or San Francisco), so we never seem to hit much traffic, and just drive from one place to another at 70 mph all the way. In our extensive research, we’ve discovered that IHOP and Denny’s do the best options for vegetarians on the highways of the US. TGI Fridays is shit, Waffle House isn’t actually food, and the burger places are all horrible, with indie places being either non-existent, or really risky in their quality… so we’re happy for IHOP and Denny’s.

The trip to Louisiana was for a house concert at Trip Wamsley’s house – Trip, as y’all know, is one of my most favouritest solo bassists in the world, and fun to hang out with too… it was nice to witness him in his natural habitat, for sure.

The gig was really lovely – Trip played first, and played really well, as always, then L and I got to do our thing, and had much fun, sold a load of CDs, and all was good.

On Sunday, i put down a load of bass tracks for a track on Trip’s new album, and realised just what a HUGE improvement putting this ART tube preamp in the FX loop on my Lexicon has made. It sounded incredible. I can’t wait to hear what Trip does with it. The evening was spent watching Ross Noble DVDs, and hanging out. Much fun at the Trip-house with Trip, Mrs Trip and lil’ Bubba Trip.

And so on into Texas, heading from Chez Trip to Plano TX, from where I’m writing this, trying to decide whether to walk or drive to Whole Foods – how far was it again??

Oh, and the title? We stopped in a auto-mart or some such place, to get directions, and the dude behind the counter actually called me ‘Pardner’ (as in Partner with a silly accent, for all you Englishes) – indeed. He sadly didn’t say ‘you ain’t from around here are you boy?’, but there’s still time for that…

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My Music on EMusic…

If you’re an Emusic user, you can now get my solo albums on there – head over to the Emusic page with my stuff on it for more info, and to download them…

If you’re not an Emusic subscriber, you really ought to check it out – you get a certain number of downloads a month for your subscription fee – in my case, I pay £8.99 a month and get 30 downloads, though it gets cheaper per track the more you pay, obviously… lots of great music on there, fo’ sho’.

We’re in Dallas now, and I’ll hopefully blog tomorrow about what we’ve been up to…

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Ahhh, nashville…

So we’s here in Nashville, and it’s fab. Last night we went over to see TAFKASB at Sarah and David’s, saw the lovely Anne too, good times were had. Then today we had breftist with S, D, SB and Jenna, then off to Target to get SB a new phone, and who do we run into by the most marvellous and lovely Julie Lee! Lunch is then had, and now we’re in Portland Brew emailing peoples about our lovely house concert on Thursday, in Sarah and David’s front garden… it’s going to be fab. email me for the address if you’re in Nashville and want to come.

coming up – two days of chillin’, drinking lots of coffee, seeing loads of lovely friends and getting ready for a fun fun gig.

Also booked – house concert in Dallas TX on the 12th June – email for address for that one too!

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