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Tour blog Pt II – Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Georgia…

Right, continuing the story of the tour – from Grand Rapids we drove to Akron to swap the crappy tiny car (which served us v. well for the Northern bit of the tour) for a lovely rental car with A/C – yay!! marvellous. Renting the car was a bit of an ordeal – the poor dear at the airport rental place in Akron had never seen a British driving license, so it took a while…

From there we drove to Cincinnati (this was all on the same day as the drive from Grand Rapids… lotsa miles…) and arrived at Ric Hordinski’s place at about 11ish… Ric is a fabulous guitarist, gigs as ‘Monk’, used to be in Over The Rhine, produces lots of marvellous records for other people, and owns a gorgeous studio in an old church, called The Monastery, which is where we stayed… Great to see Ric, fo’ sho’.

the next day was spent putting some spacey stuff down on a track for Ric’s new album (the rest of the tracks I heard sound amazing), then heading down to Rohs Street Cafe where the gig was. It’s a gorgeous, spacious coffee-shop venue, with a nice PA, and really lovely staff. The whole vibe of the place is fair trade and mellow, with stacked book-cases all over the place and lovely drinks.

The gig was a lot of fun – small crowd (the story of our lives), but lots of lovely friends there, and by now L and I are playing really well…

The next morning we head off on another stoopid long drive – this time to Richmond Virginia. The drives across this part of the States are stunning. West Virginia is so covered in trees that the hills look like giant broccoli plants, all green and bobbly. Finding edibles on the road is tricky for a pair of veggies who don’t like filling their faces with too many chemicals, but we do OK.

We arrive in Richmond pretty late, at the lovely and marvellous Greta’s place in a really cool part of town.

Sleeps, followed by a fantastic veggie breakfast, and a walk round an old cemetery, about half full of civil war graves – this is an area with a REALLY chequered history, as JamesTown, the port of the James River, was one of the main off-loading points for the slave ships back in the day… Anyway, the trip round the cemetery with Greta and her amazing dad was a lovely walk on a scorching hot day and an education.

Back to the house to do washing, then head off to Richmond Music Centre, in search of preamps, reverb units and keyboard stands – #s 1 and 3 on that list are procured – a lil’ ART tube preamp which sounds great, and a cheap-ass keyboard stand. All good nothing bad.

The gig is a house concert hosted by the marvellous and lovely Jay and Crystal – their four-car garage makes for a fabulous lil’ concert venue, and thanks to the ever-wonderful, resourceful and street-team-alicious Justin, and Roy, the PA sounds really great too. The gig was fab, the first half being a mixture of tunes and bass-clinic Q and A, the second half more straight song oriented. Lots of CDs solo, new friends made, all good once again. Big big thanks to Jay and Crystal, Greta, Justin and Roy…

The next morning we leave the house at 7am to head for West Virginia – a 530 mile drive (London to Inverness, basically), more gorgeousness. L does most of the driving today, and the only downer is a dodgy breakfast in some crappy lil’ diner…

The Morgantown/Grafton area is L’s hometown, so much visiting of relatives and friends ensues, before heading to the venue – Gallery 62 West – a lovely little community arts gallery. Dinner is procured at W*lM*rt (I know, I know) and we are promptly both poisoned by it, rendering us both v. v. ill in the run-up to the show…

Somehow we manage to balance the trips to the ‘bathroom’, and both play without any sudden mid-song disappearances – me first, then L, the lots of duo fun. Another fab gig in front of a really really friendly audience – full marks to Josh Trout for driving the furthest on this one (Josh is a v. old cyber-chum – the story of this tour has been meeting people I previously only knew in the virtual world..) big ole WV thanks to Kevin Ford for making this one happen.

An even earlier start is planned for the longest of the drives so far – Grafton to Decatur (on the outskirts of Atlanta) – alarm goes of at 5 and we hear… flapping… flapping???? Light goes on and there’s an effing BAT in the room!!! Flying around, landing on the curtain then flying around again. Much squealing ensues, before bat escapes, followed closely by us escaping to a bat-free car… much fun, and definitely a help in waking up!

A very easy drive down gets us into Atlanta mid afternoon, we find Darren and Cindy’s place for the house concert, and set up. this show also features Darren Michaels and Trip Wamsley, who both play great sets. We play in the middle (after a tussle with Trip over who gets to play second – we win thanks to having been awake for 16 hours already at this point…) – our set goes great, L sings like an angel, much CD sellage takes place, new friends made, all good and, indeed, nothing bad. click here to see loads of photos from the gig… Darren and Cindy definitely know how to put on a stylish house concert. hurrah for D & C!

which brings us to today – finally a day of rest. On a sunday no less. up v. late, much internetage, followed by an some Ross Noble on DVD, followed by an afternoon in Decatur. and no driving. Yay!

So on to Nashville… hurrah! We’ll be there at the same time as the TAFKASJ, which is something to muchly look forward to, as is giggling at the lovely Rachel’s fabulously confused Scottish/Rural Tennessee accent!

more soon… what have I missed??

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Tour blog Pt 1 – Ohio and Michigan

OK, we’re four dates in, and having lots of fun and adventures! Tonight’s gig was a real odd treat, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

Wednesday was the first date, a bass clinic organised by Low Down Sound in Detroit, which was great fun. A lovely audience who asked lots of really great questions. Got to do three or four songs with Lobelia too, which was fab, sold lots of CDs. All good.

Thursday – Toledo, at a pub/venue called Mickey Finn’s. Great room, fab sound-man, small crowd, but much fun. A mixture of solo stuff and duo songs, well received and CDs sold.

Friday up to Grand Rapids to stay with Sarda and Kari, and for the first of our two gigs here, at Quinn and Tuites, another Irish pub (this one for some completely mental reason had great big posters imploring the visitors to ‘Vote Gerry Adams’ and ‘Vote Martin McGuinness’, big ole Sinn Fein posters… riiiight) – this was an hour-long in-the-round set with Lo. and Ralston Bowles, which was much fun, and well received. All good this far.

Saturday (today) we head down to the venue at lunchtime to check it out for PA etc. All looking good. Go out, come back to the venue at 7 to set up, and it’s closed. Yup, not a person in sight, sign on the door saying ‘closed early today’… huh? WTF? we’ve got a gig booked here! Tense moment as Ralston calls venue owner and manager with no answers…

Sounds pretty bad, but with Ralston, there’s always another way – this dude’s like the Johnny Cash of Grand Rapids, knows everyone and can organise all kinds of craziness at the drop of a hat. So he says ‘I wonder if anyone’s playing at the Pony’, meaning the One Trick Pony – a rather cool lil’ restaurant venue three blocks away. We turn up there, Ralston works some Ralstony magique and we’ve got ourselves a gig. Once again, very well received, Cds sold and another gig in St Louis all-but-confirmed, with a possible return date to One Trick Pony within the month… watch this space.

muchos fun and games so far, serious black mark against the coffee-shop we were supposed to be playing at for fucking up on our gig, but full marks to the magical Ralston for conjuring a gig from nowhere. He rules…

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Tour starts tomorrow! Yay!

So the tour starts tomorrow, in Detroit, then onto Toledo on Thursday, and Grand Rapids Friday/Saturday. And we get to see Sarda, Kari and Ralston in GR, which is great.

Today’s going to be more rehearsing and making sure we’ve got everything together.

It’s going to be funnnn! Here’s the list of dates so far…

5.23.07 Low Down Sound, Detroit MI (clinic/masterclass)
5.24.07 Mickey Finn’s Pub, Toledo OH
5.25.07 Quinn and Tuite’s, Grand Rapids, MI
5.26.07 Four Friends, Grand Rapids MI
5.29.07 Rohs Street Cafe, Cincinnati OH
5.31.07 House Concert/Bass Clinic, Richmond VA
6.01.07 Gallery 64 West, Grafton, WV
6.02.07 Solo Bass House Concert w/ Trip Wamsley and Darren Michaels, Decatur GA
6.09.07 House Concert with Trip Wamsley Sulphur LA
6.14.07 Cafe Caffeine with Brady Muckleroy, Austin, TX
6.15.07 Mochas & Javas with Brady Muckleroy, San Marcos TX

drop me an email or a myspace message if you need more info on any of the shows – see you there!

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Throwing down the eco-monkey gauntlet…

Just heard about this company via Jonny Baker’s Blog – it’s Belu, and they make bottled water… or rather, they bottle water; you can’t make water…

But anyway, the USP is that their bottles are made from corn, are fully biodegradable and the company is carbon neutral. Apparently Tescos and Waitrose are both stocking it.

So, three challenges then, I guess – one is to buy it if you drink bottled water, two is to stock it if you sell bottled water and three is to switch to corn-made biodegradable compostable bottles if you make or sell stuff in plastic bottles. Someone else has done the hard bit, now all you need to do is play catch up.

C’mon, we’re already far too late on the whole climate thing, globally, so let’s not faff about, let’s switch plastic bottle production over to these lovely new eco-monkey bottles and get those carbon emissions down!

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Blog template fixed..

Yay! I’ve been able to fix the look of the blog to get rid of the old header and get the design in line with the rest of my site. That’s been bugging me for weeks.

Big thanks to Sarda for fixin’ the server despite no help whatsoever from the hosting company…

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Flight to the US… not good, not good at all

OK, I’ll be delving back into all the blog stuffs that I missed out on while the server was down, but for now, here’s what happened on Thursday with my flight to the US. My eventual destination was Ohio, but after looking at all the flight costs etc, flying to NYC and then getting an internal flight worked out cheapest AND gave me a chance to visit the lovely Shark and TH – flight times; leave london at 4pm, arrive NYC at 6.40, at the SharkTank by about 8.30, evening with them, fly to Ohio the next morning.

Plane takes off a little late, no worries says El Capitan, we’ll still be at Newark Airport on time. uneventful flight as far as the NY area (films watched – For Your Consideration which is more Christopher Guest magic, An Inconvenient Truth which should be sent on DVD to every house in the world, utterly vital viewing, And Casino Royale, which has far too much poker playing in it to be truly interesting, but wasn’t a bad way to waste two hours.)

Anyway, in the air over NYC, we get a message from the Captain that we’re going to have to land at JFK instead of newark. That’s not so bad, methinks, JFK is easier to get into the city anyway… but we enter a holding pattern. For hours. Eventually land at JFK, another message from Los Capitinos saying that they aren’t sure if we can get out here, then another saying we can’t and they’ll have to refuel and fly us to Newark.

Eventual arrival time in Newark – 11pm, time arriving at the SharkTank – gone 1am.

Emails have been sent to Virgin to see what they’re going to offer by way of compo. I’m thinking 25,000 airmiles would be sufficient, we’ll see what happens. 12 hours sat in the same seat, no extra meal, only one extra glass of juice or water for all that extra time. Not good service at all…

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Blog's back!!! HURRAH!!!!

Finally!! The blog is back!! It’s been down for almost two months, with the server that it’s hosted on being knackered, but it’s back now, and I’ve got lots to catch up on.

If you want to read the stuff that I’ve been blogging about over the last couple of months, you can head over to my MySpace blog and have a read.

LOADS to catch up on here, but suffice to say, I’m in Ohio at the moment, about to do a load of American dates – see the gigs page for more on that!

It’s great to be back…

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Tour update… finally!

Right, we’re now in Amsterdam, staying with the marvellous and wonderful John Lester for a couple of days, between the Germany gigs and the Denmark masterclass…

Where did we leave it last time? On the train to Madrid… OK, Madrid – what a great city! I’ve not been to Spain since I was 17, and last time was to a little holiday resort on the South Coast where we went to english-run pubs and sat on the beach, so not really much of Spain was seen. So this was my first proper trip. Madrid’s gorgeous – we were in a hotel right in the middle (thanks to the wonders of Priceline.co.uk), so had ample opportunity to explore.

The first gig however, did not go well – it was booked at the very last minute (actually, it was booked, cancelled, and finally rebooked on another day at the last minute) and the venue hadn’t really told anyone about us being there… so no-one showed. Yup, no-one. A gig for the people who worked there. Who enjoyed it. But that really doesn’t pay the bills. Anyway, it was a good warm-up, and thankfully, the second gig was pretty full, very much appreciated, we played well, sold a load of CDs, and all was well. We’ll be back in Spain, again with the wonderful Charlie Moreno (whose set was excellent), in October… Got a bit of a shock when I had to send out all my CD orders from Spain – international postage rates from Spain are nuts! Note to self – never try and run a mail order business from Spain…

After that it was back to Geneva to see the lovely Paul and Rachel again for a couple of days, then onto Magdeburg, where L had organised a gig through some friends of hers – the marvellous blokes of Studio 201, who were fantastic hosts, great fun, and exemplify the concept of ‘work hard, party hard’ like nobody I’ve ever met before. Deadly serious about having fun, as Michael Franti might say. Anyway, the gig was at UrBar, a very cool music bar/venue in the gorgeous city of Magdeburg, and much fun was had, CDs sold, and plans for a return made. Favourite thing about Magdeburg was Green Citadel, designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser – definitely in my top 5 wishlist of places to live one day!

From Magdeburg it was to Kleve and a return trip for me to the truly marvellous XOX Theatre – I played there last October, and it was such a treat to go back and take L. with me. I did the first set solo (including a massively extended improv on the end of Amo Amatis Amare – will be doing that one again!) and then L joined me for the second set, which went amazingly well – once again lots of CDs sold, and amazingly for me (cos I hate the damn things) we did two encores, the second one being a very impromptu version of Stand By Me (!!)

So some fab gigs, lots of lovely people, a whole mix of languages (French being the most comfortable, my German was coming back after 4 days there, Italian I’m still working on, Spanish was pretty much a right-off, given that the Spanish L. learnt at school was Mexican Spanish which is very different from Madrid Spanish, and now dutch where I know how to say please, thankyou and byeee!)

And tomorrow we head to Denmark for a couple of days… We’re racking up the miles, and definitely getting the most from our interrail tickets, watching a lot of films on the laptop on the train (I’d forgotten just what a great film The Hudsucker Proxy is!!)

So, films watched so far – The aforementioned Hudsucker Proxy, Withnail and I, Harry Potter and the Goblet Of Fire, Peep Show series 1, Wedding Singer, Dodgeball, The Life Aquatic and Jump London.

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Are we allowed a little schadenfreude once in a while?

Every once a while, the downtrodden get their own back.

this footage of some fuckwit matador getting gored in the plums by a bull made me smile. Does that make me a sicko, or do is there just a little justice in seeing the twisted sickos that seek sport in taunting animals and spearing them to death get a taste of their own medicine…

Of course ‘Spain bans bull-fighting’ would have been a much better headline, but it’s about as likely as ‘Nugent goes veggie and joins PETA’, sadly…

get well soon, senor plumless… ;o)

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Musical diet

i’ve mentioned before how I treat my music listening as a diet – it’s why, after years of trying to be the nice guy, I finally scrapped piles and piles of CDRs that people have sent me over the years wanting me to listen to them – I just don’t have the time for all of them, in between trying to feed my ears with brain food that’ll help take my music to where it needs to be. (I do still listen to a lot of what I’m sent, just not generally the unsolicited CDRs with no info on them…)

So anyway, the listening material so far on these ‘ere train journeys has been as follows –
Annette Bjergfeld – The Kissing Post (an exquisite poppy singer/songwriter record. That she’s co-written with Boo Hewerdine gives you some idea of where she’s coming from. Definitely great ear-food from a melody and joyousness perspective.
Paul Simon – Surprise (never fails to amaze me. Every time I listen to it I take more away from the lyrics, and hear more of the little touches that Eno has added to it. A really really great album.)
Mark Hollis – Mark Hollis (every time I listen to either this album or to the last two Talk Talk albums, I realise again just how much I owe Mark Hollis in terms defining for me what so much of what I do is about – his phrasing, his use of space, the really incredibly wide dynamic range, the emotion… it’s all stuff that I aspire to and try to feed into my music. Truly remarkable timeless deep IMPORTANT music. It’s great listening to an album that feels significant in the grand scheme of things. Not in any trendy way, not because the style mags see it as the soundtrack to coolness, but because it’s the sound of an artist delving so deep into his well of experience and emotion to produce something of worth. It feels like a privilege to listen to it.)
Suzanna Vega – Suzanne Vega (how old was she when she did this? mid 20s? It was her first album, and it’s incredible. That strength of vision, purpose, that depth of self-assuredness in the songwriting and singularity of voice is mind blowing. And it contains ‘Marlene On The Wall’ which is one of the greatest pop songs of all time.)

And that’s just finished – what now? I think a little John Martyn Live At Leeds might be in order – come on, John ‘n’ Danny, gimme something to aspire to…

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