Tag: cds

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Photography is the new Rock 'n' Roll

Well, not really, but we did go to two stunning photography exhibitions today.

We’d only planned to go to one, as a birthday treat for the small person, but when we got to the Natural History Museum, there was a second free exhibition displayed outside.

The free exhibition was ‘earth from the air‘ – an exhibition of aerial photography by Yann Arthus Bertrand. His work focuses on the twin poles of the majesty of the natural world and the influence of mankind upon it. Lots of pictures of bizarre natural phenomena and of man’s impact on everything. Seeing it on Good Friday, it acted as a kind of devotional tool – amazing to see the wonder of creation, and the fallen-ness of the human race in its abject inability to fulfil the mandate to protect the planet.

For there we moved onto the Wildlife Photographer Of The Year exhibition – clearly these people get to glimpse through God’s letter-box, and then come back and show us their holiday snaps. Some of the most startling images I’ve ever seen, beautiful, moving, illuminating, awe-inspiring. It’s only on for another week, so if you can get to it, do. After that, it’s on tour, so check it out!

London’s museums are one of the things that give me hope for the city. Some things about living here are so f***ed up, it’s frightening. Other times, there are glimpses of magic. The museums are some of those magical places – free to get in, brimming with information and inspiration about the world. They went through a few years of charging to get in, but fortunately went back to being free. When I was a lil’ kid and we had no money, the museums was one of our favourite days out – Sundays were really really cheap on the underground, and the museums were free to get in. I was captivated by the blue whale in the Natural History Museum, and developed a fascination with whales and dolphins as a result. The British Museum is another fave london haunt.

So the funding for them now comes from the shops, restaurants and from donations, so I always make a point of buying food and books when there – today we had lunch there, and bought the catalogues to both the exhibitions. If you go, and can afford it, do support the museums – helps to keep it free for the people who can’t afford it.

Soundtrack – Rebecca Holweg, ‘June Babies’ – went to see Rebbeca play yesterday in the foyer at the Royal Festival Hall – her hubby is bassist Andy Hamill, whose solo CD is fanastic too. Rebecca’s gig was great, as is the CD. Highly recommended jazzy singer/songwriter.

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One Step Beyond

So I was just looking for a CD to soundtrack me washing up, and thought ‘ah I’ve not listened to that for a while, let’s give it a go’. The CD in question is ‘I Can See Your House From Here’ by Pat Metheny and John Scofield, a CD that I distinctly remember thinking ‘file under not really very good’ when I got it. Was deeply disappointed with it.

It’s great. Very good indeed.

What lead me to not get it first time round? Expectation, I think. I knew what I thought a Metheny Scofield album should sound like, and this wasn’t it. I wanted it to be the album I’d half imagined in my head, and when it wasn’t, instead of deferring to the wisdom of the artist, I decided it was lame.

So what does this do to the critical process? We still have to formulate opinions on things, and something’s appear to be total rubbish, or at least disappointingly fall short of the potential that a group/collaboration/artist shows.

The problem seem to be with second guessing what a project was intended as. If there’s a stated aim, it’s sometimes easier to tell whether a particular artistic endeavour has fallen short of that. If there isn’t, it’s pretty tricky to work out whether it’s a successful rendering of the concept. Whether you dig it or not is another thing altogether, but whether it’s an objectively poor record is quite something else.

There was a discussion recently on the Jonatha Brooke discussion forum about the cover tunes on her new CD – she’s recorded ‘God Only Knows’, ‘Fire And Rain’ and ‘Eye In The Sky’ by the Alan Parsons Project. The first two are so well known they don’t even need crediting to their respective performers.

The discussion seemed to be arguing whether or not it was even valid to attempt new versions of these tunes, and involved the projection of an entire methodology onto Jonatha, implying that as a creative songwriter, she must’ve been running out of ideas or something… Whether or not people liked the covers is not something I’m too bothered by, but I found the questioning of whether or not recording them was an artistically valid thing to do a really weird leap of logic. Jonatha has, as far as I know, made no statement as to her reasoning behind doing the tunes, or her relationship to the whole original/interpretative approach to performing songs, so the whole argument seemed to hinge on the various poster’s own feelings about the importance of those songs, and jonatha’s role as a singer/songwriter/performer.

Most of it was bollocks, but it did get me thinking. Criticism can be a really good thing – sometimes bad reviews and negative comments can be helpful in that they let you know where the writer is at in relationship to your work, and occasionally – very occasionally – the reasoning of the writer is such that you see flaws in your own creative process that you weren’t aware of. That’s a pretty rare scenario, but when it happens, it’s pretty useful.

But for the most part, people tend to objectify their subjective feelings about a song or a gig or a performance – I liked it, therefor it was ‘good’. I didn’t like it, therefor it was ‘invalid’/’not good’/’a waste of time’/’the wrong thing to do’. That’s the kind of crap that as a performer you can get into debates with people about, or you can just ignore, and move on, realising that the writer has no idea what you were trying to do anyway. Even better, you can reinterpret it, extract from it their perception of what you do, and find new ways of explaining what you do that help those people get a handle on it.

Of course, in the long run lots of people still won’t get it, and lots more will think you’re a bit rubbish, but that’s all part of the fun.

Soundtrack – Pat Metheny & John Scofield, ‘I Can See Your House From Here’; Horace Silver, ‘Jazz Masters’; Jonas Hellborg, ‘Octave Of The Holy Innocents’; Jill Sobule, ‘Pink Pearl’.

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Video Killed The Radio Star

Just got back from seeing Billy Bragg at The Barbican – what an amazing gig!!

For those that don’t know (can there really be people in the world who don’t know about Billy Bragg???), he’s a singer songwriter, but not in the fey acoustic guitar, wannabe James Taylor way. More Woody Guthrie meets Joe Strummer. Very political, very literate, very stauchly working class leftie stuff. Did benefit gigs for the miners (added extra gravity to the gig that we’ve just gone past the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the miner’s strike…) and for the labour party back in the 80s (can anyone imaging Red Wedge existing now? I think not…)

Anyway, he was brilliant. Inspiring, refreshing, funny, moving, challenging, entertaining. Simply marvellous. his latest album is a double best of, which is a pretty good place to start with his stuff.

The sad thing about it is thinking that there’s no way that a new Billy Bragg could get anywhere near the mainstream today. Back in the early 80s, bands with something to say were all over the place, whether it was UB40, Billy Bragg, The Clash, Steel Pulse, The Specials – there were loads of them, and political songs were topping the charts and changing the hearts and minds of the country. I’m trying to think of the last time a really political song got anywhere. Not ‘We Are The World’ style bollocks. I mean something that really meant something. These days you get a lot of nu metal bands ranting on about the evils of corporate music – the machine within which they dwell and who pays their bills – and there’s still a healthy protest music scene underground (Show Of Hands, the folky duo I blogged about a while ago are doing very political stuff, as is welsh songwriting genius Martyn Joseph and God’s favourite singer, Bruce Cockburn) but those that are doing anything have either been doing well for years (hence Billy selling out the Barbican) or are playing the folk circuit.

I guess it’s healthy that they are still there. It’s just a shame that they don’t get the exposure. I mean, even the early hip-hop stuff got exposure – the first couple of Public Enemy and NWA albums were all over the place back in the late 80s, and made some fairly big changes on the political scene (NWA arguably helped trigger the LA Riots… good thing or bad thing?) these days, very little seems to get past the blandness filter. The new idea of being ‘risky’ is wearing ever more revealing clothes, or swearing on your records… yeah, really dangerous…

Anyway, three cheers for Billy Bragg. The man’s a genius and an inspiration.

Oh, and I mustn’t forget Jill Sobule who was supporting him. We got there late and only caught the second half of her set, but she was marvellous, and I bought the CD – will report back, cos if it’s as good as her set, it’ll be excellent. She was an added treat (and she came out and did a duet with Billy on ‘All The Young Dudes’ as part of the encore!)

Soundtrack – Toupe, ‘Alopecia’; Peter Gabriel, ‘Hits’; Zakir Hussein, ‘Making Music’.

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Happy Christmas (tour is over)

Last night was the last night of the tour with Michael Manring. Another great gig in a long string of great gigs. I think this was probably the most enjoyable tour I’ve ever done – all the gigs went supremely well, nearly all of them were filled to capacity, the promoters of the gigs were all marvellous, the audiences were all very responsive, we all sold loads of CDs. There are lots of very fine reviews coming in on various forums (see the interact forums on my site for the biggest repository, and if you were at the shows, please sign in and say hi!)

Thanks to everyone who came to the gigs, and especially those of you who took the time to come and say hi. It’s always lovely to meet people at gigs.

Thanks also to Bass Guitar Magazine for their sponsorship, Mansons Guitar Shop for hosting the clinic in Exeter, Stiff Promotions for promoting the Petersfield and Southampton shows, Ali Martin for doing the posters for those two gigs, Sebastian Merrick for co-promoting the Troubadour gig, Ayshegul for all her hard work on the Troubadour show, Catherine for doing CDs at the Troub, Delicatessen for the Reading gig, especially evil harv and Terri, Richard Ravenhill for doing such a killer job on the Brighton show, Grant Sharkey for his help promoting the Southampton gig, Mark the soundman at Joiners for the best live sound we’ve ever had, and my street team for loads of promo assistance, flyering, and generally being very cool indeed. And of course, to Michael Manring and John Lester for doing the shows – what fun!

So the next gig is Thursday in Stoke Newington – that’ll be a lot of fun, as it’s with Theo Travis, so we’ll be playing the material from ‘Open Spaces’.

Soundtrack – Prince, ‘Sign Of The Times’; David Sylvian, ‘Secrets Of The Beehive’; Rain Tree Crow, ‘Rain Tree Crow’; Paul Simon, ‘Greatest Hits’; Abe Laboriel/Greg Mathieson.

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even more gigs!

Oh yes, mine and other people’s.

Saturday night I had a gig in Hoddeston (have I spelt it right this time??) – anyway, the gig was at St Cuthbert’s church (great name for a church – St Cuthbert was a monastic dude who lived on Holy Island, and even had his own Island, a photo of which will probably be the cover of my next CD….) – they do a music night a couple of times a year, where the first hour is an open mic slot for local musicians, then the second half is an invited performer. this time, it was me. The church itself was a great place to play, a lovely building. Gig went really well. It was a great chance to try out both my new bass cabs and the new preamp in my 6 string fretted bass, and both sounded incredible.

Then Sunday night I drove down to Southampton to see Gary Husband’s ‘Force Majeure’ project, with a line up that included the wonderful Matthew Garrison on bass, and Jerry Goodman on Violin. Shit, what a gig!! It was incredible. Gary’s an outstanding drummer and pianist – we all knew that, but we can now add stellar composer to the list. Amazing exhilerating music, at times insanely dissonant and nasty but still with an internal logic and a link to whatever the theme of the piece was. Gary gave little explanatory talks before each track – seems like Architecture features highly on his list of inspirations, and they tied in superbly with the music that followed. I can’t wait for the live DVD! ‘Twas also nice to catch up with friends at the gig – gary and matt, obviously, but also Shaun Freeman, the sax-dude from Level 42 and Nick Fyffe, ex-Jamiroquai bassist. Well worth the 200 mile round trip to see it.

Saturday was also Deep To Deep – a gathering of bassists from the Churchbass list, which was a lot of fun.

Ticket sales are going really well for the tour – I’m very excited about these upcoming dates! Please come out and see one of the shows if you can…

Soundtrack – Bill Mallonee, ‘Perfumed Letter’ (fantastic new CD from Vigilantes Of Love frontman. His best since Audible Sigh), Morphine, ‘B-Sides And Otherwise’; Dum Dums, ‘It Goes Without Saying’; Chris Potter, ‘Gratitude’; loads of my duets with BJ Cole.

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Oh Lucky Man

or is that just lucky me?

Had a marvellous gig last night – Traders in Petersfield. Nice little music venue, attached to a Thai restaurant (great food!), in small town between Guildford and Portsmouth. Enthusiastic listening (or maybe just bemused…) audience, who listened, applauded and bought CDs. What more could any self respecting solo bassist ask for?

I do feel very lucky to do what I do for a living – I get to play gigs to nice audiences, sell CDs to friendly people who email me to say thanks (as though them buying the CDs wasn’t thanks enough!), collaborate with fascinating musicians, and travel around some interesting bits of the world, from California to Petersfield. And then after all that, I get to teach bass to lots of lovely people. The trade offs against things like job security, enourmous record sales, fast cars etc. are more than worth it. :o)

‘oh what a lucky man…’ hang on, that song is about some bloke whose life goes down the pan… maybe I’ll go for something else, er… gimme a moment to think of something… ‘My Life Is Good!’… nope, next line of that is ‘…you old bag’, so that doesn’t work. Maybe songs about being grateful for stuff aren’t as prevalent as ones about people who took it for granted and ballsed things up.

anyway, I digress.

Michael Manring and I will be back at the same venue next month, and I’m really looking forward to it! I mean, I was anyway, but now even more so cos I know what to expect.

Also of note is that it was the first gig booked for me by my new booking dude for that area, Iain at Stiff Promotions – lovely bloke, insanely efficient and helpful, and an allround god-send to musicians. Bodes well for future ventures!

Soundtrack – nothing much today. I’ve had a few days of mainly silence, which has made a nice change…

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Whale Rider

I’ve seen this film three times in the last month – first time on the flight home from LA, then twice this week on video. It’s brilliant. truly truly marvellous.

The basic story is of a girl who when conceived had a twin brother, who died in childbirth, along with her mother. He was the first born male of the next generation within their mauri community, and it was hoped that he would be a leader. The patriarch of the tribe can’t deal with the fact that it was the girl that survived to continue the family line, that stretches back to Paikia – their ancestor who arrived in New Zealand on a Whale. The film follows the struggle as the grandfather looks for a suitable heir amongst the other first born sons in the village, and Pai wrestles with her emmerging destiny. The film is most powerful for all that it doesn’t tell you – the relationships are multi-dimensional, the characters are unfolded in glimpses, looks and body language, not spoon fed in unrealistic dialogue. The acting is amazing, and the story of old vs. new, heritage vs. modernisation and the struggle for authentic spirituality in the face of an increasingly fragmented world is inspiring and bears repeated viewing.

If you haven’t seen it yet, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

What else has been going on? the usual mix of teaching, gig promo, practicing etc… Got a last minute gig booked in Italy on the 11th March (which reminds me, must remember to move Aidan’s lesson…), got a gig in Petersfield, Hampshire tomorrow, and aparently advance ticket sales are going really well… Was recording yesterday with BJ Cole, pedal steel genius and all-round marvellous bloke. We got another couple of really interesting duet pieces in the can, and it was yet another chance to explore what the new bass is capable of.

And last night I went to hear Tom and Christine Sine speak – I’ve been reading Tom’s books for years, and it’s always good to hear him speak. He’s a futures analyst, which means he looks at trends and extrapolates what’s likely to happen. Most of his work is with church organisations looking at ways to meet the needs of their communities over the coming years. Always good to take time out to reappraise what’s important, and look at how our priorities have got mixed up… it’s all too easy to get sucked into ‘the rat race’ and value profit of people, and pursuing some sort of status or economic goal over and above any sense of what’s ‘right’. Globalised culture excerts such an enourmous pressure, that it requires a strong proactive stance to choose to do something other than earn and consume in pursuit of a higher place on the ladder, but it’s possible, and hearing Tom and Christine speak is always a good chance to reassess.

soundtrack – the duets with BJ Cole have been on repeat here since yesterday, but in between I’m still really really enjoying the new Jonatha Brooke CD, ‘Back In The Circus’.

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Quick update…

My mum is staying at the moment, which is yet another great excuse to do not much for a few days. Today we went to the Tate Modern, a huge art gallery in London. Apart from the walk through Southwark to get there, through what looked like some sort of post-apocalyptic hellhole, it was a wonderful experience – the art was largely marvellous (especially the collection of stuff that had been found in the Thames, and Bill Viola’s 5 angels of the millenium piece, which is incredible and I’m going to have to go and see again very very soon…) – the video loop of the naked guy punching himself in the face and the plums wasn’t quite so inspiring, and some of the explainations seemed to read far too much into the symbolism of some of the art, but all in all, an amazing day out.

On another note, the NAMM show (big trade fair thingie I was at in LA in January) has two types of people at it – those I have to talk to out of obligation to the mag that I’m doing the show report for (largely, this group is made up of flunkies from companies like Ibanez and Behringer, telling me how great it is that they can release their chinese made lame-o rubbish at such a low price, and then get all edgy when I suggest fair trade might be a good path to take…), and then there are the lovely people. And there are lots of lovely people. It’s not without coincidence that most of the lovely people are also the talented ones, who are there because they make amazing instruments. Some of the lovely people are people I just know a bit from chatting at NAMM shows. Others I meet up with some are Email buddies. Jill Azola, from Azola basses is an email buddy – sharing as we do a love of gorgeous instruments (her husband Steve is the genius behind the basses), and a love of cats (Steve and Jill were commuting daily from San Diego to NAMM because one of their cats was ill and needed daily TLC – see, my kind of peoplez), and it’s always a pleasure to drop by the Azola booth, fuel my desire for one of their basses, and chat about lots of non-NAMM related stuff with Jill and Steve.

Anyway, Jill just sent me this pic, taken at the show, of me with LA session dude and nice chap, Bob Lee – (I know two Bob Lees in the LA area – the other one is my amazing friend who works for QSC, knows everything about amps, and is a top bloke. this one is session bassist and Jamerson fanatic Bob Lee…) Steve Azola is the guy stood between us with his back to the camera –

so, a fun NAMM moment, with good people, toying around with marvellous instruments. Check out the Azolas if you’re into getting an electric upright – I’m saving up for one!

Soundtrack – ah, the new Jonatha Brooke CD arived today – Back In The Circus is, on first listen, as wonderful as anything else that Jonatha has done. She’s a genius, and a very consistently geniusish genius at that. She good! Highly recommended.

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uplateupdate

So I was just getting over my jetlag from LA when I did a shift at the St Luke’s homeless shelter overnight on Saturday, got to bed just before 4, slept til gone 3 on Sunday afternoon, and couldn’t sleep last night til 4am… sod it, back to square one.

Well, the latest on Paul is that I saw him on thursday in hospital, and he’s doing really really well considering what he’s been through. Amazing really.

I’m back teaching again now, after leaving a few days blank when I got back in order to get over the jetlag. I really miss teaching when I’m away (it was great to do the masterclass in San Jose as a chance to do some teaching while in the US). And the promo for the gig with Michael Manring are in full swing – emailing radio and magazines, doing up flyers and posters to stick up and handout… all good fun.

i’m also working on getting some gigs for/with Muriel Anderson – wonderful guitarist, and lovely person, that I saw play in London last year, and who is back here in May – so been talking to promotion people about that too, hoping that we can get some stuff together. And then there’s the ongoing work of getting solo gigs and duo gigs with Theo! It never stops. Fortunately I’ve not got a couple of promoters who are helping out – Iain at Stiff Promotions is doing a marvellous job, and Richard Ravenhill who is putting on the Brighton gig is a superstar too!

Got an email at the weekend saying that my AccuGroove cabinets should be shipped out to me this week – I’m rather excited about getting them, having played through them in the States for the tour, and loving the sound. We still don’t know if these ones will be the prototypes of my signature powered cabs, or just passive ones, requiring a poweramp separately for now, but either way, the sound is the nutz, and I’m rather excited! :o)

The combination of my new bass, new cabs, and some groovy new sounds on my Lexicon MPX-G2 has given me a great renewed impetus for writing – as soon as it all arrives, I’m going to start work on the next solo album. I’ve got lots of ideas and concepts to work on, and am finding the right kind of music for the fretted 6 string. It won’t be out til the end of the summer at the earliest, and depending on what happens with distribution deals, I may have to repress ‘And Nothing But The Bass’ before then (as it’s just about sold out), but I’m really looking foward to working on it!

There are also plans to head back out to Italy soon, and do some more recording with Luca Formentini – Luca’s new solo album, ‘Subterranea’ is out now, and is excellent – a really inspired collage of guitar-originated sounds that for the most part sound very little like a guitar, along with some found-sound samples and lots of processing. CDs like that stand or fall on the ambience, and Luca’s Cd is beautifully recorded and put together, and has been spinning a lot in my CD player over the weekend. I’m really looking forward to making some more music with him.

Soundtrack – right now, Prefab Sprout, ‘Life Of Surprises’ (am in a Prefab Sprout obsessional phase at the moment). before that, The Ben Taylor Band, ‘Famous Among The Barns’; Luca Formentini, ‘Subterranea’; Kofi Bakerk, ‘Karisma’; John Lester, ‘Big Dreams And The Bottom Line’; Daft Punk, ‘Homework’; and Vida Vierra, ‘Woman Of The Waters’ – Vida – along with her husband Doug and daughter Dani – is one of my favourite people in the world, and is a marvellous singer/songwriter, dancer, choreographer and activist. Most of my favourite memories of this most recent trip to California aren’t of gigs (though the gigs were great), but are of spending time with Vida Doug and Dani, and with Rick and Jessica Turner – lovely people one and all.

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Road Tales Pt 1.

As you may be able to tell by the time this is posted, I’m jetlagged. very jetlagged. Two hours sleep, then wide awake. It’s 4.38am, and I’m trying to think of things to do, listening to Muriel Anderson’s ‘A Journey Through Time’ (Muriel’s great, and will hopefully be coming to the UK in April…), and chatting to Trip on MSN.

So California stories – flew in on Sat 10th, and got the SuperShuttle to Anaheim, where I was recording a record with Kofi Baker and Ned Evett. Got set up and crashed out.

The next three days were a mix of hanging with Ned while Kofi taught, and then recording all evening – as late as my jetlag going that way would allow us. the material was largely improvs, most of which we then played again in some sort of structured way to see what came out. It’s now all in the editing – some great material was certainly recorded, but the wheat and chaff need separating! Kofi and Ned are both marvellous musicians, so it was a lot of fun to do, and a bit of a challenge to be back playing complex rythmic twiddly stuff after lots of ambient noodling…

then, NAMM – huge trade show in Anaheim, music gear manufacturers, dealers, distributors, journos and players descend on the convention centre, in a desparate attempt to do business. the makers are trying to hawk their wares – some by just making good stuff, others by getting porn stars to stand around on their booths, or lame 80s has-been rock stars doing signings… normally means the product isn’t worth looking at.

I was playing for Modulus and AccuGroove, and doing a show report for Bass Guitar Magazine, and catching up with lots of old friends – it’s one of the downsides of being a bassist is that there are rarely more than one of us on a gig, so we only meet up in airports and at NAMM… Also got to meet up with lots of friends from talkbass, the dudepit, churchbass, TBL, the lowdown, and my street-team! the now annual tradition of dinner with David Torn, Doug Lunn and Vida Vierra was as marvellous as ever, and playing at the Bass Bash was a blast, as was my gig in the lobby of the Marriott next to the show (ah yes, solo bass goes loung-core…)

NAMM ended sunday, on monday trip and I drove to Costa Mesa for a coffee house gig lined up for us by Bob Lee – nice little coffee shop, played outside, Seth Horan turned up and did a couple of tunes and was wonderful. Trip’s set was marvellous too, and his ‘did I suck?’ question at the end was so laughable it almost warranted a kick in the plums. Lots of friendly faces turned up, including Fred Hodson from Talkbass (thanks Fred!), Kerry Getz and Jason Feddy. Crashed at Kerry’s house, and on Tuesday morning Bob Lee showed Trip and I round QSC, and they lent me a poweramp for the tour (the AccuGroove powered cabs weren’t finished in time for the tour, so I took a pair of passive ones, and used the QSC amp, which sounded great.

Tuesday afternoon was the gig at CalArts with Andre LaFosse, which went well, and included a marvellous duo version of MMFSOG. Then off to see Vida and Dani for a few days. I’ve probably spent 3 months total in California now over the last 5 years, and this was the first time I’ve been to the beach! Took a walk along Venice beach, wandered around book shops and record shops, and soaked up the atmosphere. Also took a walk round the Yogananda peace garden in Santa Monica which is a beautiful inspiring place, where I’d be spending a lot of time were I living nearby…

Wednesday night went to see Abe Laboriel playing with 3 Prime at the Baked Potato – a trip to LA wouldn’t be complete without either seeing Abe or going to the BP, and as always the band were amazing.

Friday started with breakfast with Jimmy Haslip, and was followed by the long drive to Santa Cruz, which was even longer due to it taking two hours to get out of LA! But got to Rick and Jessica Turner’s place late evening, and talked for hours. Some tours are all about heavy gig schedules and travellings. Others are all about the people you meet. This was a people tour – the gigs were great, but it was the friendships, talking long into the night, eating lovely food, plotting world domination that made this trip special. I travel half way round the world and get treated like family, it doesn’t get much better than this.

Saturday (24th Jan we’re up to), was dudepit clinic day, at Bob Streetteam’s house – 11 guys, lots of a basses, and a day of talking and thinking about music, and playing some stuff to demonstrate a few concepts which will hopefully keep the guys going til next year. Bob did a sterling job of organising and hosting the event – well above and beyond any expected level of support from a street-teamer. I’m constantly amazed at people’s generousity. There’s plenty of dark stuff going on in the world, and while governments are going about their f-ed up evil business, nice people are running counter to it, demostrating friendship and grace that makes you smile at the world, and gives you hope.

Sunday was KPIG day – Michael Manring and I playing solo and duo on this most wonderful of radio stations.

Next couple of days are spent shuttling backwards and forwards between AccuGroove world HQ (Mark’s house) in Cupertino, and Santa Cruz, catching up with more old friends and hanging out with the Turners and Muriel Anderson.

Then the ‘big’ gigs – three dates with Michael Manring and Trip Wamsley. All three gigs went really really well – loads of friends turned up, Trip and Michael both played really really well, we all sold CDs, had a blast, played some very cool trios and a tasty cover of Bruce Cockburn’s ‘Pacing The Cage’ each night. Each gig afforded us more time to see friends – staying with Bob Streetteam, and Mike Roe was great – and to play lots of fine music to lovely people. The Espresso Garden show was sold out, with lots of people unable to get in (fortunately they were able to stand by the door and listen, but still…)

Then, the long drive back to LA, introducing Trip to the delights of Prefab Sprout on the way, back to see Doug, Vida and Dani, out for Doug’s birthday, a trip round socal delivering gear back to its rightful owners, and a deep sleep.

Sunday, departure day, started with a dance class – no, I didn’t dance, much as I’d have liked to – I was part of the percussion section, which was more fun than one should have on a sunday morning. Doug dropped me at the airport, and after 74 levels of security checking, got on the plane, and fortunately sat next to a fascinating woman called Gael, and chatted for most of the way home, pausing to watch ‘Whale Rider’ and ‘School Of Rock’.

A great trip – possibly my fave trip so far to the states. some great gigs, new family, catching up with old friends, fun at NAMM, great contacts for the future, and a sense that all is not lost with the world despite the crapness of so many things from Dubya to the Dean Girls.

Doug, Vida, Dani, Rick, Jessica, Elias, Trip, Michael, Kelly M, Dan, Wally, Mark, Suzy, Bob A Kelly A, Mike, Kofi, Ned, Kerry, Bob L, DT, Seth, Becca, Jimmy, Anderson, Gael, Keith, Muriel and any others who’ve slipped my mind momentarily – many marvellous friends old and new, thankyou all. (good lord, three weeks in LA and I’ve come back an unreconstructed hippie…!)

And now it’s 5.23am, I need sleep. badly.

more on Tuesday’s gig with Theo soon…

Soundtrack – Muriel Anderson, ‘A Journey Through Time’, Mike Roe, ‘Say Your Prayers’, Luca Formentini, ‘Subterranean’ – three lovely friends with three lovely albums.

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