Tag: london

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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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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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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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Busy times…

Sorry for the lack of interesting blog stuff of late. Much going on, but not really a) time to blog or b) stuff that’s bloggable.

For the last week I’ve been moving house, which has been exhausting, but also a great chance to purge all the crap I’d stored up over the years. So off went 3 bin-liners full of clothes to the charity shop, boxes and boxes of books, endless car-fulls of paper and cardboard to the recycling centre, all my vinyl to a talented E-bay-monkey-friend who’ll dispense with it all for me… I highly highly recommend having a stuff-purge if you find you’re getting bogged down with things. It’s something i should’ve done YEARS ago (yes, yes, mum, I know you been saying it every time I’ve seen you for the last decade…)

The purge hasn’t ended, and there’s more stuff to go (given that the room I’m now in is so full of my stuff I can hardly move… But all in good time.

On top of that, I’m still finalising details for the European tour in March, sorting out accommodation, official forms from the tax office so I can actually get paid in Italy, juggling canceled flights with more trips to scatter my possessions all over London.

it’s all a bit busy and a bit mad, so if you’ve been trying to get in touch with me over something, do email again, or call my mobile…

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Michael Brecker dies…

After a long battle with Leukemia, Michael Brecker has died. If you’ve ever hung around with any saxophonists for more than about, ooh, two minutes, you’ll know just how important Brecker is to the instrument. Just about every saxophonist I’ve ever met at one point wanted to play like him. The tenor sax colossus is obviously Coltrane, but post Coltrane, the standard bearer was Brecker – he took the instrument to new places, he wrote and recorded some incredible music, and gave saxophonists something to aim for.

I only saw him play once – at the Barbican in London. I went with Ben Castle, one of the many sax players who had spent years being massively influenced by him. Ben’s own playing has taken a fabulously unique turn since then, but he still had that uber-fan approach when we went to the gig. And Brecker was amazing – though on that particular gig, the opening act was the Roy Haynes trio with John Pattitucci and Danilo Perez, who played one of the greatest jazz gigs I’ve ever heard, so I came away singing their praises, whilst still full of the feeling that in Brecker I’d seen one of the greats.

To know what a place he occupies in my musical affections, you only need look at short list of his musical collaborators – Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, James Taylor – there’s the Stevie Holy Trinity of songwriters right there. the version of ‘Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight’ that he rerecorded with JT for one of his own albums about 4 or 5 years ago is one of the greatest things James has ever done. Breath-taking.

So he’ll be missed, hugely. An amazing musician, with an incredible legacy.

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Tough times for the ecomonkey traveller…

So surely after the ferry troubles on the way here, I deserved an easy ride home? oops.

I’m sat in the departure lounge at Dun… dun… Dun something – no idea how to spell the name of the ferry port just outside Dublin. it’s pronounced ‘Leary’. Anyway, I’m here, the ferry’s about three hours late, the weather’s to blame, which means there’s an odds-on chance I’ll puke again on the boat… It’s certainly testing my resolve to do this any time I come to Ireland… Nah, it’s not that bad, I just end up sitting around a lot. it’s not an efficient use of time, that’s for sure, but it’s still better than taking yet more short-haul flights.

So for tne next couple of hours I’ll be here in the ferry terminal. Thankfully, this is a much quicker actual crossing than the car ferry, and hopefully there’ll be train to london not too long after we get into Holyhead.

in the meantime, I’m being treated to piped music in the form of some late 80s hits compilation – Dub Be Good To Me, anybody? How about some Technotronic? Oh yes, just what’s needed at a time like this, music from the motion picture soundtrack ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’. Cowa-fucking-bunga.

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MamaYo gig




MamaYo live in London

Originally uploaded by solobasssteve.

Went to a fab gig this evening – MamaYo at Jerusalem, on Rathbone Place in London. Cool venue. Had arranged to meet Yo and Miles before the gig, but thanks to their phone being on vibrate and in the wrong pocket it took 20 minutes to find them… Anyway, once I did, dinner was had, and then back to the venue. I very much doubt there are two nicer people on the planet – both utterly lovely, and as tonight’s gig more than ably proved, awesome musicians. Yolanda is without doubt one of the best funk bassists in the country. That she’s now getting to grips with playing like that AND singing at the same time is too much. Tonight’s gig was a trio gig – they were a quartet last time I saw them play in Manchester at Bass Day, but I think I prefer the more open trio sound – all three are such great players that it just gives everyone more room to shine.

Anyway, a fab night. In fact, my second fab night out in a row, cos last night was Seth Horan at which a very, er, ‘select’ audience were treated to some amazing playing and singing from the man himself. Seth’s definitely one of my favourite bassist/singers, and deserved a bigger crowd (don’t we all), but put on a great show, as did his guitar monkey for the evening, Peter Fisher – a really talent germany guitarist. Very nice to see Seth as always, and looking forward to seeing him again at NAMM in January.

Those of you that missed it, shame on you! Make sure you go see him next time he’s in London…

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Last night's gig with BJ and Emily

Lovely little gig with BJ Cole and Emily Burridge last night – the Enterprise in Camden. It does have the steepest stairs in London, and after loading my stuff in, I wasn’t sure if my arms would be working in time for the gig, but they were. I also nearly brought the scaled down travel rig, but I’d have been in deep shit if I had because the PA there isn’t even close to being up to the task of reproducing StevieSounds. So Emily ran her cello through my rig as well, and BJ had his most beautiful fender amp with him, which always sounds like the music of heaven.

It’s a little room, and we had a little audience, but they were most appreciative. Nicest surprise for me was that during the afternoon I’d been thinking about older tunes I haven’t played for a while at gigs, and decided to do Danny And Mo from ‘Not Dancing For Chicken’ – a tune dedicated to Mo Foster and Danny Thompson. And who should walk in just as I started playing but Mo Foster. Always nice when the inspiration for a song is there to hear you explain why they’re so fantastic. Do you want to know the story behind the tune? OK – when I first started working on the tunes that would become Not Dancing For Chicken, I had just got a Gibson Echoplex, which offered loads more looping options – I was rather inspired by a guitarist in California called Andre LaFosse who was doing some amazing unique things with the echoplex, and was certainly a very long way from the long chord progressions, melodies and ambience that I was working on at the time.

So when I went into Jez’s studio to record the first version of the album, I was experimenting with a lot of really spikey angular electronica – using the replace and sus functions in the EDP all over the place, and getting some fairly cool effects.

however, when I got home after the sessions, I was listening to ‘Time To Think’ by Mo Foster, and had an epiphany, realising what was missing from the record – TUNES! I had nothing with any of the big romantic melodies that are what I do best, and all the ambient stuff was punctuated by bleeps and squeaks, some of which was great (and ended up on Lessons Learned Pt I) most of which wasn’t that good…

So I went back to the drawing board, and the first thing I wrote, straight after listening to that album of Mo’s was ‘Danny And Mo’. So there.

Anyway, back to the gig – I played Behind Every Word (with a huge cock-up on the B-section first time round – just had a brain freeze), then Danny And Mo, Despite My Worst Intentions, MMFSOG, What A Wonderful World and Deeper Still. I’d planned to do a whole load of improv, but went with sweet tunes instead. :o) And ’twas v. well received, which is most heartening.

Bj and Emily’s set was, as expected, beautiful. There’s an amazing empathy between them as players, and the classical arrangements work better than any rearranged classical works I’ve ever heard. It’s usually a recipe for disaster, but them playing Satie is a thing of great beauty. Emily’s a fab Cellist, with an amazing tone and touch. And BJ’s, well, BJ – a completely unique figure in the world of music.

in the second set they got me up for an improv, which started out as a gentle naive duet between BJ and I, swapped to a duet between Emily and I, then I looped a progression in D, and BJ and I started building up the ambience while Emily played beautiful melodic lines over it… and the fade got really dark with my big Sigur Ros guitar sound, and BJ’s twisted MoogerFooger distorted steel… amazing.

And so you have it, the story of gigs in london – small appreciative crowds listening to world-beating music. It’s the kind of thing that should be filling concert halls the world over. I guess it will… patience, dear boy.

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John Lester at the 606

Fine gig last night – John Lester was launching his new album, So Many Reasons, last night at the 606 in Chelsea. His band was him, Theo Travis on sax, flutes and marvellousness, Andy Hamill on bass and magicalness and Roy Dodds on drums, percussion and groove-based tremendousness. And then, in the second set, me for two tunes. No looping, no Ebow, no fretless, no big delays… just my 6 string fretted and some rather fun jazz guitar parts. I played on Union Street (which is one of my favourite songs of John’s – no mean feat in a set packed with favourite songs of mine) and Good Intentions, another great song off the new album.

Ever since I started playing solo I’ve wanted to be in a position to give other people a leg up. It’s what I want people to do for me, and in the spirit of ‘do unto others as you’d have them do unto you’ (what wise-ass came up with that? pretty simple formula for changing the world, huh?) I have always wanted to use whatever meagre platform I have to give other musicians a boost. And John is probably the best example of that, even though it was through a tour with Michael Manring that the push came about (and I always pull much bigger crowds when I tour with Michael, for some inexplicable reason… ;o) – anyway, John came out and opened for Michael and I on a bunch of gigs, and was quite frankly awesome. Awesometacular, if you will. He sold a shedload of CDs, won himself an army of new fans, and it helped to establish him in some way in London. Since then – with no help from me at all! – he’s been touring and playing bass for Gretchen Peters, where he plays in her band and opens the show, blowing away audiences night after night, and winning himself so many new fans along the way. He’s a great performer and great songwriter, and last night he had the cream of London’s musicians playing with him – Andy’s one of my favourite bassists in the world, Theo’s, well Theo, i don’t think he’s ever played a bit of music I didn’t think was outstanding, and Roy’s the perfect sensitive groovy player to be in that band. A magical evening all round.

So, now go and get John’s CD, from his website, or at least have a listen to some tracks on his myspace page.

Finally, a blog post that doesn’t feature a video from the 80s… hang on, gimme a minute here, I’ll find one for you…

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