Tag: rock

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Another radio great gone…

So another one of my boy-hood radio heroes has died – Tommy Vance died this morning after a stroke.

His Friday Rock Show on Radio 1 was required listening when I was at school – you had Peel Monday to Wednesday, Andy Kershaw on a Thursday and Tommy Vance on a Friday. I’ve still got tapes of live gigs I recorded off the radio that he’d broadcast. I never met him, but I remember just how please I was when even years after I stopped listening to his show, I saw him in the audience at a gig – it felt like Tommy being there was a validation of my taste in liking Bruce.

So after Peel, goes TV, to the great Rock Show in the sky. Sad news.

Soundtrack – right now it’s John Scofield, ‘Up All Night’; but I think I’ll be listening to more Bruce Cockburn later and remembering many years of listening to Tommy.

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A full compliment of toys!

One of the strange things about overseas touring is that I can only take a small section of my usual live rig with me. The lovely people at always take care of the Cabinet side of things, and I can always borrow a poweramp from or in this case, from Accugroove again, but there’s no way I can fly with my entire rack – three processors, two echoplexes and a Mackie desk. What I took with me for NAMM this time was two Echoplexes and one of the Lexicons.

I hadn’t really figured out what I was going to do about carrying it all around, and the day before NAMM started, and I went shopping for a soft rack bag to carry it all around in. Fortunately, I didn’t actually get one, as when I got to NAMM, Dale Titus sorted me out with a 3U soft rack case WITH WHEELS. Dale’s a very nice man. The case is a Warwick Rockbag, and seems pretty solid. It certainly saved the day when I suffered a (suspected) broken toe on the Friday morning of NAMM. Getting out the shower, I caught my toe on the top of the rail on the bath. cue much pain and screaming, to the bewilderment of Bob and Alison’s cats. Nail was ripped and bleeding, toe wasn’t moving. No point going to the doctor with a suspected broken toe as all they’ll do is what I did – splint it to the toe next to it. It obviously wasn’t so broken that it would set weird (was still toe-shaped), so I did that, hobbled for a few days, and waited for my toe-nail to fall off (it’s still there, just a bit blackened… ewww, TMI!)

Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, not being able to take all my stuff to NAMM – so I was playing through the G2, with two outs into two EDPs, split most of the time into two separate amps! It sounded pretty odd, and didn’t really afford me much control over where things were going, or what the relative levels of the different layers and sounds were. It was useful in that it provided a new set of limitations within which to try and create something of substance (always tricky with 85db of background nastiness at NAMM), but now I’m home and have finally wired up my rack again, it feels great to have my main sound back in stereo, the loops separately pannable, and the option to post process everything again. This set up is so maleable. I need to work on a smaller version of this so I can do more of this on tour. The new rack bag will certainly help in Europe, but I still don’t think I can fly with much more than I’ve got here…

Anyway, I’m going to have fun getting reaquainted with my toys over the next few days… in the few minutes when I’m not teaching!

Soundtrack – Scritti Politti, ‘Cupid And Psyche’.

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Tour diary vol II

So, we were up to the Espresso Garden gig, which was lots of fun. The following night (Thursday) was another gig with Michael Manring, this time at The Brookdale Lodge – this place has a heck of a lot of weird mythology around it, involving mobsters, prostitutes, ghosts and god-knows-what-else. Very odd place.

As a gig venue, however, it rules. Firstly because dinner is served in the restaurant, which has a river running through the middle of it (I kid you not), and secondly because the music room has a great PA, a marvellous soundman, and a nice stage to play on.

Thanks to a borrowed mixer, I was able to do my ‘proper’ setup for the first time on the tour, with the Echoplexes in an auxiliary channel and the MPX-G2 in stereo. The sound was fantastic. Accugroove had lent me two identical cabinets to the ones I use at home, and a poweramp, so I was pretty much rocking.

The gig went well, though the big storm outside meant the audience wasn’t huge (brookdale is up in the Santa Cruz mountains, a pretty hazardous drive in the rain!)

So we’re up to Friday – Friday I set off from Santa Cruz, called in at the new AccuGroove world HQ (very nice it is too!) on my way up to meet Jeremy Cohen in Berkley. Jeremy and I have been chatting online for years, and have met up at past NAMM shows and last year in London when he and his wife were visiting. Now it was my turn to hang out on their turf, and then take Jeremy to see Kaki King at Freight and Salvage, a fantastic acoustic music club, with a lot of history, great sound and a fab view from everywhere in the room.

Saturday was masterclass day in San Jose – after Bob the original host falling ill, Mark Wright at AccuGroove became Mr Fixit and organised for the clinic to move to the Koinonia coffee shop, which was where the AccuParty in the evening was going to be anyway.

The day was a big success, the guys who came all asked lots of great questions, played well, and seemed to take lots away from it (if you were there, don’t forget to keep the discussions going over at the forum).

The clinic was followed by the AccuParty – a fun little hang out, time for people to try out the AccuGroove cabinets, and a chance for me to play some cool duets with Edo Castro.

Sunday – breakfast with the Turners, then left their lovely home and headed north to Novato to see more of my favourite people in California, Anderson Page, who works for Modulus and has been a good friend for many years, and Laura. After all the driving around gigging and teaching of the previous week, an evening in watching Pink Floyd live at Pompeii, drinking gorgeous wine (a present from Jim at the masterclass – future masterclass attendees take note!) and catching up was just what the doctor ordered. A marvellous evening on every level.

Monday morning I took my basses into Modulus – Joe Perman, who used to work there, has come back, and in the interim, my carved top fretted 6 was built, so he wanted a look at that, and while there sorted out the set up and intonation for me (thanks Joe!).

From there, I drove up to Sacramento to see Mike Roe. Mike’s the singer/guitarist in the 77s, who I’ve opened for in Sacramento before, and also in Orbis, an ambient side-project who opened for Michael Manring and I a couple of times. Dinner with Mike and Devon followed by watching about half of ‘Standing In The Shadows Of Motown’ made for another great evening.

Tuesday following breakfast I set off back to the Bay Area, calling in to see Michael Manring on the way, to discuss the next step in our plan for solo bass world domination. And then it was back to AccuGroove-land, for dinner with Mark Wright and family, and talking long into the night before flying home Wednesday.

All in all, a great trip – meeting up with so many great people in such a short space of time give me faith in the world. It often seems like a crappy place with the good people few and far between, but there are loads of ’em around. Much fine music was made, and much fun had.

Soundtrack – the CDs I took with me included – Talking Heads, ‘Stop Making Sense’; Athlete, ‘Vehicles and Animals’; Iain Archer, ‘Flood The Tanks’; Peter Gabriel, ‘Greatest Hits’; The Cure, ‘Greatest Hits’; Jing Chi, ‘3D’; Prefab Sprout, ‘Steve McQueen’; Julie Lee, ‘Stillhouse Road’; Pierce Pettis, ‘Everything Matters’; The Dum Dums, ‘It Goes Without Saying’; John Scofield, ‘Up All Night’; Bruce Cockburn, ‘Live’.

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Festive Fives Pt 2

Films (again, in no particular order)

School Of Rock
Harry Potter III
Dodgeball
Meangirls
Shrek II

Soundtrack – right now, some me-loops. Before that, Duran Duran, ‘Greatest’ (a pressie from me to the small person for Christmas); Kerry Getz, ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’; Top Banana radio’s non-stop christmas hits.

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Turning down gigs…

It’s been an interesting week work-wise. I got a phone-call last Tuesday from Carl Palmer, the drummer with 70s prog-rock legends, ELP, and 80s prog legends, Asia. Carl now has his own trio, which until recently Dave Marks – who I taught when he was studying at Basstech – was playing bass for. Dave left to take up a job at Basstech, and Carl had been recommended me via a few sources, aparently. Carl rang to find out if I’d be interested in joining the trio. Having been a big ELP fan in my teens (‘Pictures At An Exhibition’ got some major rotation on my record deck in the late 80s/early 90s), I was really up for meeting him and finding out more.

We met up on Thursday, to have a listen and chat about the gig – he lives pretty locally to me, and seems like a very nice bloke.

The music itself is mainly heavy rock reworkings of classical works, by the likes of Bartok, Prokofiev, Copeland etc. Most of it is at full-throttle, and while very exciting and energetic, a long way from the languid mellow stuff that I’ve spent the last five years getting good at…

So I was faced with a very odd decision – here’s a good paying high profile gig with a legendary drummer who seems like a very nice bloke, that I’m going to turn down… What?? But still I felt very comfortable with the decision. I’ve obviously been primarily a solo/duo player for some time now, but that was never tested until now due to not having been offered anything of this kind of size. Now that I have been, but am faced with the need to change my technique back to a full-on rock approach, and build up a huge amount of stamina to maintain that level of drive for almost two hours a night, I chose to stick on the path that I’ve been carving.

It’s not that I don’t want to work with other people – I’d still happily do sessions, and obviously do a fair few jazz and funk gigs with Jez Carr, Mike Haughton and our floating drum chair (which features some incredible players – Mike Sturgis, Tom Hooper, Phil Crabbe, Eddie John etc…) – but if the gig requires me to divert a lot of attention away from the path I’ve chosen, that I’d rather stick where I am.

It feels like a bit of a rite of passage. Four years ago, I’d have jumped at the chance, seeing it as a big step forward. Now, despite the obvious advantages of the gig, the distraction from what I’m doing was too great, and I’ve turned it down.

Am I nuts?

Soundtrack – Talking Heads, ‘Stop Making Sense’.

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Still can't believe he's gone

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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A big clearout…

…of old emails.

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

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

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

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

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

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OK did anyone video it??

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

So if anyone has it, that’d be great…

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

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A wet weekend in Heaven…

So Greenbelt‘s over for another year. Once again ’twas a fantastic festival. Definitely the best fest there is.

I was pretty exhausted when I arrived, having got back from Edinburgh, then gone to Southampton to play at Greyum and Chrissie’s wedding (which was a fantastic day), and had to jump straight into flyering/postering mode as my solo gig was on the Friday night. two minutes before I went on stage, a GB fire officer came in telling me they were about to remove my car with a crane as I was parked in a fire lane. so move car, rush back to do gig. Previous band overrun, quickest changeover possible, and nice big crowd. Lots of friendly faces (and no friendly faeces). About a minute into ‘Grace And Gratitude, I notice that the second Lexicon unit wasn’t working, so I looped the melody so I could get up and fix it (just plug the powerchord back in), but in getting up, I twatted my head off a TV set hanging over the stage, and nearly knocked myself out. doh!

middle of second tune, I realise that my Ebow is still in my jacket pocket, so more looping and shuffling ensues. All good fun. Many of the jokes from the Edinburgh show make their way in a modified form (tourettes removed), all goes very well.

finish at 10, pack up, and start compering in big acoustic venue at 11. First night was Peter Case, followed by Terry Callier followed by Julie Lee. good lord, what a remarkable night’s music. Terry was breathtakingly good. Lovely bloke too. Big success all-round. Compering’s lots of fun, and back stage crew are very friendly and helpful. Get to bed about 3

Saturday am is first rehearsal for Sunday morning service… ends up being about 5 hours of rehearsal on the Saturday… bit much, but sounding good.

Saturday night, The Low Country played on Stage 2 – fantastic gig, one of the best things on this year. More compering, this time Brian Houston, Rosie Thomas and Denison Witmer. Again, all fantastic. Nice to be compering on this stage rather than having to try and sound enthusiastic about generic rock shite on the mainstage played by people who look like potatoes. got to bed about 3.30.

Saturday as a whole though was spoilt by The Small Person having to head home due to the Aged Feline being v. ill. We’d had to take him to the vets after Edinburgh, not well at all, not eating. Turns out he’s got Pancreatitis, and Pneumonia, as complications of his Chronic Renal Failure. None of it is looking good for the little guy.

Sunday mornig was the service – the Greenbelt service is generally fabulous. This year the music was just me, two drummers and 15,000 singers, which was a fun gig to have! Lots of new tunes by Andy Thornton, and some old GB favourites. Fun to be sat next to the Archbishop of Canterbury, playing afro-cuban grooves… sort of fits into that ‘mark thatcher arrested for funding a military coup’ bracket of weird unpredictable scenarios.

The rest of sunday was a bit more relaxed, punctuated by regular calls to the small person to check on The Aged Feline’s condition, which was not good but stable. I was pretty exhausted all day, but didn’t got and see much so was able to relax a bit more before compering that evening. Three more marvellous things – Cathy Burton (great as always), Moya Brennan (interview plus a few songs to backing track – lovely person, fascinating story, hope she comes back with a band soon.) and Martyn Joseph. Brilliant as ever. another late night.

Planned a lie in on Monday, but Deb and Alice were packing up their tent next door at some ungodly hour. Woke up, went for breakfast with my mum (oh yes, hardcore festival going mum have we). saw Rob Jackson at lunch time playing solo – magical stuff, and very funny too. Then did my gig with Calamateur, AKA andrew howie, which went very well. His songs are just marvellous, and the album’s a must.

An afternoon of wandering was followed by another performance cafe gig, this time with Andrew Buckton, who has the ability to make me cry with his songs while I’m playing them – not great when you’re trying to read chord charts. Magical stuff.

From that gig I rushed up to the mainstage to catch as much as possible of Show Of Hands – possibly the greatest live act in Britain. A massive inspiration in terms of their ability to connection with their audience, controlled virtuosity like a couple of internationally renowned concert soloists, and a great sense of humour. I come away from their gigs feeling like a total amateur. I’m pretty good at what I do, but they take the art of performing to a whole new level. I hope I never miss another London gig of theirs…

They were followed by Ron Sexsmith and Jamelia – Ron was fab (I’m a fan anyway) and Jamelia was agood festival ending gig – loads of people digging it, she had a great band with her, top stuff. We closed out the festival in Centaur with a great jazz singer called Polly Gibbons.

As you’ll notice, I didn’t get to a single seminar or worship event over the weekend – more evidence that I’d taken on far too much. next year, I’ll drop one or more of those commitments, or at least refuse to rehearse for the service! :o) But all in all it was a great fest. It’s lovely to be at a festival where I know literally hundreds of people, and have most of my favourite people in the world on one site. Great to catch up with other lovely people who are equally busy and to meet some new lovely people.

The big shadow over the whole weekend though for us was The Aged Feline. He’s coming home from the vets today, and the future looks bleak, and very short. Please keep the little guy in your thoughts and prayers – the last thing we want is for him to be in any pain or discomfort.

soundtrack – Moya Brennan, ‘Two Horizons’; The Low Country, ‘The Dark Road’; The Cure, ‘The Cure’ (thanks Greg!); the two CD compilations I made to play between the acts at Greenbelt…

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Too long in the wasteland…

…out of blog-dom. So let’s catch up.

When did I blog last? er, 25th, so let’s start from there…

Friday 25th was Rob’s leaving do – Rob’s a friend from church, moving away from London down to Devon (wise man, methinks), and it was lovely to see so many friends turn out to give him a good send off. He’ll be missed…

Saturday 26th – Masterclass at Colchester Academy Of Modern Music‘s Bass Day. Lesson number one in the Steve-makes-mistakes-so-you-can-learn-from-them book is always check the address of the venue – I got an address off the website for what I assumed was the college venue, but was actually the home of the organiser. Got there, rang him, and was fortunately only 5 minutes away. Lesson two is not to trust the RAC website’s directions to anywhere – very shoddy indeed, and resulted in a 45 minute detour on a journey that should’ve taken less than 2 hours anyway…

However, the masterclass went really well – seems like a great little set up at CAMM, run by good people. The questions asked were good, and we were able to talk a lot about the process of learning an instrument and how to apply practice material to real music… A fine day.

This week I’ve been to a couple of gigs – the first was G3 at The Albert Hall – G3 on this tour is Robert Fripp, Steve Vai and Satch. Fripp was up first, and was, as expected, remarkable, playing a beautiful beguiling, deep, rich soundscape, to an audience half captivated, half disinterested. Breathtaking stuff, but pearls before swine methinks for much of the audience. Then Vai came on – did a solo intro on a triple-necked guitar, before getting his band up on stage. Now I had high expectations of Vai’s set – I know he’s an incredibly gifted technician on the guitar and have heard some stuff by him that I really liked, but tonight was a bit of a disappointment. Actually a huge disappointment. Not helped by possibly the worst mix I’ve ever heard in a major concert hall – no drums, very little bass, a tiny bit of keys and second guitar and then Steve’s guitar ripping your face off. And it’s not like I had some weird seats up in the gods – I was not far behind the sounddesk, so apparently in a good aural vantage point. Anyway, the material didn’t grab me at all either, and the shredding got tired very quickly. Especially following Fripp, it seemed unbelieveably dated and teenage. It’s a shame, cos I really wanted to like it, but it so didn’t happen for me. That coupled with the fan on the front of the stage blowing Steve’s hair back… oops.

Last on was Joe Satriani – This is the fourth time I’ve seen satch, and the third time in 18 months, and by far the best. His current band of Matt Bissonette on Bass, Jeff Campitelli on drums and Gaylan Henson on second guitar is, IMO, his strongest ever, the tunes were there, the shredding was well placed, the mix was better, the interplay between the musicians was great, and Fripp joined in on some numbers towards the end of the set. The playing was a bit freer than before, with Joe giving Jeff and Matt a fair bit of space to play, deservedly so, as they are definitely one of the finest old school heavy rock rhythm sections I’ve ever heard.

The encore was matt and jeff with all three guitarists doing Ice Nice, Red (a King Crimson number) and Neil Young’s Rockin’ In The Free World – apart from the obviously surreal experience of seeing Fripp and the Shredders takling Neil Young, it was a great choice of tunes, and Free World an inspired choice of closing number. The aftershow was fun too, with a chance to catch up with Jeff and Matt and Matt’s wife, and see Jakko, Clive and a few other old friends too…

Wednesday night was an altogether more satisfying musical experience, watching Spearhead at the Jazz Cafe (thanks to Deb and Alice for the ticket!) – one of the finest live bands on the planet, they were well on form tonight, if a little loud. A heavier reggae content than the last couple of gigs I’ve seen, they were nonetheless as groovalicious as ever, with Franti’s tales of his recent trip to Iraq an inspiration to everyone there. Very late finish though – why on earth did they start at 9.30 if they wanted to play for three hours? surely starting an hour earlier would have made sense…

Which brings us to last night’s gig, an improv sesh with Filomena, Orphy, Dudley, Roger and Roland, along with some improv theatre and dance stuff. A slightly shakey start before the gig got underway due to a couple of misunderstandings about the nature of the gig, but the gig itself was fantastic – great players, lovely people, some marvellous music and surprisingly engaging dance and theatre stuff. All in all, a marvellous night. It’s always great to catch up with the lovely musicians on these gigs, and Fil gave me space to play a solo tune from the new album, which was a great plug (and I sold a few CDs afterwards too… :o)

anyway, in between all those events, I’ve spent the last week doing album/tour/promo stuff – emailing radio, sending out CDRs, ringing venues etc. all trying to get this bass-show on the road! Things are looking good!

Soundtrack – Cathy Burton, ‘Speed Your Love’; Muriel Anderson, ‘Heartstrings’; me, ‘Lessons Learned From An Aged Feline Pt 1’ and of course more of the new album.

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