the soundtrack to the day you wish you'd had
All the latest news about musical goings-on…
Another interview with me online – this one’s at FretlessBass.com. It was a form interview, where they just sent 18 questions (the same 18 they send to everyone) for me to answer by email, so there’s no to-ing and fro-ing on the answers, which is a shame as that’s where the interestings stuff comes from, but it’s OK.
(and yes, Steve, I’ve told them they need to put a picture credit on for those photos, fear not.)
Looks like those really stupid hand baggage laws that were introduced a few weeks ago are about to be relaxed. And not before time.
This paragraph is especially heartening –
“Musical instruments will also be allowed on board again, after professional musicians complained the measures were hindering them”
Will it make me want to fly round Europe? Nope – gimme the train, fo’ sho’.
But for musos that do fly, it’s a blessing…
Next week’s Recycle Collective gig gets the recommended gig treatment again in Time Out this week. Here’s what they say –
Steve Lawson’s Recycle Collective/Jason Yarde/Leo Abrahams –
“Improvised, organic electronica from a fabulous trio featuring bassist and live sampler Lawson, producer/saxophonist Yarde and Brian Eno’s guitarist Abrahams.”
so there you go – we’re fabulous, it’s official, so you can’t miss it!
Just added to the PillowMountainRecords.co.uk – 10 things you really ought to know about Steve Lawson.
:o)
Just had another review of Behind Every Word appear on line. This ones in Aural Innovations e-zine. It’s a very long-running zine that started out as a printed mag and covers Prog/Space-Rock/Ambient etc. – the sort of stuff Stuart Maconie plays on The FreakZone, which is on now… AND IS PLAYING ME AT THE MOMENT!! Wahey!! That’s the first time I’ve ever switched the radio on and heard me on at that very moment! How exciting!! :o) He’s playing ‘Nobody Wins Unless Everybody Wins’.
Right, that’s over – what fun! Anyway, that’s the kind of thing that Jerry Kranitz at Aural Innovations writes about, and he’s been a good solid Stevie-supporter for many years, and has given Behind Every Word another lovely review. Nice man.
So, two things to do – read the review and listen again to this week’s Freak Zone, then email the show and ask them to play more tracks! Oh, and if you haven’t yet got the CD and are inspired by Jerry’s delicious review, you can head over to the online shop here and buy it!
Bob’s just released another Looperlative update – this thing just keeps getting better! Two great new features, one being a ‘bounce’ feature, where you can record from one or more channels to an empty channel, to either consolidate loads of tracks into one (to free up track space) or you can sample from the middle of a long loop a much shorter section, but you also get to keep the first loop (unlike a destructive resample function) – coming out of bounce mode mutes the stuff you were playing into it, but the tracks are still there unless you choose to delete them. Very handy for mangling long loops, or imposing rhythmic form onto abstract stuff.
The other new function is a ‘catch’ setting for the volume and feedback controls – so if you’re adjusting the volume on lots of tracks, when you turn one off, then go to the next track, the volume control doesn’t start at ‘off’, it waits until the value of the pedal matches the current value of the track, and only then does it do anything. This is SO useful.
This are fun times to be into looping – lots of great new musicians coming out doing loop things (JazzShark went to see Richard Bona last night and reported back that he was doing some delicious loopage), and plenty of developments going on in the looping technology front too. I still have come across a laptop set up that I’d be happy with, but in the dedicated hardware looper world, the Looperlative is a LONG way out in front at the moment – definitely the way to go. (and if you do plan to get one and you’re in the UK, email me first…)
And if you just want to see what it can do, come on down to the next Recycle Collective gig on Sept 20th!
talking of things Recycled – Si Smith’s blog has a review of Greenbelt on it, in which he quite rightly observes that the RC gig was ‘definitely the best thing I saw all weekend’. An uncharacteristically wise moment for the boy Smith (interesting fact – Si used to be black). while you there, have a look at his illustrations, he’s wonderful.
In my post-Greenbelt blogging frenzy, I forgot to blog about the NT gig with the lovely Theo. It’s amazing that we keep getting booked there, given that most of the music there is either solo classical guitar, or standards. We seem to get away with playing original spacey ambient loveliness in a straight setting. Still, the audience seem to like it, we like it, so what’s not to love?
Anyway, the gig went really well – it’s always too quiet in there, thanks to the powers that be complaining about the volume, but that aside, it was such a joy to be back playing with Theo – he’s an exceedingly nice bloke, and a fantastic musician and improvisor. It’s a really natural musical hookup. Most of the gig was freshly improvised stuff, with a couple of ‘Open Spaces tunes thrown in’ (Flutter, Bernie and Lovely), a solo tune from me (Behind Every Word) and our duo arrangement of ‘All I Know’ from Theo’s excellent Heart Of The Sun album. All in a most enjoyable gig, with a mix of friends and strangers in the audience, many of whom were most complimentary about the music afterwards. We even sold a pile of CDs, which is fairly rare for a foyer gig…
No doubt we’ll be back there soon.
Behind Every Word is now available at CDBaby.com – click here to head to the page – there you can hear 2 minutes of every tune, and read about it. And if you’ve already got the Cd, you can post a user review at the bottom of the page (just as you can in my webshop too!)
So you can now get Behind Every Word on my site, CDBaby, at gigs and from Ray’s Jazz Store on Charing Cross Road in London. What are you waiting for??