Music News – Page 48 – stevelawson.net

June 21, 2006

Fret Phobia gig pt 1

So while a nation of armchair critics parked their carcasses in front of the TV to watch some football, a lovely select group of more discerning music lovers came out to see Ned and I in Cambridge on the first night of the Fret Phobia tour. And much fun it was too – I played solo (even did ‘The Inner Game’ which I haven’t played live for about three years!), then Ned played solo, and then we did some most enjoyable improv stuff together, with me looping and layering bass, guitar and voice into a lovely mush…

So, if you’re near, don’t miss the rest of the Fret Phobia gigs – tonight we’re at Darbucka, Recycling.

see you there!

June 19, 2006

The New Standard…

The New Standard – that’s the name of the show that Julie McKee and I are doing at Edinburgh this year – it’s a show over unlikely cover-versions, where we take songs from all over the musical map, and treat them as though they were ‘standards’ – ie, we just take the melody, words and chord progression and do what we want with them.

We’ve ended up with songs by Stevie Wonder and Slipknot, Curtis Mayfield and The Cure, Green Day, Kate Bush, Gorillaz… etc. etc. It’s a great set, and we’ve done top notch arrangements. If you head over to thenewstandard.co.uk you’ll find yourself on our myspace page, which has four tunes on it for you to have a listen to. They’re just demo live recordings, in my studio while we were rehearsing and working out arrangements. Hope you enjoy them!

While I’m here, here are the dates for this week’s gigs – hope to see some of you there –

Tuesday 20th June – CB2, Cambridge. Doors 7.30pm, tickets Â£6
Wednesday 21st June – Recycle Collective at Darbucka, with Special guests BJ Cole and Emily Burridge. Doors 7pm, Tickets Â£6.
Thursday 22nd – Escobar, Market Street, Wakefield, Yorkshire – 01924 332000
Friday 23rd – Oceans Eleven, 1-2 Church Walk Leeds, 07906 140 294
Saturday 24th – (2pm) Riffs Guitar School, Stockport, 0161 484 5208
Saturday 24th (8pm) Iguana, Manchester,0161 881 9338 tickets Â£3 adv. Â£5 on the door.
Thursday 29th – Traders, Petersfield, 01730 233 022 Â£5 adv/Â£6 door.

June 14, 2006

CDs are here! CDs are here!

Yay! Just as I was teaching this morning, a TNT delivery lorry pulls up outside and a man with a palette and a hand truck thing arrives at the door, bearing CDs by the shit-load. Loads of copies of ‘Behind Every Word’.

the first load of orders have been posted already (you’ll have received an email if yours has been sent – if it hasn’t it’ll go first thing tomorrow), and because the ‘release date’ is the 20th, it means that if you order the CD now, not only will it go out in the next day’s post, but you’ll still get the free download album. How great is that? Go on, you know you want to… :o)

It’s been a busy couple of days – I’ve been booked to play at Greenbelt at the end of August, and have a gig or two in Italy the second weekend in July. Now the CD’s here, I need to get sending that out to press peoples, along with the press release for the Edinburgh festival gigs… I’m going to be sick of jiffy bags before too long…

Anyway, off you go and order the new CD, fair blogling.

June 10, 2006

Last night's gig in St Ive's.

Another fun gig in St Ive’s, Cambridgeshire last night.

I was added to the bill pretty late – I was planning on going to the gig anyway, was invited to play and thought it’d be fun. And it was.

The main attraction was Tim Bowness and Peter Chilvers, who had Michael Bearpark guesting on guitar with them, and made a delicious noise. Pete is a fantastically delicate and skilled piano player, with the best piano sample sound I’ve ever heard, as well as some clever processing in Kontakt (I think that’s how its spelt) – a very clever bit of software that allows you to write ‘improvising’ algorithms.

My own set went well – Behind Every Word, Highway One, Scott Peck and Deeper Still (Highway One had been promised to Catherine StreetTeam for a long time, and I finally got round to playing it live again. Haven’t played it in ages, but played a fine version. Yay!

All in, a fine night out.

June 8, 2006

Gig preparations

Just been practicing for tonight’s gig supporting BJ Cole at the Half Moon – I’m still learning the songs from Behind Every Word, trying out some new arrangement things, working out how to make the tunes as good as they can be live.

Support gigs are always interesting because the audience have certain stylistic expectations based on the headline act. Fortunately, BJ’s music background is so varied that anyone going to see him is surely going to be expecting anything from solo steel guitar arrangements of Debussy tunes to full on clubby dance stuff. Hopefully my noises will meet with appreciative ears.

See you there.

June 4, 2006

30 second preview clips of 'Behind Every Word'

I’ve just uploaded ‘Behind Every Word’ to last.fm – if you had over to the album page there, and are registered with them, you can hear three full tracks as well as 30 second clips of all the tracks. And, of course, they may well appear in your regular last.fm radio play lists. ;o)

…and once you’ve listened there you can head over to the online shop and buy it!

How exciting!

June 1, 2006

Photos from National Theatre gig.

One of the regulars – Cryptic – over at the forum just posted this link to some photos of yesterday’s gig – there are some fantastic photos there, though it’s clear that I a) need a hair-cut, and b) need some new things to wear on stage!

‘Twas a fab gig, and the perfect warm up for our Edinburgh run in August. I’m looking forward to it even more now!

June 1, 2006

Debut gig – much fun!

Julie and I got through our first gig together unscathed! What fun! The set list, as I said, was a mixture of jazz stuff such as ‘Like Someone In Love’ and ‘What A Wonderful World’ coupled with a load of less likely candidates from The Cure, Slipknot, Green Day, The Police etc.

There were a couple of expected loop gremlins (first gig going without a hitch? yeah, right.) but nothing that spoilt the gig, and the audience seemed to really enjoy it. A great first outing, methinks. (if you were there, feel free to post your thoughts in the comments section.)

And in other music news, Cd sales are going really well – thanks so much to all those of you who’ve already bought it. The feedback on ‘Lessons Learned Pt III’ is great too, which bodes well for the CD of ‘Behind Every Word’ arriving. (you can post reviews of LL Pt III in the new shop, if you want… or, for that matter, of any of the other CDs – I wasn’t able to copy the reviews over from the old shop database, sadly.

Anyway, keep telling your friends about the new stuff, point them to the MySpace page to hear some tracks from it, and then send them to the shop. :o)

Soundtrack – Jeff Taylor, ‘Demo 2005’; James Taylor and Joni Mitchell, ‘Live, 1971’.

May 31, 2006

Gig tonight…

Just about to start rehearsing for tonight’s gig with Julie McKee. I’m so looking forward to this one – I rarely bother to learn other people’s songs, as the only gigs I tend to do these days that aren’t my own music or improvised are jazz gigs where I’ve got charts. But as there aren’t many Green Day, Slipknot, Cure or John Martyn songs in the Real Book, I’ve had to actually learn them.

Please come down if you’re in London at 6pm – it’s at the National Theatre Foyer, free to get in, and will feature much bass and vocal loopage. Go on, you know you want to.

May 31, 2006

fun in the StevieWorld chatroom…

Thanks to everyone who dropped by for a chat last night – much fun was had by all. At 9, it seemed like I was going to be on my own, but it filled up and the chat went on for hours.

I’ll schedule another one soon, but feel free to use the chat room at any other time, if you can miraculously find more than one person online at a time!