Yesterday I reinstalled the chat module to my forum – I had it up there a while ago, and we had a run of really fun and interesting live chats. There’s one scheduled for this evening at 9pm, UK time, so if you’re signed up to the forum, log in then, and if you’re not, sign up now! :o)
Another preview for all Last.fm users…
I’ve just uploaded Lessons Learned From The Fairly Aged Felines to Last.fm, so you’re a subscriber, you can head over and listen to three full tracks, and 30 seconds of all the others, just to get a flavour of what marvellousness is available if you order to new album ahead of time. :o)
If you’re not up to speed with last.fm if an online streaming radio site that’s free to sign up to and use. The way it works is you download a plug in for your media player of choice (iTunes, winamp, WMP or whatever) and it then keeps a log of all the music you listen to, and generates custom radio stations based on the taste of other people who listen to the same stuff as you! It’s fantastic, and the stats are kinda interesting too. Well worth joining and geeking out on.
So, if you’re already there have a listen, and if you’re not sign up THEN have a listen. :o)
and after that, you can hope over to my online shop, order ‘Behind Every Word’, and download the whole of ‘Lessons Learned From The Fairly Aged Felines’ straight away. And get MP3s of two tracks from Behind Every Word to preview before the album gets sent to you at the end of June. How exciting!
New Album – order today! :o)
FINALLY, as my earlier message said, I’ve upgraded my server (email me if you’re looking for webspace, it’s the best deal I’ve come across, and the tech support is fantastic) so have now got my new album, ‘Behind Every Word’ available for advance ordering! YAY! How exciting!
To order it click here – the click on the album cover, register, and then use paypal to pay, with either a paypal account, or just a credit or debit card (you don’t need to register with them to do that).
AND, if you do order it before the release date of June 20th, you’ll get ‘Lessons Learned From The Fairly Aged Felines (Lessons Learned Pt III)’ absolute free as a download album. That’s another hour of great music for free. Every time I record an album, I record way more than will fit on one album. So I choose the ones that fit together as whole, and then release a second CD, often with a different overall feel, as a bonus disc with the album. Lessons Learned Pts I and II are both fab (I get quite a few emails from people saying that LL Pt II is their favourite of my albums), so this isn’t just outtakes and nonsense.
AND, the zip file that the album comes in also includes MP3s of two tracks from ‘Behind Every Word’ so you can listen to them straight away.
So get to it – go buy it, it’s great!
The Master part 2
Well, the mastered CDR was great, except two tweaks that needed doing, so a quick call was made to Denis, with further clarification in an email, and yesterday, two v. high res MP3s arrive for me to proof. Sounding much better, this morning I email Denis to confirm that the album’s a goer, and he’ll now send one to me, and one to ICC who are doing the duplication.
Yay!
Two gigs
one mine, one not mine.
Thursday morning I get an email from Todd Reynolds – the amazing violinist who’s doing the RC gig next week – asking if I wanted to go and see him playing at the QEH with the Michael Gordon band that evening. Of course I did!
Got to the gig slightly late due to lack of parking spaces, but walked in to the lovely sound of Max De Wardener and his band. The fact that he was playing Cloud Chamber bowls (a Harry Partch-invented instrument) warmed me to the group anyway, but the music was sublime. Really gorgeous ambient, occasionally minimalist contemporary classical stuff, but with a kit drummer which gave it a post-rock feel at times. Magical stuff.
And Michael Gordon’s band similarly occupied a space between chamber music and post rock, but way more to the RAWK end. I was actually quite surprised as how conventional the assignment of the roles in the band was – bass playing low notes, drums playing typical kit rhythms, keyboards playing pads and ostinatos, guitar doing big guitar and twiddling and violin as the dominant solo voice… not much swapping around within that, but I guess those are the parameters that Michael has set himself to work within, and the music was fantastic. At times majestic, scary, subtle, gentle, bombastic and very clever. A most enjoyable gig. Definitely the kind of thing that would appeal just as much to fans of God Speed You Black Emperor or Sigur Ros as to those of Michael Nyman, Philip Glass etc.
Friday was the me-gig. Well, not just me – it was a duo gig with lovely saxophonist, Andy Williamson. The gig was at Merton College in Oxford, where Andy had studied some time in the late 17th century, and was part of their arts festival.
Merton College is a gorgeous place, though it definitely looks more like Hogwarts than a place to learn modern stuff. I was half expecting to see Prof. Sprout or someone wander out of one of the ancient doorways. The big strangeness was being around students again – the thought that they’re almost young enough to legally be my kids was very strange, particularly when Andy and I nipped into the bar (£2.10 for a G&T and an orange juice???? how do they make any money at all??)
Anyway, the gig went very well – we only had half an hour to play, and the set list was –
Grace And Gratitude (me solo)
Amo Amatis Amare – (andy joined in, doing a fab job on this)
Scott Peck – (a rather different version with extended sax ending with lots of loopage that faded out and left Andy to wander up the venue playing a GORGEOUS unaccompanied sax solo, using the natural ambience of the room to mesmeric effect.)
Lovely – (Andy learnt Theo’s sax line note for note, only played on tenor instead of soprano. Another great job.
and to finish, we did People Get Ready, which we’d played together at the Edinburgh Festival last year.
All in all a top gig – Andy acquitted himself admirably, played a blinder, and the audience seemed to enjoy it. Much fun, hopefully to be repeated fairly soon!
The Master
About two minutes after posting that last blog, I checked today’s mail and found the Master CDR of the album, back from Denis – I’m not sure exactly what kind of alchemical scariness goes on at the mastering stage, but it’s remarkable the ‘sheen’ that it gives to a recording. It’s often a layer of polish that you can’t even predict being there hearing the original, but when you A/B the two, the change is amazing. It’s very similar to seeing before and after photos that Steve Brown has been tweaking – he takes great pictures anyway, then drops them into photoshop and, even on the ones where he’s not changing the background, does these magical tweaks that make everything look shiny and lovely and perfect.
So for the next 70 minutes I’ll be sat here listening through the CD, making sure it all does what I want it to do, and finishing off the artwork so that it can all be sent to those lovelies at ICC to be turned into proper CDs. How exciting!!
Oh, for those of you that care, the cheque finally arrived for the tour with Theo in February… Yay, money! Theo and I can feed our huge families now…
New track on MySpace…
Just added a new track to my MySpace page. It’s a track called ‘Scott Peck’, which features the truly marvellous BJ Cole on pedal steel. He’s great, he is.
The bio on the page has been updated as well, to include the info about the new album, and this quote –
“Steve Lawson is a brilliant musician. I’ve known about him and listened to him for many years. He may not be one of the most famous bassists but he is definitely one of the most talented.” – Victor Wooten
Which is nice.
Enjoy the track…
London Guitar Show
I have a love/hate relationship with music trade shows. On the one hand, I hate the noise, the nasty conference centres, the being bombarded with information about stuff I really don’t want. I hate the idea that’s being sold that it’s possible to tell how good a particular guitar/bass/amp is in a room with an ambient noise level of 90dB.
But on the other hand, it’s a lovely chance to catch up with some friends I don’t get to see too often, occasionally it’s nice to check out some new toys, and very occasionally to hear some nice music.
Today scored pretty well on the friends front – always nice to see Nick Owen (used to work in the bass centre, now doing sessions and stuff, and working part time for House Music), and Dave Marks doing his demo thang for The Guitar Institute. Bernie Goodfellow was there as always, and he had Laurence Cottle demoing on his stand. Davide Mantovani was demoing for MarkBass – I hadn’t seen Davide in ages so ’twas v. nice to catch up with him. And then there’s Steve Harvey and the rest of the crowd from Bass Guitar Magazine.
On top of that it’s the one day in the year when I actually get recognised by anyone – having demoed at previous incarnations of the show for Bassist and Guitarist Magazines, as well as for previous gear sponsors, I’ve been seen around at these shows for quite a while, so get to let people know what I’m up to who otherwise don’t get to find out.
On the new music gear front, my purchase this year was very pedestrian but v. useful – a new music stand. All those of you reading this who study with me will know just how shitty my old music stand is. So there’ll be a lovely sparkly new one here for us to use at your next lesson. Yay!
I spent a total of less than four hours at the show, and was exhausted by the end of it. How do I ever cope with NAMM each year??? Actually, I think the fact that all the floors at NAMM are carpeted has a big impact – soaks up the sound and makes it a lot easier on your feets.
It's the Final Mixdown (du du duhhh duhh)
I’m in the middle of mixing down the multitrack sessions to normal CD stereo audio files, so they can be sent away to be mastered on a remote Scottish Island.
I was having some trouble with the mixes having some weird noise on them, as though the speakers were damaged slightly. So as an experiment I tried ‘locking’ all the effects on each track – that means the computer pre-computes what each bit of processing does to the file so that when it plays it it’s not trying to play the file and do the processing at the same time. Hey presto, no more weird noises on the mixdowns. yay for me!
And once this is done, if there’s any day left, I think I’m going to head into town (that London town, not Southgate town) for the afternoon to celebrate. :o)
Remembering tunes
Been rehearsing with Julie McKee today, for our gig at the National Theatre on May 31st. It’s the first gig I’ve done in ages where I’ve actually had to remember anything more than about 16 bars of music!
It’s great, in that it’s going to stretch me, and I’m having to think creatively about how to do certain arrangements with the Looperlative, and it’s also good not having to worry about the tunes for most of the song. The results are really cool, and songs we’ve got on the list are pretty broad in scope (no NWA tunes though…)
So I’ve now got a list of tunes that I need to finish off, work out the chords for, and REMEMBER! Whoever heard of actually having to remember anything? Pah!
…and yes, I did go and vote when the rehearsal was over…