Category: Musing on Music

Posted on

Time to instigate a gig checklist…

Each time something like this happens, I vow to never let it happen again… but it does. For last night’s gig at the Perseverence in Marylebone (that’s in London, worldwide bloglings), I managed to forget all but one of my foot controllers – no midi board for the Looperlative, no expression pedals, no volume pedal… just the two button footswitch that i use for the Lexicon… which did save my arse, as it meant I could still do rhythmic loops, which I could then rerecordf rom the Lexicon into the Looperlative. It made for an interesting gig, which was webcast (sorry I didn’t let you know before…) and I think will be archived somewhere to be watched at a later date… I’ll post the link, once I’ve checked out the general levels of crapness on it…

As it was Lo. played pretty well, considering I was without hoof-controls. And I did a couple of nice improv-y things at the beginning, including one based on Bach’s Cello Suite no. 1 in G, that I’ve done a couple of times before (with the best version I’ve done being the one at Tuesday’s gig at the Spitz).

So I’ll comment again on the show, once I’ve watched it back. The audience, however, were lovely – almost all friends and some people I haven’t seen in ages, which was particularly pleasing.

But I really have to be more vigilant about what I need to pack for gigs! doh!

Posted on

Greenbelt round-up…

So Greenbelt – another fab weekend. This year’s them was ‘Heaven In Ordinary’ – I didn’t like it when they suggested it last year, but it’s what Greenbelt is, an ordinary world full of heavenly loveliness. At least, it is for those of us who’ve been going there for years and know a million people (bit tougher for those peeps who are there for the first time and spend the weekend meeting a million new peoples…)

Anyway, we got there thursday evening, set up the tent.

Friday was spent catching up with friends and getting ready for the first gig of the weekend that both Lo. and I were playing at – a mainstage set with Sarah Masen. The first nice surprise was how well bands are looked after on mainstage – lots of lovely roadies and stage managers sorting everything out. Good peoples. The set went really well – was a whole lot of fun, and the crowd was HUGE for a first-band-on. Sarah sang beautifully. All good nothing bad.

The best thing about that was that we then had the rest of the night off, and were able to see a bit of Over The Rhine, and then all of Billy Bragg’s set. He was, as expected, outstanding. Funny, engaging, moving, all good things. Couple of great new songs, fab versions of old songs. He just confirmed why he’s one of my favourite live acts in the whole world, and one of my favourite guitarists too.

Onto Saturday, which started as Friday ended, with Billy Bragg, doing a talk about the campaign for a British Bill of Rights. Interesting stuff, if not without some unanswered questions (especially his attachment to the notion of a new inclusive english national pride to replace the cynical racist nastiness of the BN/P et al.)

Anyway, that was great, fascinating stuff. Following that was The Rising – Martyn Joseph’s songwriters in the round session that he does every year – fascinating stuff as usual, with BB, Amy Wadge and the bloke from Willard Grant…

After that much mellowness ensued, hanging with friends, eating lovely food, until it was time to get ready for a busy evening, firstly my gig with Ric Hordinski and then the Recycle Collective. Always a highlight of Greenbelt for me, the RC gig was a blinder, featuring me, Lo, Ric, Andrea Hazell and Patrick Wood. Much lovely music followed, and Patrick in particular was on incredible form. A real triumph.

Sunday was meant to be my mellow day, but after the previous night’s gig, Ric asked if I’d play with him again in the Performance Cafe, and I’m v. glad I did, as it was probably the best gig we did – we rocked! Great reaction from the Performance Cafe crowd too.

After that I was supposed to be compering but managed to delegate and get some time off for buying fairtrade shoes and hanging out with lovelies again. Got to see Sarah Masen play solo in the Perf. Cafe (aside from a couple of song with the lovely lady vocalistes) and she sounded great, as did Emily Barker who was on before her.

Late nights at GB are spent in the Organic Beer Tent – friendships are made, beer is drunk and the world is put right.

Monday was back to more gigs – I was compering in the Perf. Cafe, and got to introduce one of my highlights of the weekend – Nizar Al-Issa (though I got his name wrong on the intro – sorry, Nizar!) – he’s a singer and oud player, and a really great musician. Beautiful haunting music.

After him was Lo and I doing our main duo gig, playing to a nice full tent of peoples, and we played pretty well. Lo’s piano songs being especially great.

after that I got to see another one of my highlights – Beth Rowley, a fantastic singer with an amazing band (it helps that her guitarist and drummer, paul and phil wilkinson are two of my favouritest musicians anywhere). Really great stuff.

the evening was spent watching first Iain Archer, then Duke Special on the mainstage – both long time faves of mine, and both on fine form, playing to a huge crowd who loved them muchly. The headliners on the night were of no interest to me, so we headed for the beer tent. After being there an hour, Lo and I got a call asking us to go and play the late night cabaret (playing to about 1500 people)… after 2 pints… hmmm, we did it, and pulled it off. ‘Twas a little ragged, but fine.

And thus ended another great greenbelt. Now it’s time to buy a load of the talks I missed as downloads.

See you there next year!

Posted on

What greeted me on arriving at Greenbelt…




Steve Lawson again

Originally uploaded by jystewart

So I back at Greenbelt; my 16th, I think… We arrived last night, late thanks to some weirdness with a tent that was being posted to us (was sent to arrive Wednesday, ‘arrived’ Thursday but strangely nobody heard the courier ring the bell at the flat, called the courier company, who offered to deliver it on Thursday, no good, what else? can meet driver, called driver, met driver, suddenly we’re 3 hours late leaving London…) – so we set up the tent in the dark. But it’s up.

Anyway, we wander into the contributors area, and find a little display for a virtual greenbelt band – little figurines of musicians that you can compile into your favourite GB line-up… and one of them is me! That’s it in the picture – nice detail with the painted nails… :o)

The gig today with Sarah Masen went great – lots of fun playing on the big big stage. Now we’re settling in for the night, and are off to see Over The Rhine and Billy Bragg. Hurrah!

Posted on

RIP Max Roach…

Max Roach, jazz legend, bop pioneer and possibly the greatest drum soloist of all time died today.

There are so few great drum soloists, and by drum soloists, I don’t mean metal drummers playing really fast rudiments round the kit and then twirling their sticks. I mean kit drummers who can play solo compositions. Terry Bozzio does it, and there’s a great drummer in Denmark whose name escapes me but I’ve got an album by who does it too, and a handful of others, but Max was the daddy, for sure.

There are so few musicians of his generation left – Sonny Rollins is still going… i can’t think of many other jazz legends that were active in the early 50s that are out there. Every year we lose a few more. I never got to see Max Roach play. I saw Rollins play a few years ago, and though his band were pretty uninspiring, it was still a joy to hear THAT sound, that phrasing live. I got to play with Elvin Jones before he died, at a masterclass – I was rubbish, that much is a given, but it was still a huge honour and i’ve blogged before about what an amazing lesson it was for me in the generousity of spirit of truly great musicians…

Anyway, two bits of Max Roachness – first, here’s Questlove from The Roots talking about Max, and then here’s a clip from YouTube of Max playing a hi-hat solo.

Posted on

Wonderful 3-part half hour interview with David Torn…

Just found this, accidentally, on YouTube – here’s part 1 of the interview, which is in 3 10 minute segments.

Torn, for those of you that aren’t familiar with his work, an american guitarist and sonic architect whose influence runs fairly deep through the stranger end of what I do. He’s also one of the nicest and funniest people i’ve ever met, and more fun to hang out with that just about anyone on the planet.

If you’re investigating his music, all his albums are worth a look, and search under ‘Splattercell’ as well as under David Torn as that was his AKA for a while in the late 90s/early 2000s…

Anyway, the interview is well worth a watch, and his description of playing in an improvising band and his desire to get away from it being shackled to the labels of ‘free jazz’ and ‘avante garde’ reveal why he’d be in the top 3 or 4 biggest influences on what I’ve been trying to do with the Recycle Collective…

Posted on

improv fun on a restaurant gig

Had a most enjoyable gig this evening, with Luca Sirianni and Davide Giovannini – it was at Smolenski’s on the Strand, so was a restaurant gig – quite an upmarket restaurant gig, but people were still eating while we played in the background. Anyway, it’s Luca’s gig, but he’s pretty open with what we can do, so lots of lovely improv ensued, including a couple of things i hope I can still remember tomorrow cos they’ll turn into new tunes. Harmonically we’re able to get into some great places, as Luca tends to play quite high guitar parts, and has a clearer more trebley sound that most jazzers, which means that we can get away with being more ‘out’ without it really clashing. We did a mad version of Summertime to close the gig, which went all over the place, all with a rather lovely R ‘n’ B groove… much fun.

When i got home, I found in my inbox one of those lovely emails that really makes you think – it was from a musician friend I deeply admire and respect, taking me to task for being particularly uncharitable about Babyshambles in a post a few months back. His email was friendly and encouraged me to check out what the musicians in the band are up to, given that his experience of them has been really positive, both to listen to and play with… I like it when people throw things into the mix that mess with how I previously saw things. I find it very difficult to get past Doherty’s public persona and the nonsense of watching someone completely wasted trying to play – it’s bad enough when it’s someone you know is a genius, let alone when it’s someone who thus far has seemingly failed spectacularly to produce any art that justifies the level of exposure and interest he’s been getting… (I’m really glad that I’ve never seen any of the footage of when Coltrane used to be so spaced on Heroin that he would fall asleep on the bandstand, or John Martyn being so drunk he couldn’t stand up… As much as I’m aware of how geniuses are capable of ruining things with drugs, I generally find it too painful to watch – it always amazes me when bassists tell me they love the Jaco Pastorius tuitional video when to me it’s a heartbreakingly tragic document of a once-incredible musician failing to remember even the most iconic of his own compositions, and generally falling apart on screen. But once again, i digress). So anyway, as a result of my being irked by Doherty, and finding what I have heard of the band making no memorable impression on me whatsoever beyond sounding largely derivative, I hadn’t really listened in any great depth, given that there’s plenty of music that does connect with me that I could spend that time with, and nothing had previously given me cause to investigate.

But now it’s there, so next time something Babyshambles-ish comes up, I’ll give it a listen with fresh ears, and be less quick to dismiss what they do… I really hope there’s something there that grabs me – certainty in music isn’t really a quality I require or enjoy, and neither is disliking particular music – people who wear their distain for particular things like a badge of honour come across as unbearably smug, and I’ve nothing to gain by not liking or liking Babyshambles, so I’ll have another listen, at some point, and report back. For now though, I’ll take back my earlier blog comments about the band and reserve judgement (as if they give a shit what I think anyway… and neither should they!)

Posted on

His name is Prince.. and he is funky

So thanks to the oh-so-lovely SBJ, I went to see Prince at the Dome, or the O2 arena, or whatever nonsense it’s called.

And, of course, he was magic. The sound wasn’t great – typical big barn arena sound – but he still managed to be very funky, and far more ‘showbiz’ than I thought he’d be. i was expecting aloofness and lots of lights and dancers to make up for his diffidence, but nope, he was all ‘make some noise’ and ooh-ooh sing-alongs. A most enjoyable evening. Haven’t listened to the new album (which was given to everyone on entry) yet, but I’m not holding my breath for anything amazing – the new songs in the set sounded good, but it was all about the hits. They even opened with Purple Rain and did Kiss, Let’s Go Crazy, If I Was Your Girlfriend, Nothing Compares To You, Controversy, Cream, I Feel For You, and a whole pile of others, all laden with proper 80s rock-god squealing guitar solos which Prince does better than just about anybody.

As MD, he really held the band together, play some amazing guitar, sang his tiny purple heart out and entertained the 20,000 peoples very well indeed.

Posted on

creativity and advertising – uneasy bedfellows? (CHEAP DOWNLOAD OFFER INCLUDED!!!!)

Just found this article on the BBC news site about a company who are offering free music downloads in exchange for the listeners sitting through adverts. There’s a whole load of interesting stuff in there, including the – frankly encouraging – figure that the ratio of illegal to legal downloads is 40:1 – I’d have guessed closer to 400:1 myself, so that’s not so bad…

What the article completely fails to touch on (I guess because it’s in the business news section and so this would fall outside of its remit) is the ickyness of having no control over what products your music is associated with, and even the notion that digital encouragements to consume stuff you don’t really need or want but are being convinced you should have is in anyway compatible with the goal of ‘unfettered creativity’ (I’m assuming now that that particular goal is a Good Thing, though I’m well aware that there are many musicians for whom such things are lofty nonsense in the face of trying to make some dough without getting a day job…)

The main problem is that you’re trying to get people who categorically never pay for music to put up with this, and that, I’m afraid seems astonishingly unlikely. Surely the bit of the market that the download marketeers should be targeting are those people who would buy it if it were a) a bit more sensibly priced and b) there was some sense of the music going to the artists (bizarrely, when it comes to finding excuses for downloading music, everyone suddenly turns faux-communist and starts railing against big businesses, those same big businesses they’re only too happy to frequent when they want to buy a cheap TV or pair of jeans… dot.communists, perhaps?)

But anyway, methinks making people watch ads for tunes still misses the goal of getting those people who haven’t already reached the point of seeing recorded music as essentially valueless to buy it.

I might try an experiment.. in fact, let’s do it now – I’m going to go and make three three Lessons Learned From An Aged Feline albums £2.50 each to download – $5. They’re great albums that were available as limited editions of 100 (and as such are highly prized – one recently sold for almost a million rand on the South African Ebay.. honest…) and contain some of my favourite of my own tunes… So they’ll be £2.50 each. Go and buy them… let’s see how many of you do. It’s a great way to get some fabulous new music (If you’re on last.fm you can listen to bits of all of them to hear what you’re getting)

Go, buy like the wind!

Posted on

Jeff Schmidt's new album…

The bass-heads amongst you may well have heard of Jeff Schmidt – he’s a solo bassist from the States, and has just released his debut album, Outre. It’s a lovely record, most of it on piccolo bass in a similar ball-park to Michael Manring and Trip Wamsley, with a fair amount of influence from the nu-acoustic guitar crowd – Don Ross, Michael Hedges, Preston Reid etc.

Jeff’s also a regular at the masterclass that I give in Northern California each year in January, but the reason I’m blogging about it – other than it being a lovely album that you should hear – is that he’s previewing it via a Podcast which you can subscribe to here for free – Jeff’s pretty good at dissecting what he does and why, so the podcast will make for interesting listening for any musician, not just bassists (he doesn’t sound much like a bassist anyway… ;o) You can find the podcast on iTunes as well, just do a search on ‘jeff schmidt’.

Oh, and if you want to buy the download of the album you can get it here for the ridiculous price of $7 – that’s what I did, and it sounds great…

Posted on

Duke Special – officially a genius.

Yup, after last night’s show at the ICA, it can be officially confirmed and empirically demonstrated that Duke Special is a genius.

I’ve lost count of the number of times i’ve seen Duke play, not to mention the various bands and projects that Pete Wilson (aka Duke) had before this band, at Greenbelt and beyond (some of which I’m sure he’d rather forget about, so I won’t bring them up here… :o) But last night’s show was a new high point, and bodes incredibly well for his mainstage set at Greenbelt in a few weeks (I definitely pity the dull-as-shit Delirious who have to go on after him…).

The gig was a double header with David Ford, a singer/songwriter of some ridiculous level of talent (watch the video for State Of The Union for some evidence), but whose band are just a little ragged round the edges… It was a still a great show, with some amazing songs, and probably not something I’d have noticed if Duke Special hadn’t been on afterwards…

Duke has a remarkable ability to pick the PERFECT musicians for his stuff – Chip Bailey on drums is a wonder to behold (and at least half Hobbit…), Ben Castle has long been one of my favourite musicians in the country, Paul Wilkinson is a genius guitarist and bassist with the coolest sounds and feel ever, and the new guy in the band on sax/timpani/keys was up to the talent of the rest of them, a great musician.

Add to that some of the most imaginative and exciting arrangements I’ve heard in a long time, amazing use of dynamics and of course Pete’s stunning voice, piano playing and those glorious songs and you’ve got yourself one hell of a night out.

Was nice to catch up with the various members of the band after the show (bizarrely all the security at the ICA go home at 11, despite the bar still being open, so I was able to just wander through into the green room and say hi – useful for me, not so great for bands who don’t want their guitars stolen…), and then head home.

Roll on Greenbelt!

© 2008 Steve Lawson and developed by Pretentia. | login

Top