…well, OK, not actually NWA, but Nina Gordon doing a cover of ‘Straight Outta Compton’ – click here to download it – be warned, the language on it is pretty much what you’d expect from an NWA tune, so prolly best not to play it if the lil’ kids are around.
Some MySpace Props…
as they say in the hood.
A few MySpace links to various coconspirators –
BJ Cole – genius of the pedal steel, plays on one track on my new album.
Cleveland Watkiss – Recycle Collective regular, one of the greatest singers I’ve ever heard, let alone worked with.
Calamateur – Scottish singer/songwriter and found-sound experimentalist. Writes really beautiful songs, and we’ve got a duet album coming out some time in the next few months.
Theo Travis – Saxophonist… you know who Theo is by now, right?
Leo Abrahams – guitarist at the last Recycle Collective gig. Bloomin’ marvellous.
Orphy Robinson – vibes/percussion/trumpet/weirdness. An amazing musician and composer.
Trip Wamsley – solo bassist, composer, player and writer of gorgeous music. New album coming out soon.
Jeff Taylor – played at the first Recycle Collective gig. Great singer/songwriter.
There you go, I’ll add some more soon. Click on those, have a listen, if you’re on myspace already then leave a comment, buy the CDs of the stuff you like, and check out their gig lists!
Recording again…
Back to recording today… Why? Well, on this album adventure I’ve had a remote co-pilot, the Shark. It just started by me sending MP3s over for her to hear, but her comments were (usually) well placed and useful, and she’s become a very valuable sounding board. So album was finished, and Shark drops into IM conversation ‘is that the version of Behind Every Word that you’re having on the album’. The evil lady sows seeds of doubt in my mind, and I head back to try a new version, coming up with a new (trickier) arrangement, so I’m back recording again… The new version is sounding fab though… so that’s one thing, I guess!
If you want an easy life, don’t listen to anyone else!
Recycle Collective gig 5
Another fine ‘n’ fun Recycle gig last night. The run up to it wasn’t good at all – thanks to Arsenal playing at home, we got there 45 minutes later than we needed to, and even then I’d left my laptop at home which I’d planned to set up and record it.
Eventually got set up, but didn’t do a proper soundcheck, so it wasn’t til I started playing that I realised something was wrong somewhere in the system – the problem being that when I’m recording, I use all 6 of the Mic channels on my desk ‘cos those are the ones with insert/sends. When I’m doing a gig like this, I need to free up the mic channels for other things (like mics), and somewhere in the process, I’d managed to unplug one channel of the Looperlative from the back of the machine.
Much sonic struggling ensued through my first couple of tunes – the combination of trying out new tunes and malfunctioning gear was a tricky one – but the improvs with Cleveland and then the trio section went really well, so no worries there.
Leo Abrahams was up next, and play three amazing solo tunes (one called Slippery Jack was particularly amazing). we then did ‘My Song Is Love Unknown’ together, which was fine, but would’ve been better if I’d worked out what that weird minor chord was in the middle (!), and then onto the trio, which was really interesting. Leo introduced it as one of his own tunes, and played the progression from the tune (with a beautiful delay and filter guitar sound that I want to steal!), Cleveland and I responded to it in the way we would any improv, and it soon morphed away from whatever Leo had initially intended, as his first loop faded out, and we transitioned into some amazing space. Cleveland is quite possible the most intuitive musician I’ve ever performed with – his instinct for reacting so clearly to whatever is going on, and taking it to new heights is remarkable.
Third set was Cleveland solo to start – he’s got some new Echoplex tricks up his sleeve, and really knows his Lexicon processor now and put on a really great show. Followed by an equally marvellous duo set with Leo, that went to some very strange places in a beautiful and beguiling way.
The last of the trio sets comprised two beatbox-related tracks, with similar grooves but very different textures, the second of which ended up with some crazy double-time swing section that really ended the gig on a high.
All-in, much fun. ‘Twas nice to try out a couple of the new tunes in front of a friendly audience – need to get them down a lot tighter before next week.
For those of you asking for recordings, i’ve got some of it on the laptop, but it crashed three times (my guess is that trying to run a firewire powered soundcard and the laptop itself off the same battery is a bit much for the machine) – so I’ve got a few bits, and I’ll fire it up later to find out what. But the distraction of faffing with it reminded me that if we are going to record these things, I really need to a) get there a lot earlier (like we’d planned to without the Arsenal traffice) and b) DELEGATE.
Next RC gig is May 18th – see you there!
How hard can it be to find three expression pedals???
I’m just trying to find three M-Audio expression pedals. Has anywhere got any in stock? Have they shite. Studio spares has one, but are charging a fiver more than anywhere else for them.
Anyone got any suggestions? And no, i’m not going to buy three EV-5s – they’re double the cost of the M-Audio ones, and do exactly the same job…
Giving Birth
is a bit like making a new album. Well, I’m not having morning sickness, haven’t had to buy maternity wear, don’t get a seat on the tube, and haven’t at the moment got lactating mammaries, but there are bits of it that are a lot like pregnancy… There’s a fair amount of anxiety early on, not knowing how it will turn out, will everything be ok, will something go horribly wrong… early scans are a bit formless and lacking in definition – you can see a bit of a blob, and as time goes on it starts to riggle a bit, but it’ll be a while yet before you start to feel it inside you.
But when you do, and you get that feeling that things are going to be OK, you start planning. For babies, you decorate and think of names. For albums, you design the artwork and come up with a title and track names. the more you know about the forthcoming arrival, the more you are able to shape such things ahead of time. Is it a boy or a girl? Is it a mellow album or an up-tempo jolly album? etc. etc.
Well, my new album is taking shape, tracks are being added to the ‘definite’ list, the artwork is progressing, the title is at the ‘I think this is right, but we’ll wait and see’ stage, and I’m making final decisions about whether or not to have any special guests on the album (at the moment it looks like there’ll be one for one track… more on that at a later date).
Every now and then I flick across to another window on this computer and have a look at the proposed front cover. Does it work? I try to catch myself by surprise and see if I’m pleasantly surprised or not.
I love this process. As I said a few days ago, I’m slightly apprehensive due to how much I love Grace And Gratitude, but these tracks are taking on their own identity, such that I’ll be able to play quite a few of them on the upcoming gigs (yet more reasons not to miss the gigs!)
Buying cheap basses…
I know, you’re on a limited budget and the offer of a new bass for £85 is just too tempting. So you hit buy it now, and hope it’s playable when it arrives. That’s if you’ve got any notion of what ‘playable’ is anyway.
The proliferation of cheap import basses from the far east has led to loads of them turning up on internet shopping sites, lots of them shipped from outside the UK at prices that no high street retailer can match. And why? Because your local music shop has a legal obligation to guarantee that the bass works, that it’s OK, and that it’ll still work in a few months time.
The first thing to go when the price of manufacturing instruments drops that low is quality control. The parts are sourced cheaply in massive bulk, assembled in an OK way, but very few are ever taken out of the process for being faulty – they’re just patched up and put through with the rest of them. Quality varies massively, and if you buy online, you’ve no way on earth of knowing what you’re getting. If you go to any music shop and try out all their cheap basses, they’ll vary a lot in sound and feel. Some will play like a bass worth double the price on the headstock, others like they aren’t fit for firewood.
If you go to your local music shop and spend an extra few quid, try a few basses out, and check what your guarantee is, in the long run I GUARANTEE you’ll save money. No question. You’ll also benefit by buying a reputable make – not only in quality but resale value should you ever get rid of it. Go to The Bass Centre, or The Gallery, or even Sound Control/Musical Xchanges etc. – any well stocked shop, try a few out, and ask as many questions as you like, but don’t get hung up on the extra £25 you spend in the shop. It’s all about the Value Added.
Naming tunes…
The process of naming tracks is always a tricky one. A lot of tracks start of with descriptive names… it’d be fun to actually release it with those – ‘the bluesy one’ ‘the miserable sounding one’ ‘harmoniser and delay thingie’ etc.
I usually have a list of possible track titles, cribbed from books I’ve been reading and ideas that have come to me, and sometimes the songs just have their own title that has to be there… Other times, people suggest titles that work. i always ask for people’s title suggestions after improvs on gigs, and occasionally get them. I haven’t used any yet, but it’s really interesting to see how certain tracks connect with people…
Right, back to the process of recording the music… slightly higher up the priority list than the names…
MySpace tips for musicians
I’ve been on MySpace now for about 8 months. It seems to be going well for me in terms of finding people who dig what I do. I’m selling a few CDs as a result, and we’ll see if it does well for me when the new album comes out, and in the upcoming run of gigs.
Here are a few tips for musicians on there, to maximise your exposure.
Let’s start with your page – make sure it’s readable. Don’t put loads of video clips and preloading audio nonsense in the rest of the page. The format is confusing enough as it is without you making the page take hours to load. And ditch the background images – they nearly always make all or part of the text impossible to read.
Influences – yes, I know it’s really cool to claim not to have any, and I can see why trying to narrow a lifetime of musical listening down to a short list is tough, but really, it’s worth it. A lot of people search for bands by influence and sounds like. They’ll find you if you have loads of artists listed in those boxes (and you spell their names right!) – put down everyone who has ever influenced you in the influence box. If that means you’ve got 500 names in there, that’s fine, honest. Just go with it. For sounds like, just put all those crazy things that people email to you – you remind me of such and such etc. Stick them in there. Go on, more people will hear you if you do.
Genre – make sure you pick three! Don’t put ‘jazz/jazz/jazz’ or whatever – you don’t get listed three times, you just miss out on more directory places. For people searching by style they aren’t going to find you. Put three that are close enough to what you do.
Bio – make sure you’ve got one! Update it, put a picture in there, format it so that it’s split up into paragraphs, use bold text and hyperlinks to highlight what’s going on. If you don’t know how to do that, ask someone! find out, it’ll make the whole thing work much better for you.
Blog – USE THE BLOG – it’s a great opportunity to communicate with people who dig what you do, even if it’s just to say how excited you are about the upcoming gig dates that are listed. Talk about anything, I don’t mind, just use it, it’ll keep people coming back to your page. (and on the subject of upcoming gigs, I don’t need to remind you that you really need to put your dates in there, and make sure you get the information right, as it’s listed by region and searchable by postcode.
Right, that’s the stuff to do with your own page. Now, the active stuff –
rule no. 1 – don’t use one of those automatic ‘bot’ programs that does it all for you. Apparently MySpace can work out who’s using them and deletes your profile… you’ve been warned.
However, it is great to invite people to listen to your music. So, go into music search (that’s the red search bar, not the general one) and search for other bands that are similar to what you’re doing, search by influence or sounds like, narrow it down to the region where you’re gigging, and invite them. Have a listen while you’re there, and post a comment if you like what you hear. It all works out well for everyone. You’ll get clicked across to from other people’s comments section. (oh, and while we’re on comments, don’t put images or music in your comments, and it’s probably best to disable HTML in your comments – I think it’s in the privacy option in the edit screen on your home page).
Oh, and make sure if you do contact anyone that it’s clear that’s not just a form response – everyone on myspace is obsesssed with the possibility that they are being spammed. No-one likes getting anonymous messages, so at least stick their name at the top! ‘Hey, thanks for the add, check out my band’ is no way to hold a conversation.
Go to it, it works great – most of the time, I’m the most viewed british jazz artist on an indie label on the entire site. That’s not bad going, is it? :o)
So Monday was just the warm-up day…
It’s only lunchtime, and I’ve already recorded two things I really like for the new album. Who knows whether they’ll make it on, but my fretless intonation is a lot better than it was yesterday, and I’ll be having another crack at Eric’s tunes later on, to see if I can get them in the can today…
Also, on reflection, some of yesterday’s stuff was a lot better than I remembered it, so I might have some things from that session too… Seems like we’ve finally got this ship under-sail.
Yay for me!