Tag: bass

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My, what a busy day!

It started with three hours of teaching, followed by two hours of missed teaching (occasionally students don’t turn up – it’s quite worrying when they don’t let me know, as they may have had an accident or anything – this time I only had a work phone number for the guy, so couldn’t call him…) Filled in the time with some more web tweaking – added a load of the photos from the marvellous photo sesh with the marvellous Steve Brown, and designed a little desktop image for anyone who wants it.

Anyway, that was followed by an hour chopping wood in the back garden – oh yes, it’s like victorian england here… The wood chopping in question was actually getting a pile of stuff that was cut from the bushes and trees at the end of last year and left in a pile on the lawn, into small enough bits to fit in the green waste recycling bin (there the victorian similarities end abruptly…) That was followed by some lawn mowing – which took a long time and a lot of energy, due to the grass being very long and the mower being a bit spluttery after sitting the garage all winter (you’d be a bit spluttery if you sat in our garage all winter, surrounded by boxes for music gear, much of which I don’t even own any more…)

So grass cut, wood chopped, now to tackle a job that’s been hassling us for a few days, a broken tap in the kitchen. It’s the hot tap, and it’s been getting harder and harder to switch off. I don’t want to have to call a plumber if it’s just a matter of dismantling it and replacing a washer. So I try to take it apart. I remove the obvious screw – no joy. can’t seem to get the tap part off the top. Can see a nut or two inside it, but my pliers don’t have long enough points to reach down to the nut. Oh bollocks. So out to the shops to try and find pliers. Only shop open is Asda. I hate Asda – owned by Walmart, scumbag bottom feeders that they are, but I go anyway. No pliers, so I buy eggs instead. Feeling grim stood in the queue, but get a phone call from Orphy Robinson which cheers me up no end – Orphy’s a vibraphonist, a marvellous musician who I’ve played with a few times, and always look forward to working with. He’s got all kinds of fun plans for this and that.

Get home, still can’t fix the tap, turn it off as best I can, put the lawn mower away, and collapse. I guess today was my first day’s training for next year’s Marathon. I’m not doing too well, am I?

Soundtrack – KT Tunstall, ‘Eye To The Telescope’ (been listening to this loads in the last couple of days); Stevie Wonder, ‘Innervisions’; The Cure’, ‘Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me’.

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Sound and Vision

Good lord, I’d forgotten just how closely music is linked to memory.

Having read a thread on a forum saying that it’s Robert Smith from The Cure’s birthday, I thought I’d put on a Cure CD, so out comes Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. A fabulous album.

And all of a sudden I’m transported back to Berwick On Tweed, walking down through Hiveacres (Ramsey Street-esque estate where we lived), with the opening track, The Kiss, blaring out of my ever-present cassette player with the one speaker that didn’t work. Me dressed in grandad coat, or denim jacket with the cover from The Cure In Orange painted on the back, All About Eve shirt, black jeans and suede pixie boots. On my way to some goth get together or other, smiling far more than I should have as a goth. Wearing big maroon framed Christopher Biggins glasses that totally ruined the look.

It’s all there, I can even smell the grass and sheep in the field at the bottom of the road that I had to walk past if I was taking the short-cut across the trading estate into town – the trading estate that I once wandered around for three hours stoned trying to find my way into town (the whole journey took 40 mins even walking slow) – down past Jus-Roll )I can now smell the pastry), and on into town. I can hear the wind, and the air conditioning units on the top of the factories on the trading estate, and then the quiet. You forget what ‘quiet’ sounds like living in London. Nowhere outside is quiet, there’s always traffic and noise. Berwick after 10pm was quiet, unless someone you’d never met stopped for a chat on their way home from the pub.

Track two – Catch – I’d be dancing to this down the street, or singing it to myself if I’d seen someone in the pub that I fancied. Now I can hear the sea – another regular walk was along the front at Spittal, between Berwick town centre and Giles or Martin’s house.

Amazing. Maybe I need to dig out more music I listened to back then… Throwing Muses, Napalm Death, Anthrax, Metallica, The Pixes… actually, I’ve probably listened to the Pixies too often for that to work… maybe the Peel sessions would do the trick. Ah much memory jogging to be had!

Soundtrack – The Cure, ‘Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me’; Antonio Carlos Jobim, ‘Love Strings And Jobim’; Matthew Garrison, ‘Live’; Scottish Guitar Quartet, ‘Landmarks’; KT Tunstall, ‘Eye To The Telescope’ (this arrived this morning – fabulous album!)

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Another website tweak.

As you can see, I’ve tweaked the site again – added a little header image. It’s actually taken from the back of the Edinburgh Festival flyer that I was working on yesterday – I liked it so much I thought I’d add it to the site.

I also briefly added another picture of me to the whitespace down the right hand side of the screen, but it was a bit much.

The tough bit was formatting the design on the forum page to work with it – took me ages, but I did it. I didn’t even need to get Sarda or The Captain to help me this time! (this makes a change, I’m usually pretty reliant on the two of them for web advice… both are PHP gurus.)

So there you go.

Soundtrack – Keith Jarrett/Gary Peacock/Jack Dejohnette, ‘Always Let Me Go’; Charlie Haden, ‘American Dreams’; Fiona Apple, ‘Extraordinary Machine’.

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Sad news for the bass world

I heard today that Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen has died – NHOP is one of the greatest jazz double bassists in history. He was playing be-bop heads on upright bass before Jaco recorded Donna Lee on electric, could hold his own with just about any soloist on any instrument, but was equally at home make a beautiful contribution to ballads, with his two most famous band-leaders – Oscar Peterson and Joe Pass. His duet CD with Joe Pass, ‘Chops’, is a master-work, definitely one of the all-time great jazz-duet albums.

He inspired me to want to play jazz when I first got that album, and continues to inspire me today.

It’s a shame he was never as well known as he deserved.

Do yourself a favour and pick up ‘Chops’.

Soundtrack – Antonio Carlos Jobim, ‘Love, Strings And Jobim’ and ‘The Wonderful World Of Antonio Carlos Jobim’; Ron Eschete Trio, ‘Softwinds’ (features Todd Johnson on bass – a remarkable trio)

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New Pope

So Joseph Ratzinger has been chosen as the new Pope – he was the favourite with the bookies anyway, so it’s not really a surprise, but is slightly disappointing for anyone hoping that the new pope might move forward dialogue within the Catholic Church on Contraception as it relates to the AIDS crisis in Africa, or the ordination of Women or the host of other theological areas of contention that all Christian denominations seem to be wrestling with at the moment.

It was certainly never on the cards that the Conclave were going to elect some out and out liberal as Pope, and it’s just as well – I think such a move would have been divisive in the extreme, but Ratzinger’s record is even more conservative than his predecesor. I just hope he proves me wrong and becomes a progressive voice within the church and the wider world.

The biggest disappointment however is that he missed the chance to follow up Pope John Paul by calling himself Pope George Ringo. Benedict is such a predictable Pope-esque name.

Soundtrack – Don Ross, ‘Passion Session’ (one of the most amazing solo acoustic guitar records ever made)

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Greatest albums, my arse!

Was watching Channel 4 the other evening – they were doing yet another of these greatest top 100 type shows. This time it was albums – here’s the results – a bit of a motley bunch, and some that certainly don’t deserve to be there, and clearly won’t be in a few years time. The Libertines? OutKast? huh?

The problem, I guess is that the great unwashed voted for them, but from a list of 125 chosen by ‘experts’… that’s rubbish – who decides who’s an expert. I’m not, I wouldn’t dream of trying to choose 125 albums that the public could then pick their favourites from. If it had been a free vote, I’m thinking a few more random things would have ended up in there. The ‘winner’ was ‘OK Computer’ by Radiohead, and while I really don’t get the whole radiohead thing, I do know lots of people who really really love that record, so fair play. I guess I’m just galled that stuff like The Libertines and ‘Play’ by Moby end up higher up the list than Coltrane or Curtis Mayfield… that’s clearly bollocks.

I own 31 of the top 100 – is that good?

Soundtrack – George Cunningham, ‘Stumblingham’ (features one of the dudepit guys on bass – very good Frisell-ish stuff); Dum Dums, ‘It Goes Without Saying’; Prefab Sprout, ‘Steve McQueen’; M83, Dead Cities, Red Seas and Lost Ghosts’.

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Just booked in to do Edinburgh…

ooh, scary stuff – just booked in to do the Edinburgh Fringe Festival again this summer. Last year, due to a bunch of weird goings on, I ended up doing the festival on a straight 50/50 split with the venue, a deal pretty much unheard of in Ed Fringe terms, so got my intro to the festival in a fairly easy way. It took me a few days to get the hang on how the promo machine worked (basically there’s no substitute for just going out and flyering like a madman), so at least this year I’ll hit the ground running and be able to get lots of promo in before the festival starts.

But (big but), it is costing me lots of money upfront to be there this year – which is scary. I always operate on a worst case scenario, so have made sure that I’m spending as little up front as I can (no speculative capitalism for me, thanks very much!), and the chances of me making some money at the fest are reasonably high, but it still feels weird to have agreed to it.

I’m back in a CVenues venue again – last year I was in C too (St Columba’s By the Castle), this year I’ll be in C Central (the Carlton Hotel, by the North Bridge). It’s nice to be on familiar ground, that’s for sure.

Anyway, now I need to go and write my festival programme entry, which has to be submitted by close of play today.

Soundtrack – Avashai Cohen and The International Vamp Band, ‘Unity’.

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Hooked on the Marathon

I still remember the first London Marathon. At least, I remember the fuss around it – I don’t remember much about the actual race, I just remember getting up early to watch it on TV when I was about 8 years old, living in Wimbledon. Can’t remember what I thought at the time, probably was thinking of running it one day.

Still haven’t ever run it. Since that day, I’ve kind of lost interest in it. Each year, I listen to a bit of the radio broadcast in the car on the way to church, but ’til yesterday had never been to see any of it.

So when after church yesterday morning, a few people were heading down to cheer on Natasha who was running, it seemed like a fun thing to do.

The atmosphere was amazing – we were watching (we being me and Lizzie) from by Embankment tube, so the runners had already done twenty-odd miles by then and were in varying degrees of a state of total disarray. By this point, I’m sure the people who were running in costume were planning to kill whoever the bastard was who suggested dressing as Hong Kong Phoey, or a pirate, or a rhino, or a caveman, or a pasty or whatever other weirdness people were dressed as. some of the runners were in some quite major discomfort.. well, discomfort that appeared to have crossed into the ‘excruciating pain’ category. But most were soldiering on determinedly, walking a bit, running when they got a cheer or saw their mates.

We almost missed Natasha coming by, due to a guy a few runners in front of her having the worst case of joggers nipple we’d ever seen – two large blood-stains on the front of his shirt… makes me wince just thinking of it. Lizzie’s bit of conversation there went something like ‘look at that bloke’s nipples! (half second pause) Natasha!! WOOOO HOOOOO!!!!’ ETC. much whooping and cheering ensued, from us and from harry, karen and juliet who were on the other side of the road.

The end of the race for Natasha was fab – lots of friends there congratulating her, a picnic in St James’ park, and a medal that none of the rest of us had. Makes it all worth while. And she raised a lot of money for MIND.

It definitely made me think about possibly doing it next year. I would have to start trying to get in some sort of shape now, given that I’m a bit of a sedentary slob most of the time (hey, I don’t even stand up for gigs!)

So I’ll give it some thought, and try not to think about Paula Radcliffe’s ‘unplanned pit-stop’. That’s dedication to your sport!

Soundtrack – Scottish Guitar Quartet, ‘Landmarks’ (beautiful album – more about this later when I’ve heard it a few more times); Andrew Cronshaw, ‘Ochre’ (my most listened to album of the last few weeks – full review on the way)

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Beware Of The Dog

No, we haven’t just got a Dog (the fairly aged felines are particularly glad about that) – it’s the title of the new album from The Works, who used to be known as Woodworks, and are the brainchild of keyboard/guitar genius, Patrick Wood. Pat and I have played together a fair bit – it was fun getting him into my method of ‘spontaneous composition’ and we ended up with some fab stuff recorded, that still needs to be mixed and edited properly.

Anyway, this is his quartet, with Mark Lockheart on sax, Neville Malcom on bass and Nic France on drums – all major players on the London jazz scene – and it is, almost without doubt, the best album I’ve heard come out of that scene for ages. Actually, it’s on a par with Theo’s last couple of albums – which are equally amazing.

The compositions are quite Zawinul/Shorter-ish in places, but with a really strong singer/songwriter sensibility to them, which obviously connects well with me. It’s beautifully recorded, perfectly crafted, and has all four players playing right at the top of their game.

If anyone ever suggests that BritJazz is somehow inferior to US jazz, this is the album to play them to prove them wrong. If Patrick was from New York, this’d be selling tens of thousands of copies.

It’s fab, and you really need to get it. I’m going to talk to Pat about stocking it in my online shop.

Talking of which, I’ll have John Lester’s CD up there before too long.

Soundtrack – The Works, ‘Beware Of The Dog’.

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Ooh, I hope this comes to the west end!

It’s no secret that one of my favourite comedy films is ‘The Wedding Singer’. Well, it’s now being turned into a stage play in the US, slated for a run on Broadway in April 2006.

I SOOOOOOOOOO hope this comes to London – there are some classic script moments for any 80s nostalgia freak, and it’s got to be worth the ticket price just for the mullets.

‘you want to be fonzie, don’t you?’
‘yes I do’

marvellous stuff.

Soundtrack – Cathy Burton, ‘Burn Out’; Bruce Hornsby, ‘Harbour Lights’; M83, ‘Before The Dawn Heals Us’.

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