Tag: cds

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another fine day's recording

Managed to get another couple of tracks recorded for the album today – a new version of one that I’ve done 7 versions of so far, and I think this is ‘the one’… remains to be seen. The other is a re-recording of ‘Jimmy James’ from Not Dancing For Chicken. It’s always been one of my favourite of my own tunes, but the version of the CD didn’t really get close to doing it justice. And as it was inspired by the memory of a dear friend, it really deserved to be done properly. So that’s done. Sounds great.

Also did some more work on the sleeve, started getting the sleeve notes together, the front cover is done, it’s all beginning to feel like a proper CD that’s actually going to happen! I’ve also found another place that does the same kind of packaging as I have, but does it a lot cheaper than my usual source, which is v. exciting!

So tomorrow will be another heavy recording day – I still need to get good takes of the tune for Eric Roche (working title – Deeper Still), and the two covers, People Get Ready and What A Wonderful World. It remains to be seen if a) they work on the album and b) I can be bothered to sort out the copyright stuff to be able to release them. sounds like faff to me.

Anyway, I’m probably only a week away from being able to start mixing in earnest… guess I’d better get my mastering plans sorted out…

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McWebChat with the McDevil

I’m currently watching a web chat on the channel 4 website with Steve Easterbrook, the managing director of McDonalds in the UK. It’s in response to channel 4 having just shown Supersize Me again. I watched bits of it again, and it’s a fantastic bit of film making.

Clearly, McTurdBoy is going to be a shitbag – you don’t take a job like that in the first place without being McScum – and the webchat is being filtered so it’s all the questions that look really edgy but allow him to recite the McShit party line.

I’ve submitted three questions so far – one of about the Judge’s conclusions in the McLibel trial, one about the McDonald’s statement that none of their meals are guaranteed free from meat contamination and one about whether or not the film has an impact on the ‘diminished consumer confidence’ that McShit listed as one of the reasons for them closing 25 of their hellholes last month… – perhaps not surprisingly, McSatan hasn’t bothered to trouble me with a McAnswer.

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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)

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Imogen Heap gig

This is one I’ve been looking forward to for quite a while. I first saw Imogen Heap play at the Kashmir Klub about 6 years ago, at a ModernWood Management showcase gig, along with Nik Kershaw (who also had Leo Abrahams on guitar, to be featured at the next Recycle Collective gig) and the Dum Dums. I then bought her debut album in the US for some tiny amount of money, and it very quickly became one of the favourite CDs in this house. It’s great.

Last night she was playing Shepherd’s Bush Empire – a pretty huge venue for someone who this time last year was just finishing up recording a self-produced CD. However, between then and now, the track Hide And Seek from that CD, ended up being featured at some critical moment on The OC (I’ve never watched The O.C. – I’ve been to Orange County, and if the TV show is accurate, I can’t imagine in being very interesting, and if it isn’t, I’d just get annoyed with it). It was a huge radio hit all over the place, Radio 1 played it a lot here, and Imogen was right there in the spotlight where she belongs. The album’s lovely, BTW.

So, anyway, the gig – Shepherd’s Bush Empire – a v. large and pretty prestigious gig, though not the friendliest for the musicians or the audience. I’ve ranted here before about venues owned by Carling, and SBE is one of them with the corresponding focus on beer, leading to people talking. At times it was impossible to hear what Imogen was saying between songs, and during the two supports there was a bit of chatter coming from the main floor.

Ah yes, the support – first support was Zoe Keating – someone I’ve had a fair bit of email contact with as she’s a looping cellist, and was, I think the third owner in the world of a Looperlative, after me and Rick Walker. Her solo set was lovely, featuring unprocessed looped Cello (and the best live amplified Cello sound I’ve ever heard – apparently it’s an AKG contact mic, will get the details for any geeks wanting to know). Very lovely stuff.

Second support I didn’t get to hear much of… We arrived just before 8 so we could see Zoe play, and thanks to the craziness of guest-list goings-on, I had a ticket, but TSP’s hadn’t arrived yet ( we were meant to be going with TAFKASB, but she had to go to some punk gig instead…) so I went in to see Zoe’s set (not fair on TSP at all, but as my ticket was on Zoe’s guestlist, it would have been pretty dreadful to miss her solo set), then came out again to find TSP and sort out tickets. Which was all during second support.

Sadly, while my first ticket was seated upstairs, second tickets were standing downstairs only. We’re too old for that, but we did anyway, found a place by the stairs where TSP could see the stage and settled in for an evening of chronic backache.

Imogen came on and did her first number just solo, looping her voice with a Repeater (she so needs a looperlative!) – it was one of the most musical, clever, groovy and entertaining loop performances I’ve ever seen. It’s interesting that often the best loop-based performers are those that don’t make a big deal out of it, but that’s by the by. The rest of the night was a gorgeous mix of solo loopy stuff, solo piano stuff and was the first time she’d showcased the full band, with Zoe being marvellous on cello, plus drums, tuned percussion and a second keyboard player (the second support bloke), augmented by a few things on laptop.

Imogen’s stage presence was somewhat akin to an amiable old-school TV chef, like a glammed up Fanny Craddock cooking up the perfect gig; ‘now we’re going to add some Cello – would that be lovely?’ – sadly the constant chatter of audience members lubed up on nasty overpriced lager from the venue owners meant that a lot of the between song asides were lost, but the whole vibe of just chatting to the audience instead of trying to whoop them into some frenzy was right up my street.

All in all, musically and performance-wise one of the finest gigs I’ve seen in a long time, some of the most sophisticated looping and a whole slew of stunning songs (including one of the duets she did with Urban Species years ago, just her, the rapper from the band and piano – lovely stuff!). I just can’t wait to see her play the Barbican or Festival Hall, or the Albert Hall – somewhere with seats and an audience encourages to STFU during the whole gig.

The After-show party was a bit of a long wait – I really wanted to meet Zoe, so we stuck around for about 45 minutes til she showed up. Well worth the wait, as it’s always lovely to meet online-chums face to face. Also got to say hi to Imogen, who I’ve met on a few occasions before, but she couldn’t remember where. :o)

If she plays near you, DON’T MISS IT.

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CD recommendations from yesterday…

For any students from Salford reading this, here’s a list of all the CDs I mentioned at various times and for various reasons throughout the masterclass yesterday –

Voodoo – D’Angelo (made me rethink my whole understanding of rhythm)
It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back – Public Enemy (ditto, also amazing for the cavalier way they treat ideas of dissonance and tonality)
Spirit Of Eden – Talk Talk (the one mastered by the bloke who mastered my last record, a glorious album)
Michael Manring – Soliloquy (not only the finest solo bass album ever made, one of my most amazing solo statements by any instrumentalist ever)
John Lester – Big Dreams And The Bottom Line (the solo bass/singer-songwriter who was on at Bass Day that I’ve toured with, who’s fantastic)
KT Tunstall – Eye To The Telescope (I shouldn’t really need to list this, but she’s the anti-Blunt – great in exactly the same ways that James Blunt is shit.)
And of course all my my stuff, available via my webshop where you can also get the Michael Manring and John Lester CDs.

Can’t think of any others that I mentioned for now, but if you want a more exensive listening list, just request it, along with the areas you’re interested in, in the comments section. :o)

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Bruford on Improv…

From David Cross’ diary

“I think the best music I’ve been associated with has happened while improvising. And also the worst. A high risk strategy, but pre-arranged music never seems to be able to achieve quite such intensity.” – Bill Bruford.

That just about says it all. I feel very lucky that those ‘worst’ improv moments tend to happen behind closed doors!

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FairTrade thoughts

The talk at St Lukes this morning was an introduction to FairTrade by Geoff Crawford – a fantastic photographer who has visited loads of fairtrade projects and co-operatives around the globe in his role as photomonkey for various aid agencies and fairtrade associations. He pitched the talk perfectly, and kept it to his central theme, which was about the difference that buying fairtrade produce makes to the people who make or grow it, how buying fairtrade coffee directly impacts the lives of coffee growers, and he gave some good pointers for people wanting to start thinking about such things, as well as lists of coffeeshops that stock fairtrade coffee and supermarkets that stock fairtrade produce.

It’s a discussion that could easily have been derailed by some very valid other discussions, about supermarket monopolies, fairtrade imported goods vs the food-miles argument of how far something has to travel to end up on your plate and the damage that transport process does, etc. Those are really important subjects, but a 20 minute talk in a church service wasn’t the place to have them.

What he also avoided was the notion of boycotts – with labeling it as such, he took the same path that I’ve been thinking about in regard to shopping of late – that of seeing everything you buy as an investment.

The problem with thinking of boycotts is that the surface value expressed in the action is that of damaging the profits of the company you’re boycotting. There have been notable examples of this working and starting to affect company policy… or at least marketing policy – Shell oil, Barclays bank and Nestle have all at times taken a major hit through boycotts, and have altered as a result. Not enough, but any stretch, but the change was noted.

The problem is, there are millions of companies who don’t behave the way we’d like them to – Naomi Klein’s vital and fantastic book No Logo highlighted corporate abuses around the world, and looked at the idea of using brand image as a weakspot in their armour. It works, she’s really onto something. But what she’s describing is activism – that’s something we all need to do, but it’s tough to fight every battle.

So what’s the alternative? When we realise that every single penny we spend is investing in something, we can start to think, on a day by day basic about what we’re investing in. I don’t have to see a change for it to have value. I don’t need to feel like everyone else is doing the same thing, I just need to know that the two pounds I spend on fairtrade Bananas is being divided up amongst people who are involved in the ongoing work of improving the world. The producers are improving their own world, providing better healthcare and schooling within their communities, the importers and distributors are people that have chosen to work within the rules of the fairtrade foundation, in order to further those aims. My money is being invested into the long term sustainability and growth of the fairtrade movement. The fact that Del Monte or Fyffes or whoever isn’t getting my money is an added bonus, the direct inspiration comes from that direct investment.

The next stage is thinking about where I buy them from – obviously part of the money goes to the retailer. Shopping in the UK without going to supermarkets is pretty tough in most places, and we go to Sainsbury’s for a fair bit of our grocery shopping – it’d be great if there was a branch of Fresh And Wild on southgate high street, but all we have is a tiny health food store – he’s great for herbal tea, muesli, cleaning products, tinned stuffs, etc. and we buy as much there as we can, but he doesn’t stock fruit and veg. So for now we go to Sainbury’s, but as much fair trade organic stuff as we can. But soon we’ll get our organic box scheme sorted out, then it’ll be organic, fair trade and v. low on food-miles. Yay – ecomonkeys are us.

So, try it – go for positive investment, not guilt-trip boycotts. Either way, it means you’ll never go to McDonalds again, which has to be a good thing.

Soundtrack – me and theo, live in Cambridge last week. sounding good!

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Small but perfectly formed.

Cambridge gig with Theo last night, at CB2. It’s a lovely venue – very rustic in that it’s just the cellar of the restaurant with a load of chairs and some lights in it, but it’s free, quiet and the food upstairs is marvellous (recommended for dinner even when there’s no gig on!).

I had a feeling before the gig that it was going to be really full – not sure why, but in any event it turned out to be bollocks. It was a pretty small crowd, but a lovely group of people – like a handpicked audience of really nice listening lovelies.

Because Theo and I recording the gigs on this tour for a possible live album, we panicked a bit when we realised we’d left the minidisk at home. No problem though, as a quick call to Dweez meant that the able and equipped Tony arrived with tiny laptop (like the Rev. G’s Psion, only a proper computer), soundcard and cables to record it straight off the desk.

The gig itself went really well – doing the improv stuff with Theo is up there with playing with Michael Manring in the ‘best fun two people can have on stage’ stakes. The range of sounds and ideas that he conjures up is remarkable. And the recording seems to have come out beautifully, on first listen. Will transfer it to computer, boost the level and see how clean it is later on, but it sounds like it could form a major chunk of the live CD!

And today, Cleveland is coming round to make lovely noises and play Looperlative games.

And finally, congrats to the Rev. G on his new job in computer-geek world rather than bible-geek world – much deserved, but certainly the church’s loss.

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New Music/Recycle Collective tomorrow…

Went into town this morning (town=central London), ostensibly to pick up a copy of Sibelius G7 software. It’s a score-writing package, that I need to be able to a) do my column for Bass Guitar Magazine properly and b) get a load of PDF scores of my stuff up on the web-shop ASAP. I get emails every week from people requesting the sheet music or ‘TAB’ for my tunes. Rest assured, there’ll be precious little TAB going on. Reading music isn’t hard, and is a much more useful skill that interpreting numbers of frets on imaginary fingerboards so that you can learn lots of really simple songs badly.

Anyway, long story short, no-one had G7 in stock. Shit! A wasted trip into town. Well, not entirely – I did get to call into Ray’s Jazz, and picked up a couple of very cheap CDs. One was Daby Toure’s album (something I’ve wanted since seeing him at Greenbelt last year), and the other is ‘Nordic Quartet’ by John Surman, Karin Krog, Terje Rypdal and Vigleik Storaas. It’s a fascinating album, featuring lots of classic Rypdal guitar loveliness, and inspired me to record another idea towards the new album. I don’t think it’ll make it on there, as it was just recorded to stereo, not on separate tracks, but it is a great idea that I’ll definitely revisit. Terje’s stuff always inspires me, please check out some of his CDs. {EDIT – I’ve just compared the recording of this new tune with ‘Not Dancing For Chicken’, and it’s SOOO much better – amazing how clean the sound of the Looperlative is!}

And recording that piece has got me all excited about tomorrow night’s Recycle Collective gig – I’m playing in a duo with Patrick Wood – Patrick and I have recorded together lots over the years, lots of lovely improv stuffs, some of which is in the street-team stash (or was – I’ve no idea what’s currently in the stash!). We’ve also played live together at Greenbelt, both in a duo, and he was a part of my Global Footprint huge improv thingie last year.

So we’re playing, followed by Orphy Robinson and Roger Goula – both of whom are fabulous players I’ve collaborated with in the past.

I really am like a kid in a toy shop with the Recycle Collective – I get to book all my favourite people to come and make lovely noises with me, in a gorgeous venue, to lovely audiences, which you’re more than welcome to come and be a part of. See the RC website for more details.

So that’s tomorrow. I’ve been doing LOADS of teaching of late – schedule is filling up, for sure, I’m almost maxxed out on evening teaching (if you’re wanting any lessons, best book a fair way in advance…) but I’m looking forward to my next lot of gigs – book shows in April with Muriel Anderson in the UK, and some solo stuff in April, as well as some clinics/masterclasses around… watch this space!

Soundtrack – right now, it’s my new tune, before that it was the Franks – Sinatra and Dunnery (not together!)

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Juliet Turner and Pierce Pettis, Bush Hall, 17/2/06

As y’all know, I do make a habit of going to gigs by people I know. Well, I know lots of lovely talented marvellous people, and I like to support live music as much as I can anyway, so being able to combine supporting live music, and seeing lovely friends makes for a doubly marvellous night out.

Thus it was last night. ‘Twas also rather nice to do something special with the lovely Gareth and Jane, and we all toddled off to Bush Hall in Shepherd’s Bush, a rather lovely venue that was clearly at one point a ball-room, and and is now a rather lovely gig venue for about a 2-300 peoples.

Pierce Pettis was already on when we got there, and sounding marvellous. I hadn’t seen Pierce since the Cheat and I went to stay with him in Alabama, Oct 2004, so it was lovely to see him again, and hear him. The couple of new songs he played were gorgeous – a Narnia one and one where he was joined by Juliet and Brian on BVs called ‘Vera Cruz’ – gorgeous stuff. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a bad song by Pierce, even on the three CDRs of unreleased stuff that he gave the Cheat and I when we visited (BTW, I think it’s my turn with the CDs, The Cheat!)

The half time break was almost as much fun as the gig – catching up with many friends that I hadn’t seen for ages. It’s nice with gigs like this, that I can pretty much guarantee that I’m going to know about 20% of the audience.

Then Juliet Turner – most years, I see Juliet play more than just about any other artist that I’m not actually touring with. 4 or 5 times, I guess. And never ever get bored of her songs. She’s a fantastic songwriter, with a unique turn of phrase and way with rhythm. In Ireland she’s a big star, having gone platinum and won reader’s polls in Hot Press (the Irish answer to Q, NME and Mojo all rolled into one) – and she’ll get there over here too, for sure. Cos she’s fab. Apparently she’s got all self-concious about the amount she talks on stage, which is a shame, because her between-song banter was pretty stripped back tonight, and she’s a great story teller. As is Pierce, who was equally subdued. It might just have been one of those venues. I’ve played in those before now, they just don’t lend themselves to getting the kind of feedback from the audience that you need to sustain rambling stories.

Anyway, both Juliet and Pierce, and Juliet’s guitarist Brian Grace, were on top form, a fab night was had by all, and I’m already looking forward to seeing them all again!

As a side note, we got into a discussion last night about the lack of availability of Pierce’s early albums – the ‘big hair’ years. When Pierce was on Windham Hill, he had a hair cut that I also flirted with in the late 80s, the ‘mushroom cloud’, where all your photos look like holiday snaps taken on Bikini Atoll during the h-bomb tests. here’s the best one I could find of Pierce online –

anyone got any others? :o)

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