Tag: cds

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And so the onslaught begins…

When I first announced that I was starting a monthly gig night with the Recycle Collective, the mighty Stig warned me that I should expect a hail of demos and requests to play at the gig.

‘no’ says I, ‘it’s not that kind of gig, people will realise and I’m not putting an address on the website for people to submit demos’.

But Stig was right. Today I got two emails from people wanting to play. I don’t mind getting them, but it’s an ominous precedent, in that I really don’t have time to start trawling through MP3s or listening to CDs to find stuff. And as I said to Stig, it’s not that kind of gig.

So, if you’re reading this thinking about sending something in, here’s the scoop –

– The musical spectrum of the gig is more about an approach than a style – the looping/improvised/chiilled nature of it lends itself to unusual solo performers, loopists and interesting improvisors. If you’re a straight down the line singer/songwriter or a jazz quartet, there are other places where what you do are going to work much better.

– if I already know you, especially if we’ve played together, great, ask away, we’ll see if we can sort something out. the likelihood is that I’ll ask you anyway when I get the chance.

– if you decide to email me anyway, please send a link to an MP3, and tell me exactly what you do on stage, what you play and how the set-up works. If I don’t know you, or know of you, already, the chances of me booking you for one of the two main sets on each gig is pretty minimal, and therefor it would just be a 10-15 minute guest-slot in the middle of the gig, with no sound- check etc. I wasn’t planning on adding anything like that at all, but having Jeff Taylor come and do his thing on Wednesday was so sublimely wonderful that it’s made me want to use the gig to showcase people that I think are amazing. If I just quite like what you do, I won’t book it. Nothing personal, it’s just that I already know enough people who are really good, and even then I’m only going to book the ones that are amazing. This isn’t an ‘open mic’ slot at all. This is about me trying to use the evening to showcase huge talent (like Trip/Jeff etc.)

If you’re just looking for a singer/songwriter gig, your best bet in London is The Bedford .- Tony Moore who runs it is a tireless campaigner for great acoustic music and songwriting in London, and runs nights that are purely devoted to multiple act lineups.

Please don’t take it as a slight on what you do – I’ve got a pretty precise vision for the evening (if it continues beyond March at all – a lot depends on how many people turn up in Jan/Feb!), and I’ve said it before but it bears repeating that I’VE NO DESIRE TO BECOME A PROMOTER – I book my own gigs, I put on gigs that give me the chance to play interesting music with interesting people to interesting audiences, and if in doing that I can provide a space for massively talented people to do their thing too, that’s magic.

I guess the best thing you could possibly do is come along to one of the nights, and say hi. If you bring a load of friends with you, I’ll certainly be feeling very positively disposed towards you! 🙂

Soundtrack – Chris Tarry, ‘Project 33’ (V. talented Canadian bassist living in NYC)

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destroying all musical boundaries

A student turned up yesterday morning having been working on Jaco‘s arrangement of ‘Blackbird’ by The Beatles. He was making rather a nice job of it, but one of the things I often witter on about in lessons is the notion of active and passive learning – passive learning being just the copying by rote of a particular piece of music (or scale or interval study, or whatever) without taking it any further. Active learning would pull it apart into its various musical components, why does it work, what are the chords, how can I take that style of arrangement and apply it to other tunes, are there any new techniques that come up in this piece that I can absorb into my playing, and how else can I play this same tune?

In answering this last question, whenever anyone is doing this tune (it’s a standard for bassists to have a go at), I play them Bobby McFerrin‘s solo voice arrangement of the same tune, from his album ‘The Voice’. Which happens to be one of the greatest solo performer recordings of all time. The lovely thing about it is that conceptually it rips the roof off of what’s possible on any instrument – if one man can do all that with one unprocessed voice, how much more can I do with my bass than I am currently doing? What kind of leaps of logic, what kind of seemingly insane musical experiments have lead to Bobby being able to perform like that? It’s clearly not a style that one stumbles into, and I’ve no doubt that his arrangement of Blackbird took months and months to perfect, though he makes it sound so effortless on the CD.

If I were to draw up a list of most inspirational recordings for solo performers, this would be right up there at the top.

Oh go on then, here’s my top some, in no particular order –

Bobby McFerrin – The Voice
Don Ross – Passion Session
Michael Manring – Soliloquy
Kaki King – Legs To Makes Us Longer
Eric Roche – With These Hands
Pat Metheny – One Quiet Night
Keith Jarrett – Scala

a lot of these are solo acoustic guitar records, which I guess just reflects the fact that more people are experimenting with interesting music on solo guitar than on other instruments… or at least, I’ve been exposed to more solo guitar music than anything else…

Any others to add to the list? Stick ’em in the comments section at the bottom.

When I’m working towards a new album (as I am at the moment) I tend to ‘use’ music in a more knowing way than at any other time – I put things on to consciously take me out of my comfort zone, to re-orient my ears towards another space, to offer up possibilities for my own playing. I’m very much at the mercy of the things I listen to. in the last lot of recording I did, I recorded tracks that were heavily influenced by Morphine (the band, not the drug), M83 and Eric Roche. Bobby’s music takes me into another space altogether.

Soundtrack – Bobby McFerrin, ‘The Voice’.

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Emotional music day…

I’m having an emotional music day… well, two days, actually.

It started last night, with a song called ‘Freedom’ by a band that I think are called ‘The Wrest’ – I’ve just got this one MP3 that I was sent, cos it features the marvellous Julie Lee on vocals. It sounds just like something that would’ve cropped up on a mid-80s Fleetwood Mac album, like a lost last track from Tango In The Night. And it really moves me. It’s eminently hummable, though I’ve not really listened to the words in any great detail. Part of it is just Julie’s voice – she’s in that category with singers like Michael McDonald and Joanne Hogg where it doesn’t matter what they sing, it works for me.

After that I was listening to Kris Delmhorst’s ‘Songs For A Hurricane’ album, which is just perfect. It just gets better with every listen. Some amazing lyrics, beautiful metaphors, and another really great moving voice.

Today I ratcheted up the emotional content, and in the car on the way to Birmingham was listening to ‘Diesel and Dust’ by Midnight Oil. Now, the Oils are from that brand of serious 80s rockers who had a message and no sex appeal – a combination that would see them disappear without trace were they to emerge now, but as a reaction to the rancidness of yuppy life in the 80s, such bands appeared all over the place (remember U2 before the Anton Corbijn make-over?)

‘Beds Are Burning’ by Midnight Oil is one of the most spine-tinglingest top 10 hits ever – can you imagine a song about paying reparations to Australia’s aboriginal people making it into the charts now? Pete Garratt sang like a cross between Mick Jagger and Henry’s Cat, but packed his odd croaky/whiny voice with so much intent and meaning that it moves me to tears. The rest of the album packs a punch too – ‘Sell My Soul’, ‘Bull-roarer’ – stunning stuff.

And after that, James Taylor Live – it’s hardly news-worthy ‘man moved by James Taylor’ – I guess the only surprise was that I wasn’t wearing a nice wooly jumper at the time. Particularly noticed the lyrics to ‘Slap Leather’ from his ‘New Moon Shine’ album, which are a stab at the materialism of US government policy in the early 90s – not what you’d expect from the writer of some of the greatest relationship songs of all time…

And now, back at home, I’m listening to ‘Now, But Not Yet’ by Andrew Buckton – the launch gig for this album was, I think, the only time I’ve actually cried during a song on stage – Buck’s songs are all about people he knows going through all manner of crises, and some of them were in the crowd for the gig. Hearing him sing these beautiful, poignant, painful songs to the people they were written for was too much for me. It’s time like that that I’m glad I’ve got enough hair to hide behind – I must’ve looked like cousin-it from the Addams Family for the duration of that song.

So it’s moving songs day – join in, what are the songs that really move you? (warning, if you list anything by Whitney or Celine, I’ll be banning your IP from ever viewing this blog again. 😉 )

Soundtrack – Andrew Buckton, ‘Now But Not Yet’.

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nice news

this morning I got an email from not-at-all-evil Dan, saying that ‘For the Love Of Open Spaces’, my duet CD with Theo Travis, is included in the new edition of the Penguin Guide To Jazz On CD.

Surely not? Aha, Amazon has a searchable book feature, so I head over there. Do a text search on me, and sure enough there’s an entry for it. Can I read it? Er no, for some reason Amazon tells me I’m not allowed to. So It’s over to The Cheat and his wikkid skillz to get a copy.

He then furnishes me with a JPG of said review, which reads thusly –

***(*) For The Love Of Open Spaces
Pillow Mountain PMR 0014 Travis; Steve Lawson (b). 7/03.

Lusciously beautiful without descending into New Age clap-trap, the music here walks an awkward line with great confidence. Both musicians make extensive use of loop technology (although, as they proudly say, no synths or midi-triggered sounds), and the result is a series of mood poems crafted with skill and a capacious melodic bent. Lawson gets a bit rocky here and there and maybe a couple of the pieces stat around a little too long, but in what is often a threadbare genre they’ve done very well.

How nice is that? ‘Luciously Beautiful’ is a fab quote for posters etc. and 3 1/2 stars is v. good for the Guide (they are, quite rightly, very precious about 4 and 5 star reviews).

And it times very nicely with the recycle collective gig that we’ve got coming up on Nov 16th – all the more reason for you to book that baby-sitter now and come along to the gig!

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Benefit gigs

Went to two benefit gigs this week – one as an audience member and one as a player.

The audience member one was particularly fantastic, not least of all because the main musical attraction was Martin Taylor. The other main great thing about it was that it was for Eric Roche’s family. (I’ve just been booked to play at another benefit gig for them on Dec 4th – Eric’s Birthday – at Haverhill Arts Centre – more on that later…)

The first half of that gig was various friends and musical acquaintances of Eric’s playing and paying tribute. Of particular interest was a genius harmonica player called Steve Lockwood (who’s also playing at the gig in December).

The second of the benefit gigs – the one I played at – was on Friday. The events had little in common. What they did share was ropey compering. Given the huge impact they have on the smooth running of any event, it’s a shame when people can’t find good comperes for events. The guys involved in each of these were well-meaning and friendly, just not very good at keeping things moving and linking events.

At the gig I played – a benefit for the Pitstop Ploughshares – the room was an echoey church hall, and the PA was particularly shabby with no monitors, which meant that extra-special care needed to be taken to make sure people were listening, if only for the sake of the performers. This didn’t happen, and while it didn’t seem to bother the folk-singer/performance poet bloke who was on first, it was clearly going to be a problem for the people afterwards. Fortunately, a well placed ‘SSSHHHHH!!!!’ from someone in the audience quietened things down, and as the quality picked up, the chat level dropped.

I have mixed feelings about these kinds of gigs. The cause is one I support, and when I was asked to play, I was very happy to offer my time to help out, but the overwhelming trend with gigs like this is that while you’re thanked profusely numerous times throughout the evening, you’re still treated like some amateur who should be happy they are getting the chance to play to an audience.

I’m still not sure how to deal with these kinds of things – I obviously don’t want to stop doing gigs for good causes just because of crappy planning, and I’m clearly not about to start charging a fee for such things, but it’s pretty demoralising to play in those kind of conditions. Maybe I should just have a technical rider that has to be met for me to do them. I’ve tried the bending over backwards to make life easy route, and it just doesn’t work. I really do need monitors and a decent PA if what I do is going to come across well…

that said, I did sell a few CDs, and got to hear some other talented but very poorly amplified musicians play.

In other news, I’ve just redone the Solo Bass Network site – when I first set it up, the idea was to develop a little community of people who would chat about solo bass and spread the word about gigs etc. etc. Truth was, I couldn’t really be arsed to manage it. It takes a special kind of resilliance to bother keeping something like that going (see the Extended Range Bassist yahoo group – the founders there post incessantly to keep the discussions going, some of it readable, much of it inane bollocks, but it works, and the list has just about got a life of its own…) So I’ve not just reduced it to what it does best – a compendium of links to solo bassists and solo bass related stuffs on the web. Maybe one day I’ll get round to adding a low maintainance gig guide on there, but to be honest, you’re much better spending your time getting coverage in your local newspaper than faffing about with some website where the chances of anyone within 500 miles of you reading it within the time frame of the gig are so small as to be not really worth the five minutes it’d take you to upload the info…

Oh, and I’ve also been mixing an old duet track that I recorded with BJ Cole last December – sounds lovely, and will hopefully be up on the Recycle Collective site before too long.

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gigblog

Ok, last night was the gig at Darbucka – big thankyous to all you blogsters who made it along to the gig.

Before we get to the gig, back a few hours – 11am and we were back rehearsing. Wednesday night’s rehearsal with Orphy was messed up by Rise disappearing, saying he’d be back by 8 and not turning up til gone 11. Helpful. Doug, Orphy and I ran through the songs, and it was clear that Orphy was going to do a fantastic job on this stuff, though like me it was a real test of his stamina having to play this stuff consistently for that amount of time!

Thursday morning’s rehearsal was better, in that Rise was there, so we got to go through all the songs. It was interesting for me in that each time we’d play a song, Rise would notice another bit that I’d missed out from the CD, so the parts were getting more and more complex, which made it even more of an enjoyable challenge. Orphy again acquitted himself fantastically.

In the afternoon, Rise and Doug headed off into town, planning to be back in time to run through the songs with Jez before we packed up to go to the gig. Jez arrives, but no sight of D and R. We give up on the idea of practicing and instead start to load the cars up with all my toys, Orphy’s kit, jez’s piano etc. Cars loaded, still no D and R. I write a note, so we can leave, and just as we’re getting into the cars, they show up. The tube system is screwed, so big delay getting back. Quick turn around and we head to the gig. Soundchecks go fine, with Simon Jaquet from Duncan Senyatso’s band sitting in on drums (Orphy was performing the two-gig-dash, playing at a jazz fest before heading down to get to us for the last set).

Right, jumping forward to the gig itself, it was a marvellous night ,and felt like a suitably eclectic tribute to John Peel. Calamateur gets better every time I hear him. An excellent set that kicked things off really well. We did two songs together at the end of the set, which were lovely (and we’re recording together all this weekend, building on the stuff we’ve already done, so expect an album some time in the next couple of years!)

next up was me – not having had much of a chance for practicing, I didn’t launch any new songs at this one, though I’d intended to do at least one. Instead, the only non-album tune was the one for Eric. Set went well, people were entertained, lots of good comments afterwards.

And then Rise’s set – started by two tunes just Rise Doug and Orphy which sounded lovely, Jez and I then joined in for 6 songs. Despite a couple of wobbles (largely due to Orphy’s kit moving on the stage, and me having to hold it in place with my foot!!), we sounded pretty good, by all accounts, and people really enjoyed it. Doug and Rise were thrown by people not getting up and dancing – which, not surprisingly is not something that Orphy Jez or I have ever really thought about, not ever playing dance music as such. I guess it’s a london thing, and also just a Darbucka thing – it’s a pretty chilled venue, and people were blissed out enjoying the sounds…

So all in, a good night – it would have been nice to get a load more people there (the numbers were OK, but for Rise’s set in particular, it would work really well it the place was packed and dancing), but as a first outing for a particular lineup it was a great way to play without pressure, and to just enjoy the music. I had a great time, remembered the lines, played well, and much fun was had.

There are some photos of the gig, posted by the lovely RichardH off the forum, here

eagle-eyed bloglings will notice that I’m actually standing up to play there… don’t expect this to become a regular occurrence.

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Rehearsal fun

So Rise Kagona and Doug Veitch are here, and we’ve had two rehearsals – last night was just the three of us, two guitars and bass, running through the songs for tomorrow night, and then today Jez joined us to put the keyboard parts in place. Playing this stuff is just so much fun – it’s a challenge to get the African feel right, and to try and ‘think African’, feeling the songs rather than analysing what’s going on, but I’m definitely feeling more inside these songs that I did with Duncan’s stuff at Greenbelt – I think it’s just having spent the last couple of months listening to African stuff more than anything else has got me into the right head-space.

There are a few of the lines that I’d got slightly wrong from the CDs, so we’ve been correcting the parts, and I’m pleased with how quickly I’ve got a hang of that stuff. It’s been a lot of work and it appears to have paid off. You’ll have to come tomorrow night to see if it worked!

Gig details again, in case you’ve missed them up until now –

Venue – Darbucka World Music Bar, 182 St John’s Street, Clerkenwell, London EC1 – nearest tube, Farringdon.
Date – Thursday Oct 13th
Time – doors 7.30, first band on 8pm.
Bill – Rise Kagona and band, Steve Lawson and Calamateur

Be there!

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6 songs down…

Right, that’s the first 6 songs on the Rise Cd learnt… and my hands are exhausted. Time for a break and a cup of mint tea.

I’m just glad that I’m playing my solo set before Rise’s set, or my hands would be too tired to play! This is like the bass equivalent of circuit training. The masterful thing about it is how he’s managed to write such fantastically busy bass lines without them ever getting in the way of the tunes. If you did this kind of playing in a pop/rock band, it’d sound ridiculous.

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A very fine Big Idea

never let it be said that Britain doesn’t have a vibrant and burgeoning jazz scene.

Mark Lockheart is one of the busiest and most respected sax players in the country, and for his current tour he’s assembled a fantastic group featuring four marvellous saxophonists with a killer rhythm section. It’s pretty rare to see four sax players in a contemporary jazz setting in the UK – it’s not often that anyone can afford to take that kind of project on the road, but Mark has managed it.

Due to my having a gig on the same night, I won’t be able to make it to the London gig next thursday, so last night, Orphy and I headed out to Oxford to see ‘Mark Lockheart’s Big Idea’ play at The Spin, a weekly jazz gig at The Wheatsheaf in Oxford. I’d heard a lot about the gig from friends who’d played there, so was looking forward to checking out the venue too.

The gig was fantastic – playing mainly music from Mark’s latest album Moving Air, with Mark, Julian Siegel , Steve Buckley and Rob Townsend on saxes and bass clarinets, Martin France on drums John Parricelli on guitar and Dudley Phillips on bass.

Mark has a very distinctive writing style, that can be traced all the way back to the tunes he wrote for seminal british jazz outfit, Loose Tubes in the mid 80s. The horn arrangements are stunningly beautiful, and he made full use of the dynamic possibilities of having four horns on stage. Parricelli was on rare form, playing beautifully and blending with the sound of the horns magnificently.

Fortunately, the room was packed, and the audience were hugely appreciative. It’d be mad to suggest that Britain was in any way deficient in the jazz world – I guess the problem, as it is in most parts of the world, is a lack of places to play anything other than standards. The main jazz gigs in London are restaurant gigs, with venues like The New Vortex and Ronnie Scott’s doing their bit to promote interesting vibrant music. It’s still tough to find a gig, moreso now that the foyer gigs are the Festival Hall are on hold while the renovate the building.

So, in the spirit of last night’s gig, I’m going to offer you a beginner’s guide to the British Jazz scene – a handful of essential CDs that prove our place alongside the Americans and Scandinavians, while still all sounding uniquely British…

– The obvious place to start is with Theo Travis – his last two quartet CDs, Heart Of The Sun and Earth To Ether are both outstanding.
– Next up would be Ben Castle – his last album Blah Street is marvellous – clever, funny and intelligent in all the right ways.
– Of course Mark Lockheart who inspired this list in the first place – his latest, Moving Air is fabulous.
– And then there’s Mo Foster – any of his records are worth getting, but particularly Time To Think is gorgeous.
– Another one featuring Mark Lockheart, the Works is Patrick Wood’s amazing quartet – what Weather Report would have sounded like if they’d grown up in London. Beware Of The Dog is one of my favourite instrumental albums from any part of the world, not just the UK.

If you were to buy that lot (and I think you should), you’d have a pretty decent representation of why I’m excited about the future of British music, rather than wallowing in the despair that would ensue from burying yourself in the world of X-Factor, Pop Idol and the lame faecal mountain that is the pop charts.

Soundtrack – some tracks that I’ve been recording over the last three days with american fretless guitarist, Ned Evett – some really really cool stuff (to add to the stockpiles of other really really cool stuff that are sitting here waiting to be released!) – hopefully I’ll have an MP3 taster or two for you soon from this lot…

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Digital sales – the way forward?

From The BBC news site –

Digital music sale revenue tripled in the first half of 2005 compared with 2004, figures have suggested.

This certainly tallies with my experience – of late, digital sales have been out running CD sales for quite a few months (not counting CD sales at gigs, which is still the place where most CDs are sold). I’m probably selling three downloads for every two CDs, with people seemingly opting for the instant nature of downloads, and the reduced price (and no shipping price).

Which is great for me – it’s nice being able to pass the savings onto the buyer with not having to sell a physical CD. I still can’t envisage a time when I was releasing download-only albums as my main release format, but it means that I can continue to do what I do now, which is to press a run of CDs, and then have them become download-only when the CDs sell out. At some point in the future I might press a double or triple-pack CD of the first two or three solo Cds, but I’d have to shift a lot of them for it to be worth my while…

The download thing also means that I’ll be able to do the extra disc with the next album (Lessons Learned.. vol III?) as a download, which will mean that those ordering the next album will get something to listen to as soon as they order the album, and I won’t have to pay pressing costs for a CD I’m not actually selling… and as soon as the CD release date arrives, the extra disc becomes available for sale.

I do love the way that OSCommerce handles web-sales, managing downloads, differing prices for concession gig tickets, options to choose t-shirt sizes etc… when I get enough web-space, I’ll even be able to start offering the download albums in a range of formats… It’s all good.

Oh, which reminds me, Don’t forget to get your tickets for the gig at Darbucka on the 13th…

Soundtrack – Duke Ellington, ‘Classic Tracks Of The 1940s’

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