Tag: greenbelt

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Place names…

There’s a really strange element to traveling across Northern Ireland, in that almost every place name is familiar as the site of a bombing, or a murder or some kind of act of sectarian violence or political significance from the last 30 years. It’s like visiting southern california and driving past signs for Mulholland Drive and Sunset Blvd, only instead of feeling like you’re on a film set, you feel like you’re a bystander on a news broadcast. It’s a strange thing with place names – like Columbine or Waco, Darfur or Wounded Knee – they cease to be the name of a town, and become shorthand for disaster, for tragedy, for crazy behaviour.

It’s one of the interesting things about watching foreign news – or spending a lot of time in another country – you find a whole new set of significant place names. In the UK we’ve got Dunblane – site of a school shooting, Aberfan – site of a coal-slag-heap that collapsed on a school in the late 60s and wiped out an entire generation of kids there, Toxteth – area of Bristol where riots took place in the 70s. Brixton – more riots; Broadwater Farm – yet more riots; Lockerbie – the place where the plane blown up by Libyan terrorists crashed in Scotland… the list goes on. You drive past the road signs and they stick moreso than the rest of the small towns and council estates that fly past on long journeys…

Northern Ireland is littered with them. The sad thing is that it gets to the point where the feeling is a non-specific one – any place name you recognise must be the site of a tragedy, when in reality it could be that you heard it mentioned in a song, or had a pen-friend that lived there in your teens…

it’s been really lovely to spend a few days with lovely people in Belfast – the delightful Dr Higgins is a fantastic tour-guide to the psyche of the place (he hosted the amazing panel discussion at Greenbelt with the representatives from both sides that was so controversial they couldn’t release the tape of it). He’s a wise wise man, and I realise after just a couple of days how little I know about the history of what has gone on over there in the last half a century. I mean, I know the stuff that gets reported. I’ve read articles and interviews, watched the documentaries. But I’ve not even scratched the surface…

Belfast is one of those places that is now forever going to be a benevolent place in my mind – you know, those towns where the only people you know from there are lovely, so you subconsciously think that everyone there is delightful and friendly and wonderful? Nashville’s like that too. And Edinburgh is all about creative people being wacky on the royal mile… except it isn’t really, it’s just how you file things according to your experience. So Belfast is a place of community and parties and good food and great conversation and lovely lovely people and Neil Diamond, Bond Themes, hopes for the New Year, lots of hugs, a place to realise just how pathetic my knowledge of film is and how much catching up I’ve got to do, a place to walk along the beach in the freezing cold talking about child development and irving Goffman, Kierkagaard and the essence of self.

So at least one place has changed ‘Belfast’ is no longer just the site of orange marches and bomb scares. I’ll smile every time it’s mentioned on the news now.

Oh, and Gareth, if you haven’t written 2000 words today, you’ve no business reading blogs – get back to work. :o) x

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Recycle collective one year on…

Fab gig last night. Got there nice and early to set up, so was v. relaxed. Just as well, as i’m not well at all, so couldn’t have dealt with getting there late and rushing to set up.

Catster turned up to do the door (TSP taking a well-earned night off), Cleveland and Huw sauntered in not long after 7, got set up, all good nothing bad.

And people started arriving. Lovely people, just the kind of people I wanted to see. Greenbelt people, forum people, Danes, students, poets, singers, guitarists, Orphys (what is Orphy? Clearly ‘percussionist’ is way too limiting for what he gets up to these days… :o) )… A really lovely attentive friendly audience.

I started, as is customary. First tune was a cover of a lovely song by a fantastic Canadian singer called Lobelia, who I’m going to be recording with v. soon (the wonders of MySpace) – a lovely song called Happy that while I was playing along with it to get a feel for how she plays, revealed itself to be perfect solo-version fodder. Bit of a looperlative glitch, but I know it well enough to get round those things now. Followed that with Scott Peck, then got Cleveland up, then Huw. The middle piece with Cleveland and Huw is one of the loveliest bits of improvised music I’ve ever played. Started out with a bit ambient mush thing from me drifting through loads of clashing tonalities, before settling in one place, Huw joined in, and Cleveland improvised an exquisite lyric. Food for the soul.

Onto Huw’s set, which started with a John Dowland piece, on Nord Electra… which worked. Beautifully. Another solo set of African variations from Huw, then he and I played a particularly dark electronic spikey piece (and fell about laughing at just how twisted it all got), before Cleveland joined us again for more trio fun.

Set three began with two tunes by the wonderful Gary Dunne – a great singer/songwriter/looper/house-concert-legend. Perfect Recycle material. He’s great, go and check him out.

Then onto Cleveland’s set. His Echoplex had died, but I’d brought mine as a spare so we plugged that up and away he went, including his amazing solo voice arrangement of a Chopin Prelude. Wow. Cleveland and Huw’s duo section was really lovely, with Cleveland singing walking bass and beatboxing at the same time through much of it. Really great stuff.

And onto the final act of this birthday celeb. A huge mega piece which started with Huw, Cleveland and I, with me looping both of them, then we were joined by Roger Goula, then Patrick Wood, then Orphy Robinson, then Andrea Hazell – the two guitars and trumpet were woven into this huge busy sound, which as Andrea joined me, I cross faded back into just the ambience of her unbelieveable voice and my massive reverb and delay bass part. A perfect touchdown. Particularly nice to have Patrick and Andrea there, as they were part of the first ever unofficial RC gig, before it was the RC at Greenbelt 2005.

So that’s it, year one of the RC over. A year of remarkable music, some great audiences (some small but perfectly formed audiences) a whole shitload of credibility that hasn’t as yet turned into sold out shows at the QEH, but will. :o) I’ve spent the year calling my favourite musicians in the world, and asking them to play for next to no money, and they’ve all said yes. Lucky Lucky me. Most blessed me. Thanks to everyone who’s been to the shows, who’s played at the shows – particularly TSP who did the door and helped out at all of them, BJ and Cleveland who have been involved with loads of them between then, and of course to Ahmad and Darbucka for letting us use the venue – we’re happy to have introduced so many people the delight that is Darbucka :o)

All being well, it’ll be back in February for more improvised gorgeousness. Watch this space. x

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Euroblog #8 – a rant about Smoking

euroblog 8 Smoking rant.

so here I am, stuck in smoking carriage because the complete loser at Venice booked me here. It’s horrible. I’d almost rather be sat next to the loos and be able to smell piss. And smokers look so bloody stupid. Smoking makes you look like such a tool. Really, it does. If you’re reading this and you smoke, there’s part of me that thinks you’re a bit of a twat. I might love you dearly, respect you, admire you and think you’re wonderful in every other way, but the part of you that smokes is fucking stupid.

Come on, think about it – it serves no positive purpose at all (OK, it’s a sedative, but an appalling way to take any medication – there’s a reason why even the most heinous of pharmaceutical transnational corps haven’t started producing anti-headache ciggies). It makes you smell, makes me smell, it’s killing us all. Reduces your fitness. You’ve been had, you’re a slave and your money is lining the pockets of twats like Kenneth Clarke. Tobacco production is a hugely evil business, tobacco marketing in the third world is heinous beyond belief.

There’s no such thing as a fair trade cigarette (OK, there’s that company that’s making organic ones, but it’s not the same thing at all) – you can’t have a fair trade company who aim to make you so addicted it kills you. If you claim to be an eco-monkey, and are smoking, you’re an even bigger loser (Greenbelters take note). We’ve all got our hypocrisies – God knows I’ve got mine! – but giving up smoking is just about the coolest thing you can do for the planet, that will also benefit you and those around you massively. Everybody wins except the shitbags who have shares in tobacco companies, and I would so love to see them bankrupted.

So stop, go on. I dare you. I’ll think SO much more of you if you do. And just in case your thinking I don’t know how hard it is to stop, I used to smoke, in my teens, and early 20s. When I was a total dickhead. Stopping was part of my transition into being a human being. I stopped overnight. Cravings? of course. Social pressure to smoke every time I went to the pub? You bet, Did I? Apart from the very occasional cigar through the late 90s, not at all.

Just think how many people are feeling towards you the way I feel towards these fucking smokers in this carriage I’m forced to sit in. It’s not good. not good at all. Avoid it, stop smoking.

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Tonight's Recycle gig

I just knew that the combination of me, BJ and Theo was going to be fab. And it was. Eventually… First I had to deal with a flat tyre, and one where the nut that the monkeys in the garage in Nottingham that replaced my break pads put on was a non-standard size and shape, resulting in me having to call the flippin’ AA out, for a flat! how loserish is that? Balls, I say, and again, Balls.

Anyway, the music was magical, and made up for the hassle of the car (except for poor TSP, who tripped down the stairs and twisted her ankle while sorting out the AA man, as I was on stage at the time).

The only downside to the evening was that it being a Thursday, there were a few more people just rolling up to the venue, some of them having been told on the phone by someone that it was a Salsa night and was free to get in. So big weirdness with some of them coming in and paying, but then talking through the gig, and others not coming in… All very odd and needing to be sorted out with venue owner. Darbucka is such a great place, I love playing there, but we’ve got to get this delineation between gig and club sorted out – I don’t mind friends of the owner coming in, but I do if they’re talking and messing it up for people who are listening. Having said that, it was a pretty small crowd and the guy’s guy to make some money on the evening… So, we’ll have a chat and sort it out. If needs be, I’ll move it to another venue, but I’d really rather not, as Darbucka is perfect in every other way. You can help by putting November the 15th in your diary now! that’ll be me, Cleveland Watkiss and Huw Warren, and hopefully some after hours recycling with special guests to celebrate the first birthday of the Recycle Collective! Yay! What fun. We’ve survived a year, we’ve a shed load of fantastic musicians, some small crowds, some big crowds, a great gig at Greenbelt. It’s been a lot of fun. This next year is time to step things up a little and see if we can take it out of being a little gig once a month to biggger more marketable thing for venues out of london… any suggestions on how to do this would be greatly appreciated. After all, despite lots of people telling me they think I’m good at promo, I haven’t got a clue what I’m doing, and don’t seem to be able to get particularly big crowds along to these things, despite booking the finest musicians around. I’m not complaining, as the people who come along are lovely and appreciative and a pleasure to play for, and as the old cliche goes, the music is it’s own reward, but it’d be nice to find out the secret to getting a gig like this to happen three times a month to a coupla hundred people a time…

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InterRail ticket is booked…

I’m going to blog my travel process in some detail, given that I’m doing my Italy/Germany tour in October via an InterRail ticket – that is, I buy one ticket, and can get through all of France, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Greece, Turkey and, er, Luxembourg for 22 days on the train.

I booked the ticket online – nice easy process, though you do need your passport to hand as they want your passport number. The online booking process is fairly non-specific, in that you don’t book a seat on individual trains then, you just choose the zones, your age bracket (under or over 26) and a start date. I’ll be ringing up on Monday morning to get reserved seats from London to Geneva, Geneva to Milan, Milan to Verona, and then after that Verona to Dusseldorf, which is out of my zones (as is Geneva), but I’m hoping I can just pay a coupla quid extra and cross the border, as both are v. close to the French/Dutch borders…

While in Italy, I’m going to take advantage of the free ticket and see if I can get away to Rome for a day between gigs – need to find out how long the train takes from where I’ll be staying…

If this all works out as planned, it’s definitely THE way to tour in Europe – no airplane baggage limits, no 2 hour checkin times, no hassle finding crappy airports 30 miles outside the city centre to be able to get the cheap flights, no trouble if you miss your first train, no problem if a last minute gig comes in and you have to reroute… And to cap it all, plenty of time to see the countries you’re playing in! If the gigs are really well paid and spread out, you can break the journeys over night in interesting cities on the way.

This kind of ticket scheme is available for Americans wanting to travel in Europe too – do a google search and see what y’all can find!

The only limitations I’ve come across so far are that you can’t use it in the country you live in, though you do qualify for cheap tickets to get you out of your own country (£100 return to paris in the eurostar, £80 return to Calais – I’m going to see if I can pick up the TGV in Calais…) and if you want to book a fast train, there’s a booking fee of a couple of quid for the seat. It remains to be seen if you can get on without a booked seat, and just take your chances (or end up standing in the restaurant car for 8 hours – no thanks!)

the big thing I’m hoping for are electrical sockets on the trains near the seats. You get these on British trains now, so hopefully, given that the Europeans seem to do EVERYTHING train-related better than us, they’ll have that, and free wi-fi! At least with the plug socket I’ll be able to spend some time working on transcriptions of my tunes. I’m also going to download a few greenbelt seminars and put them onto my phone to listen to, as well as this year’s Reith Lectures by Daniel Barenboim.

I’ll let you know how the booking of the individual trains and the Eurostar goes on Monday…

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singer/songwriter genius shows Street Team how it's done…

Juliet Turner, fabulous singer/songwriter and Recyclist from Greenbelt, sent this out to her mailing list yesterday –

“Hey. For any of you who are in London, try and check out this gig. Super amazing bassist Steve Lawson gathers together GREAT musicians and they play off the cuff/of the moment/who knows whats going to happen next/ music. I did some singing with Steve at the Greenbelt festival this summer which was a lot of fun. There’s a Recycled gig on the 21st Sept at 182 St John’s St. Clerkenwell, London when Jason Yarde (saxophonist, very celebrated jazz musician) and Leo Abrahams (guitarist, Brian Eno, Ed Harcourt, Roxy Music) will be joining Steve. The music will be extraordinary. More details on their myspace site.”

How lovely is that? The date is a day late (MySpace quite often lists gig dates a day late for some reason – always click on the gig and check the ACTUAL date of any gig you get off MySpace), but that’s the kind of support and encouragement that any musician craves but rarely gets.

As I’ve said numerous times before on this ‘ere blog, you REALLY need to check out Juliet’s music – her website is julietturner.com and her myspace address is myspace.com/burntheblacksuit – all three of her albums are beautiful, and her new single is utterly gorgeous (if you were at the Greenbelt RC gig, you might recognise the words to ‘Joy’ as she used it as the basis for the improv she did with Harry Napier, Huw Warren and I.)

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Greenbelt 365

It never ceases to surprise me, despite having been at St Luke’s for very nearly 10 years, that when I get back from Greenbelt, I no longer have that sinking feeling that it’ll be 361 days before I encounter that kind of intelligent, passionate, grown-up, messy, engaging, cuddly spirituality again. It for my first few years at GB, there was a rather large disconnect between the model of church I was witnessing week in week out on a sunday, and what was happen over the August bank holiday in a field in Northamptonshire. Like it has been for so many people I know, Greenbelt was entirely integral and vital to my developing into a human being, helping me deal with increasing levels of discomfort at what was happening in the various churches I attended, and also providing me with the link between social and political activism and faith. Greenbelt has always been about the intersection of the arts, spirituality and social activism – using the arts to reflect on what our spirituality compells us to do in the face of a world of wonders that’s being fucked over in so many ways. What to do when the majority of God’s children are struggling for clean water and food, while the few are dying from fast food addiction.

Back then, it was an oasis in the year, one that would hopefully sustain me throughout the rest of the year. In 1996, I took a year off from Greenbelt, as I was booked to play bass at another big church event elsewhere in the country. I spent most evenings crying at what the hell I was doing where I was – that weekend really screwed me up for a long time, and I vowed not to miss GB again for a while…

BUT, at St Luke’s, it’s basically greenbelt all year round – a church full of thinking grown-ups, not afraid of questions, doubts, fears, or disagreements; not worried about the cultural nonsense that gets mistaken for faith, not obsessed with being ‘the only ones with the truth’, and attempting to formulate an authentic spiritual life, one that causes us to negotiate the wonder of being alive as part of the gorgeousness of creation rather than wishing for it to all go away in some ‘Left Behind’ end-times-horse-shit scenario where the world can go to hell cos, hey, I’m off to heaven and you can all fuck off.

No, it’s great, and I’m forever grateful for the community there. It ain’t perfect, but it’s the best I’ve ever come across, and after a weekend in the rain-soaked, mud-covered paradise of Cheltenham Racecourse, it’s a welcome reminder that it’s no longer one weekend of the year for me.

Last night was Pat-The-Vicar’s-Secret-Weapon’s 60th birthday. Curry was eaten, wine was drunk, songs were performed (Julie and I did a handful of tunes, along with the rest of the St Luke’s Cabaret) and people danced into the small hours. Many a smiling hung-over reveler was seen in church this morning. Life in all its fullness indeed.

Happy Birthday, Pat – a party well deserved.

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the concept of 'self portrait' goes awry…

this photo was doing the rounds at Greenbelt – it’s a self portrait, taken with a timer. Oh, and it’s also a picture of a chubby naked bloke diving into a swimming pool. It’s very well timed, though why the bloke in question (a church youth worker with a frankly baffling lack of concern for job security, posting naked pictures of himself online) didn’t put some shorts on for the photo is anyone’s guess.

So yes, there’s a naked bloke in the photo, but no, it’s not even remotely sexy or disturbing, unless you’re just entirely disgusted by the concept on nudity and get undressed in the dark.

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