Tag: guitar

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my own lil' iPod revolution.

Three things have happened since i got my iPod (I don’t mean ‘in the world’ – lots more than three things have happened in the world. I don’t even mean in my life – I’ve done lots of things, I just mean things specific to me owning an iPod)

Firstly, I’ve had a load more time for listening to music, obviously, which has meant that I’ve been catching up on a lot of the more obscure stuff and things I’ve owned for a while but haven’t really listened to much, which translates into me becoming completely obsessed with The Blue Nile – I’ve had three of their albums for a while, but had only listened to them on laptop speakers, which doesn’t do their music justice at all. Stick it on on headphones, and all of a sudden, it’s genius. Going to be lots of Blue Nile influence on my next album, for sure… I’ve also had a listen to Hattler (eponymous band of german bassist Helmut Hattler – rather nice modern electronic soulful dance stuff, not at all what I expected and rather good), Jorane (Canadian singing cellist – lovely stuff) and Mogwai (who I’m going to see tomorrow night at Somerset House – hurrah!).

secondly, it’s made my emusic subscription all the more important – great new music to listen to on the go – so far from them I’ve had albums by Kris Delmhorst, Erin McKeown, Nik Kershaw, God Speed! You Black Emperor,Jennifer Kimball, Rosie Thomas and Petra Haden & Bill Frisell. All fantastic!

thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, it’s given me lots of time to go back and listen to all the projects I’ve recorded with various people that haven’t been released yet – the forthcoming album with Calamateur is spectacular; his songs are outstanding, as is his singing and playing, and it is, I think the first album ever to feature any of my drum programming, on what is definitely the most mental piece of music I’ve ever been a part of. The duet album with Luca Formentini, which I think will be coming out some time next year, is a glorious slice of slightly twisted ambient improv – Luca’s guitar playing and sonic ideas are a really good contrast to what I do – through most of the record it’s pretty clear who’s playing what, as his sound set is quit distinct from mine, but the mix of the two is potent stuff.

The biggest surprise was a live recording from LA in 2006 with Steuart Liebig, Jeff Kaiser and Andrew Pask – a gig that at the time I wasn’t all that happy with; it wasn’t rubbish, just didn’t feel like we’d really created a sound-space that was particularly special. Listening back to the recording, I was very wrong indeed. There are some amazing moments on it. I’ll talk to the players concerned and see if they are interested in making it available somehow – for those of you with an interest in free improv and noise squeaky electronic stuff, it should prove interesting and enjoyable…

And not only that, but I’ve just subscribed to a teach yourself italian podcast, so I’ll hopefully finally get my italian into some sort of loosely conversational shape…

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My first restaurant gigs in years!

This weekend I did two restaurant gigs, just playing bass with someone else… when I say ‘just playing bass’, of course I took a looper with my (my Akai Headrush for ease of transport and set-up) and ended up playing quite a few melodies, but it wasn’t a me-gig, even though we did arrangements of a couple of my tunes.

The gig were with a guitarist called Luca Sirianni – a fine player and very nice guy to work with, playing a mixture of standards, pop stuff his tunes and a couple of mine. A couple of things about it were noteworthy. Firstly, he found me through MySpace – who’d have thought that any musician would ACTUALLY make some money through myspace – there we were, thinking it was all about collecting a million friends who have no idea who you are, and inadvertently it provides some geniune work! The second is that I get asked to do precious few of these kind of gigs, despite the fact that I a) rather enjoy them and b) am rather good at them – I love playing in a duo setting like the gig on friday (sunday’s was a trio with a percussionist which was just as fun), and I’m kinda handy to have in that I can play tunes, chords and solo pretty well through most things – takes some of the heat off the guitar player.

So hopefully it’ll turn into a few more gigs. I don’t want to end up doing them 4 nights a week – I know too many people doing that and hating it – but it’s nice to get out and play with some new people, busking some cool tunes, and making a lil’ cash.

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must.. get.. over.. jetlag…

I am officially knackered. Jetlag done got me bad, mama… or something.

I’ve got a gig tonight (just a restaurant gig with a guitarist, hence it not being on the gig list), so must get ready, find smart restaurant gig clothes etc. as well as sending out CD orders, and dealing with the speeding fine I got before I went away…

but all I want to do is sleep some more.

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The end of the hippie dream

Altamont – just the name carries so much resonance. The place where the dreams of flower power and the 60s summer of love, woodstock and hippies all went to shit because The Rolling Stones didn’t realise that – unlike in England where ‘Hell’s Angel’ just meant ‘biker with a beard and a personal hygiene problem’ – American Hell’s Angels were largely racist outlaws, who took great delight in stabbing a black dude to death at the gig.

Anyway, that was a completely different Altamont, given that it was in California, and we’re in Illinois. However, there must be some sort of spiritual link between the two, as the shitty motel we’re in definitely feels like the kind of place where a nasty murder could take place…

Still, cheer yourself up by watching this YouTube vid of me playing at the house concert we did in Dallas – Brian who organised the gig owns a Rick Turner Model 1 bass, which I HAD to play… the improv in question is a variation on the ii-V funk guitar thing that I used for the loop demo vid on YouTube, with a bit of the melody from Chameleon by Herbie Hancock in the middle of it, and lots of gratuitous shredding, but it’s a great sounding bass!

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All I wanted was an iPod…

So, after having been given a ‘circuit city’ gift-card with an unspecified amount on it, I decide to act on one of the things I’d been threatening to do since getting to the states on this trip, and buy an iPod.

We drive to the nearest CC, in Canton, and head in. There are no 80gig iPods on display, so I ask the guy who works there, who’s stood nearby. V. friendly, but as it’s only his second day, he goes to ask where they might be found – it’s all fine, everyone has to start their job somewhere, and I’m always happy for new staff to take a while to work out what’s going on.

While he’s gone, we check the amount on the gift car – $70-something bucks (thanks, Nancy!!!!) – and notice on the wall a sign that says iPod buyers get a $30 gift card included – basically $100 off the cost of me buying one, and even cheaper than lovely friend who works for Mac can get it for me for.

New boy comes back, and rings it up on their computer, but the price is more than it was on their website, so he looks it up, and has to call over a friend to help. Friend clearly knows how the system works, but has THE most offhand disinterested manner I’ve encountered in any shop, other than perhaps Guitar Centre… Anyway, he takes off the difference between shop and web pricing, and then says there’s no giftcard. It’s out of date – what the hell’s it doing on the wall then says I, I’m not interested without it. L is by this time laughing, but close to sitting in a corner rocking and sobbing like Romanian orphan… Supervisor is consulted, OK we can have the $30 off, so he takes it off, then charges us for it, so that he can give us the card. I give it back to him as part of the payment, he swipes it, gets confused by it not having anything on it, then says ‘ah, you can’t spend the giftcard on this’… so only the $70 card will work on this payment, which is OK as I want to buy a perspex carry case thingie anyway.

So we get the iPod sorted, I hand him the carry case and the card, he swipes it and before I get the chance to say ‘er, that says $24.99, it’s only $19.99 on the shelf’, he’s rung it up, so we need to go to the front desk for a refund. Into the queue at the front desk, new boy is now dealing with awkward customer number 2 and has a ‘is my whole working life here going to be like this????’ look on his face. He apologises, but none of this is his fault…

disinterested goon eventually rings up the refund, puts it on the card and hands me stuff, no apology, no nothing.

We leave, happy with iPod, dumfounded that the shop is still open…

Circuit City – avoid unless peoples gives you lovely gift cards.

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…did you just call me Pardner???

We’re here in Texas. Plano, just outside Dallas to be precise. It seems like a rather lovely place – still strip-mall-based, like so many american cities, but definitely a better class of strip mall than most (and a huge Whole Foods market to be explored…)

We’s here for a house concert tonight – the house is gorgeous, and the concert is going to be marvellous.

Now where did I blog from last? Ah, yes, Nashville – well the Nashville house concert at Sarah and David’s was a whole lot of fun – we set up on their front porch, blankets were laid out in the yard, and we played for lots of lovely friends, surrounded by fairy lights, candles and the sounds of crickets between songs. A most enjoyable evening was had by all, and the duo stuff between the lovely L and I just gets better and better. Her ability to ‘learn’ a loop after one listen is uncanny, and to stack harmonies on something that seems pretty random… She also bought a gorgeous new guitar – a nylon-strung takamine that sounds incredible. Really relaly lovely, and got for a fantastic bargain at Nashville Used Music, or whatever that big shop out on Nolansville road is called.

So favourite things about Nashville? the people, Fido’s, Baja Burrito, the gig, TOGH being there, The Belcourt (Sheriff ElRon and I went to see Rock The Bells – a film about delusional people putting on the last ever gig by all the members of the Wu Tang Clan (though even with ODB being dead, I’m sure they could just get Shane McGowan to fill in, and people would just think Dirty was looking a little pasty…)… Nashville is a town full of good things (and rubbish, it is the home of CCM too, and therefor plays host to much of the most mediocre nonsense ever produced in the name of popular music, as well as the occasional gem…) and certainly somewhere both L and I could live if pushed…

From there we embarked on what i think is the longest drive of my life (yup, I just checked, this was the previous winner) – 700 and something miles from Nashville to Lake Charles Louisiana. Which was, to be honest, a pretty easy drive. Freeways here are much much clearer in general than motorways in the UK, (if you’re not in or around NYC, LA, Chicago or San Francisco), so we never seem to hit much traffic, and just drive from one place to another at 70 mph all the way. In our extensive research, we’ve discovered that IHOP and Denny’s do the best options for vegetarians on the highways of the US. TGI Fridays is shit, Waffle House isn’t actually food, and the burger places are all horrible, with indie places being either non-existent, or really risky in their quality… so we’re happy for IHOP and Denny’s.

The trip to Louisiana was for a house concert at Trip Wamsley’s house – Trip, as y’all know, is one of my most favouritest solo bassists in the world, and fun to hang out with too… it was nice to witness him in his natural habitat, for sure.

The gig was really lovely – Trip played first, and played really well, as always, then L and I got to do our thing, and had much fun, sold a load of CDs, and all was good.

On Sunday, i put down a load of bass tracks for a track on Trip’s new album, and realised just what a HUGE improvement putting this ART tube preamp in the FX loop on my Lexicon has made. It sounded incredible. I can’t wait to hear what Trip does with it. The evening was spent watching Ross Noble DVDs, and hanging out. Much fun at the Trip-house with Trip, Mrs Trip and lil’ Bubba Trip.

And so on into Texas, heading from Chez Trip to Plano TX, from where I’m writing this, trying to decide whether to walk or drive to Whole Foods – how far was it again??

Oh, and the title? We stopped in a auto-mart or some such place, to get directions, and the dude behind the counter actually called me ‘Pardner’ (as in Partner with a silly accent, for all you Englishes) – indeed. He sadly didn’t say ‘you ain’t from around here are you boy?’, but there’s still time for that…

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Tour blog Pt II – Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Georgia…

Right, continuing the story of the tour – from Grand Rapids we drove to Akron to swap the crappy tiny car (which served us v. well for the Northern bit of the tour) for a lovely rental car with A/C – yay!! marvellous. Renting the car was a bit of an ordeal – the poor dear at the airport rental place in Akron had never seen a British driving license, so it took a while…

From there we drove to Cincinnati (this was all on the same day as the drive from Grand Rapids… lotsa miles…) and arrived at Ric Hordinski’s place at about 11ish… Ric is a fabulous guitarist, gigs as ‘Monk’, used to be in Over The Rhine, produces lots of marvellous records for other people, and owns a gorgeous studio in an old church, called The Monastery, which is where we stayed… Great to see Ric, fo’ sho’.

the next day was spent putting some spacey stuff down on a track for Ric’s new album (the rest of the tracks I heard sound amazing), then heading down to Rohs Street Cafe where the gig was. It’s a gorgeous, spacious coffee-shop venue, with a nice PA, and really lovely staff. The whole vibe of the place is fair trade and mellow, with stacked book-cases all over the place and lovely drinks.

The gig was a lot of fun – small crowd (the story of our lives), but lots of lovely friends there, and by now L and I are playing really well…

The next morning we head off on another stoopid long drive – this time to Richmond Virginia. The drives across this part of the States are stunning. West Virginia is so covered in trees that the hills look like giant broccoli plants, all green and bobbly. Finding edibles on the road is tricky for a pair of veggies who don’t like filling their faces with too many chemicals, but we do OK.

We arrive in Richmond pretty late, at the lovely and marvellous Greta’s place in a really cool part of town.

Sleeps, followed by a fantastic veggie breakfast, and a walk round an old cemetery, about half full of civil war graves – this is an area with a REALLY chequered history, as JamesTown, the port of the James River, was one of the main off-loading points for the slave ships back in the day… Anyway, the trip round the cemetery with Greta and her amazing dad was a lovely walk on a scorching hot day and an education.

Back to the house to do washing, then head off to Richmond Music Centre, in search of preamps, reverb units and keyboard stands – #s 1 and 3 on that list are procured – a lil’ ART tube preamp which sounds great, and a cheap-ass keyboard stand. All good nothing bad.

The gig is a house concert hosted by the marvellous and lovely Jay and Crystal – their four-car garage makes for a fabulous lil’ concert venue, and thanks to the ever-wonderful, resourceful and street-team-alicious Justin, and Roy, the PA sounds really great too. The gig was fab, the first half being a mixture of tunes and bass-clinic Q and A, the second half more straight song oriented. Lots of CDs solo, new friends made, all good once again. Big big thanks to Jay and Crystal, Greta, Justin and Roy…

The next morning we leave the house at 7am to head for West Virginia – a 530 mile drive (London to Inverness, basically), more gorgeousness. L does most of the driving today, and the only downer is a dodgy breakfast in some crappy lil’ diner…

The Morgantown/Grafton area is L’s hometown, so much visiting of relatives and friends ensues, before heading to the venue – Gallery 62 West – a lovely little community arts gallery. Dinner is procured at W*lM*rt (I know, I know) and we are promptly both poisoned by it, rendering us both v. v. ill in the run-up to the show…

Somehow we manage to balance the trips to the ‘bathroom’, and both play without any sudden mid-song disappearances – me first, then L, the lots of duo fun. Another fab gig in front of a really really friendly audience – full marks to Josh Trout for driving the furthest on this one (Josh is a v. old cyber-chum – the story of this tour has been meeting people I previously only knew in the virtual world..) big ole WV thanks to Kevin Ford for making this one happen.

An even earlier start is planned for the longest of the drives so far – Grafton to Decatur (on the outskirts of Atlanta) – alarm goes of at 5 and we hear… flapping… flapping???? Light goes on and there’s an effing BAT in the room!!! Flying around, landing on the curtain then flying around again. Much squealing ensues, before bat escapes, followed closely by us escaping to a bat-free car… much fun, and definitely a help in waking up!

A very easy drive down gets us into Atlanta mid afternoon, we find Darren and Cindy’s place for the house concert, and set up. this show also features Darren Michaels and Trip Wamsley, who both play great sets. We play in the middle (after a tussle with Trip over who gets to play second – we win thanks to having been awake for 16 hours already at this point…) – our set goes great, L sings like an angel, much CD sellage takes place, new friends made, all good and, indeed, nothing bad. click here to see loads of photos from the gig… Darren and Cindy definitely know how to put on a stylish house concert. hurrah for D & C!

which brings us to today – finally a day of rest. On a sunday no less. up v. late, much internetage, followed by an some Ross Noble on DVD, followed by an afternoon in Decatur. and no driving. Yay!

So on to Nashville… hurrah! We’ll be there at the same time as the TAFKASJ, which is something to muchly look forward to, as is giggling at the lovely Rachel’s fabulously confused Scottish/Rural Tennessee accent!

more soon… what have I missed??

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New review of Behind Every Word at puremusic.com

This just in – a really really lovely review of Behind Every Word from puremusic.com – click here to go straight to the review.

Here’re the choice quotes from it –

“This is some of the most beautiful, deeply felt music that I have heard performed on any instrument, let alone bass guitar.”

and

“It is hard enough to make an instrumental record that holds the audience’s attention with a raft of different instruments and players, but Lawson manages to do it with one instrument (albeit modified to create many sounds) and one player.”

so there you go – more reasons, if ever you needed them, to go and buy the CD, if you don’t have it already. :o)

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gig at the Found Theatre, Long Beach

Lovely gig last night – the wonderful Kerry Getz organised a post-NAMM gig for her friends that were in town – me, Rodney Branigan, Mary Coppin, Vicki Genfan and the amazing Alabaster Rhumb – I saw Alabaster play last year, and in the same way that when I first heard Tom Waits I thought my speakers were broken, when I first heard him play, I thought he was taking the piss. I soon noticed that no-one else was laughing, and adjusted my perception of what he was doing, and realised he’s a genius. One of the most original talents I’ve seen in ages. And last night I got to hear him do four songs, all of which were great.

As was everyone else on the bill – Vicki and I have done three gigs together this week now, Rodney and I have been sharing a house, Mary was new to me, but wonderful, and Kerry was her usual magical self. All in all, a great evening. we each played four songs, two sets with three artists, playing alternately. Rodney played a lovely solo on one of my tunes, and a fine time was had by all. More please!

Anyway, check out all of them via their sites linked above… Vicki may well come and play with me in Santa Cruz next weekend

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Gig tonight…




Vicki Genfan

Originally uploaded by solobasssteve.

Got a gig tonight in Long Beach – at the Found Theatre. This ‘ere in the photo is Vicki Genfan – she’s playing tonight and it’ll be our third gig together in a week – last tuesday we played in Santa Barbara, Saturday we did a wonderful house concert together in Korona, and then tonight. She’s amazing, a fantastic singer and guitarist, and totally lovely. Go check out her music on her site, or come to the gig!

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