Tag: lobelia

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Dallas House concert…

A lovely day in Dallas yesterday – it began late, with a walk up to the Whole Foods market – just under a mile away, in this heat it felt like about three miles, but we made it there and back, and got lots of lovely stuffs for lunch (Jeff Kaiser’s tempe scramble recipe, if you must know, and a delish salad…)

Got back and started setting up for the house concert – because we haven’t been able to fit an AccuGroove rig into the car for this trip, the house concerts have mostly been through various types of Studio monitors (well, Richmond was through a badass Mackie rig with a huge sub, but that was a little out of the ordinary for such things… :o) ) – at Trip’s it was some Tannoy Reveals, i think, which sounded lovely, and last night was a pair of KRKs, which again sounded great. Brian’s house (the host of the gig) is pretty much the ideal house concert venue – plenty of space, good acoustics, and a pool out the back (which we took advantage of in the afternoon before the gig).

One of the fun things about house concerts is chatting to people before the gig starts, or just listening to other people chat, which they do in a friendly ‘having mates over for dinner’ kind of way that doesn’t happen in club gigs, or even coffee shops. All good cultural exchange fun. :o)

The gig itself went v. well – lots of fine playing, another couple of successful improv tunes (I’ve been doing one or two made-up-on-the-spot things on the shows here, and last night did one of them on Brian’s Rick Turner Model 1 bass, which sounded and played beautifully…) L played really well, and the duo stuff was once again my favourite part of the evening.

All good nothing bad.

Of To Austin today, which I hear is a bit of a music town… we’ll see about that…!

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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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Tour blog Pt 1 – Ohio and Michigan

OK, we’re four dates in, and having lots of fun and adventures! Tonight’s gig was a real odd treat, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

Wednesday was the first date, a bass clinic organised by Low Down Sound in Detroit, which was great fun. A lovely audience who asked lots of really great questions. Got to do three or four songs with Lobelia too, which was fab, sold lots of CDs. All good.

Thursday – Toledo, at a pub/venue called Mickey Finn’s. Great room, fab sound-man, small crowd, but much fun. A mixture of solo stuff and duo songs, well received and CDs sold.

Friday up to Grand Rapids to stay with Sarda and Kari, and for the first of our two gigs here, at Quinn and Tuites, another Irish pub (this one for some completely mental reason had great big posters imploring the visitors to ‘Vote Gerry Adams’ and ‘Vote Martin McGuinness’, big ole Sinn Fein posters… riiiight) – this was an hour-long in-the-round set with Lo. and Ralston Bowles, which was much fun, and well received. All good this far.

Saturday (today) we head down to the venue at lunchtime to check it out for PA etc. All looking good. Go out, come back to the venue at 7 to set up, and it’s closed. Yup, not a person in sight, sign on the door saying ‘closed early today’… huh? WTF? we’ve got a gig booked here! Tense moment as Ralston calls venue owner and manager with no answers…

Sounds pretty bad, but with Ralston, there’s always another way – this dude’s like the Johnny Cash of Grand Rapids, knows everyone and can organise all kinds of craziness at the drop of a hat. So he says ‘I wonder if anyone’s playing at the Pony’, meaning the One Trick Pony – a rather cool lil’ restaurant venue three blocks away. We turn up there, Ralston works some Ralstony magique and we’ve got ourselves a gig. Once again, very well received, Cds sold and another gig in St Louis all-but-confirmed, with a possible return date to One Trick Pony within the month… watch this space.

muchos fun and games so far, serious black mark against the coffee-shop we were supposed to be playing at for fucking up on our gig, but full marks to the magical Ralston for conjuring a gig from nowhere. He rules…

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Quick post from Geneva…

Sorry for lack of blog-action over the last few days – been traveling a lot, sketchy web access, and on Saturday had a FANTASTIC gig in Brescia, Italy – I’ve played there before but this was my biggest gig there so far. In the Chiesa di San Cristo, a beautiful fresco covered building from (I think) the 13th century… Half my set was solo, half with Lobelia, who was, frankly, amazing – we did one of her songs (Happy – which we also did in Croydon the week before, and in NYC), an improv thing, and she added amazing vocal loopage to a version of Highway 1, which was definitely the best version of that I’ve done since the very first time I ever played with Theo Travis, back in 2002…

Anyway, great gig, lovely time in Brescia, as always, and more stuff to tell, but I’ve just arrived in Geneva, am knackered, and need a shower and some sleeps. g’night…

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NYC gig

So last night was my first ever New York gig, at Mo Pitkins – a fabulous lil’ venue in Manhattan. When I got to the venue (with Sue, Nigel and Lobelia), Chris McIntosh (AKA Grandfather Rock, radio DJ and tireless advocate for great music) and Kathryn (LA buddy, now in Pennsylvania) were already at the venue. Soon followed by more delightful and exceedingly lovely people – Janek, Chris Tarry, Suse, Susan Enan, Jeff Taylor, Amy Kohn, Laura from the Fringe, and a handful of other marvellous people.

I was still slightly jetlagged (my set didn’t start til 11.15pm), so the chat between songs was loose and at times probably total bollocks (what’s new there, eh?) but all seemed to go down well The Absolute highlight of the gig for me was doing three tunes with Lobelia – we did Black Hole Sun (in the arrangement that I did with both Cleveland Watkiss and Julie McKee) and then two amazing songs of her’s. She sang like an angel, and wowed our tiny but v. attentive audience. Much more where that came from, fo’ sho’.

The solo bit of the gig went – Behind Every Word, MMFSOG (with extended talky intro and stop in the middle to explain loopage), Scott Peck, Amo Amatis Amare… I’m sure there were others – did I really only do 5 tunes plus the vocal stuff? I certainly finished with Deeper Still… wow, maybe I did – I was talking a lot, that’s for sure….

Anyway, the people there seemed to love it, and it was great to catch up with so many great friends and musicians and to christen a new duo project in such a creatively successful way. I’ll post an MP3 as soon as I can…

So now, onto wandering around Manhattan, meeting lovely people, late night’s talking, late mornings lying in and generally having a fantastic time, before heading out to California for the madness that is NAMM. See you there!

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Spearhead, Sessions and tonight's gig

Tuesday night was Spearhead night – my 5th time seeing them play, this time at Shepherd’s Bush Empire. They are, without doubt, my favourite live band in the world. It’s funky, celebratory, the tunes are great, the playing’s amazing and the lyrics make you feel like the world isn’t quite as lost as it seems to be if you just turn on the TV and watch… Michael Franti has a Shamen-like presence, encouraging the whole room to celebrate together, to encourage the celebration of differences, exhorting religions to focus on their similarities in order to work for a common aim, firing us up to get politically and socially active. All this under the distince haze and odour of many a spliff – bring on the smoking ban… ah well.

Anyway, I got there half an hour after they started due to teaching schedule and a remarkably early start time (headline band on at 8.30??) But the other hour and 45 was incredible as always. The new album, Yell Fire, has a strong reggae influence, and it gives another spin to the protest angle – Reggae, like Hip-hop has it’s origins in defiance, protest and inspiration for the poor and dispossessed (just have a listen to any Bob Marley, Steel Pulse or Linton Kwesi Johnson track for evidence), and like Hip-hop it’s been mostly hijacked by ‘bling’ culture, with so many reggae stars toasting about guns and booty… So it’s great to see it reclaimed as a medium for changing the world.

At the aftershow party, Franti was clearly enamoured with my coat, wondering which muppet I slaughtered to make it, but stroking my arm the whole time we talked. :o)

Yesterday was a heavy teaching day – yay! And today started with teaching and has moved on to recording. I’m in the middle of two remote sessions – one for Lobelia, a fantastic singer/songwriter from Montreal, and the other for Andrea Nones AKA DubNervous – a great electronica artist from Italy. Very different projects, equally enjoyable and challenging. Hurrah!

And tonight I’ve got the gig at the Enterprise in Chalk Farm, opening for BJ Cole and Emily Burridge – doors 8pm, tickets £8/£6 – see you there!!

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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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