lobelia – Page 3 – stevelawson.net

February 15, 2009

Real Life Touring. A Social Media-Fuelled Tale.

So, we’ve been back in England a few weeks. I’ve even had time to do my busiest week of masterclasses ever! (more on that later, I promise)

For now, it’s time to round up some of the lessons and tips from our house-concert-based, social-media-driven jaunt to the US over christmas/january.

A few salient points to start with:

most of the gigs were booked by people we know via Twitter.
all but one of the gigs were house concerts.
we did 5 masterclasses – 3 in houses, one in a pub, one in a Uni.
in 7 weeks, we spent 2 nights in hotels, which we didn’t pay for anyway.
we made more money per gig than we ever have playing clubs/coffee houses (read: we actually MADE money, net, after paying for everything.)
we met more amazing people on this trip than ever before.
very few of the people at the gigs could have named a single other solo bassist.
moreso, very few of the people who came to the shows had heard OF us before, let alone HEARD us. Media exposure was not a prerequisite for attendance.
we have about 5 hours of video to pick through of the shows.
we have invites back for twice as many gigs as we played.
nobody got rich.
nobody planned to get rich.

Let’s break these down:

Most Of The Gigs Were Booked By People We Know Via Twitter:

the usual method for getting gigs is something like; “google venues and promoters in an area >> email promoter or venue >> send package >> agree to do gig for door money >> minus commission >> with food included if you’re lucky >> book hotel nearby for somewhere to stay”. Add other steps if a) promoter has no idea who you are and wants to put you on a double bill with someone who’s a ‘name’. The upshot is, it can often take 3 or 4 gigs in an area before you make any money. After the show’s booked, you contact local press and radio, send CDs, bios etc, and hope they cover it, so people will hear you and then come to the gig. Sometimes this works. often, it doesn’t.

Method for our tour: “talk to lots of people on twitter >> make friends >> allow them to discover music as they get interested in who we are >> tell them we’re touring >> invite them to host gig >> Book in the dates” – the audience is a shoe-in, cos most people can fairly easily find 15-30 friends who are up for a crazy night of music making in a house. It’s a nuts idea, it’s fun, and it has the added benefit of being validated by a friend of their’s… if Tracy/Linda/Angela/Steve/Gus etc are willing to book this, it MUSTÂ be good. The person who books the show then emails the links to what we do around (no need to send out CDs) so people have an idea what to expect. Everyone comes to the gig, eats, listens, buys CDs, and we go home with money and loads of new friends. Win-Win.

All But One Of The Gigs Were House Concerts:

if we get offered non-house-concert gigs, we take them if they’re fantastic. They have to be AT least as good as house concerts to be worth doing. We’re no longer desperate for somewhere to play. The show we did at Grace Presbyterian church in Long Beach was an amazing night. And we got to see Vicki Genfan and Jim Bybee play too. Win-Win.

We Did 5 Masterclasses – 3 In Houses, One In A Pub, One In A Uni:

masterclasses in houses are great fun, and a fab way of a) sharing knowledge on tour and b) making a lil’ more cash. We did classes on looping, bass stuff and ‘social media for musicians’ – again, arranged by the people hosting the house concerts. I usually do a pretty big bass class in Northern California, and it has in the past paid for my entire trip. I didn’t need to this time, so was able to do a much smaller, more focussed class, for people experimenting with solo bass. Win-win.

In 7 Weeks, We Spent 2 Nights In Hotels, Which We Didn’t Pay For Anyway:

at each of the house concerts, we stayed in the house where the gig was. That’s not always the case with house concerts, but on this trip, it worked really well like that. In most places, we also had another day or so to hang out and see the area. The hotel nights were a thank you from Modulus for all the masterclasses and clinics I do using their instruments all over the place.

We Made More Money Per Gig Than We Ever Have Playing Clubs/Coffee Houses:

so much of what happens on tour is built on the promise of imagined success; ‘if you do *** then *** will surely happen’ but rarely is anyone willing to underwrite it to that degree, and so the artist takes a lot of the burden of risk… With house concerts, there’s no chance at all that you’re suddenly going to find yourself making millions of dollars. But there’s also less chance that you’re going to find yourself in debt and unable to pay the bills. The financial arrangements are generally straightforward, friendly, and sensible. Guarantees are kept at a level where they work for everyone.

We Met More Amazing People On This Trip Than Ever Before:

guess that speaks for itself. My music life is full of encounters with incredible, inspiring people. At house concerts we just get way more time to get to know them, to make friendships that will last. Ultimately, I’m WAY more interested in people than ‘success’. If I can combine encounters with magical people with a sustainable touring model, I’m happy. House concerts do just that. Win-win.

Very Few Of The People At The Gigs Could Have Named A Single Other Solo Bassist:

SO often gigs by bassists are largely populated by other bassists ogling their wikkid skillz and monster tech. As much as I love spending time with bassists, it changes the gig if they’re over-represented in an audience. Singers never have to play to entire audiences of singers. It’d be weird. So to play to rooms full of people who have little idea what looping is, don’t know any other solo bassists, and so are listening to what I do as music first and last is REALLY inspiring. I love it. It makes me a better musician.

Very Few Of The People Who Came To The Shows Had Heard OF Us Before, Let Alone HEARD Us. Media Exposure Was Not A Prerequisite For Attendance:

we had precisely ZERO mainstream media coverage for these gigs. No radio, no TV, no mags no nothing. At least partly because these are private events at people’s houses, and so we weren’t about to be giving the addresses out to total strangers. There are ways for people to get to the gigs if they contact us, but it’s not about broadcast at all. No, most of the audience were friends of the host, people brought in because the host said it was good, put their house and money behind it, and believed in what we did. It paid off. We had no shows that were less than wonderful. Made loads of new friends, and sold lots of CDs. Win-win.

We Have About 5 Hours Of Video To Pick Through Of The Shows:

the digital footprint of house concerts is probably about 10 times that of a normal gig. People are excited and talk about the show. Often the attendees are geeked-out, tweeting and facebooking the show from their iPhones and N95s, filming it, taking pics and posting them online, and in many cases, streaming it. The Milwaukee show has now had nearly 300 views on Ustream.tv. Everything is amplified.

Not only that, but after watching the Milwaukee show, we were invited to play in Philly. The show was booked because of the stream. Lovely Linda Mills saw the gig, sent me a twitter message, booked it, promoted it, and the show happened. All in about 3 weeks. Win-win.

We Have Invites Back For Twice As Many Gigs As We Played:

at house concerts, everyone there is a potential booker. they all have homes they live in, and may want to book a show. Loads of people went away inspired to book us next time we came, and also to start doing shows for their friends. That’s GREAT news.

Nobody Got Rich / Nobody Planned To Get Rich:

this is so far from being driven by the rock ‘n’ roll myths it’s untrue. No-one’s getting rich doing house concerts. But no-one’s doing it to try and get rich. It’s sustainable, people-centred, low-impact, high-value touring. It’s cheap to put on, flexible, engaging, original, exciting and artistically elastic. You can do the kind of show in a house you could never get away with in a club full of drinking punters expecting to dance. And you can go home making a profit, paying your bills, with time and resources to make more music for the next time you come round.

This tour was probably my favourite tour I’ve ever done. Every gig was more fun than playing the Royal Albert Hall. The people were amazing, the hosts were incredible in their generosity and still grateful to us for coming and playing. The audiences were attentive, engaged and loved it. There really was nothing bad about it at all.
Yesterday on Twitter, someone suggested that while my soundbites were enjoyable, the reality was different. (see the whole conversation here ) Our experience on tour says this works. Says it’s real. Says it will continue to work.

So, were you there? What did you think? Have you done house concerts? how did they go? please post your thoughts on house concerts/social media/the future of touring in the comments below…

(the picture at the top is of about half the audience/musicians who played at the inauguration house concert/party we co-hosted with Kerry Getz in Newport Beach – an amazing bunch of musicians, from all over the place, playing amazing music)

February 5, 2009

The Problem Of Time Pt II – Social Networks for Social Musicians

So, as I outlined in Pt 1, Social networks can be a really tough place to inhabit as a musician, because you’re going to get a LOT of artists sending you friend requests expecting you to check out their music.

The idea for the artist, in that case, is that numbers mean everything. If I have 80,000 Myspace friends I must be doing something right, right? Surely that means that a percentage of them are going to become fans, tell their friends and then go and buy my CDs. Surely those kind of numbers will land me a record deal? Any label that knows I’ve got 80,000 devoted Myspace ‘fans’ will surely snap me up?

Wrong. As anyone knows whose spent any time on Myspace, there’s no correlation at all between numbers of myspace friends and any real-world metric of success, be that sales, gigs, quality or measurable commercial potential. There are some truly dire musicians on myspace with 80,000 friends, who clearly didn’t get the memo that said ‘oi! stop adding myspace friends and go and practice, your music sucks!
And sadly for musicians on other social networks, the numbers game of the old industry – and myspace – still carries over, and there are bands spamming everyone and anyone on Twitter, ReverbNation, Facebook, Last.Fm and anywhere else they can find to pimp their music. The internet equivalent of aggressively flyering in the street.

Only, as I wrote in part 1, that’s just not how people find music. If you want to know how people find music online, read ‘Net, Blogs And Rock ‘n’ Roll‘ by David Jennings. It’s by far the best book ever written on the subject. It’s brilliant, and you need to read it if you want to be were you audience are likely to be. David outlines the ways that communities form around musical artists and styles, and what the tools are online that are facilitating that. His book is vital reading for anyone working in the industry, and would make fascinating reading for anyone interested in any level of community formation online.

But what I’ll add to it is about the value of being social on social media platforms.

I know, it sounds flippin’ obvious. And it is. It is obvious. So why do so many morons persist in ‘following’ 3000 people on twitter in the hope of picking up listeners? Why the inability to hold a conversation with anyone?

Lobelia and I just booked a whole series of house concerts in the US, almost entirely through Twitter. The vast majority of the hosts of the concerts were twitter-friends of ours, and between us and them, we promoted the shows via Twitter. Loads of our twitter friends showed up, almost all of whom found out about ‘us’ before they found out about our music. They were people we’d chatted with about everything, who listened to the music we make because we were interesting to them.

The conversation was what gave them cause to listen, not the description of what we do. I would hazard a guess that well over 90% of our audience on this tour couldn’t name you another solo bassist (except at the shows that featured other solo bassists!). We didn’t end up playing to rooms full of bass and looping geeks. We played to people who were already caught up in the story of who were are, and were the only too eager to become part of the event, and bring their friends.

We still had to be really good at what we do. Moreso, given that the person hosting each gig was putting their reputation on the line by hosting our gig (in most venues, the owner couldn’t care less what you sound like if you can guarantee beer-drinking punters. House concerts obviously aren’t like that!).

So how does this idea of conversing with your audience transfer to social network activity? Here are some key points:

Myspace friends are a cheap (near-worthless) currency, in and of themselves. Most of the people who add you on myspace only do so to get you to listen to them. The only value is the interaction.
There are only so many superlatives in the world, and all of them have been claimed by other musicians. Telling me in your bio how universe-conqueringly amazing you are counts for nothing.
Your audience are far more likely to talk about you once they’ve made friends with you. ‘Hey guess what, I met this really cool guitar player on twitter, we were chatting about his dog, then I listened to his tunes – amazing stuff’ – etc.
Pretending to be an aloof detached rock star doesn’t work unless you’ve got the kind of money it takes to make you into a rock star. ‘Fame’ is way too expensive for very little pay-off – ignore it.
If all you talk about is your own music, you’ll bore people pretty quick. Frame it in the context of the rest of your interests. Use the platform you have to share info that’s of value (at this point, if you haven’t read my top twitter tips for musicians, do it!)
Time is precious, you have to earn the right to the time it takes people to listen to your music. Take that responsibility seriously, talk up to your audience not down to them, listen, chat, answer questions, ask them, and you never know, you might even end up getting more out of social networking personally than you do professionally 😉
Don’t get lost in the numbers – communities of properly connected people take time to grow. Give it time. You’ve got plenty of it.

It’s vital to not get distracted by the over-hyped, bankrupt ideas of the old school record industry. The cost of turning records into hits vs the chances of making it back made for pretty crappy odds for each artist – the labels eventually did OK by making it all back on the ones that went supernova, while the rest were left in debt, and the stars often ended up drugged out and fucked up.

We have the chance to do this differently. If we understand what’s going on, reject the giantism of the friend-list-size-obsessed spam culture and instead invest our time in making great music and inviting people into the world where that music is made, we have much less to lose and much more to gain.

Win-win.

(BTW, the picture at the top is me on Tracy Apps‘ laptop, chatting to the people who were in the chat room watching the live stream of our house concert from Tracy’s place, on Ustream.tv – gettin’ social on yo ass!)

January 25, 2009

Blog posts coming soon, but first, some video…

Steve Lawson at a house concert in Newport Beach Well, our concert tour has come to an end. Will blog about the amazingness of the whole thing soon, but first, here’s a lil video that Geoff Hickman took at the inauguration party/house concert we had down in Newport Beach, with the lovely and amazing Kerry Getz, which also featured Jason Feddy, Matthew Von Doran, Seth Horan, Ed Sheets and a whole load of hugely talented Hawaiians:

Steve and Lobelia Live in Newport Beach, Ca. 01/20/2009 from Geoff Hickman on Vimeo.

January 17, 2009

Photos from NAMM so far…

Steve Lawson and a photo of Geddy Lee... or is it the other way round! NAMM so far has been a whole lot of fun – have met up with loads of great friends, checked out some fab music gear, chatted a lot, drank coffee, playing some music on the looperlative booth (and discovered a couple of amazing new Looperlative features – video coming on those ASAP!)

Of course, I’ve also run into loads of pictures of Geddy Lee looking scarily like me as always (see above), but below is a round up of the rest of my pictures so far from NAMM – bass gear-wise, my favourite things so far have been the Mark Audio powered speakers (not really bass gear, more portable PA equipment – looks PERFECT for what Lobelia and I do!) and the new Ernie Ball bass with the push button pick-up controls… the great sound of it really took me by surprise.

Have met lots of of twitter friends too, which is rather lovely, and not a small number of people whose opening gambit has been ‘dude, I LOVE your blog’ – so this post is for you lot! 🙂

January 15, 2009

More House Concert Adventures.

Steve Lawson with Owen Biddle at a house concert in Philadelphia One of the magical things about house concerts is just how quickly they can be put together. Because there’s no ‘press’ involved, no promotional deadlines to hit, emails can be sent out to friends as soon as the gig is decided on, and an audience can be rustled up in about 2-3 weeks.

Which is exactly what happened to us for Philadelphia. Linda Mills sent me a message on Twitter just before Christmas saying ‘what would it take for you to come to Philadelphia?’ – we swapped Tweets, then emails, and it was booked! Because of Philly’s proximity to New York and New Jersey, a lot of the other twitter and social media friends in the area were up for making the trip, some musician friends were emailed, and a plot was hatched.

The date was picked because it was the day before Lo and I were going to be giving a looping masterclass at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh anyway, so we’d be out and about, and needed to have a car rented for that weekend anyway.

And once again, we were in the now-familiar situation of turning online friends into real friends, getting guided tours of cool cities, and introducing another room full of lovely people on to the delights of house concerts. (and posing for bizarre pics with lovely audience members/friends at the end, like the one above)

The gig went so well – the PA was put together from bits borrowed from Lo’s brother and from the drummer from her old band, Kevin Quickle. So the sound was fab. And Linda’s house has a through-lounge, meaning that we could do the fairly common L-shape set up, with a lovely assortment of sofas and chairs and cushions for people to sit on.

As a reference for how well house concerts work, we sold more than one album-per-person at the gig, including Lo’s first foray into selling her entire back catalogue + rarities on a 1gig memory stick. Definitely something we’ll be exploring further in the near future!

Being an audience largely drawn from the world of social media, the amount of fab technology on show was amazing, from great cameras, to Macs streaming the gig live to Ustream, two Nokia N95s taking pics and video, iPhones tweeting and twit-picking… Welcome to the future; blink and we’ll be onto something new.

We now can’t WAIT for the 3 more house concerts we’ve got in Northern California on the 22nd,23rd and 24th January – it’s going to be a LOT of fun. 🙂

..But before that, it’s NAMM, which starts tomorrow. Except for the ‘social media for musicians‘ session that I’m doing tonight. If that counts as NAMM for me, we start in about 2 hours!

…Oh, and one more thing – if you want the definitive explanation on how looping works, just watch the video below, from the Philly show:

January 5, 2009

More House Concert magic.

Tonight’s our last night in Nashville, the town that both Lobelia and I think is the US city we’d be most happy to live in were we to move here… It’s so full of amazing people, and has an incredibly vibrant and exciting arts world. Ironically perhaps, it exists a long way outside of the music scene that makes Nashville famous, but throughout the city there are people producing amazing and vibrant art, music, and writing.

Last night’s house concert was at a beautiful house in the woods out near Franklin. Franklin is kind of CCM-ville, the bit of the Nashville area most heavily populated by the people that comprise the Christian music scene that makes up so much of the music commerce in the city.

But the vibe couldn’t have been further from the hairspray and choreography of a slick pop gig. One of the things I most love about house concerts is that they break the binary nature of the artist/audience relationship. Rather than it being about us communicating AT the audience, with house concerts people get to meet, to hang out, to eat together, swap stories, and the artist is no longer the only relevant factor in people having a good time. The space, the hosts, the food and the sense of coming together for something special all contribute to the overall effect of the event.

So being in such an amazing setting, the home of the very wonderful Angela and David, and having Angela open the show with some really beautiful songs, then getting to eat together, chat, hang out and get to make loads of new friends made for another great experience for us, and for the audience, by all accounts.

Immediately before the show, I gave a workshop/masterclass, advertised as ‘the future of social media for music makers’ but to an audience made up half of musicians and half of wordsmiths – authors, journalists, creative writers. A really wonderful group of creative people to discuss the amazing opportunities presented to us by social media.

Again, the space proved perfect for it, including the million inch HDTV I was using to show some of the sites I was talking about in the presentation.

The reaction was pretty much as it always is – one of relief, that the fear and loathing that has swept through the music and publishing industries is actually caused largely by their short-sightedness in recognising what we can do with social media, how diffuse and varied our ways of connecting with an audience are, and how great it is to not be tied to a record release schedule followed by expensive PR campaign as a way of getting music or books out there.

All in all, an amazing day. More of those please!

More photos:

Lobelia chatting to lovely audience people between the two sets at the house concert:

the very lovely Julie Lee, who came to the masterclass, and then guested on one song on the gig. She’s amazing:

Lobelia and Victor Wooten, swapping looping tips:

Lobelia being filmed for the gig:

December 29, 2008

Top Twitter Tips for Musicians.

I’ve been getting WAY too many ‘follows’ on Twitter of late from musicians who really don’t get it. So here’s my Top Tips For Musicians On Twitter. You may want to start with my Best Practices In Social Media post, or just jump straight in here.

OK, let’s start by comparing twitter with Myspace, as that’s where most musicians get their start in social media:

Like most musicians, my start on Myspace involved using the search function to find other musicians and ‘fans’ and adding them without any interaction. I accumulated thousands of ‘friends’ in no time, and for about a month was getting hundreds-sometimes-thousands of plays a day. But very little of it turned into any real interaction with them, either at gigs, buying/downloading music or just messages to say ‘hi’.

So I backed off, and stopped actively adding anyone to myspace, and recently deleted 8000 myspace friends in an attempt to make it useful.

So how does that relate to Twitter? Well, Twitter has no media player. It’s just text. It’s also asynchronous. This is crucial to understanding it. So point #1 with Twitter is:

‘Following’ someone on Twitter means next to nothing. The interaction is everything.

So if you’re tempted to come onto twitter, search for ‘music’ or ‘jazz’ or ‘bass’ or whatever and hope to gain an audience. Think again. It’s not going to work. All that happens is, your timeline becomes unusable. You miss the good things other people are tweeting and you look like a spammer. Because (point #2):

Twitter is all about other people.

That’s right, it’s not primarily about you. It’s a very difficult interface to game anyway. You can’t turn up, post links to your own page and hope people will find you. Because everyone else is way more interesting than you are. So, tip #1 (as opposed to point #1, that was above) – Tip #1 is:

Be interesting.

And it stands to reason that tip #2 is:

“hey check out my site” isn’t remotely interesting.

No, it’s not, it’s self-obsessed, dull and ultimately does you more harm than good. If you’re trying to get me to listen to you, you were in a better position when I’d never heard of you than when I saw your twitter page with 4 tweets that said ‘hey, check out my myspace‘. Now I just think you’re a tool.

No, if I go to your page, and you’re interacting (twitter interactions happen by way of ‘@’ replies – if you put an @ in front of someone’s username in your ‘tweet’, it shows up in their replies, and for other people, it links to their page. It’s creates a contextual network for what you’re saying, it means people can find out what your tweet was in response to, and more about the person you’re talking to.) then I’m more interested in talking to you, asking you questions, answering your questions and generally getting a conversation going with you. Which is good for you, because if I reply to you, the 900-or-so people that follow me are going to see it, an if they find what I’ve said to you interesting, may click through to you…

So, tip #3 relates to how to get started:

Start by adding people you know already and talk to them.

If you’re having normal fun interaction, you look like a human being, not a spam-generating bot, or worse, an up-their-own-arse musical narcissist. Just talk about what you’re up to. What you’re doing is placing your music within the narrative of your life. You’re letting people know what you’re about, so they may then be interested in what kind of music such an interesting person would make. And if you’re a musician, the day-to-day life of practicing, getting gigs, designing flyers, getting paid, making records etc. is fascinating. It really is. So talk about it.

Tip #4 relates to this:

Twitter users are largely curious people, you don’t need to post links all day to get them to find you.

There’s already a link back to your site on your twitter page. And if you’re clever, you can post a nice pretty twitter background (here’s mine) that will give them a little more info. When you are interesting, people will be interested. That’s just how it works. So be interesting.

Tip #5 follows on from this

Twitter users are curious, but also deeply suspicious of spammers.

Like I said at the top, if you get it wrong, it’s worse than not being there. if you look like a spammer, people will not only ignore you, they’ll block you. That’s not good. So If you

interact
keep close-to-parity in your followers/following ratio
tweet a lot about what you’re up to without links to your site,

people may follow you back.

So, last tip – #6 – for now (I’ll do a part 2 later) is about Conversation:

People are far more likely to follow you because your conversation is interesting than because your music is great.

No-one knows if your music is great. Lots of links to your site won’t make them want to check it out any more than one link. However, lots of conversation makes you more interesting than no conversation.

No-one likes the guy/girl in a bar who talks about themselves all night to the exclusion of all else. Don’t be that guy on Twitter.

For reference, here are some musicians being interesting on twitter:

Lobelia, Jeff Schmidt, Imogen Heap, Warriorgrrl, Botched, Steven Guerrero, Alun Vaughan, Simon Little, Ben Walker, Graham English. They range from the hugely famous (Imogen) to the ‘tweets all the time (Graham and I), to the ‘small but important interactions’ (Botched and Steven G) – there’s a range there. Watch them, see what they do, what makes you want to listen to them, and do that.

Have fun, make friends, and post any questions you may have in the comments below! And if you want to recommend a musical twitterer (that isn’t YOU) then please do that too, but give reasons why…

December 24, 2008

First Leg of The House Concert Tour over…

We’re back in Northern Ohio for Christmas, having played three amazing shows, (overshadowed by the tragedy before the first of the shows).

The picture on the right there was taken at ‘Divine Word Lutheran Church‘ in Milwaukee on Sunday morning, where Lo and I played a couple of songs and some ambient goodness for the assembled lovelies.

I’ll write more about the third gig soon, but for now, here’s a Flickr slideshow of the gig at Tracy’s, and then the embed of the UStream archive of the entire show!

Enjoy…

…and if you enjoy the show enough, you can still head to LivingRoomSessions.com and contribute to the ‘chip-in’.

December 22, 2008

Thunder and Rainbows – the heaven and hell of life on the road.

OK, before I start, this post is going to get VERY sad indeed. So if you’re just reading this for a light-hearted update of what’s going on in my life, during your lunch hour at work. Probably best to leave it til later. Bookmark it and come back.

So anyway, we’re 2 shows into our house-concert tour now. Currently in Milwaukee, with the very lovely Tracy Apps. we played a house concert here last night. More on that in a moment.

The night before, we were in Toledo, at the home of Steven Guerrero – an amazing solo bassist and good friend who helped us find a gig last time we were in the area, and this time offered to host the house concert. He had another solo bassist friend – Trentin Lee Manning – that they’d been planning to do a house concert with, so it seemed perfect to hook the two up and do a solo bass (+ lobelia) night. I’d not met Trentin, but had heard really good things about him and was looking forward to meeting him and hearing him play.

We got there and set up, but no sign of Trentin. We left messages on his phone, but gig time arrived and we’d heard nothing, so got on with the show – maybe he’d canceled but run out of battery on his phone. Whatever, we were sure we’d find out later.

The gig went SO well – I’d not seen Steven play before, and was genuinely floored by how good his set was. Great sounds, great playing but above all, some seriously beautiful melody playing and writing. Some of my favourite solo bass stuff I’ve heard in a long time.

Lo and I played a great gig too – really lovely audience, great connection, all good.

That is, until about an hour after the show when I checked my email to find a message from Pete Skjold, the bass builder that Trentin had been visiting on his way to see us, saying that Trentin had been killed in a car accident that afternoon. As you can imagine, the four of us (Lo, me, Steven G and his wife) were so shocked. What on earth do you do with that? Steven rang Pete, and got a few more details, but the shock was overwhelming. What a horrible, tragic, awful thing to happen. Trentin was 22 years old, Steven had met and played with him, and had been telling us how great a player he was, how much potential he had. Now we’d never get to meet him.

And for his family… Beyond words. We were shocked, upset and saddened. Their lives would never be the same again.

So we were there still feeling the warmth and friendship of our amazing hosts, glowing from such a lovely gig to such friendly people and now reeling from such a tragic and shocking piece of news.

And what’s more, we had hundreds more miles of snowy driving to do. Not really the best prospect to face after news like that.

So it was with some trepidation that we made our way back out onto the roads the next morning, still unable to properly process the news of the night before. I’m not sure there is a place to properly file all the feelings associated with such a random even, such a tragic event of someone you nearly met.

Thank God, the roads were as clear as can be all the way from Toledo up here to Milwaukee. We were late arriving, but we weren’t about to rush it.

So we walked in and the looping ideas/solo performance masterclass started as soon as I’d taken my coat off. I talked while setting up my gear about what a whole range of things relating to the possibilities, pitfalls and audience engagement ideas of looped music (and looped video). A really fascinating conversation with a lovely diverse group of musicians and performers. Great stuff.

Great stuff, followed by another really lovely gig. One in which we were able to talk a little about the tragedy of the day before. It’s one of the things I love about house concerts – it’s a conversation between performer and audience in a way that bigger gigs can’t be. You can chat, you can change things around, you can hold a conversation about things that matter. (the entire gig is archived here) – again, we played pretty well, and got to hang out with a load of lovely, interesting, engaging friendly people. In the midst of the sadness surrounding Trentin’s passing, we have two amazing shows, make lots of great new friends and find that the significance of what we do, both for us and in terms of the people it brings us into contact with, is huge. This really is the best playing environment I can imagine, especially when you have to deal with the ‘thunder and rainbows’ that life throws at us, even when on tour.

And today we got to spend the day with Tracy – we’ve known tapps for a long time in the virtual realm, but getting to sit round and chat, eat, and even play some music at her church this morning brings friendships to another level. It’s been another great day.

Tomorrow we drive to Chicago, for gig #3. Another amazing group of people no doubt await, but, God-willing, no more tragedy.

Our thoughts and prayers are with Trentin’s family and friends. Listen to him and read more about him on Myspace.

…oh, and the title? That’s from a song by Martyn Joseph (the words are, I think, by Martyn Joseph and Stewart Henderson) – I can’t find a link to the song or a paid download of it, though it may be on iTunes. here are the words:

The light or the shade, concealed or displayed
Enemies, friends, opposite ends
Bitter or sweet, ruffled or neat
Feathers or lead, silent or said
Generous or mean, corporate or green
Vagrant or lord, the dove or the sword
Distinct or obscure, prosperous or poor
Devil or saint, we are and we ain’t

Intricate mysteries
Life’s secret code
Cul-de-sac signposts
On yellow brickroads
Ambiguous answers
The question’s still â€œWhyâ€
Thunder and rainbows
From the same sky

Champagne or dust, banquet or crust
Authentic or fake, angel or snake
Flower or thorn, prestine or torn
Desert or sea, the throne and the tree

Intricate mysteries
Life’s secret code
Cul-de-sac signposts
On yellow brickroads
Ambiguous answers
The question’s still â€œWhyâ€
Thunder and rainbows
From the same sky

The light or the shade, concealed or displayed
Enemies, friends, opposite ends
Flower or thorn, prestine or torn
Desert or sea, the throne and the tree

Intricate mysteries
Life’s secret code
Cul-de-sac signposts
On yellow brickroads
Ambiguous answers
The question’s still â€œWhyâ€
Thunder and rainbows

(and the photo at the top is by ChrisLev2001 – here’s a link to the original )

December 10, 2008

Coming to America…

Steve Lawson and Lobelia a live photograph taken in Hounslow, London. A week from today, Lo and I will be in New York! How exciting is that? Well, for us, very exciting. For you, probably less so. 🙂

But what may be of a little more interest is the series of house concerts that we’re doing. Being house concerts, I’m not putting the addresses up online, but if you want to more info on any of these please do drop me an email via the contact tab, or normal email if you’ve already got my address!

There are a couple of things still pending, so do keep an eye on the blog, especially if you’re in California or Philadelphia.

So here’s the list:

Dec 19th – Toledo, Ohio
Dec 20th – Brown Deer, Wisconsin (near Milwaukee) – details
Dec 22nd – Chicago Illinois

Jan 5th – Nashville (this will be a gig in the evening and a future of social media masterclass during the day – lots of details on request!)
(in here there could be a bass masterclass in Philadephia and there will be a future of social media for musicians masterclass in the LA area – more deets ASAP!)
Jan 15th-18th – NAMM Show, Anaheim California (demoing for Looperlative, Modulus and AccuGroove)
Jan 19th – gig, Long Beach, California, also featuring Vicki Genfan (she’s so good, it’s scary) – details
Jan 23rd – House Concert, San Jose
Jan 24th – House Concert, San Jose

There you go – that’s quite a lot of stuff going on, and may well be lots more… if you can see a hole in the calendar, and can think of something cool for us to do, be it a gig or a music masterclass, or a seminar/session on the future of the music industry, do get in touch. We’re open to offers :