Tag: london

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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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Behind Every Word available on CDBaby

Behind Every Word is now available at CDBaby.com – click here to head to the page – there you can hear 2 minutes of every tune, and read about it. And if you’ve already got the Cd, you can post a user review at the bottom of the page (just as you can in my webshop too!)

So you can now get Behind Every Word on my site, CDBaby, at gigs and from Ray’s Jazz Store on Charing Cross Road in London. What are you waiting for??

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Another great day at Greenbelt

It’s was a fabulous day at Greenbelt on Sunday – I wasn’t scheduled to play, but did a couple of poetry and bass things with Steve Stockman, which was much fun.

Two great moments to day – Nizlopi on the mainstage were outstanding. If you get the chance to see them on their upcoming tour, don’t miss it. John’s an amazing bassist – to play like that and beatbox at the same time is remarkable, and for any of you BassMonkeys reading, it’s unmissable. Go and see it!

Great moment number 2 was Jude Simpson’s gig – jude is an amazing performer. She’s a performance poet, comedy songwriter and weaver of rambling spontaneous tales and stories from her life. She was in a tent that held 450 people, with at least as many again outside – they had to take the sides down, and she had the entire crowd rapt. You may remember she guested on my last night at Edinburgh last year, and was brilliant then. Go and see her if she’s gigging near you – I’ll book her for the Recycle Collective soon…

And now it’s Monday, last day, and we’ve got loads to do – have got keyboard sorted out for the gig, am compering this afternoon for a couple of shows, and then getting ready for the recycle collective show tonight. And somewhere in there i’ve got to pack up the tent, and get the car loaded so TSP and I can get back to London late night tonight, so that I’ll be ready for tomorrow’s gig at the National Theatre Foyer! Busybusy…

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Preparation for tonight's gig…

Just getting sorted for tonight’s Recycle Collective gig. I’ve not done an improv gig with a drummer for ages… probably since I last played with Seb Rochford, in Brighton! So that’ll be fun – I’m hoping we can find a way to mic the kit and loop the drums as well, but even if we can’t, it’s going to be so much fun.

Andy Hamill is threatening to bring a harmonica and do a couple of solo things with bass and harp, which is going to be great – these gigs have become such an oasis of relentless creativity and fun in each month for me, I really look forward to them.

If you’re in London, please come down!

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Radio from the Edinburgh Fringe

For the last two days, Danny Baker’s show on Radio London has been hijacked by Amy Lame to present two shows from the Edinburgh Fringe. On thursday she was joined by Sue Perkins, and today by Andre Vincent.

I saw Sue Perkins show at the Fringe, but it’s when she’s just chatting, riffing off whoever the guest happens to be that you really see what a remarkable comic brain she has – even though the guests are often comics, she still racks up four one-liners to anyone else’s one.

It just made me want to be back up there (apart from anything else, I’d probably have a fair stab at getting on the air on a show like that!) – I’m definitely doing three weeks next year. You can hold me to that!

Anyway, head over to the BBC Radio London webpage and click on the ‘listen again’ links for Danny Baker’s show for Thursday and Friday, and that’ll give you the two shows, with some guests from the Fringe and general Edinburgh chit-chat.

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Jonatha Brooke Live in New York DVD.

Jonatha Brooke is on of my time favourite singer/songwriters. Up there in the big four with Bruce Cockburn, Joni Mitchell and Paul Simon.

I finally got to see her play live when she came to London last year, and she was as wonderful as I’d ever imagined she would be.

Which is why I ordered her live DVD months ago, long before it was actually available, to help her out paying for the damn thing.

And this morning it arrived. So between teaching, the fairly aged feline and I have been watching it. And it genius. Of course. Beautifully shot, great song choice, her band sound remarkable, her between song chat is as charming as ever. It’s all great. You really ought to get it. It comes as a CD/DVD set, not sure what if any extras there are yet…

I own very few music DVDs. Two I think. Both are Jonatha Brooke DVDs. That says a lot.

You can buy it now from her website. It’s $17.50 + shipping, which works out to about £12 all in. For a double disc set. Shipped from the states. From the artist. It’s a no-brainer, as they say over there.

Come and see us in England again soon, J-Bro!

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How to do the Fringe

This is as much as a note for me to refer back to next year as it is info for you lovely bloglings, but if any of you are planning on going to The Fringe, maybe some of these tips will help –

  • Venue – things to take into consideration.
    The average edinburgh audience size is about 6, literally. If it’s your first year, you’re very likely to end up doing a few shows to virtually no-one. With that in mind, book a small venue. It’ll save you money, and feel less crap when you eventually get up to 15-20 people.

    a lot of venues charge more for ‘prime-time’ slots, so think about when your show is best going to attract an audience. I seem to do pretty well late night, so can take a cheaper slot between 11-12, rather than trying to book between 7-10pm, which is pretty much the main time for shows.

    When you talk to the venue, haggle over the cost of the room. I’ve never paid full asking price for an Edinburgh venue. Check what the extras are (do you need a tech? lighting engineer? door person? backstage help? most of that will be charged) – bargain with them. The usual deal is to pay a ‘guarantee’ and then it’s a 60/40 split in your favour over and above that. Some places do a straight hire fee where you get all ticket money. others can be convinced to do a straight 50/50 split.

    It’s also worth finding out what kind of publicity the venue are going to do. If you go into one of the ‘big five’ – The Pleasance, The Underbelly, The Gilded Balloon, The Assembly Rooms or C Venues – they’ll have a load of publicity of their own. It’s not worth relying on (shows in each of these venue complexes still end up with 2 people in the audience), but it’ll help. A bit. possibly.

  • Promo before the fest. Make sure you get signed up to the EdFringe press office mailings, there are lots of useful things to do in there. They send out info of lots of press opportunities and other promo things like playing at the Fringe Opening party, Fringe Sunday etc.

    Get good photos! there’s no substitute for having a really eye-catching image, something that says something about your show. Remember, there are close to 2000 other shows on, putting on nearly 30,000 performances in the month. That’s a lot of competition, and a tiny amount of time you have to grab the focus of your prospective audience – you need to grab them with the picture and show title first, then the strap line, then the blurb. It’s all got to be there, arty doesn’t really cut it. I’ve been given flyers where I can’t tell a) what kind of show it is, whether it be music/drama/comedy/physical theatre/dance etc. and b) what the story is if it happens to be a narrative piece. It’s all got to be there on the flyers and posters.

    Also worth spending a lot of time on is your fringe programme entry – you’ve only got 40 words, so they have to be the greatest words you can think of to describe what you do. Quotes are good if they’re relevant. be descriptive, pique people’s interest, be hyperbolic – everyone else will be.

    Work out your budget for promo. Flyers and posters are a must. An absolute must. But you might want to take out an ad in the programme, or some ads in the free papers at the festival (Three Weeks and SkinnyFest), or even on the EdFringe.com website. Again, you might be able to haggle on price, or team up with another show to take out an ad between you.

    One way to expand your budget is to get sponsors – this can either be individuals – see Richard Herring’s SCOPE appeal for more on this – or companies that have some vested interest in the publicity you can offer. For the last two years, my show has been sponsored by the Bass Institute – an excellent music school in West London. They can obviously get access to loads of people interested in music, particularly bassists, through my show, and I give them a logo on thousands of flyers and posters, as well as a full page ad in the show programme. A great deal for all.

    Use the press list! The Fringe press office sends out a press list, with the contacts of everyone who writes or broadcasts about the Fringe. Write a great press release (get help if needs be), and follow it up with additional news etc. Stick to the recommended method of communication, and don’t bug the people if they ask to be contacted only once. This again is where those killer photos come in handy. Press people are 100x more likely to write about you if you got good photos. head over to Steve Brown’s site for photo stuff – he regularly takes magazine front covers, so knows all about generating eye-catching, product-selling images for artists.

  • Once you get to Edinburgh – keep doing all of the above. Use the internet to follow up radio and press contacts, chase up reviewers and sort out cabaret and showcase slots. There are a few of these – you should contact them before the fest if possible, and then follow up when you get there. Some times people have slots to fill last minute, make sure they’ve got your mobile number for last minute bookings. A lot of the showcase and cabaret slots will be 10-15 minutes long – make sure you’ve got a highly portable extract from your show. This is harder if it’s a play, but it’s worth doing for the audience it generates. Shows like Mervyn Stutter’s Pick Of the Fringe are a great way to reach a much bigger audience.

    And now all those flyers and posters come into their own – put posters up in every legal possible place. Shops are a great one, cafes, restaurants – get there early to guarantee a slot on the walls. Make sure your venue has done enough promo around the building, you want to catch as much passing trade as possible. Don’t go too mad putting out piles of flyers alongside all the other piles of flyers – they get buried fairly quickly.

    Then it’s time to hit the high street and sell the show – have a one sentence description – ‘late night music show’, ‘chill out comedy’ bizarre road trip comedy’ ‘shakespeare on ice’ – something that’ll grab people’s attention. Then have a prepared one paragraph description, so you don’t um and ah through it. Be confident and smilie, very friendly, ask people’s names, shake hands, say how much you’re looking forward to seeing them at the show. In short, make them feel like they are as special as the show is, and they clearly belong at it! As for quantity, you really need about 7000 flyers for your first week, and 5000 for each successive week. We had 5000 this year, and could easily have done 7000 in the time we were there. If you can get friends to come and stay and flyer for you, that’s great, but there’s nothing quite like people seeing your picture on the flyer and then chatting to you about the show.

    Same with posters – about 150-250 a week should do it – make sure you put them up on the pillars on the Royal Mile at least three times a day, as they get covered up pretty quickly. Same for the boards outside the E-ticket tent.

    Work out with your venue before hand what they are happy for you to do in the way of comps, 2 for 1 deals etc. Do you need to have special stickers for it? can you just write it on the flyer? how precious are they about it? If you’re doing three weeks, I’d recommend doing maximum effort in the first week just to get people through the door, try and create a bit of a buzz, get the word out. Lots of two for ones, comps to the casts of other shows etc. Be generous with other performers, most of them won’t have much money for full price tickets.

  • Take care of yourself. Edinburgh folklore is all about people staying up late, getting drunk, stoned and shagging anything that moves. Clearly not a good idea if you actually want it to be a success for you. Almost everyone at the fest loses money. Perhaps this is why. I’ve never lost money there. I hardly drink at all while I there, and try to get enough sleep – I really don’t want to be falling asleep on stage. If you’re a pro, it’s work, 24 hours a day. If you take it seriously, you can do well there. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t go out late night – it might be a great way to meet people who could come to the show, or review it. There’s a whole other world at the fest that starts at midnight. Just proceed with caution. ;o)
  • And finally, make sure the show is shit-hot. If your show is lame, all the promo in the world isn’t going to sell it. People will come, and you’ll get crap reviews, crap word of mouth and the crowds will die off. Come with a great show, and it’ll go the other way. Spend the time making it right, and you can do really well.

    What have I missed? If you’ve ever been there, post your best tip in the comments section…

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Travelling musicians…

The current clamp-down on carry-on rules for planes is already bollocksing things up for lots of musicians such as these orchestral musicians, destined for the Edinburgh Festival and the Proms.

What a load of balls – are these laws making us safer, or just there to let us know how serious the threat is and make us oh-so-grateful to our loser government for protecting us from a possible attack.

Andrew Collins, whose blog is one of my current faves, highlights the vagueness of the current ‘news’ in this brilliant blog post. Have a read. Let’s see if anyone ends up in court.

And this post by Bruce Schneier highlights the utter uselessness of basing security measures on what the ‘terrorists’ have already planned. Here’s a couple of choice quotes –

None of the airplane security measures implemented because of 9/11 — no-fly lists, secondary screening, prohibitions against pocket knives and corkscrews — had anything to do with last week’s arrests. And they wouldn’t have prevented the planned attacks, had the terrorists not been arrested. A national ID card wouldn’t have made a difference, either.

and

Banning box cutters since 9/11, or taking off our shoes since Richard Reid, has not made us any safer. And a long-term prohibition against liquid carry-ons won’t make us safer, either. It’s not just that there are ways around the rules, it’s that focusing on tactics is a losing proposition.

It’s easy to defend against what the terrorists planned last time, but it’s shortsighted. If we spend billions fielding liquid-analysis machines in airports and the terrorists use solid explosives, we’ve wasted our money. If they target shopping malls, we’ve wasted our money. Focusing on tactics simply forces the terrorists to make a minor modification in their plans. There are too many targets — stadiums, schools, theaters, churches, the long line of densely packed people before airport security — and too many ways to kill people.

Security measures that require us to guess correctly don’t work, because invariably we will guess wrong. It’s not security, it’s security theater: measures designed to make us feel safer but not actually safer.

And meanwhile, thousands of travellers the world over are having their livelihoods screwed up by the legislation. I’m all for getting people to stop taking short-haul flights, but not just by fucking up their travel plans. That’s hardly an integrated transport policy!

But, it looks likely that I’ll be getting the train to Italy in October – with this inter-rail ticket it looks like I’ll be able to get a 22 day ticket for £295, which’ll get me all over France, Italy, Belgium and Holland, so I’ll need to get a ticket from London to Paris, and a ticket from Holland to Viersen just over the border in Germany (if I end up playing at the European Bass Day in Germany). Which will work out OK, financially, be better for the enviroment, give me plenty of time for reading books, transcribing tunes and relaxing, and will mean I can take two basses with me, without the fear that some loser at an airport is going to try to see if my basses bounce…

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Home again…

Back home in North London now. It’s a quieter Giz-less place, and it’s now a bit more real that the little furry chap has gone. V. sad. The other fairly aged feline (tabby model) is very clingy at the moment, which is nice from a lots-of-cuddles point of view, but possibly suggests that he’s missing his ginger buddy…

The last gig on Saturday was great – our biggest audience, and a wonderful reaction from the crowd. I managed to dish out almost every flyer and poster we had (despite being handed a ‘hidden’ stack of flyers at 10pm!) and we played well, again. We didn’t really have an off-night, musically – Thursday was the least marvellous as I think we were both pretty tired by then but even then we played well.

So now I’m back, nursing my knackered knee, having had a mostly fantastic time at the Fringe, met some lovely people, caught up with lovely old friends, played some great fun cabaret shows, seen a few marvellous shows, flyered and postered like a mad thing, and done as much as I could to make the whole thing a success. Which it was. It could’ve been bigger, but with TSP coming back half-way through the week, and julie and her hubby for some reason not really believing in the usefulness of flyering, it was a tough one too. that many days pounding the streets of edinburgh, followed by setting up all the gear, packing down the gear, playing the late night shows was exhausting. But the music was fantastic – it’s a set I’m very proud of, and Julie’s got an amazing voice and sang the songs so well.

In some ways I wish I was still up there – I’ve never been to the Fringe just as a punter, and it’s clearly the single coolest place in the world to go for a holiday, except Greenbelt. I’d love to stay and hang out for a few days, but no time for that – bassists need to be taught, Recycle gigs need to be organised and promoted, Greenbelt needs to be prepared for, and my Italy trip in October needs sorting out… now more than ever, it’s looking like I’ll probably take the train, given that you can’t even take books on the plane (supposedly because you might decide to bored the passengers to death with a reading from Midnight’s Children?)

I’ve also got to sort out some more solo gigs! I’ve had a new album come out, done a launch gig, but don’t have anything as yet planned for the UK – all this New Standard stuff has taken over, and I think it would be prudent for me to work on some more me-gigs for a while!

If you’ve just found this after coming to see us at the Fringe – thanks so much for coming, it was a real pleasure to play for you, and to meet some many lovely people in the audience. I’ll be back there next year for sure. Feel free to join the mailing list to keep up to date with goings on through the year… xx

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Fringe Friday.

Second last day, time to ratchet up the promo.

Miles walked – 174
Flyers handed out – 234,000, approx.
posters stuck up – 7,001
legs no longer functioning – 2 (rounded down to nearest whole number of legs).

Meeting lots of people around who had seen us play, either had come to the gig or seen us on one of the cabaret shows, which is nice – it’s always the case that if you do a one week show, you’re just picking up momentum when you leave. Next year, I’m doing three weeks, for sure.

So most of the day spent flyering. Went to meet the most lovely J for dinner, and bumped into Howard Jones’ marvellous guitarist Robin Boult on the way – Robin’s a fantastic musician and really lovely bloke, so I was delighted to get the chance to catch up and have a chat.

Dinner with J was equally delightful. She and Rev. G are two of my favouritest peoples, and part of what makes coming up to Scotland such fun. Everyone’s favourite sweary priest was off running a kids camp, no doubt teaching small children the art of ecclesiastical swearing, and TSP was back in London. So J and I headed to Henderson’s for much needed veggie marvellousness and chat.

From there, I hobbled on my by-now-completely-rubbish legs up to the famousSpiegeltent (famous?? Is that an official designation? Could I just start randomly referring to myself as ‘the famous steve lawson’? hmmm) to see Mich En Scene – a Belgian duo of accordianist/pianist Frederik Caelen, and singer Micheline Van Hautem. The show was the songs of Edith Piaf, Sarah Vaughn, Peggy Lee, Bjork, a few others and some originals, and was chock full of theatrical energy, humour and a strong sexual intrigue (which seems to be the defining characteristic of most cabaret, no? What made this ‘cabaret’ and not just ‘a gig?’ – methinks that sexy theatricality is the key…) – most of cabaret stuff I’ve seen here, and before, really didn’t do it for me. It seems like cabaret is where musicians go who can’t play well enough and comedians go who can’t tell good enough jokes to just do stand up. There are exceptions (The Midnight Carousel compere Dusty Limits has a big voice and did a gorgeous arrangement of Love For Sale, though the piano part was more conventional cabaret than it would have been in an ‘art’ gig.) But Mich En Scene were amazing. Definitely highly recommended.

it’s great, I haven’t seen a less than fab show this year – from Stephen Daltry before our run even started (who just got a fabulous review in Three Weeks, that really described his show to a t – go and see it!) through to Mich and Freddie, via Sue Perkins, The Allotment and Amy Lame. All great stuff.

If you’re around tonight, it’s big finale time – come to the show, bring your friends, and we’ll party like it’s 1985. :o)

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