Tag: music

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Eno, He Knows

Brian Eno – long been one of the most important minds in the world of music, has in the last year or so come to prominence as a vital, fresh and insightful political writer and thinker too (no doubt he’s been all those things for decades, but it’s now he’s been given a voice.)

His latest journalistic contribution to the discussions about the way the world is heading is on the guardian website – click here to read it. very good indeed.

also worth investigating is Eno’s project, The Clock Of The Long Now. Fascinating stuff

We need more Enos, in music and politics.

current virus count for today – over 250!! Come on, get it together…

Soundtrack – right now, Whole Wheat Radio, before that, Stevie Wonder, ‘Songs In The Key Of Life’; The Bears, ‘Live’; Dexter Gordon, ‘Ballads’.

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You Call That Hot???

….London’s heatwave, described below, suddenly didn’t seem quite so amazing when I stepped off the ‘plane at Verona Brescia airport, and into a furnace. Now THAT’S hot!

What a marvellous time I’ve had for the last few days – great music, great people, great food, great weather.

The solo gig was at the Rivolta Art Restaurant (or something like that – not sure what the official name was) – a marvellous place in Rivotella, on the banks of Garda Lake. The gig was outside the front of the restaurant, so I had people who’d come just to listen, people who’d come to eat at the restaurant and people who were just walking by (which kind of reflects the healthy attitude to the arts that seems to be pretty widespread in that part of Italy, but that may just be the very groovy people I was spending my time with) – anyway, the gig went really well, despite a bizarre introduction from a slightly crap clowning troupe who decided to do a 10 minute show about 20 feet from where I was playing! Time to take a break… sold a pile of CDs, and paved the way for quite a few more shows in that part of Italy.

The next three days involved lots of recording – duo with fab guitar user/abuser, Luca Formentini, quartet with Luca and a rhythm section of Gianni Sabbioni and Frank Moreno, and trio with Luca and Moreno. The duo and Quartet were very good, Trio was good, but I think due to the kind of sound we’d go with the quartet, we slipped all too easily into trying the same thing, and in the quartet lineup I’d not been playing much in the way off basslines, leaving that to Gianni, so the trio was a little empty sounding when attempting the same thing…

Anyway, it was all good, got tonnes of stuff recorded.

Sunday night was spent at a marvellous Italian family birthday celebration, and due to my total lack of Italian linguistic skills (Ciao, Gracia, and a bunch of musical terms is about as far as it go at the moment, but I’ll be learning more soon… ;o) I ended up talking in French to a marvellous Italian artist called Albano Morandi. All in all, a great way to spend a Sunday night in Italy.

So I’m home now, glad to be back with the small person and aged feline. Time to get ready for Greenbelt next weekend, and to get back into finishing the work off on the album with Theo…

Soundtrack – now it’s Janis Joplin, ‘I Got Dem Ole Kosmic Blues Again Mama’, before that Sigur Ros, ‘Agaetis Byrium’; David Bowie, ‘Heathen’; in Italy, Bruce Cockburn, ‘You’ve Never Seen Everything’; Mark Knopfler, ‘The Ragpickers Dream’; Fripp/Sylvian, ‘Damage’; The Cure, ‘Disintigration’; The The, ‘The Naked Self’; David Sylvian, ‘Gone To Earth’; Bill Withers, ‘Best Of’.

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Blimey, has it been that long???

Well, what’s happened since I last blogged? Well firstly, my hard-drive is fixed!! Yippee!! I got loads and loads of offers of help from blog-readers, one of which was an offer from Ted to fix the drive if I shipped it to him in Portland, Oregon. So I did, and he fixed it, and shipped it back, and all it’s cost me is a the cost of the new drive and shipping each way. Amazing. Huge gratitude to Ted for that!

For all of last week, I was on Lindisfarne (AKA Holy Island), off the coast of Northumberland, teaching at the Borders School For Life. The idea behind the school is based on the Scandinavian folk high school idea, where learning is pretty much for the sake of learning, rather than for the certificate that you get at the end of it.

The theme for this week was spirituality and ecology, the the many talks, classes and workshops took in themes of the Celtic history of the Island and Northumberland (Lindisfarne was pretty much the first home of the Celtic Christians in England), some stuff on the wildlife in the area, the notion of nature as sacrament, and some other ecological and economic stuff.

There was also a strong creativity thread, which included garden design, all sorts of arty things, and me doing a series on the parallels between music and language, and how to see music as an extended metaphor for communication – looking at music theory and improvisation and examples of language and conversation… It went very well, and much fun was had by all. The rest of the tutors included lots of experts in their field – professors of economics and sociology, design lecturers, authors and the director of the centre for human ecology! All round a marvellous week, and one I’m sure I’ll go back to next year whether I’m teaching or not…

Since getting home, the small person and I have been to a friend’s wedding, and installed a waterfall in the garden, that given the current heatwave has been doubling up as a foot spa. mmmmmmmmm.

So this week is going to be lots of teaching, getting back up to date with the duo album with Theo Travis (artwork nearly finished, just final touches needed on the track mixing), and then off to Italy for a gig on Thursday night!

Soundtrack – The Cure, ‘Disintigration’ & ‘Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me’; Cloud Chamber, ‘Dark Matter’; Phil Keaggy, ‘Acoustic Sketches’; Bruce Cockburn, ‘You’ve Never Seen Everything’; Paul Simon, ‘One Trick Pony’; Gary Peacock and Ralph Towner, ‘A Closer View’.

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Essential Reading…

following on from essential listening, how about essential reading – a by no means exhaustive 5 essential books for musos – feel free to email me with other suggestions…

  • Beyond The Bass Clef – Tony Levin (stories, tips, anecdotes. Genius)
  • The Inner Game Of Music – Barry Greene (probably THE most important. A life changing book)
  • Effortless Mastery – Kenny Werner (tonnes of great advice here, in amongst some new age waffle. Enough top quality wonderfulness to more than warrant the cover price)
  • Improvisation – Derek Bailey (his writing is way more exciting than his music, IMHO – a fascinating book)
  • The Jazz Theory Book – Mark Levine (much more nuts ‘n’ bolts that any of the others, but pretty darn comprehensive!)

There you go.

SoundtrackPrince, ‘Sign O’ The Times’; Joni Mitchell, ‘Travelogue’; King Crimson, ‘Discipline’; Stevie Wonder, ‘Songs In The Key OF Life’.

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that's entertainment

So, it’s the end of Big Brother for another year. It was pretty poor quality TV, though a nice change to see someone who genuinely seems like a decent person win – Cameron comes across as a likeable enough chap. Davina McCall has turned into a big of a tabloid-esque gossip monger, but still. Serves me right for watching it.

For far more edifying entertainment, check out the BBC‘s radio on demand service – especially the archive of Radio 3 programmes – The Late Junction and Jazz on 3 are great shows, but I’m rarely in a position to listen to them when they are on, so I listen to the archive instead. If you do tune in, please drop them a line and request some of my music – they have played me in the past, and will be receiving a copy of my CD with Theo Travis when it comes out in a month or so’s time.

Soundtrack – right now, Late Junction. before that, me and theo, before that, me, before that Bill Frisell, ‘Ghost Town’; Trip Wamsley, ‘It’s Better This Way’.

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Black Monday

Today was a very dark day – my D:/ drive on my computer crashed. That’s the one with all my music on it. ALL my music – four new album’s worth of stuff. and numerous other bits ‘n’ bobs. All in all, about eight months of work. And now the drive is dead. Well, currently it’s dead. It’s not powering up at all. My C:/ drive is fine – that’s the one that I’m using at the moment. The D drive was a massive 80Gig monstrousity that was used solely for music stuff. oh bugger.

I’m currently researching data recovery options, which turns out to be VERY expensive. I mean, I’ll have to go that route if I can’t find any other way of getting the info, and I could really do with having the music (especially the stuff for the duo album with Theo which is meant to be out in September/October…)

So, if you work in Data recovery, or know someone who does, or have any ideas on what to do. PLEASE email me with your suggestions – even if you’re in the states – a flight to the US is gonna be cheaper than the quotes I’ve had for data recovery in London! scary stuff. So thoughts and prayers please.

soundtrack – nowt.

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clearing out my closet..

…no, not in the eminem sense! With the impending release of my duo CD with Theo Travis, I need to make some space for the new CDs, hence the ‘special offers’ link now posted in the sales bit of the website front page… if you or any of your chums have been waiting for some reason to get my CDs, now’s the time to do it – cheaper than ever if you buy all three! :o)

Anyway, talking of new releases, I’m just listening through some of my recordings with Patrick Wood, keyboardist and guitarist extraordinaire, with whom I’m playing a duo set at Greenbelt. We’ve been talking about the possibilitiy of doing a limited edition CD for the festival, so I’m listening through the recordings with a view to editing some of it down…

Oh, I’ve just noticed that this is my hundred and first post in this version of the blog! happy birthday for yesterday, I Guess… silly of me not to notice and post something of great pith and moment in my last blog entry, but still, it’s a landmark and must be made mention of somehow. I’ve no idea how many blog entries were in the old version – maybe I’ll go back and read some.

What else? nothing much. Just parcelled up a box-load of CDs to send of the cdbaby.com – cdbaby is an excellent site for independent musicians. The way my cd sales breakdown, the majority are either at gigs or through evinsol.co.uk, but that’s largely because evinsol tends to get them listed before anyone else, and is the place I use for pre-orders of a new CD when it comes out (the usual deal will be available when the CD with theo comes out, with advanced orders getting a very limited edition free extra CD!)

But aside from that, cdbaby has been a really good sales outlet for me, as it’s made my music available to a lot of people who wouldn’t otherwise have found it – the search functions there are really intuitive, and it seems like a lot of people shop there as a way of finding new hidden gems, and of supporting independent music – something I obviously endorse wholeheartedly. I’ve bought some great cds from cdbaby – cds by Pamela Sue Mann, Ron Miles and Alex Skolnick, all three of which are Excellent, and highly recommended. click on any of those links to head over to cdbaby and hear samples of their stuff!

…it’s a simple as that, which is the odd thing with the internet – the potential market at any one time is ENOURMOUS. I mean, huge. millions. but it’s the same for any artist, and we’re all vying for people attention. The best we can hope for, being fair and realistic, is that people who connect with what we do can find it. The mainstream industry relies on sensationalism, titilation and crass hype to foist sub-standard music onto the public. The indies having neither the money of a billionaire not the morals of an alleycat can’t really stoop to that, so we’ve got to rely on actually being worth listening to (imagine that!) – so far, it’s working out ok… ;o)

Soundtrack – right now, it’s the duo tracks with patrick wood, before that, Cara Dillon‘s album – she’s a folky singer with a beautiful voice, and some gorgeous songs – well worth investigating.

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Bass overload!

This morning was fun – Victor Nicholls, a very fine looping bassist came round for a jam and to swap a few ideas. He’s a very fine musician, and rather annoying from the point of view of my constant harping on about the need for fretlines on fretless basses in that he plays an unlined fretless with marvellous intonation! Still, that’s one more on the plus side to outweigh the millions of tuneless warblers using excessive vibrato to simulate being ‘in tune’… you’re not fooling anyone!

Anyway, I digress. Victor came round, and made some great noises – he really ought to do a solo album (victor, you really ought to do a solo album). the other projects that he’s been involved with that I’ve heard have been very good – you can check one of them out and find out some more info about Victor at www.big-hair.co.uk.

Yesterday, I hooked up a TL Audio 5051 preamp that I’ve borrowed from student simon into the FX loop on my Lexicon MPX-G2 – it sounds amazing. Really really great tone. I’m going to have to get one of these for the solo rig. On thursday I used it as a mic pre for BJ Cole’s sound, and that’s pretty damn fine too. So it’s going to be time to buy a bigger rack very soon, so I can get my other echoplex and this preamp into the rack. Also time to switch to a stereo set up for live work – powered speakers are on the horizon…

this afternoon I’ve been mocking up some artwork for the me and theo album – we haven’t even got titles for the tracks yet, or even agreed on a final running order, but it’s always nice to have something to work from, so he can come round, have a look at what I’ve done so far and say whether he loves it or hates it! The whole process of putting an album together is so much fun – I could quite easily do it four or five times a year, given the budget (so go and buy some CDs now, as it’s all dependent on how fast the last album sells… ;o)

soundtrack right now, it’s Daft Punk, ‘Homework’; before that Nik Kershaw, ‘To Be Frank’, and lots of me and theo and me and BJ!

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The strange ways people find my music!

as you know, my CDs are on the cdbaby.com site, and one of the things you can get from cdbaby as an artist is a list of where people came from to find your site – and this is one of the links that someone used to find me –

http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=hear+baby+chicken+sounds+&FORM=SMCRT

so, buy my CDs and hear baby chicken sounds – simple as that!

…anyway, this reminds me that I need to send another box of CDs to CDBaby as they’ve just about sold out of Not Dancing CDs… there’s been a mini-rush of sales to Japan, which is rather cool… must get a japanese language page up on this site somewhere… hmmm, time to email Chi, methinks…

Soundtrack – right now, Mary Chapin Carpenter, ‘Time Sex Love’ – one of the most consistently fantastic singer/songwriters around, rarely does anything edgy or groundbreaking, but just focusses on write fantastic songs and using great musicians. Is also blessed with a gorgeous voice… Before that was listening to Ma, ‘Links’ – Ma is a French electronica/dancey stuff artist, who came over the London to buy an Echoplex from me last week (still got a couple left is anyone’s interested – drop me an email…) – she’s just sent me her CDs which are really really good. Great sounds, great voice… ….and before that, Morphine, ‘B-Sides And Otherwise’, which is genius.

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celebrating two old guys…

Yesterday I went to visit my grandparents – my Grandad is 93, and apart from his memory being really unreliable, he’s in remarkable shape for a guy his age. Last week he tripped over some broken tarmac while on holiday in Devon and damaged his hip. Had three days in hospital, couldn’t walk when he came out. Fastforward a week and he’s up and about on a zimmer frame, which is pretty impressive for a 93 year old body. I think part of it is forgetting that he’s ill…!

Anyway, he’s a fantastic old bloke, full of wonderful stories from his youth – I found out not that long ago that he was an avid record collector in his younger days, which must be where I get it from. I’m going to have to visit him soon armed with a minidisc recorder and get some of his great stories down for history. Aural history is an amazing thing… or do I mean Oral history? Do you speak it or listen to it? hmmmm. Anyway, rock on, grandad, you’re a star! Much credit must also go to my step-nan, Margaret, who’s one of the most amazing women I know – she’s well into her 80s, and looks after the old man incredibly well. She’s a retired nurse, and knows loads about most things. She’ll feed you til you burst. I’m very lucky to have two such marvellous grandparents…

Who’s the other old guy? Well, today is the aged feline’s birthday! He’s 18, which is in cat years about the same age as my grandad! He too is in remarkable shape for his age, and seems to be getting fitter over the last year not worse. His old joints are a bit creaky, and lying down is a bit harder than it used to be, but he’s not having any of those fits he was having anymore, and is still the most loveable snuggly little chap in the whole world. If you have a look at the sleeve to Not Dancing For Chicken, there’s a piccie of him inside (which is as good a reason to buy a CD as there has ever been…) Anyway, much birthday snuggling for The Aged Feline today – would love to give him lots of quality snacks, but he’s on a renal diet so we’ve got to be v. careful what we give him… if he’s lucky, he’ll get a few of his faves later – mushroom pate, cucumber and a little bit of red pepper…

What else is going on? ah yes, was recording today with BJ Cole, pedal steel genius – BJ’s a very nice bloke, and an awesome musician. The challenge of combining two such full sounds as my bass sound and BJ’s steel is a fascinating one, and one that we’re getting the hang of – some of the stuff we recorded today is fab!

Also been mixing the tracks for my album with Theo Travis this week. that’s the mixing this week, not the album. that won’t be out til september at the earliest. But it’ll be worth the wait – it’s gonna be fab!

Anything else of note this week? Lunch with Jam on Tuesday was class – he’s a comedy writer, and all round top bloke. Very funny (obviously), and a good friend. Sitting in a cafe in soho in the sunshine with jam is a pretty near perfect way to spend a tuesday afternoon.

soundtrack – right now, James Taylor, ‘October Road’ – this was lent to a friend for MONTHS, but I finally got it back, and it won’t be leaving the CD player for a while. It’s a work of god-like genius. Other than that, Charlie Hunter, ‘Return Of The Candyman’; Daft Punk, ‘Homework’; Simeon Harris, ‘Realms Of Elements’ and lots of me and theo!

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