the soundtrack to the day you wish you'd had
Yay! You can now get both Behind Every Word and Grace And Gratitude on iTunes! hurrah! So if you’re a download buyer, and for some reason haven’t bought the downloads from my site, you can head over to iTunes and get them there.
Go on, you know you want to.
If on the other hand, you listen to the 30 second previews on iTunes and decide you want the CDs instead of downloads, click here to order them!
xx
Tomorrow night (Thursday) is this month’s Recycle Collective gig, featuring me with BJ Cole and Theo Travis – this is going to be a fantastic night for me, given that they are two of my favourite musicians to both listen to and play with. Theo, as you know, I’ve been playing with for years, and you’ve probably already got For The Love Of Open Spaces (if you haven’t, click the link to order it! :o) ) – he’s effortlessly inventive and melodic, and just gets better and better every time I hear him.
BJ is the most regular recycle guest, and keeps coming back cos he’s so much fun to play with! There’s something so unique about playing alongside pedal steel guitar, as harmony seems to work in a very different way on it to guitar, or a keyboard harmony instrument, so when BJ is laying down chords, the effect is to create a completely different kind of harmonic backdrop to what’s going on that you’d get anywhere else. He’s a fabulously creative musician, a lovely bloke, and well worth you coming out to listen to!
So that’s Thursday. Then on Saturday, I’ve got a rare ‘side man’ gig, playing for Estelle Kokot – fab piano playing jazz singer and songwriter, and ever so slightly nuts, in a good way. It’ll be a trio with her and Richard Spaven on drums, at The Octave in Covent Garden, and music starts at 9. I think it’s a fiver to get in. The songs are great, and it’ll of course be one of those rare chances to hear me playing normal bass, though I get a few solos in the set too, just no looping.
So go on, come to both, I dare you.
click here for the full details (venue address, ticket deets etc.) for Thursday’s Recycle gig.
Another review just in of Behind Every Word – this one from Sid Smith on his blog – Sid is the author of ‘In The Court Of King Crimson’, a brilliant book about the entire history of the Crims – a very fine writer and long time supporter of all things Stevelicious.
thanks Sid
click here to read the review – the choice pull-quote from it is “sensuous melodies intertwine and fall away with the intimacy of Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden and the cinematic production values of Brian Eno”. Which is nice.
Just had another review of Behind Every Word appear on line. This ones in Aural Innovations e-zine. It’s a very long-running zine that started out as a printed mag and covers Prog/Space-Rock/Ambient etc. – the sort of stuff Stuart Maconie plays on The FreakZone, which is on now… AND IS PLAYING ME AT THE MOMENT!! Wahey!! That’s the first time I’ve ever switched the radio on and heard me on at that very moment! How exciting!! :o) He’s playing ‘Nobody Wins Unless Everybody Wins’.
Right, that’s over – what fun! Anyway, that’s the kind of thing that Jerry Kranitz at Aural Innovations writes about, and he’s been a good solid Stevie-supporter for many years, and has given Behind Every Word another lovely review. Nice man.
So, two things to do – read the review and listen again to this week’s Freak Zone, then email the show and ask them to play more tracks! Oh, and if you haven’t yet got the CD and are inspired by Jerry’s delicious review, you can head over to the online shop here and buy it!
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??
Right, as I said, I’ve finally got round to putting the download version of ‘Behind Every Word’ up at my online shop.
However, I’ve also just posted a special offer on a T-shirt/CD double pack – you can get a Bass:The Final Frontier T-shirt, and a copy of ‘Behind Every Word’ for just £14 + £1 P+P worldwide! what a bargain! And what’s more, if you use the drop down list at the bottom of the page, you can get another download album for just £4 when you order either ‘Behind Every Word’ or the CD/Tshirt double pack.
click here to go to the front page of the shop
here’s the design on the t-shirts –
For some reason, it’s taken me til now to get ‘Behind Every Word’ onto the site for download sales – click here to head over to the shop. It’s only £8 – what a bargain!
The current issue of Bass Guitar Magazine (the one that has the review of Behind Every Word in it) has also got a transcription of one of the tunes from the CD. ‘Deeper Still’ is the last track on there, and I’ve transcribed it all up until the bit where I start recording the loop (which is just a simpler version of the chords to the first bit anyway) – so from that you should be able to work out pretty much the whole thing.
Enjoy!
One of my tunes was played on Late Junction last night, on Radio 3, but bizarrely enough it wasn’t off the new album – it was ‘Pillow Mountain’ from my first album And Nothing But The Bass, which you can buy as a download from the only shop here.
What fun!
No, obviously global warming is just a load of made up nonsense. Yup, this being the hottest summer on record is clearly just a fluke. Anyway. it’s far too hot to do anything for long. I’ve been practicing my solo stuff today (next rehearsal with Julie is tomorrow), and working out how to play Blue Planet off the new album, and refreshing my memory on ‘Nobody Wins Unless Everybody Wins’. Sounding good thus far.
The bad part of practicing is that my office/studio/skip is where the ginger fairly aged feline likes to lie as it’s the coolest room in the house, but he’s really not into me practicing, so he leaves, looking a bit pissed off.
He’s doing remarkably well, considering – I mean, he’s not skipping around like a kitten, but he’s looking better than he was when we came back from the vets not expecting him to last more than a couple of days. if he lasts for more than two weeks, TSP won’t be able to come to Edinburgh with me, and while I’ll miss TSP hugely (not only cos she’s great company, but she’s a wizard with flyering and selling t-shirts and CDs!) I am hoping that the little fella is still around and enjoying life. We’re not going to drag things on when he gets to the point where he’s not enjoying life at all, and aren’t going to put him through any more invasive vet stuff like drips and chemo, but he’s looking pretty good at the moment, so who knows how long he’ll last.
Anyway, I’ve been practicing, sending out CDs, emailing and texting people about Wednesday’s gig, and fielding lots of requests to book Julie and I for cabaret type things at the festival – we’ve really managed to create quite a buzz already! Could end up being the surprise hit of the fringe…
Right, back to learning the songs…