This afternoon managed to rehearse with my brothers - we're playing at the Greenbelt arts festival next week - and hope to manage some busking after midnight as well. The blurb on the website is suitably flattering - because it was penned by one of da bruvvs. Look out for the Woebegone brothers..though I warn you we've aged a bit.. at some point I must put up some of the audio - I've got some mp3 material using my research audio recorder.
Lunchtime today I was up in the town centre at the annual Mayfair. Hoddesdon Churches together were giving away burgers and sausages in the centre and had managed to field a number of bands. There was a band from the Catholic church with what seemed like a vast number of guitarists. And a band of 14-15 year olds from St Cuthberts - my own son on keyboards. The music was definitely of a 1970s vintage whatever the age of the players - but I was struck by the fact that with the band of older players it felt like a comfortable pair of slippers they were slipping on once again after innumerable times. What grabbed me was the younger band who finished their set with an improvised instrumental after a quip about going into their jazz odyssey phase. But their sound was anything but comfortable - they were playing prog rock ideas which were 30 years old without embarrassment or irony. They knew what they liked and belted it out - and it didn't sound (to my ears at least) like a complete cliche - as it would have been if I had been playing it. They finished with Bowie's Suffragette City which was hilarious. I used to play that song with my band Asmodeus when I was at school. And Bowie was hitting the singles charts. Ahh proud father....
It also got me thinking that churches make an inordinate contribution to music in proportion to their numbners. If church going is running at around 7% of the populatoin and a church of 100 has at least one band maybe two then we are talking perhaps 10 musicians playing regularly. Churches these days have decent sound systems so they are great training grounds with the gear and the space. Getting places to rehearse and to gig is usually a nightmare in these times where every venue needs to have a performing license for more than 2 musicians. Churches are often outpunching their weight. St Cutberts uses 3 bands (not the one featured here) plus a choir and that's not all the musicians - say a third of the members are involved in some kind of music in or out of church.
Its back and I missed the first episode - the Channel 4 website is a nightmare - I don't seem to be able to download the programme on 4OD but it will be back next Wednesday just after midnight- you could always wait for the full DVD to come out but short of that here's the website for you to browse around for clips.
Really great stuff - this is all too rare material on UK screens: http://www.whataboutme.tv/
And here's the one giant leap website: http://www.1giantleap.tv
The boys are back in town - I found the link by accident because Jhelisa - whose set I saw the previous night is on the new album. There's a new TV series as well as the DVD starting April 23rd on Channel 4 for 7 weeks. The idea behind One Giant Leap is a very simple one. Two guys from the band Faithless take a DV cam, some microphones, some headsets and a laptop with some guide tracks and travel round the world asking musicians to jam along. While you're travelling film what you see and ask people about big talk topics. The first outing was wonderful. I didn't think they would have the energy to do it again. Well they have.
I leave you with a personal favourite from the first album Michael Stipe and Asha Bhosle (Bollywood diva) adding their vocals to the same track in very different circumstances.
Mavis Staples is a legend - she has been on the road for 58 of her 68 years - she sang in front of Martin Luther King - and she was at the Barbican on Tuesday where Karen took me for a birthday treat. Here's a taste of Mavis singing with Joss Stone - my personal favourite is her singing happy day with Aretha Franklin which is a near death experience as far as I am concerned (in a good way).
This evening was rather different to what was billed. Firstly Jhelisa came on and sang a storming set. Her band included the virtuosa piano player Robert Mitchell Their set was so long and so accomplished that I wondered how Mavis could have matched it. It turned out that Mavis was suffering from a throat infection so the evening turned into a combo of her band and the audience nursing her song by song which certainly made for a different kind of vibe. A different kind of 'live'. One of her backing singers had to be ready at a moment's notice to leap in and take over the lead vocals. Rick Holmstrom led the band and did a jam with the band in a bid to give her a break - but she came on for the encore and stayed another 20 minutes. I got the distinct impression that her band was an emotional wreck by the time they finished. The final beautiful touch was another of the backing singers Chavonne Morris letting rip for a couple of minutes after Mavis had been helped off stage for the last time. A 23 year old can belt at a level that the best 68 year old can't and it was great to see a group of musicians dip their colours to make room for a great artist albeit in difficulties but to be reminded that the level of musicianship present was awesome even if it was restrained. I leave you with some Robert Mitchell on youtube - trio jazz you can dance to.
I dropped in on Andy and Eugenie Thornton with almost advanced warning - and discovered them celebrating their first wedding anniversary in a pretty unique way. The song on myspace is a special anniversary production They put the song togethe
r for their wedding in Oz last year.Eugenie may be more familiar to you as one of the founders of we are what we do - which produced the best seller Change the world for a fiver. A memorable evening - Now I just have to get the song out of my head!
I got swiped by the Duffy tipping point today - started to forward it to people only to have them trying to do the same back to me. I feel as if someone should put her on a stage with Amy Winehouse and Joss Stone to give the US divas a run for their money.
Having said that the myth making is critical here. This isn't just a question of putting someone with a great voice on stage. I saw here on Jonathan Ross at the end of last year and wasn't particularly impressed. Duffy I thought was the name of the band - and I thought they were over from the USA. After being exposed to her carefully crafted image - the naif from North Wales (lives off the beach?) who just sings it the way she feels it (I've yet to hear her be interviewed) for whom English is a second language. Who sounds like Dusty Springfield. (Lucky her surname is Duffy so her name even sounds like she's Dusty). But they've given here the same haircut in case you don't make the connection. I'm not whingeing honest - just pointing out that when you discover a singer and perceive them to be fresh and unique - it may just be that a professional image making team just did a number on you.
Clearly I can't be seeing a lot of ads at the moment but this feels a lot more interesting than any ads which may have impinged on my consciousness recently
make a strange pairing. They interview very weirdly together - it doesn't feel like there's a lot of chemistry there - I'm sure in bluegrass country Led Zeppelin is the devil incarnate. But a friend sent me their new album. Musically they are just unbelievably good. I just couldn't figure the dynamics until T Bone Burnett their producer came into the interview. You were both nervous he giggled - which was just where I wanted you - I wanted you both out of your comfort zones. Burnett is a past master at getting great performances out of musicians and this album is something special. Plant sings so sweetly - I got the impression that he was keeping his voice down in case Krauss stormed out of the room. They have announced tour dates in May of this year. And T Bone appears to be touring with them to keep them on the straight and narrow. Here's the amazon.co.uk reference though you have to be an american to get a link through to the audio samples so here they are. Why is it so good - great songs - brilliant arrangements and these 2 can sing anything like anything. Awesome.
has turned up - at some point I will be upgrading to the latest version 7.0. For those of you who have never heard of this piece of software. It converts music into its own format which it can play at any speed in the original pitch. Once you have 12 clips all playing at once - in time and in tune with each other - and with a cross fader so you can mix between two different tracks all divvied up into clips - well you wonder what the skill in DJing actually is. Ableton is perhaps the greatest tool for creating life music - ever invented. There was a glitch in the delivery so they gave me a free synth. Now I have synthesizers coming out of my ears but it was a nice touch. I've been wanting to get an upgrade to Ableton because it handles mp3s now - which my earlier version didn't do. So suddenly all music is malleable - and can be twisted into any shape. Digital software is changing the whole landscape - visual tools are now available for us to mash video clips in exactly the same way. We don't have to be linkers and forwarders for much longer. We can start to make and co-create. All you need is a little time.
I heard this by accident when I was driving a car set to Classic FM - not my usual practice. But this piece just leaped at me. I think it also reminded me of Chris Barnham's presentation about Qualia at the MRS conference a couple of years ago - using medieval philosophy to explain how qualitative research actually works. But actually there's no connection at all. Its just lovely. Download 01_quanta_qualia.mp3
And here's the Amazon link to it. I'm off on holiday for a week - I think with this as soundtrack. See yous at the end of the month.
It has been a hard week - and next week is going to be a harder one. So it was a pleasure to bunk off for the rest of the morning having a series of conversations with all those who came to the coffee morning covering all sorts of topics. I wound up talking to David from Imagination who is an authority on all sorts of bits of music software. And Karim who doesn't just talk and read (like I do) about music but experiments with weird instruments and earns his living as a sound engineer. He talked about his new oude. I talked about my typewriter - see earlier posting below. Between the two of them they managed to inspire me hugely to persist with the typewriter project. - thanks guys. So we end the week with another comms napkin of links!
In 2003 Otis Fodder curated an mp3 a day for a whole year of the most eccentric recordings imaginable. The collection was removed at the end of the year. But now not only is 2003 back there's a whole new cycle for 2007 1 song a day. There's a blog too for the most recent material. To give you a flavour of what you'll find here's a link to a page which gives you a couple of songs from a musical about birth control funded by the Ortho Corporation to help their salesmen on the job so to speak.
And while I'm turning the clock back please have a listen to Maui Girl for me. And let me know what you think.
This evening I saw Bruce Cockburn playing at the Stables Milton Keynes in front of a small enthusiastic audience. I know this is off piste for this blog. But but it isn't often you find an artist with this maturity still writing and performing extraordinary material. I've been a fan (and player of his songs) for a long time now and thought he had been going off the boil the last couple of years but tonight he was on form. As ever Cockburn is way stronger by himself. His guitar work is easily able to include the two or 3 separate voices doled out to other band members and makes for much more exciting listening. His writing is just as political and just as mystical when he wants to be. His European tour runs till mid Feb. Catch him if you can. End of rave.
