Simon Little's Blog

Hello folks,

Sorry, It's Been Ages...

I know. I haven't posted anything for such a long time. But I haven't forgotten about you all. I promise!

I have been meaning to tell you all about what I've been up to recently but keep getting side-tracked with various projects along the way. Those of you that follow my (deluge of) updates on Twitter or Facebook will no doubt be fully aware of all that's been going on recently. I'll try to keep it fairly succinct (yeah, right!)...

Where do I start? Well, at the beginning of June Katy and I ventured over to her hometown in Jersey to play five shows at the Blue Note Bar. We played as a trio and brought pianist Alex Hutton along with us from London. The Blue Note is a great little music venue right in the centre of St. Helier. We played two sets of mostly standards to packed audiences every night. In fact we had to turn away about thirty punters on the last night! The week was a resounding success and we're looking at going back soon for a repeat performance. We had such a great time in Jersey and it was great to play five nights in the same venue. Big thanks are due to everyone who helped make the week such a success; Jack, Ronni & Dave, Noel and Thomas. We got some great photos too, I may well publish a few more in another post.

Keep an eye on my MySpace page for upcoming dates with Kate Eden in London...

A few months before the Jersey trip we went into the studio to record a five-track EP called Lean Baby. I've literally just started a page on Last.fm where you can now listen to the tracks. Once again, Kate's band features Alex Hutton on piano, me on bass and drummer Josh Morrison. What are you waiting for? Go and have a listen...

The touring with Clare Teal and Lea DeLaria has been storming ahead over the last few months. I'm presuming you all saw the little video I posted here last time from the Queen Elizabeth Hall? If you didn't, you can find it Here. I've been up and down the country with both bands (I wound up playing at the Hull Truck Theatre twice in one month!) and have done an awful lot of driving. This has once again taken it's toll on the bass-mobile and another small fortune has been spent keeping the poor thing on the road...

Some highlights? Let me see... The last two 'Wall To Wall' shows with Lea at the Pizza Express Dean Street have been fantastic. In May we played the Gershwin songbook with Ian Shaw and a couple of weeks ago we did songs from the movies with Clare Martin. It was one of the best shows yet. Next month we're reuniting The Dirty Martinis to play some serious 50's lounge.. you've got to come along to this one. We've got Simon Allen and Gabriel Garrick in the band. Tuesday July 21st at the Pizza Express.. stick it in your diaries!

We've just got back from two gigs with Clare last week, in Stockton-on-Tees and Loughborough. The tour has been going great. We're still promoting our new live album Clare Teal Live At Ebeneezer Chapel, which is now definitely available on Clare's website Here. We're off to play the Bansko International Jazz Festival in Bulgaria in August. So expect a little write-up afterwards on the blog...

The last couple of weeks have been rather exciting too. The wonderful new album from The Duckworth Lewis Method was released in the UK on Monday. Neil and Thomas asked me to come to play in the band alongside Tim Weller from TDC and guitarist Tosh Flood from Pugwash. The album has already caused quite a storm in the press and made album of the week on Absolute radio last week. We played the album launch show last night at The Oval. The whole event was sponsored by The Times, who gave away 150 pairs of tickets in an online competition. Plus we had all the journalists of course. Even the torrential rainstorm didn't stop folks from turning out to see us play the entire album from start to finish (!), as well as a couple of old favourites in the encore. Had a great time.

We'll be playing a little in-store show at Rough Trade East London on Monday 13th, and then we're off to play Latitude next Friday. I'm not sure what's going to happen after that, but do keep an eye on their website (and of course my MySpace page!) for any future dates. Who knows, there might even be a tour! Let's hope so. In the meantime, go out and buy the album. It's ever so good...

There's also some gigs with Duke Special on the horizon. The seven-piece lineup from the Irish tour last year will be playing Peter's DukeBox Festival in Belfast on 29th August and Greenbelt on the 30th. There should be a couple of other dates too in August/September (hopefully including something in London) so once again, keep your eyes peeled and you ears to the ground. I'm also going to be playing for Mother Courage and her Children at The National Theatre with the Duke boys in the autumn. Peter has been commissioned to write the score and is beavering away on the songs right now. There's a little more info on the National Theatre's website...

Ah.. busy days! Pretty sure I'm meant to be learning some songs for somebody right now. Might have to leave you for now folks. Thanks once again to all of you subscribers out there...

See you soon I hope.

Hello folks.
I found this video on YouTube yesterday. It's us playing the encore at the Queen Elizabeth Hall's Front Room. Janette Mason on piano, Paul Robinson on drums and me on bass (Paul and I are of course out of shot, but I promise it's us really!).
Hope you like it. We've still got a bunch of shows lined up if you want to come see the band. Have a look at my MySpace page for the tour dates.
See you soon!

Hello folks,

Well it's been a pretty busy period out there on the road with Clare Teal. We've done twelve shows over the last few weeks and we've all clocked up over two thousand miles as we travelled up and down the country. I was intending on posting a mid-tour blog to let you all know how it was going, but there proved to be insufficient time once I actually got home! It's amazing how your one day off at home suddenly erodes away amongst a big pile of washing and unanswered emails when you've been out touring... I figured that my constant updates on Twitter would have to suffice for the time being. And once again, a little apology is probably in order for those of you who sent me @replies via Twitter whilst I was away; I still have yet to figure out a method of replying to your messages once I'm out on the road. I'm still waiting for Vodafone to sort me out with a new sparkly phone with which I can fully engage with the online world once I step out the front door!

The Teal Tour started out with four nights at Ronnie Scotts. This was a pretty tall order as we were trying out a brand new show at one of the country's most prestigious jazz venues. Less than ideal (nobody wants to peak too early now, do they?!), but after a couple of days rehearsal we were pretty confident that the new show was going to be a hit. And it was.

We were out promoting our new album Clare Teal Live At Ebenezer Chapel. Unfortunately the album was so new that it wasn't actually ready for the shows at Ronnies (artwork, artwork, artwork... the bane of all album production!). When we did finally get the CD's for the Falmouth show, we were all over the moon with the results. The music sounds great and the artwork is beautiful. We recorded the album in front of a small audience in January. There's a fantastic atmosphere to the live recording; you can really feel the energy in the room. The new album is now available on Clare's website. During the tour they were only available at the live shows so needless to say, they were selling like the proverbial hotcakes. We're all very proud.

The Ronnie's shows were a big hit. We had a full house for three out of the four nights and the audience loved the new material. Our new MD Grant Windsor has produced some stunning new arrangements (he also did a lot of the arrangements for the live album), and the band is sounding better than ever. Colin and AD have become an integral part of the live sound with a far greater emphasis on close harmony backings and the addition of guitar, trumpet and percussion. We've even got Chris Dagley playing bongos for one number. O yes.... A personal favourite number in the new set. I shan't give too much away, you'll just have to come along and see the show for yourselves. Let's just say that it has to be seen to be believed...

I even managed to survive what can only be described as an act of sabotage on our opening night at the hands of the bassist playing with the support band. After I rather stupidly agreed to lend him my bass for the first set, he took it upon himself to completely change the action on my bass; handing it back to me just before our first set, remarking nonchalantly "You might want to check the tuning..". I was not impressed. Especially as I'd just had the bass professionally set up and it was sounding better than ever.

Anyway... I'm over it now.

Our first out of town gig was in Falmouth. Possibly the longest drive of them all at five hours (eerghh..), we played the Princess Pavilion. It's a lovely little theatre down by the sea (Or is it a river? Not sure..). The audience were a little quiet, but the show was good. By this point we'd already started rearranging the set and adding in a couple of old favourites. You can't have a Clare Teal show without Messin' With Fire, after all!

The following day we moved on to one of Clare's favourite venues, the Brewhouse Theatre in the 'Big Apple' (Taunton). This really is a lovely venue and a great little town. It's always good to have a little time during the day to have a walk around when your on the road. Grant and I went out for some lunch and coffee before the show. We've played the Brewhouse a number of times in the past; we're always met with a great reception and the staff really looked after us yet again. A really good day.

On the 24th, we moved on to play St. Georges in Bristol, another regular venue for Clare. I've played there at least three times before with Clare and once with Lea Delaria. It's a wonderful space for performing and has a great atmosphere... as long as you can get the acoustic under control. It's pretty cavernous and getting the balance right on stage can be a bit of a challenge.

We had the local BBC come down in the afternoon to interview Clare and film her, Grant and I performing our blisteringly fast version of Tea For Two (Which incidentally features on the live album.. come on now folks!). Great fun... Really hoping that one turns up on YouTube at some point. It's funny how you never really get to see these things back...

I did another one of those classic moves whilst in Bristol. The old 'forgetting to call your mates when playing in their town' trick. It never fails to come back and bite you on the arse. I have one good friend in Bristol, a girl I went to college with and haven't seen for a while. Although I had it in the back of my mind to call her the next time I was in town, I totally forgot. Normally this wouldn't be a problem but, rather typically, I ran into her in the street during the afternoon. This always happens! It happened the last time I was in Dublin recording with TDC with the one person I know there too. Mortifyingly embarrassing. Felt awful. But it was nice to see her, if incredibly briefly!

After Bristol we had a well-deserved day off at home. When I intended on writing this blog. Obviously I didn't get around to it... sorry folks.

On the 26th we all schlepped up to South Shields. Yet another five hour slog in the car. We arrived in the freezing cold and wind at the venue which is situated right on the Tyne. I really thought the weather was starting to get warmer by now, rather wishfully discarding both hat and scarf by this stage; but this happy thought was soon put to bed as I attempted to move my gear into the venue and virtually took off like a windsurfer as soon as I put my bass on my back...

After a great show we excitedly set off for our hotel like a bunch of school kids off to Summer camp. We were staying in the gorgeous Lumley Castle Hotel about thirty miles down the road. If you're ever up in that area I'd seriously recommend this place. Dating back to the 1300s, it is truly breath-taking. Very rarely do we get to stay in such luxury whilst on the road. Clare and Muddy did well to find this little gem! Here's a little photo so you can get the general idea...

Mmm.. lovely stuff! The following morning we travelled 150 miles down the road to play the Albert Halls in Bolton. Due to the nature of the high stage we were unable to use their piano, so Grant was stuck playing a keyboard again. It's amazing how this can affect the gig and the sound on stage. It really was a bit of a struggle to hear exactly what was going on and the overly long soundcheck meant that we also missed dinner; not a great start to the evening but the show itself went really well.

We moved on to Huddersfield on the Saturday to play the fabulous Lawrence Batley Theatre. Once again, Grant and I got there early to have a wander round the town and check out the venue. Grant was instantly taken with the piano (in fact at one stage I thought I might be lunching alone...) and the technical crew were really great. This was the closest we got to a hometown gig for Clare on this tour and the show was sold out with around 500 people coming. In many ways it was a shame that this show (and the previous two shows on the Northern run) featured just the trio, but it did allow us to vary the set across the tour a little more and try out some different material. In fact we are working on creating a completely different show for the trio in the near future for these occasions... watch this space.

The Huddersfield show was definitely a highlight for me. We had such a great time at the Lawrence Batley Theatre. The audience were brilliant and it really is a very special venue. I'm definitely looking forward to going back there to play again soon.

The tour finished with two additional one-off shows the following week. The first was up at the Pacific Road Arts Centre in Birkenhead (over seven hours there and back!). This is a really interesting venue which I'd played a couple of years ago with Lea Delaria's Dirty Martinis. It's situated in a converted railway depot and puts on a wide range of music from jazz to full-on rock gigs. Acoustically it's a bit of a cavern, plus there's no piano, but this is one of my favourite venues to play up North. It has such a great atmosphere and the staff are brilliant. Really worth checking out.

The last venue of the tour was The Stables in Wavendon (and thankfully, not too far from home this time!). We always have a fantastic time there. I've played there with Clare at least three times before and we have a fabulous time on every visit. Founded by John Dankworth and Cleo Lane, it really is one of the best jazz venues in the country and well worth a visit if you're in the area. We were back with the full band this time and had a fantastic show to round off the tour.

But of course the fun doesn't stop here folks! We've still got a load of forthcoming shows for you if you haven't managed to catch us thus far. We'll be at the Hull Truck Theatre on the 26th, Pizza Express Maidstone on the 2nd May and the Bath Pavilion on the 3rd. You can find all Clare's dates (as well as all the other dates I'm playing with other artists) on my MySpace page, as well as on Clare's official website. And don't forget to order your copy of Clare Teal Live at Ebenezer Chapel from the Online Shop, where you can also get hold of our last album Get Happy. Enjoy!

ps. Those of you waiting with bated breath for news of my forthcoming solo album (or should that be 'both of you'?!), fear not. Work is very much in progress, but that is another post entirely. This one is already far too long... until next time!

I found this little gem on YouTube and felt utterly compelled to share it with you all instantly. In fact, I'm posting direct from YouTube, so apologies if the blog post comes out a little askew...
We played a TV show in Germany last year called "Hot Hits!". It was a very long day but great fun. Sam Fox and Baccara were on the same episode. It really couldn't have been a more surreal day. The final cut chopped between us miming in front of a studio audience, the original music video, and four go-go dancers in red hotpants.
Enjoy!

Hello folks,

I've just got back from three shows in Denmark with Maggie Reilly promoting her new album Looking Back, Moving Forward. The album features a great bunch of new songs alongside two songs from her days with Cado Belle and reworked versions of several of the hits including Moonlight Shadow, Family Man and To France.

These shows featured a different lineup. Stuart, Gordon and I were joined by Alyn Cosker on drums and Davie Dunsmuir on guitars. It made a real difference having both Stuart and Gordon in the band; we got a much fuller sound with two guitars which really sounded great on some of the heavier numbers. The latest incarnation of Heartsong with two acoustics sounded fantastic.

After four (loooong) days of rehearsals up in Glasgow the previous week we set off for Denmark on the 5th. Actually, I set out alone. Since I am now the only remaining band member residing outside of Scotland it is now my lot to do all the sitting around in airports on my tod. At least I finished my book. And have resolved not to read any more books by Will Self. A gig the previous evening at Pizza Express in Soho meant that I wound up staying up all night in order to catch the horrifically early flight out from Stansted to Copenhagen. No surprises there then..

Our first show was at the Teaterbygningen in Købe. The three venues were all of a similar size all were all seated. Probably around the 250/300-seater mark. We've definitely been to Købe before, although I'm not sure whether we'd played a show there yet. I remembered the town square, and of course the hotdog stand.. first one of the tour. Excellent stuff. We did have a rather farcical episode in a cafe when we attempted a coffee and cake stop. Having been shown to our table and handed menus we were resoundingly ignored by the entire waiting staff for the next 25 minutes, at which point we had to head back to the venue for the soundcheck. Fail.

Considering this was our first show with this lineup, the gig was fantastic. The audience really went for the new material and we got a very warm reception all round.

The second show saw us schlepping across Denmark for almost five hours to Aabybro. Which is apparently somewhere near Aalborg right at the Northern tip. It was frankly in the middle of nowhere. Although a similar setup to the previous gig, it didn't quite have the same vibe. The stage lighting left a lot to be desired; mostly unflattering white light and certainly nothing moving. It's amazing what a difference the lighting makes to a show like this, especially when the audience are seated. I found it very hard to get into the show once the house lights went down. It felt like the rock and roll equivalent of doing a gig in someone's office. The guy who ran the venue insisted on us all coming onto the stage with him at the opening of the set whilst he introduced Maggie. It was one of the longest, most drawn-out introductions I have ever had the misfortune to witness; with long pauses and deathly silence between what I can only imagine were his gags. Not a great start. Luckily we managed to rescue the show from this less than ideal kickoff, but it wasn't among the best we've done.

Luckily the last show was only an hour away in Hjørring. We played the excellent Vendelbohus, a great venue right in the middle of town. It's always good when you roll up at the venue to be confronted with a massive poster advertising the show. We seemed to be following 'Jane & Shane' all over Denmark this time, whoever the arse they are. In the classic Danish touring tradition, the one day we arrive in a big town with shops and cafes aplenty is a Saturday when everything shuts at lunchtime. When do the Danes do their shopping? They must have to take the afternoon off work during the week. Hopefully next time we go back will be mid-week; it looked like a good town.

The show was fantastic. Definitely the best of the three. The staff and crew at the Vendelbohus were great and we got some amazing homemade food. Again, this was the first time Maggie had got some decent veggie food. The Danish really don't get the whole veggie thing and this can cause a lot of problems for Maggie when on the road. They do however do a nice line in hotdogs and chili-dogs. So I was alright. The audience were again really receptive to the new material. I think the new album is going down really well over there and Maggie has been busy with a lot of promo appearances and interviews, so hopefully we'll be back out there soon doing some larger venues. Fingers crossed!

We had a great hotel near the venue. This was the only one which managed to keep the bar open for us after the show. It never ceases to amaze me how seemingly every hotel in Denmark shuts up shop at about 10pm. Which is really not particularly conducive to the obligatory post-gig chill. We have become accustomed to trousering as much of the rider as possible on the way out of the shows and now have a bottle opener on standby after every show. There was a great kebab shop open opposite the hotel too, which made me very happy... But alas we were only there for five minutes having to leave at 5.30 in the morning to catch our flight home. Always the way!

O, and we saw these two rather unfortunately placed posters outside the venue... Classic.

So that's it for now. Maggie has one more show in the book for the 2nd May in Belgium, but alas I will be busy touring with Clare and Lea that whole period. I think Ross Hamilton will be taking my place for that one. We're expecting a veritable flurry of gigs in the Autumn, so do keep an eye on Maggie's new revamped website or my MySpace page for future dates.

On a totally unrelated note, I was doing some recording with Katy at Red Gables just before we went away and tried for the first time a DPA mic on my upright bass. Let me tell you; this is the best recorded bass sound I've ever got in the studio and I'm going to be seriously investigating the possibility of getting one for myself. Apparently it was a IMK 4061. I can highly recommend this to any upright player; such a clear and full sound. I would be very interested to see what it does live on stage. I'll let you know how I get on.

Until next time...

Hello folks, long time no see!

First of all, a little apology for the inordinate amount of time since my last post. I must admit that it has been relatively quiet here since the Duke Special tour but there have recently been a few little developments that I thought I might let you all in on...

As many of you will no doubt already be aware of, there is a new Divine Comedy album in production as we speak. Tim and I flew out to Dublin about a month ago to lay down the bass and drum tracks with Neil and our engineer Fergal.

Neil has written some fantastic new songs and we had a great time working on the rhythm tracks. Obviously I can't say too much at this stage as it's not finished. I'm expecting an Autumn release. Judging by the work done so far it's going to be a fantastic record and definitely one to look out for later this year. I wound up playing my Warwick FNA Jazzman V for virtually the whole album this time. I might do a mini-post on this soon for the guitar geeks and gear-heads among you as it gives me no end of pleasure when I'm finally allowed to play all my favourite instruments on the record whist I'm often banned from using them live because of the way they look! I'm hoping we'll be out touring again sometime later this year... fingers crossed!

Two weeks ago I had the great honour of being asked to play a last minute show with the wonderful Carleen Anderson at the new Kommedia in Bath. I've been a fan of Carleen since her days with The Young Disciples. It's always so exciting when you get to play one of your favourite tunes with the artist that wrote it and made it famous (playing Brick with Ben Folds is still one of the highlights of my career). Playing Apparently Nothin' and Mama Said with Carleen was a real joy. There was a lot of tunes to learn in a very short space of time (ie; a couple of days to learn the whole set) which was a bit of a scramble but it was so worth the effort. I really do love playing that kind of music and very rarely get the chance.

Carleen and her band really made me feel welcome and were incredibly supportive. Big thanks to Mark Edwards (yes, The Invisible Birdman!) for getting me in. Really hoping we get to play some more shows together sometime soon.

More recently, I've been over in Box recording a live album with Clare Teal. We spent a couple of days rehearsing some new tunes and arrangements for the session. Led by our new musical director Grant Windsor, the recording also featured Clare's regular touring band of Chris Dagley on drums with Colin and AD on backing vocals.

Our carefully laid plans very nearly came unstuck on Friday morning when we all woke up to some incredibly heavy snowfall from the previous night. It took all morning for Clare and Grant to get over to Box from Bath because of the snow and we also had a very long wait with the piano tuner coming over from Bristol later on. Luckily things came together just as the audience started to arrive, although we missed a few key audience members due to the weather.

The show went really well and the recording sounds great. We're hoping the live album will be ready for Clare's tour which starts in March with four nights at Ronnie Scotts. You can see the full list of shows on my MySpace page.

I'm going to be out touring with both Clare and Lea Delaria through March and April. This does unfortunately mean that I won't be out with Duke Special for his UK dates at the end of April, but I'm hoping to play some more dates with him later on in the year. I went to see Pete and Chip play at the Proud Gallery in Camden a few weeks ago and had such a great time. It never ceases to amaze me how two musicians can create such a massive and varied sound. I was blown away by the show; truly inspirational. Pete will be out touring with a four-piece band the last week in April and I seriously recommend you get yourselves down to at least one of his shows.

Until next time x

Well, we don't have to pretend I'm still in Ireland any more. The last two posts were written whilst still on the road with no internet access, but from here on in I'm back home and writing in the present! So, where were we...?
The Cork Opera House show was fantastic. What a great audience! It never fails to amaze me how enthusiastic the Irish audiences are and how receptive they are to the music. They always sing along in the raucous tunes and stay quiet in the ballads. Just perfect for a show as theatrical as the Duke's.
On the Saturday we played the Clarence in Sligo, which is a hotel venue on the main high street next to the cinema (and yes, we all paid a visit after sound check, in fact some of the band caught two films in one day. I went to see the new Robert De Niro film What Just Happened?). The stage was a little small and negotiating your way between this and the tiny 'dressing room' on the third floor soon became a bloody nightmare. The promoter only managed to rustle up one electronic key between the twelve of us and when you take into account the three locked doors and the lift that stood between us and the dressing room you can imagine the logistical chaos that ensued... It was like the Crystal Maze that place. In fact Chip and I had to wait so long for the lift to come back down after the show that we ended up packing down our gear in our stage clothes. Far from ideal and slightly less than cool. O yeah, and it was another one of those venues that miraculously turns into a shit disco as soon as the act has left the stage. Nightmare.. But the gig was great.

We went on to the Royal Theatre in Castlebar the following day. This is also in a hotel complex, but comparatively enormous and really well thought out as a venue. We had another massive stage to fill and the gig was great.
We rolled up to the Black Box in Galway on the 1st December. It's a proper sticky-floored rock & roll club that I remember playing with The Divine Comedy a few years back, and one of the venues I'd been looking forward to revisiting. Really great place. It seemed they'd had some kind of panto event going on there recently and they were throwing out a bunch of costumes and staging gear. Now, as you can imagine, this was music to the ears of the Duke Special crew! Peter and Paul discovered a discarded pantomime camel outfit in the morning and decided to try it out for size and take a walk into town... I can't even imagine the looks on the faces of the unsuspecting locals when, sat innocently sipping their cappuccinos in a quiet Galway cafe, a pantomime camel saunters in and starts ordering coffees. And then turns out to be Duke Special. A bit of rock & roll history in the making there I reckon.. Maybe not, but a good story if you were there... Apparently Peter drew the short straw and wound up at the back end. We also gained an extra band member on the tourbus after the show. He made surprise appearances in most people's bunks at some point for the rest of the tour...

The Galway show was one of the best nights so far on the tour. There was a great atmosphere (as there always is at any gig I've done in Galway) and the audience were brilliant once again. Looking forward to playing there again soon.
The big Belfast show was on the Tuesday. Peter had taken over St George's Market for the day, erecting two big stages opposite one another in a mini festival setup. I think we eventually had about six (!) support acts, including of course our very own Paul Pilot who'd been opening up for Duke the whole tour (We love his bones). The great Australian comic/singer-songwriter Tim Minchin performed a thirty minute set on the opposite stage just before us and went down a storm. I spent quite a bit of time with Tim during the day and we got on really well. Lovely chap. He's doing two nights at the Queen Elizabeth Hall this month with (for the first time) a full band. Well worth checking out if you're in town...
The atmosphere at St George's Market was electric. There were a few stalls set up selling food etc, it was beautifully lit and the two stages looked amazing. I think we had about two thousand people in for the night and it really felt like a special event. The Lowly Knights walked around the audience playing just before we went on (as they did in Dublin; sorry, forgot to mention them in the last post).
The show itself was brilliant; easily the highlight of the tour for everyone involved. They filmed the whole set so hopefully they'll put together some kind of DVD version for release. The Duke crew are very good with that sort of thing; I just finished watching the great DVD from their five nights at the Belfast Empire boxset. It'd be great to have a permanent record of the St George's Market show, it was a real night to remember.
We had a few guests up with us for the show. Tim Minchin came back on for Our Love Goes Deeper Than This during the encore and the crowd went crazy. It was an absolutely stunning show. I really do hope the recording came out well...

The tour finished with a show at the Nerve Centre in Derry, another indie club but much smaller than the Black Box. Being straight after the big Belfast gig, everyone was totally wiped out by this point. We'd played a load of shows by this point with almost no break. Progress was not helped by the fact that we discovered that the in-house PA was shot to pieces. The replacement PA wasn't due to arrive until right at the last minute, so we spent a lot of the day hanging around waiting and didn't get much of a soundcheck.

It's funny how it doesn't seem to matter how tired you are before a show, the minute you get in front of an excited audience you suddenly come alive and forget all about it. I do anyway. The audience were brilliant. We stretched out a little as it was the last night and Peter played a couple of extra tunes in the encore. We all had a great show and it was a perfect way to end the tour.

It was a great experience touring with Duke Special. Everyone in the band and crew are great fun to be around; you really couldn't hope to be with a better group of people. I love the whole vibe of the band; they're all so creative and spontaneous in everything they do, it makes it easy to create great music when surrounded by people like that. As a big Duke fan already, it was a real honour to go on the road with him. I'm really hoping they put on some UK dates next year with the same lineup. It'll be a riot!

If you haven't got Duke Special's new album I Never Thought This Day Would Come, go out and get it! It's available over here for download at the iTunes store, or you can buy the CD direct from the Duke Special Store. What are you waiting for?!

Until next time...

I'm writing to you today from the Cork Opera House. We had a day off yesterday in Cork. The only hotel we've got on the whole tour. It was so good to sleep in a bed that stays still, although I swear I felt it go around a few corners during the night...

ON the 25th November we played the Dublin Olympia. This is by far my favourite venue to play in Dublin. I've played there a few times with The Divine Comedy before, and once with Eddy when we supported The Beautiful South.

I've always loved playing in Dublin. It's such a great city. We wound up not having a great deal of time to walk around town so I headed straight for the parts I knew best surrounding the venue. I found a few new (to me, anyway) second-hand record stores and a couple of great little vintage clothes shops in Temple Bar. I finally managed to get my hands on a top hat that actually fits my big head (joy of joys!); it looks very classy with the tailcoat.

I returned to the Olympia after a slap-up binge at Eddie Rockets next door. It was great having the run of the Olympia's massive stage having mostly been playing much smaller venues until then. We were able to spread out more and get a great sound onstage which helped no end during the performance. We had a huge crowd in and they were really receptive to the music.

Our lighting designer Dom really went to town for Dublin, creating a really dark and moody setting for the show. The new album is pretty dark compared to Songs From The Deep Forest. The only trouble was that as a result the stage was so dark you daren't put anything down that you wanted to find again later on in the show. My little corner of the stage has become pitch black apart from occasional bursts of green and red haze for the majority of the show. In fact, I haven't seen my set list for the last two shows! I resorted using the florescent 'W' on the front of my Warwick amp to find out what songs are coming up..

Incidentally, for those of you so inclined, this is the set list we've pretty much settled on for the show now..

Mockingbird Wish Me Luck (Duke & Ben)

Sweet Sweet Kisses

Those Proverbs We Made In The Winter

Brixton Leaves

Diggin' An Early Grave

I Never Thought This Day Would Come

Portrait

No Cover Up

Flesh & Blood Dance

If I Don't Feel It Anymore

Salvation Tambourine

Nothing Comes Easy

Why Does Anybody Love?

Let Me Go (Please Please Please)

Our Love Goes Deeper Than This

Freewheel (Pete solo/Duet with Swinging Dave Rowland)

Ghost Town (The Specials)

Last Night I Nearly Died

Neil came to watch the show at the Olympia. It was great to catch up with him at the aftershow over a Guinness. He didn't get up to sing this time as he and Peter had just performed their 'dueling pianos' show at Vicar Street in October. I think he really enjoyed the set.

I should, in true British tradition, take a brief moment to mention the weather. It has rather suddenly become bitingly cold here in Ireland. Whilst this has no effect on the shows, it has made some of the loading pretty bloody unpleasant. Pretty much the last thing you want to do when stood outside in the freezing cold is to grab hold of a bunch of increasingly heavy, awkward and, most significantly, cold metal flightcases and start schlepping them about. Having said that we've been pretty lucky since the Loadout From Hell in Dundalk where we not only had to deal with the cold, but the pissing rain too. We all got utterly soaked through...

We went to Limerick the following day to play Dolans's. I'd only played there once before when we did the trio tour with Neil and Squeezy. It really is a fantastic venue and the guys that run the place are brilliant, they really know how to look after musicians there. And as for the food.. wow! I'd been looking forward to that show for a while. We had a great vibey show and a really fun night. The Dolan's crowd are always amongst the best in Ireland.

Yesterday we had a well-deserved day off in Cork. Great place. I spent the afternoon wandering the town centre before meeting up with Ben and Phil for some food and a trip to the cinema. We went to see My Best Friend's Girl, an American Pie type film starring Kate Hudson and Jason Biggs. It was one of those films that you vaguely enjoy whilst watching it, but come away with nothing. Still, it helped pass the time! We went to see Quarantine before the second show in Waterford. I absolutely loved it, but it did put us in a funny mood for the show...

WE play the Opera House tonight. We've had a few issues getting into the venue and onto the stage. It seems panto season is upon us... O well, we're in now. I've got to get my gear set up so I'd better leave you now. I'll let you know how it all goes. Only five shows to go now. I'm really looking forward to the Belfast show in St George's Market. We've got a whole host of special guests and support acts lined up, it sounds like it's going to be a great night.

Until then...

Duke Special's fantastic new album I Never Thought This Day Would Come was released in Ireland last month. It's available over here for download at the iTunes store, or you can buy the CD direct from the Duke Special Store.

Hello folks,

Sorry it's been such a long time since my last post. I've just spent the last fortnight touring Ireland with Duke Special and made the (potentially hazardous) last minute decision to go sans laptop. Hence my absence online over the last two weeks, I do hope you'll excuse me.

But fear not dear readers, I have been diligently 'blogging' the old-fashioned way with pen and paper throughout the tour so that I can bombard you with a veritable deluge of posts on my return.

I wrote this post on the 24th November. Lets pretend for now it still is...

I feel a little explanation is in order regarding the title of this post. I am now officially known as The Undertaker in the Duke's band. This is mainly due to the rather splendid tailcoat I picked up in Camden just before we set off. It was Peter's idea. He asked me a while ago if I had any character ideas for the band (all the members of the band assume a Duke Special-esque identity when on tour) and the tailcoat prompted him to christen me The Undertaker. Nice.

And, so you know, here's who else we had in the band on the tour:

Duke Special- Piano and vocals

Temperance Society Chip Bailey- Percussion and kitchen utensils

Matador Ben Castle- Saxes and Clarinet

Paul Pilot- Guitar

Detective Phil Wilkinson- Drums

The Invisible Birdman Mark Edwards- Keyboards

And myself on bass. It's a really fantastic lineup and I think the largest band Peter has toured with thus far (excluding the orchestral shows, obviously)

Having spent a couple of days rehearsing the previous month to get our ears around the new material, this run officially started with three more days rehearsing in Putney. Now, I say three days rehearsing, but in reality the majority of the first day was spent unloading al the gear and setting it up for the first time, and virtually the entire last day was spent packing it down and trying to get it loaded for the tour. I have never come across another band with as much (mainly loose!) gear as the Duke's. They make The Flaming Lips look positively minimalist with their vast plies of equipment and various stage paraphernalia. In fact we got a nasty surprise when we finally met up with the tourbus and trailer with our veritable mountain of gear, only to discover that we'd also be carrying about the same amount again in lighting equipment. And the trailer wasn't very big. Oops...

O yeah, and we have no roadies. Should have mentioned that earlier really...

I am writing to you today from the dressing room of the An Grianan Theatre in Letterkenny. We have four shows under our belt so far, with nine more to go.

Our tour started in Waterford with two nights at Electric Avenue. This is a great little venue right in the middle of the town. I think Peter's played there a number of times before. I'm guessing it holds somewhere between 200-250 people. The stage certainly wasn't intended for a band the size of ours. In fact Mark and I wound up on our own little podium off to one side. The was no cat-swinging action to be had I can tell you.

I have come to the conclusion that Waterford is essentially not very ergonomic for a rock and roll band. Electric Avenue is at the top of a long hill which neither the bus or trailer could negotiate. The bus ended up parked in the docks with no water or power ( a good ten minute walk down the hill), where we also had a day room at a local hotel. Let me tell you; woe betide anyone who leaves some essential item for the gig on the bus. I lost count of the number of times I had to schlep up and down that bloody hill. Our dressing room was also miles away from the stage on the other side of the venue. More on that later...

The first night was amazing and the crowd were fantastic. Especially considering the sheer volume of new material we had in the set. They really got into it. In fact it seemed that the majority of them were already familiar with a lot of the new songs already. I discovered that Sweet Sweet Kisses has been getting a lot of airplay over there, which is great news.

The second night was an extra date added into the schedule after the first night sold out. The crowd were a little noisy but we still had a good show. We did get another nasty shock when we discovered that our dressing room would eventually (ie; by the time we came off stage) become the arse end of a hideous club night. I've never seen anything like it. As we sauntered back after the show we were greeted by a crowd of drunken men (there were about three girls in the whole place) gyrating and cavorting erratically to blaring house music. My own personal Hell. Why anybody would voluntarily go out dancing in such a place is entirely beyond me.

On the 22nd we went on to the Dinn Ri in Carlow. This is a fairly new venue, about twice the size of Electric Avenue. Carlow is an incredibly small town. In fact I can honestly say that I'd 'done' the Carlow town centre in about fifteen minutes. I've discovered that the Bagel Factory is a good default destination for coffee action whilst in Ireland. Luckily, there was one opposite the bus. Nice touch.

The show went really well. It was good to finally all the on the same stage. Although we did have to erect a little extension to the side for Chip and his enormous percussion rack.

Yesterday we were at the An Tain Theatre in Dundalk. The town looked really lovely but everything was shut as it was a Sunday. Bugger.

Pete's wife arrived from Belfast with an assortment of costume goodies for us to wear on stage, including a great vintage top hat for me and a floor-length leather mac and trilby for Mark's Invisible Man getup. By the time Mark was ready for the show we couldn't even look in his general direction without cracking up. I think he won the award for best outfit...

The An Tain is a proper seated theatre venue with a massive stage. We finally got to use some of the lighting gear we'd been carting around and the show looked fantastic thanks to our LD Dom. It made such a difference to the show, with proper lighting. This was easily the best show thus far.

We've had some bloody awful loadouts so far on the tour. Mainly because we end up trying to do it right in the middle of chucking out time at all the local bars and clubs. I have found myself simultaneously assuming the roles of roadie, bouncer ad bodyguard after some of the shows. Although we didn't have this problem last night, it wound up being the worst loadout to date due to the pouring rain and freezing cold. A cunning flight of slippery steps made matters a little more tricky. Nice.

I'm really looking forward to playing the Dublin Olympia tomorrow. It's one of my favourite venues to play in Ireland. I've done it a few times with The Divine Comedy and once with A Girl Called Eddy when we supported The Beautiful South a few years ago. Neil's coming to see the show too, so it'll be great to catch up.

I'll let you know how it all goes....

Duke Special's fantastic new album I Never Thought This Day Would Come was released in Ireland last month. It's available over here for download at the iTunes store, or you can buy the CD direct from the Duke Special Store.

Hello folks,

Now I don't normally do this on the blog, but I've got a very exciting show coming up on Monday which I wanted to tell you about. We will be officially launching my good friend Nina Ferro's excellent new album Waiting For The Sunset on Monday 10th at the wonderful 606 Club in Chelsea (90 Lots Road, SW10).

I've been playing with Nina for a few years now and she is one of the most fantastic singers you'll ever hear. Her new album features some great new original material and some choice covers all arranged by Grant Windsor.

The show will feature a 10 piece band (yes, a 10 piece band at the 606.. how we'll all fit on the little stage at once is frankly beyond me, but we'll certainly have a go). This is the lineup:

Nina Ferro- Vocals (obviously!)

Grant Windsor - Piano, keyboards & backing vocals

Simon Little- Electric & upright basses, backing vocals

Femi Temowo- Guitar

Darryn Farrugia- Drums

Jono McNeil- Backing vocals

Jamie Lee Wilson- Backing vocals

Brandon Allen- Sax

Quentin Collins- Trumpet

Trevor Myles- Trombone

This is a real all-star lineup and promises to be a fantastic show. I'd seriously recommend you all get on the case and book your tickets now; I think the show is fast selling out. Personally, I can't wait!

You can hear some of the tracks from Waiting For The Sunset on Nina's MySpace page.

If you were planning on coming to one of my shows in London this year, come to this one. It's gonna be a stonker. See you all there.

Hello folks,

Thought I'd fill you in on what's been going on recently...

At the end of last week the Clare Teal band embarked on a three day northern excursion, starting off in Scunthorpe and finishing off in Durham via Leeds. And what fun we had!

This time all three shows were just with the trio of myself, Chris Dagley on drums and Mike Gorman on piano. We began on Wednesday with the big(ish) drive up to Scunthorpe. Almost the minute I reached the M25 I received a phone call from Clare informing me that the M1 was closed. Marvelous start. It took me almost an hour and a half to reach the A1 because of the traffic stuffing up the road onto the M1. Terribly dull. Now, I always make a point of working out exactly how long any of these epic journeys are likely to take, and generally add an extra 30 minutes on top for the purposes of 'getting lost'. This cunning ruse (which usually works out a treat) fell flat on it's face and I found myself running horrifically behind schedule in a losing game of Beat The SatNav.

As was everyone else it seemed. Luckily Muddy and Clare were already halfway there as Clare was recording at the BBC in Birmingham. So I arrived at the Plowright Theatre a full hour late. But still managed to beat the others. Poor Chris didn't arrive until just before they opened the doors for the punters to come in. He missed dinner..

We had a great show in Scunthorpe, with a lovely crowd. This was Clare's Scunthorpe debut and I'm hoping we'll be back there soon. We stayed at the Forest Pines Hotel down the road (narrowly missing the Chelsea football team it seems, who'd just checked out). Great hotel, although I regretted the decision to carry my bass to my room, which literally couldn't have been further away from the foyer.

By the following day it became apparent that there was some horrendous cold-related lurgy gradually making it's way around the band. It started with Mike and by this stage Chris was feeling ropey too. Luckily Leeds wasn't too far away. We were playing at the Music College. I met Clare and Muddy at the Hotel ('Hotel Posh no.2', this time The Met on King Street) so we could go grab some lunch in town. The promise of Clare's local knowledge proved a little sketchy ("I keep forgetting I used to live here..."), and we wandered the streets in the rain until we decided that it was frankly too cold and wet to continue and dived into the first place we came to. 'Cafe Italia' looked good from the outside...

What followed was one of the most ridiculous restaurant scenes I've encountered on my travels. We sat there at our table for what seemed an eternity. Eventually our eastern european waitress deigned to come over and take our order. Clare wanted a pizza. "We don't have pizza" Really? But this is an Italian restaurant, and this page in the menu is the pizzas? "Yes. We don't have pizza today". Right... Clare then went for her second choice, bruschetta and a main course from the set menu. "The set menu doesn't start until 3.30" says our waitress. Really? Doesn't say that on the menu. All I wanted was some tomato soup and some garlic bread. Apparently there was no garlic bread because it was somehow pizza-related, so just the soup for me then. After jousting over the menu for a few more minutes, gradually ascertaining how little of what was offered was actually available, we managed to finally order some food.

Shock horror... It wasn't very good. Never mind.

Clare dropped in at the BBC opposite the music college for a quick interview on the local radio and Mike and I joined her to play a quick tune live on air. Then we dashed back over the road to get ready for the show. The hall was fairly new it seemed. It reminded me of a larger version of the Lecture Recital Room back at my old college. It had a lovely 9' piano, but a rather strange acoustic. It's funny how drummers and bass players rarely agree on what makes a good acoustic. Chris loved it. His drums rang out through the whole space with no amplification, as did the piano and Clare's vocal. But that same acoustic sucked all the life out of my bass and I spent the whole night bashing away at it just trying to get a sound. O well, the gig was good nonetheless. We were joined by Russ Henderson, a final year student at the college who came to play sax with us on a few tunes in the first set. It was great having Russ come to sit in; really lifted the show.

By this stage in the run Clare had also caught the cold. I was now the last remaining band member in perfect health. When we returned to Hotel Posh No. 2, it became clear that virtually the whole place had been hired out for some big corporate function. There was loud music playing throughout, the bar was stuffed, and there were various drunken folk falling about all over the place. We managed to find a little cosy spot by an open fire in the foyer and proceeded to order copious amounts of food. Marvelous stuff!

On Friday we played the Gala Theatre in Durham. I really love Durham, it's such a beautiful town. I fully intended getting up at a decent hour and heading over there to have a look around. Typically I woke up in Leeds far too late (12.15 to be exact... I know, I know..) and completely buggered up my plan. I arrived in Durham mid-afternoon in the pouring rain, got pretty lost in my car trying to find the venue, then got pretty lost on foot trying to find Muddy and Clare. We had a great show that night to a sold-out house. By this point the others were really feeling the effects of i) all the driving and ii) the cold they seemed to have given each other. So you can imagine how we were all relishing the thought of the 4 1/2 hour drive home...

I'm pleased to say that somehow I managed to avoid catching any illnesses on the northern run. Back in London now and concentrating on getting ready for Nina Ferro's album launch at the 606 next Monday, and of course the tour with Duke Special. Nina's new album is fantastic and the band are sounding awesome, so if you're going to be in town on the 10th, make sure you're at the 606 in Chelsea. And let me know you're coming too so I can say hello!

Until then...

Thought I'd draw you into the conversation with that provocatively titled post...!

I made the decision last last to finally upload one of my solo bass tracks (the most recent post on my Solo Bass Podcast, Calling Out) to my MySpace page. Until now, I've used MySpace purely as a promotional tool for my work as a session player, ie; the bulk of the work I do playing for other people. My music player therefore featured tracks by various artists I've recorded with over the last few years, including Clare Teal, The Divine Comedy, A Girl Called Eddy, Chris Difford and Ian Shaw. I thought it was time to introduce more elements from my solo project. I'm getting closer to wanting to start work on the actual finished album, and once I have a product to sell I'm going to need as many people to know about it as possible.

Which brings me to my first dilemma. I have quite a few 'friends' on MySpace (3,452 is todays count). My current music profile has been active for almost two years now. Most days I get a few friend requests from various bands and solo artists who seemingly have no relation to what I do and more than likely have never heard me play. Very occasionally they attach a message introducing themselves, or saying how/why they found me which is always appreciated. I make a point of sending these folk a little thankyou message/comment, as I believe these are the people I'm really aiming to engage with online.

I'm guessing that most of the MySpace 'promotion' tools that other bands use to contact their friends are via the blogs and bulletins. I stopped using my MySpace blog a few months ago in favour of this Blogger site, which is both far more interactive and has myriad sharing/subscribing possibilities thanks to Feedburner. I found that virtually nobody would read the blogs on my MySpace profile; but the minute I posted the same blog on Blogger, various people would start subscribing and leaving comments. Which is the whole point of blogging; engaging in a conversation. I seriously doubt whether the majority of people that visit my MySpace page actually hang around long enough to read the blog, let alone listen to all the music.

The bulletin system is fundamentally flawed as a promotional tool. Once a user has more than 1,000 'friends', they no longer receive bulletins. Which is entirely sensible. Before I got to that stage, my MySpace home page was something akin to my junk mail inbox, littered with a variety of messages inviting me to "Come listen to my new song" or "Check out my new video". Frankly, I don't have the time and if I was that interested in your band, then I would have made the effort to check your page under my own steam. I do make a point of visiting several key MySpace profiles regularly to see what new projects are on the go. In fact, the ability to receive updates from selected users only (starting with your top friends as default) has been incredibly welcome navigationally. Thus, if I was to send out a bulletin on MySpace informing my friends of a solo show or a new release, chances are that 90% of them would never see it.

This is my main issue with MySpace. It's complete lack of interactivity and flexibility. My Reverb Nation page has become the hub for all my various social media dabblings. My blog is imported straight into Reverb Nation, as are my status updates via Twitter, which means that the page is kept alive and vibrant without me even having to log in every day. The music player behaves exactly as it should, making sharing my music clear and simple. Unlike the MySpace music player...

Last night's uploading was a fiasco, let me tell you... My good friend Eddy was on the phone to me last week in a panicked state over the demise of her music player on MySpace. It had disappeared entirely. A little investigation concluded that her page was not the only one to suffer this glitch. As I uploaded Calling Out, I had the distinct feeling I was in for trouble. although the track uploaded properly, the associated artwork didn't (and it seems still hasn't, despite two subsequent attempts). And the fact that I designated the track a free download has been totally ignored. Nearly 15 hours later, the track still cannot be downloaded and plays with no artwork. Rubbish.

The plodding user interface is a nightmare to navigate and frankly I've had enough. My most recent gripe with the site (and judging by the plethora of similar exclamations on Twitter) is it's insistence on plaguing users with drop-down banners which completely obscure the page you're viewing. And more worryingly in the last few weeks it seems that several of the links you click on to navigate around the site suddenly transport you into another page entirely, loading up some promo clip. Now, this is really not something I would have expected from a 'social networking' site. Over the last few months MySpace has been almost entirely overrun by corporate nonsense and it is undeniably getting worse every day. I give it another couple of months before all those bloody awful 'Adult Friend Finder' type ads start encroaching on MySpace. Seriouly, it wouldn't surprise me. We're 3/4 of the way there already.

A few days ago I sent a MySpace friend request to a band called Nohno, a fantastic industrial-electro/ambient duo from Newcastle. I don't remember how I came across their music (although I suspect they cropped up on Last.fm), but I really liked the sounds they were creating and wanted to know more. I received a message back from them yesterday asking me to let them know how I found them and basically to confirm I was not some kind of MySpace friend-gathering machine. So I replied and the conversation began. This is a rare occurrence on MySpace and I took the opportunity to point Dean in the general direction of Reverb Nation.

I don't think it'll be long before more musicians become as disillusioned with MySpace as I am, and will start to investigate other avenues to engage with their audience. And I think Reverb Nation will provide the most effective template.

Anyway, enough of this ranting. As Stephen Fry says in his last excellent Podgram, an angry article writes itself. And I shall duly leave it there.

So how have the changes in MySpace over the last few months effected your perception of the site? Have you, like me, been forced to migrate elsewhere? I'd love to hear your thoughts...

Until next time.

Simon x

It's been a busy time for the Clare Teal band of late. Having performed a week at London's prestigious Ronnie Scotts whilst I was on tour with The Divine Comedy and Maggie Reilly a little while ago, Clare has continued zipping up and down the country playing to packed houses.

I really felt compelled to write a little blog about the two shows we just played over the weekend. They really couldn't have been more different. Serious chalk and cheese scenario. Fantastic blog material! But first, let me tell you about some of the other shows we've played recently...

We had a little run starting in Edinburgh's Queens Hall on the 10th, then coming back down via Bewdley on the 11th to the Cambridge Arts Theatre on the 12th. The first two shows were just Clare and the trio, until we were joined by Colin and AD in Cambridge.

The Queens Hall in Edinburgh is a great venue. Muddy drove Clare, Mike Gorman and myself up to Edinburgh (thank god, it's a real schlep), to be met by the wonderful Tom Gordon on drums. Tom had played with Clare before with the BBC Big Band. He's an amazing musician and he played a storming gig. The show was organised by Scottish jazz vocalist Todd Gordon, who took great care of us during our stay. Maggie Reilly and co came over to see the show and meet the band, which was a real treat. It's always good to see some familiar faces when you're so far away from home. It was also lovely to finally meet my Twitter buddy Baxter Tocher and his wife Anne. Clare is planning to do more shows in Scotland in the near future, we had a great time and I'm really looking forward to getting up there again soon.

We drove back down to play a show as part of the Bewdley Festival the following day (we really clocked up a few miles that weekend!). The gig was at the Ramada Hotel and was sold out. Which was great. We were lucky to be joined by Ralph Salmins on drums this time. It's always a joy to play with Ralph.

We've played the Cambridge Arts Theatre a number of times before. In fact, I'm guessing Clare plays there at least once every year. It's a lovely little theatre right in the centre of town. The staff and crew are fantastic, there's always a really friendly atmosphere at that place. Colin and AD were back with us for the full on show. We'd been incredibly lucky food-wise on this little run and the Cambridge show provided one of highlights thanks to a couple of Clare's regulars who arrived at the gig with a selection of cakes and muffins they'd baked especially for us. Let me tell you folks, Rocky Road is my new favourite thing. You can't really go wrong with chocolate, marsh mallows, nuts and rice crispies. Seriously good. They're coming to the Durham show next week and frankly, I can't wait to see what delights they have in store for us...

Right then. Down to business. The real meat and potatoes of this blog post...

Last weekend we played two shows that really couldn't have been more different. The first was up in York at the Theatre Royal. The second was at The Broadway in Barking. You can probably see where this is going...

Playing a one-off show somewhere like York is an all-day affair. It takes over eight hours to drive up there and back, which is a long time to spend in the car when you have to play a show. But it's part of the job and you soon get used to the driving. To be honest I love driving anyway, it's where I listen to most of my music. The day I got a new car stereo with an aux. input for my iPod was a seriously happy one and it's totally revolutionised the whole driving experience. Anyone who knows me well will be aware of my obsessive iPod fixation. It contains my entire music collection meticulously (some may call it anally) organised and labelled so I have everything to hand. I never leave the house without it.

Anyway, this was the first time Clare had played the Theatre Royal. It's a 1300 seater and we had well over 650 in, which was the largest crowd we'd drawn in York thus far and apparently this was an amazing turnout for that venue... great news! The theatre is a beautiful old Victorian building which has some parts dating back to the eighteenth century (I'm stealing this info from their website, obviously!). Playing in front of such a big crowd with Clare is a riot; she really knows how to handle the audience and she had them in the palm of her hand from start to finish. The staff and crew couldn't have been more helpful. Also, they have a fantastic scheme in place where their performances are piped live via the local Hospital Radio to the patients. What a great idea! There was a real community spirit and friendliness to the place that made our visit all the more enjoyable. We had some great food, whatever we wanted from the bar, couldn't have been treated better and the show itself was fantastic with a massive and appreciative audience... You get the picture? Good. Then we went to Barking...

For some reason (and I don't think it would take a genius to work out what it is..), Barking council have decided to put on a series of shows every Sunday as part of their 'Molten Festival' at The Broadway, a little arts centre right in the middle of Barking; just off the North Circular. The aim of these shows it seems is to promote some kind of cross-cultural, multi-disciplinary 'Say No To Prejudice/Racism/enter Issue here' hippy love-in, in the form of a mini festival. I say mini festival because essentially the evening was presented like a variety show, and I think ultimately it was the programming that was the night's downfall..

First on was some kind of African drumming group, closely followed by a whirling dervish. Okay... Then there was some kind of (allegedly) comedic sketch which frankly fell on it's arse, as did the long-winded performance poetry of the MC who came on afterwards to introduce Clare. After our set was a short break to turn the stage around for, wait for it..... The Blockheads!! O yes! Never before (and probably never again!) have two more dissimilar bands played back to back on one gig.

Baring in mind we'd played to a busy house the previous night and considering the plethora of acts on at the Barking show, the audience was incredibly small. It looked like around sixty people. The festival organisers said they'd sold around two hundred tickets, but there's no way we had that many in. We were all slightly concerned about going on in front of a potentially hostile group of Blockheads fans (Clare hadn't even been advertised on the bill until the last minute it seemed). In fact Chris made the bold statement "We're coming off stage the minute the first bottle hits the stage!" in the green room just before we took to the stage...

We were met largely with disinterest to begin with, but as always Clare managed to win over the crowd during our 45 minute set. It's virtually impossible not enjoy a Clare Teal gig. Even for a non-jazz crowd, Clare's mixture of humour combined with a great performance with a top-notch band guarantees a great night out. I know it's a cliche, but there really is something for everyone (can't believe I just wrote that.. sorry).

After we came off stage, one of the organisers came up to me as I packed up my bass and asked me how I thought it went. I told her that it was a bit weird, but I thought the audience had a good time. She replied "Yeah, the poet was having a hard time". Erm.. Of course the poet had a hard time!!! It really wouldn't have taken a genius to work out that a performance poet wasn't going to go down massively well in front of an audience of Blockhead fans. I have no idea where the thinking behind these kind of events comes from. If only local councils would make the effort to bring in somebody with some expertise in the field (ie; some musicians?!), then maybe such terrible programming could be avoided and the shows that they've obviously spent a lot of money on would actually draw more of a crowd. If anyone from the festival is reading this (which I doubt very much), then get in touch and I'll come help you out next year. Very reasonable rates! And I'll save you a fortune...

It was great to see the legendary Norman Watt-Roy in action, and indeed meet him and have a little chat. Lovely bloke. When I saw the Blockheads at the Wychwood Festival earlier this year, somebody else was playing bass with the band (Mark Snowling?). Norman is a proper bass legend, and it was a real joy to see him live. We also had a great chat in the green room with guitarist John Turnbull, who was showing Clare some tricks on her new ukelele which, according to him, is a good one. Look out for some ukelele action hitting the Clare Teal live show in the near future!

Well, the Teal Tour continues on apace. We'll be playing the Dorking Halls this Saturday, before embarking on another northern run next week. We play the Plowright Theatre in Scunthorpe on Wednesday 29th, Leeds College of Music on the 30th, then the Gala Theatre in Durham on the 31st. Clare's latest album 'Get Happy' is due for release in the rest of Europe early in the new year, so we should be out touring on the continent soon. Literally can't wait!

On another note, for those of you who've been to the shows recently and enjoyed Mike's Cookery Corner (!), go and check out his blog at Jazz Chefs, where he and various other jazz musicians have been posting their recipes. It's really quite impressive. I did try to add it to my Blogroll, but there's something iffy going on with the feed, so you'll just have to go check it out for yourselves.

See y'all soon

Simon x

Hello folks. Thanks to all of you that left comments and messages on Part I, it's always good to know that you're enjoying my tales of rock & roll calamity. And also thanks to all those of you who have subscribed via Feedburner over the last week or so. It's great to see so many people getting involved in the blog. I had 25 new subscribers today alone (this is a record for me, I usually average around 15), which is very encouraging.

Thought it was about time to compose Part II. My memory is notoriously crappy in these situations and if I don't get it down soon, I will have forgotten all the details. As it is, the Danish extravaganza was quite literally a whistle-stop tour and I'm finding it rather tricky to work out what happened where... I think it's about time I started blogging whilst on the road. Expect something of a running commentary on the Duke Special Irish tour in November...

I finally arrived in Denmark late morning after the aforementioned Journey From Hell (including 1 taxi, 1 bus, 2 planes and the joyous overnight stay in the bus shelter). I was expecting to be met by Chrys and the band with our splitter van at Billund airport. As there was no sign of the van I gave him a call to discover that our van hadn't even made it past Willesden Green. Chrys had spent a lot of time making the van more comfortable and had installed a little flatscreen TV for some on the road movie action (Pimp My Van style), but sadly the van decided it would break down before even leaving London. It turned out they had to hire a new van at Brent Cross, and Mark and Steve had to hire a car when they arrived at Billund earlier in the morning. I was met by our Danish promoter Bent who drove me the extra 90 minutes to Holsterbro.

We were playing at the Kielgatan in Holsterbro. This is a great little venue and they looked after us really well. Which was lucky; I'd already been up for two days by this point. The stage was a bit of a squeeze, so we had to set up the wrong way around, ie; bass and keyboards stage left instead of stage right. For some reason this buggered me up no end on the gig. I seem to stand stage right in pretty much every band I play with. It's incredibly strange to me how such a simple thing as where one stands on stage can totally throw you during the performance. I'm making too much of this really, to be honest it just threw out all my rock and roll moves which didn't really work pointing the wrong way! The gig was really busy; it was a seated audience but plenty of people were standing so there was a good atmosphere.

We moved on to Sonderborg on Thursday. We were staying at the same great little hotel we were in last time. Don't ask me it's name, I have no idea. But it's by the sea and has a windmill attached to it. We were playing at the Sonderborghus again, which is an artsy theatre-type gig in the centre of town. I do have a tendency to remember gigs on the quality of the food (shallow? yes) and this one was not a disappointment! A great little bit of buffet action was a welcome change from the deluge of cheese and speckled ham I'd been subjected to thus far that week.

I'd had more than my fair share of technical issues during this trip, with virtually every one of my leads crapping out on me at some point and my pedal board performing it's obligatory "I don't like European voltages" hums and buzzes all through the week. My setup comprised almost entirely borrowed and stolen leads by the end of the run.

The show went down a storm, so much so that we were forced to bung in a second encore of Family Man at the last minute. Much to the surprise of our keyboard player Gordon, who had never played it before! Luckily, it only has a few chords...

After the show we found ourselves back at the hotel in that classic post-gig scenario we always seem to face in Denmark; the bar was shut. I really cannot fathom why hotel bars in Denmark insist on closing at around 11pm. We seem to end every night during the tour sat in some lobby or passageway nursing whatever spoils we had managed to liberate from the rider earlier on. It's hardly rock & roll now, is it?

Which brings me on to Gadstrup. We arrived in Gadstrup (which is apparently near Roskilde) the following afternoon to met with the least glamourous of our hotels thus far. To put it mildly, they looked like what can only be described as a poorman's Butlins chalets, directly facing the noisy railway line in a small town in the middle of nowhere. In fact, I found myself compelled to take a little photo to show you....

Oh, the glamour! Horrible, stinking, spider-infested shithole. The complete polar opposite of the previous night's accommodation. O well, we thought. Onwards and upwards. Anyone who tells you that touring is all glitz and glamour is frankly talking shit. You can show them this picture if you like...

I got instantly bored after we checked in and went for a stroll around 'town' in search of a decent coffee. Fat chance my friend. It was one of the most bizarre towns I've ever been to. The centre essentially consisted of one main high street which had a small supermarket, one cafe/restaurant, two charity shops and five (yes, five) hairdressers. Why a town that small requires five hair cutting establishments is beyond me. Christ knows what these people spend their time doing during the long Winter months, but you can be sure none of them will be in need of a haircut.

We played a show at the Ramso Musichus up the road. This was one of those venues, apparently quite common in Denmark, which are run by a committee who get together and hire a band once a month to play in their own venue. I really like this idea, it's something I have yet to come across in this country. Basically, they all club together and decide who they'd like to see, then approach the artists themselves. Because they owned the venue, they took great pride in the upkeep and had hired in a great sound system.

It's always a little odd playing these small folky clubs with Maggie. We are not the quietest of bands and it's always a bit tricky playing the full-on show in such confined spaces. The room was laid out with a series of long tables set out for dinner, like some kind of masonic luncheon. I jokingly said to Maggie just before we went on that they were having a raffle in the break, and maybe a quick round of bingo. Unfortunately, Maggie didn't quite realise I was joking and wished the audience good luck in the raffle just as we left the stage at the end of the set. Oops. The show was small but fun. Both the audience and the band had a great time and were very appreciative.

The biggest show of this little run was at Train in Aarhus ("In the middle of our street"). Train is a fairly large venue, which is very popular on the Danish music scene. It's one of the places everyone plays at and it was good to finally play somewhere with a decent capacity after all the smaller shows we've been playing of late. You can tell almost instantly when you walk into a venue what sort of place it is. Train even smelt like a proper rock and roll venue (ie; it smelt like stale beer and sweat, but in a good way!). Nice big stage, fat PA and good lights. We knew as soon as we arrived that this was going to be the best show. It was.

We played the full-on set this time (we tend to tone it down quite considerably for the smaller venues) and loved every minute of it. Maggie's show works best when we can stretch out with the dynamics. Which kind of requires a bigger venue. Train was definitely the highlight of the Danish run and I'm looking forward to playing there again soon. It turned out that after the show, Train turns into the clubbing venue in Aarhus with literally hundreds of people queuing around the block to get in. We made our escape back to the hotel (bar shut) and watched the carnage unfold outside.

These were the last shows this year with Maggie. Hopefully we'll be back on tour soon in the new year with a new album, so watch this space.

Since I've been back I've been busy rehearsing with Jonathan Jeremiah and Duke Special. I'll be touring Ireland with Duke Special in November promoting his excellent new album I Never Thought This Day Would Come, which will be released in Ireland on October 17th. The dates are all up on my MySpace page.

As soon as I get a chance I'm going to go into solo bass overdrive as I've just got my hands on a new bass. It's a Warwick Thumb NT VI (my first sixer) and will from now on be known simply as 'The Beast', because quite frankly, it's a monster. I've just got it back from Martin Petersen at The Gallery who has worked his magic and given it the perfect setup. Let me tell you folks, it's been a challenge putting it down long enough to write this blog post. Make sure you subscribe to my Solo Bass Podcast to keep up with the veritable deluge of new tracks that will inevitably come through in the near future!

On another note, I downloaded the new Lawson/Dodds/Wood album Numbers a couple of days ago and it's the best thing I've heard in ages. Go forth and purchase people. If you order it now, you get the download version with a bunch of excellent bonus tracks, and then when the CD is released in November, you'll receive that in the post too. Such a great idea. You can order the CD from Steve Lawson's online store here.

Well it's been a rollercoaster of a week folks and I thought it was about time I filled you all in on what's been happening.
One of those classic situations arose where three of my main acts decided to go out on the road at the same time. Some early intervention and juggling meant I was able to play with two of them out in Europe, but was sadly unable to make Clare Teal's week at Ronnie Scotts. This was the first time she played a long run at the club, and I hear it was a resounding success. I'm sure she'll be appearing there again soon, so fingers crossed I'll be there with her next time.
I started out rehearsing with The Divine Comedy in town last Friday. We had an awful lot of new material to get through. Neil had decided to perform about fifty percent of the show in French, singing French pop songs by various artists ranging from Serge Gainsbourg to Vanessa Paradis.
For those of you who really want to know (and don't know already!), this was the setlist;

1. Amsterdam (Jaques Brel)

2. Europop

3. Poupee` De Cire, Poupee` De Son (France Gall)

4. Generation Sex

5. The Songs That We Sing (Charlotte Gainsbourg)

6. Becoming More Like Alfie

7. Les Playboys (Jaques Dutronc)

8. When The Lights Go Out All over Europe

9. Anita Pettersen (Vincent Delerm)

10. Songs Of Love

11. Home (Jane Birkin)

12. Our Mutual Friend

13. Les Copains D'abord (Georges Brassens)

14. A Lady Of A Certain Age

15. Sexy BB (Neil's medley of Serge Gainsbourg's Initials BB and Air's Sexy Boy)

16. If..

17. L'amour Est Bleu (Vicky Leandros)

18. The Summerhouse

19. Je Changerais D'avis (Francoise Hardy)

20. Tonight We Fly

21. Joe Le Taxi (Vanessa Paradis)

22. National Express

It became apparent fairly early on in the rehearsal process that this was going to be too much material to learn properly in the short time we had available, so I decided that I would read the bulk of the new material on the gig rather than trying to bluff my way through. The shows were also being recorded which added bit a pressure to the proceedings. I usually hate reading in these situations but the last thing I wanted was to have all my little cockups from the gigs perfectly preserved for all to marvel at in the future.

We left for Paris on the tourbus late on Saturday night, arriving early the next morning ready for another day's rehearsal at the venue. Cite De La Musique is a fantastic venue in Northeast Paris. Don't ask me exactly where it is because frankly, I don't know that particular corner of Paris and I didn't feel much like exploring further than the street it was on while I was there. Lazy I know. But it was going to be a busy week and I thought I'd use my spare time wisely and do what the Parisians do.. essentially sitting around outside cafes reading, drinking too much coffee and chain-smoking to pass the time.

We met our two guests at the Paris rehearsal. The first was Vincent Delerm. We were playing a cover of his song Anita Pettersen from his 2004 album Kensington Square (check it out if you haven't heard that album). He was singing Neil's Songs of Love with us. It ended up being a great version of the song, although changing the key did put our backing vocals up into the stratosphere! Luckily I'd recently invested in a couple of pairs of (very) skinny jeans. I remember thinking, if I was to do an impersonation of a Frenchman singing that song, it really wouldn't have sounded dissimilar to Vincent's interpretation! Priceless and perfect.

The second guest was the lovely Daphné. Sometimes referred to as the French Björk (according to her Last.fm biography), she has a fantastically delicate voice. She sang on two songs; Sexy BB and If; which she performed as a duet with Neil....

...wearing a rather fetching outfit I'm sure you'll agree. Made me feel a little underdressed.

She gave us all a copy of her album Carmin, which I'm listening to right now. Go forth and purchase, people! It's a great record. Some fantastic songs and lovely production. Tinges of Fiona Apple too... Sounds a bit like Extraordinary Machine in French. Which to me, is a good thing.

The Divine Comedy performed two shows at the Cite De La Musique on the 22nd and 23rd September. Neil had even worked out some hefty inter-song banter in French to wow the crowd (I use the term 'wow' in it's loosest possible sense; for one thing, most of the audience were probably British anyway and would've had no clue as to what he was saying. And I shouldn't think the locals had a much better idea either). In fact, his French teacher from Dublin came to the second show and gave him a glowing report afterwards. He did very well.

Paris is such a great town. You can get fantastic food and great coffee pretty much anywhere and the Parisians are such a great audience to play to. They really got into the music and the response we got at the end of the shows was really encouraging. Hopefully it won't be too long before we make another appearance...

Everything was going swimmingly for me until after the second show, where it soon became apparent that I was in store for another Journey From Hell (and as any of my regular readers will know, I am no stranger to the Journey From Hell). I had four shows with Maggie Reilly starting the following night in Denmark and all my various cunning plans to get to Beauvais airport in an elegant and cost-effective fashion gradually came unstuck during the last day in Paris. I had no hotel booked for after the show (computer/TDC said 'No'), and quite frankly I wasn't up for blowing the entire gig fee on hotels and taxis. Now, I was under the impression that Beauvais was just outside Paris. I was very wrong. It is in fact bloody miles away. Probably further than Stansted is from central London. I eventually found out that a cab to Beauvais would be around 170 Euros, around the same time that I was told I wouldn't be getting a lift on the tourbus with the rest of the band who were heading to Calais. Nice.

The bus left the venue just after 11 pm. I managed to hook up with a select bunch of TDC fans for a few post-gig drinks (in my case, coffees!) and a late night binge in the 24-hour McDonalds (Oh, the glamour!). By 2 am I was left wandering the streets of Paris alone in the wind and rain, lugging my bass around in it's less-than-lightweight flightcase.

I decided that with no hotel room to stay in, I'd start ambling towards Port Maillot, where the 13 Euro shuttle buses to Beauvais leave from. I was expecting some kind of bus depot, not unlike the Victoria Coach Station. Sadly, I was met with a glorified bus stop with a little kiosk (shut) when my cab pulled up at outside. By this stage, there really would have been no point in booking into a hotel as by the time I'd have fallen asleep I would've had to leave again for the airport.

I found myself sat on my bass case, parched and starving in the cold and wet for about three and a half hours in that bloody bus stop. I was accompanied by two drunken Polish chaps who spent the entire night arguing with each other at the top of their voices, and a couple of sleeping backpackers. Visions of Jaco Pastorius sleeping rough on a Floridian basketball court clutching his bass sprung to mind. After about an hour and a half I really did feel like some sort of vagrant.

Interestingly, at around the 4 am mark, a series of rather lovely girls started arriving one by one at the bus station. Which at least made the general scenario rather more pleasing. It also calmed down the Polish guys. I managed to get on the first bus at 5 am and arrived at Beauvais at around 6.30. Coffee and croissants helped ease the pain and the knowledge that I still had 2 flights ahead of me, followed by a 90 minute drive to Maggie's first show. It seems there were no convenient flights from Beauvais to Billund that day, so I had to fly via Dublin (yes, Dublin!). Deep joy, I'm sure you'll agree!

So anyway, that's the end of the first installment of the road diary. I shall follow up with Maggie's shows in part II sometime over the next few days. For those of you following my Podcast, expect a deluge of new tracks in the near future. I accidentally bought my dream bass (a Warwick Thumb VI NT, from now on to be known simply as 'The Beast'!) at GAK in Brighton when I was at the Komedia with Clare a couple of weeks ago. Martin Peterson is currently working his special magic on it at The Gallery this week, so we'll be back in action next week. Can't wait!

I just found out that one of my favourite composers and musicians, Hector Zazou, died on Monday aged only 60. According to various reports, Hector had been seriously ill for several months and had had to cancel several shows throughout the Summer due to this illness.
Hector Zazou, for those of you unfamiliar with his work, was an Algerian born French composer and producer. He was a hugely influential figure in electronic, ambient and world music. A serial collaborator, he has worked with most of my favourite artists; including David Sylvian, Peter Gabriel, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Björk and Lisa Germano. More recently, Hector has been working in Bill Rieflin's Slow Music with Robert Fripp. Hector's most recent album House of Mirrors will apparently be released later this month.
Hi albums Strong Currents and Lights In The Dark have been on heavy rotation here of late. If you haven't heard Hector's music, Strong Currents or Sahara Blue would be a great place to start.
I am particularly saddened by this news as Hector contacted me towards the end of last year asking me to travel out to Paris to work with him on his upcoming 'J@zz Project'. This was a great honour and it was truly humbling to be contacted directly by Hector via MySpace. Sadly, due to Hector's other commitments at the time, we never actually got it together. Although we never actually met, I still remain a huge fan and admirer of his work.
He will be dearly missed.
Simon

Sorry it's been a while since I last posted on here. There hasn't been the usual flood of gigs to tell you all about. I've used this little gigging hiatus to develop the solo bass project and work on the Podcast.

Hopefully by now most of you will have already subscribed to the Podcast. It's available at the iTunes Store or directly from my page at Podbean.

Since I started the Podcast a few months ago, I've had a chance to examine some of the tracks in greater detail. As I mentioned in my previous blog post on the podcast (you can read it here), at some point in the near future I'm going to take the best tracks and develop them further for re-recording to make up a complete album of solo bass material. Whether the reworked tunes will bare much resemblance to the original improvisations remains to be seen. I'm assuming that the primary loops will from the backbone of any reworking, as the majority of the tracks currently up on the Podcast have only a vague suggestion of a melodic theme anyway.

Which brings me to my first point. Some of the tracks (For example, Quietly Now, Sometimes It Rains In August or A Little Light & Shade) have a clearly defined melodic line which came about through repeated improvisation over the initial loops before I started recording. These had become fixed early on in the creation of the pieces. Other tracks have a less identifiable melody, mainly because the 'tunes' were improvised along with the underlying loops. In more recent posts (mainly since the addition of the Looperlative to my recording setup), I've purposely recorded passages which could be repeated later on in the track to act as main themes. This sort of spontaneous composition is only really possible with the Looperlative. My previous setup did not allow loops to be dropped in and out during a live performance and consequently if a particular track was to feature a specific melody (as in Bells II; I still can't believe I recorded that track with just the Boss DD6! It's so far away from what I can do now with the LP1), it would have to have been written/worked out in advance so that I could play it live at the beginning and end of the piece.

My question is this; at what point does a particular passage in an improvised performance become the theme? I notice that as I listen to the tracks together more and more, each one (including the tracks with no particular melody) has it's own little motifs which I end up singing along to. I'm just not sure whether this is through increasing familiarity with the material or because I subliminally had a theme in mind during the original performance. Sometimes these little motifs are at the point where a pre-written tune would come in, sometimes they are the loops themselves.

When I listen to the solo bass music of Eberhard Weber, I can sing along to the themes on virtually every track. His recorded solo material is intricately through-composed, featuring some fantastic counterpoint and cross-rhythms. I'm really attracted to this style of playing and am planning on sitting down at some point and writing specific music for my solo project. I think a good mix of improvised and composed material would greatly enhance my playing. Thus far the only 'composed' piece featured on the Podcast is the very first track Bells II, which I wrote for a solo performance a few years back. When you compare it to the music I'm producing now, it really does come unstuck as a performance, but I'm glad it's still up there in all it's out-of-tune glory if nothing more than as a marker for the progress I've made over the last few months.

Now. One of my favourite Eberhard Weber tracks is 'Epilogue' from his 1988 album Orchestra. If you haven't heard this album yet (and the fact that you're reading this blog post tells me that you must have at least a passing interest in this music!), then go and buy it now. And Pendulum. It's mainly solo bass, with a couple of tracks also featuring a small brass ensemble. It really is a masterpiece. Anyway, back to Epilogue. For me, this one track differs to all Eberhard's other solo music in that it does not have any particular tune. The piece grows organically as Eberhard layers up a series of simple diatonic loops to create a beautiful contrapuntal soundscape which serves as the basis for the improvisation. In fact, the blowing doesn't actually start until halfway through the track. The main body of the piece is the minimalistic building up of melodic layers, and is very much typical of the way Eberhard performs solo bass live. Which is specifically what I'm working on at the moment.

Playing purely improvised music in a recording situation can be rather a tricky business if you are a perfectionist like me. It usually takes a whole afternoon or evening to produce a track I would be happy to post on the Podcast. There are a few exceptions up there, but in general they take a long time to come out right. I've learnt that there's a certain degree of abandonment that needs to come into play when publishing improvised music. At some point during the recording process I literally have to step away from the bass and take time to properly listen back to the results. Becoming too picky with the material would inevitably lead to nothing being posted. It would also completely obliterate the creative process, as well as the premise of posting material to gain feedback from listeners.

Repeated listening (check out my Last.fm profile if you don't believe me!) to the Podcast tracks have shown up a few general points in my own playing that I intend to address. Much as many jazz musicians rely on a set of pre-learned "licks" to provide a basis for improvisation, I have come to recognise a series of solo bass licks that I have settled on over the last few months. And a lot of them have come from listening to too much (if there is such a thing) Eberhard Weber. I am constantly annoyed at the number of times I use bass harmonics in the initial loops. Really must investigate some other effects. The problem is they sound so good in reverse! A couple of Eberhard's melodic licks have crept in too. Whilst this is not necessarily a bad thing, I would hate to be accused of ripping him off!

My most recent solo adventure has been the introduction of the Chapman Stick into the project. For those of you unfamiliar with the Stick, it is a 10-stringed touch guitar which was invented by Emmett Chapman in the late seventies. You can check out the Stick Enterprises website here, or go check out the excellent European Stick Center site for a more detailed description of the instrument and some great video and audio clips. I only managed to get my hands on one of these about a year ago and have been struggling on ever since. It is as difficult to play as it looks folks. A whole new world of confusion.

The joy with using this for the solo project is in the fact that I have absolutely no chops whatsoever on the Stick. A recent lack of inspiration on the bass has been easily remedied by getting out the Stick and just seeing what comes out. I literally cannot play any of my usual stuff on the Stick, which forces me to play in completely new ways. I haven't used much cross-tapping on the Podcast, having gone for the Tony Levin/Trey Gunn method of just playing one side at a time, thus exploiting it's massive range in a single-line setting. It has broken me away from the harmonics, the parallel 5ths and the tunes doubled a third up (!) that I seem to have settled on with the bass, and shunted me into a whole new world of funny noises, chordal work and distortion.

There are currently two tracks live on the Podcast using the Chapman Stick; A New Start? and last night's Walking Alone..... They are both similar in that they evolve organically via a process of layering various sounds and motifs in order to create internal counterpoint. Neither has a distinct melody line. I have become more interested in the specific sounds since the addition of the Lexicon MPX G2 multi-effects processor to the looping setup. It really is the mutt's nuts for the Stick. I've had it a while now, but only recently got hold of an MPX R1 foot controller to really allow me to use it handsfree. The Chapman Stick tracks bare little resemblance to the bass tracks because they tend to lean more towards the prog side of ambient music. I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on the Stick tunes as compared to the solo bass tracks.

So we move into the next phase of the solo project. As I mentioned earlier, I will be recording some pre-written arrangements in the near future. I am also intending on somehow bringing the two disparate styles of improvisation (ie: Bass vs. Stick) together to meet somewhere in the middle. It is in this happy medium where I think I will find my true voice. Not too far to go now...

Sorry if this has been a long, rambling load of nonsense. If you've found it interesting, then do leave your comments below. I'd love to hear your thoughts and perhaps compare similar experiences. And please do leave your comments, ratings and suggestions on the Podbean site when you next check in. I really do need your feedback. And a big thanks to Matt Stevens, who has just featured my track New Toys on his fantastic Guitars & Samplers Podcast, which can be found both on iTunes and Podbean. Cheers mate! Always glad to have someone help spreading the word.

On another note, I just got through my copy of Steve Lawson and Jez Carr's 2002 duo album 'Conversations' and frankly can't stop listening to it. It's been a big inspiration this week. Go forth and purchase people! I got my copy from CD Baby.

Well it's been a busy few days here in the Little bass world....

On Friday night I performed with one of my all-time favourite artists, the sublime Duke Special at the National Concert Hall in Dublin. I've been looking forward to this show for quite some time now. Myself and Tim Weller were drafted in from The Divine Comedy to play with Duke Special's band and the RTE Concert Orchestra, under the baton of conductor David Brophy.

Tim and I met up with Peter on Wednesday afternoon to have a quick run-through of all the material. I was recording a charity song with Clare in the morning at Air Studios (watch this space) and had to rush across town to make the session. The next rehearsal was to be in Dublin at the RTE building. Our flight was, surprise surprise, so early in the morning from Gatwick that I had to stay up all night again in order not to miss it (I left my house at 3.15 in the morning!).

The rehearsal with the orchestra went pretty well, although the room wasn't ideal acoustically for our setup. It was a big hall and we were set up facing a big wall so everything the band played at the back of the orchestra bounced back a fraction of a second later than everything else. And we couldn't hear Peter or his piano. So we came away having no idea what this was going to sound like, but did manage to ascertain that the various parts worked (Luckily I'd spent all day Tuesday working out parts for myself).

We spent the rest of the day strolling around Dublin. I really do love Dublin and it was great to have the time to take a look around again. It's not often in a gig/touring situation that you have any spare time to actually see anything of the town you're in. Having said that, our hotel was up in Rathmines and it was a bit of a schlepp to get right into town, but luckily we had quite a long time. We ended up in Whelan's twice (!) and got some food on the way into town. Incidentally, we came across a fantastic Chapman Stick player in Temple Bar. No idea who he was but he was great to watch. Hopefully our paths will cross again sometime so we can have a chat.

We soundchecked and ran through the set again on the day. The show was sold out (I think the venue holds about 1200, but I can't say for certain).

It can be quite a tricky situation when a band goes out to do a show with what is essentially a pickup orchestra (in other words, one which does not tour with the band and hasn't necessarily seen or indeed even heard the material before). I've done a number of these kinds of shows with The Divine Comedy and to be frank, they were a mixed bag. The whole show really does depend on the attitude and motivation of the orchestra and the conductor (if there is one). TDC have had a few issues in the past with some rather stuffy orchestras and orchestral managers. We were so lucky with the RTE folks and David Brophy. They were so enthusiastic and energetic. It makes such a huge difference when the orchestra really get into the music and they did a great job, both in rehearsal and at the performance.

The show consisted mainly of tunes from the Duke's debut album Songs From The Deep Forest

with five brand new songs from his forthcoming album. Let me tell you, the new album is going to be amazing. It's due for release in Ireland in October. At the moment, since Universal bought up V2, Duke Special only has a record deal in Ireland. This is a bloody travesty folks. Peter is one of the best singer-songwriters to have emerged in the last decade and deserves much better than this. Still, we'll all just have to buy the album from Ireland; that's what I'll be doing the moment it comes out!

The show was a resounding success and one of the best gigs I've done in a while. The new songs were incredibly well received and the audience were fantastic. Really hoping to do more shows with Pete some time soon.

I had to fly back the following day and peg it down to Dorchester for a little function giglet. When the bandleader called me up for the gig during the week, the call went something like this....

"Yeah man, it's gonna be great. It's in this swanky manor house, loads of food and free drinks all night. We've all got hotel rooms for the night and there's a big swimming pool so bring your swimming gear. It's gonna be great fun".

Hmm...(!)

Well, the wedding was indeed held in a manor house, which was indeed swanky. Sadly, at some point in the 50's or 60's, the estate was bought by the police who turned it into a training college and threw up (literally) a selection of hideous yellowy utility buildings (including the aforementioned swimming pool) all around the back of it. Let me tell you, if the planning consent had been applied for by anyone other than the police it never would have been approved. Absolutely putrid and horrifying. And guess where we were staying? Yep. I've stayed in swankier Travel Lodges.

As usual in these wedding gig situations, everything was running rather late. About an hour late. We were just about to go on when the father of the bride (a rather portly Scottish gent in a kilt) came up to us and asked for the mic. He wanted to make an announcement...

Apparently Auntie Lil (a lady in her late seventies) had slipped down the stone steps on her way out and had been quite badly hurt having bashed her head. The ambulance was on it's way and could we please have ten minutes of quiet time? O my god. Needless to say, that killed the mood at the wedding in an instant. And we were about to go on. Couldn't believe he'd just announced this to the whole party over the mic. Neither it seemed could the bride and groom by the looks on their faces. Neither indeed could Aunty Lil who I discovered earlier had insisted that nobody tell the bride as she didn't want to spoil her big day.

Well as you can imagine, the gig was a bit of a challenge after that. We did somehow manage to drag the mood back up again and by about halfway through the first set everyone was having a good time once more.

Anyway, enough of that!

I will be performing with Duke Special again this Friday with the London Gay Symphony Orchestra at The Roundhouse in Camden. Let me know if you're coming along and I'll come say hello afterwards. Really looking forward to it.

And just before I go....

I've mentioned to several people over the years about the funny signs at Dublin Airport. The ones about unfamiliarity with escalators or lifts. Nobody has believed me thus far, so here is the proof.... (you might have to zoom in a bit!)

How anyone who was unfamiliar with either escalators or lifts would be perfectly happy jumping on a plane is utterly beyond me.

Well it's been another hectic weekend folks.

On Friday night I drove out to Wells to play a little jazz gig with sax legend Pee Wee Ellis. This was the first time I've played a gig with Pee Wee (we met a couple of weeks previously when he came to sit in on Clare's gig at the Frome festival) and, I must say, I was a little nervous. Now, I don't normally get nervous before a gig but I am a big fan of Pee Wee and I really wanted to make a good impression. Gareth Williams was on piano and he was fantastic. I've wanted to play with Gareth for a long time now; he's one of my favourite pianists. Pee Wee was great fun and sounded great. We were playing at Cafe Piano, a gorgeous little venue in Heritage Courtyard, just off Sadler Street. The place was sold out (this was the forth gig Pee Wee had played there) and the trio went down a storm. Really hoping to play with Pee Wee again in the near future, it was a real privilege and a pleasure.

It turns out that Wells was a lot further away than I originally thought and it took an incredibly long time to get back home after the gig. Normally this wouldn't have been a problem but I had to get up early the following morning in order to catch a plane out to Denmark for a festival gig with Maggie. As I may have mentioned before, I find it very difficult to sleep if I have to get up early to catch a plane. It's that terrible thought of waking up late and missing the flight. So no sleep for me!

We arrived at the airport in Arhus (in the middle of ar street) to be driven out to the festival site. Now I'm not overly sure of the exact whereabouts of the gig, but I'm guessing it was Sommersted as that was the name of the festival. It was an outdoor show for about 1800 people. We were headlining at around 9pm following a rocky blues band. After us was to be a well-known Danish covers band who would be playing on late into the night. I've discovered that having a covers band on festival bills is quite common in Denmark (you may recall my mentioning a similar band at the Struer festival in one of my previous posts). Still doesn't sit quite right for me...

We went to check in at the hotel as we discovered they weren't quite ready for us at the festival site. Very odd hotel this one. It really wouldn't have looked out of place in the middle of the Slough Trading Estate. Imagine something resembling a low-rise office block crossed with a dodgy backstreet pub and you'll be halfway there. We retreated straight to the bar for a little drink, but the promise of a decent meal at the festival site quickly lured us back into the van.

Back at the festival in the dressing room, we eagerly awaited our evening meal. In came the cheese and speckled ham platter. Should have seen that one coming really.

They did keep the coffee flowing though so we were at least awake for the show if a little under-nourished!

Having been a rather fine day, the heavens opened up as soon as the previous band came off stage. Luckily our gear had already been loaded backstage so we managed to avoid the rain whilst setting up. The audience seemed really excited to see Maggie and refused to be beaten by the rain. Fantastic stuff. This was to be Gordon's second gig with the band (we've still yet to have a proper rehearsal all together!) and Chrys had improvised a keyboard stand with various bits of metal bolted together. As we set the stage up it lasted about 10 seconds after the keyboard was lowered onto it! A couple of empty flightcases were swiftly dragged on as a last-minute replacement. Wish I'd had my camera at that point, it was quite funny watching the little frame slowly buckle under the immense weight of the keyboard!

The show itself went down a storm (Literally. It was pouring down by this stage). We played pretty much the same set as Slupsk, with a few of the quieter numbers taken out to save time. Probably about half of the audience had retreated under cover towards the back of the site, but the rest of them braved the rain in a sea of anoraks and umbrellas. Chrys had decided to drive all our own gear over to the show this time. It was great to finally have both my basses to hand as well as my pedalboard (I use quite a lot of bass effects with Maggie). I much prefer playing the little solo spots on my fretless, although my chorus pedal decided to emit it's sporadic 'I don't like 120 volts' hum, as did my amp. O well, at least it was my hum!

I had to leave alone early the next morning in order to get back to England for a gig with Symeon Cosburn at the RAC club in Epsom. This was no mean feat as we were in the middle of nowhere in deepest Denmark on a Sunday. Chrys had very kindly organised a series of train connections in order to get me to Copenhagen airport so I could get back in time. The hotel's one saving grace was it's being situated opposite the local train station. As I sat on the platform at 7.45 in the morning the station attendant informed me that the train times are completely different at the weekend and I'd have to get on a much later train. Bugger, I thought. Luckily the train I eventually caught an hour later went straight through to Copenhagen, so with a bit of last minute improvisation I was able to get to the airport on time with only one change.

It took me nearly nine hours in total to get to my gig in Epsom (phew...), but it was well worth it in the end. It was a great little quartet gig with Dave Ohm on drums and Anthony Strong on piano. Symeon isn't doing too many shows at the moment so I was really pleased I could make it. The RAC club in Epsom is a beautiful place. The main building is like a huge mansion in the middle of some stunning grounds. We were playing in a huge ballroom for a crowd of about sixty people, most of whom ended up buying a CD in the break. I swear this must be some kind of record; almost four fifths of the audience bought one of Symeon's CD's. A fantastic result. Hopefully we'll be doing some more in the near future. Keep an eye on my gig list on my MySpace page for updates.

I'm going to be playing at the Pizza Express Jazz Club in Maidstone on Saturday with Clare Teal if anyone's in the area. Do let me know if you're coming along so I can say hello. I'm off to play an orchestral show with Duke Special in Dublin the following week, with another gig at the Roundhouse on the 29th. Seriously not to be missed.

Hopefully see you at a show soon.

Simon

Just a little rant, followed by a sigh of relief....

It seems we have come to the end of the hay fever season. Thank god for that is all I can say.

I must admit to being one of those people who hates the summer and all it brings. Every year I have a hard time and can't wait for the cold weather to return.

I don't function well in hot weather. I like a good crisp and dry winter's day. I like to go out wearing a jacket and ideally a hat. I find the lack of pockets in the Summer an immense pain in the arse. The man-bag has made another appearance this year to accommodate all my various bits and bobs that I cart around with me, but in a gigging situation the last thing I need is another bag to lug around. I can't stand being too hot because there's literally nothing you can do about it, whereas you can always layer up in colder weather.

Every summer brings with it the usual spate of outdoor gigs which I very rarely enjoy. Wearing a suit in that kind of weather is a surefire recipe for playing discomfort. The run of garden parties and the like never fails to take it's toll on me upright bass. I've just had to spend a considerable amount of money having my bass overhauled due to the effects of the weather. For those of you unfamiliar with the situation, double basses are fixed together with a special glue that melts under heat. This is to facilitate easy repairs. It doesn't take kindly to direct sunlight though, and every year without fail my bass decides to come unstuck right in the middle of my busiest period in the summer. My instrument plays best in the winter, and so do I.

I also get terrible hay fever. This usually comes on around March and stays with me to varying degrees until early August. Anyone else who suffers with this ailment will understand what an inconvenience this can be when you're trying to work. It's like having a cold all through the spring and early summer months, with the addition of itchy and dry eyes to really finish you off.

I went through the rigmarole of going to my local GP for the latest antihistaminic placebo. This proved, as always, a complete waste of money yet again. Every year this happens. Next spring I'm not going to bother, they never work and they're not cheap. I've been taking chewable Vitamin C this year, which has eased some of the symptoms. Not the soar throat and the itchy eyes though...

So as you can see, the summer is not the idillic picture of fun and excitement it is for most people. They announced on pollen count section of the weather forecast that the hay fever season is now officially over. And as I look outside, I'd say the hot weather is over now too.

Great. Looking forward to lots of lovely sensibly indoor shows and the relative comfort of a hat and scarf in the not too distant future.

Is it just me who hates the summer?

Steve just sent me this photo he took from behind his drums during the soundcheck, thought I'd share!

Gives you some idea of the scale of the show.... That's Gordon on the right setting up his keyboard.

I've just returned from my first ever gig in Poland. In fact it's the first time I've been to Poland at all. The Maggie Reilly band once again ventured out into unknown territory to perform at the Rock Legends Festival at the Amfiteatre Dolina Charlotta in Slupsk. This really is a very beautiful corner of the world and I can highly recommend a visit. The festival site was situated on a huge lake, in the middle of which sits a wonderful floodlit guest house and restaurant. In fact, here's a little piccy I've swiped from their website....

The band flew out of Luton airport on Thursday. I didn't. I had a duo gig at the National Theatre with Julie McKee that night and had to fly out alone at a rather ungodly hour the following morning. Flying out later did allow me to not only do Julie's gig, but also dash off to attend Steve Lawson and Lobelia's wonderful gig at the Perseverance later that night. I had a great time Thursday night and also met some of the lovely Twitter folk. It also helped me stay awake in order to catch my plane!

As those of you who know me well will know, early mornings are not my forte. And the chances of me getting any sleep knowing I had to leave the house at 4.30 were, to be frank, slim at the very least. So I decided to pull an all-nighter and go straight out to the airport. I've had to do this a number of times in the past to catch early flights and have a number of cunning rouses to stay awake and alert. Having dinner at midnight is always a winner: an attempt to fool my body into thinking it's much earlier than it really is....

I arrived in Gdansk at midday, to be met by the son of the festival manager. We had to wait another hour for the backing singer from Chris Norman's band to arrive from Germany (she was also working the previous night), so more coffee was eagerly consumed (I was starting to feel the effects of the all-nighter at this juncture). The 120km drive to Slupsk took far longer than it should have because of holiday traffic. Apparently we were heading in exactly the same direction as Vladislavova, a popular Polish holiday destination, so you can imagine the traffic on a Friday afternoon. What should have taken an hour or so eventually took three hours.

I arrived at the festival site just as Chris Norman finished sound-checking. Interestingly, nobody from Maggie's band had called me thus far to see where I was... I would discover why shortly.

As I fitted some new strings to my bass and stepped up onto the stage to organise the hired backline, our lovely German promoter Earnst appeared asking me about who needed what on stage gear-wise. When I told him I wasn't sure whether Stuart was going to be playing any guitar or not he abruptly turned to me and said "Stuart isn't here. He's broke his arm".

What? I swear this was the first I'd heard about it. The rest of the band then arrived from the hotel (I didn't get to the hotel until after the show, by which point I'd been up for over 40 hours straight). Chrys' friend Gordon was depping on keyboards and guitar. He'd only got the call a few days previously and had been feverously working out the parts with Maggie back in Glasgow.

As a result, our sound check turned into a full on run-through of the show, encores and all! Under normal circumstances this wouldn't have been a problem. But I was trying to save a little something for the actual show energy-wise, and it was 29 degrees out there and the stage was positioned facing directly into the blistering sun! Let me tell you, I have never been so hot in my life. We must have been up there for a good couple of hours and by the end of it we were all soaked through and mildly sunburnt. Possibly one of the most unpleasant soundcheck scenarios to date?

After some great food at the restaurant on the lake, we were on. I have no idea how many people were at the gig, but I would guess somewhere between 1500 and 2000. The Amfiteatre was a great layout for a show like ours and the crowd were fantastic. The onstage sound was probably the best we've had so far (until the end when the radio mics started picking up local talk radio!) and Maggie went down a storm. Gordon shook off his earlier nerves and put on a fantastic performance. We even got a number of 'Las Vegas intros' (where the crowd start clapping about 8 bars into the song when they recognize the tune!). In previous shows these only really occur on the hits (Everytime We Touch, Moonlight Shadow, To France etc), but this time we even got them for tunes from the latest album Rowan. I think this bodes well for future shows in Poland....

We had a great time in Poland. A great show,great food, a lovely hotel and some great people. I'm hoping we get invited back to so the Rock Legends festival next year, and hopefully we'll have some more Polish dates in the near future.

The next show with Maggie will be at the Somersted Festival in Denmark on August 9th, before our run of Danish shows starting September 24th. Check my MySpace Page for more up to date gig info.

In the meantime, those of you who haven't yet had a listen to my Solo Bass Podcast, just click on the link and download to your heart's content. And don't forget to sign up to my mailing list at Reverb Nation to keep up to date with progress on the solo bass project. Just sign up as a fan and you'll be automatically added to my mailing list and will also get access to the exclusive download 'Gentle Rain'.

Until next time....

Simon x

I came across a blog post from Digital Audio Insider via my Google Reader this morning. David Harrell was asking for advice and ideas on his band The Layaway's plan to release their new album as a free download. I felt the need to post a comment and it became so long-winded I thought I might re-post it here as a blog entry! So here it is....
The original blog post is located Here

"I really think that giving away your music for free as a business model is only really viable for established acts with a broad and loyal fanbase already in place.
When Prince gave away Planet Earth in the Mail On Sunday, you have to take into consideration that
1. He has already sold millions of albums and has an extensive and still popular back catalogue which will still be bringing in considerable revenue
2. He was about to embark on a month-long residency at the O2 in Greenwich which, I believe, was pretty much already sold out; again generating huge amounts of money.
Artists like Prince, NIN and Radiohead probably make a very small percentage of their income from selling their newest album. By the time the album has recouped it's costs (and for artists at this level I would presume these costs would be considerable), there really would not be a massive profit margin. These artists would more than likely be earning the bulk of their income from touring, publishing and royalties.
Relatively new acts would have none of this financial security and therefore the act of giving away a new album would be like taking £10k (or whatever the recording costs may be) and burning it in the street. Obviously, some people will download anything if it is free. But are these people going to come to your shows or buy your back catalogue? Probably not.
I would say that the free download model works best when aimed squarely at an established fanbase. I particularly like the model exemplified by artists on sites such as Reverb Nation. Certain artists have made specific tracks (or sometimes albums) available to their 'fans' as exclusive downloads. All users have to do in order to access these downloads is add their name to the artist's mailing list. In the current music industry climate (with the spread of piracy and P2P file-sharing), artists need to build up this kind of interactive relationship with their audience more than ever.
So in response to your question, whilst I don't think that giving away your new album is necessarily a wise move right now, using this as a direct marketing ploy to gather a more comprehensive mailing list may well prove far more valuable in the long run compared to what could have been earned from physical sales of the album...?"

Hello folks,
Hopefully some of you who read my last blog will have checked out my new Reverb Nation page, where I've been posting tracks from my Solo Bass Podcast.
Today I posted a brand new solo bass track on the Reverb Nation page. This will not feature on the podcast and is an exclusive download for my fans on Reverb Nation. All you have to do is click on the link here and sign up to the mailing list to receive this exclusive download. Alternatively, you can sign up right here on the blog page; just go to the Reverb Nation widget in the sidebar and fill in your email address to sign up to the mailing list.
Enjoy!
Simon

As regular readers will know I recently started up a Solo Bass Podcast. With a view to producing an album of solo bass material later on this year, I wanted an outlet to post new ideas and hopefully gain some feedback. The second and possibly more important reason behind starting the podcast was to begin to build some semblance of a fanbase to whom I could promote the album on it's eventual release.
I am a session musician by definition. ie: I make a living playing other people's music in other people's bands. As a musician in my own right, very few people know who I am or what I do. As a result, making myself known to a few people has become quite important. I've trawled the internet to find the most appropriate spots for me to have some kind of presence, and have started up profiles on a few key sites. As you will all know, my MySpace page has been up and running for several years now, but I'm finding the lack of interactivity and endless friend requests from obscure housewives-turned-jazz singers quite frustrating.
My first port of call was Last.fm, a fantastic music streaming service that I have been using over the last few months as a listener. For those of you unfamiliar with the site, Last.fm begins by collecting data from your digital music library (in my case iTunes) and can then recommend music based on this information. The ability to use the software to discover 'similar artists' has been the most fruitful for me. Each artist registered on Last.fm has an associated wiki page where users can contribute biographical information, pictures and videos. Artists also have charts showing their most popular tracks and shout boxes in their page for listeners to post their comments. I really liked the interactive nature of the site and wanted to get more involved with the conversational nature of the profile pages. So I signed myself up, created a profile page and uploaded all the podcast tracks. Of course, this may well drive some of the traffic away from the Podcast site itself, but the fact that I can see exactly who is listening to my music on Last.fm should eventually prove far more valuable when I actually have a product to sell. The other slightly embarrassing drawback is that (of course) I am my own top listener. I suppose we are all our harshest critics and my repeated listening to check what I'm posting all counts towards the total scrobbles. O well....
My second little project was to start up a Facebook Music page. This, to be perfectly frank, turned into a bloody nightmare. For some reason the whole process seemed frought with problems. The uploading of music/pictures etc was fairly straightforward, but there is almost no easy way to add functionality to the page. Maybe I'm just used to the MySpace system, which is initially incredibly complicated once you start editing HTML but once you're used to it becomes almost second nature. I've lost count of the various applications and add-ons I've added an then instantly removed from the page. The features that really drew me to the site were the ability for listeners to share your music on their own pages and the availability of daily statistics for page views etc. Creating a buzz online is essential in trying to build a fanbase and it is only with the help of listeners/fans sharing your music and recommending you to their friends that the snowball effect can begin. This aspect is one of the things missing for me with MySpace, which has become so inundated with sub-standard music that finding something truly inspiring has become more than a rarity.
At this juncture I should probably mention that I also started up an iLike page, mainly as an add-on for Facebook. This has proved wholly disastrous and a complete waste of time thus far. I am apparently the only person who 'likes' my music and the page seems to have disappeared into the ether where nobody can find it. My advice if you are thinking about dabbling with iLike: don't bother.
Which brings me to the latest addition to my online marketing adventure. Reverb Nation is proving the most valuable addition to the buzz-generating arsenal. Reverb Nation takes all the best qualities of the various social networking sites and presents them with an incredibly clean and user-friendly interface. Uploading the songs, pictures and biography couldn't have been simpler. I loved the fact that you can import data from other sites to be viewed directly on your profile page. I was able to import my Blogger blog directly... In fact you may well be reading this very post on my Reverb Nation page! Ingenious thinking. I really have neither the time nor the inclination to post my blogs separately on all the various sites that I maintain and the ability to import the blog from Blogger and have this automatically update is a true blessing. The same applies to being able to import status updates directly from my Twitter account.
Reverb Nation has, for me, two additional benefits over the other social networking sites. Firstly, you have the option of making your tracks available for streaming or download, and the further option of making these 'fan exclusives'. This gives listeners incentive to sign up to your mailing list in order to be able to download specific songs. In fact, I'm soon going to post a couple of tracks which will indeed be exclusive to Reverb Nation (ie: not ripped from the Podcast), in a vague attempt to bolster the numbers on the mailing list. The second huge advantage with Reverb Nation is the ability to place widgets from the site on other social networking pages, to spread the word even further. In fact, your fans on the site can do the same which is a massive bonus. This is exactly the sort of interactivity I've been looking for and precisely how I envision the 'buzz' may well be created.
I only created the Reverb Nation page a few days ago, so it hasn't had many hits thus far, but I'm sure this will improve in the near future. The fact that the widgets appear on some of my other pages is already driving some traffic to the Reverb Nation page, and presumably some of these people will be coming to the site for the first time. This should theoretically get more people to sign up to the site and in turn allow them to discover more exciting music from the recommendations I make on my profile page. I posted messages on Twitter as each of these pages were initialized and a few key supportive members (who have also been listening to my podcast) were always the first to sign up. Thanks guys.
I got significantly more hits after solo bass master and social media guru Steve Lawson recommended me on his Reverb Nation Page. Which proves how the best form of buzz comes from direct recommendations, especially from such highly regarded artists. Incidentally, Steve has been incredibly helpful and supportive since I started my podcast and I'd like to give him my thanks and tell you all to go and check out his music. Steve also has a fantastic blog which he updates far more regularly and eloquently than I; well worth subscribing.
The biggest influx of traffic to the podcast itself (second only to when Steve posted a message on Twitter saying that he was listening) was after I posted links on the Warwick Forum about a week ago. I literally doubled the number of hits. Which just serves to prove that targeting your audience directly is always the most effective solution.
But I do wonder how many of these listeners will go on to sign up to the mailing list on Reverb Nation, or become a fan on Facebook? So far I'd say none of them. The next phase of my online adventure will be an attempt to further tie together all the various pages and services in order to build up a more cohesive and measurable fanbase. I would say that is where the true secret to success lies....

Well it's been pretty hectic in the Little bass world. I've been up and down the country with Clare Teal and I've just got back from Julie McKee's album launch at the 606 in Chelsea. I'm sat here suffering with dreadful hay fever (always spoils this time of year for me), so I thought I might use this opportunity to fill you in on what's been going on. Those of you who have been following my Twitter updates will have some idea of the driving involved if nothing else!
The first gig in Clare's run was at Iford Manor (is it near Frome?) on the 20th . They put on music throughout the summer in their beautiful grounds, from jazz to opera. We were in the 'Cloisters'; a very old stone building not much bigger than a double garage with a well in the middle of it. We were playing opposite the Jive Aces who were in a tent up the hill. Apparently the intended vibe was that people would scatter themselves around the grounds with their picnics and would be able to hear/see the live music from wherever they were. But of course it rained. Quite heavily in fact. But in true British style this did not stop the eager music lovers from enjoying the show. We performed in front of as many people as could squeeze into the little building, all in their wellies and wax jackets and everyone had a great (if rather damp) time. The boys even managed to do all their dance moves in the cramped space!
We then moved on to the Taliesin in Swansea. They always look after us at the Taliesin, it's a great venue (although I can never find it in the middle of the University campus, I was driving around forever looking for signs... there are none). I went down early to meet up with my friend Dan who lives in Swansea now. I haven't seen him since I was about 10 years old (!), we were best mates at primary school and lost touch when my family moved to Dorset in 1990. We got back in touch via the wonders of Facebook and it was so good to see him again. It's really funny how some people never really change. He was exactly as I remembered him and we had a great time catching up at the pub down the road. The Swansea show was great and the sound was amazing. The drive home however was a nightmare. Torrential rain made progress very slow. In fact AD (who had decided to go to Swansea on his bike) and I eventually decided to stop for half an hour on the way home to wait it out.
We played a charity gig in Bath on the Monday for Myeloma UK at the St James Memorial Hall. There were a few people there who'd been at Iford Manor and as well as putting on the show Clare donated all profits from CD sales on the night to the charity.
On the 25th we played Stamford Arts Centre up in Lincolnshire. Stamford is a beautiful little town; old limestone buildings and churches, about 100 miles north of London. Well worth a visit if you're up that way. The Arts Centre is a great resource for the local community, putting on everything from music and cinema to workshops and comedy shows. Again we were well looked after by the staff there and we played in front of a packed crowd.
On Saturday we all drove up to Barton Upon Humber, near Hull. That was a long way. Managed to spend about seven hours in the car that day, maybe eight. In fact, I dread to think how long I'm spending driving at the moment (or indeed how much I'm spending on petrol- is it me or does the price of petrol go up by a penny every couple of days?). We played at St Mary's Parish Church, a venue we've played before. It's always a tricky acoustic playing in churches (anyone remember The Divine Comedy at St James' on Piccadilly?), especially with bass and drums. Bass frequencies just disappear into the ether whilst the drums reverberate for days... We managed to get over this as always and had a great show.
It's interesting to note at this juncture how atmospheric conditions affect the double bass (not to mention my hay fever). A couple of recent shows have been rather damp (to say the least). Even the show in the church was cold/damp enough to have an adverse effect on my instrument. Double basses are far more susceptible to this than electric basses and it's a constant source of frustration to me. The neck seems to soak up all the moisture in the air, as well as the fingerboard, making the instrument incredibly unpleasant to hold and play. I've got a proper outdoor gig tomorrow (the ones mentioned thus far have been technically indoors), and to honest I'm dreading what it's going to do to my bass. I feel another trip to see bass-repair maestro Roger Dawson in the near future...
Last night was the official launch show for Julie McKee's new album 'What A Woman Shouldn't Do". Those of you familiar with solo-bass supremo Steve Lawson may well have heard her before. She's got a great voice and is a wonderful song-writer. We recorded the album a while back at the Cowshed in Bounds Green (a great studio if you're looking for somewhere to record, I've done several albums there already). Last night's lineup included Nigel Price on guitar, John Blease on drums, Rob Gentry on keyboards and Sam Chaplin on trumpet, with club-owner Steve Rubie sitting in for one tune on alto flute. If you are not yet familiar with Julie's music, she's well worth checking out. Her album is available at her official website, as well as Amazon, CD Baby and iTunes. Or you can have a look at her MySpace page to have a listen to some of the new songs.
Well, that's just about all the news for the moment. If you haven't already had a listen to my solo bass podcast, you can check it out here. There's been a couple of new posts since my last blog and as always do feel free to leave your comments and suggestions on the Podbean page.
Until next time...
Here's a little photo of Colin and AD soundchecking at the Cloisters in Iford Manor

As some of you may already know, I’ve recently set up a solo bass podcast through Podbean. This is something I’ve been meaning to do for a number of years now, but it’s taken my recent slump in gig activity to spur me on to actually getting it started.
I’ve been an occasional dabbler with looping technology and as anyone who’s seen me with Maggie Reilly over the last couple of years will know I’m not shy of using a few effects live. My current setup offers two looping possibilities. The first is a Boss DD6, a standard digital delay pedal that also offers a six second loop facility. This lives on my touring pedalboard and gets played with the most during those niggling lulls in soundchecks! The second is my RC20 Loop Station, which is a dedicated phrase sampler and can handle much longer loops and also enables the user to store a small number of loops internally. At some point in the near future I fully intend on investing in something more versatile (probably a Gibson Echoplex) but at this stage I’m finding the limitations imposed by my current setup force me to play more focused ideas.
The basic premise behind the podcast was to post ‘work-in-progress’ tracks played ‘as live’, ie: no overdubbing or postproduction trickery. Thus far (I’ve only submitted three solo bass tracks to date) I have only deviated from this rule once, in pasting a short section from the beginning of ‘A Little Light & Shade’ at the end of the track to create a sense of thematic unity. If I’d have been using a more advanced looping setup this would have been possible live so I’ve allowed myself this minor deviation…
The first hurdle I’ve had to overcome was getting used to recording myself looping live. I must say it’s been a while since I’ve used this gear seriously and the recording process really shows up every little glitch in timing. In fact I sent out a despairing Tweet at the time, prompting a very thoughtful and timely response from solo bass maestro Steve Lawson, who said “Looping is like learning a whole new instrument, both conceptually and physically”.
I’ve put a lot of thought into the concept behind my approach to solo bass. When I finally decided to start up the podcast, one of the main questions I had to ask myself was to whom I was playing. I had no intention of producing music that would only interest other bass players. And to be frank, I’m not that kind of chopsy player anyway. I wanted to be able to communicate something far deeper and more melodic.
The bass is not naturally a solo instrument. There are not many bass players who have successfully managed to produce solo music with a broad appeal. Probably the biggest influences on me as a bass soloist have been Eberhard Weber and the aforementioned Steve Lawson. Both have used electronics to create vast soaring soundscapes using the bass as both a lead and accompanying instrument. I am working on incorporating some of these textural elements into my own playing, looking at the layering of different sounds to create a broader canvas for melodic improvisation. Harmonics and arco work have proved particular favourites this week…
At some point in the future I would like to record an album of this kind of material. The process of focused practice/recording/podcasting has already proved useful in refining some ideas. Obviously, none of the tracks I’ve posted are the finished article. As I mentioned earlier, they are intended to be viewed as work-in-progress (I must apologise for the tuning in Bells II, I hadn’t played that particular bass in a while!) and I’m finding the podcast is a fantastic route to get some of my ideas out in an organized and structured fashion.
My podcast can be found at Simon Little’s Podcast or you can subscribe in iTunes if you want to be notified with new posts.
I’ve already got some great feedback from a few listeners via the Podbean site and Twitter. I’ll definitely continue posting music fairly regularly so do subscribe if you’re interested. I do like to hear your thoughts, comments and suggestions, so feel free to leave them here or on my Podbean page.
Hope you enjoy it.
Simon

ps. For those of you interested in hearing the masters at work, I'd recommend checking out any one of Steve Lawson's albums (there's four on iTunes) or Eberhard Weber's 'Pendulum' or 'Orchestra'
pps. At some point I'm going to introduce the Chapman Stick in the podcast, but at this stage I don't want to get ahead of myself!

The Divine Comedy headlined the Wychwood Festival at Cheltenham Racecourse last night. It was only the forth year the festival has been running and from the sound of it it's getting bigger every year.
Last night was The Divine Comedy's only UK show this year. We'll be playing two shows late September at the Cite De La Musique in Paris, but for the time being Neil is concentrating ..ing Swallows & Amazons.
We had three action-packed days rehearsing before the show. We haven't played together as a band for a whole year so things were a bit rusty to begin with. I got a shock when the intended set list came through from Mr Hannon. The Drinking Song had reared it's ugly head once again (I swear I have nightmares about that song... it has got so many changes it's almost impossible not to cock it up) and there were a couple of tunes I'd never even heard before. Neil wanted to put in a couple of the 'French' songs in preparation for the Paris shows later this year. I'm using inverted commas because only one of the songs is actually in French: 'Je Changerais D'Avis' by Francoise Hardy (it might be a Morricone tune... we're not quite sure). The other one was 'Home' which Neil wrote for Jane Birkin's last album. By all accounts, our version is better! To be honest, I was hoping for a version of 'The Songs That We Sing', but I think this will have to wait until September.
My Bloody Valentine were rehearsing in the studio next door. I say rehearsing... apparently they had to spend an awfully long time trying to figure out how they actually played a lot of their songs, they used a lot of funny tunings and obviously a huge amount of guitar effects. I didn't go in but Neil had to sneak a quick peak and said there were literally hundreds of pedals covering the floor in their studio. When they did finally start actually playing the sound was awesome. There were a few more coffee/fag breaks after that juncture to facilitate us standing around listening outside!
We had an eight-piece band this year, including the triumphant return of Ian 'Squeezy' Watson on accordian and Charlotte Glasson on saxes & flute.
Wychwood is quite a small festival. It takes about 10 minutes to walk around the whole thing. We were headlining on Saturday night. I arrived at the site at about 4pm just in time to hear the last couple of songs from Palladium. They sounded fantastic. Wish I'd got there half an hour earlier really. The Blockheads were on next, followed by Duffy. She put on a great (although very short) set with a fantastic band. Went out front to watch her with my friends Clare and Muddy who came to see me play. Duffy resorted to playing B-sides halfway through (she obviously doesn't have that much material, hence the early festival slot) but I thought these were the best songs in her set.
Duffy was followed by Orchestra Baobob. I went backstage. They were great fun but to be perfectly honest I can only stand about half a song of that kind of music before it all starts sounding the same. And their set ran over....
We were on at 9.30 for a ninety minute set. As usual, I have no set list so I can't tell you exactly what we played. All the usual suspects were in there, as well as some old favourites making a comeback: Billy Bird, Songs of Love, A Drinking Song. There were a few rarities dropped in too: Count Grassi's Passage Over Piedmont made it's debut live performance, we played Sweden for the first time in years (love that song) and we did a great new T Rex-y version of Europop which went down a storm.
The crowd were fantastic: shouting, screaming and singing along! We all had a ball. Neil even suddenly decided to give everyone a solo during National Express for the encore so I got a bit of 'foot on monitor' action in. I expect that will be the first and last time you will ever hear a bass solo on a Divine Comedy show! Definitely the only time you'll hear me slapping!
We had a great show and hopefully we'll play Wychwood again some time. We all agreed that if we were to do only one UK show this year, then last night was the way it should be. It's been a while since I've done a big festival show like last night's, and to honest I really miss it. Hopefully there'll be some more in the near future...
For the meantime, we're all looking forward to the Paris shows which by all accounts are shaping up to be a true TDC extravaganza! Miss it at your peril!
Until then....

ps. If anyone's knocking about town tonight, I'll be playing with Lea Delaria at the 606 in Chelsea. Our special guest is the amazing American blues singer/guitarist Chris Bergson. I was meant to play the Leicester City Blues Festival with him yesterday, but obviously I was otherwise engaged. Looking forward to it immensely...

pps. I'm really into Last.fm and Twitter at the moment. My Last.fm usermane is simonlittlebass if you want to be friends, and my Twitter page is at Twitter if you want to follow my updates...

I've just managed to put together a little podcast on Podbean. My intention in future is to post up some of the solo bass and Chapman Stick stuff I've been working on, but for the moment I'll be occasionally posting a few little gems I have locked away here at Little Towers. It might take a while for me to get to grips with the whole home recording scenario, but fear not, I'm on the case.
There's a Podcast player embedded on the main page here, but if you want to subscribe for future updates I would suggest going to my Podbean page and clicking the 'Add To iTunes' button. I've tested it and it seems to work fine. The address is Simon Little's Podcast
Also, if there are any Twitter users out there, I'm using that now. My profile page is at Twitter if you want to follow my updates: find out what I had for breakfast, what hideous traffic jam I'm sat in etc..

Hello folks
Just got back from playing a festival in Struer with Maggie Reilly. Struer is a city in Region Midtjylland on the Jutland peninsula in Western Denmark (I nicked that little snippet from Wikipedia... to be perfectly honest I have no idea where most of these places are in reality... I just get get off the plane and play my bass. I also found out that Struer has a population of 11,364.. so there you have it). Anyway, it's a very pretty little place by the sea.
Because of it's location (particularly relative to Copenhagen), there really aren't that many flights in or out at useful times of a weekend. Hence we've been away for three days to do the one show! And, let me tell you, three days in Struer is plenty. We soon discovered that there was really only the one place to be (day or night) and that was a little bar/restaurant called The Happy Penguin (translated into Danish of course). We managed to visit said establishment a grand total of five times in the time we spent there. Everything else seemed to shut as soon as they saw us coming.
The show was a big outdoor affair with just over two thousand people in the audience. There were five bands on that day with us being the only non-Danish act on the bill. We were preceded by a Danish band (the name has gone I'm afraid) who were apparently big in the 80's and have just made a comeback. I really didn't get the point of the band that went .. us. They were a tribute band for a start. The word on the street was that they were a very convincing copy of Denmark's biggest ever band (again, the name escapes me I'm afraid) who were massive in the late seventies. It was that kind of generic bluesy rock that regularly graces the stages of many a sweaty pub up and down the country. But the audience went berserk. They were singing along to all the tunes. The locals were raving about how authentic the band sounded and looked. Didn't get it I'm afraid. I could never imagine a tribute band playing on the same stage as proper bands at any festival in the UK. Needless to say, we made a swift exit about five tunes into their set.
We had a really great show (particularly since we hadn't played together for six weeks!). The sound was one of the best I've ever had on a festival and what began as a really cold blustery day suddenly turned into a beautiful Summer afternoon the exact moment we stepped onto the stage. We got a fantastic response from the audience and everybody at the festival really looked after us. They put on a big show like this every year for the locals and this was the first time they'd had a foreign band so hopefully we'll get to play there again another time.
The Danes have a great music scene. It seems a lot of the small town put on shows like this every year and a lot of them are state funded. They really support their local artists far more than we do in the UK and on a much grander scale. Danish folk music and jazz also has a massive following. They are very proud of their own music. I think we could learn a lot from that attitude.
After the show we retired once more to the Happy Penguin for some food and drinks. As the only decent place in town it soon filled up with merry festival goers and we had a great time chatting with the natives!
Our next show isn't until July in Poland with Chris Norman from Smokie. Maggie's been checking out the venue and she says it looks beautiful. It's somewhere near Gdansk... that's all I know. We're all looking forward to that one. I've never been to Poland...
On another note, if anybody's knocking about town on Tuesday, this month's "Wall To Wall" show with Lea Delaria features Julian Seagal on sax and we'll be playing the music of Stevie Wonder. Should be a corker!
Simon

Well here's one more rack from the session below. This one's called "Odidrep". It's another one of my original compositions, this time a time-no-changes piece. Feel free to leave any comments below....
Here's the link Odidrep
I think I've got the inserting of links down now so life should be easier from now on.... Fingers crossed!
Simon

Here is an old track recorded by my trio in 2004. It's called 'Tomorrow, Maybe..." and features the wonderful Ross Stanley on piano and Richard Barr on drums. It was recorded whilst we were all studying at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. I hadn't heard it for a very long time when it suddenly cropped up on my iPod in shuffle mode, and it made me feel very nostalgic so I thought I'd share it with you. Sadly that trio is no longer a working unit, but I'm hoping to get a band together in the near future to start playing some more of my originals. Let me know if you like it and I might post a few more tracks from the same session....

Hopefully if you click on the blog title you should be redirected to the Badongo sit: but just in case that doesn't work, here's the link below. Hope you like it.

http://www.badongo.com/file/9256246

Simon x

Hello folks,
Well as some of you may know, I signed up for Facebook during the week. And it's been a very interesting experience let me tell you...
The only reason I originally signed up was because there was a link on he Warr guitars website for their Facebook page. Unlike MySpace, you cannot view anyone's profile unless you are a member, and more often than not, accepted as their friend. Okay... So I signed up. Next thing I knew I was up until 6.30 in the morning hunting down all my old school mates, people from college and all my muso friends.
Judging by the number of people I found that are using it already, I'm a bit behind the times... but I'm now thoroughly obsessed with Facebook. It's like a drug. I find myself booting up the laptop far more often than normal, mainly to see whether it's my go on Scrabulous. I'm thinking this cannot be a good thing. Can't be healthy...
Facebook has been great for finding long lost friends. I've finally managed to find my best friend from primary school, after years of searching myspace etc. And a bunch of people I'd completely lost contact with have come out of the woodwork and sent me little messages. Hopefully I'll go forth and actually meet up with them in the real world rather than over the internet... We'll see.
I always thought of Facebook as a poor-man's MySpace, mainly aimed at bored office-workers. And to a degree, I still think that's probably the case. But having immersed myself for a few days, I can see the attraction. I've come to the conclusion that Facebook can be a great tool for keeping in contact with your friends and colleagues. Kind of like a free version of Friends Reunited, coupled with an elaborate messaging service.
I can't see me getting any more gigs off the back of Facebook. Unlike MySpace, which serves as a virtual shop window for musicians, Facebook seems more personal. But I don't think thats a bad thing. I'm notoriously crap at keeping in contact with my friends and I'm hoping that Facebook will somehow help to readdress this situation. I find myself chatting with people I haven't spoken to for years, simply because they're online at the same time as me.
So anyway, if you haven't had a look yet, maybe give Facebook a whirl... you never know who's gonna pop up.
Must go... I think I've just been poked...
Si x

Calling all Lea fans!!!
Tonight is your lucky night! Lea has added a last minute show at the 606 club in Chelsea this very evening! If you are around later on, don't miss out on what promises to be a great show at London's finest jazz venue.
We've got Janette Mason on piano and Paul Robinson (ex-Nina Simone) on drums.
Hurry Hurry Hurry!!!
See you there.
Simon x

Hello folks,
Just a little note to let you know you can now subscribe to my blog on the Blogger website via Feedburner. Either visit my blog at http://simonlittlebass.blogspot.com/ or click on the feedburner link on the main myspace page.
Also, Chris Difford’s new album ’The Last Temptation of Chris’ is now available on Stiff Records. It’s on iTunes too if you’re that way inclined. There's some fantastic new songs, co-written with Boo Hewerdine, featuring Dorie Jackson on backing vocals, Melvin Duffy on pedal steel and Tim Weller on drums. There's also some guest appearances from John Parricelli and Jim Watson.
And if you’re knocking about town next Tuesday, I’ll be at the Pizza Express in Soho with Lea Delaria. This month we’re doing the songs of Sy Coleman, with special guest Claire Martin. Should be a great show so book your tickets early.
See you soon.
Simon

Phew... We’re back home after the last epic leg of Maggie’s tour in Denmark and Germany. If I see another plate of cheese and speckled ham I’m gonna puke.
We started off with a one-off show on Easter Sunday near Gothenburg on the way into Denmark. We arrived in heavy snow (in fact it was snowing in London too... we all ended up dumping our cars in any old place at Stanstead, I could barely find the road let alone the spaces) and all we knew was that the gig was at a racecourse. ’How exciting!’ I thought, envisioning an enormous outdoor show with thousands of people all stood out in the snow whooping and screaming. Little did we know that they’d set up a stage at the bottom of the grandstand in the vip area. This not only meant that we did the whole show craning our necks to look up at the audience, but it also meant about six flights of stairs to load the gear in. We played for a small but enthusiastic audience and everyone had a great time. Then we had the pleasure of lugging the gear down all those stairs on the way out and loaded the van in a full-on blizzard. Definitely ranks high on the weird gigometer.
The Danish shows were fantastic. We played some great venues in Horsholm, Skive, St. Hedinge and finished up in Fredrikhavn.
On April 1st we went to Berlin to record a TV show called ’Hits Giganten’. No idea when that’s being aired I’m afraid; but if I find out, I’ll let you know. We were on with a bizarre mix of artists, all performing their ’Hot Hits’ in front of a studio audience. Obviously a number of these were leather trouser-clad moustachioed German artists I’d never heard of, but Sam Fox was there doing ’Touch Me’, the finale was George McCrae singing ’Rock Your Baby’ under a glitter-cannon and (my personal favourite) Baccara did ’Yes Sir, I Can Boogie’. Class. It was a long day with an unbelievable amount of hanging around, but we all had a laugh and it all looked good on camera. I still can’t stop singing ’Yes Sir, I Can Boogie’.... I don’t seem to have any control over when it’s gonna come out....
We then had five shows back to back in Germany, starting off at the Kammerspiele in Ansbach. A couple of the venues were so small it was untrue, but we all managed to squeeze on the tiny stages (Maggie was virtually in Steve’s kit on a couple of occasions, and he’s not the quietest of schlagzeugers). Chrys valiantly had to invent a PA from a seemingly non-sensical pile of leads and speaker cabinets at the venue in Bad Hersfeld (or bad hair day as we’ve taken to calling it). I really don’t think they were quite ready for a band like us to turn up with our van-load of gear, but nevertheless we managed to put on a great show under some extremely difficult circumstances.
On Friday we went back to Twist again (like we did last summer). After the show, Mark and Steve came up to the dressing room declaring ’Simon! There’s a couple of people that want to talk to you downstairs’. ’Finally!’ I thought, ’fans of my own!’ After roaring off a quick post-gig fag, I went out into the hall to be greeted by a tall bloke and his nervously giggling girlfriend. ’We loved the show’ he said. Good. ’And my girlfriend really likes your hat’. Right... ’And she was wondering if she could have it?’. What?! No she bloody can’t! I couldn’t believe it. Cheeky bastards. Needless to say I gave them my thanks and made a quick exit... I’ve still got my hat.
Last night we played Lubeck in some kind of arty-farty/veggy/hippy centre. After five shows in a row and seemingly endless drives, we were all shattered and Maggie had all but lost her voice by the end of the previous show. We had a very subdued soundcheck and the acoustic was horrendous. Miraculously, this turned out to be one of the best shows we’ve done thus far and a really good end to the tour.
We must have driven all the way around Germany about six times over the last month. We all agreed that we’ve seen enough conifers and wind-farms and eaten enough leiderdame and speckled ham to last us a lifetime. We’ve got a bit of a break now. There’s a couple of bits and bobs over the summer, but Maggie and Stuart are busy sorting out a big Autumn tour so watch this space for new dates.
Until then...

Yes Sir, I can Boogie.... Boogie-woogie all night looooong!
Aargh!!
I can’t help it now...

Hello folks.
Well here we are again. Just got back home for a bit before we dart off again towards Denmark (via Sweden). Another six shows down the line and everything’s coming together nicely, thanks for asking.
Tuesday’s show in Melle was in a tiny theatre. We had a late soundcheck because we had to wait for the afternoon’s puppet show to load out. Yep. I wish they had a sign with us on the same bill as a puppet show. Very Spinal Tap. The gig was great, even though Stuart had a total keyboard meltdown as his soundcard finally went up the spout. He managed to rescue for the second set after much switching on and off and rummaging around in the dark.
We then went to some kind of Goth Rock club in Krefeld, which was great. The Garden Hotel was our home for the evening. Situated on top of a block of flats by the main road, this place was bloody odd. The reception was on the 10th floor (the tiny lift only held three people at once- christ knows what you’d do if the place was on fire) but all the rooms were on the 9th. And the notice-board in the lift was held up by a mousetrap. I kid you not. Didn’t bode well, but in the end it was fine. The woman running the place through the night was really friendly and she kept the bar open for us after the show. You’d be surprised how many of these places don’t bother.
When we pulled up at another enormous church on Thursday after a 600km drive, I thought we were doomed. Don’t ask me where it was because I can’t remember. The band’s got considerably louder with the new tunes we’ve added to the set and those church gigs were a struggle last year when we were doing finger-in-one-ear music. By some miracle the sound was great when the audience came in, but I reckon you’ll still be able to hear the last cymbal crash of Moonlight Shadow reverberating round the pews if you go back there any time over the next couple of weeks...
On Friday we played what we’ve now come to lovingly refer to as the ’Dawn of The Dead Disco’. Coswig is a very small town near Dresden which seemingly has nothing in the way of cafes, bars or restaurants. Our traditional mid-afternoon coffee and cake expedition was looking pretty hopeless. Maggie was the star turn at Coswig’s 80’s Classic Rock night and I’ve never seen such an odd bunch of people all out in the same place at the same time. Imagine if there was a disco scene in Night of The Living Dead....
We managed to tear ourselves away from Coswig early the next morning to venture into Dresden for a wander. So good to actually go to somewhere I’d heard of. We went on to Pirna to play another rock club. Pirna is a proper town with some fantastic old buildings, great little cafes and proper shops you’d actually want to go in. Of course they were all shut because everything shuts on a Saturday afternoon in Germany. The venue, Kleinkunstbühne Q24 (try saying that with your mouth full), was quite similar to the one in Zwonitz (I’ve still got a massive bruise on the top of my head) and we had a great show.
Last night we were really in the middle of nowhere in deepest East Germany. I think we were somewhere near Botzen, but who knows. Somewhere near the Czech border. This time we were in a big hall for a sit-down theatre-style audience. We were sold out again (where all these people come from I cannot fathom... I didn’t see a single soul outside all day).
Well, I’m back home for a very short stint before we charge off for round three starting off in Gothenburg. Never been to Sweden. Looking forward to the Danish shows too. There’s even talk of rehearsing up a few new tunes on the road for your delight. Hopefully see you there...
Cheers
Simon x

Hello Folks,

I'm going forn the rather risky move of blogging whilst still actually on the road. Could be tricky and you'll have to excuse any typos and spelling mistakes as I'm hacking away at a German keyboard and all the letters are in the wrong place... Thought it would be better to do this now before I forget all the place names and all the gigs merge into one big tour blob...

We Started out this leg on a very small stage at The Pumpwerk in Wilhelmshaven. Barely managing to all squeeze on at once, we still had a good show with a great audience.

On Friday we returned to the same venue in Zwonitz we played last year (and it turned out we were there exactly the same date last year- they had a poster from the last show up on the wall that we'd all signed). It's a great venue, again with a very small stage. The stage also has a balcony towering over it on one side, the close proximity of which I found out the hard way whilst setting up the gear... I've still got a massive bruise right on the top of my freshly shaved head where I jumped off that side carrying a flightcase and all but knocked myself out. Wouldn't be allowed in the UK... health and safety and all that... The dressiong room at that venue is virtually pitch black with almost no lighting to speak of; just as we'd remembered it from last time. It's the sort of lighting that if you were to put something down, you'd be hard pushed to find again at the end of the night (something Mark discovered last year with one of his favourite shirts.... we were all more cautious this time). It was another good show with a really fun audience, and they've said they'd keep the 8th March free for us from now on (we all love those annual residencies!)

On Sunday we played my favourite venue so far. It's called the Blues Garage and it's just outside Hannover. As we drove into what can only be described as a larger, and possibly bleaker version of the Slough Trading Estate, I really didn't have high hopes for the gig. We walked into one of the huge industrial hangers and inside they'd built the most amazing Mid-Western style Blues venue. The owner Henry had decked it out with vintage gas pumps, old guitars and radios, various other class items of Americana and some fantastic artwork. All that was missing was the sawdust on the floor... We had a big stage with an even bigger drum riser for Steve and the backline and the show was storming. I love those sorts of venues, Henry was great and has invited us back next year so that'll be one to look forward to. You really felt as if you were in some really happening dusty Mid-Western blues joint...until you stepped outside onto the industrial estate.

There was a house photographer there too and he took some good shots of the band so hopefully I'll be able to post some of them up here and on Maggie's page. keep your eyes peeled...

We had a day off yesterday in Melle, but it pissed with rain all day. Typical.

We're playing in Melle tonight, then we're off to Krefeld (I've got no idea where that is either.. my German geography is non-existant). We're going home next Monday after 6 more shows. If anyone's in town on Tuesday I'll be playing Lea's 'Wall To Wall' show at the Pizza Express on Dean Street with special guest Mornington Lockett. Should be a good one folks...

Anyways... see you soon. Hope someone reads this or I've just wasted a good half hour on this bloody thing.

Auf Wiedersehen!

Simon x

The Return of The Divine Comedy!
Category: Music

The Divine Comedy will be headlining Saturday night at the Wychwood Festival in Cheltenham on the 31st May. I'm gonna be playing at the Leicester City Blues Festival in the afternoon with the Chris Bergson band, and then burning my way to Cheltenham for a bit of DC action.
Here's the details ruthlessly ripped from the DC blog:

Saturday 31st May

Wychwood Festival, Cheltenham Race Course
The DC's headline Saturday's show, supported by Duffy, The Blockheads (feat Phill Jupitus) and many many more!

Tickets are available now and can be ordered from The Festival Box Office on 01993-772580 (8am - 10pm 7 days a week)
Adult Weekend £100
Disabled 2 for 1 ticket £100
Concession Weekend £75
11 and under are free (max 2 per adult, then additional Child Ticket is £10)
Day Tickets: Friday £35, Cons £20
Saturday: £50, Cons £35
Sunday: £40, Cons £25

For more ticket info and a list of authorised ticket agents, please visit the Ticket section of the Wychwood website!

See you there.

Simon x

Well, I know that two days away barely constitutes a tour, but we're about to embark on a longer stint in Denmark and Germany. The two shows we just did in Germany were so eventful I had to start here...
We started off with four days of intensive rehearsals at Ritz Studios in Putney. We've added a bunch a new songs to the set from last year and now a have the wonderful Steve Alexander on drums. Steve used to play with Maggie years ago and has since been on the road with Jeff Beck and Duran Duran amongst many others, so we're really lucky to have him back. He's a real powerhouse drummer and has already gone down a storm at the shows (Maggie keeps getting the old "Hey.. Your drummer's really famous!" comments... very funny... still nobody knows who the hell I am though!).
Our first show was the Torgelow Classic Rock Festival, alongside Tony Carey and Ray Wilson & Stiltskin at the Stadthalle in Torgelow, Germany. We were on in the middle (Tony pulled rank and went on first so he could leave early and get an early night!). We had a great show and stayed on to watch a bit of Stiltskin. I was very excited to hear them do 'Inside' from the Levis ad.... sadly this was not to be. After their first number, there was some confusion on stage as the band all started checking their gear and in-ear monitors. Suddenly the entire stage went black, and so did the entire building. And so did the whole of Torgelow and the two nearest towns! Apparently a storm had caused a widespread power-cut and there didn't seem to be any immediate solution. Confusion reigned as band, audience and backstage crew alike were plunged into complete darkness. Luckily Stiltskin took this in their stride and we all used to opportunity to have a chat backstage and have a good laugh at the seemingly hopeles situation! Eventually the fire brigade and local police turned up at the Stadthalle and managed to divert power to the venue from somewhere else, but sadly by this point (about 45 minutes later) around 75% of the audience had gone home. Stiltskin dutifully went back on stage to a smaller but enthusiastic crowd and the show went on. We went back to our hotel.
Now then, our hotel needs some comment. I don't remember the name of it, but it was attached to an enormous windmill. The owner has obviously become obsessed with this windmill and has made it her own personal trademark as well as that of the hotel. It was run by one 'Frau Braun'; a rather frightening and larger than life Korean woman who greeted us incredibly loudly in German (she spoke no English and we spoke no German: but both parties were going for the loud and slow technique in multi-lingual communication) wearing some kind of period costume... something akin to a German milk-maid outfit. Every available inch of wallspace in the lobby and restaurant was plastered with photographs of Frau Braun with local dignitaries and various German celebrities wearing what can only be described as an enormous windmill-themed Easter bonnet paired with the various costumes which she obviously has a penchant for. The Japanese kimono was my personal favourite, making her look like some kind of windmill-Geisha.
The second show was 300k down the road at the Brauhaus in Cottbus. We were to be the first ever act on at this newly-converted music venue. We had a great show and the audience were fab. We were really looked after by the staff at the converted brewery, which will hopefully go on to be a popular music venue in the future. It was a pleasure to be first to play such a great venue. The sound was good and the food was even better. Looking forward to going back there next year if all goes well.
Post-show frivolities were sadly rather low-key as we had a bastard early start the following morning to catch our plane back to Blighty. I had about 3 hours sleep...
I'll post part II of the diary after our next jaunt. Have a look at the gig list to see where we're off to next. Also, check out Maggie's page (you can find her in my 'Top Friends'), it's more fully-functional than before- I've given it a bit of a facelift!
See you soon!
Simon x

Hello folks,

Just wanted to let you know that Clare's new album 'Get Happy' is gonna be coming out February 25th on Universal records. It's another great mix of well-known standards and originals and features the touring band; Jim Watson on piano, Chris Dagley on drums, Ad Chivers and Colin Ball singing bv's and me on bass.

It's already had it's first play on Radio 2 on Clive Anderson's show and we'll be on the road touring again very soon, starting with the album launch at Ronnie's on the 14th February.

You can pre-order the album on Amazon already so there's really no excuse. The tracklisting is as follows:

1. All For Love
2. Cheek To Cheek
3. Love Hurts
4. Begin The Beguine
5. Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
6. Get It On Sam
7. Get Happy
8. Very Thought Of You
9. Love For Sale
10. Moondance
11. High Love
12. Time After Time
13. All The Things You Are

Hopefully see you at one of the shows soon! The dates are up the main page: there are a few more which I won't be doing, you'll be able to get those dates from Clare's page soon I'm sure....

On another note, if you're knocking about town this Sunday, don't miss out on Lea Delaria's show at the 606. Janette and Fletch are on it so it's gonna be rockin'!

I've also wopped up a couple of new TDC vids for your viewing pleasure on YouTube. They're from the Cambridge Folk Festival in 2004 and I'm sure at some point soon I'll get told off for putting them on YouTube and have to take them down so keep it under your hats! It was when Squeezy (aka Ian Watson/Jonny Squeezebox) was with us.... ahhh glory days.... Hope you like them!

See you soon.

Si x

Hi people,

Just thought I'd let you in on a great website I just came across on a little surfing session. It's called fabchannel.com and it's a massive database of live gigs recorded at Paradiso in Berlin available to watch online. Bloody marvelous! I was watching Marcus Miller, Frank Black, The Arcade Fire and my good friends Duke Special on there. There's all kinds of stuff. The sound quality is fantastic and the gigs are so well shot, I really can't recommend this site any higher. And they've got a daily podcast uploading one track from each show.

Go check it out right now. Stop arsing about on MySpace.

Hopefully one of my lot will do a gig at the Paradiso soon. I want to be a part of this!!!

Enjoy!

Simon x

Hello folks.
Happy new year to you all (well, the ones who read this blog anyway...)!
After a fairly quiet Christmas period it's time once again to spring into action and get stuck in to what may well prove to be a busy spell (my god...!).
I'm gonna be out and about with Beth doing a few one offs and starting out at her new residency at Cherry Jam on Porchester Road (www.cherryjam.net). Clare is soon to commence her busy touring schedule for 2008 and Maggie has got a bunch of shows lined up for the Spring in Germany and Scandinavia, I'll post them when they're all confirmed.
One little bit of exciting news (for me anyway), after much to-ing and fro-ing, Paul Eldridge and I have managed to revive our residency at PJ's in Covent Garden (Wellington St, opposite The Lion King). We did this gig for years every Thursday night at 10.30, but it folded when the management changed. After a few odd gigs there over the last yar, we have persuaded them to take us back on every week. So if you're knocking about town in the wee small hours of a Thursday night, do drop in and say hello.

Also just got through a promo copy of Chris Difford's new album 'The Last Temptation of Chris" (great title!) which we recorded last year. Sounds bloody marvelous so keep your eyes peeled for that one: should be out some time in April. I'll tell you nearer the time 'cos you're bound to forget...
Happy days.
See you soon.
Simon

Hello folks,
Well it's been an awfully long time since I've posted anything on here and I've been cruelly struck down with some sort of hideous virus for the last few days so I thought now would be a good moment to fill you in on what's been going down in bass town...
It's been an incredibly busy couple of weeks for me and I've been lucky enough to have played on some great gigs with some great people (and it was the London Jazz Festival! Hoorah!).
This months 'Wall To Wall' with Lea Delaria at Pizza Express was a hoot. We were celebrating 'Women In Jazz' this time with a host of female jazz musicians (including Deirdre Cartwright, Michele Drees, Alison Neele and the mighty Polly Gibbons) playing tunes written by women. It was one of the most difficult shows so far in terms of logistics and material (anyone for 15/8? No thanks...) but the show as fantastic. We had jazz DJ Helen Mayhew (check out her show on digital station The Jazz) introduce the show and the place was packed out as usual. Really looking forward to our next show there on 19th February with Norma Winstone....
We did a live spot on "In Tune" (BBC Radio 3) on the 19th again which was great fun too playing a few of the tracks that Lea's just recorded for her live album in New York
Had two fab shows with Clare Teal down south at Salisbury Civic Hall and The Concorde Club in Eastleigh (love that place!). We're preparing for next year's shows now so watch this space...
Did anyone spot me on the telly last week? I was on Children In Need in the middle of the night with 'Songbirds'. Television Centre on Children In Need night is a real experience. The place was a total frenzy of people running back and forth with clipboards and radio mics but everything ran perfectly to schedule; it was an amazing night and a real experience. I've found a video of our performance on YouTube and posted it at the bottom of my page if you fancy a look...
And last but by no means least, I had the great fortune to be asked to play with Beth Rowley for a show at the Festival Hall Ballroom as part of the Jazz Festival. If you haven't heard her yet (and believe me you should...) go check out her page here on MySpace, she's up there with my top friends. She's a fantastic singer with some great original material and she's got a wicked band behind her, including Mike Gorman, saxophone supremo Ben Castle and guitarist Paul Wilkinson (of Duke Special). I had a great time playing with her and we've got a couple more things this year so hopefully I'll get to do some more stuff with her next year when her album comes out. Seriously keep an eye out for her, she's gonna be huge people...
Anyway, time to sign off for now. I don't think many people read these bloody things anyway but it does amuse me to occasionally wop something up here just in case.
Feel free to leave lots of comments, it gives me something to read in my sniffling state...
Bye for now!
Simon x

Here's a picture from the BBC3 website from Lea's radio session...

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