Tim Stone is a fabulous guitar player, who I met through Miles (the percussionist on this). Miles is such a prolific and in-demand percussionist, you've probably heard him a couple of times this week already without knowing it...
I love the string bends that Tim does on this - holding the chord still while bending one string... that's not easy, but it sounds beautiful.
have a listen, and if you like it, click through and leave them an encouraging comment. I know it'd be much appreciated :) and check out the rest of the tunes on Tim's YouTube Channel.
You know Ben Walker, right? He's the 'You're No-one If You're Not On Twitter' bloke - the bestest song ever written about social networks :)
He's done gigs with Lo and I at Darbucka, and will be playing a Microgig in our front room before too long. He's fabulous, and has a brand new album out.
If you were at the Darbucka gig, you'll recognise some of the songs. He's a master of catchy, funny, songs that stay on the right side of ridiculous. It's an inclusive kind of funny rather than a 'please make him stop' kind of funny. Very tough thing to do, he does it brilliantly.
It's also a GREAT sounding record - if I was a singer/songwriter wanting help with recording, I'd be throwing money at Ben to get him to record my next album.
Here's the album. it's available for free, but don't be an arse - pay him some good healthy moneys for it. If 100 people pay £2 for it, that's a decent day's pay for him for making the music. If they pay a fiver, that's enough for a week off work to make the next one. I gave him a fiver for it. It'd be well worth the money at double that. Just click the 'download' link below in the widget below.
And tell your friends about it - if you like his music, tweet about it - post a link to facebook, write a blog post, embed the player below. It's not hard, and it all helps to change the world order for musicians - recommendation is the single most valuable commodity in spreading the word. That's why I have this entire blog for telling you about awesome music.
And this album is awesome. (current fave tune is 'Dressing Up' - it's what The Streets would sound like if he was really posh :) )
http://music.ihatemornings.com/album/troubadork">Box Junction Heart by Ben Walker
Apologies to those of you who still don't have access to Spotify - it's a most fun service, and hopefully they'll sort out the licensing for the rest of the world soon.
But for those of you that do have access, here's a link to a playlist of some of my favourite bassists that are also on Twitter:
Ooh, I LOVE these YouTube Videos! - found them via @innerviews (AKA Anil Prasad) on Twitter ( Innerviews.org is one of the best musician interview sites on the entire interwebz)
This four musicians are connected in a lot of ways, but I don't think they've all played together before this gig at a Sabian party at NAMM this year:
Terry and David were in Polytown together (and played in a trio with Doug Lunn on bass for a long time)
Terry and Tony are in a trio with Steve Stevens
David and Tony played together on David's solo album 'Cloud About Mercury', and again in the band B*L*U*E (Bruford Levin Upper Extremities)
Tony and Pat played together in King Crimson.
I'm sure there are other connections - please post them below.
Anyway, I LOVE that Terry Bozzio does things like this at NAMM gigs - last time I saw him play a Sabian party, it was straight after Dave Weckl's band, playing what sounded remarkably like exquisitely executed long form game-show theme tunes. Classic NAMM stuff - fusion, chops, odd time, sounding a lot like the 80s (no bad thing if you like that, but it's a bit of a classic NAMM show after party archetype. Not really my bag.)
Then Terry comes on with a trio with Doug Lunn on bass and Alex Machacek on guitar, playing Alex's Zappa-meets-Bartok REALLY difficult compositions. Awesome. Intense, heavy, deep, beautifully played (Doug Lunn really doesn't get the props he deserves as a bassist - outstanding all round musician).
And this time, it's free improv madness with 2 drummers, Torn on guitar and Tony Levin in Stick and Elec. Upright.
It gets pretty mad. It STARTS pretty mad, and gets madder. If you've clicked through to this with Coldplay playing in the background on Spotify, I'm guessing it's not going to float your boat. But I loves it. Particularly David Torn's playing. He's one of my favourite musicians in the world. I love what he plays, why he plays it, and how he talks about what he plays. He's a delightful human, and a huge inspiration with or without a guitar in his hands.
So, in 2 parts, here's that quartet, getting freaky at a NAMM show schmooze gig, and giving the mullet-fusion cats a kick in the arse :) It reminds me of the madder moments from The Recycle Collective, particularly the gigs with Leo Abrahams...
It's a Sunday afternoon, you're futzing around on the intewebz, the weather's OK, your feet are up, and life is good. You're just not sure what to do next.
So, Here's three suggestions:
Something to Read:
My novel! It's a fun Sunday afternoon read, not very taxing, and hopefully the tale of a band on the path to self-discovery is an uplifting one
I've yet to try reading my own book while listening to my own music (that kind of self-immersion isn't healthy) but given the musical approach of the band, I'm guessing it would work - head over to the MP3s page on my blog, and listen to any of it, while reading. If you like it and want to keep it for ever and ever on your iPod or whatever, just click the download link and pay *anything* (or in some cases, if you wish, nothing) for it, and enjoy. Let me know how you get on.
Something To Discover:
So, you've already read my book, got the music, or tried both and found they weren't for you - no problem at all, the blog that you're reading this on is chock-full of recommendations for super smashing awesome things that I find on the internetz. So start at the top, and work your way through. LOADS of great new music to discover - some of it on Bandcamp so again, you can download it if you want to, some of it on Youtube, so if you like it you can search for the artist and find more of them, or follow a link-trail to thank them for being so awesome. Either way, it's a fun and deeply productive way to spend a sunday afternoon.
I keep a running mental list of Perfect Songs - songs that, no matter how many times you listen to them, you can't imagine anything better happening to them.
Songs like Constant Craving by KD Lang, Resplendent by Vigilantes Of Love, Toledo by The Blue Nile, Refuge Of The Roads by Joni Mitchell...
...and This Sweet Love by James Yuill. I met James last year when I was invited by MusicTank to give a talk at one of their events about indie music stuff, the state of play etc. and was then asked to have a conversation with James Yuill about the state of his career - the previous year he'd been given a load of advice by that bloke from Nettwerk in the States, (something to do with Millennials? I dunno).
Anyway, it would've been a slightly strange gig if he hadn't been so utterly amazing. His manager sent me his album the night before the talk, and I was immediately a fan, so it was a great position from which to talk about what he could do with his career - his music is just great, certainly no impediment to his present or future success, so we got to talk about how he could use social tech to talk to his audience without running up some crazy record company promo budget.
And this song is the Perfect Song on an album full of really great songs. Have a listen to the album, Turning Down Water For Air.
I'd heard Trip Wamsley a long time before this album came out, but this was the point where he went from being someone I liked listening to and hanging out with at trade shows, to someone whose music I was a BIG fan of, and influenced by, and listened to a lot.
It's gorgeous, and it's 'pay what you want' on Bandcamp, so have a listen below, then click the 'download' button, type in some random 2-digit figure and listen to it a lot. It's lovely lovely music.
Back around the time of the 2004 European Elections, I was utterly incensed by the appearance of UKIP - the UK Independence Party.
Their figurehead was the patently ridiculous Robert Killroy-Silk - a man who actually had a past in real politics, but having been sacked from his various TV and newspaper roles for being an ill-thought-out racist loon, he turned his hand to the plight of the White And Wealthy - a whole load of aging British overwhelmingly-white millionaires blaming the world's poorest people for all their imagined problems.
I blogged about it extensively - a lot about UKIP, and a bit about the BNP who at the time were less mainstream than now in their profile (though their neo-fascist intentions and policies haven't changed a bit).
But I was also in the process of making a record, and my thinking about the state of play with the ungrateful bastards in UKIP changed the course of the record. I realised that ranting about what arse-holes they were/are was only part of the picture, and that recognising what was wrong and being the opposite was also a big part of being the change you want to see happen.
So, given that they were so ungrateful for all that they had - I set about making a record themed on all the things in life I was grateful for. And called it Grace And Gratitude - Grace being 'unmerited favour' - of all the things in my own life I was grateful for, I realised that I - like the UKIP dickheads - hadn't earned any of them.
The track list for the most part speaks for itself, and when listening to the album again on a train through Holland last weekend (I hadn't listened to it in a couple of years) I once again felt those same feelings. Overwhelming Gratitude for what I had, and a desire to see that sense of Grace/Serendipity/Luck permeate the political arena in the UK, where we vote knowing that we're SO lucky, and we owe it to the poor both here and abroad to vote with them in mind.
Here's the album - it's lots of people's favourite of mine - have a listen, feel free to download it and pay anything - any amount you see fit, what you can afford, what you think it's worth. Enjoy it, pass it onto your friends:
http://music.stevelawson.net/album/grace-and-gratitude">Grace And Gratitude by Steve Lawson
The Lawson/Dodds/Wood album - the last album release that I was involved in, and one I'm HUGELY proud of, is now on Spotify...
Sadly, they got the name of the artist wrong, the listing is different in about 3 different places, and the artist name on last.fm comes up as 'Dodds' if you have Scrobbling switched on. What a load of #balls.
So instead, to celebrate us now being on Spotify, have a listen by the Bandcamp embed below. That way, if you like it you can click the download button and pay what you like for it.
There's also, of course the Documentary about the making of it, on youtube, that I've mentioned here before, so I won't embed it again... go find it ;)
This came up as a question on FormSpring last night, but the answer seemed to be the kind of thing that it would be good to post here and expand on. So here's the question, and what I wrote in response. Feel free to add to it in the comments:
Any tips for any musicians looking to make it independant and starting from scratch?
start by being awesome. Make the music you want to spend the rest of your life listening to. Forget your audience, your audience is you. Make the music that would soundtrack your wedding, your first kiss, your best holiday, your divorce, your funeral.