Friday saw me playing with the band No-Man in their first live gig for 15 years, and my first gig with a ‘rock’ band.
- L to R: Mike Bearpark, Steven Wilson, Pete Morgan, Tim Bowness, Andy Booker, Steve Bingham, Stephen Bennett (photo: Lisa Smith)
Bush Hall, in West London, was full to capacity, plus recording engineer and film crew (the gig was being recorded for a live CD and DVD film).
- (photo: Lisa Smith)
- (photo: Chris Bingham)
The first song in the set was the haunting ‘Only Rain’, vocals and violin alone, and starting with a minute or so of solo violin live loops: 400 fans, some of whom had waited 15 years since they last heard the band live, eager to hear their heroes Tim Bowness and Steve Wilson perform – and the first thing they get is me! I have to admit to being a little nervous….
But all started well, and at the end of the evening I don’t think that any of the fans were disappointed:
A mixture of songs from old and new albums made for an interesting and varied set. I await the live CD and DVD with interest, but meanwhile we’re off to Europe on Tuesday for repeat performances in Holland and Germany. There are more photos from the London gig here.
Email news arrived yesterday of the release, by Bohemian Productions, in collaboration with Sony, of their Jeff Beck tribute CD – entitled ‘El Becko’ (was that a groan I heard?) – to which I contributed a cover of the song ‘Scatterbrain’. I hope to have some copies of the CD available on the shop soon, but the track will also appear on my ‘Ascension’ solo CD (when I get it finished!).
A word about Improvizone: This is a venture run by the excellent drummer Andy Booker, who I’ve been working with in the No-Man band. He invited me to play at one of the Improvizone gigs in north London a couple of weeks ago. These are basically concerts by a variety of improvising musicians in several different venues – the one I played was in a pub in Walthamstow, with a line up of violin, guitar, bass, drums and sound engineer. Os, who does fantastic live sound manipulation, also records the gigs live. Andy then puts edited highlights on to the Improvizone website. You can already listen to a couple of clips from the recent gig (plus 80 or so others from past events), with more excerpts to come. Do take a look at – and more particularly a listen to – the website: www.improvizone.com. Meanwhile here’s one of the clips:
This gig was a new experience for me: My first completely improvised concert! It’s hard to describe the feeling you get (particularly for a classically trained musician) when you allow yourself to block out everything except the music that is happening at that moment, with no written notes, or even the memory of written notes, to get between you and the collective creative process which is going on. It can be completely exhilarating.
So now I’ve got a new ‘blog’ site I feel I ought to do some posts!
I’ve been having a few days off prior to a busy couple of weeks of rehearsals and gigs with the band No-Man.
I had a good visit to the RSPB reserve at Titchwell, on the North Norfolk coast, where I managed to take a few nice photos of waders.
Dunlin at Titchwell
Adult Avocet at Titchwell
Yesterday I visited my local RSPB reserve, Lakenheath Fen. Having walked to the far end of the reserve I was rewarded with excellent views of two cranes, very rare in the UK: But, I hear you say, I saw five JCB’s only the other day! These were, however, the Common Crane (grus grus), which, until last year, had not bred in this area four about 400 years: They’re extremely rare in the UK, with only a handful of breeding records in recent times. They’re also magnificent birds, somewhat larger than the common Grey Heron. My rather distant photo doesn’t do them justice.
Common Cranes at Lakenheath RSPB reserve
Their courtship dance, which I might have seen if I had been visiting the reserve in the spring, involves much jumping about and stretching of the neck: Hence, I assume, the term “craning one’s neck”…
Welcome to my somewhat revised site! Basically my son Chris has replaced my old site with a blog based one. Blog – for those who aren’t yet familiar with this internet terminology – is short for weblog; a sort of online diary. From my point of view it means I can update my site rather like a diary; hopefully easier for me and more frequent and interesting for you, the viewer!
I’m aiming to keep a better record of my musical and non-musical goings on and keep up to date with photos, videos, releases and downloads. It also means you can subscribe to updates using RSS or Atom readers, and get news as soon as it’s written. There’s an RSS link toward the bottom of the right column. I’m currently working on further changes to the site, and am adding a neat online calendar for forthcoming concerts.
Stay tuned for on-tour updates and photos from my upcoming No-Man gigs.
Exciting concerts coming up include working for the excellent band No-Man, in London, Germany and Holland. I’m also taking part in a looping festival in Norwich and am conducting Ely Sinfonia in a major orchestral concert in Ely Cathedral.
OTHER NEWS:
I’ve recently posted a new video of the title track from my ‘Ascension’ CD onto YouTube. This goes alongside the two I posted from my looping recital in Norwich in March. All three are available on YouTube. Please do check them out, and leave a comment or rate them (5 stars please!!)
My “Ascension” track, available for download from my downloads page, is a loop-based piece of mine which has now become the title track of my new CD: The CD has recently gone through a bit of a transformation. It was originally going to be a CD ’single’ of about 20 minutes, but various friends urged me to do a full length CD and also to include the recent cover versions I’ve recorded of Led Zeppelin and Jeff Beck tracks. So it will now be a full CD! I’m also recording some extra Bach and a couple of new pieces. You can pre order your copy here at a special discount price of £8!!
February 2008 saw the release, by New York guitar label ‘Bohemian Productions’, of a Led Zeppelin homage CD called ‘Get The Led Out’. This has covers of many Led Zeppelin songs, and some origiinal material by Jimmy Paige, and includes my own multi-tracked version of ‘The Battle Of Evermore’, which will also feature on my new ‘Ascension’ CD. A must for all you Led Zeppelin fans! Here’s a small excerpt to whet your apetites!
I’m delighted to announce that I’ve just been appointed as Artistic Director of Ely Sinfonia. I’ve been working with this excellent amateur orchestra – in both a leading and conducting role – for a few years now. This appointment will see me working closely with them on concert planning and artistic development. One major date for the diary already is a concert of British music in Ely Cathedral on October 4th. I’ll be conducting this concert and it will feature internationally-renowned cellist Raphael Wallfisch playing the Elgar Cello Concerto. Other works include an exciting organ concerto by David Briggs, and pieces by Vaughan-Williams and Arnold.
See the new gear page for details of all my instruments and electronics, including my newest electric instrument – a 5-string violin by Ulrich Schwabe.
Finally; my friend Phil Toms has reworked the central photo montage from my Duplicity CD, so here it is:
Some of the players relax after the recording of the 40-part motet ‘Spem In Alium’!!!
