Can I get an Amen!!

Break, that is. The beat that spawned a thousand (or a million) breaks was played first by Gregory Cylvester Coleman of The Winstons, a drum solo in a B side of theirs called "Amen Brother", which was itself a re-imagining of Jester Hairston's gospel classic "Amen". I was messing with the beat today, that most seminal of the most seminal; it's so ubiquitous that it felt kind of weird to be working with it.

I went for a nosey online about it; there's a rich seam to be mined on dinternetz, a testament to its cult status. Obviously a whole raft of "the definitive online amen break archive", but other stuff as well. Articles and blog posts and the like.

So, this (post) is just some links. No point in doing an Amen break on it.

This audio documentary from 2004 is by Nate Harrison. It's recorded on a dub-plate, in fact - some snippets of music (too bleedin short though!), interesting observations on the nature of copyright and the rest of...all that kinda stuff. Yaknow. Give er a listen, it's only twenty minutes long.

A piece on its relation to (as in, embodiment of) The Golden Ratio, an article from The Economist (more music focused, jungle in particular), and more musicks from Ethan Hain's blog.

This piece from The Huffington Post is more on the copyright tip. I do love me ruminations on copyright! Interesting though; it covers a lot of the points made in Harrison's documentary, as well as Thomas Edison's attempt to monopolise the fledgling motion picture industry by waging a war of petty lawsuits. Plus ça change, eh.

For more of a meditative buzz, try knitting an Amen break scarf. Takes all sorts.

Whatchoo readin' fawr?

For this reason! Learnin me some proper production and mastering ting. It's all a bit of grey fog, still. No more, I tells ya.

Mel did a fantastic FANTASTIC job with "Echo", and she's mastering "Below The Sea" as we speak. Her ear is impeccable, clear as day when you listen to her own music too.

She's based in Brighton now with her fella Herv. Keep an eye and an ear peeled for the two of them.

Cello stuffs

Cello lesson in Amsterdam again today, trying to loosen up that bowing arm. It has a tendency to tense up trying to stop the bow from tipping over or falling altogether. Gravity, innit! Seán Bergin put me in touch with Harald Austbø, a cellist and improviser who lives in Amsterdam.
He's a student of Ernst Reijsiger, the composer and cellist who's written music for a good few of Werner Herzog's films (including "Wide Blue Yonder" and "Cave of Forgotten Dreams"). Beeeyyooootiful!

In the course of the lesson, talk of portability came up. I started playing the cello eight years ago for many reasons, but its portability (compared to a piano anyway) was one of them. Hundreds of bus journeys later -"Would you not play the tin-whistle?"; "I'd say you have some trouble getting that under your chin!", cue gales of laughter - I realise it's maybe not the most portable.

Still and all, hats off to those who try. Here's Harald on mini-cello with the Bakfiets Band. This clip from a concert of Werner Herzog film music is beautiful, and round 8 minutes in you can see Ernst Reijsiger playing the cello standing up. Apparently he walks around with it sometimes too.

And, a bit less successfully by Woody Allen in "Take the money and run".

The brilliant Herv released "Portable Music, Vol. 1" last year, made with Nintendo DS, Korg Monontron and (I think) an Ipad - a practical solution to having a very long bus commute to and from work. Get that show on the road, as they say!

Amsterjam

Headed up to Amsterdam yesterday for a jam with Tobias Klein and Raphael Vanoli. Tobias plays clarinet, bass clarinet and saxophone, Raphael is a guitarist, and both of them use electronics along with their respective instruments. Yesterday was wonderful, that flotation tank feeling from abstract improv, and the bass clarinet is a big velvetty swoon-machine. Plus, the studio had a window, so we could see snow falling outside (minus 23 centigrade last night in Eindhoven - winter came late, but it's here now!). Just beautiful.

They're amazing musicians, wildly prolific and proactive, involved in loads of other projects, including Lackritz, Knalpot and Spinifex. I've come into contact with a lot of (for want of a better word) jazz musicians over here, and technical ability and prolific collaboration is a big part of (let's call it) jazz circles. Left to my own devices, I'd write and write, acquiring the technique necessary to play my own music, but not stretching myself any further.

With that in mind, I'm getting a cello lesson next week in The Dam. It's been three years since my last one, time to get back on the horse. Tis a life's work, eh.

November news

The Eindhoven gig is approaching now - Monday the 28th of November is the date. I went up to Amsterdam last week to have a jam with Sean (Bergin, my collaborator for part of the show). My first ever electronic jam! He played sax, flute, whistles, concertina, and a banjo he made out of an oil-can, which I then sampled, processed, looped etc. It was mad interesting, I've never really done something like that before, and neither had he. We had a buzz though, and I think he got a kick out of it. It's very transparent, after all, "Oh, I just played that and now I can hear it play back again."

On the night, we'll be joined by Alan "Gunga" Purves, an instrument-maker extraordinaire. 'Sgonna be fun!

A few releases coming up soon too. I met Morphamish up at Rathlin, what a gent! He runs a great net label called Black Lantern Music, and asked me to make an EP for them. Which I am. Yay! Hope to have it finished by Christmas (I ALWAYS want to have things finished by Christmas. Ha!).

The wonderful Meljoann, she who mastered the album, runs a label called Boy Scout Audio. Making a track for a compilation of Irish-tinged but contemporary music. It started simple, then it got very complicated, but.... I hope to have it finished by Christmas. Hweh hweh.

The Machinedrum finally came back three weeks ago. Yes, three months being repaired. Three months to the day. Eeeek. I need an alternative in case that happens again, it's just too disruptive. For the time being though, it's all about catch up catch up.

Learn discipline, learn focus, learn the meaning of PAIN - Learn Piano

Not really.

I picked up a piano last week (been workin out, wha!) in one of Eindhoven's swell second-hand shops. Cheap as chips too. It'll cost as much again to get it tuned, but then it'll be good to go. I might even try and teach it a bit.

There's something special about the piano. Maybe the size, the range, the wash of sound, wiggin out for a few hours, white-water rafting on a piano-y river. So to speak. And the really nice symmetrical feeling of playing with both hands in the same way (although you don't really. But damn, scales are satisfying.)

Piano Roles is a collection of writing by various people about the piano - both "the grip it has on the popular imagination" and historical essays about the modern piano and how it got to be the beast it is. And some lovely technical drawings of piano mechanisms, and kerrazy karikatures of 19th-century virtuosos (or is it virtuosi?). But anyway, a grip on my imagination the piano surely has.

This isn't straight piano by any means (dig those bonkers synths!!), but Stevie Wonder has this gem from 1976 - All Day Sucker.

This is news though

Hello from Patience Bootcamp! I'm not very patient, you see. This notwithstanding, it's been a bit of a slow few months. But the demo CDs are back from the pressing plant, be-artworked and mastered and all those professional things. I start sending them out next week, yeow!!

My first Eindhovinian gig is on at the end of November. Yip yip! AxesJazzPower is an Eindhoven-based promotions group and "stage for adventurous new music". Their programmes range from jazz to contemporary classical, theatre, electronica, and pretty much anything else interesting. I see that Andy Moor (guitarist from the legendary Dutch punk band, The Ex) is playing in a few weeks with Yannis Kyriakides, a Cypriot composer living in Amsterdam. Seeya down the front, hweh!

But anyway, yeah, their shows are always interesting, and for the gig in November, they're setting up a collaboration between an upcoming artist (that'd be me) and an old, wise, lion with years of experience. So, I'll be going to Amsterdam in a few weeks to meet up with Sean Bergin, we'll have an aul jam together, and see what happens. It's really exciting though, obviously a very different set-up to Ireland. Slightly more (this word again) professional. But it is though.

G-g-g-Galway!

Just had a lovely few days out west. And back in Ireland. Ah yes, killing the planet, one Ryanair flight at a time. But yeah, it was a lovely trip out to Connemara and Galway city. I was recording a few songs for Ceol ar an Imeall, a weekly music programme on TG4. On Friday night, I was lucky enough to play in the Bierhaus in Galway. It was a Community Skratch gig that I kind of muscled in on. The music sandwich had a glorious landscape filling - we drove off out into the wilds, climbed The Diamond in Letterfrack (well, I'm a bit starved for slopes in The Netherlands), and went around Lough Mask and Lough Corrib. Great fun altogether.

Not so much fun, however, the 2 a.m. bus from Galway to Dublin airport for a 7 a.m. flight. I swore I'd never say "I'm getting old" but it fairly knocked the stuffing out of me. Getting ready for more of the same this weekend though.

RATHLIN!!!!!!

Today I have mostly been obsessively listening to...

The O6 Census by Botched Fairytale

It's like being fifteen again! Just gorgeous.

Sprrrring Cycle

Spring-cleaning and packing with the windows open and the sun streaming in. Listening to Morphamish and a gem from last December by Redmonk (which I can't find a download link to now. Boo! But check out this and An Dord is Mó on Raidió na Life. Always a treat.)

I saw Laura Sheeran play in Tower last Friday, just beeeeeaaautiful. Harp, accordion, ukele, double bass, guitar, live electronics, and herself. Two "proper" launch gigs will be on later in the month, in Galway on the 17th, and Dublin on the 18th. Worth a look and a listen! I'll be outta the country by then, alas.

Rekids, innit!

How long does it take to plug in a record player? Ten months, if you're me. And counting... But oh, those big shiny black records! And my computer and its fan off!

Dinternet is many things, and it's great for music - listening, passing it around, etc etc, we've all heard it, and it's all true. Soundcloud is a wonderful thing, Mixcloud too, but. But. But oh, the ever-shrinking attention span. And the computer as the focal point of the room, the jack-of-all-trades. And those beautiful records weeping, abandoned, in their beautiful big sleeves, with their lovely artwork. As for mixing....!! (Yes - records, on the internet.)

Having said that, tonight I was listening to Ilex on Soundcloud. Great stuff!

Machinedrum-dum-dum

And still, she will not shut up about it...! The Elektron Machinedrum is just savage. Savage savage savage. So intuitive, so fast to work with, so diverse-sounding. There are limitations, of course (a two bar loop length, for one, on the model that I have), but limitations make you work imaginatively. I'm just delighted that I have a means of making (proper) beats without having to fiddle with a mouse.
I'd attempted other ways before, using the mad bass of the cello and sharp filter cuts to get a nice sub sound, but definition was always a problem and a lot of the time the vague rumble produced was more in the way than an element in its own right. Likewise, heavily treating a vocal channel, and (very not properly) beatboxing produced interesting effects but it just wasn't enough.
I listen to a lot of dance music (the good stuff, obviously. Obviously, as well, what I say is good is good. Obviously!), but that wasn't represented really before. "Oh look, it's a winsome gerl singing nice songs, we'd better sit down the better to gaze up at her."

Out with the old

On Friday, I had my first taste of what Ed called "the curse of playing last". Sitting around denying myself pints that I can't afford isn't that much of a hardship, but, having my set lopped off three songs before the end, is. We were only allowed play until 1 a.m., so there was nothing to be done about it, but I didn't get a chance to play the new songs (avec Machinedrum), or "Dwell" my current favourite.

Of course, this was also caused by having some dead wood in the form of older songs. I read a lovely article yesterday in a Sunday supplement (it just fell open! After all my bitching about Sunday supplements too!) about felling trees, clearing and managing woodland. It seemed quite apt given what I'd spent most of Saturday thinking about. Much as I love the songs off the EP, enough already! They came about last summer from having to write stuff under time pressure for upcoming gigs, whereas recently I was a bit easier on myself in that regard. Surfing on old waves. So, for the gig in Block T on the 30th (Melodica Deathship's album launch), I'll try for a (mostly) new(-ish) set. I can't churn it out that quickly.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/oct/17/tobias-jones-a-life-less-ordinary

Lying in Bed (choir)

This is a recording from Sunday evening of the choir. Thanks to Amy, Amanda, Regan, Mel, Eileen, Emma, Sharon, Sue and Holly!!

Photo: Aoife Giles

Lying in Bed (choir version) by Niamh de Barra

Choir Practice

Tonight I had a practice with seven of the singers for "Lying in Bed" off the EP. We'll be performing it a capella at the launch (all going to plan...). I'd been fairly stressed about it for the last few weeks; not constantly, but every so often a wave of it would wash over me. What if, what if not, etc etc, the usual torture we put ourselves through. Tonight's practice reassured me though. Twelve different voices, eh, it'll be quite something, I think.

In other news, today, I have been mostly laughing at this;

http://clamnuts.com/the-joe-duffy-soundboard/397

A few words about words

Words in music - yea or nay? Well, that's a stupid question, especially if you take into account the spectrum between Stravinsky and wee djs to Elliott Smith and any Anticon nerdy wordy hiphop. In general (yoiks!, a gross generalisation!), I could do without it in most dance music. Another horror movie sample/filthy durrrty girl talking about cunnilingus/70s cartoon sample/posh English guy talking about drugs. SNORE.

Although a lot of the music I listen to is free of The Word, I'm big into the words myself. I cut my musical teeth singing in a kiddies' choir, and later writing lyrics and supplying vocals for Ed. And there's all those "My best friend is Rog, He is a black dog" poems from eeehhh last year. The songs on the EP are just that; songs. I take a lot of care with my lyrics, and thus far at least, they're hugely important, so I decided to include them in the sleeve. Writing them out was kinda cool, laying them out Just So on the page. None of this old hat "left to right" nonsense.

I put them on MySpace, but it moved everything all over the shop. Aye aye, so many problems! They'll look pretty nice in that sexy sleeve though.

Bye bye Christmas!

The bad workman blames his tools, they say. They (all-seeing, all-knowing, talk like your ma) don't realise that the bad workman can find ANYTHING to blame. My favourite these last few weeks has been Christmas.
"There's no point! I'll only get started and then I'll have to stop for a few weeks. The parties, the socialising, the inevitable, obligatory hangovers!!" Et-bleedin-cetera.

Well, no more!