Work
What I've been up to lately
- Gigging some pretty tidy Latin/Jazz for Whighams 2nd anniversary night. Totally swish line-up featuring myself, Haftor Medboe, Mario Caribe, Konrad Wiszniewski, David Patrick and Jessie Bates. Lovely wee gig and some killer playing.
- Writing some new stuff with Homework. We were supposed to be supporting the amazing Errors on sunday but that got canned, oh well. Incidentally the new single 'Why Oh Why' is available for free download from the website. The album is now also finished (at-long-f*cking-last) - watch this space for a release date
- Off to rehearse with Carrie Mac next week for a show or two later in April - looking forward to hanging with the crew again and playing some tunes.
- Some interesting happenings with The Discordian Trio - we've been picked to play the BBC stage Cheltenham Jazz Festival. Thanks to Mr Jamie Cullum, Mr Jez Nelson and Mr Giles Peterson for picking us. If you can't make it down the set will be broadcast on BBC Radio :-) We are currently writing for our 2nd album which is going to kick the last installment out the park. Really cannot wait to record this stuff.
- I've also been seeing quite a lot of Stu Goodall and Lewis Rumney - been doing lots of gigging across Edinburgh, lovely music and a lot of Partridge banter. Incidentally the wonderful Donna Macioca joined us for a few songs last week - she's freaking awesome. Go and see her gigging. NOW!
- The solo album! Well, it's pretty much on hold until I get some time to do some more work on it but there's gonna be some killer musicians on it who might just manage to make my shit ideas sound good. So far we'll be having some appearances from Haftor Medboe, Calum McIntyre, Japenese War Effort, Nicholas Ashton, Stacey Bell, Stu Goodall, Norman MacKay, Chris Grieve, Ewen Maclean and many more. It's going to be epic.
- Cheeky wee gig with Norman MacKay's Ceilidh Experience - first time playing with Norm for me and it was total banter. Check out the tunes on the website - 'Kitchen Criminal' being my favourite.
- I've also recently joined The Tinderbox Orchestra as the percussion tutor. Awesome bunch of musicians and some awesome music. The tinderbox will gigging a little later this year - it's going to be something completely unique and musically pretty astounding I reckon. Check out a video of last term's antics here...awesome huh?
- On top of that the usual banter has been happening: Teaching drums at Stevenson College, some corperate/wedding work with Jenni Gibb Band and the Magic Keys, some random ceilidh action. The summer is looking pretty ace too - festivals ahoy and some touring in Europe is on the cards - so really shouldn't complain.
Listening Post
Some things I like at the moment:
- After seeing Kurt Elling's arrangement of 'Resolution' with the SNJO i've been all about 'A Love Supreme' again. Just doesn't get old.
- Janek Gwizdela's 'The Space Inbetween' - not a massive fan of the arrangments but there is some classic Jojo on this album, warts and all. Nice to hear someone taking some risks and not ironing them out with protools.
- Celia Cruz - anything and everything that's up on spotify.
- Roni Size 'New Forms' - totally inspiring beats. Really feeling this at the moment.
Play
Stuff that doesn't have anything to do with music
- Looks like GSP is going to fight Anderson Silva this year really hope this happens.
- Next blog is going to be a discursive yin like the last one - keep 'em peeled as it might actually be interesting to a few folk.
R
