Hello from England!
The Jewel Box Vol. 2 is coming very soon. Just in time for Christmas :)
Also, I’m making MUCH MORE stuff right now, so if you’ve enjoyed any of these creations from The Electric Campfire:
Then let me know what you found useful, and what you’d like to see on the site.
What would be helpful for you?
Lemme know…
Saludos,
Mike
PS: If you want some guitar lessons, tips, and practical improvisation advice then I invite you to check out ElectricCampfire.com which is my membership site with all my lessons, plus 1-2-1 feedback from me too. Me me me me. Well I made it for you though :)
Hello.
There’s a new album on the way soon. It’s a double album with Martin Speake called ‘Always A First Time‘; Jeff Williams is on drums with Martin and myself. We did one session where we recorded about 20 tunes, all pretty much first takes, and there you go. Easy.
Our next gig is the album launch. We’re performing alongside a life-size replica of Apollo 11, and we’ll be wearing full space suits. There might be locust. Possibly brie.
It’s on the 19th of January at King’s Place, London.
Hello, you beautiful people!
Happy Christmas!
Since the move to Devon at the start of the year I’ve been exploring the musical terrain. There are some fantastic musicians down here. My main musical ally has been the marvellous Al Swainger and it’s been great fun to play guitar and bass duo, as well as practicing musical nerdery in every key and what not. We’ve also had a couple of gigs with a guitar quartet with axe demon Jesse Molins and drum supremo Gary Evans. Many Stevie songs were played and much joy was spread throughout the land.
I dragged Al up to the Southampton Jazz Guitar Society to offer our perspectives on playing duo. The kinds of things bass players moan about guitarists and vice-versa. Returning the favour, Al organised a group workshop with keyboard whizz George Cooper, Ric Byer – a genuine drum/bass/guitar/vocal/whateveryougivehim Wunderkind, and Leigh Coleman who is a totally amazing singer.
One of the first gigs I managed to get down here was playing bass in a band led by Billie Bottle. First of all, have a listen to the music here; I think it’s brilliant, and so much fun to play bass in it. It touches a lot of good things for me, flashes of Robert Wyatt, Rufus Wainwright, Queen, and so on. It’s theatrical, grandiose, proggy. We’re recording an album next week, too.
What else? I played a fun wedding gig playing classic rock & pop stuff on bass, and even got to attempt to sing Huey Lewis’s Power of Love, which sounded like someone shouting the lyrics of The Power of Love but to the tune of the Bass line to The Power of Love. But, fuck it. I don’t mind if they didn’t mind. I actually love singing, and I think I’ve realised that the trick is to sing to people who are VERY, VERY, VERY drunk, and they will actually hear you sounding exactly like Paul McCartney. Plus, playing 8th notes through a gut-moving PA on Jumping Jack Flash will go down as a life highlight. And I got to play ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’. And ‘I’ve Had The Time Of My Life’. AND ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’. The band is full of the loveliest people in the world, too.
Craig Milverton – who is a stunning piano player – brought me to St Ives Jazz club.
Matt Carter’s another piano wunderkind, who’s going to be pretty astounding I have a feeling. 17 years old and transcribed the whole of Brad Mehldau’s Anthropology whilst still in the womb and has been tearing into Chris Potter’s 10 minute ridiculous YouTube seminar. I was tabbing out Yngwie Malmsteen at his age. Y’see? That’s what these youngsters need. A bit of cock-rock. That’ll learn ’em. Next time I see you, Carter, I expect you to know the riffs to Iron Man and Fire, and that’s your musical education taken care of. I’ll see what The Royal Academy has to say about my Hair-Metal Module…
I did a trio of Wes Montgomery tunes with old musical pals Mike Gorman and Matt Home for the Teignmouth Jazz Festival. I transcribed 15 tunes plus all the Wes solos with the idea of getting a few gigs doing workshops on Wes plus a gig, but I realised after that, as much as I love Wes, doing a whole gig of his tunes feels weird. Anyhow, you live and learn, unless you don’t.
This last week we’ve been socked with the Norovirus! That’s fun, let me tell ya! Actually for me it was very mild, but everyone else near spitting distance would’ve been vomiting at a bi-hourly rate for the better part of a day. At least it’s out of the way for Xmas!
I’ve been playing lots of tennis too. It was going great: lessons at the local club, matches with encouraging people, etc. And then I played a 12 yr old girl who destroyed me. Demoralising, but whadayagonnado?
So, dear reader, we plod on – steeling ourselves until the day we rise, phoenix-like, to exact our revenge and smash the hopes and dreams of the Barbie-loving tiny people.
Oh my gosh! Finally this is out!
I really really, love this record – the first of three! It’s an entirely improvised album. To briefly fill you in, we’d never played together, we just set up our stuff and started playing, so what you hear is two people playing music together for the very first time. There are many, many reasons why I like it. And I’m going to have to try to write about all that in the next post, but for now, please check it out :)
I know a lot of you have been waiting for this patiently for two years. Well, here it is, the first of 3 albums to be culled from that epic first session:
There’s some info about the album’s genesis on Bandcamp, and here’s the press release in full:
Steve Lawson and Mike Outram – Invenzioni. Out Sept 11th, 2012, on Any And All Records.
Guitar/Bass duo carve out new territory at the improvised intersection of jazz, electronica, ambient and post-rock.
The first time Steve Lawson and Mike Outram ever played together was in the studio with the virtual tape rolling. Invenzioni is the hugely creative result of a plot hatched via social media, forged on mutual musical admiration and a curiosity to see how their respective soundworlds would blend given the chance.
- Steve Lawson‘s career as a solo bassist and experimental collaborator stretched back to the late 90s, and his prodigious output since then has blended jazz with ambient, electronica, folk and post-rock to create an approach to improvisation that leaves an indelible mark on any project he’s a part of.
- Mike Outram has long been one of the most admired and respected jazz guitarists in the UK, but his skills and reputation stretch far beyond the confines of jazz and have led to work with Porcupine Tree main-man Steve Wilson, soul legend Carleen Anderson and with electronica/IDM artists Photek and the Cinematic Orchestra.
The serendipitous chance of a day’s studio time in January 2010 led to an epic recording session that has resulted in 3 albums worth of material, the first of which is Invenzioni.
Each track is improvised in the studio, with almost no discussion before starting each one. Lawson acted as master-looper, recording both his own bass and Outram’s guitar on the fly, spitting it back into the room, sometimes altered or reprocessed, ready to be reappraised and responded to. A lot that you think is guitar may actually be bass. If you’re familiar with Steve’s more ambient work, you may also be fooled into thinking that some of Mike’s stranger sounds are actually Steve… The cross-over in ideas and sounds is remarkable.
A near telepathic musical relationship emerged immediately, leading to a stylistic breadth and melodic depth rare on improvised records.
Of these 5 tracks, Light Over Water stands out as an improvised guitar solo, looped and processed in real time by Steve, taking Mike’s shimmering guitar and reversing, pitch shifting, fragmenting, restructuring it into an unrepeatable slab of Guitronica.
With over two years elapsed between recording and release, the mixing and mastering process was equally experimental. Initial mix sessions were a collaborative affair, with Mike finishing the mixing and Steve taking over for final edits and mastering.
Initial responses to Invenzioni are unanimously that it’s one of – if not the – best thing Steve has ever released, such is the level of inspiration Outram and Lawson drew from each other.
Look for live dates soon.
So, I’ve been living in Devon for the past six months. It’s very nice to be beside the seaside, but there’s not much music happening. See this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xcjPBjv-nE
So, to keep me sane I’m doing a series of workshops. It’s every day, unless I have a gig or am in London. It’s open to anyone. Just come along and we’ll play through the music. Express an interest and it’ll happen. Teignmouth be the place.
You can contact me here
£5 for an hour
Here’s what I’m doing: Listen
Monday – The Meters
– Fire On The Bayou
– People Say
– Just Kissed My Baby
– Chicken Strut
– Ride Your Pony
– Cissy Strut
– Cabbage Alley
– Hey Pocky A-Way
– Liver Splash
– Same Old Thing
Tuesday – Joe Henderson
– Black Narcissus
– Blue Bossa
– The Kicker
– Isotope
– Inner Urge
– Mode For Joe
– Recorda-Me
– Beatrice
Wednesday – Wes Montgomery
– Cariba
– Four on Six
– Fried Pies
– Full House
– Mr. Walker
– S.O.S
– The Trick Bag
– Unit 7
– West Coast Blues
– Doujie
Thursday – Charlie Parker
– Cheryl
– Milestones
– Little Willie Leaps
– Half Nelson
– Sippin’ At Bell’s
– Dexterity
– Dewey Square
– Crazeology
– Barbados
– Donna Lee
– Bongo Bop
– Embraceable You
Friday – John Scofield
– So You Say
– Kool
– Do Like Eddie
– Peculiar
– Groove Elation
– I’ll Take Les
– Keep Me In Mind
– Wabash III
– Triple Play
Saturday – Sonny Rollins
– Strode Rode
– St. Thomas
– Tenor Madness
– Oleo
– Valse Hot
– The Eternal Triangle
– Blue Seven
– No Moe
Sunday – Miles Davis
– So What
– All Blues
– Freddie Freedloader
– Milestones
– Summertime