Tag Archives: musician

March 25, 2014 · 7:36 am

Lazy blogger, or just plain lazy?

One of the things that makes me feel connected to the rest of the world is my RSS reader full of lovely blogs. Industry blogs as well as the musings of friends and inspirational musicians (most of which are the same people) distract me from the post sound check pre-gig band rituals.
Over the years I have enjoyed blogging and discussing the things that interest me. One of the benefits of teaching full-time is that I get to talk about and disseminate the things that interest me everyday.

So this post is a personal slapped wrist; I have not been blogging enough. The last two years have been very busy. Last year I did 154 gigs, the year before 172. I teach full time and I’m a dad. Last autumn I enrolled on the final year of a Ba (hons) in Music and creative Music Technology. This set me in to hyperdrive time wise. Now its the end of March and I can’t believe where the time has gone. And I’ve used all of this as an excuse not to blog. Any port in a storm I guess.

Excuses aside, hopefully I will start blogging a little more often, if only to feel like I am giving in to something I take so much from (thanks blogophere).

Anyway, in the spirit of sharing here’s a wonderful album by Steve Lawson

Sam Beeton Glee Club Gig

Wow, that sums up the Sam Beeton gig I sat in on at Glee Club Nottingham. Sam is an awesome songwriter and performer. The band were heavy weights too with Chris Taggart (Stevie Wonder, Robin Trower) on drums and Chris Bucknall (Climax Blues Band, Stewart Copeland) on keys. These guys are on another planet musically and I was/am genuinely humbled to be invited to play on the gig. Here’s a video of one of my favourite Sam Beeton tracks.

Steve Lawson & Michael Manring London 2010

Proper looking forward to my trip to London tomorrow. I’ve got loads of things to get done. But the main reason for going is to see bass supremos Michael Manring and Steve Lawson perform at a gig in Islington.

The last time they both gigged in London I couldn’t make it (check out the video below). Quite frankly I was gutted as I had recently been studying with Steve at the Beyond Bass Camp classes and have been a long term fan of both his and Manrings work.

Neither musician is limited by a traditional view of the instrument (bare in mind the bass guitar as we know it is only 50 or so years old), couple this to virtuosic ability and a high level of musicality and this event should be great. I

’ll try and review the gig and may be get some video done too, but for now check out the clip from last years performance:

BTW in the last video the students Steve mentions at 0:34 is the class I was at, fact 😉