www.stevelawson.net

Book A Gig!

2012-05-25T09:57:37Z

Over the last couple of years, the joys of parenting have meant that both Lobelia and I have gigged less than we’d might… Which has the knock on effect of people thinking we’re not available for gigs…

Time to fix that.

So, what’s happening?

I’m available for gigs. Simple as that.

House concerts,
theatres/clubs
support slots,
festivals,
touring (would love to find a promoter/agent for Germany/Italy/Eastern Europe!)
collaborations
or simply playing bass in your band.

Gimme a shout, let’s have a talk about what’s possible.

(click here for lots of video of me playing live)

I don’t (generally speaking) play for ‘free’, but I also don’t expect to play one gig a month and live off it. Happy to have grown-up conversations about what’s needed to make a gig workable.

As a general rule, what I do works FAR better in sit-down venues than standing ones, and I’m not mad keen on being booked for a ‘gig’-gig and then finding out I’m actually ‘background music’ – I mean, I’ll do background music gigs, but I’m going to charge a corporate rate for that – it’s a whole different thing (which I’m very good at – CV available on request )

So, if you want someone to play polite stuff in the corner while you and your mates discuss X-Factor, best look elsewhere. But If you think you know a medium-sized handful of people who would dig what I do, or a venue that like to book things that are awesome, we can probably work something out that’ll make it worth my while, and give you and your friends the best night’s live music you’ve ever had*

*not a money-back-guarantee.

Lobelia and I are still available for duo gigs (still my favourite kind of show), but parenting can sometimes make the logistics tricky. Still, let’s have a chat about it and see if there’s a solution.

11 Reasons Why 3 Is Greater Than Everything – Remastered!

2012-05-24T18:20:14Z

Just over a year ago, I released 11 Reasons Why 3 Is Greater Than Everything. My first studio solo bass album in 5 years. It’s already my most successful digital album ever, but now it’s been completely remastered (and in a couple of cases, remixed).

Why Remaster?

In the last year, I’ve learned a whole lot more about mastering – the process of taking the mixed tracks and making the final finished product out of them. It’s a bit of a dark art, and mainly involves compression and EQ with a few other bits of fairy-dust thrown in. The process of mixing Believe In Peace was a really educational one, and from there, looking back at 11 Reasons, I thought I could do a better job… so I have. Here it is – listen/download/pay what you think it’s worth

11 Reasons Why 3 Is Greater Than Everything – Remastered by Steve Lawson

One of the joys of digital releases is that there’s nothing stopping the art from growing with the artist – our fixed idea of recordings being set in stone is just because of the ‘tyranny of recording’ that has dominated music for the last 60 or 70 years. Before that, the salable element in music was sheet music and every single experience of that music was unique.

Now, recordings are malleable and as we learn more, we can incorporate that learning without having to do another expensive CD run.There’s no need for me to wait 20 years and do a weird remasters package on SACD that comes with a free Lego Millennium Falcon or some shit…

So here it is – new and improved. I *love* the sound of the record now. If you’ve already bought it, please download it again for free – I don’t mind where you got it from – if you bought it on iTunes or eMusic or Amazon, grab a free upgrade from here. If it’s a massive improvement for you, feel free to come and pay more for it too. Or not. I just hope you enjoy the shiny new sound!

More remasters to follow….

“Ask Me Anything” – Interview idea, Inspired by Steve Albini

2012-05-19T17:23:07Z

Recently, Steve Albini posted an ‘AMA’ on Reddit. I’ve never spent any time on Reddit, but a few people sent me the link to it, and I read it. The basic idea is that someone notable says ‘hey I’m here, ask me anything’. And what you get at the end is part hagiographic fan-boy nonsense and part really cool interview with questions that magazine and radio people would quite possibly never think to ask. In Steve’s case, it’s lots more of the latter. Here it is, if you want to read it.

Anyway, it got me thinking – I’m not remotely notable enough to do the ‘AMA’ thing on Reddit, and don’t really understand the site anyway, but the idea of hosting a load of questions posted by interested people and answering them as a kind of ‘crowd-sourced’ interview appeals to me. I’ve no idea whether there’ll be much interest in posting questions, but I’m going to stick this up on the blog and see what y’all say.

As it says, you can ask me anything. No promises I’ll answer everything, but feel free to ask away and we’ll see if we can put together a definitive set of Stevie-info for people who are looking for a way into SBS-world, yes?

So, if it sounds like something interesting to you, please do post a question in the comments. I’ve yet to decide whether I’ll answer them there (the threaded comments here would make it easy to follow if I did) or whether I’ll cut and paste them into a new page… probably both. Either way, post away and we’ll see what we come up with…

[you may also notice that the single post view for this looks a bit different - I've tweaked the site to make reading individual posts more focused and less distracting. I hope you like it ]

Some Great New Music I’ve Bought Recently…

2012-05-18T16:46:09Z

Time for a quick round up of some of the fabulous stuff I’ve found of late on Bandcamp. Please hit play on the ones that sound interesting to you, and if you like ‘em, buy ‘em.

Jake Dubber’s ‘Bring On The Cannibal Android Robots’ has had loads of play in our house since it came out – I’m not particularly au fait with the inner workings of Dubstep world, but Jake’s music makes our 2 1/2 year old dance like a crazy thing! Really fabulous imaginative high energy electronica.

Bring On The Cannibal Android Robots! by Jake Dubber

Briana Corrigan is best known as the former singer with the Beautiful South (she sang lead on ‘A Little Time’, their only UK no. 1) – Redbird is her 2nd solo album and is a fabulously imaginative singer/songwriter record, full of unexpected production bits and lovely singing:

Redbird by Briana Corrigan

Gretchen Peters has been a regular visitor to the UK for quite a few years, but this year things have really taken off for her, with loads of Radio 2 support and a v. successful tour. I saw her play recently, and the gig was amazing. Her latest album, Hello Cruel World is a gorgeous slice of heart-on-sleeve Americana:

Hello Cruel World by Gretchen Peters

Touring with Gretchen, playing lap steel, guitar and drums, was Christine Bougie. Turns out we have quite a few friends in common. She also makes beautiful instrumental music of her own. Fabulous Frisell-ish stuff, with wonderful chamber-group arrangements. Aloha Supreme:

Aloha Supreme by Christine Bougie

Sunna Gunnlaugs is one of those musicians whose new work I can buy without listening to it, knowing I’ll love it. She’s not done a single record so far that I haven’t really enjoyed. The lastest is a gorgeous trio record, Long Pair Bond. Check it out:

Long Pair Bond by Sunna Gunnlaugs

Daniel Berkman, AKA Colfax, is one of my favourite musicians to improvise with ever. We met in January in California and did two shows together. He’s brilliant, and it won’t be too long before you get to hear the recordings from those two gigs… Til then, you can check out his awesome solo record, Tape:

"Tape" by Colfax

That’ll do for now.

Have you heard anything good recently? (please don’t post your own albums here, this is about great music you’ve found, not self-promo).

Brand New Music With Daniel Berkman

2012-05-19T10:38:55Z

I’ve got new recordings backing up here – too many lovely things that need releasing into the wild. Next on the list is definitely the album with Mike Outram (now over 2 years over due!) but later this year, I’ll be putting out a recording taken from the two shows I did with Daniel Berkman in San Francisco in January.

Daniel is an incredible multi-intrumentalist – on these gigs he played Gravikord (electric Kora), Handsonic (electronic percussion) and synth sounds running on his laptop, played via a TINY keyboard. The versatility of his sound-world from these three elements is mind-blowing, and he proved to be one of the most sensitive and adaptable improvisation collaborators I’ve ever met. He does a lot of looping himself, so like Michael Manring, has an innate awareness of what’s needed to make loops that are ‘human’, rather than metric, ‘work’. On this tune, the drum parts all pivot on him playing the snare on beat 3, ignoring the (hugely variable) downbeat of the bar, and playing ‘in time’ with wherever I happened to put it that time

Anyway, other than a brief soundcheck, this is the first thing we ever played together – enjoy! Please feel free to comment, ‘favourite’ it if you like it, and share the link around. it all helps a lot

A Lovely Mention in Bass Player Magazine…

2012-04-16T16:44:18Z

Last month’s Bass Player magazine had a feature, written by the excellent Ed Friedland, about Looping. (great choice of writer for such an article – Ed’s played some amazing music himself using looping devices.)

Anyway, there’s a section within it about players that you need to check out, and first on the list is me Hurrah!

here’s a link to the whole article

And here’s the quote about me:

“Several bassists have taken looping to new heights, and Steve Lawson (stevelawson.net) is certainly at the forefront of the scene. Steve has toured the world as a solo bassist for years, and has released a trove of CDs featuring his unique blend of musicianship and effect mastery. Steve says, “Looping has enabled me to soundtrack the inside of my head without outside interference. I would not be playing solo if it weren’t for looping—it’s as simple as that.” “

Which is nice

Talking About Twitter… Again.

2012-04-10T12:36:18Z

If you remember, three years ago (I know, 3 years on the internet is like 500 years in normal life – sorry ’bout that) Andrew Dubber and I made a lil’ video talking about Twitter for musicians.

It’s proved very popular over the years, and has been incorporated into the curriculum on a number of music courses.

So a couple of weeks back, we recorded a follow up. Here it is. Enjoy

Twitter – 3 years on from Andrew Dubber on Vimeo.

London Bass Guitar Show and My new Markbass Amps(with video!)

2012-03-07T12:34:14Z

This last weekend was all kinds of fun – I had two days at the London Bass Guitar Show and a wonderful improv gig in Derby…

The bass guitar show was my first ‘official’ outing for Markbass - Having been using the Markaudio PA gear for about 3 years (those incredible tiny speakers you’ve seen us use on UK house concerts? Mark Audio), I’ve just got a pair of unbelievable combos from Markbass – the Combo 121 Lites, designed in conjunction with Alain Caron.

So my masterclass on Sunday morning at the bass show was the first time I’d had to really turn them up and see what they can do (they sounded amazing at home, but what about in a gig situation? And yeah, they sounded remarkable. Loud, clear, and able to deal with whatever craziness I threw at them. Markbass have a new UK distributor, who were lovely, friendly, helpful clever people. Look out for more Markbass-related fun in the near future…

The rest of the bass show was fabulous – it’s WAY bigger than London really has any right to be hosting. Partly, I guess, it’s due to the 25+ years of groundwork that the Bass Centre did in establishing bass as an instrument to be proud of – they took the interest in bass generated by Mark King’s rise to superstardom in the mid 80s and opened a shop, organised events and generally built a sense that exciting things were happening on the instrument. Fast forward a quarter of a century and we have a show with (I think) close to a thousand people at it, featuring performances and masterclasses by some world class musicians.

I caught masterclasses by Jon Thorne, Yolanda Charles and Doug Wimbish, all of whom were really informative and inspiring. I have quotes from all three stuck in my head that will make their way into how I make music. Doug’s masterclass was particularly fun as half way through a tune he wandered over and put his bass round my neck - ‘your turn’! It was a lot of fun, and Dave Marks who was on ‘actual bass’ for that tune, shifted the feel beautifully and we made a good noise for a while, before I handed the bass back to Doug and he passed it onto Yolanda, who as well as being one of my favouritest people in the world is one of the most brilliant bassists I’ve ever come across. I’m glad I went first, that’s all I’ll say

It was great to catch up with so many old friends – the show was littered with the great and the good of the world of bass – Paul Turner, Dave Swift, TM Stevens, Svetlana Vassileva, Dave Marks, Paul Lancaster, John Currie, alongside bass gear luminaries such as John East, Martin Peterson, Paul Sips, Sheldon Dingwall, Dave Boonshoft and Dave Avenius from Aguillar, Barry Moorhouse from the Bass Centre, Hugh Manson and Stewart Spector.

Shows like this remind me just how many bassists I’ve taught over the years – so many former students of mine now off doing all kinds of amazing things. I was grinning all weekend at their stories.

So anyway, here are three videos, taken by the lovely Dave Marks, at my masterclass on Sunday. The first is an explanation of my processing/looping set-up, and the other two are performance. Enjoy!

A tour round the toys:

Cover of Hello:

Small Marvels, from “11 Reasons Why 3 Is Greater Than Everything”:

What is Success? Starting from scratch

2012-02-29T17:35:02Z

“What Happens Now For Music?” is a growth area of exploration, both for academics and industry analysts, consultants and representative bodies.

The old machine that has controlled things for the last 40-50 years have their lobbyists and their clumsy, internet-ruining political agenda, but for the rest of us who give a shit about little things like ethics, art and culture, the questions are WAY bigger than ‘how can we pretend we’re making less money while actually making more money so that we can make EVEN more money, and still blame the internet for our made up failure?’

No, the bigger questions start with challenging the foundational principles of what the relationship is between a culture and its soundtrack, and how we can define success for those musicians who are somehow meaningfully engaged in the process of creating that soundtrack.

Because, as we’ve explored here many times before, the old model was wholly unsustainable and unsuccessful in any meaningful measure for the vast majority of musicians who engaged with it. Even for many of those that we perceive as successes, it took them acquiescing to a wholly alien notion of success as defined by the worst excesses of Late 20th Century hypermodernity. One completely at odds with their reasons for making music in the first place. In oh-so-many cases, a career in music became a shit day job that stopped them making music that they cared about.

So when we start exploring what ‘success’ might look like, or who the success stories are that are emerging from the new music ecosystem, we need to throw out discredited notions of success that somehow link success to abstract metrics of ‘reach’ and ‘audience’, and certainly quash any notion that fame was a meaningful indicator of anything related to success.

As Nik Kershaw so succinctly put it on an episode of Trisha years ago – Fame was the downside to success.

I tweeted a list of possible metrics for success a couple of hours ago, and I’ll repeat them here:

Sustainability – can I keep doing this?
Independence – creative, economic and strategic independence – what music am I making? How am I funding it and how is it making that money back, and what’s the bigger plan?
Progress – linked to strategy – is my own artistic and personal progress happening in a way that I’m comfortable with? How would I measure that?
Fun – seriously, being a musician is the greatest privilege in the world, whether or not you get paid for it. The joy of making music should never get obscured by the slog that getting into the position of being able to make music for other people often becomes. How do I define my own satisfaction with the Big Project of my music life?

Those are the big questions, and none of them are helpfully answered by looking at chart positions, stadium appearances, TV credits or numbers of Twitter followers.

They change from artist to artist, and given that ‘success’ can now exist quite happily and sustainably with a core audience of only a few hundred people, and can even be enhanced by the performer having an outside source of income, we need to be looking at some much more foundational defining questions before we start trying to match like for like in the process of building alternatives to the myth machine of the 20th century.

So, musicians, what is success for you? Did you have to let go of a long-held dream of super-stardom to find what you were looking for? Do you still – deep-down – actually want to be a rock star? Is your future so bright you gotta wear shades, while playing to 30 people in a friend’s living room? Answers in the comments, please

Grace And Gratitude & Behind Every Word, now £3 each

2012-05-19T10:39:19Z

On occasion, I still come across people who are uncomfortable with the economics of ‘pay what you think it’s worth‘. Or ‘pay what you want‘. Or ‘name your price‘. Whichever way you want to describe it.

It’s not really that surprising – we’ve precious little precedent for a transaction like this, especially as it relates to ‘ubiquitous’ products like digital downloads of music. We’re used to things having a fixed price that somehow is marketed to us as representing the value of the thing, and then we choose to pay it or not. If things are available in lots of places then we shop around for the cheapest legal source.

That’s not what’s happening with ‘pay what you think it’s worth‘, obviously:

The cheapest legal version is free.
But why should it be?
How does value translate into money?
Why should you pay?
How does paying for something that’s be offered to you for free make you feel?

All questions that are quite alien to us.

So, while the new stuff is still priced like that, I’ve made two of my most successful older albums available for £3, fixed price. No ‘£3 or more’, nothing to make you feel like this is anything other than a normal transaction You can, of course, go and buy either of them on iTunes or Amazon, if you want them for more money at lower resolution with worse sleeve-notes. But hey, that’s up to you.

Here they are – listen here, then drop £3 on them if you dig what you hear:

Behind Every Word by Steve Lawson

Grace And Gratitude by Steve Lawson