Into The Lens

Afternoon. Well, I've finally got some new music out there - "the older we get" is a fretless bass-driven, (heavily ECM-influenced..?), track that's intended to follow-on from my earlier "the more like ourselves we become". Apologies if using the first part of the aphorism as a title seems a little back-to-front - it just came out that way. Possibly this reveals something deep & meaningful about the state of my parenthood-addled mind. Or not.

Oh, and if that wasn't enticing enough already (!), it also features some occasional tinkly noises courtesy of my fancy new Roland SRX-11 "Complete Piano" board (big thanks to Dave & Will at Red Dog in Edinburgh for invaluable assistance & incredible customer service).

Anyway, even if no-one thinks much of the music, hopefully at least folk might like what I was trying to do with the artwork, aka "mucking about with some photographs what I took" - and I'll be inflicting a description of the whole D.I.Y., no-budget process on the world right here later this week...child-free time permitting, naturally.

Cheers.

There's No Way Out Of Here

This is a small, inadequate apology for the lack of posting in these parts in a very long while.

Sorry.

There won't, I'm afraid, be anything appearing until well after the Easter 'holidays', when my schedule returns to something akin to normality, and I might get enough of my brain back to allow rational thought to begin again.

Currently, my tedious single-parenthood means I only have the space after both monkeys have gone to bed in which to do...everything. Typing nonsense about subjects that aren't going to change anybody's life doesn't exactly figure too high on the list of stuff that needs to be done, either.

There are, of course, so many things going on presently which are extremely noteworthy - Papal obfuscations & evasions, the UK general election (aka grand lying & airbrushing contest), giant clouds of Icelandic volcanic ash - but there are far more interesting & informed folk than I producing vast screeds of information on such matters already. Trying to add to it would simply be superfluous.

Anyway, apologies again for the long unexplained silence. Some service may resume eventually.

In the meantime, here's a photograph of myself from 1995, which looks (& feels) like a very long time ago indeed, and proves conclusively that I've never had any sense of style whatsoever...

Don't Bring Me Down

Since tomorrow (at the time of writing, Sunday, the 14th of February, 2010. When you happen to be reading this, who knows? Not that it'll make much difference - like so many of us, it doesn't improve with age), happens to be the annual "International Day Of Kitsch Tat And Misery", and with my current singleton status unlikely to change any time soon, I thought I'd take a wee stab at cheering myself up by focussing on some of the simple things in life that I like, enjoy, appreciate, etc.

Following on from last week's "positive negative" campaign for non-voters, I came up with a small personal challenge, which I can thoroughly recommend if you're particularly bored, or just trying to avoid work...the latter being something I find far too easy to do (I should be bouzouki-ing my fingers to the bone right now, for instance, rather than write this ephemera).

Give yourself one minute (nae cheating) to write down/type out a list of "things you like" (and nae cheating by selective editing after you've finished to make yourself look better, like some politician appearing on Desert Island Discs, either). Then, if you're like me (oh dear) be surprised at all the stuff that didn't make it onto the list as the final seconds rushed away.

Oh, and there were a couple of other rules, too - no vague, woolly abstracts like "committing yourself to the cause of world peace" (or indeed, "world low-intensity conflict" if you're an arms dealer..unlikely, admittedly, but...). That's all great and lovely (not so much if it's the 'arms dealer' scenario), but could you be a little bit more specific, please? Name your favourite pro-peace (or war) organisation(s) instead, ok? And I consciously avoided anything to do with "lurve", since however much I may enjoy "snuggling" (a lot, since you didn't ask), there isn't any going-on around here, and this was meant to be about 'happiness'. No specific musicians, bands, or genres of music either, because thinking about that topic would have sabotaged my already-limited brain and prevented it from considering anything else.

Anyway, here's my 'honest & genuine' little list, in exactly the (dis)order in which it issued forth:

My kids, Bergen, rowing boats, hills, trees, flowers, Edinburgh, running, lifting, bouzoukis, bass guitars, chocolate, Puddledub Pork, castles, Norse sagas, history!, David Hume, John Muir, Richard Dawkins, my friends, red wine, Port Ellen, whisky, rugby, dogs, Keswick.

No idea why I typed an exclamation mark after "history", and yes, starting with "my kids" might seem a little contrived, but that's just what came out. Surprising, maybe, after the way the little beggars had been behaving today...

A few brief, but possibly necessary, explanations: "Puddledub Pork" are producers of delicious bacon and the fantastic "Auchtertool Originals" sausages; "running" is probably a reaction to my knee cartilage injury/surgery last year (I don't run up hills these days, just after my kids, but it's a great feeling - trying to do some "lifting" again though, albeit very carefully, and with a lot lighter weights than in years past); I'd been discussing John Muir and what an incredible life he'd had with my older monkey earlier; "Port Ellen" is, for me, the finest malt whisky ever produced; "Bergen" is a wonderful place, albeit expensive; finally, sorry, but I haven't a clue how "flowers" got in there, but "bicycles" didn't. Or "photography", for that matter, which is something I really enjoy (however mediocre the results may be).

Like I said, give it a try yourself - hopefully your results will make as little sense as mine.

Still, for what it's worth, thought I might as well finish by entering into the St. Valentine's Day spirit...

For Sale: Scottish bloke, medium-size, 1969 version. Single parent, reasonable condition for age (although some visible deterioration). Fully domesticated, comes with 2 "boisterous & energetic" children. 7 previous owners (some more careful than others). Might suit lady of similar vintage capable of tolerating fondness for hills, prog rock, & alleged sense of humour. Offers in the region of "Will work for food".

Power To The People

Every time we have an election in this country, I do the same tiresome, irritating thing - urge people to go out and VOTE. Participate. Stand up, shuffle off down to the nearest primary school (or wherever the voting station happens to be), and be counted - unless you're using a postal ballot, where past evidence suggests you may already have been counted several times, or not at all (it's electoral roulette, without quite so much misplaced optimism, excitement, or slim chance of any financial gain...unless someone offers you hard cash for your ballot paper). Even if you're in the safest of safe seats for a party whose policies you despise but you have no realistic chance of removing - please, please, vote. I know, the election itself is still up to three months away, but I thought I'd give myself plenty of time to get the message out this year.

It's not that I particularly mind who you vote for (ok, honestly, I'd much rather you didn't support any flagrant bigots, or the Conservatives, or...), and it's not as if there isn't a wider choice than ever before. There are parties for almost everyone these days - from the religious "we adore our supernatural invisible friend who loves and knows what's best for everyone, but homosexuality is bad", to the xenophobic "we love our country - or how it was in a mythical 1950's that never actually existed, but foreigners (and homosexuals, come to think of it) are bad", via the ridiculous George Galloway-esque "We are all Hamas now! Even though they say both certain foreigners and homosexuals are bad, oh, and violently repress anyone who disagrees with them...but..errr...they hate America, and they're being oppressed too, so..err.." crowd.

[Perhaps one day there'll even be a post-modernist party who regard all political views as equally valid, so espouse everything (and nothing) simultaneously - yes, you're right, Tony Blair came perilously close, and Obama is sailing in the same direction - and regard elections in a reflexive manner, with the voters 'meta-reactions' towards policy decisions being interpreted through the medium of a shin-kicking contest....?]

It's undeniable that, under the UK's shamefully unrepresentative current system, in most parliamentary seats only a couple of parties stand a genuine chance of winning, so a vote for a 'minority' party might seem to be a waste of time - although that's not necessarily the whole story, since even if voter support is not translated directly into seats, it can mean increased media coverage, membership, financial support,etc,etc which would benefit your cause of choice (lost or otherwise) in the future. Plus a vote for the "Rainbow Unity Old Folks' Legalise Guinea-Pig Eating, Ban Nude Cricket Coalition" is at least standing up for something you believe in, so you can feel good about yourself in a slightly smug way.

Usually by this point, too many people I know will have trotted out the old (and demonstrably false)"don't vote - it only encourages them", or "it doesn't matter who you vote for, all politicians are the same" clichés, or variations on those themes. These arguments are, I'm afraid to have to say, a load of bollocks.

Not realising that there are significant differences between the (three or four, depending on where you live) major parties in the UK, is simply an admission of personal ignorance. If, for instance, you haven't spotted yet that David Cameron and chums are, underneath the overly-smoothed exterior, really only a twinset-and-pearls away from Thatcherism (and all that that entails), then you haven't been paying any attention. There's an election campaign heading our way rapidly, and a host of easily-accessible sources of reasonably reliable information (not Wikimpedimentia, please) available. Who knows, there's the remote possibility that a substantive argument might even be put forward in one of the televised debates...but don't get your hopes up, it's pretty unlikely. So not acknowledging/understanding the variations between the species is not a reasonable position. The variations might not be as great as you personally would prefer, but that's not the same thing, and as previously mentioned, there are lots of other choices on the electoral menu.

Deciding not to vote at all isn't an especially clever choice either. All that "not voting" achieves is to make it easier for politicians to ignore you, and for bigots like Nick Griffin to gain power. In the European Parliament elections, the BNP didn't increase its vote, but a large number of (predominantly) Labour voters went off in a huff, and by not bothering to vote at all, allowed the bigots to take the victory. If these disaffected-but-lazy Labourites had gone out and registered a 'protest vote' for *any* other party, the BNP wouldn't have had a sufficient share of the votes cast to be elected. Some achievement. Hope the "non voters" in the north of England are properly proud of themselves.

After centuries of struggle for representation, where people suffered enormously for the right to vote, I find it depressing that so many people today simply don't bother, even though there are so many options to vote positively for, and voting is so easy to do. We no longer have the spectacle of women chained to railings, desperately fighting against legal prejudice, suffering forcible feeding in prisons - merely for the right to have their say. Here in Dunfermline, admittedly, at certain hours of the weekend, you can witness women leaning on railings, struggling not to vomit while shouting incoherently into the mobile phones that they're too drunk to operate...but that's another issue - possibly they're just canvassing on behalf of the "Too stoshious tae stand fer onyhing..'cept maybe that Brad Pitt, ye ken? He's gorgeous!" party? Who knows...

What "not voting" also fails to do at all is "send them a message", which is something else folk have used to justify their idleness/apathy. (Rain affecting turnout is, frankly, pathetic).

So here's an idea. A little challenge to the apathetic...

If you don't think voting does any good, if you don't like any of the myriad political views on offer - start your own campaign.

Launch a group with a simple aim - to encourage people to make a minimal effort on election day, head over to their local polling stations, and write NO in nice, clear capital letters on the ballot paper.

It would be extremely easy (and cost nothing) to organise this on a massive scale, thanks to the internet - set-up the Facebook Group, Bebo, MySpace, etc. Twitter away merrily. Blog your progress. Co-ordinate your efforts and send press releases via email. The media are always hungry for stories - remember what happened with the Simon Cowell/Rage Against The Machine business at Christmas? Well, that could be you saying NO on the BBC Breakfast sofa this time...what more incentive do you need?

If you gathered enough support, if the number of NO papers was in, say, only in the tens of thousands, then you might just get the politicians' attention. Plenty of them are sitting on small enough majorities to be nervous, and an orchestrated campaign like that could make all the difference...

I did mention you could achieve all that for free, didn't I? Good. Just checking.

So please, in this next election, whoever, whatever you support, exercise the right your great-great-great-great grandparents most likely were denied...and vote. It's a hard-won privilege, which too many of us forget all too easily.

Left Of Centre

...and in favour of Scottish independence, as it happens, but that's quite enough about my personal political persuasions. Instead let's have a wee look at the question of where exactly should you place instruments in a stereo mix...? (Non-musicians may be feeling their eyes glaze over at this point - but hang on in there, because it might almost be interesting. Give it a couple of paragraphs, anyway, before you decide to go and watch yet more videos of people falling off all manner of bizarre things in simply hilarious ways on YouTube...)

'Panning' has become something of a minor obsession of mine, recently - it all started with the last track I recorded, "magnetic north", featuring 3 separate bass parts (1 electric upright, 2 fretless bass guitars - shaken, not stirred). No matter how many subtle (and not-so-subtle) eq adjustments I applied, the E.U.B. wasn't coming through clearly. Then an article on stereo placement I'd read years before stumbled helpfully back into my brain. It suggested drawing a stage layout diagram, showing where each player should stand/sit/mooch around looking bored during other people's solos, exactly as you wanted to hear them in the mix.

This really helped - my original plan was to have the E.U.B. in the middle, with a fretless bass off to each side. Picturing that nightmarish trio on stage, though, it made much more sense to have the E.U.B. on one side, with the main fretless part (basic melody and chordal bits) taking the centre. The version of me that was just doing little filling-in, fancy-dan stuff could stand well off to the left-hand side, and just be grateful he was on stage at all.

Now I don't claim there's anything particularly clever or unique about all that, but after a few conversations on the topic with Mr. Martin Lennon (who's currently recording an album of his fine songs, and gets mentioned on this blog far too regularly), I started paying a lot more attention to the panning on albums I personally know and would bite yer fingers off if you tried to steal from me, to see if any of them had unusual set-ups that might prove educational...

There can be, in these days of widely-available stereo enhancers, auto-spatial-expanders, and multi-dimensional-sonic-whiffle-diffusionators, quite a temptation to stretch everything as massively wide as possible - after all, you've paid good money for that 40gigabyte piano sample, and you want your listeners to hear every bloody note as if it were a foot (30cm) wide. Or by judicious mic placements, you've created a multi-channel vastness-of-a-drumkit that encompasses so much of the stereo spectrum the drummer would require a taxi to get from one end of a tom roll to the other. And I'm sure that in its place, that's lovely, fantastic, and entirely appropriate.

But not so helpful when you're trying to maintain some kind of clarity for the listener - if all your instruments are competing for the same space, then inevitably, some of them are going to lose. And start complaining about their level in the mix, and demanding you turn the sax player down instead, because their part's not so important to the vibe, and anyway, they were out of tune for half of it - yeah, shut up, you know you were...yeah? is that right? aye, yer maw an a'! Stick yer reed up yer...! Etc,etc.

So, anyhoo, after sliding through plenty of examples of HUGE production (massive flying keyboards on all sides, ranks of backing vocals attacking from wide left and right simultaneously, how many sodding guitar parts did you need...?) from the last few decades, I finally listened to one of my favourite albums for the first time through headphones...and was very surprised.

(Quick "by the way" - I'm not an enormously-walleted 'audiophile', so don't possess an acoustically-perfect 'listening room', equipped with multiple speaker arrays and gleaming, platinum-knobbed hi-fi gear. There's a 10+ year old technics cd player & cambridge amp in the sitting room which enable music to come out, and that's fine, ta. That's my excuse for not noticing certain things sooner...it's not a good excuse, but still...)

On the 1967 Cream [who invented "heavy rock", not the Kinks] classic, "Disraeli Gears", Ginger Baker's drums are almost entirely on the right (unless my headphone wires are somehow connected back-to-front). Jack Bruce is playing bass & singing in the middle (the vocals move slightly when he and Clapton are both singing), and Clapton's main guitar (mostly rhythm) is away to the left. And that's how they sit for the whole album. Which makes a lot of sense, given the complexity of Baker's drumming (the intensity of "We're Going Wrong", for instance) and what folk were listening to the album on at the time. It does, though, seem quite odd - he certainly sat in the middle of the trio when they played live, which is where most of us would expect the kit to be. Just not on that record - and it works (I reckon). If anyone wants rather more detail than they might have expected about the recording of Disraeli Gears, there's an excellent article (with photos) here.

There are, of course, plenty of examples of classic albums where there is "a place for everything, and everything in its place" - the late, great John Martyn's "Solid Air" offers wonderful clarity, even when he's "echoplex-ing" away at full blast. Placing the electric piano wide left, and keeping it in quite a narrow space over there, certainly helps. And in terms of keeping keyboards under control, even when Joe Zawinul, on Weather Report's "Heavy Weather", is using several different sounds simultaneously, each one seems carefully positioned in such a way that it doesn't overlap too much with anything else. Mind you, I'm guessing that Wayne Shorter wasn't taking any chances in his "Assistant Producer" role, and panned his saxophone far right to ensure it stayed well clear of the marauding synths.

And, well, that's about it, really. No great revelations, merely a humble suggestion that just because you can spread every instrument all over the stereo mix, it doesn't mean you should. And why not try sticking the drums off to one side for a change? You never know, you might like it...

If I Had A Million Dollars

Merry 2010. Hope you all had a great start to the new year, and that everything you could possibly desire for the next twelve months is going to turn out just peachy. Of course, statistically, that's incredibly unlikely, but hey, misplaced optimism, it's a positive lifestyle choice for the 21st century. And when the inevitable depression sets in after you realise that your life is, in fact, rapidly crumbling around you, there are the always widely-available alcohol, narcotics or spank-that-overdraft comfort-spending as alternative options to help get you through the most desperate times. Like I said, "Happy New Year".

Anyway, when I bang on about musical equipment here it's usually the value-for-money slice of the market I'm looking at - good quality bargains on a budget. But for once, my folk-blues-acoustic-songwritery chum Mr. Martin Lennon suggested I pick a "money-no-object", fantasy bass rig.

Which has proved surprisingly tricky to decide on.

Back in the mists of time, (some point in my mid-20's, when I was progging away with Citizen Cain), I'd likely have plumped for some mega-stack of ridiculous size & power. A mighty 1000 watts (or thereabouts) of thundering low-end disturbance, probably with at least two of the massive custom cabinets Trace Elliot built for Tony Levin (20"+ speakers, I seem to recall?). But I was young and foolish then.

Now I'm almost 41 (dammit), and still equally foolish...but a little more aware of my limitations and frailties (mental and physical). Plus I don't own a car (I don't drive at all), and haven't done any proper weight training in about 4 years.

Also, I'm not very likely to be indulging in any arena tours...ever, so that sort of set-up would be utterly pointless. To be a little controversial, I'd suggest a great many bass players have amplification that is far more powerful, space-consuming, and injuriously heavy than they really need. I know, there are plenty of drummers out there who seem to be acting-out their repressed rage on their kits, but still...

Recently I've been aiming for a set-up that's completely modular, adaptable for a variety of gigging circumstances, but predicated on two notions -

1) A large PA offers the best set of bass speakers this side of a hefty physiotherapy/osteopathy bill; and

2) You shouldn't own any piece of performance gear that's too heavy to lift (from the floor) above your head, comfortably - unless you happen to own some roadies as well. Thus, if you're a huge, strongman-type, an 8x10" cabinet is fine. Otherwise, we mere average-size folk should try to take as little as possible that'll do the job.

(a handy, simplified, visual guide follows for any guitarists who think that a full Marshall stack is appropriate for pub gigs, and that they somehow deserve assistance with carrying the bloody thing)

In truth, the Ashdown amplifier I'm modelling in the left-hand picture only weighs 27kg - a relatively easy overhead lift - but I still wouldn't enjoy having to heft it up a few flights of stairs (e.g. Teviot Row - remember those stairs, Martin?), especially if I had both basses and a rucksack full of 'gig essentials' slung over my shoulders at the same time. My Tech 21 VT-Bass pre-amp pedal in t'other photo, however, is lighter than a very small kitten, and makes much better noises than the Ashdown...so long as there's something to plug it into.

Which is where my indecision starts. All I'd need, strictly, would be a decent wee power amp and a speaker...but really I'm after rackmount-gear performance, only without having to lug around the inevitable big injection-moulded rack-carry-case (this also rules-out Tech 21's rather cool SansAmp RBI, unfortunately). The amp has to be as fully-functional as possible, yet small enough to fit tidily in a rucksack, and the speaker light enough to be one-hand-portable over fairly long distances.

A little research proves that, as in the rest of life, if the budget is big enough, you'll always have a choice. There's quite a wide range of lightweight-yet-powerful amp heads available - Markbass, Eden, Gallien-Krueger, Aguilar, even the wee Ampeg Micro-VR I wrote about a while ago (and I'm sure there's many more besides). No idea which to choose - all/any of them could do a very good job, especially with the VT-Bass in front of them to provide sonic variety. Or for upright players, how about a Phil Jones 'Briefcase' combo? So many great options - again, assuming you've got the cash.

And when it comes to speaker cabinets, they're getting lighter all the time - I haven't tested them, so can't vouch for their quality, but if the Barefaced compact's spec sheet is moderately accurate, it should be a cracker. Definitely seems slimline & portable...until I found the Schroeder website. Their "Mini 12+" full-range cab looks impressive - but if even that's too large - how about a "Mini 10+"...? 300w RMS, 45hz bottom end, and less than 8kg! Alas, I don't live anywhere near a retailer that stocks such wonders to see how their claims stand up, but since I'm picking 'fantasy' gear, and could send them back if they were rubbish...

ummm...I don't know...er...how about...the Tech 21 VT-Bass pedal, into a Markbass Little Mark III, going through a Schroeder 'Mini 12+ light' (< 9kg). Not outrageous (whole lot could be had for £1200-ish), and eminently practical - total weight of 12kg. So, if any of my friends happen to win the lottery, I've a birthday coming up, and now you know just what to buy me - that'd be really nice of you, ta.

Back to some sort of reality with a dull, painful thud next time. Promise.

You Learn

So, that's Christmas over-and-done with, the traditional feast of televisual WWII nostalgia has finished (at least the "Heroes of Telemark" has plenty of snow in it, so it feels a bit more 'seasonal'), and we've almost reached the end of the year, eh? Hell, end of the decade (assuming we're counting from zero, naturally - some folk get very pedantic about that sort of thing) - not that it matters, it's just a date, as arbitrary as any other. Of course, what media columnists/ bloggers/ random drunks hanging-around bus shelters typically feel the urge to do at this point is offer us some sort of round-up of the year gone by - or decade, if they're feeling ambitious, and want to properly bore everyone with their oh-so-intriguing and salient personal insights into the major world events we all lived through already, thanks very much.

As an antidote to those 8-page-special-features-with-pointless-quiz-attached reminders of our general lack of progress as a species, here's the Mid-Life Bassist "one very deep breath (don't forget your inhaler)", no chronological order, and possibly a little jaded-and-cynical summary of the last 12 months...

Greedy politicians, greedy bankers, greedy celebrities, greedy libel tourists, "isn't it cold? wow, it's hot! where did summer go? gosh, what a shock, it's cold again!", "bang! bang! we're all dead!" (because I'm a zealot with a head full of hatred & religious fantasies), a rich guy with dubious attitudes towards children "Beat It", come visit England's Lake-in-the-middle-of-your-high-street District, You've been kettled!, real pirates don't say "arrr", Tiger tiger strayed at night, MacAskill does the right thing for the wrong reasons, dense cloud of hot air suffocates Copenhagen, English voter apathy gave the bigots their tickets to ride the Euro-gravy-train, Homecoming Scotland didn't, mass RAGE boosts the Cowell/Sony Benevolent Fund, the remarkable aerodynamics of Italian souvenirs, and Molly still may yet trip up Trump...

(apologies if I left out many events of great personal or international significance for anyone out there, and also for switching between present and past tenses with wilful disregard for grammatical regulations. I'm just lazy)

For me, 2009 saw the exciting launch of my very own music website - which, in the space of a couple of months has seen over 2,000 visits (most of them probably by mistake - just like this blog - "Braw Neeps" is the oddest recent search term that's landed someone here. Ah, the great mystery of life that is Google) ...and a grand total of 8 downloads, even though they're "pay as little as 'absolutely free' if that's what you want". This may well reveal something about the quality and/or desirability of my 'tinged with a sense of longing' instrumental offerings. I couldn't possibly comment.

Still, I have learned a few things this year, at least...

I now can pretend to be a bouzouki player (of sorts), which may actually turn out to be more useful and artistically rewarding than memorising PI to 100 decimal places. You never can tell...

In spite of being 40, I (hopefully) still have half of a lifetime in which to 'achieve'...something (or anything, really). Although this is the half where I can only get slower, more decrepit, and my mental powers (such as they may be) will dwindle away inexorably. Mind you, I am a bass player, so this last difficulty shouldn't affect my music to any great extent.

Next, Virgil was talking twaddle when he stated "Love conquers all things". No, as I've discovered to my cost, choices/decisions we made years previously can continue to control our lives for far longer than we ever would have thought possible. Dammit.
The same "load of old tosh" concept applies to any offerings of the "Where there's a will, there's a way" and "If you want something bad enough..." schools of trite non-thought. People who respond to your woes in life with mindless regurgitations of anything approaching these adages should be [this section redacted to protect the impressionable].

And finally, thanks to a christmas present I opened yesterday, I've realised my writing style is far-too-often uncannily similar to Armando Iannucci's, except that he's a deity of modern satirical comedy rather than a single-parent 'hus-been' & musical obscurity.

He's also hilariously clever. And since his written work has been published worldwide, it'll look like I'm simply copying him - which is very annoying, because if I were, this site would be much, much funnier. Ah, well.

As for the decade as a whole, well, to rip-off Oscar Wilde both clumsily and shamelessly:

"To lose one long-term relationship may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness."

Ho hum.

It's all a bit "2 steps forward, 3 steps back" at the moment.

Best wishes to everyone for the year (and decade, if you're not right up yourself mathematically) to come. Hope you have a great one.

All the best,
Andy

Let It Snow

"Oh the weather outside is frightful...."

According to our glorious news media, you'd certainly think it was. In their narrative, we're locked in the icy grip of vast blizzards which have caught us completely unaware (in December, of all months!), sweeping across the countryside, turning every living thing in their path into highly-decorative-but-fatal ice-sculptures in an instant - while thousands of well-insulated illegal immigrants sneak in under the cover of the endless white-outs, and the enormous drifts of snow which threaten the very fabric of our British way of life (and ability to drive to Tesco) will undoubtedly also further weaken house prices. Although some of that might have been mildly exaggerated, one thing is clear - it's a disaster. And one that's almost certainly not been seen for...oooh...ages.

Or is it?

Well, there's certainly some snow blowing about the place, and we've seen some impressive disruptions on various forms of transport, but frankly, I don't see what the current media fuss over the 'not-half-as-abnormal-as-you'd-be-led-to-believe' winter weather is all about. Yes, Basingstoke, for example, was a bit of a mess, and the Eurostar train failures - the 'wrong kind of snow' (ie. stuff that was a little colder and more plentiful than they'd bothered to engineer their trains for to save money, or, if you prefer the company's view "unprecedented") proved yet again that electrical systems and water don't mix very well, would you believe? - screwed-up quite a lot of people's travel plans, but these are, in the grander scheme of things, pretty minor, short-term difficulties.

Of course, more people die in very cold weather, which means every spell like this brings its litany of personal tragedies - and my own enjoyment of some of the wintry delights on offer - and let's be honest, the kids are currently having a bloody great time (as my older monkey ably demonstrates in the local park) - comes with the unhappy knowledge that our next heating bill is going to be budget-worryingly high - a delight that's shared by over 5 million households living in fuel poverty.

But the overall apocalyptic tone of the coverage is ridiculous. For instance, here are a few pictures of what the BBC website headlines "More snow chaos". Errrr...nope. Not unless they've managed to convince the OED to publish a brand-new definition of 'chaos', that is. Which is possible - I've been pretty busy, so might not have been paying sufficient attention to the latest lexicographical trends. If that's the case, mea culpa, ok?

Anyway, quite apart from the hyperbole floating about, the news media seem to have very short collective memories of winters past - especially if you have a glance at this chart of "British Winter Snowfall Events" (Dave O'Hara, Ferryhill Weather Station)

According to Mr. O'Hara's list, we've had 7 "snowy" or "very snowy" winters since I was born - and that's excluding areas that have had localised heavy falls in otherwise "average" years.

And perhaps we should cast our minds as far back as...oh, February this year, when it was reported that:
"South-east England has been hit by the heaviest snow in 18 years, causing trains and buses to be cancelled, and airports and schools to be closed.

Snow is now moving north, with the Pennines, north-east England and the Scottish Borders at risk of seeing up to 12 inches (30cm) of snowfall."

You see, what I fail to understand is...well, people's failure to understand that this sort of weather can and does happen in Britain. Why are so many of the drivers on our roads apparently ignorant of how basic things they should do to cope with/prepare for these conditions?

Perhaps part of the problem is the way we see ourselves, how a bizarre image of these islands somehow being an as-yet-internationally-unrecognised adjunct of the Mediterranean (the tabloids' typical summer frothings over fruity young urban women in bikinis with the old "phwoar! what a scorcher!" headlines help twist our minds to building this delusion of Southern European geographical kinship) has taken hold.

Ultimately, whatever we may wish for in terms of culture and diet, we cannot escape the fact that physically we live in what is very much a northern country. And to help out the more cartographically-challenged folk, here's something you might (!) find interesting...

Scotland's capital, Edinburgh, sits at a latitude of N 55deg 58'. So if you start heading east from that point, you find it's further north than Copenhagen (Denmark), Malmo (Sweden), all of Poland, Vilnius (Lithuania), Minsk (Belarus), Moscow & Omsk (Russia), Grand Prairie & Edmonton (Canada).

But perhaps that's too easy - so let's use London (N 51deg 30') instead...that's still north of Brussels & Antwerp (Belgium), Eindhoven (The Netherlands), Leipzig (Germany), Warsaw (Poland), Kiev (Ukraine), Orsk (Russian Fed.), Astana (Kazakhstan), Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia), Vancouver, Calgary and most other places of any size in Canada.

Now, a particular number of degrees north or south is hardly the sole determinant of any country's weather patterns, I know - we're small islands, stuck slap-bang next to the Atlantic, with variable topography in close proximity, Gulf Stream, blah blah blah. Sure. It's complicated, but it is a significant factor.

And by way of a final illustration of exactly where we sit, I'll leave you with this - here in Dunfermline, according to Google Earth I live almost exactly 724 miles due south from the Arctic Circle.

Britain (using the same system, and measuring as the crow flies from the Shetlands to the tip of Cornwall - France can have the Channel Islands if they want) is 769 miles in length.

Maybe if more folk took a good look at a map, and worked out where they were standing on the planet, they'd be a bit less surprised the next time some snow drops on their heads.

Snow and ice - in winter! Shocking, eh?

State Of Independence

So, who really, honestly, dredging the innermost recesses of their psyche gives a monkey's which song happens to be top of the increasingly-irrelevant "hit parade" here in the UK this Christmas?

Not, I'm sure you've already guessed by now, me.

Yes, let's all run out and buy an 'oh so rebellious and transgressive' Rage Against The Machine song, because giving Sony (through it's wholly-owned subsidiary, Epic) somewhere in the region of 85% of the fee will properly wipe the smug, narcissistic grin off Simon Cowell's face. Or not. Definitely not, in fact.

Of course, it's just a 'bit of fun', but what better marketing strategy could he have hoped for? Whoever it was (I pride myself on my ignorance of this) won the X-factor will sell even more copies of whatever execrable super-karaoke ditty Cowell has alloted them, as the (manufactured by Sony..? I know, 'conspiracy theory ahoy', but why shouldn't social-network-marketing be so cunning as to feed into an honestly-created original group, hmm? perhaps...) 'race for no.1' theme is regularly repeated on television, in print, and online...um, a bit like I'm doing here, unfortunately. Oops.

It also serves merely to cosset Simon Cowell's overweening ego, his desperate desire for fame, and that's one thing we can deny him if we choose to ignore the charts, and simply let him wallow in his mediocre pop-ordure along with the likes of Westlife, Pixie Lott, Robbie Williams, Lady GaGa and that famous mime artist Cheryl Cole.

Anyway, I've got nothing against RATM (while perfectly genuine in their social-inequality,etc campaigning concerns, they're surely more accurately titled "Quite Miffed At Some Aspects Of The Market System Which Has Successfully Made The Band Very Wealthy" these days?), or the people involved in this anti-X-factor effort, but if you want to make a more effective, Sony-free, direct contribution to charity, why not simply head over to Tracy Morter's "rage against the x-factor" JustGiving.com page?

And when you've done that, why not do something positive to promote some of the thousands of wonderful, immensely-talented, genuinely 'independent' musicians out there, who aren't tied to record company deals, haven't got the fickle support of conscience-free marketing departments, definitely aren't chasing a "celebrity lifestyle", and whose music can offer a more rewarding, more 'personal' listening experience?

(or there are mediocre obscurities like myself, who probably should never be encouraged to inflict their so-called 'music' on an unsuspecting and fragile world, but the less said about that, the better....all donations extremely welcome, naturally)

So, I thought I'd try to start a list of folk that might deserve your attention and their very own financial stimulus package. (This is a very brief selection from my facebook and myspace 'friends' lists - apologies to the many great people I've left out, you're all fantastic, I honestly don't have the time...sorry). Please feel free to add indignant comments suggesting anyone you can't believe I didn't mention/copy this list and post it elsewhere/go and listen to what these artists can do to make your life a little bit more interesting.

I was going to start with the tremendous folk-blues-acoustic-whatsit of my very good friend Martin Lennon, incredible Norwegian folk/jazz vocal trio Eplemøya Songlag and the most impressive solo bass of Danny Fox, but none of them have got actual stuff for sale online yet. Still, I'm sure if you got in touch with them, something could be arranged via PayPal. Certainly well worth a listen, at the very least.

Now, in no particular order...

The ridiculously young-but-talented latin-jazz guitar of Daniel Volovets.

Do you like King Crimson? Clever time-signatures? O5Ric on drums and bass is your man.

Jazz-fusion keyboard awesomeness, courtesy of Alex Argento.

For a female singer/songwriter who isn't a no-life-experience warbly teenager, here's Ms. Hannah O'Reilly.

Persons of a punk persuasion will probably enjoy South Queensferry's "The Static".

Finally (for the moment), solo-bassist (and internet-ideas-guru) supreme Steve Lawson...

...and the list he compiled of fellow users of excellent music-distribution site Bandcamp (can't vouch for the quality of all the folk on it, but there'll be some good stuff on it for sure)

There. Now it's up to you - the 'Cowell/RATM Sony Benevolent Fund', or something far more interesting instead?

Cheers.

What Is And What Should Never Be

Hey, good evening folks, and welcome, welcome to the show, big old down-home Dunfermline welcome to each and every one of you, oh yes - and we've got a really special edition of the show for you tonight, folks - in fact, we're going to be mixing things up a little around here. Yes, indeed, that we are. Keeping it real, keeping it fresh, throwing out the stale bits of breakfast cereal that somehow escaped from the inner plastic bag and got stuck down at the bottom of the packet for the last 3 weeks, yet you still just couldn't resist having an exploratory nibble on 'em, could ya?

(cue pathetic audience laughter at the host's terrible scripted 'spontaneous wit')

Yes, tonight we've got a really special guest for all you "pro-gear-at-bargain-prices" fans out there... All the way from China, its got almost NO tonal depth, absolutely NO sustain, but hey, who cares when it looks this funky, am I right, or is that just a feeble sales pitch? Good people of internetville, let me hear you give it up for Mid-Life Bassist's new king of "whatever you do, don't buy this!" - the Danelectro '58 "Dead On" Longhorn Bass!

This is a truly terrible attempt at a musical instrument. It really is. It's so bad I hardly know where to start...and yet, from a distance, its got fantastic out-there funk/crazed improvisational prog-a-thon styling. Hanging on the music shop wall, the retro-futuristic looks provide welcome relief from the tedious crowd of unimaginative-yet-often-hugely-expensive Fender-clones (did someone mention "Lakland"...? Couldn't have been me, I'd never be so rude).

But that's exactly where it should stay, stuck firmly to the wall, resembling nothing so much as a reproduction prop from 'A Clockwork Orange', 'Barbarella' or any one of oh-so-many 50's 'B' movies, depending on your age/pop culture frame of reference.

As soon as you touch it, there's an immediate 'red flag' - it's incredibly light, mostly because it's made from the mysterious-sounding substance 'masonite', although sadly this isn't some fantastical "super-molecular-polymer-based-compound" found only in the core of meteorites, it's a type of hardboard. And it shows. (At least it doesn't require you to play the bass with one trouser-leg rolled-up, and using very peculiar hand-positions - apologies to any foreign readers who aren't familiar with the Scottish 'masonic' traditions being mocked in this aside). This is the main reason for the previously-mentioned absence of sustain and tone (or, to be more specific, the predominance of thin, treble-and-high-mid frequencies only). The rest can be ascribed to the fact that the (non-adjustable, wooden) bridge doesn't even sit directly on the body, but 'balances' instead on three screws. I'd speculate that this design was originally chosen because otherwise the body would shake to pieces whenever a low 'E' was hit, but that would be mocking the afflicted, and needlessly cruel.

What else?

The control knobs are flimsily made from the cheapest plastic known to mass-production, and the 'exciting' arrow-pointers have finger-laceratingly sharp edges...although since there's no depth of tone anyway, you wouldn't be bothering with one of them at all, so that's 50% less chance of losing a fingertip on stage straight away. The aluminium nut is equally sharp, so woe betide anyone fancying a dramatic slide down the neck on the higher strings - that'll be a couple of stitches, and about 4 & 1/2 hours in A&E. Oh, and the whole body is bound/trimmed in tolex (I think...?) that looks just like the kind of embossed vinyl wallpaper even my parents wouldn't have had in the house. Which apparently regularly suffers from adhesion 'issues'. So it's a bad design, poorly manufactured.

Ok, now I'm going to try (through gritted teeth) to be "fair and balanced" - in the Danelectro's defence (that should be a chess strategy), it is only a short-scale bass (29 + 3/4"), so it's always going to have difficulty reproducing a big bottom end. And, back in 1965 (for about 5 minutes), the incredibly brilliant John Entwistle of The Who used one of its ancestors (but he kept breaking the strings, and back then he had to buy a new bass every time it happened because he couldn't get replacement strings, so after 3 of them he gave up - info courtesy of www.thewho.net)

It also can't be denied that people who own them, and have taken the time to post reviews over at Harmony Central seem to love these beasts. Of course, that's quite a self-selecting little sample, and let's face it - there are guys out there who enjoy having women in stiletto heels goose-step around on their scrotums, and I'm sure that afterwards they'd rate that particular experience 9/10 too. (Suffice to say I'll be sticking to testing equipment of a strictly musical nature...)

But why, you might be asking, did I bother excoriating this guitar? Why am I so angry, genuinely angry with it, and its makers?

Because, depending on where you go, it'll cost you between £250 and £300, that's why.

Which is scandalous.

If it was a bargain-basement, no-brand model you'd bought off eBay for under £100, then I would care not a jot. Caveat would have been Emptor-ed, good luck to you, ach, well, nae mind, so it doesn't play so great, or sound so good, but bizarrely brilliant looks for the money, etc, etc...

For the same price as the gimmicky, 'toy' Longhorn, you could have a Yamaha RBX374, (which is a really good bass for the money), or a Cort GB34A, Peavey Millenium 4 AC BXP, a mad Traben Array Attack 4, lots of solid options from Aria, assorted Ibanez's, Schecter's, ESP's...the list of alternatives is a very long one indeed.

So, sorry for dwelling on the negative side of things. Sometimes banging-on about gear's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it...and since I've accumulated plenty of practice unblocking outside drains and changing nappies over the years, you could say I'm ideally qualified.