New for Old

“In a Foreign Town” and “Out of Water” – the 2023 versions.

Last year, as part of a process of rationalisation, I decided that the time had really come for me to stop being a record company. I haven’t lost enthusiasm for music itself but after so many years of running the business solo I decided it was time to take a step back. To that end I’ve passed over the curatorship of the Fie! catalogue to Cherry Red.

In the course of doing so it became apparent that there was some element of doubt about the ownership of the three records I made for Enigma – “In a Foreign Town”, “Out of Water” and “Room Temperature”. Rights in these had been passed down over the years and now might or might belong to Warners in the States.

I knew that it would take a degree of time to sort out the tangle, if it could be sorted out at all (old paperwork and all that). So in these circumstances I decided that I’d take a leaf out of Taylor Swift’s book and lay claim to, if not the original albums themselves then at least, the material…by re-recording it all.

This felt particularly appropriate in the case of “In a Foreign Town”. This was the first album on which I’d taken on sequencing responsibilities myself and this resulted in a certain squareness of performance and uniformity of sound selections, heavily rooted in the Eighties sonic world.

Astonishingly, when I went to start the work I found that I still had MIDI files for four of the songs so I started off with a firm foundation.

Thereafter I went about my reconstruction work eagerly. With nifty modern software it was possible to break down the original tracks into component parts – Vox separated from backing track, Drums, Bass, Pianos isolated – not in 100% pristine form, but good enough for me to trace the bones of what was happening and go about creating replacements.

I haven’t gone for slavish copying though: these are emphatically versions for now, with the knowledge and changes which years of further experience have brought. So these deliveries are, I feel, more authoritative versions – though naturally while a song is alive no rendition will be absolutely definitive.

“In a Foreign Town” is played fairly straight in terms of arrangements, especially as I’d played nearly all the parts myself on the original. “Out of Water” presented other challenges, as I was replacing several important parts played by others and some of the structural sounds were originally based in instruments which are no longer in my possession. In places I’ve made significant shifts to the essential structure of pieces.

The only remaining bit of audio from the originals is the (significantly processed) violin part of Stuart Gordon on “Something about Ysabel’s dance”. The arrangement of this song is one of the big changes – I’ve included a section in the middle as a nod to our later live performances as a duo, where we’d make reference to Charlie Mingus’s original “Ysabel’s Table dance”, the first inspiration for the song.

Apart from this everything else is brand new. These now feel to me like true modern successors to the original albums. Oddly, many of the lyrical concerns in both albums are as relevant today as they were then.

To be released this Friday, 24^th November 2023, as a double CD set, on Cherry Red,

An Auction

Now that I’ve hit 75 it’s definitely time for me to start downsizing things.

To that end, I’ve decided to get rid of a number of musical and tech items for which I haven’t had much use in the last few years. Most of these have some kind of intrinsic value and would certainly be of use to somebody. Some have played a significant part in my jolly old musical career.

They’re going up for auction online at www.guitar-auctions.co.uk on 5^th December 2023. My lots are numbers 527 – 537 and you’ll find them on page 24 of the online catalogue. (This site, by the way, is the pre-eminent one in Europe for online guitar auctions

Happy browsing and I hope these things end up in a good home.

I’m aware, of course, that I’ve been completely silent on here for months and months. I hope to put that right in the very near future. For now, though, I’d just like to say that I’m in good shape mentally and physically, even though my years are advancing!

Beginning again

Astonishingly, it’s been years since my last post. For a lot of that time, obviously, all life has been in some kind of abeyance. Now at last things seem to be on the way to starting up again.

Exactly fifty-one years ago today VdGG were starting the famous Six Bob tour with a show at the Lyceum in London. Fifty-one years ago tomorrow we were playing at Birmingham Town Hall on that tour. So there’s a measure of synchronicity at work here: in exactly four weeks from today we’ll be back in the Town Hall, kicking off the latest leg in VdGG touring.

At times over the last two extraordinary years it’s seemed that these often rescheduled shows would never happen and that effectively that might mean the end for our group. So it’s with joy and excitement (and the usual pinch of trepidation) that we’re now in the private study stage of rehearsals, knowing that the real thing will be upon us before we know it. The UK run is a short one; in a couple of months we’ll have the long stretch through the rest of Europe to do.

It’s going to be a blast.

VdGG 2020

Now I’m able to announce the other shows which we’ll be doing in 2020!
VdGG in 2020

March

28 Athens Piraeus 117

April

5 Genova Politearna Genovese
7 Roma Auditorium
8 Bologna Teatro della Celebrazioni
9 Milano Auditorium di Milano

12 Frankfurt Kunstlerhaus Mousonturm
13 Reutlingen Franz.K
14 Dresden Tante Ju
16 Krakow Klub Studio
17 Warsaw Palladium
18 Berlin Columbia Theatre

20 Prague Archa Theatre
21 Nurnberg Hirsch
23 Amsterdam Paradiso
24 Paris Le Trianon de Paris
May

3 Queens Hall Edinburgh
4 Bridgewater Hall Manchester
5 Symphony Hall Birmingham
7 The Forum Bath
8 London Palladium

19 Koln Kantine
22 Copenhagen Lilla Vega
23 Gothenburg Pustervik
24 Stockholm Lilla Circus
26 Helsinki Savoy-teatteri

27 Helsinki Savoy-teatteri

Booking details are now up at http://www.sofasound.com

Hooray!

“In Amazonia”, Gouveia, IB

Next Saturday (5th May) I’ll find myself once more at the Gouveia Art Rock festival. I’ve previously performed there in many guises – solo, in duos (with Stuart Gordon and Gary Lucas) and, of course, with VdGG. This time will be something else: first I’ll be playing solo (only on piano this time) and then combining with the (mainly) Swedish band Isildurs Bane to perform the whole of the new album “In Amazonia” on which we’ve recently collaborated.

It was at Gouveia, many years ago, that I first became aware of IB. Thomas Olssen, the musicologist who regularly hosts a morning discussion session at the festival (in which I’ve been a participant a couple of times) is also deeply involved in the work of IB. He proposed that I consider taking part in one of their IB Expo weeks.

For those who don’t know, these are high-octane events in which IB invite musicians to join them for a week of rehearsals and collaborations, all leading up to a one-off performance. This is not recorded for posterity or for any commercial release, so there’s very much the sense of approach-to-a-goal, once and once only about the thing. Everyone involved is definitely put on their mettle and evidently there’s no safety net.

From the outset I liked the idea and the intention of this venture but was somewhat reluctant to commit to anything for my own part. The quality of musicians involved has traditionally been stellar and of incredible accomplishment both technically and in improvisational skill. That’s not quite where I see my own strengths, of course. So I suspected that I wasn’t quite going to be the man for the job.

Nonetheless, Thomas returned to his task of persuasion on at least a couple of other times when we met up at Gouveia and finally I decided to take the plunge for the 2017 event. My fellow guests for this were Tim Bowness and the koto player Karin Nakagawa. Her presence meant that we were able to perform the Ayuo Takahashi piece “Song for Fallen Blossoms”, along with other more usual (though in unusual configurations) songs. It didn’t come as a complete surprise to me that the whole show was exciting, challenging and invigorating in equal measure and I was very glad indeed to have taken part.

At some time in 2018 Thomas got in touch to ask if I’d be interested in continuing to collaborate, this time on a recording project. I’m actually quite open to the idea of doing outside work, especially if it’s some way away from my usual areas so – with, of course, the condition that nothing was an absolute given or certainty on either side until it was all done – I agreed to have a go. The files for the first song duly arrived and I began looking for that spots where I could fit in.

I think there were some original suggestions for the moments in time where singing could be imagined but there was nothing more than that in terms of direction. Well, obviously I managed to find some lines which worked for me and which I thought fitted in with the piece. With some trepidation I sent these off and waited for the reaction….

Happily this was extremely positive. What I’d done was, perhaps, somewhat unexpected and in turn led to some re-editing of the original score, to allow for the repetition of some vocal lines. And so we had the first piece.

Then a second one arrived, and so on until in the end our collaboration extended over five songs and an entire album (bar a final instrumental recapitulation of some themes at the end). Of course, it’s been an unusual writing process, working from the inside out and never quite sure what the ultimate destination was going to be. From my own point of view, in itself this produced a loose linkage, some narrative and musical connection between the pieces. Naturally, since the stuff isn’t structurally based on my own architecture, it’s also a long way from any (musical) norms of my own, so I think I’ve come up with something quite unusual.

Anyway, here it is and I think it’s very good stuff. Cinematic, wide-screen and afloat on a surging current. The instrumentation is broad palette: in addition to bass, gtr, kbds there are multitudes of percussion, trumpets, violin and a major role for Karin’s koto. Thus there’s a direct connection between this and our Expo week in 2017…and, indeed, a coherent line going all the way back to those conversations over breakfast with Thomas in Gouveia.

Doing it live will, of course, be , er, something of a challenge, but it’s one which I think everyone is up for and fully committed to…. Up, up and away!

The album itself will be out on May 10^th and we’re now taking orders over at http://www.sofasound.com

Not Yet Not Now

I’ve just put up this post over at http://www.sofasound.com but suppose that it ought to appear here as well….

And now, ladies and gentlemen, news of the release of a project on which I’ve been working for most of the last few months.

As you’ll doubtless know, between November 2017 and May 2018 I undertook the most significant bout of solo touring in Europe for some time, taking in shows in Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, UK and Germany. With such a flood of performances I took the opportunity/accepted the personal challenge to widen the repertoire even more than has recently been the case (which was already considerable). In the end I played a hundred songs, more or less, in this run of shows, covering the whole spread of my career.

I’ve now gathered these together to form an eight CD Box Set, “Not yet, not now” and this will be released on March 29th. (I know, what better date could there be?)

Five of the CDs have a geographical focus, featuring songs taken from Berlin, Nurnberg/Dortmund (2 sets), Italy and UK. The final three CDs are a mix of songs from different countries. Each CD is about an hour long and is structured to mirror the rhythm and tempo of live performance. I’m not going to be falsely modest: some of these performances are outstanding. Not *definitive*, of course, as happily most of these songs continue to come at me afresh each time I encounter them on stage and so there’s no such thing as an absolutely correct or perfect version. Rather, I mean to say, that many of these takes on the songs have kinks and curves to them which surprise this singer himself.

I don’t intend to retire just yet – not yet, not now – but who knows how long I’ll be carrying on for. Indeed, there’s evidently a great deal of uncertainty surrrounding the possibility of touring Europe at all after the dread ioncoming Brexit. I’m pretty sure, though, that this will be the last time that I’ll assemble such a comprehensive package of live versions of the PH material, so it marks some kind of definitive full stop.

This limited edition release, which also includes a 24 page booklet, is now available for pre-order at sofasound.com.

The Lists

I’ve now completed the UK leg of my current touring. Over the seven shows I played eight-two different songs. (I think so, anyway – I note down what I’ve played from my set-lists after the event and of course I might go astray in the listings from time to time….)

This isn’t some kind of competition with myself though. As I’ve said before, the songs remain alive only as long as I’m still touring and presenting them. The recorded versions will always be there of course but, butterfly-like, they’re pinned down and certain, not flexible and mutating as are live renditions. I’ve been expanding the list of songs which in principle it’s possible for me to play over the years and the list now stands at over a hundred so I’m interested in doing as many of those as I can.

The assembly of sets is not an exact science – well, it’s not scientific in any way in fact. (With the exception of the one for QEH which, as I’ve written, had a very specific time-stamped element to the choice of material.) I’ll be influenced, of course, by what I’ve played or haven’t played on previous nights but I’m also looking to strike a balance between old and new, aggressive and calm, up-tempo and down, reflective and anticipatory. The piano/gtr splits also have to be taken into account and within  the guitar sets unusual tunings have to be taken into consideration as well. (Thankfully I’ve got significantly faster at going from one tuning to the next than used to be the case, but still it’s best not to have too many radical shifts one after another.)

Within all this there also has to be the consideration that most people in an audience are only going to see one show – so I’ve got a responsibility to have some like-for-like equivalence in quality, tone and balance one to the other.

And finally, of course, both out of interest, out of self-promotion and, indeed, in order to bed them in for future tours, it’s important to play some of the newest material rather than just The Hits (sic).

I don’t intend to make a habit of this but just this once I’ve decided to put up the list of what’s been played on this stretch of the tour. Songs in bold make their first appearance on the relevant night; in italics denotes a second showing and normal typeface a third. (There are only three of the latter, all songs from the new disc.) I hope the lists are correct but, well, you already know me for an unreliable narrator!

Only a few days now until the shows in Germany, where I’ll be playing two entirely different sets over the two nights in each city. I shan’t be consulting what I’ve played in the UK, so it’s unlikely that any sets will be repeats of these. And of course there are tunes which I haven’t yet played so I might sneak some of those in as well. In any event, I hope the concerts will be full of That Liveness, That Right Here and Now.

Yes, onward!

QEH, London, 20/4/18

Don’t Tell Me
Just Good Friends
Friday Afternoon
Faculty X
Time to Burn
I will Find You
Stumbled
Torpor
Like Veronica
Driven
La Rossa
The Lie
Bubble
Your Tall Ship
That Wasn’t What I Said
The Descent
Refugees

Modern

Oran Mor, Glasgow, 24/4/18

Siren Song
Losing Faith in Words
Anagnorisis
After the Show
Time Heals
Amnesiac
Shingle Song
Charm Alone
Sitting Targets
If I Could
Time for a Change
Last Frame
Unrehearsed
Reputation
His Best Girl
The Mercy
Stranger Still

Vision

Stoller Hall, Manchester, 25/4/18

My Room
Too Many of my Yesterdays
This Side of the Looking-Glass
Milked
The Mousetrap
The Habit of the Broken Heart
Slender Threads
My Unintended
Yoga
Happy Hour
Primo on the Parapet
Nothing Comes
Undone
Shell
A Way Out
Traintime

A Better Time

St. Luke’s Church, Brighton 1, 27/4/18

Easy to Slip Away
The Unconscious Life
Autumn
Bravest Face
Anagnorisis
The Comet, the Course, the Tail
The Birds
The Second Hand
Ophelia
Something about Ysabel’s dance
Driven
Modern
Four Pails
Milked
Gone Ahead
Mirror Images
In the End

House with no Door

St. Luke’s Church, Brighton 2, 28/4/18

Don’t Tell me
Just Good Friends
Curtains
Confidence
Tenderness
Comfortable
Shingle Song
Torpor
The Sphinx in the Face
Central Hotel
Patient
Sleep Now
Bubble
Time to Burn
The Descent
Still Life

Stranger Still

The Lantern, Bristol 29/4/18

Siren Song
Time Heals
Shell
Anagnorisis
Losing Faith in Words
The Habit of the Broken Heart
What’s it Worth?
(On Tuesdays she used to do) Yoga
Amnesiac
Been Alone so Long
Primo on the parapet
Labour of Love
Unrehearsed
His Best Girl
Milked
The Mercy
Traintime

Afterwards

The Junction, Cambridge, 30/4/18

My Room
Easy to Slip Away
Too Many of my Yesterdays
Reputation
The Unconscious Life
The Comet, the Course, the Tail
Our Eyes Give It Shape
Once You Called Me
Skin
The Birds
Patient
Faculty X
Friday Afternoon
That Wasn’t What I said
The Descent
A Way Out
A Better Time

Refugees

Back on track

It’s time for a few notes about the patch of touring on which I’m currently engaged – rapidly approaching a third of the way through it.

My passage through the Lowlands in March was not uneventful. By the time I reached Amsterdam a bout of Flu had already begun to take a grip on me. The show there was tough but the (well accustomed) medicine of Onstage pulled me through.

Alphen, the next day, was another matter entirely. I was by then really quite ill but…the show’s the show, the reason for my being in any given place on any given day. I have to say this was one of the hardest shows I’ve ever done. From the very first note I thought to myself “I’m not going to be able to get through this….”

Still, note by note, verse by verse, song by song I managed to pull my way through the set. I have absolutely no idea as to the quality – or lack thereof – of the performance.

I held myself together long enough to get home at least. Once here I went into full-on bedridden, delirium-raddled mode for a full twelve days. A salutary lesson: the spirit may be willing but the flesh is…not quite as youthful and resilient as of yore.

I was just about back to normal by the start of the week in which I was due to go to Sweden. And indeed – with judicious conservation of energy – I was completely up for the travel (always and now more than ever a wearing factor) and the concerts. The show, in other words, is now back on the road.

In less than a week I’ll be at the Queen Elizabeth Hall once more; I’m lucky enough to be one of the first artists to play there since its recent refurbishment. Of all the venues in the world QEH is the one at which I’ve presented shows in the most wide variety of line-ups. Obviously I’ve been there solo and in duos but there have also been full band shows (from chamber versions to full-on blasts, even including didgeridoo) and wild events such as my duo improv with Guy at the time of “Spur of the Moment”. I even made one of my rare forays as guitarist for hire there in one of David Thomas’s shows.

For this concert I’ve got the intention – for now at least – of playing a fully retrospective selection of songs. That’s to say, in my 50th year of being a performer, one song from every three years (or so, it’s an inexact science) of recordings. I *won’t* be doing them chronologically and perhaps it won’t even be that obvious that this is such a specific set compared with “normal” ones. But this makes a certain sense to me at least. Now I just have to come up with a coherent selection and running order!

One important point about the QEH: it’s a very early show – doors open at 19.00 and I’m meant to be on stage at 19.35. So get there in good time!

For the following shows it’ll be back to the normal, somewhat random, set selection. Usually the choices are made in the afternoon before soundcheck – to give me time to go over any particularly challenging pieces. I’m currently working from a list of over a hundred songs so inevitably there’s an element of unpredictability in what will be played on any given night. Usually, though, there’ll be a balanced mix of the ruminative and the aggressive, the ancient and the modern, the familiar and the challenging. Naturally, if I’m in the same place for two nights (Brighton, Nuremberg, Dortmund, Berlin) there’ll be no repeated pieces over the stay.

Here we are, then. I’m graced that I’m still able to present these songs. I’m in pretty good form, though I say so myself. If you’re at all interested in seeing how this aged trouper is doing on stage these days, get on down to one of the shows. Who knows when the next ones will be?

Of course, a list of upcoming dates is at http://www.sofasound.com/touring.htm

From the Trees

At long last the latest solo album is now finished and ready for release. It’s titled “From the Trees” and will be out – on Fie! as ever – on November 3rd.

I’ve played and sung all the parts on the disc, as so often of late. There are ten songs, all at the short end of things and probably as close to conventional song structure as I get. I have, of course, already played quite a few of these live.

I’ll write more about this closer to the release date but for now I can say that the CD is up for pre-order at sofasound.com here: http://bit.ly/2xf12Ot. It’ll also be out on vinyl and you can order from Burning Shed here: http://bit.ly/2w6RPrs.

Oh,(as I emerge once again, blinking, into the light) I’ll also be doing a few solo shows in October and November, in Japan and Italy (plus one in Sweden). Again, you can find details at Sofasound.

Yes, I’m still here, I’m still going…on!

Here comes everything

As of today – at long last – the latest set of  VdGG recordings, collectively titled “Do Not Disturb” is released. It’s been a long wait but, we believe, well worth it.

We’d begun discussing the project back in April 2015 and from the very earliest stages were aware that this would possibly be the last album we’d make. At this point I’ll stick in the heavy caveat that I am not, we are not, saying that this is definitively the last…it would be a bit ridiculous to make such a statement right now. However, it won’t have escaped your attention that we’re all of, ahem, somewhat advanced years now. Happily, we’re all still in reasonable condition mentally and physically and long may that continue. But we’re aware that time is marching on and, of course, that heading into making an album remains a pretty major undertaking for us.

It’s not something which had really been on our radar before – except, of course, for the fact that the original reunion in 2004 was spurred on by the demise of a few of our road crew, which we took as Time wagging its finger at us in a certain way. Anyway, for whatever reason, the consciousness was there from the off this time.

And of course the area on which this immediately impacted was the writing of the songs. As I began working on this – a protracted process this time – it seemed to me that as well as addressing where we now stand there was some necessity to trace the paths we’d taken in reaching this point. So, without being entirely autobiographical exercises, there are at least a couple of songs here which have some historical reference points. Naturally, there’s a degree of stylisation, even of reinvention and re-imagining going on – these are works of fiction, of course – but some of our common life experiences have definitely gone in here.

I won’t over-elaborate and I don’t mean to say that the entire album is meant to be taken as some valedictory exercise. It remains an album we needed to make precisely because we do currently feel that we’re in the now and with stuff to do in the now…rather than one where we’re (reluctantly or not) signing off.

The writing for the album took a number of months and a greater than normal level of mutual consultation. At an early stage I’d asked HB and Brain if there was anything they thought I ought be covering lyrically and a couple of ideas came through there. I also sent them regular CDs of work in  progress; these weren’t exactly demo versions but they did show the basics of the proposed material.

Every time we’ve made a record (actually, any time we’ve undertaken any activity) in this current incarnation of the group we’ve tried to do something different. In this case we made the decision to fully rehearse the songs before doing any recording. It’s probably the first time we’ve ever done this. Obviously, back in the days of “Godbluff” in particular we were fully rehearsed before entering the studio but this had been with the intention and actuality of playing the songs in live ahead of time. (That’s not really an option any more  since any new material would be sure to be out there on t’interweb approximately ten minutes after coming off stage….)

We worked at Stage 2 Studios in Bath, a far cry from luxury residential complexes but absolutely ideal for our purposes, heads down without distraction. We spent a full week working through the material and the fact that we weren’t diving straight into record mode meant that we were able to explore a couple of different approaches to various sections.  Then we headed off in our different directions for a week of consideration and private practice; some of this stuff was quite complicated enough for us to need some quiet time alone with the riffs…. There were also quite a few email exchanges along the lines of “I *think* it’s meant to be like this”.

Then we returned for the sessions themselves. HB told us that he’d never come to recordings with quite so many written notes. So…we knew, in principle, what we were meant to be doing. The songs – or their component parts – stretched our capacities as a trio as never before. Some elements, deceptively simple, required fully empathetic playing; in other places fiendish non-repetitions and slippery time signatures kept us on our toes. As ever, we had a number of different instrumental combos to get through…some of them new even to a our long-standing trio.

Quickly, it seemed, we were done with stage one, the backing tracks.

A couple of months work awaited us. First the elements of the songs had to be stitched together in multitrack form. Most pieces consisted of wildly different parts and, rather in the fashion of “H to He” or “Pawn Hearts”, would only make sense when actually connected together. In the 70s this would have been after the mixing stage but now we could make masters that run all the way through. Thus overdubs could take place over junctions, making the structure appear, we hoped, seamless.

All of this was as planned but it still took a degree of knitting to make sure that everything worked and that all the correct takes were used (!). Once done, each of us had the comploete set of sessions in our respective studios and set about the overdubbing – or, in my case singing & dubbing – part of the work. It took a while, as I’ve said. Guy was particularly pleased that this time he was able to apply his own overdubs only once it had become clear exactly what HB and I were up to – a luxury/burden that hadn’t really been available to him on previous outings.

(I should say at this stage that a couple of bits were overdubbed onto pre-prepared pieces of music, rather than things we’d done in the studio in Bath. And, most significantly, HB came forward with a completely new piece, “Shikata Ga Nai”, at a comparatively late stage in proceedings. It’s perhaps significant that we all felt that both this and the (similarly un-band-like) “Go”, fitted perfectly well into the sound world we were creating.)

This time the mixing process was down to us. I did the bulk of the setting-up and the passes, informed/spoken sternly to at all stages by the others. Gradually we approached the finishing tape, mostly happy with most things; a final couple of days were spent all together in the same room making absolute and final adjustments. There, done.

It’ll be with you (if you’re so interested) imminently, so I won’t go into any further descriptions now. I will say, though, that I believe it’s the best work that we’ve done in the modern era of the group.

******

The years of the K Group are now, or will be soon, coming under the spotlight. The TV performance by the band in Hamburg for Rockpalast has (finally) been released on DVD and is already out there. Coming soon will be vinyl re-releases of the studio albums which date from the K Group era: “Enter k” and “Patience”. Other stuff will follow in 2017.

For those who don’t know, the K Group was – more or less – a beat group in which I played gtr and pno and sang. The other members were Brain on drums, Nic Mozart bass and John “Fury” Ellis on lead guitar. It’s good fun and, of course, has very serious moments as well.

******

Here come the ads:

Both “Do not Disturb” and the Rockpalast show are available from http://www.sofasound.com

They can also be had at http://www.burningshed.com. Burning Shed are also now taking advance orders for the vinyl re-issues; sofasound won’t be selling these.

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