pre-Equinox Drone, Oblique House

Henry - percussion
Keith - electric guitar and percussion
Mick - acoustic bass guitar
Simon - laptop
Brian - percussion
John - acoustic guitar, bouzouki, whistles, vocals, percussion, mbira
me - saz, percussion


Keith, Simon, Henry, Brian, Mick
My last Children of the Drone session before heading off to New Zealand on Sunday. The autumn equinox is actually around 4a.m. on Sunday, apparently, when I'll be in mid-flight somewhere not far from the equator (where it's always the equinox), I reckon.

This was one of the most enjoyable sessions I can remember, with everyone seemingly in an excelllent mood. Simon's laptop weirdness always stirs things up and, on this occasion, propelled us into full-on boundary-dissolving mode. Unusually, we did something partly premeditated, which was basically Mick trying out a couple of dub basslines (my suggestion). Our attempts at dub quickly morphed into other musical territory. Very inspiring though. Mick's got another COTD, satellite in the pipeline - an improvisational dub band called "Dub Magnitude". We were hoping to try this out before I went away for five weeks, but it wasn't to be.

John's playing was particularly fluid, he and I getting into some really nice counterpoint and weird cross-rhythms. Brian stuck to percussion (even though there was a keyboard present) which allowed Henry's drumming to really shine. I spent quite a while after everyone had left sitting outside by the little pond Vicky made, feeling really quite blessed to be musically involved with these people.

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Dorset barndance - Red Dog Green Dog and Primaeval

Same kind of thing as last year, except Joel was able to make it and play hurdy-gurdy with Red Dog Green Dog. I recorded almost all of their (3+ hour) set on MiniDisc from a less-than-optimally positioned microphone (directly behind them), but it sounds alright to me:

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The set from Primaeval (currently Cliff Stapleton - gurdy, Jonathan Shoreland - pipes, Sunny Davidson - guitar) was also excellent. As usual, I lurked in a corner rather than getting into the (traditional) dancing. Nice to see so many people enjoying themselves, though.


RDGD, splattered and weirdly colourised
And the incomparable Jon E. Aris gave me a copy of a CD Stevie P has compiled of all Jon's recordings from over the years...varying styles, line-ups, sound qualities, degrees of ridiculousness, but great to hear. It's called Moor. He gave me his blessing to put it in the public domain, so I have:

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The morning after the dance, I got a chance to try out Joel's Trace Elliot acoustic amp connected to a car battery in the camping field - a joy to hear my saz amplified so nicely. Sam, sitting nearby, made some vague allusion to Ross Daly, which was incredibly flattering. Now I can't decide if I want to get one of those or a Marshall AS50R. Andy Bard stopped by with his mandolin for a lovely little jam (unrecorded) before I headed off on my bike.

COTD returns to St Stephens

The first Children of the Drone session at St. Stephens church since we took the summer off took place last night. Nice. Unfortunately, the rather excellent (of course) last piece of the first set didn't get recorded, and the second MiniDisc (whole second set) got wiped just as I was switching the device off, but fortunately I have a contact in Sweden who can recover such corrupted discs.

Richard - electric bass guitar, percussion
Keith - electric guitar, percussion
James T - piano, percussion, water, submerged gong, poetry
John - acoustic guitar, acoustic bass guitar, bouzouki, mandolin, voice, percussion
Vaughan - acoustic guitar, mandolin, bouzouki, voice, noseflute, percussion
Brian - keyboard, percussion
me - saz, balalaika, percussion

plus
Chris - acoustic bass guitar


James, Richard, Vaughan, John
This is a different Chris to the one who's been playing bass with us in recent weeks. This Chris once shouted out "Is that a saz?" to me as I cycled past him in Powderham Crescent with my saz (encased) on my back, late for a rehearsal, he pulling a trolley with guitar and amp thereupon. I shouted back "Yeah, well spotted!" in the friendliest voice I could, but felt a bit bad about not stopping for a chat, thinking this was probably an interesting local musician I should meet. It turns out he knows Keith. He stopped in to listen for the end of the first set, played some bass on one piece in the second.

Listen Here
When I got home, I listened to a bit of Radio 3's Late Junction with Vicky. A fantasy by Dowland (I didn't realise the extent to which improvisation is involved in these), something new (!) from Mary Margaret O'Hara - a suitably weird vocal interpretatation of a maritime-themed folksong from a compilation album of maritime-themed folksongs - I've wondered what she's been up to every now and again since I got her first and only album in 1988, and the wonderful "River Man" from Nick Drake. Lovely...

another Saturday at Henry's

A lovely informal jam round at Henry's last Saturday afternoon. Richard was just back from S. Africa and Mozambique, and hadn't played for ages, so Henry thought we'd just play some freeform stuff, rather than working on any 'Pulse' material. I really wish I'd recorded it now:

Henry - percussion
Richard - electric bass guitar
Mick - electric guitar
me - saz