The spice of life

I have a few gigs and events coming up and as usual they are pretty varied. I can hold opposing views as to whether more focus or less focus is best. At the moment, I am just enjoying the stuff I have coming up – including:
 

The Eternal Drone

This Friday, in Worcester I will create an hour-long drone in St Martin’s Quarter. This will be an improvised piece composed of electronic, acoustic and environmental sounds. As part of the Clik Clik Collective Victorian Fair programming.
 

Funeral March

On Saturday, I will be joining Collective43 and Clik Clik Collective in Worcester for a funeral march. Something along these lines:

I feel very lucky to have found the likes of Collective43 and Clik Clik so close to where I live. That’s not always the case when you live out in the farther flung parts of our fair land. We are on the same page and definitely hope to do more together!
 

If Wet #20

On Sunday it’s the last of our If Wet events for 2014, in Callow End Village Hall. We have the wonderful Rosanne Robertson presenting her work and we will have a bit of a celebration of our second season too…before heading to the pub afterwards.

Rosanne Robertson

Here is a preview of the event.
 

DunningWebsterUnderwood début at Vortex Jazz

I am playing at Vortex Jazz for the first time on Tuesday the 2nd of December. I’ll be playing tuba in a new trio formed of myself, Graham Dunning (turntables and effects) and Colin Webster (bari sax). We have an album out next year, called Bleed and have some further recording planned for next Monday evening. Here is a taster:


 

Glatze at Capsule Xmas Cocktail

Lastly, I am looking forward to another Glatze gig this year at the Capsule Xmas Cocktail party on Saturday the 13th of December! I am delighted to be on such a great bill and I look forward to some fun-at-all-costs live music making!

Glatze

Master of none

I wanted to let people know about some gigs which are making me happy; one that I have played recently and two which are coming up…

ORE at Cafe OTO

On the 1st of February we played our first gig as ORE at Cafe OTO. This was the usual doomy, droney affair but with an extended line-up and sound, courtesy of Michelle Hickman on tenor horn, Olly Coates on cello and Will Cooper on great highland bagpipes.

This was our second outing with this line-up, which we really enjoy and is our second time of playing for the wonderful Full Of Noises crew. Very happy making indeed.
 
ORE
 

MrUnderwood and Kit Downes

On the 28th of February I am playing an improvised gig, as part of the London Contemporary Orchestra Soloists series, with Kit Downes on keyboard. The aim is for me to channel and process Kit’s playing, the sounds of some MortonUnderwood instruments and live environmental sounds. Our aim is to create a deep listening experience for those present.

This will be my first time playing for LCO and at Limewharf in London. Further details here. It is also a great pleasure to be playing with Kit for the first time.

LCO
 

Glatze is back!

Lastly, I’d like to highlight a gig I am doing partly for old times’ sake. On May the 27th I will support Melt Banana, for Capsule, at the Rainbow Warehouse in Birmingham. Further details here

This will be the usual bonkers live electronics from Glatze, and brings me particular joy as this was the first slot I ever did for Capsule, in 2009. Plus I am very much looking forward to dancing my tits off to Melt Banana; who are cracking live!

Glatze
 

Master of none

If you are wondering what the title of this blog is about, it refers to the broad variety of output this represents and that frankly it does make me a bit of a jack of all trades, and master of none. BUT I have come to understand that this is what makes me tick creatively. I admire virtuosity greatly but personally speaking I find keeping my output diverse and stimulating suits my personality and way of working better. Sometimes this makes me ponder whether greatness will ever be achieved but then I consider how fulfilled I am by such work and how pleased I am with the experiences I create for my audiences and all is well.

As ever, I reserve the right to change my mind on this…

Hope to see you out and about at one of these gigs!

Glatze, live and thrice live

Last weekend I played a thoroughly enjoyable gig at the Frog and Fiddle in Cheltenham. It wasn’t as well attended as I’d like but the room was ace, the sound system was storming and everyone who was there was there was lovely and seemed to really enjoy it! BINGO!

Having been concentrating on other things for a while I now find myself with three gigs in three weekends. Following on from Cheltenham I will be playing at the Dirty Bristow Fete this Saturday and the Whales EP launch party on the 5th of September. I’m really chuffed to have been asked (!) but I also have my concerns…

Apart from the usual nerves and self-doubts I am also a little worried about both gigs, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I worry that people who have heard my EP will expect me to sound like that. In fact I am billed as a “Romany Surf Step Supremo” by Bad Egg (see flyer below), which is cool / true but I only do one tune from my EP in my liveset. Secondly, I might be a bit of an odd act for the Dirty Bristow bill. I am particularly concerned what the Dirty Bristow lot are going to make of my raucous antics at 9:30pm…ho hum! Both of these might be non-issues and I will give it my all regardless but I just wanted to get these thoughts out in the open. Either way Glatze does what he does, so nehhhh!

Event flyers below (click each flyer for more info):