26/10/2008 by Andrew Smith.

I’ve been neglecting this blog in recent months, since I moved my clinical research blogging over to http://crfocus.wordpress.com, so I thought I’d revive it with a post about two wonderful musical experiences I’ve had this week…

Firstly, on Thursday night I saw the wonderful Mike Keneally play his entire “UK Tour 2008″… a single gig at Riff’s Bar near Swindon, near the end of a few weeks’ vacation in the UK. The gig was set up by XTC guitarist and longtime Keneally friend Dave Gregory, who lent Mike his gear (including a beautiful Matchless amp, an SG and a Martin acoustic) and also joined in on a few numbers. There were probably only 100 or so people in the place, but the venue is so “intimate” that for much of the gig I couldn’t see very much through the throng of people. But the music… Mike played for around 2 and a half hours without a break, starting on acoustic, then some keyboard, and rounding off with a goodly chunk of electric. Plenty of the material was planned, but he also took requests, including a stunning cover of Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android” and the requisite encore of “Inca Roads”. Quite apart from his superb musicianship, what struck me was his ability to sing his emotive songs while playing complex rhythm parts and throwing in lead fills. He also threw out some intricate lines with uncanny precision, given the speed, abandon and evident with which he was playing. Memories of the setlist are being collated over on Usenet (link here) and a few videos are being uploaded to YouTube, including my very shaking clip of Rosemary Girl as the final encore (link here). A stunning night, which will keep me going until Mike’s European Tour of 2009, which hope will bring a full band to the UK…

All of which meant that the other guitar highlight of the week has paled into relative insignificance: an hour of Jeff Beck filmed at Ronnie Scott’s over the summer that was broadcast on BBC4 on Friday night!

From the ridiculous (ridiculously talented, I mean) to the sublime…

The other musical highlight of my week was the first rehearsal for a Christmas tableaux concert, organised by our friend Pippa Eden. We had the first rehearsal yesterday afternoon, with 12-voice choir (I think we were missing a few…) running through some beautiful sacred music (including Rutter, and some others that I really should have known!) at St Mary’s Church, White Waltham. Jess sang soprano (of course) and I sang bass (strangely, we had a full complement of tenors!) and the boys ran around, being looked after by the assorted helpers, coordinators, tableau performers and older children. Everyone had a marvellous time, and we made some beautiful music… that will be even more beautiful when some of us (ie, me!) get beyond sight-reading… More in a future post (now there’s a committment…)

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22/02/2008 by Andrew Smith.

Nearing the end of my run in Salad Days, I’m wondering how close I should be to my character, Lord Nigel Danvers. He’s a likeable upper-class twit, or maybe just a bit too enthusiastic and keen to please, and certainly anachronistic, probably even then, but definitely now!

But my best performances have always enabled me to magnify an aspect of my own character, and this is one of those; but I felt amazingly comfortable putting on a Harris tweed jacket, and loved buying fresh carnations for my buttonhole. I mean! I’m a child of the 70s, so how much of a post-Edwardian throwback can I reasonably be?

I suppose I just need to get some distance after the show, listen to some electronica and get with the times… that is, until my next trip back to the 50s for West Side Story!

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19/02/2008 by Andrew Smith.

In just a few hours, I’ll be “treading the boards” in Maidenhead, in the opening performance of the Grimm Players’ production of Salad Days. Lord Nigel Danvers is somewhere between Boris Johnson, Arthur Dent and Giles Wemmbley-Hogg, but in an endearing way. I’m glad he ends up with someone for the finale

The process of “finding” the character has been a bit illuminating… from “saying the lines” to “moving as directed” was fine, but it’s only been in the past few days that I’ve been able to trace a line through the character and do things even when I’m a) not speaking and b) not really the focus of any attention. I hope that someone notices (even if it’s only the other people on the stage…)

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09/02/2008 by Andrew Smith.

As I write this, I’m half way through a run of Honk! with CAST Academy, a children’s theatre group based in Colnbrook (officially part of Slough, but I doubt the residents would agree with that!) Honk! is a bit of a special show for my family; Jessica and I played the lead roles in a Grimm Players production 5 years ago, and about a month into rehearsals we discovered that Jessica was pregnant with Thomas, our first child. So, the whole plot about Ida (Jess) looking for her lost son (me) all got a bit emotional…

But back to this production… I’m playing guitar, alongside some excellent musicians (I’m particularly impressed with the bass player, who I haven’t played with previously). I know the show inside-out, but was totally unprepared for the ridiculous key signatures that turned up in the score: everything from 5 sharps to 6 flats. There are also plenty of “stretchy” jazz voicings (most of which seem to have a major 2nd in the middle… which is fine on a piano, but VERY tough on a guitar) which seemed virtually impossible at first, but are now only impractical! This is exacerbated by the problems of monitoring, timing and coordination between cast and band that are standard to any amateur production. My performance last night was the first one that I really felt deserved to be seen by paying customers, and we’ve got two more shows today, to polish off the remaining rough edges.

In case any guitarists end up reading this, I’m playing my Variax 300, with J-200 (jumbo acoustic), Super 400 (jazz box), Les Paul Custom, Strat and Tele models saved to a custom bank, and switching to a Guild F212 (12-string acoustic) for one song. That goes into my Digitech GNX3, with a DI into the sound desk and headphones for personal monitoring (I want to hear more guitar than anyone else does!). I also used a slide for a couple of sections in the Cat’s songs, which made the Music Director smile…

After this, my next booking is a complete change of direction: playing clarinet and tenor sax for West Side Story in Henley in April. Quite how they’re going to fit a 14-piece band (including tuned percussion) into the Kenton Theatre’s tiny pit is something I can’t even guess…

I think that my clarinet needs a service before this, so I need to pop it over to Dawkes for some TLC…

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08/09/2007 by Andrew Smith.

At my jazz quintet’s last rehearsal, I screwed up my courage and did something I hadn’t tried for about 20 years… going straight from my jazzbox (Ibanez AF105FNT) into my amp (… ’80s solid-state Marshall 1×12″ combo!) without any intervening pedals… not even my required volume pedal!

While I did it for speed, I hoped to be wowed by the purity of the sound compared to my extensively modelled selection of sounds out of my Digitech GNX3 all-singing all-dancing pedal board. In fact, it was… good enough. I realised that I could get away with most of the songs in our set (mostly “lounge jazz” sometimes veering into MOR) without changing guitars (I normally use my Variax to do some songs on a “strat” or a “335″).

We’ve got a gig this afternoon, and I don’t think I’ve got the guts to follow through and do the gig direct. The main reason is the much tighter, clearer bass response I seem to be able to get from a modelled 15″ cab going straight into the Marshall’s power stage. Maybe I just need to spend some more time on tweaking the EQ on the amp… but not before this afternoon…

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26/08/2007 by Andrew Smith.

… intended more as a short-term means-to-an-end than a replacement for my Takamine EG 523 SC “super-jumbo” acoustic guitar… but now I’m not sure.

Basically, on Friday night Jess and I went to the cinema in Maidenhead. In the window of Sheargolds we saw a lovely bright yellow half-size strat that would make an excellent Christmas present for Thomas. The deal in the shop was that if you bought any guitar in two mid-price Tanglewood model ranges, you could buy the strat for £10 rather than £100. So, yesterday morning I went back and spent half an hour playing a few, and walked out with the strat and a TW-145SC for £260. So, about £100 less than the Taka’s list price, but £50 more than I paid for it.

My intention was to sell the Tanglewood “as new” but having played it a little, I’m wondering if it’s better suited to my style of playing than the Takamine (at least, until I get an evening to put some lighter strings on the Taka…). It has less of a Wow-factor but sounds good without having to dig in so much (or maybe that’s just the strings…) I’ve left the tags on, and kept the box (no case) so I can decide which one to sell over the next week or two.

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