That rinky-tinky sound.
Me as action figure
It had to happen eventually. Sally Grosart has rendered me as a cardboard figure (in my guise as Martin the Soundman from Answer me This! podcast). You can download the pattern from her photostream. Enjoy!
There’s a great deal going on at SOTL towers as we prepare for the AMT!P show at iTunes live, and Latitude with Robin Ince. They’ll be a new podcast this week too. Phew! What a lot of goings-on.
I spent my Friday at the fascinating Scaledown Night in Fitzrovia yesterday, mainly with the aim of seeing the first (and potentially only) unplugged set by instrumental rockers Limn (pictured above). The concept of the night, which celebrates its fifth birthday next month, is to get “scaled down” sets from existing bands and performers. Everyone gets 15 minutes each, and in the case of limn had to scale down their usual twin guitar/bass/drums assault to a couple of acoustics, a bass, some drum machines and a stylophone. The night was impressively diverse, with some incredible John Fahey-esque solo acoustic guitar from Spoono (which was brilliant) to the improvisational work of Trip-tik, which was less my cup of tea. I think the eclecticism of the night is an incredible strength, and certainly for people who want to be surprised by new music, it’s perfect. It’s in London’s Fitzrovia, above a pub called the King and Queen. Check out their website for more details.
The new Sound of The Ladies Lounge is up (finally) at vimeo (below) and YouTube. It features “We went to the bottom of the ocean” – weirdly, a “canonical” Sound of the Ladies with a science-y element. I’ve always kept the two separate in the past because I’ve always thought the two accomplish separate things. This latest is a strange hybrid. It’s based upon a grain of truth – but that grain of truth is more complex and less interesting and better IP protected than this song, so you’ll have to guess where that comes from. But the science is really a jumping-off point for this slightly baroque tale of ambitious sailors meeting their demise mining for the chemical which makes viagra. I rather like it – tell me what you think.
The Sound of The Ladies Lounge 3 from martin austwick on Vimeo. You can also get this on YouTube.
Gavin Osborn also appears in this episode, playing the heartbreaking “Hello, my name is Charlie”, which has slightly obsessed me in the many evenings it’s taken to edit these videos. There’s an amazing true story behind this, but I don’t think I’m allowed to tell it… maybe Gavs will crop up and relate it at some stage. I’m sorry I have to be so secretive, the theme for this episode seems to be “there’s an amazing story behind this which I cannot possibly tell you..”.
There’s quite a lot of exciting stuff going on with iTunes, Latitude festival and all that, but I’ll tell you all about that later… until then, please share the video with your homes and give me a shout if you enjoy it.
The Sound of the Ladies will be rocking out in their own inimitable fashion at The Sapphire Lounge in Victoria on Wednesday – rockabilly chum J D Smith features on a bill of top-notch acoustica* at a this FREE gig (did I mention FREE?) at a super-convenient, super-central location:
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=The%20Sapphire%20Lounge,%20London…
and you can see some of the excellent musicians who’ve played, and find out more about the night here:
http://www.myspace.com/hiddenawaymusic
See you there!
*not a real word
Hello again – I’ve uploaded the main riff of Worse - which I think is the hardest bit – in tab form. As I should have said before, where the staff notation has xs, that’s a percussion thwump sound and it doesn’t matter what you do with your left hand. As long as it’s mute-y. Tell me how you get on and spot any (ahem) deliberate mistakes I may have made.
Slightly old news now, but I did a lovely gig on Sunday at the Brixton Windmill with rockabilly dude J D Smith – who you can see, uh, rockabillying out above. Not windmilling, sadly. In other news, the Answer Me This! Podcast has been confirmed for the iTunes Live festival (supporting hot-to-trot poptot La Roux) ,which is rather exciting. It also means I’ll be writing a bunch of new music for our show, which will be recorded live as the 100th episode of Answer me This!. 100 episodes. Wow. Click on the iTunes link for more info and to find out how to get tickets.
Phew; this has taken me literally all day. In response to people who wanted to know how to play “The Clouds at the Top of the Sky”, I’ve made a pretty average fist at tabbing it. Bear in mind that I don’t read music or play piano (how Logic scores) and all of those little squiggles are a mystery to me. It’s pretty much there; the faster rhythms have a sort of a triplet feel which I’ve totally failed to capture, but you can use your ears. I’ve reprinted the lyrics below too. Enjoy!
Any other exciting news has been completely eclipsed by this monumental task… who knew these songs were so hard to transcribe?
The Clouds at the Top of The Sky (guitar tab)
They clustered ’round in fours
Hands full of mud and straw
Pushing it together
To make those great big walls
An armful of sand
Slips upon the table
And your skin is rough and broken so a little blood will fall
A little blood will fall
A little blood will fall into the bricks
Lord you know I’m right
I’ll be tickling your chin
Close enough to see what you look like
“Give up your foolish dream”
That’s what my father said
I told him I’m the builder
I am not the architect
I am not the architect
I am not the architect
In the middle of the night, sometimes
I’m thrust rudely into awareness
A tall, gray doorway opens to the stars
At the foot of my bed
I’m afraid to catch my head
On the clouds at the top of the sky
People are so malleable
When you know the power of words
“Malleus” is “hammer”
So that’s how I get heard
Maria’s girl fell down, and I don’t think she’s getting up
She only made two feet today
Do you think that it’s enough?
Do you think that it’s enough?
Do you think that it’s enough?
Do you think?
Don’t you want to scrape the paint on the globe that spans the sky?
Don’t you want to see what lies beyond before you die?
I can only grieve for the hopes that lie as dead
I am not the author, friends, these are just the words I read
These are just the words I read
These are just the words I read
These are just the words I read
In the middle of the night, sometimes
I’m thrust rudely into awareness
A tall, gray doorway opens to the stars
At the foot of my bed
I’m afraid to catch my head
On the clouds at the top of the sky
On the clouds at the top of the sky
There’s a brand new Sound of The Ladies EP out! Woo woo! And perhaps even more excitingly, it’s free to you, my voice in the wide world of music-lovers. Click through to the music section where you can sign up to the mailing list and, in doing so, henceforth hear my dulcet tones echoing around your cavernous dreams. Enjoy.
We recorded the second Sound of The Ladies Lounge on Sunday here in Crystal Palace – here’s me rocking out and looking soulful… Samantha Whates and Gavin Osborn were as brilliant as I’ve come to expect.
Gavin was performing songs from his new album, including his brand new single “Hello, My Name is Charlie”, which I would warmly encourage you to check out. So much to pick from for the videos. You lucky, lucky people.
Sam was doing some new material as well as some of her old favourites from the days when we’d hang out at The Slaughtered Lamb… ah, such simple times. It’s always a pleasure to hear one of the best singers on the circuit do her thing. And so much complexity and subtlety to her new tracks. What a treat.
David Bailey going for "Blue Steel"
Matt Kebbell sadly wasn’t able to make it - so the surprise turn came from the sublime David Bailey from The Title Sequence, performing their songs with naught but a classical guitar. The encore was an acoustic version of Kraftwerk’s “The Model” and stole the show with some excellent beatboxing*. You will probably be seeing them ALL OVER the shop because they’re bloody good.
And then we all went to Crystal Palace Park to watch the sun set over the dinosaurs. Thanks once again to Matt, Saul, Nathan, Will and Helen for making it all happen.
*if you hadn’t guessed, by me
From about 8pm on Saturday May 16th, I’ll be liveblogging the Eurovision Song Contest with a star-studded panel including Helen Zaltzman from Answer Me This! and Matthew Crosby from Pappy’s Fun Club. Watch this space!
