January 2010

MUSIC MAKER REVIEW

I recently did a review of the Chandler Lectraslide guitar for Music Maker magazine. Whilst pitched at slide guitarists it’s actually very versatile and in the article I promised to record some stuff and put it here on the blog. So here we are. You can catch Joe Bonamassa playing some great slide with one of these guitars if you go to Youtube and search for The River. So I ain’t playin’ no slide!!

There’s a PDF of the article here and an MP3. The MP3 is a library track in the style of Fleetwood Mac’s Albatross. We called ours Albadross.

(For anyone who doesn’t know, library music is what you hear on a lot of TV and radio programs, adverts, corporate events blah blah blah. People and organisations who need it buy it ‘off the shelf.’ A lot of pro musicians and composers will write a library track if there is no commission or project on the current table. For us it’s a punt and you never know when and where it might get used or how much money you might make. It can be a lot but invariably isn’t most of the time! You have no ides how much of this stuff there is in the world these days – it is big business, but because it is functional music, usually supporting film of some kind, it isn’t in the public domain. If you already know about library music, then hopefully you gave up on this paragraph in sentence one)

I am going to add some video footage of a couple of things to this post very shortly – first I have to get a few days break from London then pick up a camera!

CHANDLER LECTRASLIDE (PDF of the article)

Albadross mp3

December 2009

Goodbye year. So a bit of a roundup I guess…Well the end of last year I did one of the last ever gigs at the London Astoria with Jade Warrior. (I did all the guitars on their CD ‘Now’. ) Sadly that was the one and only gig. The CD got rave reviews and like most things in the current business went not a lot further! Check the links here to go to the site and hear some of the tunes. History repeating itself, it looks like I may be doing one of the last ever gigs at the similarly legendry Half Moon in London. There are efforts being made to save it and I suppose it is worth staying very hopeful and having zero expectations! I was also booked to play the Halo Bar which got award for bar of the year somewhere (Time Out?).  It closed it’s doors, a complete surprise to the promoters, the day before my gig. That is the state of things folks! Whaddya gonna do? Heads down and keep on truckin’ is my only current strategy!

I recently heard the final mixes of another CD I played on for Rwandan artist Dorothee Munyaneza. This project is the brainchild of Martin Russell, one of the producers of the Afro Celts. These mixes were done in surround sound, the first time I’ve ever heard my guitars in that system and it is a great way to listen…huge! You can check out a few tracks on Dorothee’s Myspace via the links. In the meantime here’s a track where I’m playing some acoustic and some ghostly sounds done with echo and a volume pedal.

Dorothee (Track 3)

Did some gigs with Mike Lindup and Phil Gould from Level 42 around London. What a great set of loyal fans those Level boys have got!

Richard from the Fake Lazy Supernovas has gallantly emabarked on a follow up album, which seems to have emerged in an enormous creative spurt. One day polished off the guitars on 6 tracks with the remainder to follow soon. Let’s hope Mr Fake has a lot of luck in 2010.

Well, lets hope we all do.

Music Maker Feature

Here is a feature article from the Summer edition of Music Maker. I even got the front cover!!!

So many thanks to Candi and all at Music Maker for that.

Click on the links  below – first one one is the article and the other is the review.

MM PAGE 16 – 17

cd review

Acoustic Magazine

Here’s an article from a summer edition of Acoustic Magazine. I guess I would have put it up before but it’s taken a while to get more on the case with this blog!

Click on the thumbnail to get full size.

September 2009

I’m attempting to get a bit more on the case with updating, it’s supposed to be good for google to get the site higher in the ratings.  But you know…….sometimes other things beckon!

I’ve been asked to do the Ivo festival again next year which is a good excuse to give you this link, which has a collage of photos next to me doing the old Canned Heat song ’On the Road Again.’ It seems to take an age to get going – I remember some monitoring issues!

#mce_temp_url# (http://www.tendafootmusiccorporation.com)

July 2009

Since the last post things have been good. A gig at the Ginglik in Shepherds Bush, London took the best part of  a week by the time rehearsals and home study were incorporated!

Phil Gould and Mike Lindup from Level 42 put the gig on mainly doing their material. D.C. Lee, formerly of the Style Council and artist in her own write did a 3 song set, the first gig for her in a long time. The girl is a trooper – still got the larynx and a great stage presence. Yolanda and Miles were both on the gig which made it for me. I got to do a short set of my own tunes as a warm up and the very loyal Level 42 fans gave a generous reception.

I also just got back from a festival gig in Sweden on the island of Ivo, which was brilliant. A very small but perfectly formed affair! A secret Swedish music critic in the audience dubbed it the coolest festival in Sweden and (he says bashfully) put yours truly as the highest quality act on the bill. Quotes to follow. The beat goes on

Welcome to the TS Blog

The point of this really is not to nag Paul, the site designer to death!  So anything new I can put it up myself.

On this blog you will find articles I have written on guitar tuition and maybe in time a few videos.

There will be press as it happens and news which I will endeavour to update regularly.

Please get in touch anytime and hopefully you will enjoy this bit of the site!