Jake Aaron

I saw Adult DVD at the tiny Shacklewell Arms in Dalston last night. 

They were my favourite band at The Green Man Festival last year.  I stumbled on their set with some friends on the Green Man Rising Stage.  The rising stage is in a field that rises in the middle and slopes down to the stage and if you are too far back you can only see the heads of the band. Two years ago I'd caught the heads of The Last Dinner Party who blew everyone away - a British goth pop rock band in the best English gothic tradition.

Last year, we only caught the last two or three songs of Adult DVD and a fantastic groove was thumping away. Thumping electronic dance seems the best thing to transmit across a festival field -  rock drums just seem to waft away forlornly in the wind.  They played their last track - I said to my mate I think they're singing Bill Murray. My mate said, no I think they're singing Don't Worry. I said I'm pretty sure it's Bill Murray. And maybe something about Tom Hanks. Why would they be singing Bill Murray? I don't know but it's about time there was a song about Bill Murray, and as good a reason as any. I spoke with one of the band last night and told him they were my favourite act at The Green Man Festival  

I remembered this morning that I bumped into Bill Murray once. I was at the bar, upstairs at Ronnie Scotts at least twenty years ago, when they used to play Salsa. The great doorman Moses, a legend in his time, occasionally let me in to see a bit of the main band downstairs. I was ordering my drink and turned to the guy who had just ordered his drink next to me. 'Twas Mr Murray. My jaw must have dropped. Mr Murray must have seen the reaction he gets a million times before, and he glid off through the crowd his whisky aloft.

Anyway here's Bill Murray by Adult DVD and tell me this isn't the best song ever written. 

I have a new single  It'll Be Alright out on October 10th.  It's the third single from a forthcoming album, and follows Watery Moon and Duel.

Thanks to Jeff Spitzer-Resnick at Hejira (WORT 89.9FM) and Rick Stuart at Roots and Fusion for the advance play. 

While digging through some old folders, I came across some of Anthony Macbain's early ideas for the "Always Seeking" album and thought it would be interesting to share a bit of how it took shape.

I was thrilled to get the chance to work with Anthony on the project. I first reached out back in 2017 and had to wait a long time - but luckily, we shared some similar tastes (including Bert Jansch and Iron Maiden), and it eventually came together.

We tried out a few other different versions along the way, but these versions give a good sense of the process.

In 2017 I was playing some ideas on guitar with the TV on. The TV show was “Feud”, a terrific drama exploring the infamous rivalry between Joan Crawford and Bette Davis set around the time of their 1962 psychological horror classic “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?”.

Some dialogue from the show seeped into the draft recording, which sparked the idea and set the mood for my new single “Duel”. I was thinking about oppositions, antagonists, two sides of the same coin and liked the way "dual" and "duel" seemed to bring that idea out.

I only saw one episode - Jessica Lange, Susan Sarandon and Alfred Molina were in it - and I've had a note for ages to watch the rest of the series!

Here's the original draft:-

Made my day to see "Watery Moon" included on the GemsOnVHS February Playlist.  I raved about GemsOnVHS a little while back here

GemsOnVHS playlist on Spotify
GemsOnVHS on YouTube
 

It's been about 10 years since I finished recording my first EP.  

It was a lo-fi affair mostly home recorded and in a studio in Camden Town by some railway arches where I had to stop recording when the trains rumbled by. I enjoyed the session there. The engineer was a good guy Philip Doyle, a psychobilly guitarist, and it was a shame when his studio closed. 

Raw as it is, and I wince sometimes when I hear it, the EP had some things I was happy with and it brought me some listeners and a few good reviews notably from Tim Carroll at FolkWords - sadly the site is no longer around and is much missed  -  and the noted Italian music journalist Giancarlo Susanna.

I was finding my way. One of the first steps around 2012 was finding someone who knew about recording and I enjoyed trekking out to Lewisham on the Docklands Light Railway to hang out with Noah Pollock, a friend of a friend who was a wizard with recording and helped record the EP. Appropriately Noah hung out at the time above Merlin's Cave (actually Merlin's Auction House pictured below).

There were 300 vinyls pressed,  if you would like a copy see here. 

Jamming in Merlin's Cave 2012
 

Noah in Merlin's Cave
 

In the studio in Camden Town

Limehouse from the Docklands Light Railway 2012ish

 Vinyl of 2015 EP.  The two drumsticks pictured on the insert are from Iron Maiden and Motley Crue, and the pictured “Mr T in Your Pocket” was genius. If you'd like a copy of the EP see here

June 6 2024 - Flying with a guitar is always a headache though less than being guitar-less on holiday. 

If I don't bring one, I usually regret it after a few days and end up looking for something to strum. The classical guitar I'm playing in a maze on the picture for “Elizabeth”, was one such case. I found it hiding in a cupboard at the rental property along with flip flops and Ludo. It was a machine made thing, bright orange with four dead strings. I drove an hour to Siena to get some strings.  The guitar was so orange I had to desaturate it in Photoshop for the single cover.  

I go through the same options when flying with a guitar:-

1. Check in the guitar in a hard case and hope it does not get hurled around by the baggage handlers. One downside is being lumbered with a hard case on your travels.

2. Book your flights with one of the very few remaining guitar friendly airlines (Easyjet mainly, well done Easyjet) who let you take guitars on board. It has to be in a thin soft guitar bag (less than 30 cm x 117 cm x 38 cm) so anything padded pushes it over the limit. Be prepared for aggro and stress at the gate sometimes - also when stowing it in one of the overhead lockers.  I've been caught unawares by a change in airline policy, and had a row at the gate with BA.

3. Buy a second seat, not really an option unless you're a professional Cellist.

4. Take a travel guitar. I have a Martin Travel Guitar but it's no fun at all, like playing an egg slicer and almost better not to bother at all.

On the last flight I just took, I had a brainwave. It seemed so obvious I wondered why I didn't do it before, which was to fly Easyjet and take my old, very beaten up classical guitar in a thin, soft bag on board. 

It has a better tone than the travel guitar and if there was any aggro at the gate I could dump it. If it got damaged by other passenger bags in the overhead lockers that didn't matter too much either.

The guitar was a Vincente Sanchis model 34, the second guitar I owned. The first was another Vincente Sanchis 34 which went AWOL. 

It had a livid split down one side (pictured) and the head had been snapped off by a hotel porter in Australia lugging suitcases. A Luthier glued the head back on and glued the livid split. It came apart again a few months later, so a second Luthier clamped it for a few weeks to straighten out the warped wood and then reglued it. He cleaned it up and humidified it but it was never the same again. 

I always thought my Vincente Sanchis sounded great although the guy in a guitar shop thought it was only so-so. He pointed out that guitarists often think their first guitar sounds great.

I felt vindicated however when the London Guitar Studio on Duke Street, who used to stock Vincente Sanchis, told me that * hearsay alert *  Julian Bream himself had bought one. Not for himself, but for a young relative and that Julian Bream had said words to the effect of "Hmmm not a bad bit of wood". That's good enough for me, I was right!

I've been in the studio recording. Hope to have some new stuff soon! Sign up for my newsletter to be the first to know.

Feb 27 - Renewing my membership of the Southbank Centre, and clicking under a long forgotten “Order History” I see 
 

Burt Bacharach
19:30, Sun 7 2013, 2 Standard Seats
Front Stalls, Row A, Seats 25,26

Very lucky to have seen the legend front row and hear his music live at The Royal Festival Hall.  I went with a friend who thought she didn't know any of his music. After the show she said she knew every single piece. As a bonus I got to shake his hand - I wouldn't have thought of doing it, but whilst he was chatting between songs about living in London when composing Alfie and frequenting one of my favourite London pubs, a woman from far back in the auditorium, like Row 50, marched right down the aisle between the seated audience to shake his hand. So I thought I've only got to stand up and do it, no excuse. One of my top 10 concerts surely. Below is a picture of the man, suitably glowing.
 

Feb 7 2024 - In 2019 when I was recording my first album at Kenny Jones' old studio, Alchemy, in Hornsey, I was rooting around a mountain of CDs and the inscriptions on them from some of the many artists Kenny has worked with. One, near the top, was by Jessica Irvine who'd recently recorded an album Horses there. Whenever I circle back to it I think it deserves way more listeners - listen to Horses on Spotify and I think you'll agree. She also performs a wonderful version of Beeswing by Richard Thompson somewhere, no mean feat.