The camera was set to manual focus and I tapped the AF/AE button on Steve’s face in the bright doorway which will explain why it’s a little overexposed. I’m not too fussed with the lighting as I was more interested in testing the audio on the Fujifilm X100‘s two small in camera mics. I thought a quick harmonica riff from Steve to be the perfect test.

I think it copes quite well considering I was up pretty close and the dynamics of the harmonica can be quite varied. Especially when in the hands of someone like Steve.

I had a great lesson with Steve who showed me so many ways I can improve my playing. All I have to do now is practice.

I discovered that Steve is also on twitter as @HarpTuition and hope he is re-enthused into using it as he has so much musical goodness to share.

He is also a top bloke. While in my lesson, I had left the lights on my bike and flattened the battery. Steve kindly nipped out and borrowed a battery booster to help me on my way.

I have a mic called the Green Bullet but it’s heavy and cumbersome and gets in the way of playing. Looking around online there are so many options. Some looked simple enough to hack together and so I was inspired to create my own harmonica microphone.

So after a trip to Maplin, I spent the evening building one.

The parts I used were a Mono Jack, a random piece of plastic tube (after I realized a drinks bottle was not going to work easily), a 10 kohm (Log) Potentiometer, some black and red wire, the cap off a WD40 can (drilled with holes), the smaller cap off a bottle of pop, a rubberized knob and a Dynamique microphone capsule.

All these parts came to less than £9.50 but of course you need some basic tools and a soldering iron.

My soldering skills are certainly not what they used to be but after a couple of hours I had it sussed.

The mic not only works, but it sounds great. I’m looking forward to getting re-inspired and playing a little more. Next week I am meeting with Steve Lockwood whom I am sure will show me some new tips and techniques.

Should anyone else what to make a mic like this, here is the wiring diagram..

And here is what it sounds like..

I’m @Documentally on twitter

A single composition playing for 1000 years. It started in 1999 and on the 12th of September I was invited by Artangel to blog about it live.
It was a great day. It was a long day. 1000 minutes of 1000 years.

You can find some Audioboo’s by myself and others tagged with Longplayer here and some of my Flickr images here.

Here is the Longplayer Posterous blog.

The Longplayer trust has been set up to keep it going. Click HERE if you feel you can help.

Thanks to @Encosion for letting me use the audio he captured on the day and for Artangel for helping the whole thing happen.

For the last five years there have been a handful of dedicated listening posts around the world – but on 12 September 2009 they’re attempting something completely new: a 1000 minute section performed live by a relay team of musicians in the aptly circular setting of the Roundhouse in North London. It will run from 8.20am that morning until 1am the next.

At the same time, elsewhere in the building a historic relay conversation will be taking place between 24 leading writers, filmmakers, scientists, academics and technology activists, inspired by the philosophical implications of long time. Participants include Jeanette Winterson, Cory Doctrow, Rachel Armstrong and Andrew Kotting.

Artangel, who initially commissioned Longplayer almost ten years ago, have asked me to  use social media to document the day live. This to me is an amazing concept in itself. How will the 1000 minutes of the 1000 years be remembered. Assuming the data survives who will be around to review any captured content? What will they think of the technology involved? How could i say no?

Fancy coming along?  Artangel have also kindly allowed me to give 20 tickets away to others willing to tweet, blog or just share the moment so please drop me a comment/email/tweet or call if you’d like to come along as well.

See www.longplayer.org for the official project website, and if you miss out on the free tickets you can still book discounted tickets direct from this link http://bit.ly/2EJDzJ (use the promo code ’144′ to get a third off the face value).

Here is a full list of the speakers attending the Longplayer live event.

Hope to see you there.

One of the first sounds I heard was needle on vinyl and my first memory was gazing out of the window of a Welsh farmhouse to see silhouettes dancing around a bonfire playing acoustic guitars and singing.

The day I was born Melanie was also celebrating her birthday and had already performed at the Isle of Wight Festival and at Glastonbury Fayre, before it was even called a festival.

I think it may have been the constant comparison to the singer Melanie that may have made my mother pick up the acoustic guitar. She was a big fan and although she didn’t have the greatest singing voice, it didn’t stop her joining in on all of Melanie’s songs word for word.

Last night my Brother and I took a trip into Leicester to a little venue called the Y Theatre to watch Melanie play. If my Mother, Liala was alive today, she would have been there too.

It’s a small intimate venue perfect for one woman with a guitar. As it happened she was also accompanied by her son, Beau Jarred Schekeryk, an incredibly competent guitarist himself.

Her Son opened with some fantastic gypsy style flamenco guitar. He certainly added something to the style and listening to him you would think he’d grown an extra two fingers on each hand.

He apologised for arriving jet lagged as they had just flown in from Korea. I didn’t notice. His  delivery was laid back and chatty, great guitar music.

After a little while Melanie herself came on in a flowing dress, a different lady to the album covers that decorated my childhood but the same incredible voice, uniquely hers with the power to reduce me to tears in a single song. A song that I love but that thankfully She left out of her set.

Two hours passed too quickly as old favorites once heard at classic moments in time like Woodstock were punctuated with new material that could have been written at the same time.

Too many artists grow out of the magic they encapsulated and evolve into tired crooners. This is one thing that amazed me more than anything else with Melanie. How could this rare surviver of the Summer Of Love still be writing truly great songs after 40 years in the music industry. These weren’t tired, rushed or trite. Her new material seemed written by the same passionate young girl of the 60′s, it’s just that now you believed she knew what she was singing about.

Two days ago I had been at the ‘Radio 1′s Big Weekend‘ and although a great day in the sun, I felt the music certainly lacked something. I felt the artists were delivering me a product. That none of them believed what they were saying. It was without soul. Some person, singing some song, about some thing.

Melanie’s music filled in all the gaps for me. She believed in these songs.. That she has written.. That she now was singing.. And i believed her.

I admit, this kind of heartfelt folk isn’t for everyone. Once it’s produced with accompaniment on an album you need to know the singer and their words to get the best out of it.

This kind of live performance though, should be seen by everyone. Just the bare bones of a singer/songwriter who has been there and done the work. An honest exposure of the soul through nothing but guitar and voice. With her Son by her side it had the intimacy of a family moment. Many of the people in the audience have known Melanie and her music since before I was born. I guess if you count my time in the womb, so have I.

I am sad that my Mother never lived long enough to see this gig, to see that it was still ok to be a ‘sincere hippy’.

As Melanie sang the song ‘I Tried To Die Young‘.. I was so glad she didn’t.

Melanie’s Homepage  Melanie in the Times  Melanie in the Independent

A petition to induct Melanie into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame

Tour dates

For most of Friday afternoon I had the pleasure of hanging out with the two awesome funksters Dr. Fun and The Gift.

They had imaginatively arranged for us to visit their local beer making establishment so as we could take some photos for their up and coming concept album and at the same time not be too far away from tens of thousands of pints of beer. (Probably more).

I have photographed these guys before and every time we meet we have a great laugh, always managing to bag a few decent shots in the limited time we have.

The Fullers Brewery (London’s last remaining traditional family brewer) was an amazing place of historical pipes and brass, leading us into a sci-fi setting of ceramic and chrome. They are obviously proud of their history and bent over backwards to see we had the freedom to take our photos unhindered. We worked our way through the factory, stopping to snap when we thought the setting inspired.

Our shoot wound up underground in a little private bar where, given a sleeping bag and a few pies, I could quite easily have spent a good few weeks sheltering from the outside world and saturating my body and mind with the various ales made on site and piped into this curious bar with no till and no way to take your money.

Paradise?

Even when my camera was back in the bag and we headed to the local (attached) pub for a debrief, our friendly guide saw that the round was free and we were to order what we wanted.

It’s just a shame i was riding the bike and had to maintain some form of sobriety as otherwise I would have had to stay and help the guys with their debrief lubrication.

Besides.. I had had more than enough motoring action earlier in the day to risk any more altercations with angsty London road users.

Thanks Talc for a great days photography and thanks to Fullers for not only letting us take photos but for going all out to make us feel as welcome as we possibly could.

Talc’s new album ‘Licensed Premises Lifestyle’ is due for release in July and will be touring Japan in September.

..for more information on the band check out www.TalcOnline.com (soon to be updated).

And here is the band talking and moving..

I have two rates normally, one for mates and unsigned bands (unless i am doing a trade for trade kind of deal) and then a more corporate rate for the big guns.

This may sound weird but musicians are always skint.. and i love the work, so it seems only right that if i can be flexible and it helps a band out on their way up.. then so be it.

You never know, they may just remember me for it too.

It’s only recently i have started to put my photos up on Flickr. This has been a help and a hinderance as i am inundated with people asking for copies of my photos for one reason or another. This would not be so bad if they were paying clients. But they are not. Everyone seems to think if you have pix on flickr you are a hobby snapper and that you would be more than happy with a little flattery and perhaps a link on some site as payment.

They don’t see the week spent in the mud, or the top spec camera broken through some fan throwing a beer, or the temporary loss of hearing, or he cost of a ticket (even with a photo pass at places like Glastonbury).

Yes music photography is fun and i really enjoy the adventure leading up to grabbing a selection of shots of a band that i either like or maybe even love.  But it would still be nice to get some kind of financial payback without churning out one of the thousands of yearly books or calenders that flood our bargain book shops.

Right that said. I am just about to upload a few pix of Lisa Hannigan (of Damien Rice fame) as some guy on a island somwhere has a music agency and would really really like to have one of my pictures on my wall.

Take a peek at my flickr music section by clicking HERE

I think i will ask for a donation..

This was an impromptu get together of a few friends in an attic room in Rugby town UK. Everything was ad-libbed with only a bottle of wine for lyrical inspiration.

The musical attendees were…

Nathan Thomas on bass, Ed Hipkins on drums Georgi Griffiths on guitar, myself on Harmonica, didgeridoo and vocals and some guest keyboard from Jon Bains.

The songs made it no further than a green minidisc labeled with the track list:

Dr Jam ~ Jazzbreak ~ Mad Song ~ Georgi’s Son ~ Stoned In The Park ~ Suite Of The Day ~ Stan Jam

I lost my copy shortly after so this morning when i received this link: http://gboyjam.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html from Georgi I was transported right back ten years to that fateful day where we broke the rules and with no holds barred played what came naturally.

I am so glad the tunes live on and now they have been uploaded within easy reach of the world they have been reborn bigger than ever.

I would never have anticipated back then.. sat on my friends carpet, in a spare room decorated with kid’s wall paper that the songs would even have survived the recording process let alone now being disseminated to the world.

If you like any, please feel free to download and pass around.. Just credit the legendary P-Funk and the Funky Monkey’s.

Here is a random collection of moments from this years Larmer Tree Festival. I left out all the typical shots of the big name bands from the Jazz, world, and folk music scenes and instead wanted to give you a glimpse of the people and sites surrounding the magic that is the Larmer Tree festival.

Special thanks go to the Glowglobes and Billy Bragg for kind permission to use their music.

He was a great musician able to play anything you put infront of him. I am glad he managed to record some of his music for those left behind.

Listen to the mp3