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Matters musical – 2

May 12, 2023 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Following on from my ‘Matters Musical – 1‘ posting a couple of weeks back… herewith the second and concluding part.

I mentioned in the aforesaid posting that Anam Danu had been featured on no less than three compilations of independent music made available through Tom Hilton’s ‘Aldora Britain Records‘ – in addition to being featured in an article in the associated e-Zine. The Chanteuse and I were most flattered by the attention and grateful for the coverage.

We were further offered a single release on the label during April. The advantage of this would be, of course, that our name and our music would be pushed in its own right and thus be all the more visible. We happily agreed to this proposal and offered our January single – ‘Perfect‘ – paired with a re-issue of a song from our first collection (‘Winds of Change‘) entitled ‘The Journey Home‘.

Having been written and recorded back in 2019, ‘The Journey Home‘ was one of our earlier experiments in working together. As one would expect, we have made a great deal of progress since then – both technically and artistically – so we decided that we should re-work the track, lengthening it and updating sounds and instrumentation. The original recording featured a fiddle part that I had played on a halfway decent sampled instrument, but – since part of our expansion plans for this year include starting to work with other musicians – we thought that this would be a good opportunity to experiment. We were introduced by a friend to Victoria violinist, Kate Rhodes, who agreed to play the session for us and thus became the first person other than The Chanteuse and I to appear on an Anam Danu recording.

The two tracks were duly released last month and can be found on Bandcamp here. We were most excited subsequently to find that the release had entered the Aldora Britain Independent Top 20 – the which records the tracks on the ABR Bandcamp site that receive the most plays. At the time of writing we are at number 13 on that playlist.

We will also be releasing ‘The Journey Home‘ under our own auspices to all the usual streaming and download sites during June. More on that come the time.

The Chanteuse and I have also been busy working our how we can play all of this music that we have been creating for a live audience. As mentioned above, this will inevitable entail finding other like-minded individuals who are keen to play with us. Reworking the material for live performance also requires a considerable amount of work – but we are making good progress.

Thank you for listening!

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Matters musical – 1

April 30, 2023 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

I am moved – every once in a while – to furnish the gentle readers of these digital digressions with an update on the progress that The Chanteuse and I are making on our musical odyssey. I hope that this is not too wearisome for those that have little interest in such matters.

Back at the end of January I posted herein a missive announcing the release of a new Anam Danu single – going by the soubriquet of ‘Perfect‘. The Chanteuse and I have been busy promoting this recording; with some small degree of success. The track was listed in a good number of playlists, reviewed by various digital media pundits and the release engendered the publication of several feature articles in online fanzines and the like. Should you wish to know more you can find details in the news section on our website.

Back in November we had a track from last summer’s album release – ‘Soul Making‘ – included on a compilation of independent music by a UK based e-Zine and record label – Aldora Britain Records. Tom Hilton – the Scot whose brainchild ABR is – writes thus:

“Aldora Britain Records is an independent music e-zine and record label. The e-zine produces interviews with unsigned and underground artists and reviews their music. The label produces compilations of these artists. The vision of AB Records is to create a go-to place for music lovers all over the world to discover great new stuff, an online platform for independent music. It’s much needed!”

Tom and ABR have been most generous to us, having now featured us on three different compilations – the most recent being titled ‘Street Corner Jive‘. ABR also produce an international independent music e-Zine at regular intervals and Anam Danu was honoured to be the subject of of a feature back in March of this year. Should you wish to discover more about us you can find the article here:

Now, in the interests of not overwhelming merely perfunctory perusers of this idiosyncratic anthology with a bombardment of minutiae – and finding that I have considerably more to say than first I anticipated…

…I am going to split this post into two installments.

Coming soon… part two!

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Failing better

March 30, 2023 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

"This work" is licensed under CC BY 4.0“Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

Samuel Beckett

A handful of posts back I gently mourned the lack of a decent (IMHO!) Sunday Paper here in western Canada and breathed an authored sigh of relief at the discovery of The Atlantic magazine – by way of compensation.

As it happens I had not originally intended the subject of that missive to be my quest to find an agreeable journal here on the island, but rather an appreciation of a particular article that I had come across within the digital variant of my new favourite source of commentary.

The piece concerned is titled “The Fine Art of Failure” and is by the Canadian novelist, Stephen Marche. In fact, the article was adapted from the Marche’s slim Field Notes volume – “On Writing and Failure” (the which is also apparently subtitled – “On the Peculiar Perseverance Required to Endure the Life of a Writer”). I was so taken with the article that I Amazoned forthwith and purchased the real thing.

Marche’s premise is that it doesn’t matter how famous or well-respected one becomes as a writer – the main focus of one’s existence is exactly the same as for the complete beginner… that of being continually rejected (albeit at a somewhat elevated level). Marche writes:

“Failure is the body of a writer’s life. Success is only ever an attire. A paradox defines this business: the public only see writers in their victories but their real lives are mostly in defeat“.

Much of this slim tome is made up of the sort of anecdotes that should be taken to heart. A few pages in Marche discusses the “cruel species of irony [that] drove the working life of Herman Melville“:

“His first book was Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life, pure crap and a significant bestseller. His final book was Billy Budd, an extreme masterpiece he couldn’t even manage to self-publish. His fate was like the sick joke of some cruel god. The better he wrote, the more he failed”.

For those dreaming of literary success Marche is clear-eyed:

“The internet loves to tell stories about famous writers facing adversity. … What I find strange is that anyone finds it strange that there’s so much rejection. The average telemarketer has to make eighteen calls before finding someone willing to talk with him or her. And that’s for s*** people might need, like a vacuum cleaner or a new smartphone. Nobody needs a manuscript”.

…or a song …or a play …or a screenplay …or a painting! Marche acknowledges that his thesis is not restricted to the literary arts. It is the same all over.

I cannot recommend this slender volume enough to anyone who harbours the creative urge. It is strangely and contrarily reassuring to all those of us who had – at some point – to choose between keeping the stacks of rejection letters or throwing them away (or indeed burning them!) and giving up the whole idea.

You know who you are!

 

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Goals and targets!

February 18, 2023 in Life as we know it | 1 comment

Target – an indicator established to determine how successfully you are achieving an objective.

Goal – an indicator established to determine whether you have achieved your objective.

I had an email from an advisor at my bank just today. The lady responsible for it ‘reached out‘ to me (thanks for that!) to enquire as to whether (or not) I was ‘on track to reach all of my goals‘.

I pondered awhile as to how my career as a global music megastar was progressing – what the likelihood of a multi-billion dollar lottery win was – or indeed how my devious plans for world domination were shaping up…

I replied to the nice lady that – as far as I could tell – I was roughly on track to reach such goals as I had.

This did remind me, however, that I owe the gentle (and most patient) reader an brief list of our goals (and possibly targets!) for 2023. After all – we are now half way through February and my promise to deliver same is as yet outstanding.

OK – here we go.

So – after our big trip to Europe last year this will obviously be a quiet, ‘home-ish’ sort of a year – our aims and ambitions being not dissimilar to those to which we have aspired ever since the pandemic broke…

…except…

…such a lack of ambition simply does not sit comfortably with – The Girl. She argues – persuasively – that if there are places to which we might desire to travel, then the time so to do is now – before I move into another and even more expensive (particularly in terms of travel insurance) decade. Who can tell – she further reasons – how long we will be fit enough for such bold venturing?

Now, though she has already traveled pretty widely, her bucket list has for a long time included an expedition to Africa – in particular to go on safari to Botswana and to the Victoria Falls.

This, then, is what we are going to be doing at the end of May and into June this very year. Such a venture does not come cheap, particularly as we are no longer prepared to set forth on such a long haul faced with the relative privations of economy class. To help fund my part in this  lavish expedition I have had to take on the teaching of a double course this term at the College. As long as that in itself doesn’t do me in I figure I should be fit and ready to go by mid-May.

It is going to be an altogether wonderful, splendid (if somewhat unanticipated) venture and you, gentle readers, will be hearing and seeing a great deal more about it as we progress through the first half of the year.

Such is the mental magnitude of the undertaking that we don’t have much space left in our imaginations at this juncture to conjure up other aims and ambitions for the year – with the exception of a musical ambition on my part. The Chanteuse and I have decreed that this year we should prepare ourselves to perform live. Even should we not manage so to do before the year’s end – we will be ready and raring to go immediately thereafter. More on this also –  later in the year.

Well! Who saw that coming?

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Burt Bacharach

February 12, 2023 in Life as we know it | 2 comments

Burt Bacharach

1928 – 2023

RIP

Phil Guest from Bournemouth, UK, Burt Bacharach 2013 (9219552969), CC BY-SA 2.0I mentioned only the other day in this forum that it was deeply saddening that we seem in these times to be losing so many of those giants upon whose shoulders sit the artists, thinkers, creators, sports-folk and even (dare I say it) politicians to whom we turn in these troubled times.

Now another has gone – and this time one for whom the soubriquet ‘legend’ is surely inarguable.

I am not going to enumerate the many classics that Burt Bacharach penned throughout his lengthy career, not tell you any of the details of his life. That is for the hoards of obituarists who have already covered many miles of paper with appropriately glowing eulogies.

I am instead simply going to recall the one occasion on which The Girl and I saw Bacharach in concert – in Pergugia at the Jazz Festival. This was during his eightieth year; fourteen years ago. His voice had by that time passed its best and he very sensibly employed three different singers to cover his beautiful songs, whilst he played piano and led the orchestra.

To our surprise he started with a ten-minute medley of some of his greatest hits. Having finished this he set out on another. We observed to each other that it was a rare star who thus disposed of his major hits within the first twenty minutes of a show.

Bacharach simply played on… giving us a further two and a half hours of greatest hits. What a catalog – and what a fantastic show! The sentiment that came most frequently into our minds during this magical concert was: “I didn’t know he wrote that!”.

Well – he did!

We will not see his like again.

Rest in Peace

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Perfect

January 27, 2023 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

In my recent ‘review of 2022‘ post I mentioned – amongst other worthy achievements – that Anam Danu (the musical vehicle created in conjunction with The Chanteuse) had had a good year – in that we released our third album, Soul Making, to general approbation and contrived to hold a rather splendid reception to celebrate the fact.

What I didn’t mention was that we shortly had a new single coming out…

Well – ‘shortly’ has morphed into ‘now’ and our newest composition – ‘Perfect‘ – hit the major streaming and download sites just today.

Reaction thus far from those who have heard the song has been exceedingly positive and I urge all music fans out there to give it a listen. If you don’t have a preferred music site please allow me to recommend Bandcamp to you. ‘Perfect‘ can be found here:

We thought we might take the opportunity to create a video to accompany the single, using nothing but freely available stock clips. Doing so proved a fascinating experience and we will certainly repeat the exercise. You can view the results here:

As ever, should you find yourself enjoying what you see and hear – please do share it…

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Jonathan Raban – David Crosby

January 23, 2023 in Life as we know it | Permalink

David Crosby
1941 – 2023
Jonathan Raban
1942 – 2023
RIP

Joe Mabel, Jonathan Raban 07, CC BY-SA 3.0
Eddie Janssens, David crosby-1547297410, CC BY-SA 4.0

It is a sad fact that the passing of those who have shaped our lives – those who have, in some form or other, become our heroes through the years – should occur with increasing frequency as the years go by. It is also the case that these sad occasions come thicker and faster during the winter months.

Such is life… and death.

This week two huge figures in my personal pantheon have gone beyond this place:

David Crosby was a major musical figure for much of my life and, whereas CSN(Y) were maybe not quite in my premier league of immortal bands, I found myself coming back to them again and again as the years passed. What drew me in were, of course, the sublime harmonies… to which I still routinely refer whenever I have a harmony of my own to write. For this – and for the bittersweet songs – much respect. ‘Helplessly Hoping’ indeed…

Jonathan Raban was a year younger than was Crosby but, I suspect, hailed from a very different world. The Guardian’s obituary starts:

“The British author, who lived in the US, blended memoir and travelogue in books that were often inspired by the sea”

Another Guardian piece is entitled:

“Jonathan Raban: his travel writing could pierce your heart”

What’s not to like?

Raban’s best book – for my money – is “A Passage to Juneau“. What appears on the surface to be an account of a sailing trip from Seattle, up the Inside Passage to Juneau in Alaska, is actually a disquisition on the death of Raban’s father and the slow-motion wreck of his own marriage. It is also a revelatory and sublime introduction to the Pacific Northwest – and thus not to be missed.

David Crosby – Jonathan Raban – Rest in Peace…

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Looking back

January 19, 2023 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Ah! January…

‘Tis the time of year to reflect on the one that has just passed. Did it measure up to our hopes and expectations? Given the state of the world, did we have much in the way of hopes and expectation for it to live up to?

As ever, the best way to find out is to locate the equivalent postings from this time last year and to see exactly what – if anything much – we were hoping for…

…then we can see if any of it actually happened!

…and after that we can repeat the exercise for yet another year!

Hang on a sec while I have a shufti…

OK – here is our basic wish-list from last year – with progress reports in red:

  • To get to see family and friends – …yes we did… see below!
  • To be able to entertain again – …there was indeed some entertaining – and not all of it outdoors
  • To dine out – again – …hoorah! We can once again eat out (and on occasion, somewhat splendidly!)
  • To see some live theatre – …well, yes.. but not so much in Canada. See below:
  • To enjoy some live music – …once again – one event only – Barney Bentall’s Cariboo Express in November
  • To attend a live sporting event (preferably Rugby!) – …sadly not
  • To be able to travel… anywhere – …well – speaking of which…

In addition:

  • It is our fervent wish that we get to travel to the UK during the coming summer. Whether or not this happens will depend entirely on the course that the pandemic takes on both sides of the pond over the coming months. We are not holding our collective breaths.

…and this we duly did – emboldened by visits in the spring from good friends in the UK and from an old and most dear friend from New York. The expedition was most enjoyable, even though we did not get to see everyone that we would have liked to have seen. We got to the theatre in London and Bath – we dined splendidly and well – we finished our trip with a lovely sojourn in Paris. The downside? We came back with COVID. Oh well!

  • We will carry out some further domestic upgrades – air-conditioning to guard against future ‘heat domes’ – a new hot water system so that we can console ourselves with even longer baths when things don’t work out as we would wish.

…well – we did the air-conditioning – and just in time for a hot spell too. An excellent notion which works well. The hot water tank replacement is still on hold – but will get done…

  • Normalised work! The Girl would like to be able get back out into the wider world and to visit clients face to face again – not to mention paying a nostalgic visit to her office! I would like to teach students who can actually see my face as I do so.

…pretty well normalised as it turns out. The Girl is back doing (somewhat cautious) home visits and going into the office two days a week. Last spring I was teaching in an N95 respirator and a headset (for streaming purposes). Not much fun. By the autumn I was back to face to face teaching without a mask – even though I wore one when around the enclosed bits of campus.

  • More music! One positive over the last year is that I have been able to write more than enough new songs for the Chanteuse and I to put together another ‘album’. We are currently recording her vocals on these tracks and we are making good progress. Look for further pronouncements in the coming months.

…Last year was indeed a good year in musical terms. The Chanteuse and I finished our third album and at the end of August Anam Danu released ‘Soul Making‘. We were even able to have a lovely reception in our garden to celebrate the release and – for the first time – we played a few tracks from the album live to the assembled friends and supporters. The feedback we have had regarding the music has been overwhelmingly positive and we both have a very real sense of achievement.

So – in spite of all the many troubles in the wider world, 2022 was a good year for The Girl and I. What will we hope to accomplish in 2023?… Check back in a few posts’ time to find out.

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Jeff Beck

January 13, 2023 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Jeff Beck
1944 – 2023
RIP

Marco Rosanova (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jeff_Beck_(56341210).jpeg), „Jeff Beck (56341210)“, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcodeVery sad to hear of the passing of yet another rock legend – the great Jeff Beck. Along with Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page, Jeff was one of those towering figures who defined what was possible on the electric guitar back in the late 60s/70s/80s and beyond. If it feels as though he has somehow always been there then that is because – for my generation – he always was. Even if at times he was not directly in the spotlight (the music business being the fickle creature that it is) he continued recording, playing and touring until the summer of last year.

Many obituaries and retrospectives have appeared in a broad cross-section of the media and I commend such to any gentle readers unfamiliar with the great man’s oeuvre.

Rest in Peace

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Troy ‘Bubba’ Cook

December 12, 2022 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Troy ‘Bubba’ Cook
1969 – 2022
RIP


The Chanteuse and I were greatly saddened to hear over the weekend of the passing of Troy Cook. Troy was a creative force who was a writer, artist and musician and was born, lived and worked in Fernie, BC.

Earlier this year, in spite of his illness, Troy agreed to create the artwork for the recent Anam Danu album – ‘Soul Making‘. He most generously refused to accept any payment for his work – saying:

“I like to promote original music and this is my way of helping other musicians”.

Troy was a long standing friend of The Chanteuse’s husband – they having known each other for 37 years – and he was much loved by the whole family.

In this video clip Troy explains how his art helped him to deal with his illness.

Our sympathies and thoughts are with Troy’s family.

Rest In Peace

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