Follow for free on my Patreon.
I post updates and new music every few days.
Photos and two songs from Werkstatt in Baden, Switzerland (free download)
Photo: https://seltsam.ch
Mike at selstam.ch sent me the photos he made from the concert at Werkstatt in Baden a week ago so I wanted to share them with you along with a few more songs from the night.
This was the last night of a two week tour I made in April and the only night where Sophia was able to join me with her violin. We didn’t get a chance to rehearse, instead just working out some basic arrangements in the other room right before we started. This level of preparation is fine for me but it does mean that the pair of us are kind of winging it on the songs we choose to do together. Keeps it interesting and wonderful for me to have some rare support (and surprises) whilst playing.
Anyway, these two I rarely play without Sophia so I thought they would be good to upload and share. Sophia wrote the original string parts for ‘If You Build It They Will Come’ when we made the ‘Turn Your Back On The Crown’ album together, but the music for ‘I Was In The North Before The Fall’ (from ‘The Good Men’) is new. We jump in and hang on, it is what it is.
I recorded almost every concert last month and plan to release an EP of things played in a week or so. Will be back with news on that if I can manage to make something listenable. Otherwise I’m finishing new songs and plan to record those as soon as the weather allows. I’ve my eye on a hut on a hill in which to record but I’m fearful of the cold there within. It was summer for a week but now it’s autumn in the south of Germany.
More soon then!
Photo: seltsam.ch
Landau and Baden (free download)
Sunday: Landau. Friends from Hamburg pick me up at the station and we walk through the redeveloped landscape of Landau to the RIVA bar where they plan an evening concert combined with Ben’s birthday drinks. A wonderful meal of home cooked comfort food and then a rather less than ideal concert experience. We tried it with me inside and the audience outside in the sunshine - bit weird and I could just hear the people at the bar - then we tried it inside but by then apparently the RIVA was the only bar open in town so everyone suddenly had to wear baseball hats on backwards and it was spring break. Anyhow sooner than planned done with and afterwards brilliant company and Lea plays songs and everyone drinks gin and tequila and it’s a fun visit just the same. Late to bed, early enough to rise and jump on the train back to Switzerland and the final night of this tour in Baden.
The journey down to Switzerland was a little fraught as I had opted for regional trains all the way and it was Easter Monday so many people were travelling. I sat with my guitar between my legs to Karlsruhe and then plonked myself in a dark corner most of the drop to Zürich. No matter, Severin picked me up at the familiar station in Baden and always a joy to see his friendly face. We drove the short way to the venue, Werkstatt - a reclaimed metal factory with a bar, studio space and a budget looking but long running nightclub called ‘Moonlight’.
We ate delicious vegan burgers prepared by Severin and Aicha (which you can find as Assa here) and then Sophia arrived and she and I worked out what we might play together. Sophia has been joining me on violin whenever we get the opportunity for a few years now and she also wrote and played the parts on the ‘Turn Your Back On The Crown’ album, for example:
I don’t enjoy rehearsing so much so we just decided on some keys and then the ramshackle room was full and we stood and played some sloppy songs for everyone. I don’t know if we played so good but it was certainly one of the most enjoyable concerts of the last weeks for me so here’s ‘Boys, I Am Worried’ as a free download from the thing:
Baden.
After the concert I got to spend time with some friends I hadn’t seen in years and then was driven back out of town to Severin’s place and straight to bed and the sleep therein.
Next morning not enough time but some coffee and a mouthful of delicious breakfast and then sent on my way. I took a train to Zürich and another to Stuttgart, looked out the window all the way and that’s how it should go.
My next concert is in a couple of weeks would you believe it back in Switzerland - Thun on the 17th of May - then I’ll be in Ulm on the 19th, Erlangen on the 21st and Bonn around the 25th. I have much more to share from these last days coming later this week before that though. It’s so nice that you follow, thank you.