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I post updates and new music every few days.
'Bahnhof' now available
Improvisation (i)
Here Comes Your Son
If You’re Looking To Get Lost In The North That’s What We Got
Improvisation (ii)
Improvisation (iii)
Bedlam Boys Are Bonny
Improvisation (iv)
While I Was Sleeping
Make A Dead One Of It
Understudy
Bold Boy
Improvisation (v)
Recorded at Bruggen Bahnhof, St Gallen, Switzerland on the 28th of February 2023 and available exclusively as a limited edition CD-r edition and full quality download to my brilliant Patreon and Bandcamp subscribers.
Switzerland house concert recordings
I’m posting a bunch of recordings from these house shows I’m playing this weekend down here in Switzerland all week over on my Patreon page. Starts at €3 a month for much exclusive music and a direct way to support me. Click the button below to pop over there and have a look.
'November' now available
Here is the latest release - a fifteen track collection from the last few weeks of concerts and travels through Germany and Switzerland.
'November' is available to all subscribers at Bandcamp and to all on the €10 or higher Patreon tiers, both as a full quality digital download and limited CD edition. If you sign up now you'll be able to download this and about 30 other releases, over 20 of which are exclusive to subscribers.
Please consider supporting me in this way - I believe these recordings are from the last concerts I will get to play for some time and making these releases for people is a massive source of encouragement for me these days.
Thanks all,
Stephen
Winterthur concert in a week
Quick note to say that I’m playing a last minute concert in Winterthur, Switzerland next Saturday the 24th of July at the brilliant Gaswerk. Doors 18:00.
They’ll open their bar for the first time in ages and I’ll play some. It’s casual dress, bring your thirst.
'Schloss' EP this weekend
As well as making a monthly full release each month, I’ve been going through recordings and images and posting a few times a week to my Patreon.
This weekend I’m making a simple EP ‘Schloss’ also available to download there. Four songs recorded live in front of a tiny audience in various rooms of the Schloss Hünegg in Thun, Switzerland on the 7th of September 2019.
Subscription to Patreon starts at just €3 a month and everyone will be able to download this as well as lots of other things I’m finding and making these days.
I also have a subscription over on my Bandcamp and anything posted to Patreon goes there too. Massive thanks to everyone already into all this, means the world these days.
Jazzkeller, Zürich last Friday
Here’s a couple of impressions from a night in Zürich last Friday. As with most of my concerts down there the original date was cancelled due to the Coronavirus so Marcel invited me to play a set before Flo Bauer. The audience was small but super enthusiastic, I ate like a king and Flo and his buddies played a tight set of imaginative blues. Was an easy fine night.
Here’s a cover of the blind Willie McTell song ‘Delia’ and a stomp through ‘I Do Wrong’ with Marcel spontaneously joining me on the drums. Thanks to him for the invitation, fine food and nice company - I hope to be back and see a few more of you there too.
Flo Bauer
Tomorrow, Friday, Bandcamp are waiving their 10 / 15% fee on all sales in an effort to highlight the losses a lot of musicians are having because of cancelled shows, cancelled travel and all this. If you were thinking of picking up some music from me or any other musician that uses Bandcamp to sell (and not only stream) music then tomorrow would be a fine time to do that. My page is here but you might also visit the Woodland Recordings page with other brilliant people here.
I’m also uploading a completely new song I played at this concert to my Bandcamp subscription here, so there’s that too.
Anyhow, stay well all.
Stephen
UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: Switzerland this week
UPDATE #2
Winterthur tonight has now been cancelled, as well as the house show in Basel tomorrow.
Hope everyone stays well and perhaps I get to play concerts next month in the north of Germany, Denmark and Sweden as planned. Let’s see.
UPDATE:
My week is now full, with concerts this week in Zürich, Bolligen, Winterthur and Basel. Updated concert dates on the site here. I’m playing a house show tonight in Zürich and if anyone would like to join please email me and I’ll give you the details.
Thanks all
Stephen
Original post follows….
Due to the Coronavirus situation I have had a couple of cancellations this week - my concerts in Männedorf tomorrow and also at Mundwerk in Thun this Friday are both sadly postponed until further notice. I’m still travelling south this afternoon and will play the shows I have, but I am looking for something this Friday the 13th. If anyone can host a simple last minute concert please get in touch. House show anyone?
So it goes like this:
12/03/20 House Concert, Bolligen, CH
13/03/20 free - anyone?
14/03/20 Gaswerk, Winterthur, CH - with Prader & Knecht.
15/03/20 House Concert, Basel, CH - 17:00 start - with Joelle
Feel free to drop me a message if you’d like to join any of these. I’m looking forward as ever and I hope to come back for more shows when we’re all feeling better and braver.
Stay well,
Stephen
Bremen and Hamburg this weekend
Hi all
I have two concerts this weekend in the north of Germany - Bremen this Friday the 6th and Saturday in Hamburg on the 7th of March. Both are house concerts and if you’d like to join please simply drop me an email at thegreatpark@icloud.com. For the Hamburg concert in particular, space is limited and it would be sad if anyone wanted to join but wrote to me the evening of the show when it’s likely too late. So please get in touch before the weekend.
I’m back south next week for concerts in Switzerland - all dates as ever here and again please get in touch if you’d like information about any of those.
In Thun next week at the lovely Mundwerk I’ll be joined by my friend Geneva whose album I recorded and who’ll be playing her first concert in Switzerland. Come on.
Massive thanks to everyone who already signed up to my Bandcamp subscription deal. The first physical copies were sent to you all yesterday and I’m making more today. More to come later, it goes on.
Have a nice week,
Stephen
Three songs from Luzern (free download)
I’m slowly getting my shit together after a hectic few weeks of concerts and working on new projects. Just this week we finished the debut album by Geneva, which I recorded and produced and is out now through my label, Woodland Recordings. A lovely little collection of songs in a delightful package - have a listen have a look:
I know, I know - somewhat off topic. Stay on target.
Photo by Neda.
So here’s three songs from a house concert I played at Neda’s lovely place on the hill above Luzern in Switzerland a few weeks ago. Neda takes care of The Phrontistery space in the town but this evening she invited me up to her house to play to a small audience there. Was a wet night, the rain lashing down and I played a collection of slower things, or at least the songs came out in different shapes this night. Here’s three of them edited together - listen separately below or click the button for a free, simple download from Dropbox.
As I said, I’m catching up with things and this weekend my next album ‘St Arbogast’ will be sent out to anyone who pre-ordered it and available to listen in full and buy from my Bandcamp right here.
I’m not lying when I say half of the first edition of 100 are gone so please pick one up kind of quick if you’d like one of those. I’ll write more on that before the weekend I’m sure.
Thanks for sticking with me and please have a lovely week.
Stephen
Zürich and Luzern
So I get to El Lokal, a beautiful old bar, restaurant and music venue in a military building in the centre of Zürich, surrounded on both sides by water and busy streets. I’m perfectly in time of course and we start an easy soundcheck. My friend Sophia arrives halfway through to join me on violin and then we sit upstairs and enjoy a fine dinner before the concert.
I’ve played here once before, a couple of years previously and the experience confirmed what I had long suspected - it’s one of the nicest places to play in the country as far as I’m concerned. It’s super friendly, nice and small, sounds brilliant and everyone there seems to do everything right. Their program is imaginative and brave and many people I respect and listen to have played there - Will Oldham, Damien Jurado, Jason Molina, Lambchop... This month Scarlet Rivera will bring her violin to the little stage, C.W. Stoneking is back - it goes on.
Anyway, I’m fortunate enough to have a nice audience this Sunday night and, although Sophia and I don’t play our greatest ever concert, it’s a super warm and friendly time on the island.
Later, I stay at Timo’s house and we sit up talking for a couple of hours before I sleep the sleep of death in a most comfortable bed. Delicious breakfast and then back to the venue for lunch - lunch too! It’s too much. I stagger out of the door to catch my train just as Maclcom Middleton turns up. Wish him a fun evening and then kind of skip down to the station.
I arrived in Luzern as the weather turned dark and the rain came. Opted for a bus ride up and over the hill to Nade’s house for a little Wohnzimmer concert she had arranged for me that night. Normally I’d be at her Phrontistery in town, but we thought we’d try something else and I think it was a change for her to invite people to her beautiful apartment.
We sat and talked before the guests came and then I played a kind of quiet set of songs, not all the usual things I rely on. Was refreshing and enjoyable. My buddy Karl turned up in time and was a fine evening.
Next day a wash out but also a day off so I kept warm and dry for as long as possible before making a dash for the station and a short ride back to Aarau for an evening off. Would be at Garage Bar the next night so this was a chance for stinky raclette and early to bed.
I realise normally I’d be uploading recordings from these shows and sharing them here. I have been taping everything and recordings will come but I haven’t quite managed an easy method to edit live recordings and get them up here without my laptop right now. I have everything I need except the desire to sit at my iPad for an hour importing and learning a good way of managing it. Perhaps tomorrow morning, let’s see what sort of a late night we have here in Bern. I’m at Zar bar, starts in an hour or so. Come quick.
Anyways, be well all, thanks for sticking with this.
Stephen
Into Switzerland
Riding the train down into Switzerland from Germany and every single time this gets me.
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
Karlsruhe and Bern (free download)
Have most of the day free in Bern so I’m spending it catching up with booking shows for the next months, writing some verses for new songs and getting a little distracted by this new website I’ve found called the Youtube. Also listening to concerts recorded recently and pledging to speak less between songs, my word.
Last night I played at La Cappella so this is where I am now. A beautiful wooden church converted into a theatre and music venue 20 years ago and run by Christoph and his team. Honestly, the concert was pretty empty last night but I had a lovely evening and I think the people who came had a nice enough time too. We got it dark and lit the candles and played the songs without mics or electricity distracting and making things louder than they need to be. I hope to come back someday and urge you to visit this place as well.
The night before was a concert at the NUN café in Karlsruhe. A perfect bunch of volunteers running the venue wonderfully and helping out to no end. Nice friendly audience and I played so-so ok and these are pictures from the lovely evening by Simon Beha.
Perhaps I will upload the complete recording of the concert soon, as it was kind of solid and sounded grand. I just need to cut out some of the talking for I did go on and on and on and on. Here’s something in the meantime, download and share and what you will.
Tonight I’m heading across to St Gallen for a concert at Sandro’s house. I think it might be pretty full already but if you are in the area and would like to join by all means email me and I’ll stand up so you can have my seat.
Otherwise, it’s Luzern tomorrow, Wienacht-Tobel on Wednesday, Thun on Thursday, Freiburg, Landau and Baden after that. Full dates here.
Lichtensteig and Basel but now home.
Friday night I got to return to Lichtensteig, a small town about half an hour from St Gallen in the east of Switzerland. I’d previously played a house concert down the line at Watwil and also at Behind The Bush in Lichtensteig so I think that was the connection. FeinerFreitag is organised by Thomas and his friends - it’s a monthly evening of food and music at his wonderful house. A carpenter and a painter, his place was full of stocky furniture and figurative paintings on each wall. I rode seven hours down to the stop and he picked me up, drove the 5 minutes home and made me as welcome as could be.
Much earlier on the first train I met Malena who was visiting her mother in Austria and was in possession of some of the most handsome Italian shoes I’ve seen. We chatted at the end of our shared journey, too briefly, and then she took me to a café in Munich for ridiculous donuts and cakes. She asked the name of my music thing but I changed the subject, I’m often ashamed or embarrassed or something I don’t know. It was daft not to at least exchange contact details as I’d enjoyed the conversation, her shoes and the donut, but so it is sometimes.
Anyhow, sat on some more trains, grew alarmed at the amount of thick snow the further south I got and realised an old suit and no jacket were probably insufficient for Switzerland in March. Trains and music venues are warm went the thinking.
So, the concert in Lichtensteig. Two big tables with local friends and strangers, delicious winter salad and lasagne and many cold bottles of wine and beer. I played three sets, I think - kind of in between the courses and after the food. Got to sing some songs I rarely do because it was a super sit down and be quiet kind of deal. Also a lovely bunch of people knew some of my things so they asked for a song and that set me to thinking of others. I played a new song ‘There Is Joy Yet Between The Pages’ that has been finished once but will change a little more and seems to be fairly liquid and malleable at the moment, which is a fun state to be in.
Anyhow, was nice and pleasant and perhaps I missed out a little on the wonderful meal everyone was enjoying but a lovely evening nonetheless.
Next day, after a lazy morning and a delicious breakfast and twenty minutes playing with the cat I walked down the hill and across the bridge to the small train station and a ride across country to Basel.
We were taken to eat at Hirscheneck and had a brilliant meal there. Great atmosphere, very loose and friendly and delicious food. Spitting sausage. I suppose everyone in town knows the place but it was somehow new to me and I liked it there a whole lot.
That evening’s concert was downstairs in the Irrsinn Bar, in the Loch - super smoky, tiny, dark and lots of fun. Lukas stood up and sang and had new things and then I sat down and played for what seemed like ages and ages. Some people in the audience knew a few of my songs which is always surprising so I tried to play those. I did ‘Brighton Gallows’ for Chrigel, ‘When I Was Away’ for someone and ‘We Could Have’ for someone else.
Later and away from the smoke the conversation turned to Ireland, Flat Earth Theory and the Sussex Panther. I dragged myself home late and then realised I had forgotten my scarf and hat so dragged myself right on back.
I’m home now, watching the wind blow the pigeons every which way. It’s Monday afternoon and I’ve more concerts this week. You alright?
In Basel
I’m at Joelle’s place in Basel, listening to this Talk Talk tape and getting ready to leave for the concert I’m playing in town tonight. I’m at Irrsinn Bar, which is where we met last year at a night her brother arranged. He makes music as The Cause Acoustic and often they play concerts together, brother and sister combo. Truth be told I should probably leave for soundcheck, drinks and a quick bite to eat. I don’t have all the time in the world. Post this and run, splash and dash. More later.
Lichtensteig and Basel this weekend
I’ll unpack my guitar this weekend when I get to play two concerts in Switzerland. The first is in Lichtensteig at FeinerFreitag and seems to be a special sit down and eat brilliant food and at some point music is served too. I’ve been to this part of the country for concerts before and they’re a good crowd there so I’m looking forward to this. Information is on their site here, but be quick as it seems you have until Wednesday to reserve a place.
https://www.feinerfreitag.li
The next night I’ll travel across to Basel for a concert at Irrsinn Bar with my friend Lukas and his The Cause Acoustic project:
Irrsinn Bar is underground, dark and sometimes smoky and last time was just great. Starts at 21:00 and it’s at Rebgasse 43, 4058 Basel, Switzerland.
So that’s my plans for the weekend. Out of town, always good.