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Free download from Zürich and Hamburg tomorrow.
I got home late Sunday night and will leave for Hamburg tomorrow, so just enough time here to put some washing through, change the guitar strings and import all the recordings from the last 10 days of concerts. I haven’t had a chance to listen to everything properly but here’s a very quickly mixed song from the concert Sophia and I played at the beautiful El Lokal in Zürich on the 27th of October.
We don’t get to play so often and our rehearsal was the 20 minute soundcheck we took. Fine, is what it is.
I may share the rest of this concert when I get the time, so please check back for that.
I have a return to the north and a concert in Hamburg tomorrow night at Fritzen. Wohlwillstrasse 20, free entry from 20:00. Happy to see some familiar faces there!
More later, kind of running…
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
Heidelberg, Darmstadt and Ulm
Train creeps into Zürich Hbf, people on the platform impatiently pressing the buttons to open the door even before it stops, mild panic on their faces as the carriages crawl to a stop. We have ten minutes before it leaves for Luzern, sure we’ll all make it on.
I left my room in Fürth last Wednesday to spend an in between night in Stuttgart before returning to Heidelberg for a house concert at Sandra’s beautiful loft apartment. Five floors up and a warm welcome at the top of it. This was one of those rare occasions where someone had written to me proposing a concert - an invitation as opposed to a response to my request. It does happen that people somehow come upon my music and think to invite me to their homes. Seldom for sure, but brilliant.
Anyhow, this was one of those happy occasions and soon enough a lovely little audience to play to. Sandra had printed flyers advertising a secret concert with an email address attached and, yep, people she didn’t know had written and come along and seemed to enjoy it. As if by magic.
Photos by Moritz Hettich. His Instagram is here.
We shared a late night and an enormous breakfast and then suddenly my train was leaving for Darmstadt. Packed and noisy carriage, but a short trip and soon enough I walked the mile or so to the Schloss in the centre of town. Endless renovation work still in place but Christian there to meet me and a simple setup at the Keller Klub underneath the old building.
I had played here about ten years previously, with Thirty Pounds Of Bone and I remember a great gig and somehow a tricky audience setup. The room is long and narrow and many people were camped at the bar happy to chat through the evening. This night, many years later was a little better and certainly more people there for the concert. Friends along too and a little bit of work needed but I played what I wanted I think and after the concert slipped into much conversation and drinking at the bar for some hours. Young Orson Welles was there, unbeknownst to himself.
With Thirty Pounds Of Bone in 2011.
Photo by Özlem.
We walked ten minutes after the concert to Christine’s place and her skittish cats and almost dawn before flopping into sleep. A late morning and a sunshine walk back to the station and delayed slow train south to Ulm.
I was a little early in the cathedral town so I dropped the cases off at Volker’s place and did my usual exploring of an unfamiliar town. I’ve played in Ulm a bunch of times but there’s always more to see anywhere if one takes a different route. On this trip I’ve been reading David Byrne’s ‘Bicycle Diaries’ and his bike rides around various cities has been an inspiration and a nice companion whilst I’ve also been making much more modest stops of it. The basic point of the more you look the more you see and a walk, or in his case, a cycle ride, can reveal places in unexpected ways.
Andrea had also proposed this concert to me many months ago so here we were together on a cool rooftop with the long promised view of the cathedral as a backdrop. I usually struggle with playing outside, especially in the colder months, and so it was here. That being said, it was a loose, friendly evening and I think we made the most of it. Fun conversation and brilliant food, courtesy of Hakuna Matata, and again the promise of a late night, early morning. But I kind of lucked out with an opportunity for a relatively early night and got dropped off at Markus’s place around midnight and bedded down in his front room. Naturally he forgot I was there at 5 in the morning when he came back but my objections sent him out quick enough. He did the same again at 7 and alcohol can play devilish games on the short term memory it’s true.
But, nothing to fear - as if by a miracle and like a phoenix from the flames he rose with the birds, drank thirty cups of coffee, smoked a pack of cigarettes and seemed fit enough to drive me to the station, knock my wind out with a bear hug and off I was to Zürich and a run of shows in Switzerland - always a thing to look forward to.
I have a day off today but for the rest of the week it’s concerts in Aarau, Basel and St Gallen. Next week Hamburg, Oberhausen and Essen. More to come then.
Stephen
Into Switzerland
Riding the train down into Switzerland from Germany and every single time this gets me.
Kofferfabrik (free download)
Photo by Mina Reischer.
A lovely evening at the Kofferfabrik here in Fürth this last Saturday night. Geneva started with some sweet songs and then I played a long, slow set to a nice crowd. Some friends in the audience and Stefanie from Vivian Void joining me on stage for a couple too. Of course it turned into a long night so yesterday was lost in a lazy wander around the sunny town, talking and sitting by the riverside whilst the swimming club splashed about.
Anyway, here’s a free download of a song I had never played before but this evening turned up. I might follow with more from the night but right now I’m preparing for the shows and putting something else together for the newsletter exclusive series.
I know I said I would write about the new album yesterday but the simple thing to say is that it’s available for pre-order here and a massive thank you to everyone who has already bought it, especially as I’ve only posted a couple of things and people haven’t had a chance to hear much. Sight unseen, sound unheard or some such. Is very humbling, thank you all. The physical release turned out to be very simple and enjoyable to put together and hopefully I’ll find some more words to share before it comes out properly on the 24th of November.
This week I have concerts in Heidelberg, Darmstadt, Ulm and Zürich. Wowee.
See you soon?
S
El Lokal in Zürich this Sunday night.
Local concert with Geneva this weekend
Just a quick update to let anyone living near my place know that I’m playing a concert tomorrow night (Saturday) at the Kofferfabrik in Fürth. Tickets are here and the selfie poster above will also take you to the Facebook event.
I don’t play so often around here and have never had a concert at this place. We fixed it 18 months ago, let’s see…
Also and anyway, Geneva will be playing some songs before me and recently I’ve been recording and producing her first set of songs for the label. Here’s a video from that.
Lastly, please visit my Bandcamp page later this evening as I’ll have the new St Arbogast church recording available to pre-order. More words on that Sunday.
Have a nice evening,
Stephen
Empty Room
Empty room in my flat this weekend so this was my Saturday night. I think it’s a six song EP coming at some point but will have the St Arbogast church recording ready before then. Soon.
Two songs from VV X this weekend (free download)
Photo: @vincent_von_flieger
Bit of a full weekend down here in the south with a sweet little concert at MUZ in Nürnberg on Friday night and then the main event - Vivian Void’s 10th birthday party concert at the Desi.
VV hadn’t played a concert for over a year (babies, house moves, job changes, concerns and commitments of daily life) but they had been planning this show for a while. After an emotional speech from Stefanie from the band I played a bunch of heavy songs, including this.
She also joined me to sing ‘SUPER GOOD ADVICE’ as she often does but a few days before I’d realised that the rhythm of this was pretty much the same as their ‘STRETCH ACROBATIC’ song.
So, without telling her I stuck it on the end and everything went noisy and fun.
Carsten came down from Berlin for this concert and he uploaded plenty videos of us all too:
Now I get sick and have to make my tax return and try to book concerts. A come down and it goes slowly.
Stephen
Two concerts in Nürnberg this weekend.
Despite living here, I rarely play concerts in Nürnberg or Fürth - usually just if it’s something a friend is organising or a benefit concert or something like that. This is not to suggest that I’m charitable or particularly fussy but I hold to the old adage of not shitting where you eat. It’s also so much more enjoyable and exciting to play in front of strangers and to keep a little distance between the home life and the music life. A splash zone.
That being said this weekend I get to play two concerts 10 minutes from my bed, which is a fine, rare thing at times.
The first thing is tonight at MUZ in Gostenhof, Nürnberg. I’ll play an acoustic set in their tiny studio room (capacity 20?) as part of the city’s Stadtverführungen event - a weekend of walking tours through the town that take in different cultural and historical sites and happenings. I thought it sounded interesting and simple. Naturally as it’s such a small room it’s sold out but let’s see.
Saturday night is a big night in town as the 14 legged monster that is VIVIAN VOID are ten years old and will celebrate with an evening at Desi. I get to play too and part of the deal is everyone has to cover a song of theirs so there’s that as well. Again, let’s see. I am looking forward just the same.
More details about the concert are here and this is from their latest album ‘Rhododendron’ out a couple of years ago. They rehearse every week and have a wealth of material but it seems actually committing things to release comes harder. VV is a slippery beast.
For my part, here’s the only remix I ever made and so much fun with this my word.
Hope to see some familiar faces this weekend then - have fun all and speak soon please.
Stephen
Songs from the boat at Flensburg and the train station in Kröpelin (free download)
Photo by Detlef Jens.
Despite losing my hard drive with the session I recorded on the Schiffbar one afternoon, I found that my audio recorder still had the memory card with audio from the concert there. Also still surviving was the recording from the concert two days later at de DROM in Kröpelin, so here are some songs from these two nights in the north.
Whenever I get to play in a room that’s built from wood and has a history I get all silly and play folk songs. ‘Jim Jones’ has a boat in it at least.
Kröpelin, with the sound of the crickets and the insects loudly buzzing through their Saturday night. I played everything slow and out of shape.
My guitar is being repaired at the moment - somehow after this the neck got broke. I still don’t know how or when but I’ve time to get it all together again these days. The key is to not get too attached.
Stephen
Video: 'Pure Black Coal' from Kröpelin last weekend.
Here’s a video filmed by Marv from my concert in Kröpelin at de DROM.
This was a difficult night for me somehow, perhaps due to the events of the night before (see this post for that) but the room sounded grand and there were enough people to shout this stuff to. Perhaps it’s time to put this odd, spiteful song away for a little while though - have been singing it with a little too much joy and relish for my liking recently.
Anyhow, more to come from this show perhaps. For now, here comes an early night. Hope you’ve had a lovely weekend.
Stephen
Bag, laptop, hard drives, unreleased music and videos stolen
As some of you may be aware my rucksack was stolen last weekend after my concert at Kolibri near the Reeperbahn in Hamburg. I had a lovely gig with a great crowd and a few hours later when most of the guests had left i was told to bring all my bags into the main room and we sat outside the venue chatting and apparently keeping an eye on the front door. Not so well as it turns out.
Suffice to say when I popped in to use the toilet I noticed right away that although my suitcase and guitar were right where I had left them my rucksack was not. Felt immediately sick. Inside the rucksack were the following
• Apple Macbook Air laptop. Kind of old but with a few weeks work that I hadn’t backed up yet. Also expensive to replace.
• Three external hard drives. Probably the worst thing lost - two were full of a brilliant collection of films and tv shows I had spent years collecting and were invaluable on long train rides and the other had six years of live recordings and videos I had filmed since coming to Germany. This included a couple of videos I had just edited for songs from the new album, stuff from my trip to Naples with my mother earlier this year, a session recorded just that morning on a boat in Flensburg and dozens of other concerts mixed and ready to be made available at some point in the future.
I know, I know - I backed things up but then I took the backup along with me and even kept it in the same bag as the original copy. Noob move.
The music / videos one is password protected - so that’s essentially worthless.
• Current diary. I write lyrics for my songs in my journal first, mostly whilst travelling. I also tend to fill it with contacts and random personal thoughts along the way. This isn’t worth anything to anyone else I’m sure. Paper and ink, straight to the recycle bin. But I lost a bunch of ideas and all the next big hits for sure.
• Nintendo Switch and many games and all my save files. Mother fucker.
• House keys, headphones, 100€, bag of sunflower seeds, biography of Virginia Woolf. Flotsam and jetsam basically.
For what it’s worth the rucksack looks like this:
I don’t expect to see any of this stuff again and I’ve already started making plans to replace things I need to carry on working in the way I have been, with a little more security of course. But, as is often the case with this sort of thing, most of what was stolen is worthless to anyone that has it. I get that you can sell the games console right away and perhaps wipe the hard drives and get rid of those for a few euros each. The laptop is password protected and has other security enabled but I guess someone will buy it and do something with it. The bag is quite tasty and in good condition I suppose.
Anyway, had a nice little trip up north - met some fine folk and had some lovely shows but this whole thing made a very distracting time of it. I recorded half a dozen songs on the boat in Flensburg that I hoped to share with you but they are really gone. I do have some live recordings still on my audio recorder and I will post some music in a few days.
For now this is a belated moan and perhaps a call out for anyone in that area to keep an eye out for a rather anonymous looking black rucksack with a book of depressing lyrics inside. Who knows.
From the lovely people at Fritzen.
I’m in Stuttgart today, getting set to leave for Thun tomorrow morning where I will play in the beautiful Schloss Hünegg. Details about that here - please come if you can, I need a lift.
Stephen
Thun in the rainstorm (free download)
Here’s something of a random post - I was making space on my hard drive and found my recording of the concert I played in Thun, Switzerland last month. This was organised by my good friend Reto of Mundwerk at his summer residence the Strandbad. A lovely place with incredibly tasty food, a thick cut above the usual swimming pool chips and burgers I grew up on.
I rode down there for this one show, was a kind of stop between home and a little trip to Italy. I left in the morning sunshine but by the time I got down there and walked around the lake to the pool there was a dark storm brewing and, whilst we ate amazing steaks outside on the terrace, it soon began to rain. The room was fairly full and as soon as I started it lashed it down outside and the thunder started up. As such, much of what I recorded is rain and all - grand enough but there are other places for that kind of thing.
Anyway, here’s two songs free to download - the first played for Reto (check out that gnarly thunder at 1:45) and the second played for that unpleasant 50 year old German man that seems to appear at every concert and ask me about Brexit. I hope I don’t see him this month, have had quite enough of that.
As it happens, next month I’ll be back in Thun on the 7th of September playing at the Schloss Hünegg as part of a poetry slam event my buddy Marco is putting together. Hope to see some familiar faces there.
Have a lovely weekend everyone,
Stephen
Painting
Details of a painting made in 1998 whilst I was living in Ireland, photographed in 2005 after it had been stored in the old cottage for a few cold winters and many wet springs. Peppered with mould and mildew - most of what I made there was scrappy and messy but the damage here was a bit of a shock. I took these photos and then made a big fire for this and the rest.
I had graduated from Fine Art at Exeter a month or so before and then my father and I drove the Land Rover across Ireland, onto the Rosslare / Fishguard ferry and down through Wales to pick up what I had made and accumulated in my years before. I drove with the horse box behind us, a nerve wracking experience for me and I once begged him to take over after we took a wrong road and I was expected to make a 180 turn in a narrow cul-de-sac. I was cautious and painfully slow but we made it fine and in time. I’m sure we watched a film in the little cinema on the ferry, can’t remember what it was now but I recall the motion of the boat in the dark room threw my inner ear right off and overboard.
After just a night in Exeter, and with the box stuffed, we drove back up and across and then the next day I unloaded it all into the broken cottage and naively thought my adult life as a painter had begun.
A week later I had painted over and scrubbed one piece from my degree show exhibition work and took these photos as a threat to all the others.
Somewhere I have slides and reasonable photographs documenting the 5 years or so of paintings I had made but here so long after I just have these things to hand. Bit weird looking at them and kind of embarrassing but it is what it is, or it was what it was. I don’t know, sometimes people ask.
Has obviously been a bit of a slow couple of weeks for me but I’ve been working on recording music for other people and beginning to write again. Next week I get to play shows in the north of Germany and looking forward loads.
Have nice days - I always appreciate you saying hello if you’re out there.
Stephen
Potraits by Anke
Just two portraits by my dear friend Anke, from her house in Dresden earlier this year.
Atelierkonzert in Stuttgart last night (free download)
Photo: @helle.helle.helle
I played a concert in Dirk and Danielle’s studio yesterday evening down here in Stuttgart. First gig in a couple of weeks - was wonderful to be invited (perhaps I invited myself) and a very enjoyable evening.
I played kind of ok, the room was high and open with a lovely wooden floor so I played most of the set acoustic. Some new songs got out of the house for the first time and here’s a free download of the first performance of ‘It Don’t Stop The Bleeding’ from the new album.
I’m here for a couple more days and then will play a short set in Fürth on the 12th of August with dear Julia Laura at the Babylon Kino. A handful of dates at the end of the month in the north of Germany to come too. It all goes on.
Have a lovely Sunday,
Stephen
ps - adding this one too, which was dedicated to Dr Lamb and whose good stuff is here.
'It Don't Stop The Bleeding' video
Here’s something Selina and I filmed a couple of days ago for the song ‘It Don’t Stop The Bleeding’ from the new album ‘A Day’. Thanks to her for patience and for understanding something of what I was getting at with this one.
Making things is fun, more coming soon then.
Have a lovely evening,
Stephen
'A Day' - new album available now
My latest album ‘A Day’ is now available to listen and buy at https://thegreatpark.bandcamp.com/album/a-day.
‘A Day’ was recorded entirely on the 14th of May in a tiny hut in the countryside near Baach, Germany. I had written a bunch of things that I thought could be put down but when I got there a lot of it changed and I spent an afternoon and most of the evening writing and playing as I went. The album is a loose thing, as most of my things tend to be, and perhaps I’ll get the chance to record some of these songs later and with other people. I suppose I work better when I’m inspired by a place and have a limited amount of time there, so I thank Martina for giving me the chance to hang out in this wonderful little space and wander about in such beautiful surroundings. She also took the photos you see here and the one on the cover, whilst I filmed some for the simple video below:
Of the songs, I think these sit in an in between place for me. I have an album of kind of playful things, light, often saucy text written over the last few years and I’ve recorded some of these songs in different places already without putting them out. But I also had these new ones and it didn’t feel like the right time or place for anything else. At least three of these were written on the day (‘now we know how we won’t’, ‘a kind of dog is not a cat’ and ‘what you fear to be the end comes around’ for sure) whilst the others had melodies and most of the text set beforehand.
I’ve been playing a few of these at the recent shows and they seem to be coming out different already, which perhaps goes to show what a collection of sketches this is.
Anyway, this is what I make.
Thanks for listening,
Stephen
Claude Hurni
A couple of portraits by Claude Hurni taken in the grounds of the beautiful Löwendenkmal in Luzern earlier this year. Claude has a website here and his Instagram here.
These were posted to my Instagram here, where there’s quite a bit more of this sort of thing.
'Now We Know How We Don't' from 'A Day'
A simple video filmed where I recorded ‘A Day’ which is now available to pre-order here:
I was going to wait a few more weeks before I made this but then I realised that I have a little time right now so it didn’t make sense to sit around looking at the stuff and listening over and over to the thing.
So, you can buy it now and you’ll get a download of the song ‘Now We Know How We Don’t’ today and the rest of the album on the 21st. I’ve made a physical edition too which will be sent out at the same time. I’ll write more about that in a few days but this morning it looks like this:
If you’ve signed up to the newsletter I’ll send you a free download of an exclusive track before the album is released and you can do that here.
Recording this album was an intense, joyful experience. A concentrated but loose 24 hours. Writing fast and seeing how things fell. I really try not to think too much or try to make perfect music but rather keep a record of how things go and this is certainly one of those.
Anyway, more later as ever - have a lovely weekend.
Stephen