Wednesday 21 November 2012

Our bass culture blog is up and running here.

On Monday I dropped in on Red Note's Noisy Nights in the City Hall bar, where Amble was getting a piece played. It was great to see lots of young earnest composers scribbling away, as I arrived in the middle of the 10-minute challenge to write a piece, the best of which then immediately got played by the resident virtuosi. It's a great venue for it too, but the necessity for a PA in order to rise above the noise of the air conditioning and refrigeration does make the sound less interesting. Sometimes acoustic really is best.

Then yesterday was a Grand Day Out to Crear for Bill Lloyd and Jo Green's wedding. And what a grand day out it was: terrific company with lots of musical and BBC pals, exceptional food and drink, and even sunshine for the marriage ceremony itself, blessing us with the view over to the Paps of Jura, which seemed like a miracle given the deluge of the previous few days. Special mention also to Archie McAllister and the band who played for about 5 hours (with breaks) a brilliantly-judged variety of stuff which had almost all of the company dancing for most of the night. Highlights for me were getting to dance to a piper at a wedding, which doesn't happen that often, and Archie adapting the guitar riff from Status Quo's Caroline for the fiddle, which was truly awesome.

Crear is really something special. I'm generally sceptical about these 'specialist facility planted in the middle of nowhere' projects and have found some of Crear's publicity materials offputting in the past, but the place itself has such a welcoming character delivered with consummate professionalism that I was won over very easily indeed. It was 2.30am by the time I got home of course ...

So what with my dad's 90th birthday on Sunday it's been a busy few days.