Title: Make A Dead One Of It (live 13/09/12)Artist: The Great Park19 plays
Free download of a charge through ‘Make A Dead One Of It’ from my sold-out (!) concert in Zürich last week. Played this one for Laura (here on Tumblr) who had asked for it a few days before but I had not the brain for all the words. Bah.
I’m back home for a few weeks with a brief chance to catch up on recordings I’ve been making whilst in Switzerland. I taped a few shows I played, but also spent a lovely afternoon recording with a violinist friend Sophia. We did a few songs together for fun and I’ll make them available in some form - you can expect to be able to grab some things very soon.
‘Suit of Stones’ recorded live in Tuchlaube Café Bar, Aarau, CH 04/09/12 with Sophia Basler on the violin.
We played some songs together for the first time last week at my concert in Aarau - was a lot of fun and I think we’ll play again this Thursday in Zürich here.
Here’s a live recording of ‘Bad Roads Ahead’ from the new album - played solo in the great Tankstell bar in St Gallen the night before last. I don’t know how it should go but something like this perhaps.
Title: The Woods Were Full Of Them (live 12/05/12)Artist: The Great Park10 plays
Free download of ‘The Woods Were Full Of Them’ live at Café Averechts in Utrecht last week. Volker Hormann playing cello for the first time on this one. Link for a download of the mp3 here.
Tomorrow I’ll ride up to Paderborn for a concert at Sputnik - details here. Never visited the town before, have no idea. Then the next day a short hop to Oberhausen for a house show, and then right across to Dresden for a concert at Veränderbar - details for that one are here. Happy to be travelling back to Dresden indeed, but perhaps happier still to have a little time right afterwards to stay at home and perhaps even write some songs and begin the next thing. Let’s see.
Title: Limmat (live 12/05/12)Artist: The Great Park25 plays
Free download: ‘Limmat’ with Volker Hormann on the cello live in Utrecht in front of about 6 people last Saturday. Link to download here - another song from this show tomorrow.
Title: Red Barn, Black Barn, Tree (live 17/12/11)Artist: The Great Park1 play
‘Red Barn, Black Barn, Tree’ from a free download of my concert at Haus 73 in Hamburg back in December available here now. Tape kindly donated by Christoph Beckmann - danke.
I’m back in Berlin tomorrow and have a concert at the lovely Schokoladen on Wednesday night.
It’s an early start - I will be on stage at 20:00 sharp. If you would like to come I have an unlimited guest list that will save you 2€ off the entry - drop me a line if you’d like to be on it.
Title: We Could Have, We Should Have, We Didn't (live 28/07/11)Artist: The Great Park10 plays
Writing this on a dark, quiet train leaving Bern for Basel after a lovely, simple weekend in Switzerland at the Openair Am Bielersee festival. Thank you to Martin for the invitation to play and to everyone involved in running the weekend - I hope you enjoy the rest and relaxation you need after all that.
I got to hear some wonderful stuff the last few days: ‘Vialka’ - a French duo of drums and guitar making super theatrical and awkwardly jagged noise, some ridiculously named metal band ‘Breakdown Of Sanity’ tight as can be and overused double kick drum on every song loud enough and fun enough, ‘Stiller Has’ commanding the main stage with swagger and workhorse electric guitar and before all that Nick Porsche with one man guitar and drums band and good clumpy riffs and all.
I really felt like a slight, quiet thing playing at the end of the weekend - some sort of comedown closing act for sure. Ah, it is what it is. I had fun.
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Anyway, here’s another song from the week before - in La Rocca castle at the Verucchio festival in Italy. I taped the whole concert but shitty problems with the battery in my microphone mean that most of the set is full of buzz and electric noise. Not too hot.
This is ‘We Could Have, We Should Have, We Didn’t’ - download as an mp3 for free right here.
If you open it in iTunes it’ll fit as part of an ongoing compilation of assorted ‘Field Recordings’ - 30 songs now I think - get the rest here.
Title: Make A Dead One Of It (live 28/07/11)Artist: The Great Park10 plays
‘Make A Dead One Of It’ live in the castle at Verucchio, Italy last Thursday night.
So I spent last week in Italy at the invitation of Ludovico Einaudi, the folks at Ponderosa and Franco at the Teatro Vittoria in Pennabilli. I’ve always loved visiting Italy but, with one or two exceptions, never really enjoyed playing there. This was a different thing altogether - I had a wonderful week in the sun and a magic evening playing. I recorded the set I played, and also made some other recordings with Franco in the theatre the next day - hopefully there’s some good stuff there. I’ll be writing and sharing more of what we got up to, but I’m moving house (again) and have little time - for now here’s one little something from the concert.
Title: Portugal (live 20/05/11)Artist: The Great Park0 plays
Free download of ‘Portugal’ from the nice show at Bar Cine-Teatro de Estarreja in Estarreja, Portugal last week. I seem to have only played this song once on this little tour, which is a bit of a waste. Not here that often after all. Still two shows left mind.
Title: Cretinous Man - with Preslav Literary School (live 11/09/10)Artist: The Great Park20 plays
” I think that I am a stupid man
And I think that I am a slow man
But I know that he is a cretinous man”
He began, beautifully emphasised with the cadence of the wounded. Romanticism weaves its ways through the lyrics – arms are fled from, losses felt, snows considered, darknesses breathed. This stylised acoustics was in itself enough of a treat had it not been delivered with such exhilerating backing.
Both these gentlemen excel in the quiet. Stephen Burch (The Great Park) paints wide landscapes of longing, with small but forceful words. Adam Thomas (Preslav) illustrates these same scapes but with noise: an idyllic drone fuzz composed on cassettes. The effect of Preslav is that of slowly moving sepia behind the clear cut, doleful acrylic supplied by Stephen Burch.
This is ‘Cretinous Man’ played live with Preslav Literary School at the Flux/S event in Eindhoven last September and uploaded here for Juan. Please note that this is just a small piece of a larger performance Adam and I put together for the concert - it’s kind of unfair to chop out a piece like this when Adam makes such wonderful noise before and after. If possible I will upload the entire show soon as it sounds kind of special and was a unique thing for me to be able to do.
Another example (like this one from Leipzig) of playing in a large space with huge, natural reverb. I haven’t added any to this recording - the echo is just the room, something like 6 seconds of it, crazy.
If you’re wondering what’s happening here - this was the final night of a week of events in the theatre about American heroes and narrative (link). In front of me two artists recreate Custer’s Last Stand using hundreds of toy soldiers. Amazing night.
Title: The Burning Of Two (Nürnberg Recording version)Artist: The Great Park0 plays
‘The Burning Of Two’ from the six song Nürnberg Recording available for free download here. Please enjoy and share freely with anyone you think might be into this stuff, thank you.
Title: I Know What I Make Isn't Fine (live 04/03/11)Artist: The Great Park0 plays
‘I Know What I Make Isn’t Fine’ from the show last weekend at TAC in Eindhoven. Been having a bit of a tear through this each night, trying to get a way in.
