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.

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.

‘I Do Wrong’ live in Cassino, Italy on the 5th of May 2012. For a free download of this song click here.

This was the last show of six concerts in Italy last week. My voice was hoarse from singing in the warm evenings and I had the Beastie Boys on my mind. I don’t often ad-lib with hip-hop lines coming to me in sudden flashes but I blame it on the heat. I really enjoyed this show, will perhaps post more from it in the next few days if I have time.

‘The Burning Of Two’ live in Hjørring, Denmark a few weeks ago.

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Tomorrow I’ll ride up to Berlin for a concert there on Friday at Kottbusser Tor. Details here. The next day I’ll travel down to Siegen for the first time for a show at VEB. Details for that show are here.

Next week I’ll head down to Switzerland and then Italy - bah, quite a bit of stress with that department right now as I’ve lost my driving licence and many panicked phone calls and faxes flying about trying to sort it. We’ll see.

‘Displacement Song’ from the rather epic  ’We Could Have, We Should Have, We Didn’t’ album available as a super cheap download HERE. I played most of this outside my back door at Jesswood in Ireland stomping in wellington boots too big for me and using all the garden tools I could find as poor percussion. Much fun to do.

Anyway, point is this song was originally written by my dear friend Liz Green - she’d been playing it for a while and I learnt it from a recording I made of her back in Brighton in 2007. At that time she hadn’t recorded a version of it that she was happy with but now everyone can hear it the way it should be done on her wonderful album ‘O, Devotion!’ Go get yourself a copy HERE.

“Sucht man Direktheit, so wird man sie vor allem im zentralen „Song for no one“ finden, der für mich so etwas wie das Herzstück des Albums darstellt. Seine erste Zeile negiert den Titel des Albums, oder bestätigt ihn, da er ja „for no one“ ist. Aber er verweigert auch in jeder Hinsicht die typische Ironie, die bei The Great Park meist schon an der Oberfläche existiert, und zielt als Song über das Festhalten direkt auf’s Wesentliche – in seiner emotionalen und zum Teil fast sentimentalen Bildwahl, in seiner brüchigen Stimme und seinen reduzierten Akkorden. Ohne dieses Stück, dass in vielerlei Hinsicht das Gegenstück zu den anderen Songs ist, wäre der Rest nur eine Sammlung schöner Lieder, so ist das Album eine runde Sache.” African Paper review here.

‘Song For No One’ from the ‘Now Wash Your Hands’ album - available again on handmade cd here and always to download here.

‘Lover O Lover’ from my last album - FREE DOWNLOAD HERE. 

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‘The Shot’ played live in Darmstadt with Johny Lamb of Thirty Pounds Of Bone on the banjo.

Original version of this is on my 2007 album ‘The Weeping Well’ long sold out on cd but always available over at Bandcamp (http://thegreatpark.bandcamp.com/album/the-weeping-well) - and you can download this live version for free right here.

As an aside, my last two albums ‘Winter’ and ‘Now Wash Your Hands’ are back in stock on cd here.

Stephen

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‘Red Barn, Black Barn, Tree’ played live in Darmstadt with Johny Lamb of Thirty Pounds Of Bone on the banjo and the shouting. He likes this song, apparently. 

Original version of this is on my album ‘Now Wash Your Hands’ currently sold out on cd but always available over at Bandcamp - and you can download this live version for free right here: http://www.mediafire.com/?653mz1dcg1q5fbb

More later, have a lovely Saturday.

Stephen

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‘Key’ from the new album ‘Now Wash Your Hands’ available on lovely, limited cd right here: http://www.woodlandrecordings.com/thegreatparkmusic.html

A couple of other albums, some sessions for good rooms and about ten thousand live shows I’m embarrassed to keep online to be found on that page too.

This is a little thing to me, something of an idea for a song - enough just to play through it and keep it for itself. Stefanie sang some on it too. Easy. I’ve been playing it at a few concerts recently and there’s not too many from the album that I’m comfortable playing yet - but I can manage this.

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I’m in Nürnberg this week - playing a concert down here on Thursday night. Here’s the facebook wotsit. Small little bar, looks like we’ll fill it with cool kids. Uh-oh. Please join us if you can.

Stephen

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‘Lover O Lover’ from the new album ‘Now Wash Your Hands’ available in a couple of weeks, maybe earlier.

The thing to say here is the playing of Dea Szücs from Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop on violin and Johny Lamb from Thirty Pounds Of Bone on the horns. Both of whom played kind of blind and jumped in and made a great noise for me. Thank you both.

Artwork is being done for this album now, should have it ready to sell in time for my concert at Intersoup here in Berlin on the 17th of September. Come along if you’re in town.

Stephen

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‘Suit Of Stones’ from La Rocca castle in Verucchio, Italy.

To download as a free mp3 please click here. 

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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.

Here’s the Facebook event for this.

Hope to see you soon,

Stephen 

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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.

Stephen

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‘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.

To download this song as a free mp3 click here.

And to hear the single version with Johny Lamb on the tasty cornet click here.

More later then,

Stephen

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