London Viola Player, Violinist & Arranger For Hire

Martin Ash LTCL

Monthly Archives: August 2016

Riot at the Asylum

filth asylum 2016 1

The Filthy Spectacula played Weekend at the Asylum last year as a relatively unproven act headlining a relatively unproven concept, that of a roughshod rock-n-roll dancey music event within a steampunk convention.

Asylum remains, of course, the biggest steampunk event in the world. The new idea went down so well that the same concept was upgraded from a primary school hall to the Lincoln County Assembly Rooms, a US-based band flown in to take the second slot, and even in somewhere as big as this the whole thing was sold out weeks beforehand:

filth asylum 2016 2

Meanwhile the band have gained so much prominence in the last year that we still got asked to headline the upgraded event.

I’ve been known to be a little sniffy about steampunk crowds when playing with rock bands (‘dressing up for grown ups’; ‘lots of sitting down drinking tea in expensive costumes, not much dancing’). I have to take it all back for the Steerage Ball.

Opening act Captain of the Lost Waves proved you don’t need big beats and yelling to get a crowd engaged, attentive and participating, basing his act instead on surreal-science fiction storytelling, a troubadour roving performance style with bouzouki, ukelele and a headset mike letting him play and sing from anywhere (including, literally, the back row) and vocal acrobatics that could have got him into opera if he’d wanted. He’ll go far on the steampunk circuit.

Frenchy and the Punk really got the party going though. The two of them took a lot longer than the four of us to set up, and had a correspondingly massive sound, built up with two big percussion rigs (one of their numbers sounded like a samba band most of the way through), synth drum pad, vocal effects, guitar and loop station. The energy of their set was overwhelming and irresistible.

I’m not going to try and review our set (though it was another resounding success for the new electric violin – I think we just need a stooge in every sound check to stand in the middle of the room and prompt for me to be turned up above rhythm guitar … benefits of band wives that come to gigs). This was a fantastically responsive crowd though. We finally got we asked for with Drinkski Song – in fact got it about nine songs early, as highly skilled Cossack dancing kicked off in our opening number. Turns out the bloke is in fact Russian, and disarmingly modest about his abilities he was too. Through most of the set we had a pretty full dancefloor, and they even responded to between-song banter. Seems (some) steampunks can let their hair down after all.

The trick may be to have two evening music events to choose from – Newgate novel / penny dreadful or Henry James, depending on your preferred style of Victoriana. Asylum had done this on the same night, and Steampunk Wales did the same on consecutive nights a few weeks back. The Filthy Spectacula’s next outing, Steaminster this Saturday, aren’t running a big enough event to justify that, but looking at the line-up they seem to be running a tea and fabulousness daytime programme and an evening of debauchery. Spread the word steampunks – you can do dirty dancing in a corset or a silk waistcoat … especially to us!

Out and about

Saturday was a double header for the Kindred Spirit quintet line-up. In the afternoon, we were at Wokingham Festival, a sort of pocket music festival with one main stage, acoustic tent, a field’s-worth of food stalls and an impressive ale and cider bar (damn those gigs where I have to stay sober to play another gig later … ).

kindred spirit wokingham.jpg

Previous act The Salts nearly succeeded in bringing on a rainstorm with a sea shanty entitled ‘Stormy Weather’ (no, not that Stormy Weather – though I would like to see that done with banjo, mandolin, upright bass and blokey Americana harmonies … ) but luckily the great British weather changed its mind and left people out in the sun to watch us, and even in a few cases dance and sing along! My first gig opposite flautist-vocalist Emily Nash laid the foundations of some very promising duelling improvisation, building on each other’s licks at every turn. We kept polishing that through the second and third gigs of the weekend …

Fast forward a few hours and the band were down the road in Sandhurst, at the Rose and Crown. In many ways this music-loving, originals-favouring neighbourhood pub resembles a slightly more middle-class Mill Plumstead (see earlier post). The big difference is the décor, heavy on Dia de los Muertos motifs, a sprinkling of steampunk gadgetry, horror film posters and replica Egyptiana (drummer Chris Goode ended up sat next to a full size sarcophagus. As you do). However, they certainly weren’t dead enough to not get pretty lively as our set progressed, as well as being charmingly appreciative of a very original-focused first half. I’m pleased to say we’ll be back!

This was also my first gig with in-ear monitors (stretching out a recent list of firsts!), and once I’d got the transmitter and receiver levels right to avoid clipping on the signal it was a good experience, the slight sensation of being in a space helmet more than made up for by the clarity and (sorry Chris!) ability to block out a lot of drumming. Plus, it’s one less reason to be worried about moving around, including out in front of the PA speakers …

Write-ups of the Filthy Spectacula in Lincoln, Kindred Spirit in Carshalton, more new gear and an upcoming West Country steampunk appearance all to follow …

Winds of change

It’s been a little while … life has been slightly getting in the way of art, or at least of blogging. Shocking behaviour, Wilde would never have stood for it.

Sunday’s Kindred Spirit gig counts as a resounding success. Largely it went as I predicted in my last post. However, this being England in the summer, what no one could predict was the weather. It was sunny enough to bring out the west London punters – a decent crowd when we played and the riverside filled up still further through the afternoon. It was also blowing a near-gale up the Thames valley! On the previous day the tech crew actually lost a gazebo into the river during setup, and after our set there was localised flooding in the festival site. While we were playing the risks were limited to severely unstable cymbal stands, and some interesting ghost notes coming from Stevie’s flute if she was at the wrong angle to the wind!

You can see some of the wind’s effects (particularly on my hair!), and hear some very fine music notwithstanding the circumstances, in this live video from the gig. Why not subscribe to the Kindred Spirit YouTube channel? There is more footage to come and it would be a shame for you to miss it!

We’ve got not one, not two, but three gigs this weekend:

Saturday afternoon at Wokingham Festival, with food, real ale and a live music line-up running from our set at 5.

Saturday evening at the Rose and Crown, Sandhurst (rare opportunity to see the full 5-piece band do 90 minutes for free!).

Monday lunchtime (it’s a bank holiday remember!) in the Acoustic Tent at Carshalton Environmental Fair.

In between all of that lot, on Sunday I’m squeezing in a meet and greet followed by headlining the Steerage Ball (steampunk for the willing to get dishevelled) at Weekend at the Asylum with the Filthy Spectacula.

See you at something!

Brave new worlds

This Sunday sees the full band, original-songs incarnation of Kindred Spirit play Richmond’s On the Edge music festival. It’s our highest-profile gig for a while (though not a very long set – be punctual if you want to see us, at 1pm!) and should be a great event in general (fingers crossed for no rain).

It will also be the gig debut of my new electric violin, which I’m tremendously excited about (get behind me, feedback! I have a super-rock-looking shiny black instrument that kills you stone dead).

And it will be the Kindred Spirit gig debut of Stevie Mitchell on flute, saxophone and backing vocals, whom some of you know as my girlfriend (and many more people in the world know as a superb musician in her own right, I hasten to emphatically add!).

Several new chapters open … be there to witness it at the start …

Against odds

The last two Filthy Spectacula performances have gone surprisingly well. Not surprisingly because we usually struggle, but because in each case there were what the economists would call ‘headwinds’ to a successful set for all concerned.

Ten days ago we were headlining the Pirates’ Ball at Steampunk Wales. The idea was well-conceived I think: a lot of steampunks don’t want to go to a rock gig, they’d rather have amusing music they can listen to sitting down and having a drink without getting sweat all over their gorgeous, expensive and impractical costumery. But some do want to dance around to rock-n-roll, so have a couple of evening events with chap-hop and similar solo artists for one camp, and a rock bands night, rather less classy, for the other. And we are certainly a good match for that latter vacancy (less so for the former class of steampunk crowd and event, which we have played to the evident mild frustration of both parties).

Unfortunately, doors for this event were at 7. By the time we finally took to the stage at just past 11, there had been substantial sets by three other acts who were not, I will dare to say publicly, very well suited either to the audience’s expectations and desires or to being warm-up acts for the Filthy Spectacula. Barely half a dozen people had been seen dancing all night, albeit to a comedy-punk duo and two backing track-driven two-pieces, and most of the people who had been in the room at some point had already left. Our expectations were low by the time we finally played.

And yet, those people who were left, or came back out of the hotel lounge when we started, proved to belong to that relatively rare breed the dancing uninhibited steampunk, and we had a very good and fun, albeit slightly tight on time, set with lots of great feedback afterwards.

A week later, we played on the Floating Globe stage at Lakefest. A very mixed festival (not necessarily in a bad way), but that second stage is where a lot of the more alternative and energetic music hangs out, and by mid-evening Saturday it was busy and ripe for a high-energy band (with all due respect to reggae groovers Samsara Collective who played before us). So the right event and the right slot, according to us, the crowd and the organisers, even if we’d never willingly clash with Jonny Kowalski and the Sexy Weirdos.

Not according to the power supply, which cut out (for about the fourth time that evening) two songs from the end of our set. We kept the crowd engaged in the dark for quite a long time with drums and yelling, eventually giving up on trying to jam ‘We Will Rock You’ about five minutes before they got the power back. Then with just ‘Drinkski Song’ to go Mr E’s guitar, or a connected bit of the PA, got upset by all the drama and wouldn’t be comforted, so he had to play the last song thrumming desperately into a microphone.

Despite all of this, several people said we were the best band they’d seen all festival. The stage manager couldn’t stop giving us more drinks. We sold all the albums we had. It amounted to a rock star reception. It goes to show you never can tell.

In two weekends’ time we play the Steerage Ball at Weekend at the Asylum, a similar concept to our gig at Steampunk Wales but, being the steampunk convention of the year, on a somewhat grander scale. It should be a great event – it’s already sold out – and the one of the two support acts I know of are an excellent match. Here’s hoping for no technical failures this time!

That might be arranged

Off the back of #shinyday, I’m engaged in upping my game at professional arranging. As well as a certain amount of direct enquiry, advice from pro contacts has led to a website revamp – mainly a new page for arranging, though there have also been some updates to the page on my playing and the home page. Please let me know what you think – feedback is much appreciated! And of course, if you know anyone looking for an arrangement, whether it be string or horn parts added to a band track or a transcription of a whole concert / stage work, please point them my way …

Rewiring

Early this year, it became clear that the pair of Headway Band pickups I had used to play amplified gigs on both violin and viola were nearing end-of-life, and a like-for-like replacement wasn’t going to be the best way forward. They had served me well, especially at the price, but it was time for an upgrade, or at least a change of tack.

The viola Band went first, but the nature of what I play amplified viola for (String Project gigs mostly, and some work in pocket string sections for relatively restrained ensembles / performers), and the fact that I play a relatively large proportion of the time acoustically, meant that a more nearly similar replacement was the obvious choice. The onstage volumes are (again, relatively) low, feedback had never been a significant problem and I didn’t want to acquire another instrument – especially as violas are almost always different sizes, and it’s bad enough swapping between violin and one viola without my muscle memory having to try and play in tune on two different viola scale lengths too! On a mixture of recommendation and availability, I ended up going for a Fishman V-200:

viola with fishman pickup

As you can see, this fits semi-permanently to the instrument, which is arguably the big difference to the Band (I can remove and refit it myself, but it’s a hassle and involves taking a lot of tension off at least the bottom two strings, so in practice I don’t). It certainly doesn’t have any of the issues of loosening, physically buzzing etc. that tend to dog the Band, especially once it’s in at all bad condition. The output level is higher (I think) and the frequency response curve different, which means engineers used to one take a bit of time to get used to the other, but I absolutely don’t think there’s anything inferior about the quality of the sound.

Interestingly, as well as rehearsing, I’ve played two chamber group-sized acoustic performances recently with the pickup still attached and not noticed any problem. Presumably there must be some impact to the sound involved in wedging a small piece of springy metal into one slot of the bridge (the fact of clipping on the output socket is probably negligible when the body is already weighed down by a chinrest and shoulder rest), but it doesn’t seem to be noticeable to me or anyone else else at my level of playing and my audiences’ level of listening. The instrument still seems to be more powerful than average too!

The violin pickup has held up longer (in fact thanks to superglue I can and will be using it a little bit yet). But the vast majority of my amplified violin performances are fairly heavily amplified, with The Filthy Spectacula and Kindred Spirit. Either I’m playing with rock drummers on full acoustic kits – in which case monitors are correspondingly loud and stage volumes high – or doing Kindred Spirit duo gigs very close up against monitor and front of house speakers, without anyone riding the desk to try and head off feedback. And in both cases I’ve taken to varying the sound by using a distortion pedal, which even at the same volume is more prone to feedback.

The sensible response to this had to wait for some income to arrive that wasn’t part of the ordinary run of things. But here it is:

electric violin

A Harley Benton HBV 870BK if you want to go and look up the specs, fresh arrived from Thomann (don’t ask me why the most practical solution turned out to be to buy an American-made instrument, in the UK, via a supplier in Germany).

Unlike the handful of very budget electric violins I’ve tried, this has the same scale length and neck length / shoulder positioning as a full-size conventional violin. The action height and bridge shape seem pretty normal too (I’m increasingly convinced there’s something unusual about the shape of the bridge on my other violin mind you). This meant I could pick it up and play it first time successfully, and swap between this and an acoustic fiddle without losing tuning or failing to make position changes accurately – ideal for a ‘portfolio’ player like me. Like all solid body electric instruments it’s heavy, but the weight is mostly distributed well towards you as you hold it (the output socket is more or less under the bridge, for instance) and based on first tries I think I’ll be able to get used to it.

It looks very rock-monster, and I’m sure the potential is there to create heavy electric-guitar-esque sounds, but the underlying technology is actually the piezo crystal pickup familiar from almost all electro-acoustic instruments (the model, Shadow, is available as a respectable add-on pickup for acoustic violins, in the same mould as the Fishman above). This means the clean output is very similar to using the Band on the acoustic violin – but with a solid body feedback will be almost impossible, and being manufactured from scratch as an electric instrument and without the knife-edge mechanics of resonating acoustic bodies, there should be no problem with physical buzzes, rattles or losses of signal.

I need to get a bit more used to this before I bring it out in public I think, and I have the luxury of the pickup still working so I’m not rushed, but still coming soon to a gig near you: the chance to shout ‘Judas on the fiddle!’