London Viola Player, Violinist & Arranger For Hire

Martin Ash LTCL

Get beyond the cover

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(as in, to the book … )

On Friday night, Kindred Spirit (full band version) were appearing at Weybridge Conservative Club. I’d be the first to admit my expectations weren’t high for this gig. Firstly, my politics don’t incline to the Tory nor my social outlook particularly to the small-c conservative. Secondly, taking an unusual line-up playing a set heavy on fairly challenging originals and seriously reworked covers into a social club bar gig in a Home Counties market town seems a high-risk strategy, to put it mildly.

And the early parts of the gig didn’t give me massive reason to ditch that opinion, to be honest. There weren’t that many people in when we started playing, and while we weren’t heckled or asked ‘do you know any [x]?’, we didn’t exactly seem to have the audience in the palm of our hand either in the first half.

But the place did fill up, a couple of people were very visibly photographing and filming (I know a lot of performers hate this, but I see it as firstly a testimony to my performance being good enough to want to remember!), there were some very attentive blokes down the front and we were clearly making some impression, as I bounced around and hammed things up in usual fashion, and of course finished the set (as opposed to the encore) by touring the bar on wireless, wigging out over the outro to Fleetwood Mac’s ‘The Chain’.

It was only really after we finished, though, that I started to feel this had been a good gig rather than one with some observable return on a lot of investment (I try to always invest effort, performance and energy as well as musical high standards in concerts, as you know). It was a good sign when we got paid quicker than I’ve ever seen after finishing (not that I’d want to be paid before finishing – undertones of ‘please just stop now’ … ). And while a few appreciative comments are common, this was out of the ordinary for compliments on my playing, enquiries as to when and where else we will be playing (check the website if you’re wondering too!), offers of fairly serious commercial help (Minde and Andy, we’ll be in touch) and general attention, to the whole band not just me. It goes to show you never can tell.

In a similar vein, I had just finished busking outside Wandsworth’s large shopping centre yesterday morning when I was accosted by a bloke carrying a four-pack of Stella and a tennis ball. I’m not going to jinx this because there’s no telling where it might go yet, but musicians, performers, freelancers and businesspeople of all kinds, take this as a tale to answer the question ‘Is it worth taking every person that wants to talk seriously?’ The conversation opened with ‘Nice playing; I haven’t got any change but do you want a beer?’ and ranged on as far as ‘Hypothetically, could you fix me a string quartet for a live TV appearance and how much would it cost?’ and ‘The guy who arranged the strings on my last recording works with Olly Murs and people like that, but I always want to get to know more people, you never know when someone’s going to be busy.’

So moral of the story: stick with it and make the effort. The payback is always unpredictable.

On screen

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It’s pretty common to encounter some video kicking around the social internet after a particularly successful rock gig, courtesy of a random crowd member, fan, band widow or even band member (note: headcam footage from the drummer is usually disconcerting). It’s a lot rarer that the sound or the picture is actually any good (this is a quick way to produce crippling self-doubt in amplified musicians: ‘Is that really what we sound like out front?’ … ).

However, these two from the last Filthy Spectacula gig but one are definitely worth the ten minutes of your lunchbreak it’ll take to watch them. The video is still rather blurred, but you can see and hear what’s going on and it should at least whet your appetite for the results of Saturday’s Quiet Whistle Test gig / shoot …

In the press

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There is a fairly involved story to this write-up of Kindred Spirit actually making it into the public domain. Between Elaine giving the interview and it appearing in print, TeamRock, mother company of Prog magazine, went bust, provoking an outcry (mostly to do with celebrity fans of Prog‘s sister publications – there aren’t that many King Crimson obsessives out there I’m afraid) leading to it being taken over / bailed out by former owners and most of the content prepared resurrected for the February edition. So this content has been in print for those of you keen to hunt out and buy the hard copy edition (before March’s bumps it off the shelves), but is now also available online free here:

http://teamrock.com/feature/2017-02-16/kindred-spirit-folk-with-a-progressive-twist

complete with a free download track, in case you can’t make it to a gig to buy the full album (or its predecessor) – or to whet your appetite to do so. Have a read!

Said same band will be back on the road on Friday, playing Weybridge Conservative Club *gasp* (but I’m assured you can pay for one-off entry without having to swear allegiance to a portrait of either Iron Lady – at present). Then on Saturday the Filthy Spectacula commit ourselves to video playing live (not seen the latest music video yet? You should), before preparing to (dis)grace ‘Europe’s largest alternative / fetish / crossover event’ – more on that anon.

Getting busy

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After just over a week living full-time in London, it feels like I’m starting to hit my stride (apart from absence of internet at home, which is delaying being able to really hit the editorial freelance work till Friday).

On Saturday night the Filthy Spectacula were back at the Music Mill in Plumstead, and as usual a rather dirty good time was had by all. The place was busy, with a fair few familiar faces and some new ones, and the crowd may have taken a little longer than some gigs to really get into things, but they were certainly up on their dancing feet giving it their all by the end. A pleasure (if a very sweaty one – the more gigs I do in that frock coat the more I see where Iggy Pop was coming from with the topless look) as ever.

In other news, I’ve profitably scouted out a couple of Putney busking locations and will be getting back to that front once I shake my current heavy cold (or next Saturday morning regardless – the takings on shopping days are too good to pass up). I’m also eyeing up the river front for slightly warmer weather, and Wandsworth shopping centre for even higher footfall and takings than home turf.

Also starting to pursue semi-formal viola study, and consider a qualification – if anyone has strong feelings / experiences either way with Trinity’s ATCL Recital performance diploma, I would be interested to know!

In the shorter term, this coming weekend is a double header: Friday night Kindred Spirit travel out to Weybridge for a full evening’s full band booking; on Saturday the Filthy Spectacula take to the Quiet Whistle Test stage for a house gig, but more importantly the whole thing captured in multi-channel sound and video. Entry is invitation only, but we may be able to squeeze a few more people in, so get in touch urgently if you want to be part of this immortalised performance!

That rather sets the tone for March, when I currently have in my diary no less than 7 gigs (Kindred Spirit duo and full band, Filthy Spectacula and freelance orchestral viola all making appearances). More of those anon. Though if anyone wants to book me for Friday 24 March the option is still open! Goal – pay the rent out of gigs alone next month…

See you next time, and whichever one it is let’s make it fun.

Your Funeral and Our Trial

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So the Filthy Spectacula broke into 2017 last Saturday, at a classically ‘us’ event. We were headlining, supported by tongue-in-cheek ska-reggae outfit the Vegetable Collective (we’ve shared a bill before. We doubtless will again) and psychobilly three-piece Shaking Bones, at an irregular series of weird-out nights in north London, this one themed ‘Funeral Party’ (the Dia de los Muertes makeup on display was impressive). It was a good crowd, I took advantage of the free-roaming possibilities of wireless (first time with the Filthy crew) and we went down extremely well. I only wish I’d been slightly more in the mood for it, but the theme was an unfortunate combination with my having spent the first half of the day at my grandfather’s actual funeral. Let’s just say coping strategies were implemented, and the audience don’t seem to have minded. Or noticed.

Lest you think Valentine’s Day might have mellowed our mood, today takes us back from the funeral to the murder (the trial will have to feature in another video, but I can never resist a good Chicago blues reference, or even a bad one). Yes, ladies and gentlemen, to prove not everything coming out of the Filthy mill is funny and boozy, feast your eyes on the new music video:

But not in front of someone you’re trying to get it on with tonight.

If music videos just aren’t your thing, there are some live shots from the gig on our Facebook page, or you can just come and see us live next time! Which would be this Saturday, 18th February, back at the Mill in Plumstead. See you down the front … or down the back, now I can just come and find you whenever I don’t need a backing mike or a drink …

Good evening London!

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So, as of today I officially reside in London.

The practicalities of that are complicated. Firstly, I started renting a share in a flat in Putney today, but I haven’t actually collected the keys and my possessions won’t start migrating till this Sunday or all be there until the Sunday after. Secondly, at the moment I’m still renting another room, actually residing and working in an office part-time in Oxford. But this seems as good a time as any to blog about the move, not least because I hope to have more exciting things to blog about towards the middle of this month (like, you know, gigs).

So, the headlines:

  • no more office job, for publisher that I’ve carefully avoided naming for contractual reasons. I’m going freelance in editorial work as well as music instead (sheet music and English as a foreign language materials among my specialisms); if you know anyone who needs copy-editing, proofreading, digital publication briefing and testing, etc. work needing doing at reasonable hourly rates, please do get them to drop a line to [email protected]
  • No more long-distance relationship! I’m getting to move in with the wonderful Stevie, whose occasional appearances in this blog do not do justice to her importance in my life; and (because you can’t live as a young couple in London these days unless at least 1.5 of you have sold your souls to Mammon) her colleague Stuart, Stuart’s partner Clinton and Stuart and Clinton’s two black cats Scampi and Coco (personally, I’m almost as excited about the cats as the girlfriend, but keep it under your hat).
  • Much less time in coaches on the M40. A lot of my music work has already been in London or nearer to London than to Oxford, plus of course I’ve been maintaining said long-distance relationship, so I should get a lot of hours back for the rest of my life.

All very well, I hear you say, but I thought this was the blog of a professional musician. What is the relevance of this upheaval, this 50 miles’ exodus to the capital, for you as musician, since you are supposed to be writing in that capacity?

Well, multiple and at the same time not as great as might be supposed. It doesn’t mean an end to anything I’m currently doing; I’m still very much going to be active in the two bands I’m in, and available for freelance work. But I will generally have less travelling to do for both band and freelance concerts and rehearsals, on balance of probability. So that already means lower overheads, more availability. Very importantly, my non-music work being self-employed and fully flexible in hours means much more flexibility in timing of music work too – it becomes much more practical for me to take lunchtime recitals, daytime recording sessions, all-day rehearsals, etc., because I can do editing work at another point. Or even decline work that would sit across a particularly busy time musically.

Lower travel costs to earning music means higher profit margins. Means less money needed from editorial work, so the ability to spend less time doing it (besides the fact that freelancers in practice earn rather more per hour than in-house staff – interesting that). All of that means more time and effort available for music – not just paying work (and I fully intend to maximise the time by getting back into a busking habit – licences for Putney and for the Tube will be among the things I investigate when I’m actually resident in the new flat), but also technical practice, upping my game in technical terms and on paper. Wheels are in motion already to spend some time actively and directly studying classical viola, with a view to a performance diploma within the foreseeable future. And that might just be the most concrete aspect of a general truth that I will soon not be tethered by fixed hours, either in start and finish or sum total terms; if I can continue increasing the contribution of music to my personal economy as it has grown over the last couple of years (and it can only be to the good of my wellbeing to do so, for reasons that I won’t go into here), I will be at liberty to scale down my other paid exertions accordingly rather than trying to stretch my energy further.

So exciting times, for my music-making in particular and for my life in general. The phrase ‘end of an era’ has been used more than I expected in the context of me leaving Oxford and my desk job (perhaps we are a society given to the melodramatic); but I think it is more importantly the beginning of one. As they always say, watch this space …

Some things old, some things new

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So gigging year 2017 finally gets under way! I say finally, but to be honest getting any gigs in January, even the last Saturday, is more than many bands hope to achieve, so no real grounds for complaint.

The Music Mill in Plumstead has hosted the Filthy Spectacula twice and earned extensive description in these pages, which I shan’t repeat now. This was the first time I’d persuaded them to book Kindred Spirit on the strength of the connection though (and, by the same token, the first time I’d persuaded the band to accept the booking!). I can confidently say all our gambles paid off.

January’s fabled tendency to no cash, righteous resolutions, miserable weather and miserable behaviour didn’t prevent the Mill having almost as full and equally as appreciative a crowd as usual for another, to them, unknown quantity.

There might not have been all that much new about our set to a KS regular, though it’s hitherto been unusual for us to play a full evening by ourselves with such a high proportion of original material (something that is changing this year, looking ahead). However, with that line-up, Elaine’s generally extended-form songs, the highlighted improvised solos and duets and lots of other touches that have led to us adopting the ‘prog’ label, our business as usual is generally a crowd’s journey of discovery. Luckily they like something new and something off the beaten track at the Mill!

We did also have a new face, in now-inducted ongoing dep drummer Aleem Saleh, doing a great job on his first Kindred Spirit gig – and keeping me pushed towards the audience with the seven cymbals plus tambourine of what is apparently his smallest normal gigging kit (the full rig runs to five toms rather than three, just for starters … ).

I was also going wireless for the first time with an audience, and in somewhere like the Mill with no actual stage edge, a smallish venue and a crowd that I know appreciate a certain amount (all right, almost any amount) of putting on a show this was a gift for finding extra space, dancing in other people’s solos (or my own), touring the crowd and converging for a close-up on the people filming parts of the set on their phones …

All in all a good night for all parties. We’ll be back, though there’s such a long queue of acts wanting to play the Mill that it won’t be until the summer at least. I’ll be back a lot sooner, as the Filthy Spectacula play there on the 18th of February. Though we have Diskollective‘s freak-out oriented Funeral Party in north London to launch our gigging year the previous weekend, on the 10th. Kindred Spirit are back in action on the 24th in Weybridge. It’s all picking up speed again, so catch you soon!

Notice anything different around here?

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In fact, notice how everything seems a little different around here?

Over the last few months, the wonderfully creative, patient and thorough Helen Lesley (contact details on request) has been working through redesigning my website. The gradual shifts in content grouping, deleting and adding pages and making corresponding changes to what text, links and media are where, have been visible as they go along, but the new design as such (theme, colour scheme, the homepage which is completely different) had to hide in backroom test versions until we were ready to move the whole new thing to my domain name. Which we have now done, so please have a dig around and enjoy my new web home.

Of course, one of the beauties of the digital sphere is that instead of a major redesign refresh being an end product that you’re stuck with until you do the next one, it’s more setting a baseline to which you can make innumerable continuous-improvement tweaks based on feedback (or, less advisably, random whims). So let me know what you think of the new e-threads; the whole site is still built in a platform that allows me (without much technical knowledge, certainly nothing specialist) to adjust almost any detail within the whole.

And if anyone I know is seeking a web designer, I would certainly recommend Helen as being very good to work with and having that sought-after ability to get inside the client’s image of themselves – even if you don’t understand that so clearly yourself at the start of the process – and pick on the things that will communicate that identity effectively online.

Unleashed

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Now, who can tell me what this is?

wireless kit.JPG

There’s a technical answer of course (that’s a Trantec Systems S3500, plus a couple of extra leads). And there happens to be a social one too (that’s my Christmas present from my brother. Thank you Richard!).

But from a musician or rather performer perspective, as first employed in a fully amplified rehearsal Saturday gone, this is freedom.

Freedom having to be attached to a 30-foot leash whenever I’m playing amplified – a dog-lead that is very inextendible and rather given to getting and staying wrapped around every obstacle it can possibly find, and that will yank my instrument out of my hands rather than pull out (the socket on my electric violin is surprisingly tight).

Freedom not just to go further from where I’m connected to the PA, but perhaps more importantly to simply move freely without cables snarling up my ankles, and like as not getting tied up with the cable of another instrumentalist so we end up doing something between a maypole dance and musical Twister.

All of this can seem very techie and modern – using a belt pack and a radio receiver that needs mains power essentially to replace a piece of wire. It might even smack (as perhaps the most tongue-in-cheek of my wandering through the crowd soloing antics have done, and will do) of classic rock-n-roll excess, a somewhat Spinal Tap desire to push the kit ever further whether or not there is any musical substance behind it (and I do remember that wireless kits are discussed (in context of lead guitar gear) in one scene of Spinal Tap).

But actually I think this is a step forward that takes me back towards my roots.

Whatever else you might dispute about where my roots lie, they definitely sit with acoustic music and playing acoustically. I didn’t start using amplified instruments on a regular basis until I’d been playing for a good 15 years or more. And one of the things I miss about that when I’m playing amped up gigs is freedom of movement. Having to play into a microphone is probably the worst, because even when sat down in an orchestral concert I will move the instrument around quite a lot (and a lot more if I’m leading a section, as is fairly conventional). But unless balance and the acoustics of the space are a really significant issue, you can also play acoustically from anywhere in the room – and while moving around it. To date, my most elaborately mobile performances have been true acoustic ones, in a folk or gigging context without sheet music, where I could use the whole room uninhibited if I wanted.

To this day, I rarely pay much practical heed to the need to stay in front of ‘my’ monitor to get the right foldback mix in a setup with wedges. I’m more likely to use my position on the stage plan as a starting point, and the place where I change effects (in Kindred Spirit gigs where I use them significantly) and do backing vocals (and, at Filthy Spectacula gigs, stage banter). (I think a Britney mike and another belt pack might genuinely be too much, especially as many Kindred Spirit gigs also involve in-ear monitors with a wireless belt pack receiver of their own.)

In that sense then, ditching the wire is a move back towards pre-1950s performance modes and traditions (though there will be the disjunction that wherever I play from, the sound will come out of the front of house speakers. Something which big gig crowds seem remarkably used to). However, I think we can still assume that the most-noticed and most memorable consequence of it will be even freer roaming around and off stage during solos, jams and playouts, even if I think it’s as much about not worrying about tripping over …

[insert turn of year cliché here]

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I did try to think of a witty title for this post in my usual vein. Really I did. But, nah. Nothing forthcoming.

For most musicians, New Year’s Eve is less a question of ‘have you got a gig?’ and more of ‘what’s your gig this year?’. Some of the booking agents have been sounding increasingly desperate on Facebook in the last few weeks, trying to fill gigs at two or three times the usual function rates.

I played out the old year and ushered in the new with Kindred Spirit duo, expanding to trio on some numbers with assistance from my talented and wonderful girlfriend Stevie. The interesting part of the experience for me was that we were at a restaurant – namely the Michelin-listed Fish in Sutton Courtenay – and our first set was during pre-meal drinks and dinner service. (By our second, people were lingering over dessert and coffee, drinks orders were starting to transfer from the floor staff to the bar, and dancing was becoming an acceptable idea.)

Now I have a moderate amount of background music experience. But I would place it firmly under two headings. One is chamber music – well, in a generous sense: acoustic string groups from a quartet downwards, playing fully scored instrumental pieces, even if that includes jazz, Latin and pop transcriptions. The other is acoustic instrumental jazz small groups.

So providing background music as an amplified duo with vocals on every number was a bit of a shift of gear. And it was certainly a shift from the bar gigs that have been the backbone of the Kindred Spirit duo diary for the last 9 months or so. From tending to turn up over hubbub and chatter, and do almost as many up-tempo numbers as possible to make an impression, we were turning down (and down again, after feedback from the nearest tables) and picking all the most mellow songs that we could remember we knew for the first hour. Since Elaine and I both use solid-body instruments (albeit with acoustic-like end result sounds) whenever we’re plugged in, and Elaine’s smaller speakers feed almost no sound backwards, I don’t think I have ever played a gig that was so quiet ‘on stage’ – there was very little for the monitor to overcome, and playing an acoustic violin would certainly have been louder.

None of this is a complaint (and I would rather have gigs that are very quiet on stage than the all too common ones which are very loud and involve a juggling act of using earplugs and then sometimes having to get myself turned up even louder in monitors so I can hear myself clearly afterwards!) – but it was an unusual experience and a learning one.

The second set, terminating with countdown and ‘Auld Lang Syne’, was somewhat a return to business as usual, at least concerning slightly more evident and sustained audience engagement (arguably background music doesn’t really have an audience unless you’re doing it wrong, although there are usually some people who would otherwise be staring into space and so are giving the music most of their attention) – the volume didn’t go up except in the monitor! We were sorry not to find time for a response to the request (inspired by Stevie’s sax playing) for some Latin jazz, but I was intrigued by one gentleman commenting on our having slanted the set towards 60s pop and inquiring whether that had been a decision based on demographic. We responded perfectly honestly that we hadn’t planned for a demographic, had simply turned up with a fairly well-distributed core set list and followed what got a good response! Largely proof of the enduring status of 60s guitar groups as common cultural currency …

January is usually a very quiet time for professional musicians, and I’m no real exception. However, Kindred Spirit (all five of us) and the Mill are hoping that four weeks will be long enough for any resolutions about spending more time at the gym / with the kids and less in the pub / at gigs to be quietly abandoned by the people of Plumstead and wider south-east London, as 28 January sees my first gig to take place entirely in 2017. Kindred Spirit already have one gig in the diary for February too.

The Filthy Spectacula won’t be out in public in January, but we will be busy trying out new songs and getting ourselves together for no less than three gigs next month (one of them a semi-private event doubling as a live video shoot), plus making our first 360 video. And the work of musically building up the Downtown Funk goes on, with booking enquiries already in discussion.

I nearly called this post (in tribute to ‘Steampunk Revolution’) ‘Out with the old, in with the old’, but actually I get the feeling 2017 is going to be anything but business as usual for me. The times they are still a-changing.