Food: cooking and eating robust peasant food. Drink: mostly draught ale, but good bottled lager's fine by me. Red wine. Vodka Martinis. Mojitos. Travel: Spain and France mostly, but I'd like to spend more time in India...
Music
Blues: delta, chicago, memphis, new orleans - early stuff, no guitar heroes. Jazz: need educating really...but Art Blakey, Grant Green, Herbie Hancock, Ornette Coleman... Reggae: all that Trojan stuff from the'60s and '70s. Lee Scratch Perry. Funk: Bootsy, George Clinton et al... me'shell ndege ocello, prob my favourite electric bassist. Curtis Mayfield. Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers, Trouble Funk... Recently: Gotan Project, Cinematic Orchestra, Konono No.1, Squirrel Nut Zippers, Asylum Street Spankers, Hot Club of Cowtown, Medeski, Martin and Woods. New Mastersounds
Movies
Akira Kurosawa - Yojimbo, Seven Samurai, Hidden Fortress.
Ong Bak / Warriors of Heaven and Earth
Humphrey Bogart movies, espec with Lauren Bacall.
Fargo, Big Lebowski.
Television
CSI / Deadwood / Firefly / Samurai Jack cartoons...
...did I really forget The Sopranos? And oh wow - is there anything on TV to match The Wire?
Books
Been reading lots of C19th history, mostly India and Africa.
Fiction: G. MacDonald Fraser's Flashman novels. Boris Akunin's detective stories. Elmore Leonard. Raymond Chandler.
Geeky: css & php manuals... aaaarggghhh!
Heroes
My boys: Uriah for growing tall and walking his own path / Josh for being smart & funny / Jake for being a total monkey.
Toshiro Mifune, a handy lad to have around in a scrap.
Muddy Waters for inventing electricity, and Jimi Hendrix for finding new ways to use it.
Mirambo of the Nyamwezi, for brilliantly defending his people against slavers and imperialists, and Mahatma Gandhi for showing us another way.
Well, of course I realise now that this should be in the myspace music bit, but what the hell, I can't be doing all that over again...
Anyway, I've been playing bass for 29 30 years, and for the last 18 19 that's meant double bass - one of the best things I ever did, switching from electric to the upright. As well as doing gigs I've been busking ever since, with Roadhouse, Tragic Roundabout, Swervy World and Swamp Things, but now I work with Red Jackson (chicago blues), and The Ukes of Hazzard (gypsy jazz, swing, old time blues with a heavy leaning to cabaret & humour).
Who I'd like to meet: Anyone who comes along to a gig from this page. Come along and say hi.
HEY!!!! THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!!!! REALLY AMAZING MUSIC PALYIN' HERE!!!!! CATFISH BLUES!!!!!! LOVE IT!!!! HOPE YOU DIG MY STUFF!!!! HAVE A N AWESOME WEEKEND!!!!!!!
Special unmissable celebratory gig at the London Barfly, with the exquisite 7 Seconds of Love - Friday 27th June. Get your dancing shoes on, grab your friends by the hand, lead them in the ways of Zorbic rightousness, and come on down for a dazzling night to remember...
Hear ye, hear ye teej. Calling all ye faithful and faithless........
.......get your dancing shoes on and please grace us with your presence at the wonderful Hootanannys in Brixton on the 14th March for a superspecial red stripe awards gig (and while you're there get your hands on a sparkling new copy of our ~ 14 tracks of the finest sparkling soulful zorbic ska ever heard for just ten little pounds ~ also available now at www. thebighand. co. uk). So......
.......grab your friends by the hand, lead them in the ways of Zorbic rightousness, and come on down for a dazzling night to remember...
Good to catch a glimpse of you! Had to run - on a mission with my young lady & beholden by a parental promise. You're lookin' good, geez! Catch up soon would be nice. Not playing any music at the mo - know anyone who wants to do something...
First heard you with the Swamp Things busking outside Alders in Portsmouth a few years ago...I chucked a few quid in aswell! Great playing my friend....if you wants some Boogie Piano sometime get in touch
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