Stet Lab

Number one (the first thing): playing with Han-earl Park

Listening back to the recordings I can’t remember what I was playing or what’s coming next, but I can remember what I was thinking as I played. Such thoughts included “That doesn’t sound like what I expected”, “Now What?”, “Ha!”, “That was cool”, “Where’s he going with this?”, “What is that on the ceiling?” and “Should I finish here?” I think that, for me anyway, sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t (depending of course on how you choose to define ‘worked’) which I suppose is in the nature of these things. What I mean, I think, is that sometimes it sounded like two people performing together and at other times it was more like two people who happened to be improvising at the same time. Leaving aside any personal taste in the aesthetics of sound, I think it’s more fun to perform together. I don’t mean that the performers should always be ‘in tune’ with each other or mimicking each other but just in tune to each other. If that makes any sense. Most importantly, I had a blast. It was really good fun to improvise with another person and play with them, off them, against them. Fun fun happy happy fun times.

Number two (the one after the first thing): Playing for R.E.A.L.

I definitely wasn’t expecting the opportunity to play with this toy. Just before the second half of their set begins, and me thinking I was safely out of the frying pan and cosy in front of the fire, Jesse Ronneau comes over….

“I’m gonna start this half, and then any time you want you come up, and take the bass from me and take over….”

Cool. Deadly… wait, what? How am I going to make this not seem like a rude intrusion??

Should I go now? No… Now? Hmmm, maybe not. What about now…? Just Go!

What followed was me messing around with the best double bass toy I’ve ever come across. I’m not sure how fantastic my performance was but once again…

I had fun.