Saturday 30 December 2006

The Closing of the Year

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Well, we can count the remains of 2006 in hours now...Saddam Hussein got a nasty tickle in his throat, followed by a case of the dropsy Some would say 15 years late, but better late than never.

Had a chat this morning with my friend Keith Webb, a drumming legend indeed, Keith has played, or drank, with them all! He counted Keith Moon, Charlie Watts, and John Bonham amongst his drumming pals. He is the man that welcomed Led Zeppelin to America with champagne outside their hotel on their first tour, and he has worked with Donovan, Terry Reid and his own pioneering Prog Rock outfit, Paladin. You can read about Keith in this weeks Costa Almeria News, just click here and read the whole article in my Archives
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Ive played a few shows with Keith on Mojacar playa, and great fun they were too!
Sometimes he'd just come over to my other place in Turre, I'd get the kettle on and get him to tell me about the old days! Truly an inspiration, still gigging into his 70's and loving life. He's what I want to be when I grow up!!

Friday 29 December 2006

Old friends

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Had a nice chat this morning with my old mate Graham Oliver (see photo)
We regularly catch up with each other on the road, usually in Germany, but occassionally somewhere more far-flung like the States! Last time we were out there (also with his son,Paul, a great drummer) we took a road trip out to Daytona Beach and did a Death-by-Breakfast at Dennys! Graham is one of the true gentlemen of the business, and we are always trying to find ways of doing a project together. Hopefully this will come to fruition in 2007. We got to talking about Ken Hensley,(ex-Uriah Heep) as I've just discovered he lives quite near me here in Spain, and I was wanting to have a chat with him. Graham's met him a few times, and he asked me if I got the chance to ask him about a famous Hendrix Flying V (see photo at the end of this post)that has changed hands over the years..he seemed to think Ken may have owned it once. Graham is a REAL Hendrix completist, so I will endeavour to find out what I can! Still on the Hendrix theme, Graham and I, along with Pete Phipps, our drummer in BC Sweet, are planning to put together a Hendrix show with a view to doing some outdoor shows here in Spain next summer. You'll hear it here first!

Thursday 28 December 2006

Hot off the Press

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Miki and I received our advance copy of Levante Lifestyle this morning, in which we have a double page feature about our Brush With Poetry project. We are excited about it, and hope it brings us to a wider audience. Click here to read our article. I also was interviewed across the Australia-Spain cyberspace link by Ray Chan about my Christie days. You should be able to read all about it soon on the Christie website

Its a busy day today, as Miki delivers her latest painting (check out her diary) and we prepare publicity for the Street Gallery announcing Goodaboom, and also for my upcoming solo shows in January. My show in El Marchal coincides nicely with our new bullfight art exhibition that commences mid-january at Allegria Restaurant on Mojacar Playa. Run by friendly Belgian couple Erik and Anita, we will enjoy exhibiting there.

Wednesday 27 December 2006

The Godfather

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This Christmas brought the sad news of the passing of the Godfather of Funk, James Brown. This writer grew up to the strains of Sex Machine and Get up offa that Thing. There was nobody, but NOBODY, funkier than Mr.Brown. He was a huge influence on many major artists that followed. Without James, there would have been no Sly, no Bootsy, No Prince. He'd been doing it since the 50's and he was touring until his death (brief periods of incarceration notwithstanding!) With spooky coincidence, we had just watched the two classic Blues Brothers Movies the night before, with Brown as the Reverend Cleophus, so it was fitting that he was fresh in our minds.
I will be trying to write a funk track as a tribute. Its going to be called James. He gave us the funk, we are merely entrusted with it. If he's in Heaven, aint they funkin'now!!

Monday 25 December 2006

CHRISTMAS DAY!

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Well, here we are, another Christmas day is upon us. The sun is shining here in Spain, the snow on the mountains all but disappeared, and Im sitting with my feet up watching Rush Live in Rio....bliss!

Had a nice mail from Ray Chan who runs the CHRISTIE website. You can see a couple of pics he's kindly donated here in my gallery. Please support him by visiting www.yellowriver.0catch.com its a fantastic site for the CHRISTIE completist!

A quick word here about a new idea we are promoting here at Goodaboom. It's called "A Song for You" and basically allows you to order a special song for your loved one, or for any occassion whatsoever, tailor-made for them. I will write it in a style of your choosing, and it will be made into a one-off finished CD complete with original artwork. It will also be possible to order in conjunction with Miki, so that we are able to provide you, for example, with a portrait, and accompanying CD, So that you have the ultimate present, a picture of a loved one, and a song about them!!! Check out the order forms and submit them for more information. More details will follow as we develop the idea. The Stars over Desert Springs CD was an example of a commissioned song for a specific event. In the next week or so we hope to have audio samples up and running for your enjoyment.
In the meantime...enjoy that Turkey!

Sunday 24 December 2006

And so to Christmas

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Well, it's stopped raining here in Albir, but the wind is blowing mightily. Miki and I won't be setting up the entire street gallery today, but we will be going down to the street to hand out our leaflets advertising the launch of GOODABOOM!

We hope you will stay with us through our journey, and check out all our paintings music, features, poetry and stories, and immerse yourself in the Arts along with us!

The cards have been given, and received and hopefully all presents will arrive safely. I believe Santa Clause is sending my son some Cymbals, as he is a young drummer with his own band. Check out the picture of him with my percussionist friend Jason on the ship Ocean Village when we were out in the Caribbean two christmases ago!

Saturday 23 December 2006

The Songwriter's Art

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I wasn't going to post a diary page here at Goodaboom, but Miki persuaded me that I would have other things that I might want to share that would not sit easily with the stories and poems in The Mighty Pen, and , as usual, she was right!

It has been a rainy miserable day here in Albir as we hurtle inevitably towards Christmas, but the weather hasn't really inconvenienced me as I've been somewhat incapacitated by a severe ankle injury sustained whilst running for a plane after a gig in the UK. (Don't ask)

Anyway, today, I dragged myself down to my sound studio and began work on a new project, namely, writing a song for my friend, the 80's soul star Jaki Graham.

I have pretty much always written for myself, be it solo or as a frontman for a band (with the exception of a string of songs for my daughter when she was starting out, co-written with producer Clyde Ward.) So it was a good challenge when Tony, Jaki's manager and husband, said they wanted to hear anything I might have that I thought might suit her.

I started by listening to a lot of Jaki's stuff (mainly from her '94 album, see photo) and immersed myself in the grooves, trying to imagine bringing the feel up to "now". It had to have a dance feel, but I remember her saying to me once, after I had played her some Mothers Finest (U.S. Funk Rockers) that she wouldnt mind doing something a little rockier. So I kind of took that as my starting point. I started the track with a few keyboard chords and a sax line, before the beat kicks in, so that she could use that section to do some trademark ad-lib vocals, and in the chorus, I underpinned it with some guitar powerchords to give it some bite, but set them back in the overall sound picture.

Its worth mentioning here, the similarity between composing and painting. Miki and I have constantly noticed this since we began working together. When you are working on a song, you have to imagine the "picture " in your head, and place all the necessary components in their rightful place, to achieve the correct balance. Different sounds can colour the piece in a variety of ways, and the smallest change, in, say, the level of the rock guitar on the chorus of this song for example, drastically alters how the song is perceived by the listener.

I think this similarity explains why Miki is so invaluable to me as a sounding board for my early mixes. She instinctively knows if I have too much, or not enough, going on at any given point in the song, and it helps me keep my perspective when I am "too close" to the track.

I needed this song to have an almost subliminal rock kick, but carried primarily by a dance groove. So, half a day's good work, and I have the basis of the intro, verses and chorus. The second half of each verse is almost acting as a bridge, so there is no need for a stand alone extra section. With dance tracks, simple is best anyhow. My big tasks now are to layer some more brass and perhaps a hammond organ in there without "muddying" it up too much, and then crucially, getting a nice balance of everything, so the vocal soars above the verse chords, and comes in with a bang on the choruses. I cant say for sure that I'll be doing much in the next few days, as Miki and I will be fully occupied celebrating Christmas(!) but I'm happy to have got the bare bones down, and I now have a solid base to work from.

We both wish you a great Christmas and New Year!

Kev Moore