As in playing music, and writing it, not writing about it. It’s more of a work in progress, this page,  as I’ve begun to upload some video footage of current projects on youtube (see the other Music pages here, too). And UPDATE August 2011! on my soundcloud page there are now recordings of recent music I’ve been involved in making.

But also here are some images of bands I have been in—and occasionally out of—over the years. More to be added… Recognise yourself? Get in touch. I can safely say that almost all the musicians I’ve ever been lucky enough to play with I’d be pleased to hear from, really. And only one was a prize asshole, that I can remember.

I moved from playing acoustic guitar age 14 to bass guitar age 16 to double bass at age 23, and have stuck with double bass ever since (and indeed the same instrument for over a quarter of a century until 2010). Self-taught, more or less, except for my weekly training when I worked with Community Music East in the mid-1980s.

Recently I changed basses—I wonder if that was a bit of a mid-life crisis, I suppose, approaching 50 and all that. I determined to find a really nice bass, and spent a year doing so. I now have a mid-19th century German or  just possibly English bass, which has a phenomenal sound I think, pizzicato or played with my Alfred Knoll bow, and Thomastik Spirocore light strings. What a burst of energy that old instrument has given me, generously making me sound good (to my ears)! I am revived. There is a bit of work to be done on the bass still to get it back to top form, so I am visiting my luthier at the Violin Shop in Blackpool periodically.

UPDATE 1! My new bass is now (May 2011) completely and wonderfully restored, thanks to the work of luthier Simon Speed at the Violin Shop. I am quite thrilled with the way the bass sounds and looks, really, and cannot recommend Simon highly enough for his sympathetic and dedicated work.

UPDATE 2! I have fitted the new bass with a new pick-up (September 2011), a David Gage Realist pick-up. What a difference to particularly the quality of depth at the bottom end it makes. Hit bottom E, F or G and the room rocks like a BOOM-SHANKAH!

UPDATE 3 (last one. No more money)! I have replaced (December 2011) my 30-year-old Polytone MiniBrute bass combo, with all its interior shaking around D and E flat, with a Gallien Krueger MB150 III combo, the lightweight aluminium-cased one with a powerful punch. Now, new bass, pick-up and amp, I am completely set up for the phone to start ringing again. As my dad used to say when his phone rang, quoting alto saxophonist Mike Osborne who he’d got to know following Ozzie’s retreat from the London scene to Norfolk to try to sort himself out, ‘It’s a gig! It’s a gig!’

For current bands—Adverse Camber, Swerve Trio—see the other pages under this Music section. Why not book one of them? I do other things too, and am looking for other interesting invitations, deps, collaborations. This film shows part of one such, an ‘improvatorio’ for voices and strings, freely improvised, by Deep Cabaret Vox (aka Steve Lewis, the one in the colourful shirt), from Lancaster Jazz Festival 2011. To my great pleasure one of the singers Steve invited in was my old CME pal Mary Keith, lovely to see and play with her again:

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Lancaster and the north-west 1990s-early 2000s

In a book I co-edited a few years ago with Pete Moser from More Music, Community Music: A Handbook, there’s a great chapter by Martin Milner on ‘Bandwork’. It opens with the observation that ‘Bands are a vital part of our culture, and … they constitute one of our most persistent contemporary models of music-making’. At the end of his chapter Milner suggests that musicians produce what he calls their ‘personal bandwagon’, a list of the bands you’ve been in over the years, with a bit of description, possibly including an effort to articulate what you got out of it and put into it. He writes that this is a specially useful exercise ‘for those musicians who are (as actors say) “resting” between gigs and bands–think of it as a morale booster rather than a litany of failure though…’.  In many ways this is my personal bandwagon. And I agree with Milner’s conclusion: ‘When I think about these bands, and my part in them, I realise how much I got out of them, how many switched-on people I met through them and how much I learned about myself and others, above and beyond any musical learning’. TBC…

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Glasgow 1980s-1990s

I was (back)  in Glasgow in the late 1980s / early 1990s, doing my PhD at the university. Played a lot of music there, leading a quartet and a duo under my own name, and as a bassist in others’ bands too. For the quartet I ended up writing much of the material, some of which wasn’t bad. In fact, I’ve gone back to that book of compositions in the past year or two to play in new situations. Glasgow was European City of Culture in 1990 so there was a bit of work around for everyone.

One of the main bands I was in was called Atsimevu, a drum ork, with me on bass, talking drum and balafon; I remember one year we did a community tour of Glasgow estates and processions during Mayfest, and we played some big venues too—the Tramway on the South Side, and Partick Town Hall. I was bassist for John Longbotham for his trio a while too (with George Burt on guitar)—he was probably technically the best alto player I’d ever played with, and wrote some fabulous music, when he was on form and balance.

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Norwich 1980s

I worked as a community musician in the mid-1980s, originally one a government scheme to reduce the unemployment figures. Working with Community Music East I did learn about music of course—particularly how to count, and how to listen, and just benefitted from the general discipline of regular playing to sharpen up the chops—but also I learned about teaching, how to teach, that was important bearing in mind me going on to become a university lecturer. I was in the first tranche of people employed by CME, and worked alongside good and wonderful musicians—they were all better than me by far—like Ben Higham (trumpet, tuba), Mary Keith (flute), Gill Alexander (bass), Sian Croose (voice), Will Lorenzo (drums, RIP), Pete Beresford (piano), Pete Kitson (drums), Steve Clarke (tenor sax). Some, er, characters there too, you know.

Apart from all the stuff with CME, some of the main music-playing memories I have from those days are from playing with my dad, also George McKay (RIP). When we played together he was mostly on alto, bari and flute. I really loved playing with him, he was such a forceful player—by which I think I mean that his tone, especially on alto, was both forceful and lyrical. His solos sometimes blew me away, just as they’d done when I was a kid and would listen to him practise (there was no escape). With hindsight I wasn’t really then quite good enough to play with his bands during these years, but we’d do gigs, quintet, quartet, duo (bari and bass was so great). I learned on his stand.

I was bassist in the Simon Youngman Quintet too, playing modern standards, and had a sax/bass duo with Steve Clark from CME, and I ran an improvising club called The Melting Pot for a while, and I had a reggae/blues jamming band with old north Norfolk mates called The Last Blast that actually did play a gig (yes, one). I’m sure I’ve photos of most of these somewhere, will add them when I can.