Simon Little

How very remiss of me ladies and gentlemen. Now I know I posted at the beginning of our run at the National Theatre during rehearsals for the Double Feature, but have entirely failed to post anything since. I shall therefore redress the blog-balance with a little photo-blog. I shall endeavor to keep it short..

We finished the run of fifty shows just a few weeks ago and had a fantastic time. The band comprised myself on bass (and marching cymbals); Ben Castle on Sax, flute and sousaphone; Mark Edwards on keyboards and penny whistle and Phil Wilkinson on drums and tools.

The Double Feature was in fact four short plays; we would perform two each night on rotation, and all four on Saturdays when we had a matinee. The play was in the Paintframe which had been beautifully transformed by Soutra Gilmour into a new performance space, including a bar and foyer area. Our main function in the Double Feature was to perform in the foyer, and hand over between the plays and the changeovers as the performance space in turned around in the interval.

We were also on stage for one of the plays. We played a marching band during There Is A War by Tom Basden. We open the play by marching across a dark stage, self-lit by little lamps attached to our hats (oh yes indeed!)…

We cross the stage a further two times throughout the play, each time more bedraggled and beaten up by the war. By the final march, we have been robbed of our instruments…

We were joined by Dave Ohm on drums for the last few shows as Phil was off to get married. Dave and I have worked together a lot and it was really fun to have him in on the show.

We had a lot of fun during the Double Feature. I really love working at the National Theatre; it’s such a great creative environment and everyone that works there is fantastic. I went for an audition there on Tuesday for a new production and got the job, so I’ll be back there very soon rehearsing for The Comedy of Errors which runs between November and March in the Olivier. Can’t wait!

I shall leave you with a little gallery of other pics I took during the run. I’m still obsessed with the Hipstamatic application for iPhone and these are some of the results. Until next time…

*Bass Geek Alert*

Some non-bass players might find this post a bit boring. You have been warned…

Hello folks,

I’ve just got home from one last stint of hardcore concentrated bass shopping and thought I’d post a picture of the results…

Oh yes indeed folks; I’ve bought another one! After many years of really not getting on with Precision basses, even though they are the staple for most bass players and producers, I endeavored to find one that I liked. A few months ago a had the great pleasure of playing a Custom Shop Pino Palladino Signature Precision at Guitar Amp & Keyboard (GAK) in Brighton. Totally fell in love with it. It looked and played like the best vintage Fender you’ll ever find (and I’ve tried loads), but it was bloody expensive. Try £2329.00. Ouch.

After much deliberation I decided to go back to Brighton last week and see if I could make them an offer. But guess what? They’d only gone and sold it! Yep, very irritating indeed as it was (and is) still advertised on  their website. Their offer to order me another from Fender proved less than welcome when they told me it would probably take a year…

So I sat down and tried all their other Precision basses. Including the cheapo ones just in case. It’s always worth trying out the opposite end of your price range (both upwards and down) when buying a new instrument so you have something to compare it to. I wanted to see whether a bass that was half the price of the Pino (which was virtually all of them) was up to the same standards. Eventually I played the 60th Anniversary model and really liked it. Not wanting to rush in I left it there to have a think…

In the meantime I tried out a few other tasty basses including a rather lovely if slightly weighty red 80’s P-Bass at The Gallery in Camden (the best bass shop in the world!). Check it out if you’re in the area. I discovered that another 60th Anniversary bass was located at Guitar Guitar in Epsom, which frankly I didn’t know existed. I’d been to the Glasgow shop many times as it’s right opposite where we used to rehearse with Maggie Reilly but had no idea there were other branches. It’s a great shop folks; massive selection and they have great little practice booths for trying out gear. I highly recommend you check it out if you’re in the area.

Anyway, I tried another bunch of p-basses against the 60th Anniversary. Was torn between that and a lovely Japanese 70’s Reissue which also sounded great and came in a good few hundred quid cheaper…

Eventually I decided the 60th Anniversary model had a superior retro tone across the board, although the Japanese bass had a lovely warm  punch to it. So I bought the 60th Anniversary bass. And am very happy with it indeed. Looking forward to putting it to work instantly. I might even play it at Friday’s gig at Pizza Express Jazz Club with Nina Ferro (which you should all come to by the way!).

Until next time…

Hello folks,

As a follow-up to my previous post on Westminster Council’s proposed changes to weekend and evening parking charges, I thought I’d give you a little update regarding an online petition against the plans.

I’ve had a great response to the blog post and lots of good points were raised in the comments. Many people, not just musicians, are as against the plans as I am and have very strong feelings on the subject. Many people have been asking me if there is a petition online where they can voice their concerns. Today my attention has been drawn to the petition at GoPetition.com, which the Musician’s Union is directing it’s members towards. They say

This is only the start of a longer more concerted campaign to try to get these decisions turned around and your support is invaluable. This not only affects you as musicians directly but all areas of the evening and weekend economy of the West End so please take a moment to sign the petition

So far the petition has 2105 signatures and I would highly recommend all of you to pop over there and register your votes too. These plans are due to take effect from December 1st, so time is of the essence. Please share the link and spread the word before they kill our West End…

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/we-are-against-westminster-city-council’s-new-parking.html