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Post by maddogfagin on Jan 30, 2011 11:09:22 GMT
I've found some old pages from the official site, archived onto floppy disc which I did when I was working at Kingston University. I'll post them from time to time but here are two pages from July 1999.
May - July 1999
Jethro Tull are back on the road after four months of work in the studio writing, rehearsing and recording the new Tull album, named after this web site, j-tull Dot Com.
The release date is to be August 24th. The record companies are Fuel 2000 in the USA and Canada, (distributed, sold and marketed by the mighty Universal Records) and a brand new Chrysalis label to be unveiled in the next two weeks and which will handle Europe and the rest of the world.
Now, it is important to realise that this Chrysalis label is not the EMI owned Chrysalis, but will be part of the main Chrysalis Group of Companies still controlled by Chris Wright who signed Tull to the Ellis-Wright agency in 1968. The agency became The Chrysalis Agency and this was added to by Chrysalis Records, and Chrysalis Music Publishing in 1969/70. When EMI bought Chrysalis Records a few years ago, it was soon closed down as an independent force and the name kept on as a pop label identity within EMI Records. Artists like Tull found themselves in limbo, with their contracts owned by EMI but their futures in doubt with what used to be a great company, now suffering an identity crisis and itself strongly rumoured to be up for sale as soon as the price is right.
In the meantime, Chris Wright's original Chrysalis Group of Companies went from strength to strength with new developments in television productions, sport and music publishing and returned, in a smaller way, to the record company business with Echo Records, a pop/rock label for new acts and the Hit Label, mainly concerned with compilations and catalogue.
The soon to be officially announced Chrysalis owned label is to be built around new and re-issued material of classic Rock acts of the 60's, 70's and 80's and Tull have become the first signing, returning to the Chrysalis fold where they were the first act to be signed 30 years ago. Of course, the new label can not be called simply "Chrysalis Records" since EMI own the name, but the new label management team will feature names from the early days of Chrysalis and whose links with Tull go back almost to the beginning. For the time being, the Tull back catalogue will still remain with EMI who promise to keep the flag flying and do a good job of making the vast Tull collection available. We hope and trust that this will be the case.
The European summer tour now under way has already visited Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland, moving to Germany for June and the first part of July. See dates posted elsewhere on this site.
Several "new" old songs and some really new songs have made their appearance already. Steel Monkey, Witch's Promise, For A Thousand Mothers, Hunting Girl, To Cry You A Song and This Is Not Love have joined the current nightly set. From the next Tull album, Spiral and AWOL have been played, along with The Secret Language Of Birds from the Ian Anderson Album to be released next February under the new record contracts. Rehearsals also included two other new Tull songs, Hunt By Numbers and Wicked Windows and another IA solo track, Montserrat. The set list will change from time to time as the tour progresses. The greater emphasis on new material will not start, of course, until the US dates immediately following the release of j-tull Dot Com.
Discussions are under way to undertake further tours in February through June 2000, with more US dates in the South-east, Central States and South-west together with some Canadian shows. Other European shows may be added in Scandinavia, Spain and Italy. The possibilities of South and Central America, Australia and New Zealand will be looked at.
Look out for new web site features in the coming weeks as audio files of new album tracks are added and song lyrics posted. The new "Postcard From The Front" will keep you up to date with where we have been and what we have been up to on a more frivolous level.
We hope you enjoy the way the site is developing and we will try to keep things ever-changing.
Regards,
IA
Dressing room, Spodek Arena, Katowice, Poland. 30th May, 1999.
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Tull have completed the first major series of tours for 1999.
These consisted of 33 shows in five countries from Budapest, Hungary to Roseto, Italy. The majority of these have been outdoor dates in amphitheatres and castle grounds with a few town centres and an industrial wasteland thrown in for good measure. A TV show of a live concert in Baden Baden, Germany was recorded for transmission in September. The show, "Ohne Filter" has Tull for an hour-long performance but I have to confess to being very disappointed with the sound and audio mix. Lots of shiny new gear in their studio but they didn't read the instruction book, so it would seem.
Twenty-five minutes of our show at the Pistoia Blues Festival were recorded for Italian TV.
I did a series of interviews two weeks ago in Prague and at home for Czech TV who are featuring me on one of a series of programmes about "legendary" songwriters, at least, the ones who agreed to appear. Such a cynic, aren't I? Anyway, it should be out in September/October for those of you in the Czech Republic, and there is some talk of the programme being made available to other territories as well.
An interesting stop early on was at the quaint and historic town of Hameln (Hamelin) in Germany. Site of the famous folklore surrounding the Pied Piper and his rat and child-luring antics, its inhabitants, the good but ratophobic people of Hameln, were most kind to us, especially the tourist department chief, Harald and his wife, Thelma. They had some months earlier invited Shona and me to judge the competition for the new city logo to promote the tourist trade and the famed but dubious exploits of the pied Piper.
Many of the recent shows were in the former East Germany and the tangible effects of reunification are now evident in varying degrees in the towns and countryside. Anyone travelling to Germany on vacation should not miss out on some of these glorious towns and cities which still retain their original and now rejuvenated character. Erfurt, in particular is an enchanting spot and since our previous visit two years ago, has developed even further and offers a god two day visit for those on the tourist trail.
The new record deals are, of course firmly in place, and the name of the UK-based record company can now be revealed as "Papillon Records". Being the French word for "butterfly", it is as close as you can reasonably and legally get to Chrysalis Records without pissing off EMI who, of course bought the Chrysalis Record Company from Chris Wright, our former manager and agent, ten years ago. The other Chrysalis companies, (Publishing, TV, Radio, Sports etc.), are still part-owned by Wright and form Chrysalis Group Plc. This entity is the owner of Papillon and Tull is the first group to sign to the new label, much as it was the first act on the original Chrysalis label 30 years before. Headed by Roy Eldridge who started at Chrysalis in 1972 and Mike Andrews, former Marketing Director at Chrysalis in the early nineties, the new label will feature future signings from classic rock and pop artists of the 60's 70's and 80's. The licensee in mainland Europe is Roadrunner Records who are a relatively young aggressive company with a substantial track record in heavy rock and more recently in other genres.
I travel to the USA next week for a promotional visit to New York and LA. The constant schedule of interviews leading up to the release of the new album should ensure that those who do not follow this web site may have a fighting chance of hearing about the record and tours.
Webmeister Andrew Giddings and Tracy Trews are off for a couple of well-earned weeks in Menorca so the next updates to this site will be around the second week of August.
Till then………
IA
July 1999
It was a hot night in Budapest…… And in Brno, Prague, etc., all the way to Freiburg, Germany some weeks later. Summer in mainland Europe, and now summer in the sultry July heart of these most British of Isles.
Captain Beefheart is singing "Bluejeans and Moonbeams" to me as I type this on my return from sunny and sometimes chaotic Italy. Not one of his best, really, but poor old Don had to give it a try in an almost last desperate attempt at commerciality to pay off the overdraft and the musicians. Read Zoot Horn Rollo's excellent autobiography, "Lunar Notes", available from Amazon.com and fine booksellers everywhere.
During the last few weeks, we have attempted several new tracks from "j-tull.com" as well as some old flames rekindled. Like what, do you ask?
Well, try "Jeffrey goes to Leicester Square" or "Witch's promise"………… "To Cry You a Song" or new arrivals, "Hot Mango Flush", "AWOL", "Spiral", "Dot Com", "Hunt By Numbers", and "Wicked Windows". Of course, we can't promise to play these, or any, specific songs when we finally show up at a theatre near you, but these are examples of the stuff we have been doing as of late in Europe.
I saw the first production run examples of the new album when we played the Pistoia Blues Festival a couple of nights ago. The diminutive Micro (Promotion gal from the Italian licensee record company) was jealously guarding the box of advance copies, but I think one or two of the other guys got one as a begged favour. I found 50 copies in the package sent to me by Roy Eldridge from the newly named Papillon records (see the current NEWS page) when I arrived back today. And they did contain the surprise bonus track!
EMI/Chrysalis records did a spectacularly useless job of promoting our presence on the recent tour dates, but have since apologised and promised to do better next time, now that they have recalled that they have our past thirty years worth of catalogue to work. In contrast, the new Papillon record company folks and their European licensees are on the case and are a breath of fresh air in regard to commitment and energy.
Some Tull boys didn't quite fancy the idea of the early starts last week in Italy and opted for the crew bus instead, only to find that the wretched thing had no air conditioning. MB, Shona and I decided to drive during the day and actually enjoyed all but the last trip which was a bit on the long side.
Italy is really such a nice country: shame that the awfully nice Italians got there first. Damn! Perfect climate, perfect agricultural base and perfect sea. Damn! Still, go there when you can. The Italians are warm and generous people and the towns, villages and cities are relatively unthreatening compared to many US and other European urban jungles. But six straight days of Parma Ham and Spaghetti Vongole can overwhelm even the best of gastronomic memories.
I did a series of interviews two weeks ago for Czech TV who are featuring me on one of a series of programmes about "legendary" songwriters; at least, the ones who agreed to be on their programme. Such a cynic, aren't I? Anyway, it should be out in September/October for those of you in the Czech Republic, and there is some talk of the programme being made available to other territories as well. The German TV show, "Ohne Filter" has Tull for an hour-long show scheduled for September, but I have to confess to being very disappointed with the sound and audio mix. Lots of shiny new gear in their studio but they didn't read the instruction book, so it would seem.
The new rage is for "Rimowa" luggage. This German company produces the famous ribbed aluminium range of luggage similar in construction to the fuselage of a certain wartime Luftwaffe aeroplane. A veritable flurry of suitcase and briefcase buying took place during the German tour with Martin Barre, in particular, purchasing wildly in his quest for travel accoutrement perfection. I went for the sexy black ABS plastic versions (yes, luggage can be sexy) and Shona had the four-wheel drive, all terrain aluminium model large enough for all the family at the same time. I suppose an endorsement deal is out of the question?
By the time I have unpacked (we only returned home yesterday), it will be time to pack again, this time for a promo trip to the good ol' USA for a week to be spent in New York and Los Angeles doing interviews and bonding with the new record company and distribution wallahs. Before that I must work on the forthcoming tour programme to get all the new photos and text together with Bogdan Zarkowski, the graphic artist.
Speak to you again in a couple of weeks. For now, so long, farewell, bye bye, toodle-oo, unpack, unpack.
IA
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Post by maddogfagin on Jan 30, 2011 12:24:14 GMT
Two images from the old official site of the archive at Grange Farm which was the location of Kenny Wylie's office when the Anderson's lived at Radnage.
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Post by nonrabbit on Jan 30, 2011 17:58:50 GMT
Two images from the old official site of the archive at Grange Farm which was the location of Kenny Wylie's office when the Anderson's lived at Radnage. So what do you reckon is inside the brown folders then? bank statements?
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Post by steelmonkey on Jan 30, 2011 21:37:05 GMT
cash
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Post by maddogfagin on Jan 31, 2011 9:15:24 GMT
Two images from the old official site of the archive at Grange Farm which was the location of Kenny Wylie's office when the Anderson's lived at Radnage. So what do you reckon is inside the brown folders then? bank statements? The following page from 2002 may answer your question It has been ten years since the last live Tull album, A Little Light Music - a mainly acoustic performance of Tull songs taken from various locations. Before that, there was the Bursting Out album in 1978. Live material was also featured in the 1971 album, Living In The Past as well as the 20th and 25th Anniversary collections. All of these recordings feature the different line-ups of the band at their best. Well, maybe not their very, very best, since the tape never seems to be rolling on that particular night………. dammit!
The tracks for this album have been culled from a November 2001 concert at London's Hammersmith Apollo as well as other live performances. Some of these have been acoustic sessions for Radio and TV, which occasionally produce some sparkling and intimate moments. So, rather than simply mirror the audio track of the now released Jethro Tull DVD, also titled Living With The Past, we tried to broaden the mix of material to satisfy the intrepid (and rich) fanatics who might actually buy both!
We welcome back Dave Pegg as well as Mick Abrahams, Clive Bunker and Glenn Cornick from the original Tull 1968 line-up who feature in guest performance.
We actually have recorded every Tull show for a couple of decades. Sometimes the recordings live only long enough for one or two of us to check out the following day before re-using the tapes or discs. Sometimes they find their way to the shelves of my studio, to gather dust and dung beetles before being hauled out so we can relearn some long forgotten arrangement from previous years.
They are recorded from the front of house mixing console and represent the audio signal going into the PA system, thus sometimes being an unflattering representation of the sound - being without the ambience, audience response and sometimes appalling echorama which besets many shows. Listening to these tapes is often like seeing ourselves, all tousled hair (shouldn't use that word), in the bathroom mirror first thing in the morning - before we chaps have put on our faces for the day and pulled the tummy in a bit. However - with a bit of a shave, sh*t and a h**rcut, we can sometimes transform these bald (shouldn't use that word either) and stark recordings into something often quite - well - average. There are a few real winners 'though. Never mind - all of these dusty-shelf tapes knock any bootleg I have ever heard into a cocked h**rpiece.
I hope you enjoy these recordings, which represent the last few years of Tull's work. I know there will be many favourites missing - some of my personal bests are absent here - but perhaps if you are good, promise to brush your teeth and not stay up too late, there might be some more of this stuff available before too long. The future benefits of a good e-commerce website may allow us to market product that would not be suitable for the conventional record company or traditional retail outlet where increasing competition for space favours the latest boy band or plastic diva.
So sit back, relax, put your feet up, close your eyes and listen to the music. And put your seat belt on first.
Regards,
IA
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Post by maddogfagin on Aug 25, 2012 15:31:52 GMT
2003: The Soundcheck TapesAn interesting insider's look and listen - straight from the afternoon ritual of Soundcheck. Although the sound reinforcement (PA) equipment remains the same from night to night on a full production Tull tour, the acoustic peculiarities of each venue change quite dramatically. In order to compensate for these differences, the PA is tuned before soundcheck to get the system in to the ball park for the evenings show, using both electronic analysis and known sound sources (the sound engineer's favourite CD). There then follows the bit with the band! The instruments are checked one by one and the various sound sources blended together to form the rough mix for the night's show. Of course, when the audience come in, the sound of most venues changes - sometimes quite significantly - and the first song or two of the concert itself can be a steep learning curve for the engineer in coping with the different ambience as the human bodies soak up certain frequencies and reverberation from the walls and ceiling. Here you will find a typical soundcheck run-through where various instruments come and go and some music is actually played for reference. Sometimes, we use the soundcheck to rehearse a "new" song - perhaps for two or three days in a row - before adding it to the set, either as a substitute or as a relatively fixed change for the rest of the tour. I trust that you will enjoy this visit behind the scenes to the first part of our usual six and a half hours at the venue! Some bands don't actually go to soundcheck but have their roadies do it for them while they sleep/eat/fornicate or do whatever rock bands do at five pm when they are indulging in the R&R lifestyle instead of turning up for their own soundcheck like real and caring men-on-a-mission. Personally, I don't like nasty surprises and prefer to get the feel of a venue before the show. I hope you have a good feel too. IA
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Post by steelmonkey on Aug 25, 2012 19:40:38 GMT
I have snuck into enough soundchecks to have learned the roadie/Kenny Wylie nickname for the fans: MABS* They talked about MABS a lot during soundcheck adjustments.
Mobile Acoustic Baffles.
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Post by maddogfagin on Aug 26, 2012 13:13:41 GMT
Andrew Gidding 's Diary - October 2002
Hello dear friends, Who would have thought that October would be upon us so quickly? After another year of touring I now find myself in the heart of the English countryside with time to reflect and relax. Actually, relaxing is hard work in itself when you're not used to it.
Anyway, what a fun time we had in Italy with the L'Orchestra del Teatro Regio! We flew into Verona where we were met by the Itullians (Italian fan club) president Aldo Tagliaferro, who was looking decidedly stressed but relieved that we had made it without delays and with all our excess baggage. Aldo coordinated the orchestra and the venues and did so splendidly. After a brief visit to our hotel in Parma we were whisked away in our convoy of gleaming Volvos to meet the orchestra and rehearse.
Volvo Volvo Volvo. I love Volvos. I wonder if I can get a Volvo endorsement - my T5 has done 97,000 miles and............
What happened? Did I black out?
So, Parma is a great city for a city, and the Teatro Regio was in the centre surrounded by piazzas and churches and all manner of great coffee outlets. After a quick stroll it was time to meet our stagemates for the next three nights. The girls and boys in the orchestra greeted us with excitement as did Ian's flutemate Andrea Griminelli who was performing solo as well as with us and the orchestra. After rehearsal we were treated to a huge dinner at the hotel, thank you again Aldo.
The next day was quite sunny and ideal for scouting out the town for a few hours before more rehearsal and the concert that evening. The difference between our orchestral outings and the Tull gig is the sheer terror of walking out onto a stage that is fully lit and full of real musicians with sheet music in front of them, and that you can see every member of the audience as if they were in your living room.
I guess I'm used to the Tull stage with all it's familiar cables and lights and places to trip up, and when you don't have those comforting props it makes for a pretty nervy experience. I think we pulled it off however - even though there was a tense moment when Snr. Griminelli missed out a passage of music leaving myself and the conductor Danilo Rossi to rapidly change tack and go with him.
We were lucky though to have the same orchestra for both the Parma and Cesena concerts and I watched with envy and admiration as they effortlessly sawed and tootled their way through the sheet music, often making notes for themselves as they played. My neighbours on stage, the Cellists, were turning the pages with their bows between bars, and didn't once complain about my keyboard amplifier being almost under their feet. The next day it was off to Cesena.
A two hour drive brought us to Cesena where the venue was significantly different to the Teatro in as much as it seemed to be a sportshall of some kind that had been fitted with some acoustic panels, that didn't really work! During rehearsals we had some issues with monitoring each other in a wash of echo and confusion that unfortunately plagued us during the concert aswell. It was a great show all the same - Snr. Griminelli played correctly the missing passage of the previous evening, and I didn't! Grrrrrrr! Apologies to all who noticed :-)
Another huge dinner rounded off our visit, so equally huge Thank Yous to Aldo, Giorgio, Alberto, Sergio for their expert organization/driving/dinners. Also a special thanks to Francesca the Cellist who got the whole orchestra to sign my poster :-)
Back home then as I languish in my robe I spare a thought for my buddy Kit Morgan who accompanied us on our Italian trip and the guys who are currently in rehearsal for the 'Rubbing Elbows' tourette. I will indeed be sorry not to see you all this time around but I know you'll enjoy the guys and I'm sure you'll look after them like you do me :-)
Will you look at the time? I have to get out of my robe and get some work done in the studio. Take care one and all, and next time I see you I'll be rested and ready for action, albeit a little older!
Bye for now, Andrew
Volvo Volvo Volvo Volvo Volvo. Volvo.
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Post by maddogfagin on Aug 27, 2012 10:40:14 GMT
Ian Anderson's Diary - November 1998Ah, well. Back in the mighty USSK after a quickie but nice Spanish tour taking in the last 10 days. I know most sensible folks don't go for the silly superstitions of Friday the 13th, but you won't believe what happened………… Our return flight home was delayed out of Santiago, Spain. Shona got savaged up the rear (in the automobile context) on her way to pick up me and Doane at London, Heathrow. The crew bus broke down twice near the Spanish border and they had to be flown out of the country, leaving the gear behind. My son James got savaged up the front (in the automobile context) while innocently parking at a nearby hostelry. The Vintage Spanish wine which I had put in my suitcase for Shona's post prandial delight, originally travelling on the crew bus but now rescheduled to the crew flight home, spectacularly exploded mid-journey, making for some interesting laundry improvisation, and the van which I organised for Kenny Wylie to collect him and my gear refused to start at Heathrow, necessitating the summoning of the emergency services. How was your day? But the Spanish landscape between Herez and Malaga was magnificent and the delights of Santiago de Compostela in Northern Spain will be remembered until, at least, next Thursday. A young student (female, 20-ish) tried to enter our humble gigwagen (German spelling), nearly throwing herself prostrate on Andy's prostate in the suicidal process, but happily lived to tell the tull. This is probably unbelievable, but from arrival in the Iberian Euro-domain until the final swallow, I was inflicted with the bad-botty/Spanish-tummy/clenched-cheek high E syndrome. Until, (yes it's true), D. Perry, J. Noyce and myself took the high and desperate road to the only Indian restaurant in the Madrid phone book and proved that the only cure for the affliction is the King Prawn Phal, or at least, the Chicken Saag Vindaloo. All was, at last, well and so terminal velocity of an acceptable sort was re-established in time for the last Monkfish and Mussel lunchtime adventure before the last gig in a concrete stadium of acoustical nightmare proportions. However, Gods bless the Spanish peoples for not smoking at the gigs and for remembering us poor Tull folks with our fragile constitutions and pulmonary sensitivities.. Well, now it befalls me to summon the muse and beg for the arrival of the lyrical and musical excesses for which the Tull-boys-true have become legendary. 'Tis the time of the season for the joining of loins, the renewal of promises, the worship of the beast (so long as he or Mick Abrahams is paying), and careful consideration of the tax implications. What do you buy for the pussy-cat who has everything? Another pussycat? Or just a little holiday for the forgotten few. Check out the web-site below. Somebody has to feed them. www.WildLifeEasySt.comIan Anderson, November 1998.
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Post by maddogfagin on Aug 28, 2012 9:23:22 GMT
Tull News January 1999
Well, what can I say? The web-site took a little longer than anticipated to get up and cyberspatially running. This was because web-meister Andrew Giddings was incapacitated over the Christmas and new year period with a bad case of the wretched flu near-epidemic which reduced all Brits of delicate constitution to quivering, pain-wracked, bed-and-floor-ridden, incontinent, dribbling and miserable amoebas. Frankly, the boy was a mess. Didn't light up a Marlboro for a week.
The pre-Christmas recording of three demos for the Tull album and the post-Christmas three weeks of work in the studio has kept him busy, so it is only now that you get to read the stuff so carefully penned in November and December last year.
But the good news is that there are now fourteen new Tull tracks in progress on good old analogue multi-track tape. They are, for the moment, minus the vocals, flute and guitar solos and, in some cases, Doane-drums and Jon-bass as well.
So, there is a good bit of work yet to do on this material as well as to write and record a few more pieces for the next batch of sessions due to take place in latter February and early March. In the meantime, Shona and I head for a week to the sunny Carribean on a cruise ship to hell and high water, Tobago. I just hope they have satellite phones, so I can call Kenny Wylie while I am away to arrange all your back-stage and photo passes for the next tours.
Then, we just come back to the good old UK of GB, chuck out the bad stuff and concentrate on finishing and mixing the two or three good songs which are left.
Hopefully, only kidding……
The typical success rate over the years has resulted in about two out of every three songs taken to the mixing stage being considered right for the album in question. This time around, we may have even more songs to work on and, ultimately, to choose from. But better than too few.
With the more sensitive and appropriate to gentlefolk "Secret Language of Birds" solo record out also next year, the Tull album will feature mostly medium and up-tempo pieces of a moderately noisy sort.
Martin Barre has so many guitars in my studio, lined up and ready for rockin' that I am moved to write that they are lined up and ready for rockin'. Not my sort of expression, really, but they look cool and sexy in a axe-wielding rock guitar god kind of way, sitting on their neat little stands along Martin's side of the room.
Doane, the Prince of Crash, has pleasingly brought only three cymbals out of the drum store and the resulting simplicity with which they decorate his kit brings tears of joy and gratitude to the band-mates who must endure the metallic emphasis of his compulsive St. Vitus Dance approach to the world of contemporary drumistic adventure. I am not entirely sure about "drumistic" but it might be in with a chance.
Andy Giddings of the sick bed explosions has cast aside the rubber sheets, Immodium, and the aromatherapy suppositories. (Well, who reads the instuctions anyway?) He has grappled with the quest for Hammond Organ authenticity with the purchase of the new Hammond-in-a-box bit of gear to provide the swirly significance which complements the Leslie cabinet (valve amp., Model 145) which I purchased last week. He has even had the squeezy thing *** out for a quick thing-fling on a track the other day, so he must be feeling better and more resolute, generally, in a squeezy sort of way. Or, at least he will be until he reads this before up-loading to the web-site.
( *** --- The piano accordion, by Hohner, Germany, and not what some of you were thinking.)
Jonathan Noyce has, so far, recorded his first eight pieces of music as the official Tull bassist. The boy done well, so the word goes. He has recently taken to speaking in tongues, for no particular reason, as far as we can tell, save for a fascination with mid-European destinations of a romantic and fulfilling sort.
He starts the usual recording day with a trip over to the house for a double espresso from the unbelievably expensive coffee machine which Shona bought for my birthday. Then, he works on several different European languages for a half-hour or so before 250 sit-ups and a pasta-throwing demonstration. Maybe then, are we allowed to begin the day's musical excursion across the oceanic swells as creative cast-aways from the harsh reality of inevitable Euro-one-ness.
Yes - since I last wrote, the Euro has become reality. The unit of new currency, set to rival the mighty dollar has finally flown. No more, the Franc, the DM, the Lire, the Peseta, the Guilder, the Dingbat and the Centipule. Well, at least after 1992.
The poor old Quid too, will soon be a thing a thing of the past, if I don't miss my mark: and I probably will, in a punny sort of way.
Give it another decade or two, and we'll all be dealing in Globos. "How much for that used '06 Hyundai?"
"20,000 Globos and the change in cash, in Brazilian Reals." --- What a deal.
You know, I'm going to set up a new regime: when they don't have an overdub to do, and that MB guitar solo seems to take forever, why don't I just get the boys to the 'puter, and put up their own news pages on the site? Or answer their e-mails? That kind of thing.
Wouldn't that be something? Somebody please show old Martin Barre the "on" button. Except (I forgot), he's still working on that guitar solo.
Speak to you soon.
I.A.
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Post by maddogfagin on Sept 2, 2012 14:41:44 GMT
Ian Anderson's Diary - February 1999We holidayed (vacationed) with lots of rich Americans on board the MS Lucky Windstar, cruising to the most exotic destinations in the Caribbean. Tobago, Grenadines, Martinique, Barbados and St. Lucia came and went and so did rather a lot of our money, it being a luxury cruise, you understand. The good Captain and the Chief Officer were both Tull fans but, of course, didn't tell me until the last night, when it was too late for me to lean on them for a steer of the ship or trip to the crow's nest or something equally nautical and exciting. Went to the cinema (unusual for me) to see "Shakespeare in Love", which was most enjoyable although slow to get under way. A sort of literary and thespian Spinal Tap affair, and worthy of many an Oscar. I popped over to Hannover in mid-Feb. to meet with a nice man and his dog at Germany's biggest independent record company. Nice to feel wanted. Doane arrived a couple of days later to overdub to some earlier tracks before the other guys came in to record a couple of new songs. After working on new stuff for 10 days, I had to finish writing the last three songs and run up to London to appear in a TV programme for the Discovery Channel, on the life and times of one Mick Jagger. I was interviewed for the show and talked about, well, this and that but not Jerry or anything controversial. After all, someone might ask him about me one day……I did venture to suggest that the Stones faces these days resembled "Mount Rushmore with attitude", but that was meant in a kind and loving sort of way. Last week, I went to Frankfurt for the day to do a demonstration of the new Shure Bros. in-ear monitor system at the Frankfurt Music Fair, the biggest of its kind in the world. The awfully nice folks at Sure have supplied our microphones for both stage and studio over the years, and it was the least I could do. Just like it was the least I could do last year, and the year before that. Check out the good brothers Shure at www.shure.com. This week, I have to finish off some touring budgets with Kenny Wylie and carry on with vocal and flute overdubs on various otherwise completed tracks. All the band boys are back in the studio next week for the last few sessions to finish off their part of the recording and Doane will bring his lovely wife, Heather, to enjoy a little vacation in Ireland after he finishes towards the end of the month. Heather writes, and a touch of the blarney will no doubt invest her next creation with local charm. Blarney and Doane are, of course no strangers to each other, Doane being able to talk the pants off a nun. Shona and I are planning another week off (only the second one in over a year) to visit India -- Rajastan in particular -- and I am trying to persuade Martin and Julie to come along, since a week without cheese sandwiches but with replacement compulsory curry instead would do him the world of good. We kick off the next work period with a marathon all-day photo session to provide new band and individual shots for the album cover, programme, press/promo material and for this web-site. Martyn Goddard will be the photographer as usual and will get frazzled, as usual, towards the end of the day, when the pressure is really on to finish on time. I have hired some really sympathetic outfits for the boys to wear and Doane will not believe the waist size necessary to accommodate his now ample frame. Still, who am I to talk. Time to get on that rowing machine. Whoops, must go now: the takeaway curry has just arrived. More next month. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Ian Anderson's Diary - April 1999A rough month, in the sense of having to work some pretty long hours on the vocal and flute overdubs, together with mixing the 24 tracks to digital stereo. Not a day off since I came back from the brief Caribbean cruise. Anybody feeling sorry for me yet? No, I didn't think so. The design and artwork origination had to be created in the same period, ready for delivery, both electronically and in person, to Bogdan Zarkowski, the graphic designer who has worked on Tull stuff since 1984. Some of our weather has been beautiful for the time of year, and some days, it was a pain to have to cross the drive to the studio in wind, rain and worse. Poor Andrew G. is desperate, by now, for a holiday in the sun and so, we (A.G., Trumpy-Trace, Shone and I) are off to get egg-whipped (to Egypt) for a week on the Mighty Nile and to lurk and perambulate by a pyramid, or two. It's O.K…… Only a package tour and you can all come along. Buy your own drinks 'though and don't add the ice. Don't eat the salad or the un-peeled fruit. Don't accept gifts from strangers and don't pet the dogs unless you want to pass on a nasty rash and a touch of rabies. Martin Barre and the svelte Julie-Two-Shoes have recently returned from a week in Florida, driving around in a sexy convertible, buck-nekkid and tanned from top to tit. Probably. Martin was over here yesterday to run the master tapes with all the guitar parts for the next album up LOUD, to learn them for the forthcoming tours. Andy dropped by too to get the copies of the live tracks and the new stuff, and make copies for the other guys. Jon is due to return today from Italian lessons and Doane has e-mailed me to say …. "Well…Hi, there: it's the big guy." Actually (as the Germans say a lot, and John Le Carre has noticed this too in his excellent new novel), Doane has been furiously new-aging; even frantically frugging and tepee-ing with the Japanese fellow whose name I can never remember, on tour as drummer with……well, what's-his-name? Kitaro! Now there it was after all. Anybody see him? Was he fab? Does Kitaro have two T's? Does Doane have two tubes? It's all a mystery to me. Najma dropped by to sing on the title track, Dot Com last week. Najma (Akhtar) is the premier lady Indian (Asian) singer on the planet and has several fine albums, some of which you can find and purchase on the CDNOW website. Recommended are "Pukar" and "Qareeb" if you like to be transported by the rapturous and seductive tones of a gal who really ought to know better. What untold damage could be visited upon the hearts and minds of us gullible and Western fools? I don't suppose she does it on purpose, but be warned: dollars depart from wallets as she Plants her soul on the Pages of your bank account. Thanks, Najma for liking the song enough to give up your Sunday. Maartin Allcock wrote to me the other week to ask if I could play on a track from his new record. Well, of course I can, but it better be easy! Support acts for the next tours include some familiar names (in Germany) and, in the USA, we are hopeful of securing a few really good artists who have written to me and sent their records and live tapes for consideration. Thanks to all those who have recommended various acts to us: somebody got it right and I hope you enjoy the results. I had a call today to say that Mark Knopffler was interested in doing something with us next year. That would be great so long as I get to be Rhythm Guitarist and do back-up flute and vocals on some of the great Dire Straits songs. Last week, Hariprasad Chaurasia, the frighteningly brilliant Indian classical flautist, invited me (well, his son did) to Bombay on the 31st December for a concert with some other "stars" but it's a bad time of the month for me. Gael, my daughter, has her 21st Birthday that week and I have to take a few days off before the start of the early Spring touring plans to visit….. but that would be telling….. See you soon, IA
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Post by maddogfagin on Sept 3, 2012 11:14:51 GMT
Ian Anderson's Diary - June 1999
It has been almost a month of transition from studio work to preparing for concert touring again.
The final mix having been completed with the added vocals of Najma Akhtar, I took the masters down to Chop ‘em Out - a London production mastering studio - where the edited and compiled production master reference CD was made and the results stored on hard disk for later recall to go to the US and European factories for manufacture. A few little changes were made to compensate for the acoustic idiosyncrasies of my studio and monitoring, and the results checked at home on a variety of playback options from headphones to big speakers and all points in between. Some further minor changes were called for and the final approved result is now with the record companies along with the completed artwork.
A brief few days of welcome vacation in Egypt were cut short due to fear of little aircraft on the internal routes and a bad case of the Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb: the dreaded and deadly, gut-wrenching long-way-from-Delhi-Belly. Shona and I fled on the next BA flight to London, leaving Andy and Tracy to enjoy our previously booked deluxe Mozart Suite on the Nile cruise, which they took over in our absence.
Never mind: the trip to Cairo and the Pyramids at Giza was enough to banish the gloom of English weather for a few days and we returned home rather glad of the extra time to prepare for the upcoming tour and final record contract negotiations.
Our eight month old F2 Bengal, Summi, was pleased to welcome us home, we being the source of his twice daily red meat "fix" and providers of a warm bed to sleep it off. He is a second generation hybrid from the wild Asian Leopard Cat and is named after the legendary F2 Leica camera lens, the Summicron. Sooms lives amiably enough with our other more domesticated Bengals, Bhajee and Triffid, as well as black moggy favourites, Mauser and Taj.
A song on the new Tull record is dedicated to them and all species of Catus Pussicus everywhere, especially the, arguably, 26 species of small wild cat who don’t receive much public attention compared with the big cats. The song is called “Hunt By Numbers”, which is exactly what our little guys did last week when an American film crew arrived to film me for a programme about conservation and wildlife.
No sooner had the crew got cups of coffee in their hands, than five cats set about a poor unfortunate mole which had surfaced briefly from his lawn-wrecking tunnel. The film crew rushed out to record this beastly event and seemed a tad put out when Shona rescued the mauled mole from a fate exactly equal to death.
The mole was transferred to a distant part of the farm where he might dig to hearts content and until his dying day (which was probably later on the same one, due to his having played football with a team of dedicated feline experts).
Our first real public outing since last November was the, thankfully, not too warm and sunny city of Budapest. We flew out the night before the show to have an extra few hours to prepare and check equipment. The inclusion of three new songs from the next Tull album and a good few old numbers, not played for a long time, made for an interesting opening night, but there were no disasters.
The following few shows in Brno, Katowice and Prague went well and the audiences, as always in these parts, were most enthusiastic and welcoming.
On to Germany and a change for the worse in weather. Cold snap and rain were unexpected visitors to the outdoor shows for the next few days, and the brave Germans stuck it out with fortitude and resolve. We, of course, were under cover on the stage, but the cold temperatures made for a few numb fingers and forced errors.
I am at home briefly for a couple of days off as I write this, and find to my horror, hundreds of e-mails from you, the fans, waiting my attention.
PLEASE don't send any more e-mails to me via this site for the time being, since I have no time at all to read them when we are on the road, and the overwhelming amount to go through on my return, means I can't even read them all, let alone reply to many.
I am pleased to receive them when I am at home for a decent period of time between tours, or when working in the studio, but it is a waste of your and my time to attempt communication during the concert touring part of our schedule. It suffices for me to know that your thoughts are with me, as is the Force, the luggage, and the small, mysterious phial of perfectly legal Habanero Chile powder which peps up the blandest of foreign fare.
Sadly, the news has reached me that the US version of the CD cover artwork must have the genitals removed, due to the record company's concern that we might give offence to little old ladies, Mothers Superior and former FBI agents, together with the very slight possibility of one or two of our more sensitive fans working up a bit of a lather. Never mind: the full three and a half inches of glory will be there for all to see on T-shirts, the tour programme and this web-site, when you will, doubtless, wonder what all the fuss was about. By the way, they are not my genitals on view, nor even those of the massively endowed and black leather girdled Martin Barre, but merely the ones belonging to the Ram-headed, male torso'd Amun, who is depicted as a watercolour based on a statue in my garden sculpted by our ex-neighbour, Michael Cooper.
All will, I am sure, be amused to learn of the advised necessary amputation, but I was not about to go back and paint CK boxers over the thing at this late stage.
Oh, well, it's time to head off to the photo processor in a nearby town to develop the pile of film from the last lot of shows, where a different photographer each night was given the benefit of an extended photo pass in return for exposing a roll of my film and a name credit if any shots were published. So far, I know, we have a few good images of the various band members, to be used in the up-coming tour programme for the US dates and further tours.
Hope to see some of you at the Tull shows this summer in Germany and Italy.
May the weather be kind and the wine glass be full, on balmy summer nights which echo to the sound of Doane Perry's bongo mania and A. Giddings' squeezy-thing, Accordionus Rex. Poor old Amun's squeezy thing can be found at the merchandising stand where Tom and Jackie will sell you something you didn't really need at price you didn't really understand, since both talk in the unintelligible accents of the British nether regions.
Kind regards,
IA
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Post by maddogfagin on Sept 4, 2012 18:06:21 GMT
Ian joining Toto ?Well, not exactly - but it's better that you hear this from me before the virtual gossip machine kicks into gear. I was deep in meaningful conversation with my new pal, the esoteric and suave Al Di Meola - maestro of the jazz-fusion guitar - when those loud and vulgar types Steven Hangbuddy Lukather and Robert cuddle-me-quick Kimball persuaded us to venture on to their stage at the Munich Olympia Halle last night. Yes, I know we were actually at the concert anyway but only to steal their beer and check out the young girls who flock to Toto shows to see what their aging mothers were knicker-wetting about. Leslie Mandoki warned me about the possible effects on the psyche when engaged in giga-bel volume guitar and flute lick trading, but would I listen? So, it was thus that the regrettable and disgraceful display of phallic-flute-thrusting involving the lower anatomies of said Lukather and Kimball and the perfectly innocent Sankyo Japanese flute came to take place. OK: I was reacting instinctively to a Rock and Roll moment of Spinal Tappesque proportions, but it wasn't really my fault. That well-meaning but overly enthusiastic bugger Di Meola was presenting me with such impossible phrases and licks (how I distrust that word) with which to trade, that I took the theatrical option of diverting attention to the well-hung and endowed nether regions of my new (but sadly temporary) bandmates, Roberto and Stephan. Blame Di Meola. Mr. Steven L. showed more restraint with his guitar outbursts (partly due, no doubt, to the previous two-and-one-half-hour's of Rock-god phallic thrusting of his very own, which had left him - clearly - shagged out and desperate for peace and redemption). His acoustic solo spot was particularly fine, but beneath such restrained sensitivity beats the pulse of a maddened sperm whale with a penchant for young goats. Roberto K. sang his big heart out and, from where I was standing, the monitors were completely unnecessary or advisable. These guys have orgasmic moments from just being on the crew bus. Totally (now there's an LA word) committed to the passion of performance and the sheer joy of being re-united with their repertoire on this, the Toto's 25th Anniversary tour, these good folks nearly persuaded me to have a Toto-oscopy - a minor surgical procedure requiring the fitting of a small waist-worn bag to gather accumulate male hormones secreted in impossible amounts as a result of flute-thrusting opportunistic moments. I set my alarm this morning for 07.00 to listen to the new Alberto Di's album "Flesh On Flesh". This is a sterling record with great and eclectic performances from - amongst others - Anthony Jackson on bass. Of course, Big Al already has a flute-player - wouldn't ya know? And New Jersey's only a bus-ride away. Or British Airways Concorde if Al's paying. And after I told Chick Corea I was washing my hair………. Stop right there. Mucho-macho thanks to Leslie Mandoki for a weekend of diversion and musical taste - even if that Steven L. guy came close to ruining my reputation for only kissing men with no moustaches whatsoever. And to Jack Bruce and his lovely daughter, Natasha - you did the right thing in getting the hell out of there before Stevie-weevie Luke-at-her got you logging into www.toto99.com and purchasing merchandise with no connection whatsoever to Jack Bruce, Al Di Meola or Jethro Tull. The world is a cruel place. IA, November 4th 1999.
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Post by maddogfagin on Sept 5, 2012 18:13:59 GMT
Ian Anderson's Diary - July 1999
It was a hot night in Budapest…… And in Brno, Prague, etc., all the way to Freiburg, Germany some weeks later. Summer in mainland Europe, and now summer in the sultry July heart of these most British of Isles. Captain Beefheart is singing "Bluejeans and Moonbeams" to me as I type this on my return from sunny and sometimes chaotic Italy. Not one of his best, really, but poor old Don had to give it a try in an almost last desperate attempt at commerciality to pay off the overdraft and the musicians. Read Zoot Horn Rollo's excellent autobiography, "Lunar Notes", available from Amazon.com and fine booksellers everywhere.
During the last few weeks, we have attempted several new tracks from " j-tull.com" as well as some old flames rekindled. Like what, do you ask?
Well, try "Jeffrey goes to Leicester Square" or "Witch's promise"………… "To Cry You a Song" or new arrivals, "Hot Mango Flush", "AWOL", "Spiral", "Dot Com", "Hunt By Numbers", and "Wicked Windows". Of course, we can't promise to play these, or any, specific songs when we finally show up at a theatre near you, but these are examples of the stuff we have been doing as of late in Europe.
I saw the first production run examples of the new album when we played the Pistoia Blues Festival a couple of nights ago. The diminutive Micro (Promotion gal from the Italian licensee record company) was jealously guarding the box of advance copies, but I think one or two of the other guys got one as a begged favour. I found 50 copies in the package sent to me by Roy Eldridge from the newly named Papillon records when I arrived back today. And they did contain the surprise bonus track!
EMI/Chrysalis records did a spectacularly useless job of promoting our presence on the recent tour dates, but have since apologised and promised to do better next time, now that they have recalled that they have our past thirty years worth of catalogue to work. In contrast, the new Papillon record company folks and their European licensees are on the case and are a breath of fresh air in regard to commitment and energy.
Some Tull boys didn't quite fancy the idea of the early starts last week in Italy and opted for the crew bus instead, only to find that the wretched thing had no air conditioning. MB, Shona and I decided to drive during the day and actually enjoyed all but the last trip which was a bit on the long side.
Italy is really such a nice country: shame that the awfully nice Italians got there first. Damn! Perfect climate, perfect agricultural base and perfect sea. Damn! Still, go there when you can. The Italians are warm and generous people and the towns, villages and cities are relatively unthreatening compared to many US and other European urban jungles. But six straight days of Parma Ham and Spaghetti Vongole can overwhelm even the best of gastronomic memories.
I did a series of interviews two weeks ago for Czech TV who are featuring me on one of a series of programmes about "legendary" songwriters; at least, the ones who agreed to be on their programme. Such a cynic, aren't I? Anyway, it should be out in September/October for those of you in the Czech Republic, and there is some talk of the programme being made available to other territories as well. The German TV show, "Ohne Filter" has Tull for an hour-long show scheduled for September, but I have to confess to being very disappointed with the sound and audio mix. Lots of shiny new gear in their studio but they didn't read the instruction book, so it would seem.
The new rage is for "Rimowa" luggage. This German company produces the famous ribbed aluminium range of luggage similar in construction to the fuselage of a certain wartime Luftwaffe aeroplane. A veritable flurry of suitcase and briefcase buying took place during the German tour with Martin Barre, in particular, purchasing wildly in his quest for travel accoutrement perfection. I went for the sexy black ABS plastic versions (yes, luggage can be sexy) and Shona had the four-wheel drive, all terrain aluminium model large enough for all the family at the same time. I suppose an endorsement deal is out of the question?
By the time I have unpacked (we only returned home yesterday), it will be time to pack again, this time for a promo trip to the good ol' USA for a week to be spent in New York and Los Angeles doing interviews and bonding with the new record company and distribution wallahs. Before that I must work on the forthcoming tour programme to get all the new photos and text together with Bogdan Zarkowski, the graphic artist.
Speak to you again in a couple of weeks. For now, so long, farewell, bye bye, toodle-oo, unpack, unpack.
IA
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Post by maddogfagin on Sept 7, 2012 7:45:59 GMT
July 2001
Another train, another day speeding up the mighty Rhine (down again, tomorrow).
Since we last spoke, dear reader, we have journeyed through Euroland via Holland, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Italy and back to the Fatherland where we fell upon the ground, kissing it madly after a nearly thwarted attempt to leave Pasta-heaven. Strikes in the airports of Italy meant most flights were cancelled and we were lucky to find a way out to finally enjoy the last few minutes of our "day off" in the wilds of Swabia.
Doane has had a birthday, as did Jeff of the boy band (The Young Dubliners). Doane won by a couple of years (seven, actually) but Jeff looked the more rattled by the coming of age. The Dubs' tour manager, Donnie, had a momentary moral crisis requiring confession, due penitence and an e-mail from the Pope.
Doane (Woody to his friends) received many fine and utterly useless gifts including a Chile pepper grinder, Mr. Grumpy and Mr. Happy books to counter whatever mood he might be in of a sunny morn, and a metal frame like you see at the airports to measure the size of your carry-on luggage. The latter has proved ineffectual since the Woodperson was also gifted a personal travel welder and has altered the metal measuring frame to accommodate the jumbo roll-on which he still insists on dragging round the world in weighty imitation of notable and hardy Victorian explorers but without the benefit of even more hardy native porters (which he is too mean to hire, even at the discounted senior citizen rate of thirty Sudanese rupees per day, which he now enjoys).
Martin Barre has had a cold, Andrew G. has sore knees, Jonathan N. contracted posterioritis and I have a mild ear infection, probably from the smelly tap water in some hotel I seem to remember a few days back. Doane has entered an almost terminal state of depression - partly from early morning departures and partly as result of seeing his band mates afflicted with such mid-tour disabilities.
A few songs have entered and left the set. Rehearsed in soundchecke are a few more for inclusion in the USA tours coming up. Not telling you what, 'though in case we change our minds.
Except that in readiness for the Harley Davidson Party festival in up-state Michigan a couple of weeks from now, we are working on Born To Be Wild, Kick Out The Jams M*****f*****s, and a medley of Village People hits which Doane thinks might go down well with the bikers. I'm not so sure, personally, but I guess Doane knows the American Harley culture better than I.
I draw the line at wearing the tutu, however.
Looking from time to time out of the train window as I type this, I notice the steeply banked vineyards each side of the Rhine and feel the sudden and irresistable need to visit the lavvy-loo and then, immediately, the restaurant car for a bladder top-up of cheap but potent German wine. Back in a minute, dear reader……
Well, bugger me if it isn't the Gau-Kongernheimer Vogelsang 1999 - in case you wondered - and I shall drinken-it-right-upski in a trice.
Boy, the Rhine looks swirly, dark and dangerous today, even with the sun shining on the plump and bared cheeks of the local frauleins who, sun-worshipping in their simple nakedness, line the shores, buttocks raised as if to toast my non-vintage but welcome grape. OK, I made that last bit up, but I'm sure if I squint hard enough through my 1.25 diopter reading glasses, I can almost, me fancies, make them out on the opposite bank……..
Not a car to be seen on the roads either side of this proud torrent but the millions are abroad on pushbikes today. Sunday madness and legs a-tanning while turreted villages jostle for position on hilltop and riverbank alike, with picture book appeal and graffiti hardly to be seen.
And so to those lilly-livered journos who keep asking me, "Don't you get tired of touring after all these years and aren't you just doing it for the money?": well, where would you rather be right now? Sitting in your newspaper tower at the desktop hell of downtown Gotham City or next to IA himself in the Deutsch Bahn first class comfy chair wine-sozzled splendour of a rolling room-with-a-view which is carriage 12 en route to Dusseldorf to meet the Woodster for curry lunch before the Formula One Grand Prix on TV, a quick zizz before soundcheck and an hour and three-quarters in front of my friends, playing the music I love? Hmmmn….. no contest methinks.
See you soon, pals.
Damn, but that wine was good.
IA
Germany.
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Post by maddogfagin on Sept 7, 2012 18:17:37 GMT
Ian Anderson's Diary - June 2000
Tull are now launched upon their US tour and currently concluding the Texan dates at the end of the first week. A total of 64 concerts are to be played over the next three months or so and the band cover most of the continental US and Eastern Canada, with the Far Alaskan Surprise to put the Geographic tail sting firmly in place.
Happily, the appalling weather of the last few days, which began as the band arrived in Austin for the first show, has now abated as far as Texas is concerned. The worry on a tour like this is that flights might be delayed or cancelled and each day’s travel is a mini adventure with back-up rental cars and long nights on the bus a reality for the band members who don’t like to rise at dawn for the necessary early flights which we have to take to be on the safe side.
The opening act on the last first shows has been the excellent Young Dubliners – not the most sparkling of names some of you might think – but they are the Young Dubs to their many fans in Southern California. Not so young either, as I wheedled out of them last night! One member celebrates his fortieth birthday today and the others are thirty-something, we are told. And I assumed they were barely old enough to shave.
They are a perfect choice as a Tull opener with their blend of Irish and American influences and a new record, “Red” set for release on the 20th of June. They rejoin the tour for the Florida shows in a week’s time. Come early to catch the band’s full set. That’s an order!
The recent tour of Scandinavia and Eastern Europe was highly enjoyable for the Tull Boys True and no stress or serious illness resulted from the bewildering array of varying national cuisines and back-stage catering. The travel was rough for the “bussers” during the first section. Martin and I had to fly to do the necessary promo on the days “off”.
The weather was a treat during the northern shows in Helsinki, Stockholm, Oslo and Copenhagen. The first burst of summer sun and heat produced an unseasonal but welcome start to the Scandinavian art of treating pale winter skins to the gentle tan which so perfectly complements the blond hair, lithe bodies and blue-eyed beauty of the firm-torso-sporting young males. Actually, all the guys I saw were drunk, red-faced, fat and balding – just like the rest of us.
The dates in Poland, Czech and Slovak Republics were enjoyable as always. Tull has had a following for many years in these countries although, of course, it is only in the last ten or so years that the band has performed there on a regular basis. Prague is a highlight of any visit to the eastern part of the continent and a place you simply must visit, especially in the summer months when the street and café culture fills the city with residents and visitors alike. Even nervous and wary Americans should feel no hint of trepidation visiting this splendid city. Go there, even if we are not playing!
The concerts in the former Yugoslav countries were a bit of an unknown, Tull not having played there for 25 years. Zagreb and Ljubljana proved to be much friendlier and open than our previous visit in 1975. It was like being in Northern Italy, wandering through the streets of Zaggers in search of an Indian restaurant. Big Italian influence in shopping, street cafés and bustling town squares. No luck with the curry ‘though.
The crew had the nerve-wracking journey through Belgrade to get to Turkey, but the border guards and frequent police-check officers seemed content with a T-shirt or four and English cigarettes. By careful pre-arrangement with the NATO forces, the roads to Turkey had been left intact during the earlier bombings to speed the crew bus on its weary way. I only hope that we are still professionally engaged when it comes time, as one day it must, to visit Serbia in safety and openness to play a concert for the successors to the current regime. Such a bloody waste of a perfectly good country. Mr. M, your time is up.
Our visit to Istanbul caused a little wariness in the wake of the awful football madness a few weeks before when an English team played the local heroes, resulting in the all-too-predictable death and destruction which attends the game these days. Would some border guard vent his anger on the poor road warriors on the bus? Would the band visas turn out to be so much papier-du-bottom? Would the press and TV folks go on and on about it at the press conference? Well, no – not a bit of it. In fact, even with the game coming up between the Istanbul team and some other blokes for the European championship, a couple of days later, the media were entirely discrete on the subject and it was not raised once during the interviews or even in private conversation with Turkish people. Just as well, since I know little and care less about the “beautiful game of champions”. Dominoes, or maybe scrabble, is about my limit for friendly competition. Sensitive flower that I am. Unless, of course, Scotland is playing.
Our previously scheduled trip to Istanbul was postponed as a result of the tragic earthquakes which killed so many and in the wake of which, it would, we thought, have been insensitive to have turned up on such frivolous business as we purvey.
Anyhow, Isters turned out to be fine and dandy, although rain threatened and the temperature was in sharp contrast to the earlier Scanders warmth. Just the little matter of being paid to iron out with the Turkish promoter. We would hate to have ensure he never works again. The bounced check must be some tiny misunderstanding, we feel sure.
But back to the mighty and muggy US of the Americas. Heat, humidity and hard work will define the clarion cry for mercy on the part of us humblebums during the next weeks; at least on the outdoor shows which form half of the dates on this sector. How will 100 degrees (Fahrenheit – don’t panic, you Euro-persons,) affect the tuning of flutes and guitars? Or the fiddle and pipes of those older Dubliners, The Chieftans, who will be playing with us on the last three shows before our ten day break? At least if you’re a drummer, you only have to hit the damn things. No worries about the niceties of tuning. (I know that they, the drummers would argue differently, but they are a rum bunch, at best and not to be trusted with musical instruments.)
Talking of whom, one of the bash-bash fraternity has a birthday coming up in a few days. Send donations and birthday wishes to Doane Perry, bash-meister, professional flagellator and sartorial supremo, care of this web site. I am sure Mr. Giddings will pass them on, in the next couple of months or so. (Well, we don’t want Doane to have too good a time, do we?) I have bought him a couple of really good presents, about which I am so excited, I can hardly wait until the 16th. They are also wearing a hole in my suitcase. No don’t try to guess.
Ah, well, Louisville beckons - at least dinner does - and the skies are clear this end, so best go for it. Pack the carry-on. Converse in Latvian with the Taxi driver. Mount the shining sky-beast and take wing on a prayer-and-Chardonnay towards Kentucky and a date with vindaloo destiny. Or is that just another shining Zagreb mirage on a culinary desert horizon?
Bye-z-bye.
IA
Houston, Texas.
June 12th 2000
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Post by maddogfagin on Sept 11, 2012 7:34:23 GMT
Ian Anderson's Diary - August 2000
We are nearing the end of the second leg of our North American tour with a total of forty shows played. The third leg, taking in the west coast of the USA, begins in Las Vegas on Sunday 27th August and the rest of the dates are found elsewhere on this website.
No great recent dramas to speak of but a couple of crew physical collapses forced the attendance of paramedics. The heat was the culprit, probably combined with exertion and late night carousing the night before.
The weather has been reasonably kind to us (and more importantly, the audiences) and the thunderstorm season has threatened but not caused more than the odd bumpy airplane ride and a couple of flight delays.
As a fervent watcher of the Weather Channel here in the USA, I have come to realise that what we take for granted in Europe by way of variable weather, gets scary headline rating in the Americas and the TV interpretation promises more, usually, than it actually delivers in the way of meddlesome effect on the travelling itinerary of us humble musos. (I write this, however, in an airport lounge while waiting two and a half hours for a flight delayed by thunderstorms.)
My personal thanks should be offered to the audiences of Columbus and Youngstown for their warm appreciation and remaining mostly seated for our concerts, rather than bobbing up and down like bloody jack-in-the-boxes to get drinks, visit the lavvie-loo etc., putting me off my stride and irritating their fellow punters in the process. Is seems to be the increasing norm in the USA to take seats after our set has begun and to think nothing of coming and going throughout the show. Where I come from, this is considered the height of rudeness and is often prevented by disallowing access to seats until the next break in performance.
Still, you might argue, we are but lucky visitors to a foreign country and must abide by and accept the local culture and customs. Hmmn: not too sure, myself. I occasionally go to a show and am well rehearsed in the art of bladder-emptying-with-forethought as well as imbibing what ever is required in the way of liquid or other sustenance suitably in advance of death by thirst or hunger. To get up from a seat in the front few rows and disturb performer and neighbours would fill me with horror and self-loathing. At least wait until the end of a bloody song you rude buggers. Whoops: there I go. I came out and said it after all. You know, I feel better already.
Some new concert tour news: our agent Kenny Bell has procured some dates in Spain, Portugal and Israel for the period end of October through mid-November. We have approved these shows from both production and cost points of view and, subject to contract, will be winging our way on the appointed date. Watch for the appropriate announcement of details on this website soon.
Our friends in Germany will be pleased to hear that we are intending to tour next summer and we will look for shows in Austria, Switzerland and Italy at the same time.
That nice man who makes my bamboo flutes, Patrick Olwell, gave to me, after a concert at Wolftrap, near Washington DC, a splendid present of a bamboo flute in the key of F sharp, to supplement my collection of his instruments. F sharp is an interesting key, being a pig to play on the conventional and more complex concert flute. It allows forays in the keys of G sharp minor, B, and E flat minor to boot and will be put to good use on my next solo concept album, “Stairway To Topograhic Futures Passed.”
A brief piece on the amplification of flutes will appear in a future edition of this website, in response to the many questions which I receive by E-mail and letter on the subject. Another piece on which I am working is an outline of the world of small wild cat species (take that, you cat haters!) and will be completed when I return briefly to the UK next week.
The recent news story regarding the recent WIPO decision to remove the “dot com” sites jethrotull.com and jethro-tull.com from the clutches of one Denny Hammerton, cybersquatter extraordinaire, is discussed elsewhere on this site. However, the j-tull.com and jtull.com addresses will remain valid for this site for the forseeable future.
See you soon, poppets, petits chouxfleurs, schmetterlings and diddums.
Still waiting in the lounge.
IA
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Post by nonrabbit on Sept 11, 2012 7:52:32 GMT
You Americans with your bobbin up n down!!
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Post by maddogfagin on Sept 12, 2012 17:40:57 GMT
Ian Anderson's Diary - May 2001
God bless Deutsche Bahn and all those who roll with her.
I write this from the train en route to Magdeburg from Frankfurt, near which we played last night on the second concert of our European tour.
Quiet as a mouse, we snake our green and sunny way across the heartland of Germany – double glazed and vibration-free. Oh, that there might be trains like this to whisk me about the grim satanic mill towns of England later this year on the UK tour. Our sad, overworked, money-grabbing but poorly funded privatised train systems in Britain don’t even begin to compare – with the possible exception of the UK East coast line. Still - mustn’t whinge.
Having returned from Nashville where we had a TV show a couple of weeks ago, I realised that I had a nasty bug. Country and Western influenza of a virulent sort. Laid me low for a week during which I tried to do UK promo but cancelled plans to perform two songs in the studio for Leslie Mandoki, the Hungarian Euro-Pop meister who occasionally makes records with his pals. I noticed on the tracklist one Pino Paladino – famous bass player and Bobby Kimball of Toto fame. More familiar names to follow, I guess. Finally got Leslie’s songs finished before heading off on tour.
Even now, I splutter, hack and wheeze my weary way through the early morning scrub-and-shave like some poor old sod from an ancient pre-prog ditty.
Looking out of the window, I notice the not-too-pretty suburbs of Hildesheim. Came through here yesterday and it looked just the same. What’s the betting we whizz through again in the opposite direction tomorrow about the same time?
I was working on the set list for tonight’s show in Magdeburg a hundred miles ago and there are a few changes in detail which I thought I might share with you.
MY SUNDAY FEELING CROSSEYED MARY ROOTS TO BRANCHES THICK AS A BRICK HUNT BY NUMBERS BOUREE THE HABANERO REEL SET ASIDE THE WATER CARRIER SWEET DREAM MB INST. PIBROCH FARM ON THE FREEWAY SFTW/2 OLD 2/HORSES STRONGER STUFF BUNGLE IN THE JUNGLE LOVE STORY PASSION JIG AQUALUNG LOCO BREATH/LITP BALLOONS/CHEERIO
Some routine songs for you American buddies but 80% different to the last European tour. It varies a bit every night and there will be good few changes by the time we alight on US soil from Big Bird Bargain Airways Business class section.
Stopped off briefly at Frankfurt station’s herbs and spices counter to buy some chile pepper powder for Doane “The Scrounge” Perry who always forgets to bring his own and borrows mine at mealtimes. May he choke on the stuff. Unless, of course, I should happen to forget my own. “Hey Doane, old pal – I don’t suppose…….”
We did a brief (two hours) radio appearance near Hannover a couple of days ago – the usual unplugged but still plugged sort of thing – except for me (being a naturally unplugged sort of guy and given to playing real instruments). For those of you who get the bootleg tape, yes, I did play a spectacularly wrong note, just to get your attention of course. We were all witty, intelligent, polite, informative – not bad for 06.45 which is when we had to get up to travel to the radio station.
Martin Barre has just finished his Farm Aid single, recorded at his Devon studio and featuring a local farmer vocalist. Titled, “Harvest for the World”, this is an old Isley Brothers track and proceeds will benefit the local community hard hit by the economic effects of the recent Foot and Mouth Disease.
Martin hopes to have details soon on this web site of how to buy it .
Arrangements are now in hand to begin the pre-production work on the Tull DVD scheduled for release around Christmas 2002. I know it’s a long way off, but the huge job of compiling historical material together with the legal chore of acquiring licenses from the assorted owners of such archival copyrighted footage will take a while. A number of odd little performances will be video-recorded in unlikely and intimate circumstances together with a major performance at a European venue in the summer of 2002 to make up the new live stuff and there will be snippets of backstage activity, interview material with band and audience, and a special section on Doane Perry’s laundry. This will be the story of Jethro Tull to date with about 50% contemporary recorded performance.
I spoke to Mick Abrahams last week regarding a possible “reunion” of the original band for a couple of songs subject, of course, to the availability and willingness of Glenn Cornick and Clive Bunker. Don’t hold your breath regarding other ex-band members appearing since some of them don’t play any more, but I will try to get Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond to make a cameo appearance which won’t involve him in trying to play the bass – something which he hasn’t done in 25 years!
We will see and play with Clive Bunker and David Palmer at the Italian Tull fan convention in Fidenza, near Milan on the 30th June.
Hope to see some of you there. Details available from the link on this site to the Itullians fan club.
Better switch off this tiny laptop to change trains at the next ststion.
Talk to you soon.
I.A.
Somewhere on a train near you.
25th May, 2001.
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Post by maddogfagin on Sept 14, 2012 7:53:50 GMT
Ian Anderson's Diary - October 2001
In the last few weeks, there has been much for us all to talk and think about and, for me at any rate, this has been a time to refrain from frivolous chat or comment.
September 11th saw me in the quaint and bustling Italian town of Reggio Emilia where I played with a bunch of quite proper flute players led by the good-looking flute-maestro Andrea Griminelli and supported by a large Russian Orchestra. The horrors of breaking news hit at about 2 pm and a journalist friend advised us by cellphone of the first vague reports, sending us scurrying upstairs to our hotel room to watch CNN.
The rest is history as generations will remember it.
We, at the concert that night, had to take the difficult decision whether or not to go through with the show – a no-win contest of moral and emotional strings a-tugging. In the event, with tickets all sold and half of the audience on its way from different parts of the country we decided to go with it. The mayor made a sombre speech and the evening of flute repertoire of the classical sort went off without a hitch.
I was on at the end with three pieces – Elegy, Bouree and Thick as a Brick – to lift the spirit and generally be the circus turn. I decided, given the response of the audience to keep the presentation light-hearted, but it was a difficult twenty minutes of guilty fun.
Sting was due to appear three days later with the same orchestra and other guests in the same venue, but decided to not to appear leaving poor Andrea, the organiser of the events, with no option but to cancel the whole show. Either Sting or I made a respectful but ultimately wrong decision, I can’t help but fear.
We were well aware of the apparent impossibility of getting Doane Perry and drum-tech Jay to Oslo for the Scandinavian tour in the next days – at least direct from LA – so we got them heading towards the Mexican border, pronto.
After a long wait, the authorities opened the border at Tijuana and the boys were on their way, via Mexico City and London to Norway for the first show. We had checked with theatres in London, Germany and Scandinavia before leaving to determine the mood of the European audiences regarding the continuation of public performances, so forgive us, dear Americans, if we seemed at odds here in Europe with the complete absence of shows at that time in the US.
We received, for our trouble, a couple of real stinker reviews in Oslo and Bergen – not for choosing to perform – but for the quality of our performance. Strange, because I had listened to the tape of the shows both nights and thought them pretty reasonable. Usually, when reviewers don’t like Tull, they just don’t bother to write the piece in the first place and reviews, when we get them, tend towards good or ecstatic. Weird, therefore, to find ourselves plastered over the front page of the Bergen morning paper as the headline news item of the day for not being very good, especially in the context of the other events still unfolding in the wake of the 11th September.
Oh well, you lose some and you lose some………
Six weeks later and we still operate in a world quite changed from the one we thought we knew. The news runs continuously with the aftermath of the tragedy and the risky deployment in Afghanistan. Anthrax resonates in the pages of print and the sad obituaries of the thankfully few victims – so far.
The travel and tourist industries seem to have discovered irreparable economic realities and the stock market lurches between low and lower.
Music, as always, remains the power of hope and healing throughout this ongoing new home environment of terror and vulnerability. In how many homes have the sounds of comfort sung out to still the heartbreak and personal loss these recent weeks? How many touched souls have turned to their musical heroes and villains for consolation and escape from torment? More, I suggest, than turned to “Millionaire”or other light-hearted and ultimately shallow TV or movie frolic.
Perhaps the music we grew up with – the music which shaped our youth, whether thirty years ago or yesterday – has become, for many, the replacement for religious hymn or lament. For the moment, I am happy and a little proud to be of the tribe of Musik – the tribe of players who ask you not to forget but to celebrate the positive and purposeful future which we all strive for.
But forgive me if I’m not feeling too funny at the moment. I have some pretty strong views about Bush, Blair and the quest for vengeance but now is not the moment. Those of who have walked the streets of London, Belfast, Madrid, Paris, Tokyo or Oklahoma City, in these last years know too well the taped-off streets, bomb and other terrorist threats ringing from loudhailers and the sense of absolute bewilderment at the action of man upon man. In the names of freedom, religion or fierce, flag-waving independence are such acts committed. To those sad and soul-poisoned perpetrators I say, “Get a life. Save one, don’t take one.”
To share the grief, spread the load of confusion and wonderment at the inhumanity of it all, we may huddle – not in family groups perhaps – but in the reassuring cyberworld of cellphone and e-mail. Not for us the hallowed halls of church or home but the strange detachment of technological chest-beating and the anguished howl. Well, that’s what I’m probably doing anyway.
Funny old world, isn’t it?
IA
Somewhere near a town in England. 26th October.
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Post by maddogfagin on Sept 15, 2012 17:46:49 GMT
Ian Anderson's Diary - August 2002
On the eve of our departure for another US summer tour, I should start by apologising to our European and other world-wide followers for giving most of our attention to the Americans this year.
Ne worry pas! I have just agreed European tour dates for next June/July (2003) in Holland, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland with Italian shows to be added.
Discussions continue for South America. Eastern Europe is always a possibility.
A one-off concert weekend in the UK is planned for early in the year 2003.
This year I have solo dates in Italy with Andrea Griminelli and Orchestra in September, a solo acoustic tour of 11 shows in the eastern parts of the USA in October, a solo concert with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London in December and more solo and orchestral shows planned for next year in the USA. See elsewhere on this website for confirmed shows with tickets now available.
In fact, since we last spoke, much of my time has been spent in organising the next years events including the provision of writing, rehearsal and recording times for new material towards the end of this year.
We take this moment to express our sympathy and sadness at the passing of Mahnaz Hammond, wife to long-standing pal and ex-bass-player Jeffrey, who finally lost her battle with cancer three weeks ago. I am sure Tull fans everywhere will join us in expressing condolences to Jeffrey and their son, Edward. At the funeral were John Evan, Barrie Barlow, friends and relatives from Tehran and other parts of the world. The sun was shining and we remembered her, as we will continue to do, with great affection and admiration for her unselfish bravery right to the end.
Shona lost her father, David Learoyd, a few weeks ago while the rest of us were on tour in the US but was able to be with him every day for the last three weeks. He will be greatly missed by family and friends - especially his two daughters and four grandchildren.
I had a couple of shows three weeks ago with The Bochumer Symphoniker in Germany. 4300 brave souls turned up to see and hear me and my new pals rattle through some Tull songs and solo bits and pieces, as well as a couple of classical things. The rain stayed away and both nights were enjoyed - particularly by the orchestra - who stamped their feet in approval and got free T-shirts. Many thanks go to Steven Sloane, conductor and musical director, as well as the administration team led by Marina Grochowski. All went without a hitch, apart from a couple of technical glitches - almost unavoidable with the number of open mikes and instrument channels pressed into use for such a large ensemble.
Our DVD and CD, both titled Living With The Past have been well received. Germany and the USA lead the way with sales and chart positions. Hopefully, both recordings will continue to reach out to the less-committed, wider public for some time to come. If you have a problem with supply, Amazon.com will always oblige. Or you can simply send me, Ian Anderson, a cheque for a ridiculously large amount of money and I will personally deliver an autographed copy to your door within three days of receipt. I mean, ridiculously.
Last week, Shona and I took four days away from the hustle and bustle of pre-tour madness to revisit the lovely Swiss town of Montreux on the shores of Lake Geneva. We had not been there for 25 years and happily, not too much seems to have changed.
A morning on the lake conveyed by a 1903-built paddle steamer was followed by a trip up the highest local mountain by cogwheel train.
We met up with our old friend, Claude Nobs (whose voice is heard introducing us on the Bursting Out live album). Claude runs the famous two week July annual event, The Montreux Jazz Festival - something of a misnomer, since it also features Rock, Blues and World Music performances by all the great and the good. Maybe even featuring Jethro Tull next year since there is an available date to slot in to our European tour. Claude has the most enormous collection of model trains, audio and video gadgets, and the biggest assemblage of records and tapes imaginable as a result of 36 years of the Festival's recordings.
STOP PRESS
During the last two days, a journalist and photographer from the UK's most famous and scurrilous tabloid newspaper, The News Of The World, have been staking us out here at Flutey Towers.
Apparently they had got wind of my penchant for habitual and historical cross-dressing and my new-found intention to seek surgical nirvana as a transsexual. In short - to be a real woman!
So, grasping her by the shoulders, I said to the lady journalist, "I want you to look closely at me while I tell you that if I was to undertake this course of action - I would make one hell of an ugly woman." She clearly wanted to agree but rather than offend me, muttered placating and embarrassed noises.
"Then, you deny all this completely," she asked.
I began to consider the position. I haven't really much thought about hormonally presenting a united front to my kid sister, Pamela, nor have I probed the inner recesses of my psyche regarding the prospect of waving goodbye to Willy Wobbler and hanging the beef curtains, but……
I became a little testy at the thought of denying anything. "You know, I'm just going to have to take the side of the cross-dressers and transit-passengers for the time being and feel nothing to apologise for or to deny - as if there was something furtive, regrettable or simply not nice about such things. None of your business, nor that of your readers, young lady."
"Then you are not changing your name to Dee?" she queried.
No, sirrie-bobberoonie - I shall remain truly-yours, hung like an aging stallion, knife-free, keen eye for the sultry, enticing female form - so long as it answers to the name Shona-honey - and getting no closer to the scanty-pantie than the mail-order catalogue. Whoops - there's a give-away.
Funny old world - innit
See you soon. In cod-piece and in tights - for ever and ever - amen. Forget the tights, OK?
IA August 2nd 2002
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Post by maddogfagin on Sept 18, 2012 17:23:14 GMT
Ian Anderson's Diary - October 2002September announced the foliage season for me with the end of our August tour spilling over to the first of September in the glorious Lakes region of New Hampshire. Gilford is a tiny town with an amphitheater venue set on a farm. Fun place to play but a chilly evening as it turned out. Good last show, nonetheless. The tour had gone from Minneapolis and the Midwest through most of the Northeast of the USA and taken in Festivals, Theaters, amphitheatres and Casinos providing me, at any rate, with the variety on a daily basis which means that it is never boring. There was some arduous travel, as always, due to long road trips now that security at US airports makes travel by plane so tedious. Not the fault of the security folks, but……. As always in our band, there was a mixed set of emotions at the end of a long touring period: part of the mood is relief and weariness after so many shows and weeks away from home, while the other half of the brain admits to a certain sadness and feeling of impending loss at the thought of weeks to come without live performance. Not so bad for me, perhaps, since I had a couple of orchestral shows in Italy to prepare and look forward to as well as the Rubbing Elbows outing in October. But I guess the others will have had a doubt or two regarding the eight months to come with little in the way of Tull activity. However - if, like me, they have the buzz of following some other musical endeavours of their own, they should not be bored. Martin is due to start work on a new solo album. Jonathan Noyce was last seen on British TV playing with a house band on a late night talk show. Doane Perry tells me he has barely moved from his office desk since got home (his fault for answering all the e-mails), and Andrew Giddings will, doubtless, be ensnaring some nubile singer-songwriter (by the name of Jeff) in his greasy but creative clutches in pursuit of mutual musical pleasures. Don't worry, lads - the months will whiz by - you'll see! Elsewhere on this web site, you will find the work-in-progress tours and concert date schedule as it begins to take shape for 2003 (and 2004!). After returning from the USA, I spent a Perry-like period in my office with a bunch of chores - domestic and musical - to take care of. Pre-production for Italy and Rubbing Elbows, including much promo phoning to press and radio took up most of the month apart from recording a few more tracks of flute and vocals for Leslie Mandoki's new album "Soulmates" which features me, Jack Bruce, David Clayton-Thomas, Bobby Kimball, Steve Lukather, Al Di Meola and Anthony Jackson amongst many other "name" musicians from the worlds of Jazz and Rock. See elsewhere on this site for details of Leslie's record or go straight to www.redrock.de for info on Mandoki's production and recording empire! Then a couple of days rehearsal for the Italian orchestral dates with my pal Andrea Griminelli, eminent Italian Classical flautist. Andrea had asked me to come up with a piece for us to play as a duet so I obliged with a nod to both Celtic and European Classical influences with a tune which I called "Griminelli's Lament" - a musical soliloquy to the ending of a long relationship with his girlfriend. Just the thing to cheer up a pal with! Andrew Giddings, James Duncan, and Kit Morgan were the accompanying musicians and we had a jolly time with three days in Italy in beautiful Parma and not quite so beautiful Cesena a hundred miles, or so, to the south. Both shows were with the Orchestra of the Teatro Regio Di Parma conducted by Danilo Rossi. Danilo had done his homework well and the orchestra had the hang of it by show time. See elsewhere on this site for "Ian Anderson on the orchestra" feature. Shows are planned with orchestras in the USA in 2003 and 2004 - not official Tull shows - but with me as a solo acoustic guest of the various symphony orchestras in the major US cities. I have a real hankering, however, to do some shows with the bewildering array of small town symphonies which seem to exist wherever I go on my US travels. I know they can't pay the money but it might be a lot of fun. Right on the heels of Italy we went into rehearsal for the Rubbing Elbows tour. In advance we had arranged with local radio stations to organise the audience member guests and with the local promoters to whittle down the applicants for the nightly local musical guest. I already had many of the songs sent to me for us to learn each day by the time we left but it was a close call getting the music copied to minidisc for the band and the names of all the co-presenting radio personalities and non-musical guests for the show. There really was a huge amount of detail in the nightly production and we began to feel the stress immediately the tour began. Usually, the pre-production is the tough part and when the tour itself gets underway, we all relax and get on with the fun and easier part of doing the gigs! This time it just seemed to get more hectic and there was hardly a moment free to do the usual things like see the town, take a walk, check e-mails and bring the website up to date……… I would like to thank the many guests who ventured on to the stage with me every night. It must have been nerve-wracking for many of them - even the radio guys who were out of their usual work format - and the musical guest varied from supremely self-confident to the quaking terror-stricken! We, in the band, had to learn the new guest's song for the day each afternoon and have it all sorted by soundcheck at 5 pm. As well, of course, as doing the rest of set-up and our own soundcheck, prepping the radio guys, lighting man and security people etc. etc. See elsewhere on this site for "Ian Anderson on Rubbing Elbows". In Milwaukee, apart from the excellent ex-Genesis Daryl Stuermer - see Daryl's excellent new works at www.darylstuermer.com - we renewed acquaintance with one William Porter, veteran of many Tull shows as opening artist, and he and I played "Big Yellow Pine" together on stage that night. Check out Willy's new album at his website www.willyporter.com and make a Milwaukee man happy. Other highlights included Raymond The Amish Comic who was one of the guests at Easton's State Theater. Raymond is an unusual, funny and genuinely nice guy. Not a lot of competition out there, I guess, Raymond. See Raymond's website www.amishcomic.com Tarrytown NY, Keene NH, Ridgefield CT are really nice towns with really nice folks and I hope to get back to those places on the expeditionary vacation tour with Shona next year. The Poughkeepsie Bardavon Theater was a fine place and most worthy of support. I met with Dick Boak and the folks at Martin Guitars when I was close to Nazareth PA to discuss the potential Ian Anderson signature Martin Guitar Limited Edition which they asked me do design a year, or so, ago. For Martin enthusiasts, it will be based on a single 0-28 pre-1898 model and will come with a special nylon string/steel string swappable bridge assembly, making it somewhat revolutionary in guitar design terms. It will feature a Fishman transducer pick-up and no nasty control panel on the body to mar the beautiful contours of the legendary C. F. Martin parlour guitar profile. It will be closely modelled on one of my many vintage Martins of the late 1800's and grace the collector's as well as the player's range of instruments. Probably, only one hundred will be made so get your order in now. I have mine in already. See www.mguitar.com for all news and details of the Harley Davidson of American guitar-making history. I have suffered for a few days at the hands (do bugs have hands?) of a flu-like virus and only now do I summon the resources to make these long overdue updates to our website. Ahead lies the alluring prospect of a few days in Munich, Germany where I will appear with Jack Bruce, Al Di Meola and Leslie Mandoki on a TV show. We will stay over for the Toto concert on Sunday where I will rub elbows with Bobby and Luke in their show at the Olympia Hall. I wonder; do they know the chords to Aqualung? Next, is a week vacation in Barbados. The Caribbean is not necessarily my first choice of holiday destination but Shona likes the familiarity of it and the weather is reliable. So are the bloody hotel rates but a happy wife is a blessing from the almighty. I have a show in Croydon on the 1st December at the Fairfield Halls. Really a London suburb, Croydon sports this concert venue which is a regular haunt of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. We will join in unholy matrimony for an Ian Anderson Orchestral concert and have a jolly time, methinks. Then, off I go into the studio for work on a new solo album of acoustic material. Some will be esoteric folksy stuff and some will be with orchestral components. Yes - I know you might want a new full-blown Tull rock album, but my ears hurt - OK? Joking aside, they are a little sensitive and I have difficulty working with loud sounds in the studio. On stage it's different. The atmosphere and the adrenalin overcome the dodgy ear syndrome. But it is increasingly difficult for me to rehearse and record loud electric music. Is that an excuse or what? Let's move on. Jethro Tull will be back on the road in June when we start a European tour, followed by some US dates in August. There may be a few odd dates before June but they are currently under review. See "Concert Dates" for an interim update on almost confirmed shows. Well now - that's quite enough news for me or you at this moment. I have a lot of new songs which require my urgent attention and a desperate desire to get back in the studio for a few weeks. But, I do have access to the daily computer interface between me and you. Websites can be fun! Speak to you soon. Kind regards, IA
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Post by maddogfagin on Sept 24, 2012 8:36:18 GMT
Ian Anderson's Diary - January 2007Well, as the old year has drawn to a close, I can reflect on a busy 12 months of travel, challenging and exciting new musical relationships and the opportunities to visit and revisit old and new friends across the planet. In a year when the climate change message really started to kick in – especially via the good offices of Schwarzenegger and Gore – the personal guilt and questioning regarding professional our air travel and other carbon hoof-prints of a fairly giant sort are cause for concern amongst us musicians. Oh, yes – I have planted many thousands of trees - mostly English Oak - in the last few years here, in middle England and they are growing rather better, it would appear, than that young Coldplay’s attempts at eco-afforestation. Now, they say, thousands of trees equals thousands of tons of CO2 absorption whereas I have contributed only about 800 tons of aircraft travel-related CO2 over all the years I have been a professional musician. Now while you might figure that gives me the right to make another few lifetimes of flights, it is not much of an argument. Reducing the mess-making in the first place is preferable to attempting to clear up afterwards….. Don’t you think? Check out www.climatecare.org to calculate your carbon emissions and to contribute to an off-set scheme, for yourself or on behalf of friends and families. So, guilt cap in hand, I made my first bus trip with the band and crew a few weeks ago through Holland, Germany, Denmark and Sweden to see if I could function as a lesser-carbon footprint, decent, hygienic and sociable bus-person after 39 years of going it alone on the worlds polluting airplanes, and slightly less-polluting trains and automobiles. The precisely-steering and bump-avoiding Yorkie, Tull bus-driver for many a long year, made the journey more comfortable than I had hoped, but 3 hours sleep is not really enough for me. Maybe you get used to it. And maybe, speaking as a very light sleeper, you don’t. It’s all right for that Ann Marie. She drops off at the turn of a bible page and the crew guys power down into the land of the nodders in less time than it takes them to log off Windows. Yes, I know we are going off to work rather than goofing off on some unnecessary vacation but I guess we are all going to have bite bullets in the years to come. No point in blaming the Chinese and the Indians. We all have to swallow the nasty medicine stuff if we want to leave a tolerable planet for our great-grandchildren. So, it’s the long-life light bulbs, switching off electrical appliances at the wall, getting a new eco-friendly Toyota Prius, Honda hybrid or a bicycle. Shona and I are off to the nearest Toyota showroom next week. On her bicycle. When I wrote about climate change in the song Skating Away On The Thin Ice Of The New Day back in 1974, the scientists of the day turned out to have got it wrong. The planet has warmed, not cooled, as a result of CO2 emissions. But none of my generation can claim innocence in regard to our individual and collective greed of the last 30 years, or so. Did it really take gas-guzzling Arnie to wake up California? The mild-mannered Al to shake up the rest of America? (An Inconvenient Truth is now available as a DVD in Europe as from this week. My copy arrived in the post this morning.) My hope and belief is that when the great American public get motivated and demand of their political leaders the opportunity to make the necessary personal and industrial changes, that America will show the way to the rest of the world. The traditional Detroit auto industry, so long in the doldrums and lagging behind Asia, can rebuild, retool and reinvent the personal transport of tomorrow if it chooses the right way now. The resources are there. The workforce is there. The management is there. All it takes is the realisation that combating climate change is not some form of Federal Government-imposed industrial and economic punishment but the chance to stimulate the national and world economies with new thought and direction. At the Detroit Motor Show this month, a new prototype by General Motors, the Chevrolet Volt, was unveiled. Designed to produce 120 miles per hour, 150 staggering miles to the gallon, and 0 – 60 in 8 seconds, this would provide sports car performance from an electric car. A hybrid only in the sense that it has an on-board petrol-fueled generator to charge the batteries. If this is to be believed, it seems to show that the car industry can change and maybe the aviation industry too, in time. Alternative energy investment and the transport industries re-thinking their futures, both technologically and commercially – even morally – have to be high on the agenda for America as well as the rest of the world. Like a fine wine, complex and slow to start but with a great finish, the USA can really influence the world if it wants to. The chance is there now to impact internationally and in infinitely more productive ways than the by some other results of US and UK foreign policy over the last years. Don’t get me started. Instead, think kindly of me, sleepless near Seattle, on the bus from Hell. After so many solo and orchestral shows in the last three or four years, it’s time to redress the balance with more concerts under the Tull banner. So what’s the difference, you might cry? Well, Martin Barre for one. Off to his Winter retreat in the Canadian Rockies for three months, MB will then join us for the Acoustic Tull tour in the UK in March/April. Martin actually enjoys playing the acoustic guitar and our few recent acoustic shows in the Netherlands and Scandinavia brought out a new and equally forceful dimension to his playing. Accompanied by our fiddler of the last few months, Anne Marie Calhoun, we kicked bottom, so to speak. (AMC doesn’t like cuss words and calls me “potty-mouth”. A lot.) Martin and the regular IA solo band guys, David Goodier, John O’Hara and James Duncan are the team to head up the next tours with Anna Phoebe coming in as special guest violinist, on and off during the year. Fans of Chinese Bluegrass need not despair: AMC will return for shows as able and depending on whether she decides to continue to teach Conceptual Physics full-time at a college in Virginia. Check out AMC’s dates with Arab-Appalachian hybrid band Kantara at www.kantaramusic.com/ and read AMC’s interview at www.dmme.net/interviews/calhoun.html An MP3 sample of the music of Kantara is available for listening at the “On The Air” section on the left-hand side, Home Page of this site. Anna Phoebe, who I actually met before I began work with the very Christian Anne Marie, is a different kettle of loaves and fishes. No bible-basher she I would guess. Although I have not seen her perform, I imagine she will be a darker and sterner stage presence, equally at home with the Classical, Folk, Middle-eastern and Asian influences present in my music for many years. Like AMC, she can improvise and move around on stage with confidence and, hopefully, can help Martin shrug off a few of his 60 years with an enticing, if slightly shredded bow. (They do get so easily carried away, these girlie fiddle-scrapers.) Check out the sample Anna Phoebe title track from her new CD, Gypsy at the Home Page “On The Air” section. OK: so why the fixation with violinists as of late, and do they all have to be young and attractive? Well, my relationship with the violin family goes back to 1968 when I recorded A Christmas Song with a string quartet. Throughout the 70’s chamber orchestras decorated and enforced many of my songs on record. In 1974, a string quartet accompanied us on European and US tours while the solo violin as a guest instrument sneaked into Tull and Ian Anderson pieces. Darryl Way, ex-Curved Air violinist performed on the recordings of Heavy Horses and Acres Wild in 1977, Eddie Jobson fiddled fast and furiously on the A album and tour in 1981, Ric Sanders appeared on the Crest Of A Knave album in 1987 and other graduate of the Fairport Convention College for Young Gentlemen, Chris Leslie joined me for the Divinities tours in 1995. Now while Darryl was kinda pretty in a boys’ school, lads-together-in-the-shower sort of way, the others violinists were not. Sorry, chaps. So, it’s only reasonable that I redress the situation a bit now, isn’t it? Lucia M, AMC and AP are ladies of the night. Fresh off the tour bus at 12 noon, bunk hair disheviled, jim-jam tops tucked into jogging pants, sans make-up and with toothbrush in mouth, only a gallant few observers might pay special attention. But the almost miraculous transformation (easy for AMC – she has friends in high places) which takes place at the bewitching hour ‘tween backstage dinner (what’s it called today?) and SHOWTIME! turns these hausfrau gentlepersons into vipers and sirens all. Scares the bejasus out of this poor flute-player, I can reveal. But, if you have to stand professionally and emotionally naked on stage, lock eyes and ears and search out the deepest, remote and intimate corners of the inner soul of another fellow musician, I would prefer that it’s not Darryl – OK? Martin Barre on a good night, maybe, but…… Editor’s note: Mr Way, as far as Rock history recounts, was, in fact, a moderately rampant heterosexual with only the most conservative, traditional and typical Zeppelin-esque Rock-star urges. But, truth be known, I have always admired and loved that other of singing instrumental voices, the violin. Like the flute, it operates in a tenor register and plays usually single notes which have to be lovingly caressed and shaped as to tone and pitch. It is a natural instrument to complement the flute, in tight harmony, or as a trading or solo instrument. If there was one instrument that I wished I could play really well, the fiddle would be it. Maybe even more than the flute. And it looks really good when you wave the bow around. The last couple of shows in 2006 have been in the context of the Christian Church. My contribution to the annual Christmas concert on Christmas Eve, hosted by Horst Kohler, President of Germany, was a grand affair involving three days of rehearsal and 12 minutes of gig time. Old pal (young pal, actually) Florian Opahle played guitar and AMC fiddled furiously. Then back to St Brides Church, Fleet Street, London, where the Curate, the Rev. George Pitcher, had invited me to do a Christmas concert for local London Charity, St Mungos, in aid of the homeless of that great and sprawling city. John O, James D and David Goodier rounded out the band. My thanks, and the thanks of those at St Brides and St Mungos, go to them for their hard work and support. Also to Chris Archer, stage manager and sound tech for me and Tull. www.stbrides.com and www.mungos.org await your attention. I wrote this for the St Brides concert programme: We recently re-recorded the Aqualung album in the States, with all the proceeds going to charities for the homeless, which seems appropriate given that the title track has helped to sell for us a good few records over the years. Proceeds from this St Bride's gig have gone the same way, to St Mungo's, which serves London's homeless community. It's nice to support good causes from time to time, especially at Christmas. But, no, this doesn't mean I've undergone some Damascene conversion. I'm afraid I'm still as jaundiced and sceptical of some aspects of organised religion as I ever was. Bu, I am, I fancy, a rather spiritual person who is proud to have grown up and been morally educated in a country historically Christian in terms of predominant national faith. In essence, I am somewhere between Deist and Pantheist (Google those terms in case you think this makes me heathen or worse) but feel no sharp practical divide or contradiction between my broad views and the main tenets of Christianity. So I'm always more than happy to perform in a church, or any place of worship if that place is happy to have me. As I now deliberate over Christmas concert possibilities in 2007, I wonder if I should attempt at some point to explain my religious views better. Some folks think of me as a very irreligious person. Or even assume that it is Atheism which drives me from their recollections of the Aqualung album in 1971. Not so. Not so. Ian Anderson January 2007
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Post by maddogfagin on Sept 26, 2012 17:20:14 GMT
Martin Barre - November 1998
After three hugely enjoyable US tours where, amazingly, we managed to avoid the awful summer tropical storms, we have now completed a brief Spanish tour which has taken us to some new, as well as old, destinations in the that romantic Iberian peninsula. The highlights were Jerez and Malaga and the wonderful drive in between. Out of season, the Costa was really OK and I shall be back with my family just as soon as I get the chance and the money. The Tomato and Cheese sandwiches were basic but pleasant and the old city of Santiago in Gallicia, offered the chance to stretch the leg muscles in pursuit of finer cultural things. The Martin Barre Band recently played a club tour of German dates, plus a show in Holland. Against all the odds, we have been asked back to play more German dates in 1999. It would be nice to have the opportunity to play the UK and the USA, but the economics, especially of doing the US, make it unlikely. I would like to thank the enthusiastic and supportive German and Dutch audiences who made our efforts seem so worthwhile, and especially to thank the German Fan Club through whom there is just the possibility that a live CD of the tour might be made available in due course.
At the moment, I am organising (and reorganising) my on-stage amp rig for future tours. For the "gear-spotters", I am currently using a Soldano Decatone amp with two Soldano 4 x 12" speaker cabs, together with a Manson "Strat" type guitar with single coil p/ups.
While in the US, I was loaned a Wechter acoustic guitar which has an unusual body design and has been built specifically to be amplified for live concert work. I hope that there will be a few acoustic opportunities for this instrument in the up-coming tours scheduled for 1999.
My commercial recording studio "The Presshouse" has been working to full capacity and we have recently installed a new desk with full automation as well as digital multi-tracking facilities via "Pro-Tools" in addition to our analogue 24 track facility.
Mark Tucker continues to engineer and produce in-house, extending the long list of satisfied clients who have benefited from his expertise. Recent clients include Portishead, and the residential facilities are first class. Catering is given special consideration knowing all too well the varying tastes and tendencies of the musical fraternity. See the link below for further info on the "Presshouse".
I have recently been working on a track for the forthcoming ELP tribute album and what a pleasure it is to finally "connect" with the equally jolly ELPs after thirty years of not-quite-crossing-paths until 1996 when we finally toured together. I wonder if Keef, Greggy and Carlos will rush to play on the Martin Barre tribute album when it is recorded in the year 2010? And issued on the independent Don'oldyerbreath label.
Well, must run……. OK, smartbottoms……….I meant let's jig. Or jog.
Or whatever.
Martin Barre, November, 1998.
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Post by maddogfagin on Sept 27, 2012 17:46:54 GMT
Andrew Gidding 's Diary - July 2002
Hello one and all!
Yes, I know it's been ages but I've lots to tell you and I'm out of breath just trying to decide where to start..... Firstly a warning: Some very sad people with evidently too much time on their hands have been sending out emails apparently from me, Doane and Ian. The names are ours but unless you know us and talk to us regularly they're almost certainly not from any of us. They usually have a silly and irrelevant subject line, and if you were to check the header code you can tell who really sent it and I know, but who wants to spend time doing that? Exactly. So, it's unlikely I'll be emailing you out of the blue or sending attachments, and you would be wise to ignore them. If you are on AOL you should follow the 'Notify AOL' procedure. If the emails continue to do the rounds I may publish the senders' details and we all know what to do then, don't we?
Ok, The Website: Unless you have been visiting relatives on another planet over the last couple of months you'll have noticed that the Tull website is new and very shiny. The short version of a long story is that the host server let us down for the third time in a row, and at a time when I was busy preparing for the US tours. It was a bad time indeed, particularly because as the creator of the original Official Jethro Tull website, I took it very personally that the result of a very steep learning curve relating to things web had seemingly been banished to somewhere far, far away in the depths of the ether. "What about backups?" I hear you cry. Well yes I had backups, but nowhere to upload them to before I left home for the first leg of the US tour. Consequently you are reading these words courtesy of our pal and web wizard David Coursey and his team of rocket scientists at WebHeads. Thank you to the many of you who wrote requesting the return of my original format, but let's face it folks, while I tried to keep up with the breath-taking pace of web technology, David and his associates are really delivering the goods in a way I could not at this time. In the future, who knows.................? So let's hear it for DC at WebHeads! (Applause)………………………Ok, now stop.
The Vyktoria Project Finished! Hopefully, you will remember our superb opening guest of a couple of years ago, Vyktoria Pratt Keating? Well, after much staring into computer screens and tweaking of drum and electric guitar samples, we have a finished CD. It took some time between her and my touring, but I think you're gonna like it. It's not generally available yet as we're shopping for a distribution deal, but I'm about to launch a website featuring my work with Vyktoria and others including Willy Porter , Chrisie Santoni and Michelle Young. Watch out for thewychwoodrecorder.com coming soon! If you really nag me I'll put up some mp3s.
So to the first two of a three-legged US tour: What a splendid time I've had! It started well in Philadelphia with a warm and receptive crowd, and as we crossed country into warmer climbs I could feel the love radiating from the front rows at each concert! Unfortunately, the travel between cities by air proved to be the biggest bummer of all. We poor Limeys were singled out on EVERY trip to undergo extra security checks whereby I got my laundry inspected thoroughly each time but had my bag full of electronics largely ignored. Hmmmmm, I couldn't work that one out.......... A couple of times I opted to ride the crew bus overnight, thus avoiding laundry assault and catching up on some beauty sleep into the bargain. The first leg finished in Florida where, during the few hours of R&R between shows, the man Barre and I did some serious research into the affects of sun and alcohol on the adult (Martin only) brain. Of course I worked out most days - I worked out how many cigarettes I could smoke between the last song of the set and the encore. After a few days in the Arizona desert re-charging my lighter and finding my inner female it was time to head over to California where we began leg two. There's never enough time in sunny CA and before we knew it we were heading North and East again. Although, I have to mention Jacksonville Oregon. What a sweet place and what great people! I'd love to make it back there one year. We finished part two in fabulous Texas, where the venues were great, the folks welcoming and the sunshine awesome. Thanks to everyone who made our visit terrific!
In stark contrast at least weather-wise, Ian and I spent last weekend in Germany hanging out with real musicians! Yes, 40 or so members of the Bochum Symphonia were our stage mates for two concerts of Tull music in an Orchestral styley. Strangely and rather disconcertingly I was more nervous than I can remember being before any Tull show - maybe because it wasn't the usual environment. Once we settled into it tho' it was a real blast! Part-way through I remember thinking, 'Wow! I'm playing with a real Orchestra!' The highlight for me was hearing tunes from the Divinities album (on which I made all the Orchestral noises on the keyboard) played by the real instruments. Quite a treat! I'm looking forward to the two Italian concerts in September immensely.
So, now to a week's vacation on the beautiful island of Menorca and time to contemplate part three of the US tour. Can someone please arrange intense and relentless sunshine across the USA by, say, August 10?
Bye for now, Andrew
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Post by maddogfagin on Sept 28, 2012 17:33:31 GMT
Tull News November 1998
Boy, it's been a busy little summer, with three tours in the USA as well as dates in Switzerland and the delightful Liechtenstein.
The record-breaking heat-waves in Texas and elsewhere proved most timely to stretch the endurance and resolve of even such sun-loving stalwarts as A. Giddings of the golden epidermis, and M. Barre of the little boy's trousers. (His own only, I hasten to add.)
The concert flute in C and the squeezy thing, Accordionus Rex, do not take kindly to the stress of temperatures above 100 degrees Old Money, or 38 degrees of the Celsius sort, with which we good and compliant new British bowed and beaten Europeans must cope if we are to have our allotted share of Euros, the soon-to-be ubiquitous currency of the millenium. I always liked the romantic confusion of a bunch of crumpled bills of the essentially foreign sort to flesh out a sagging wallet, all the poorer for reliance on the Master/Visa/Amex/Diner thingies which, unless of the Gold or Platinum variety, always make me feel as if I have two mortgages and an ex-wife in Clapham. Or the other way around.
Lots of you willing and able supporters have joined us on our travels during these months and we salute you here and now with the late-night bar-cry of the deep-throated warbler, "Ooooozegettineminthen?". I believe this term is frequently heard from Mr. A. Giddings with his long-embedded cultural roots in the post-concert behaviour of the Pegg-man Dave, who recently (November 2nd) enjoyed another landmark descent into delightful and rosy-cheeked senility.
Jethro Tull, ominously silent in the matter of new records of late, has recently found itself out of contract with Chrysalis/EMI after 30 years of mutually profitable endeavour. It would be a profound simplicity to suggest all-round happiness with the company's performance of the late seventies, let alone the mid-eighties efforts of the ever-changing Butterfly Boys but, hey, a deal's a deal and we're all in this together. Or so we accepted for a long while. Alas, the dedicated pop aspirations of the new EMI means that your friendly and distinctly non-commercial Tull-boys-true must now search elsewhere for recording representation. No traumas, no regrets and no unauthorised compilations.
It's not that they've dumped us for Robbie Williams anymore than we played second fiddle to Blondie, Spandau Ballet, Billy Idol, The Proclaimers, Babybird (who the f**ck?) or the rest in their regrettably short day, but the business of competing in the major pop league demands a different and more cohesive approach to marketing budgets. I can dig it, as D. Pegg once observed when the record company left the bar without paying the bill.
Happily, since we have been out of contract these last few weeks after carefully forgetting to record anything new before October 1998, thus time-barring the continuity of contractual obligation (recently aquired legal-speak), all kinds of record companies, little and large, behemoth and boutique, Euro and Yankee, have expressed their desire to have a serious crack at insolvency. We are, indeed, most humbled. They all, so they tell us, grew up with Jethro Tull. They all, so they advise us, need a hit.
A new Ian Anderson solo album, "The Secret Language Of Birds" is complete and will be released next year, albeit maybe after the next Tull album. The next studio J.T. collection is scheduled for last week of August 1999. The difficulty of the two releases being close together, in the temporal if not the musical sense, is evidenced by the reluctance shown in 1995 by the print media to give the last Tull record "Roots To Branches" a decent airing in the press following the release of "Divinities" since they felt a tad over-exposed to Mr. A's meanderings within any one six month period.
Still, like a fine wine………..things get better with age. Sexual foreplay with Martin is now, I gather a real treat. And he reciprocates by telling me that the feel of Sterling silver on black leather (flute between the legs) is frankly better than it has ever been.
A tour of the United Kingdom of Europe, the Seven Seas and the Ashes of the Empire, takes place next November/December, courtesy of the cosmopolitan and provincial capitals of the great Shires and Counties. I know those dressing rooms well and can almost taste the aftershave of Steve Coogan in various guises as I relocate through that latter part of next year to the temporary haven of the back-stage travelling Artiste. Sometimes it says, "Soloist", "Orchestra Leader" or "Principal Dancer", but as long as the loo works……
The summer of next year will be filled with Euro-dates from June through (as our ex-colonial American cousins describe the moderate passing of time) until the end of August, when we will descend, vulture-like upon the Eagle states in search of payment at last for the beads, mirrors and BBC documentaries which bought that great wilderness country from the savage Indian hordes.
Well, at least they got the gambling rights in New Mexico.
Finally, a profound thankyou to Bill Gates for I.E.4, Windows '95, Streets '98, and Columbus '92 (14) without which he would be building a f****ng wigwam instead of a modest home development near Seattle.
Gods Bless for now, and in the immediate future if you're awfully good.
And a Merry Christmas one-and-every, assuming you believe that Jesus makes the money-go-round and Sting makes the rain-forest-grow.
Mr. Real.
IA Myrtle Beach, S.C.
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Post by maddogfagin on Sept 30, 2012 8:07:14 GMT
Ian's Diary - April 2002
Well, the good news is that the first little Habanero seedling popped his head up through the fertile compost mix and breathed in the gentle fragrant airs of Spring. I trust he will urge his other little pals, from Habanero and Cayenne families alike, to follow suit.
It has been a trying two months, when all kinds of administrative irritations had to be dealt with.
New record and DVD contracts were negotiated and put through the legal process. Hotels, flights, promotion schedules and the plethora of other tour-related desk jobs required countless hours of my time when I would have rather been working on more creative tasks.
Not that I don’t enjoy – in some twisted and weird way – the hum and drum routine of office work: the pleasure of working at home, alongside family and animals, is undeniable. But enough, already! There is much still to do on the tour planning and production work with the new dates added in August – see elsewhere on this site for the concert information – and further activities and recording planned in the Fall, Winter and through to Spring of next year.
Apart from the US dates in April, May and June, there are some concerts which I (not the full Tull band) will be playing with symphony orchestras during this year, and late next year – provided that I haven’t had enough of the scary moments which accompany such events.
On the 13th of July, I will be playing with the Bochum Symphoniker in – you guessed it – Bochum, Germany. Bochum is in the vicinity of Dusseldorf, Dortmund and Essen and the venue is a pleasant little outdoor amphitheatre holding about 2000 people. For information on how to purchase tickets, check the concert dates page during this month.
In September/October there are scheduled three Italian orchestral shows which should also feature my good chum Andrea Griminelli the classical flautist with the sexy Italian film star looks. According to the girls that is.
These orchestral dates are being assembled now, with a full programme of Tull tunes and a few snippets from my solo work.
Orchestrators are beavering away on the crotchety, quavery stuff while I assume the more languid creative pose of the Artiste and keep my fingers crossed that they actually understand what I am getting at with the general arrangements.
Playing with me on these few dates are Andrew Giddings on keyboards and bass, Kit Morgan on guitar and bass and James Duncan, drums and percussion. But more news of these shows later: the task at hand must be to share with you all the wonderful new live CD and DVD – both titled Living With The Past. Released between 30th April and 14th May, these new discs are shiny, round and come in attractive packaging fit for all the family.
No pictures of spooky Egyptian gods with dangly wobblers here: just the Hollywood-fun-filled pictorial reference to the one-legged flute player who we all know and love. More info on the new record and DVD elsewhere on this site.
Some new Tull arrangements are being worked on for the up-coming tour and a few songs different to those present on the DVD. A couple of last minute quicky rehearsals should do the trick but Doane Perry will have to catch up in a hurry since, being a resident of California, he will not be at rehearsal in body – but there nonetheless in the gigantic spirit which is the over-riding definition of the man. Armed with the reference CDs which I sent to him last week, he will, doubtless, be learning the new bits in the wrong tempos, time signatures and with choruses appearing in the veritable midst of guitar solos accompanied by more bongo-mania.
But not to worry – there is still the soundcheck before the first show to get it all straight.
On the health front, many of you will be relieved to hear that Martin Barre, whose operation on the dodgy elbow was of such great concern a few months ago, has recovered from post-surgical depression and is now playing happily at tennis, wind-surfing, bungee-jumping and arm-wrestling and so should just manage to slip in the odd concert with his electrical guitar. He was a bit miserable for a while so cheered himself up with the customary purchase of a new motor vehicle of simple taste. It is, so he told me, a MBW family run-about with a 1.1 litre diesel engine and 0-60 time of about 30 secs. with the wind behind him. It is powder blue with artificial wood trim and a side-opening sun roof. At least, I think that’s what he said. Sounds like a poor trade-in for the Porsche Boxster which preceded it. Maybe he could be pulling my leg.
Doane Perry faced an untimely incapacitation with potential surgery at both ends of his ample torso, but seems to have escaped with a warning. Shame, really, as I was rather looking forward to feeding him King Prawn Dhansak by tube (and not necessarily by mouth).
Some interesting parts to be travelled in the up-coming US tours. Savannah GA, Melbourne and Fort Myers FL, Jacksonville OR, Wichita KS, Tulsa and Oklahoma City OK, South Bend IN, Sheboygan WI, Chautauqua NY, Verona NY, and Trenton NJ are all firsts (as far as I remember) for Tull. Doubtless, some of you will put me right, telling me that Tull played in such and such a town in the Spring of 1970 – but I fear you may have been hallucinating. All too easily done, back in those days.
Another of our ex-colonies is on the agenda once more: Canada no less. Watch out, Canadians – that would-be president Tony Blair has world ambitions and may just claim it back……..
I have been realising my passion for reminding people of the potential perils of Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) by working with the folks at Spotlight Health – an organisation dedicated to bringing public health issues to wider attention via the help of so-called celebrities. See the home page on this website for their official logo and my DVT message.
Tea-towel Ringo (Yasser Arafat) is not the man of the month. We were encouraged to believe (and so was Billy-Willie Clinton) that he was a reformed character in recent years but seems he was still a terrorist at heart.
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Post by maddogfagin on Oct 1, 2012 8:11:07 GMT
Martin Barre - June 1999
The Jethro Tull schedule really dictated my diary as of late and precious time at home has been short and frantic, (like Danny De Vito!!) sorry!
Looking at this year's itinerary prompted me to book an early holiday with my wife as the months ahead will be extremely busy. We chose Florida, mainly to accommodate our love of seafood, sun and a chance to run on the beach (at Clearwater), to play lots of tennis and shop. Holidays are for me rather risky as I always seem to to incur injuries pursuing such activities as skiing and windsurfing etc.
I now have a vast collection of sports injuries:
Knees (both),elbow, shoulder, thumb, finger and back, and I can bore anyone stupid enough to want hear about them.
Yes, it's been a busy year and as I've catalogued running routes in every town over the last ten years, I look forward to running around yours! Martin Barre
Andrew Giddings' Diary - August 2001
Hello you lovely people! (said in a Cockney accent).
Don't get too excited - this is more of a wish list than a diary, but before I abuse my position of Webmeister:
Spring has finally sprung on the island, I even had to stop myself admiring all the lovely flowers (said with a lisp) that line the lanes of the countryside.
Some of you may have heard through the grapevine that I moved house recently. Actually it was about a year ago, but I have actually occupied the place for only a few months. I now find myself ensconced in the beautiful Cotswold district of England and it is truly gorgeous. I'm still driving round quaint stone villages, going 'ooh....Ahh'.
By the way, you've doubtless been hearing about our little problem with Foot and Mouth disease, (I would have thought by now that there would be a more scientific and less horrifically descriptive name for it). Actually, while it's a serious threat to farmers and the livelihoods of businesses connected with livestock, the countryside is open, and contrary to a conversation I overheard between two American tourists, it's perfectly safe to eat the food and drink the water.
My new (old) house however is far less than gorgeous, in that it has been turned into a construction zone. I seem to be able to create a list of improvements on a daily basis, and of course the builders aren't going to argue, are they?
On the up side, I have a separate studio building, (no more spare-room recording!) and it's actually more inviting than the house! It's full of new equipment (I must update my equipment page), and it's christening session was on the much anticipated new album from talented singer/songwriter/vegetarian chef extraordinaire Vyktoria Keating. We spent a month or two getting the backing tracks recorded and now the fun job of building around the songs beckons a little later in the year.
So, to the more immediate future, it's time to go touring again! If you've checked the tourdates page lately you'll see that we have an interesting touring schedule this year. We will return to lots of our favorite places, as well as some we have never been to before.
And now, on to my list of favors:
I am looking for two, yes two, Roland D70 Keyboards to buy and store in the U.S.
They are not made any more, and consequently not widely available, but nonetheless brilliant instruments. There's (probably) an (undetermined) reward on offer to anyone who can help me locate said pieces. As always, you can email me at if you can help.
What else was it? Oh yes, I'm looking for a device that stops a neighbours dog barking at 7.30am on a Sunday morning! I've heard about some ultrasonic device that I can plant in the hedge and that emits a high-pitched noise that at least takes his mind off barking his head off. Any suggestions?
I spoke to the mighty Dave Pegg recently, we're going for a work-out later this week. Yes, we're going to work-out how many beers we can drink before we fall over.
Well, although it seems like I've been writing for ever, that's about it for now.
Thank you to everyone who commented on the new site design, I'm gradually updating pages as I go. See you on the road! A.G.
p.s. While I'm in a nostalgic phaze, can anyone in OZ tell me where I can find a copy of (as far as I know) the only Rockmellons album with the track 'New Groove' on it? Cheers.
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Post by maddogfagin on Oct 6, 2012 7:54:19 GMT
Doane Perry's Diary - November 1998
As most of you know the touring schedule we undertook this summer was in humanely small sections that had its pluses and minuses. On the plus side we had small breaks every few weeks so there wasn’t the tour fatigue that can result from an unbroken period on the road. The minus side was because we would play only 10-14 days in a row, by the time we would establish the rhythm of touring, we would be taking a break. The U.S. legs went well and afforded us the opportunity to play some smaller venues in certain areas, particularly some of the different “House of Blues” gigs around the U.S., which were fun for the band and the audiences. We were also fortunate to have a couple of very good opening acts like Gov’t Mule, Nils Lofgren and Mike Keneally’s Beer for Dolphins.
Sandwiched in between the US dates were two European Festivals in Switzerland and Lichtenstein both of which were outdoors and COLD. Not surprising as we were in the middle of the Alps! By contrast, Spain, even in the middle of November was beautiful and for the most part sunny and warm. Madrid, Barcelona and Murcia, although interesting and colorful cities, afforded us little opportunity to sightsee due to the tightness of our schedule. However, in the beautiful old Spanish cities of Jerez, Malaga and Santiago de Compostela we did have a little time to explore and all splintered off in various directions.
On our day off in Malaga, Martin and I decided to visit nearby Grenada which was home to the Alhambra, an absolutely amazing Moorish palace. After negotiating the labyrinthine one way street system of Grenada we arrived at the Alhambra in early afternoon and spent all day wandering the grounds and visiting the extraordinary detailed buildings on the palace grounds. Like ghostly apparitions we kept catching sight of people who looked like Ian, Shona and Jon Noyce disappearing around corners and into dark passageways, but we were never able to make contact. It wasn’t until later that night that we discovered that they too had decided to spend their day off there. I believe Andy spent his day off in beautiful, historic Malaga landing aircraft at every major International Airport on his PC Flight Control Program.
We all decided to meet that night for dinner. After endless debating about where we should eat it was decided we would go to a local and very reputable fish restaurant. Arriving there we discovered that the restaurant was completely empty, which wasn’t entirely odd as no one eats dinner in Spain until 11pm anyway. The menu was COMPLTELY incomprehensible and there seemed not even the remotest chance of getting an accurate translation anyway. Besides, the food on display was as scary as the totally surreal decor, which looked like a bad Disney “Pirates of the Caribbean” theme coupled with a Tijuana Liquor store/Andy Warhol art gallery so we decided to move on to our second choice. We discovered most restaurants in this part of Spain have a tendency to be smoking bars that serve food as an afterthought. Their fare is usually heavily fried meat and potato dishes unimaginatively served and this second place proved to be no exception. I have to say that the food, which is usually renowned in Spain, was the single biggest disappointment of the tour.
I did however hold out a glimmer of hope for at least one successful meal. Coming back from the gig the night before I noticed an Indian Restaurant in a small side street simply called “Delhi”. Excellent. I mentioned my fortuitous sighting to the others who greeted the news with remarkable indifference and frank disbelief. Well tough, you Bozos, I’m going off for a fantastic meal! Ian and Shona defected back to the hotel for overpriced sandwiches, Andy went to McDonalds (what a surprise) and Martin and Jon went to some ridiculous Baguette shop. I strode away secure in the knowledge that I was going to have a proper sit down dinner of Dall Soup, King Prawn Dansak, Sag Paneer, Garlic Naan and a Taj Mahal Beer.
Yes indeed, I had certainly made the right choice. As I got closer to the restaurant I noticed ,somewhat predictably that it seemed to be a little quiet. Well of course, it was only 9pm and things don’t really heat up until around 11 or so. Anyway, I’ll have a nice quiet meal with the full attention of the staff. As I got to the restaurant I was shocked to discover that it was CLOSED !!! WHAT?! Why in the world would the one Indian Restaurant in all of Malaga be closed on a Thursday night? As I examined the “restaurant” a little more closely I discovered that the sign said “ DELHI” in huge letters and in tiny little letters underneath it said “arts and crafts jewelry shop”. I was so livid I considered leaving an extremely insulting note under the owner’s door, as if that would have done the slightest bit of good. They probably wouldn’t have understood a word of it and if they had, they would have laughed at me anyway. To save face I thought of concocting an outrageous story about the best curry house I had ever been to in Western Europe. How would the band know? When are WE going to back in Malaga?
Unfortunately as I was walking back, sulking and brooding about my bad luck, I passed by the Baguette shop where Jon and Martin were enjoying a delicious baguette. Do I try to slink by unnoticed and risk getting caught or go in and tell them I just changed my mind and was in the mood for something else? Like they would believe that! Well, I just strolled in and started to make up some ridiculous story and then started laughing so hard I couldn’t get it out anyway. I ultimately had to cop to the fact that I NEED GLASSES. Well in the end I am happy to say that I had one of the tastiest pizzas I have ever enjoyed.
Doane Perry's Diary - January 1999
January 1st- Heather and I brought in the New Year in a relaxed and pleasant way with some friends on New Year’s day at their home where they were having a small gathering. At this “small gathering” an impromptu band had assembled and began playing. At one point I was enlisted into the fold to step in for the current drummer who suddenly appeared desperately in need of a drink. Uh-oh, no gig clothes.
This could spell trouble for my “civies” which were not designed for this purpose. I only have to think about playing music and I start to sweat, as Heather can attest. If we are watching a tedious movie and my mind starts to wander, I might start thinking of playing music and inexplicably begin to perspire which is a dead giveaway that I AM NOT PAYING ATTENTION.
Anyway, like a well-mannered guest I acquiesced to my fellow drummer’s wishes and spelled him so that he could refresh himself. I was really in trouble by the end of the first song as I was sweating like a politician and smelled like a billygoat. Appropriately we had just finished James Brown’s “Cold Sweat”. Unfortunately, the other drummer had just begun getting “refreshed” and did not seem to be remotely inclined to return from his Union five. I played a few other numbers and returned to the others a sopping, soggy mess. How nice for them. We made it an early night as I realized I hadn’t packed a thing and was leaving the following morning for the U.K. to start work on the new Tull record. So much for the holidays.
Flight to London
January 2nd—The long uneventful flight over from Los Angeles to London to which I become numbingly accustomed is always made much more comfortable by the good folks at British Airways with whom I am on a first name basis due to my mileage card balance. Nevertheless, I unfortunately I have suffered multiple demotions this past year going from being a prestigious Gold Card holder, slipping down to the dubious Silver Card rung and finally arriving at lowly Blue Card status. This is due not to the amount that we travel, because if it was based on that we would all be Titanium Card holders, but to new B.A. regulations which do not reward Kenny Wylie’s efforts to get us reasonably priced airline tickets. Flight to London
January 4th- 19th--Rehearsals for recording begin. The typical pattern that generally follows is that we will work on a piece of (often untitled) music in the morning, demo it in the afternoon and if any of us are feeling brave enough, possibly try to go for a master take in the early evening. If that doesn’t happen we will all go away and chew on it overnight and try to nail a backing track the next morning with obvious repairs and fixes to follow. Vocals and lead melodies go on later. Although the process varies from song to song we often get the best results when we can do backing tracks together as a band. Unfortunately this isn’t always possible because once we have several pieces going, all in various stages of development, we find ourselves all working on different things on different tracks. This also has its good points. It’s usually exciting to hear how a track has developed from the last time you heard it or added anything.
The down side is when you’re the guy who has been there for all the overdubs; you’ve just heard it too many times. Ian is usually that guy so sometimes he just has to go away and work on something else while one of us is the tape operator for the one doing overdubs. One of the entertaining diversions of recording this way is looking at Ian’s lyrics and trying to work out to which songs they belong. Sometimes we just get a song title to go by, sometimes I just make up my own to give me a clue which one it is when I have to refer back to my chart. I have recently re-discovered some fantastic alternate titles for many songs off “Roots to Branches” before I found out what they were really called.
We all have a different methodology as to how we write out and remember the music and if any of us had to switch charts and reinterpret the music through another band members brain it would probably come out sounding like John Cage’s music…..in other word’s it would be a f!#*ing disastrous musical trainwreck! Apologies to any John Cage fans out there. All in all the record is turning out pretty well and beginning to take some kind of shape. Inevitably we will probably have more material than we can use but because we tend to record so much fairly quickly it is very hard to tell at this stage what will ultimately end up on the record. More about all this later.
Coincidentally and by sheer luck my father and his wife were over in England doing research for one of his projects and visiting some relatives of hers. Since we were recording only about an hour’s journey away I had to the opportunity to see them on two separate occasions. This was certainly an added dividend for me as I don’t get to see them often enough back in the U.S. since they still want to maintain East Coast residency and it’s five hours on a plane for either one of us. So it was nice to hang out, catch up, go to The National Gallery and eat Indian food together.
The Tradeshow
January 20th-31st-- I fly back to America and go directly into rehearsals with my colleague Vince DiCola for the upcoming NAMM (National Association of Musical Merchants) show in Los Angeles next week. This is an industry only trade show which happens every winter in L.A. and apart from the Music Messe in Frankfurt in March is the biggest trade show of it’s kind in the world. We have been hired by Alesis, a manufacturer of high-end audio gear, to demonstrate some of their new equipment. Now ordinarily this wouldn’t be much of a problem except for the fact that I have been trying to keep all the new Tull music in my head this month which hasn’t left a lot of time to be working on anything else in a meaningful way.
This now leaves me only a few short days to relearn some fairly involved pieces that I performed about eight years ago on my instructional video as well as some potential new Thread pieces which I’ve never played live. On top of learning the music and working out appropriate arrangements I have to program their new Drum module to try to coax out of it all the performance features I think I will need for our set. This wouldn’t be so bad if I was just playing my usual acoustic kit, however this was an unfamiliar setup as it was comprised completely of electronic pads and their Drum module - nothing acoustic.
Oh God, what have I done?! I think I might have been just a teeny bit optimistic about the time element. Coupled with this dawning realization and reverse jet lag was the very real possibility that I in fact wouldn’t see the actual drum pads and unit until the night before the show opened because I was working with the BETA unit, not the actual setup I would be using at the show! Yikes, if I hadn’t got the willies by that point I was certainly getting them now. Well needless to say I was up until 5am the night before the NAMM show programming and playing trying to get everything prepared.
Rap Drummer?
One of that evening’s highlights occurred around 3am when two beefy security guards appeared at the door of the Alesis theatre where I was working. Sure that they were going to tell me to shut up or keep it down, instead they came in and sat down and when I stopped one of them said “ Man, you was phat! Do you write beats?”
Unaware that this was a compliment in rap terminology, and still musing over the possibility that these two security guards were informing me of a weight problem, I said, “ Uhh, yeah, I guess so.” The other one said “Great man, we got a rap group and that was jammin’. Why don’t you come and write some beats for our rap record.” So don’t be surprised if you see me in my new alter-ego incarnation as ‘D Jazzy P- Fresh Ponce of Woodland Hills’.
The best and weirdest part of the evening/morning was when I left at 5am and there was not a single solitary soul in the entire hall. My own private NAMM show!! This was absolutely fantastic- I walked up and down all the aisles completely undisturbed, looking at all the interesting exhibits without the usual carnival barker atmosphere but this turned quickly into a Rod Serling Twilight Zone moment for me. In my sleep deprived, jet lagged state of mind I became momentarily unglued, imagining I had somehow willed away the presence of thousands of happy techno-lusting souls looking forward to the newest unveiling of the gear of their dreams, because of the inexorable certainty of my approaching deadline.
Oh selfish, selfish me! How could I deprive all the cheery denizens of bits and bites of the thrill that comes once a year and is not dependent on Santa Claus’ list of ner-do-wells to be ignored? WHAT DELERIUM HAS GRIPPED ME? Oh, wait a minute it’s 5 in the morning…. no wonder no one’s here. Better go home and sleep this off.
After all of that the show went remarkably well and was actually a lot of fun. My gear didn’t blow up or even false trigger and the very full houses we got for every show seemed to really enjoy it and as a result we did too. So a great big thank you to the Gods of Midi Technology! Vince and I decided we wanted to stay away from the endless NAMM noodling you so often see at these shows and play some actual music although I DID have to take a solo every show to put the drum module through it’s paces. I suppose a bit of NAMM noodling took place there, but hell, if you can’t noodle at NAMM where can you noodle? The Ed Sullivan character actor from “Pulp Fiction” introduced Vince and I every show on the big video screen behind us in a mock re-enactment of the real Ed Sullivan show which was pretty spooky to watch as he is a dead ringer in voice and look for dear old dead Ed.
Quite a surprising moment for me took place the first day as I was standing around between shows at the booth. They had constructed a single rather large screen out of eight large TV monitors grouped together and were rotating all kinds of material on it ranging from new products to who was appearing in their theatre. I had forgotten that earlier I had given them a video from a video drum magazine that I had appeared in that was somewhat current. I had carefully earmarked the section to be used but unfortunately they didn’t deem that suitable for their purposes and chose instead some much older footage from the same video. Suddenly looming before me was an unmistakable version of an earlier self, complete with fully intact hairline and ultra slim waist. Whoa, what happened to THAT guy? Not so sure about that hair and I bet those pants would be a tad on the snug side now too.
I was still smarting from a recent and rather nasty altercation with Ian’s phony measuring tape which he had specially made up to make a 36” waistline magically appear as a 42”. He thought this was a pretty funny joke, but I am personally disinclined to believe anything except my own eyes, and I’m needing glasses as well for those. So ultimately it was a good month – busy and productive – now I’m going to have a little sleep. And how was your January?……….
And how was your January?
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Post by maddogfagin on Oct 8, 2012 7:53:19 GMT
Doane Perry's Diary - August 2000
Well hello there!
It’s been a little while. Work, both at home and on tour has a way of rudely encroaching on one’s own personal free time, swallowing it up into a black hole vortex of space/time continuum never to be seen again! Now that I’ve succinctly explained my tardiness in updating my very cobwebbed diary page I’ll try to catch up.
First, let me say thank you for all the emails you have sent to me asking questions, passing along comments about the concerts, records, band members’ waist measurements or other personal observations. Please be assured I do read ALL of them but it is impossible for me to answer them all as I find I can only just about barely keep up with my own personal email and other correspondence. I wish I could answer every one but if I tried doing that there would probably not be enough time for me to go out and play every night. Please don’t feel disheartened if you do not get a personal reply and don’t let that discourage you from writing to me in the future. I read it all and write back to those that I can.
Although we did have a little break at the beginning of this year, it seems as if we have been working nonstop since the beginning of last year beginning with the recording of Dot Com.
Following the recording my wife Heather and I decided to rent a car and drive to Ireland for an unstructured holiday which was absolutely fantastic! We plan on returning to see all that we missed first time around.
Kitaro
We returned home to the USA and were only home for about a day when I received an emergency call from my old friend Kitaro. He was in the middle of a US tour and was in a bind and had to make some changes and asked if I could possibly complete the rest of the tour. Although we hadn’t worked together in a few years and it would severely compress the now dwindling time I had at home before the JT tour started, I accepted.
I thought that this would also get me into good touring shape before our tour as it always takes a few gigs to get back in touring mode, both mentally and physically. As there was no time for rehearsals he faxed me the written music. This was almost completely useless, as he had to reduce the size of the charts to fit into a fax machine, which made all the notes just barely readable with a magnifying glass! Coupling this with the fact that by the time they made it through my fax machine everything was so squirrelly and unreadable and the reality that the entire band was Japanese and had written all expression markings and shortcuts IN Japanese, the whole thing might as well have been written in Chinese cuneiform in invisible ink for as much good as they were to me at that point!
This certainly beat any pre-tour stress I might have felt before previous Jethro Tull tours, but it was too late. I was committed. After spending a plane flight east to the first concert trying to connect what I was hearing on a cassette of a live concert with the arcane scribblings of my charts, which now looked even worse due to all of my markings on top, the music now began to resemble the look of some unearthed and long forgotten manuscript which had all the pages stuck together and bleeding through one on top of the other.
After what can only be described as a baptism by fire in front of 2500 people, I was relieved to discover I had lived through the experience and even rather enjoyed it in a masochistic sort of a way. Amazingly we navigated the entire concert program without a single train wreck although the way I recall the concert was a bit like how you feel after you have negotiated a particularly long, difficult yet familiar stretch of highway. You cannot remember anything particularly about the drive and yet you still arrived at your destination, not quite sure how you got there. It did prove to be a very good warm-up indeed for the strenuous Tull tour to come.
Other Projects
As most of you know who follow our touring schedule, we played extensively in Eastern and Western Europe last year followed by a lengthy USA tour, then back to Europe and the UK, returning in time for Christmas. I had a short holiday break and then began working with my friend Vince DiCola on preparing new material to play at the Winter NAMM show in Los Angeles. Following that I found myself doing sessions in Los Angeles and also working in my home studio on my own material which I intend to release at some point when it’s ready!
One of the more interesting recording projects that I have been involved with recently has been Michelle Young’s “Marked for Madness” record. She is a very gifted and unique writer, singer and piano player from Nashville. Although her music is nothing like Jethro Tull I think Tull fans will really enjoy her if only because she is so musical and quirky. Very challenging stuff. Check her out!
Tull Tour Review
The recent European and USA tours have been typically intense affairs with some interesting stops along the way, particularly notable being Croatia and Slovenia which were surprising in as much as they were both beautiful and organized and not at all what I somehow expected. Poland has actually been pretty good this time around apart from the feeling that it is still very cut off from the outside world. I suppose this is what they have been accustomed to for a very long time despite the opening of borders.
The specter of communism still looms over everything, although we played in this absolutely beautiful hall in Warsaw built during that regime which was like their version on The Royal Albert Hall in London. Fantastic acoustics too, even for electric music, which is remarkable considering that it certainly was not designed with that in mind!
Starting in Scandinavia and working our way south, we did 6 gigs. Although the travel was a little rough, with long, long drives we had two very pleasant 11 hour journeys on the ferry going from Stockholm to Helsinki and back, through the Swedish fjords. We even had our own cabins, which were quite nice. They have restaurants, gyms, and theaters etc.-like mini cruise ships. In an effort to get a little more rest and to avoid the inevitable early morning plane flights, Andy and I went after the gigs with the crew overnight on the bus to the next stop. It has been a bit of an adjustment sleeping on the bus, as the bunks are not very spacious, to say the least, and the European buses in general are not a patch on the American ones. Oh well.... it's better than a real job!
Next we headed for Slovenia and Croatia having no idea what that was going to be like. Zagreb, Croatia was great! It's clean and beautiful and the people are incredibly friendly. Surprisingly, it's almost like Germany compared to the Czech Republic and Poland. Then on to Slovenia and Istanbul. Because of civil unrest, the crew had to travel with an armed guard on the bus in places such as Serbia which we they had to pass through in order to get to Turkey, but thankfully it all went without incident.
Istanbul was once again a fantastic experience. I remember listening to the amazingly beautiful wailing emanating from the Blue Mosque on the hill just above our hotel and looking out over the Bosphorus at the Asian side of Istanbul, which is referred to as the gateway to Asia.
Interestingly, half of Istanbul is in Europe and the other half across the Bosphorus is in Asia. The crowds and sights were great but I was looking forward to getting home for a short break before the big US tour started. We began the first leg of the US tour in Austin, Texas. Slightly shaky start with the much requested medley being ditched along with a few other pieces until we settled on a reasonably solid set. Different songs find their way in and out of the set periodically depending on the region we’re in and what we played the last time we were through the area, so people aren’t hearing the same show twice.
However, those of you who have complained, your grievances have been duly noted and passed on to the appropriate authorities. Section 125c-4b. For all of you who have complained that my drum solo in “Dharma for One” is far too short, I must say that is a first!! It is indeed a very thin gray line between a too short and a too long drum solo and a completely subjective one, so you all will have to fight that one out amongst yourselves and the rest of the band, I’m afraid.
The many kind birthday wishes that arrived in the form of emails, hot habanero jellies and sauces, flowers, shirts and various bric-a-brac, ameliorated the inevitably embarrassing scenario of a birthday on the road, on a gig day no less. In and amongst that I received an amazing range of useful and useless gifts from band and crew alike which they took great delight in presenting to me on stage with full lighting rig blazing, right before the concert. There was NO way out and I hope that I accepted them with gratitude and a minimum of visible embarrassment. Many thanks to all of you!
We have also had the genuine pleasure of sharing the stage with some fantastic folk on these 3 U.S. legs. The Young Dubliners, The Chieftains, Smokin’ Joe Bonamassa, Joe 90, Roger McGuinn and Willy Porter have all raised the curtain with great style and musicianship. Ian and I were lucky enough to be asked by the Chieftains to join them on their encore number which was an 18 minute extravaganza about an aging reprobate named Uncle Joe who was particularly fond of naïve young women, which was played at an insanely fast Irish tempo.
This was one where you had to get on board, hold on and get out of the way as you were apt to get side-swiped by dueling soloists or a small army of Irish dancers madly jigging across the stage. This was in sedate contrast to Martin who sat in several times with Joe Bonamassa on his cover of Tull’s “A New Day Yesterday”. He was hardly required to move at all unless the spirit moved him but if it did, look out, whereupon Martin would burst into an uncontrolled frug/break dance as he is sometimes inclined to do, to the complete surprise and utter delight of the audience.
Hope that has caught you up a little bit and look forward to seeing you out on the road this summer. I’m going to go do my laundry now. Take care y’all.
Doane
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