2010-04-10 Twenty Ben

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Howdy fellow human,

If you're on my email list (which you are), I'm going to assume you're at least slightly interested in my creative pursuits. I try not to pester or bore you with endless updates about my life (that's what Facebook's for right?), but it's been a while since I emailed you and I've been doing loads of exciting stuff. To save you reading the whole email and realising at the end that it was of no interest to you at all, here's a quick summary:

I started THE PEOPLES PRINCESS, a YouTube series of amusing banter with Nick Gill. I recorded the first of THE OXFORD SESSIONS, videos of songwriters playing and chatting in my flat. I played piano on Set It Free, the new album from JONT. I released a new album called TROUBADORK. I wrote a song for the closing down party at VIDEOSYNCRATIC. I played lots of TINY BUT WONDERFUL GIGS, at George's Jamboree, the James St Tavern, Oxford Twestival, MediaCamp Nottingham and the Offshoot Festival. I started playing Hammond organ with LITTLE FISH and we rocked the Albert Hall.

If you're all like YEAH WHATEVER feel free to move on to your next email now. If you're more like chin stroking HMM...REALLY? then read on...

Contents

The Peoples Princess

I'm always curious about how we can create new forms of music, art and entertainment on the web now that we're not restricted by physical formats like The Album, The Ad-driven 30-minute TV Show or The Magazine. That's why I'm always doing weird things like writing 12-second songs or setting Twitter messages to music.

The Peoples Princess is a new video series (on YouTube). Every few weeks Nick Gill and I sit on a sofa and chat over a couple of beers. We film it, and later I edit it into 2- or 3-minute episodes. It has no discernible purpose. It's not intentionally funny, but I find it quite amusing. I think of it like a cartoon in a newspaper. It might occasionally catch your eye and make you chuckle, but you're not going to cut it out every day and paste it into a leather-bound journal.

If you haven't seen it you probably have no idea what I'm talking about, so go and watch it. Episode 2 ("Negative Psychology") is only two minutes long. Don't tell me you don't have two minutes.

The Oxford Sessions

There's no acoustic café gig culture in Oxford, and that annoys me. There are some great songwriters around, but there's nowhere for them to play a proper set where they can talk to the audience and really connect. So I'm inviting songwriters to my flat to have a cup of tea, play a few songs and chat about songwriting and stuff. I've recorded one session so far (with the wonderful Miriam Jones), and once I've done a few more I'll start releasing them on the internet.

If you like your intimate acoustic music, you'll love these sessions. I'll let you know when Miriam's session is online, but for now you can check out the photos from the session and Miriam's music.

Set It Free - Jont & the Infinite Possibility

You might know about Jont. I've been playing piano with him for a few years. We put on an UNLIT (mixture of a party and a gig) at the Gardener's Arms last year with Stornoway. He's a songwriter who has mastered the art of the house concert and plays his psychedelic acoustic tunes in all sorts of crazy places.

Last year he put together a band (The Infinite Possibility) to record a new album. I play piano, Spence and Ali from A Silent Film play drums and bass, and Ed, Les and Sharon take care of the pedal steel, electric guitar and backing vocals. It's quite a mad collection of people, and we put on a great fun live show. We recorded the album over a few sessions with legendary London producer Nigel of Bermondsey, and it's finally finished. I saw an actual physical copy of it yesterday.

The album is called Set It Free, and it's not just an album - it's a game. In the spirit of Jont's "trust the Universe and everything will work out" attitude, the game involves giving away your CD and waiting for it to come back. He calls it "CD sharing". Every copy of the album comes with a guestbook. You buy it, rip it, write your address and message in it, and send it to someone who will like it. They send it on, and after ten guests it will (hopefully) come back to you full of messages from all the people who have enjoyed it. It's a wonderfully positive and trusting idea in an age of cynicism and pirate-hunting.

The download is out at the end of May, but you can order the CD of Set It Free directly from The Jont Shop. I recommend it. It's a great album, and the piano playing s spectacular...

Troubadork

I told you about my new album last time, so I won't bang on about it. But I just want to say thanks - loads of you downloaded it, quite a few paid for it and I got some great comments and messages. If you've enjoyed it, be sure to tell your friends about it (everyone loves free music, right?). If you didn't get round to listening, why not go and check it out now. Sit in the garden with a Magnum and a Magners and get Troubadork playing on your laptop. Your neighbours will love you for it. ;)

Click the link to listen online, read the liner notes and lyrics, download, buy or just look at the pretty cover:

Videosyncratic

I told you about this last time too. Weren't you paying attention? Yeah, sure. I don't believe you. Go and watch it now.

Tiny but wonderful gigs

I don't play a lot of real life gigs. You may have noticed. But I have started getting involved with the East Oxford open mic scene in the last few months. This year the Cowley Road is jampacked with quality acoustic nights and open mics, hosted by some great people.

The best by a nautical mile is George's Jamboree. On the first Monday of every month George Chopping (Oxford's finest poet and raconteur) gathers a group of songwriters, poets, comedians and nutcases at the Chester Arms for an evening of high-octane intimate acoustic performance. It is insanely fun. You should come. I'm there (almost) every month, and the regular performers are all brilliant.

I do plenty of other short acoustic sets at short notice, and rarely have time to publicise them in advance. The best way of keeping track is to follow me on Twitter (where I ALWAYS tell everyone where I'm going to play), or wait for me to post the videos and photos on my blog (which I'm doing more frequently these days).

Little Fish

I've started playing Hammond organ with Little Fish, an Oxford-based rock band. I've always wanted to play rock Hammond (ever since my dad played me the intro to Chest Fever by The Band), and now I do. I've talked about it on my blog, but the short version is:

  1. I play with Little Fish
  2. We played the Albert Hall
  3. Little Fish has three tracks on Rock Band
  4. We're off to LA and New York next Monday to support Courtney Love's band, Hole.
  5. I know.

The long version is here, complete with videos and gushing commentary:

If you got this far, thanks for hanging in there. Give yourself a pat on the back. I hope that gives you enough Ben-flavoured fun to amuse you for another month or so...

Because I still get loads of people telling me they don't understand how to download music, or what to do with it once it's downloaded, I'm putting together a simple guide. I'll call it something like HOW TO GET BEN'S MUSIC INTO YOUR LIFE and I'll email it to you when I get round to it. If you were around last year when I sent out my famous Tuesday emails on social media, you'll find it comfortingly familiar. If you weren't, the social media for normal people emails are still available.

Have a beautiful April, and I'll catch up with you in May when I'm back from rocking the USA.

Ben ;)

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