bentenlaughing

Janice: Do you begin recording with a basic guitar and vocals track?  Gina: The way Mark and I work is that he will create an instrumental backing track and I will write the vocal part to fit the track. Sometimes I already have a set of lyrics that I wrote independent of music and it will fit the track, usually with some rearranging/tweaking. Other times I will write the lyrics as I listen over and over to the instrumental.  Janice: Are you both in cohorts in developing the  ambience and layering of the backing track?  Gina: The ambience and layering I leave entirely to Mark. After I've added my vocals to the mix, he will further play around with the instrumentation and create the final song. Sometimes he will consult me about something he's done, whether or not I like it. Sometimes I will notice something in the mix that doesn't seem to enhance the song and I'll mention it. But basically, I trust his experience and judgement and I like to allow him the freedom to ex...

  Janice: Before you've put pen to paper or whichever medium you're working with, do you have a good idea of the end result?   Jan Melville:  I do not always know the end result of some of my works, mostly the ones that I know are my etchings as I do sketches of the ideas before making the plates to work on. I seem to get the ideas in my mind and when working them up into sketches, I can change parts of it as I go. Or even start all over again if not happy with how the end result is looking.  Janice: Which are your favorite mediums to work with?  Jan Melville:  I like to work with collage, mixed media and etchings. I like the freedom that say collage and mixed media bring. When working with them they allow me to be a lot looser when I work, as against when I work in printmaking I get tighter as there is only the one go to get the work right.  Janice:  Your work resonates with a connection to nature. Has this always played a part in the themes...

Janice: Gina, I'm listening to your new album, Wheels in an Elsewhere. Your winsome vocals and seamless marriage of lyric and music allow one to enter a spaciousness...where are you taking us? Gina:  Interesting that you mentioned spaciousness, as the album is largely about the spaciousness of being apart from worldly life, troubles, insanities and the treadmill… in the sense of being something more like pure spirit. Not trying to paint our lives as a bleak picture but it can certainly seem like that at times for many of us, I believe. And we’ve all at times thought “stop the planet I want to get off”! Now the phrase wheels in an elsewhere is taken from the fourth song on the album which was inspired by my randomly pondering what death might be like. In the song the elsewhere is the world you leave behind. And the wheels of course are just the material matters of life including cars, work business. problems and the ongoing nature of it all. It is quite a philosophical a...

Jan:   Davy, when did you first experience Frankie's music? Was it live or on record? Davy:  In 1956, our family had moved to a very large housing scheme on the outskirts of Edinburgh, where I attended the local primary school, where football was the main focus. Then in 1965, when all my football friends joined the local Secondary School, I went to a Senior Secondary in town (Boroughmuir), where one was able to study up to A Level standard. One of the exciting aspects was that I was immediately thrown into a “melting pot”of different young people from all over the city. Over the next couple of years and from a musical point of view, 2 stood out. Gordon McIntosh and Billy Lyall. Gordon was a guitarist in a local band called Leathur Soul then found fame with Bilbo Baggins. Billy Lyall was in the Bay City Rollers then moved to Pilot with David Paton. They had huge hits with ” Magic” and “January”. So from 1967 onwards, these two were mainly responsible for introducing me to the ...

  Maeve was warm and sunny on the inside. Hard exterior when she had to be. Maeve's beauty was not her destination. Not a face that would entertain Playboy's editors or gather dust in doctors' antechambers. Her face spelled out the proverbial eye in the beholder. Round and unpretentious without makeup. Maeve was not looking for the middle way. Life more than not took her into danger. She drove a red deluxe taxi. When she did her face up for late-night rides into dives where jazz musos laid down what was below the belt and pulsed the mathematics of jazz, Maeve's beauty was in-your-face intelligence. The first woman tenor jazz player to kick ass at the Conservatorium of Music. Paid her dues playing scales on the saxophone. Long hot afternoons on a rented terrace in Newtown. Two socialite sisters owned this row of tenacious Victorian tenements. Maeve shared this jewel in the crown of bindi-eyed Newtown with two other jazz musicians. One played his horn in a padded cell to ...

  Jan: my first memory of you Judy is playing in sessions; you were with Tommy Tycho right? What were those years like for you? Were they predominantly you playing, doing a lot of session work and doing your own gigs as well? Judy: I spent something like eight years pretty well non-stop in the Television Studios and the amount of actual night time playing say jazz work I used to have average 1 2 nights a week.  That was all though. Most of my work, was studio work and I didn’t go near a club until I was expecting my daughter and I had my first foray into the clubs with Barry Crocker.  (Interruption of sexy voice French waiter and friend of Judy’s on tape) Jan: So those years were really like you were into that studio thing.  Judy: Great learning, great learning years, because I'd never ever done anything like that, that was the first time in my life and then when I was expecting Lisette. I was playing and went with Barry Crocker, I was his MD musical director aro...