Music
I appreciate music, and try to make music. It's a little questionable how well I succeed at either.
Bands
I'v been gigging for 20 years now, and am involved with a number of folk dance bands:
- Albireo
- A mainly English ceilidh band based around Macclesfield. I play bass guitar and keyboard, run the sound desk, and sometimes call.
- The Wrapper Band
- A band playing traditional North-West English music, based around Saddleworth. I play bass and keyboard, run the sound desk, and usually split the calling.
- Melandra
- Now moribund, if not totally defunct. Melandra was a band I co-founded as a student at Manchester University. I play bass guitar and run the sound desk.
- Madcap
- A band playing a range of music, mostly English. The band are based around South Manchester. I'm one of their regular callers (they use several).
Instruments
Bass guitar
I play a Washburn XS-5 five-string bass guitar, purchased in 1993. It's tuned in one of the standard 5-string tunings, with the top four strings as a standard bass guitar and the extra bottom string tuned a fourth down as a low B. These days, my technique's good enough not to need any extra kit between the guitar and the desk (I'm left-handed, and much of my style involves runs of notes that are hammered on and pulled off by the left hand - I used a compressor for years to smooth out the variation in amplitude between these notes and those picked by my right hand).
Keyboards
My main gig keyboard used to be a very battered Korg M1, bought from a friend in 1997, until it blew up on stage. I'm now using a Yamaha SY85 (scrounged from Steve) with a Korg 03R/W rackmount... I'd fallen in love with some of the M1 bass patches, so that's near enough a M1 in a box! I'd say my style was enthusiastic rather than technically proficient, despite four years of piano lessons after school as a primary school-age child. Still, it works well enough that Steve can occasionally desert his position as Albireo's keyboard player to play concertina instead.