Steve Lawson/Michael Manring duet on MP3!

**Steve Lawson** · #1 03-10-2003, 07:58 AM

...that's right, your genial hosts making a racket together!

This was recorded at the Anaheim bass bash, during the NAMM show this year (see www.bassquake.org for more about that and the organisers) - and was an improvised impromptu thing. At the end of my set, I invited Michael up to pay, I started twanging, he started e-bowing, and it sort of unfolded from there.

The MP3 in question can be found in the MP3s section on my site - www.steve-lawson.co.uk - go there, have a listen and report back if you like...

and if you want more Michael Manring MP3s, go to his site, www.manthing.com and register for The Stash - if you join his mailing list, you get exclusive MP3s, which is very kind of him, as they're really rather good!

anyway, have fun!

Steve
www.steve-lawson.co.uk

moley · #2 03-10-2003, 09:22 AM

Good stuff, guys!

Nice fretless tone, Steve (as always) - and some Jaco-esque soloing there

BTW - how did you record that... plugged straight into the desk?

**Steve Lawson** · #3 03-10-2003, 10:47 AM

The recording was straight of the desk, which had a line coming off my Ashdown head and Michael's SWR head I think...

...anything even vaguely Jacoesque is bound to be Michael - I can't play that fast!

Steve
www.steve-lawson.co.uk

Wrong Robot · #4 03-10-2003, 01:00 PM

wow...good memories...I was there that night.

stephanie · #5 03-10-2003, 03:38 PM

Beautiful work guys...and more inspiration for me!

Thanks for sharing it with us.

moley · #6 03-10-2003, 04:29 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Steve Lawson
The recording was straight of the desk, which had a line coming off my Ashdown head and Michael's SWR head I think...

...anything even vaguely Jacoesque is bound to be Michael - I can't play that fast!

Ahh. I thought I recognized your fretless tone there Steve. Looks like I was *wrong*

**Steve Lawson** · #7 03-10-2003, 04:54 PM

Hi Moley,

there's a bit towards the end of the track where Michael and I are playing sort of alternate phrases - it's the best place to hear the difference in our respective fretless sounds.

there's a bit on the 'blog' on my website about what happening through the track, if you want to read it...

Steve
www.steve-lawson.co.uk

stephanie · #8 03-15-2003, 03:18 AM

Hey, I just got the new issue of Bass Player (April issue) and to my delight on the top of pg.14 found a picture of Steve and Michael at the Bass Bash jamming away.

**Steve Lawson** · #9 03-16-2003, 12:11 PM

Great! I'm sure sometime in the middle of July, copies of said magazine will arrive on these fair shores, and I'll get to see it...

Steve
www.steve-lawson.co.uk

parrott · #10 03-24-2003, 07:52 AM

Oh my...... wow!! Was it really just the two of you?

What were the slight tapping, or maybe slapping noises from the start to about half way through? Most noticable at about 1:20 into it. And was it really totally improvised?

But.... whoa.....

Boss Bass · #11 04-12-2003, 08:45 PM

Thanks gentlemen. The music sounds very much like what we'll from our students in 2024, except it's now. Fantastic! Press on with your foward thinking...

**Steve Lawson** · #12 04-13-2003, 07:09 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by parrott
Oh my...... wow!! Was it really just the two of you?

What were the slight tapping, or maybe slapping noises from the start to about half way through? Most noticable at about 1:20 into it. And was it really totally improvised?

But.... whoa.....

Hi Parrott,

yes, it was just the two of us... with a little help from my Echoplex...

I think the sound you're referring to is me dragging my nails across the strings, and then getting a sort of percussive clicking sound by using a false harmonic technique, but muting the string at the same time, I drag my fingernails across from low to high, then do that muted clicky thing on the C then G strings... I think that's what you're talking about... the other sounds going on at that point are me playing a muted bass line, with the side of my thumb, and the chordal part, which is picked with the nails on my thumb, index and middle fingers, with a tremolo effect on it... And meanwhile Michael's making sense of it all with a gorgeous improv melody line!

is that what you were asking about?

As for 'was it improvised?' - yes it was, but I guess the concept of improv maybe needs a little explaining - what improv isn't is stuff you've never ever played before. In the same way that you can talk with your friends without making up new words but don't have to repeat yourself all the time...

- so the main groove could easily be broken down into things each of us have used before in some context or other - the bass line is just a dubby thing around an Em7 chord, the tremolo chords are a series of fourth voicings, roughly in the key of Eminor, with a few alterations... Stuff that I've experimented with before, but not played like that, and not played like that with Michael... we also didn't discuss beforehand key or feel or how the track was going to unfold. I didn't warn him before kicking in the distortion halfway through, and he didn't say 'I'll play the tune for the first half - back me up' or anything... we just played, listened, reacted, and it all came out OK...

does that help?

cheers!

Steve
www.steve-lawson.co.uk