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Bag, laptop, hard drives, unreleased music and videos stolen
As some of you may be aware my rucksack was stolen last weekend after my concert at Kolibri near the Reeperbahn in Hamburg. I had a lovely gig with a great crowd and a few hours later when most of the guests had left i was told to bring all my bags into the main room and we sat outside the venue chatting and apparently keeping an eye on the front door. Not so well as it turns out.
Suffice to say when I popped in to use the toilet I noticed right away that although my suitcase and guitar were right where I had left them my rucksack was not. Felt immediately sick. Inside the rucksack were the following
• Apple Macbook Air laptop. Kind of old but with a few weeks work that I hadn’t backed up yet. Also expensive to replace.
• Three external hard drives. Probably the worst thing lost - two were full of a brilliant collection of films and tv shows I had spent years collecting and were invaluable on long train rides and the other had six years of live recordings and videos I had filmed since coming to Germany. This included a couple of videos I had just edited for songs from the new album, stuff from my trip to Naples with my mother earlier this year, a session recorded just that morning on a boat in Flensburg and dozens of other concerts mixed and ready to be made available at some point in the future.
I know, I know - I backed things up but then I took the backup along with me and even kept it in the same bag as the original copy. Noob move.
The music / videos one is password protected - so that’s essentially worthless.
• Current diary. I write lyrics for my songs in my journal first, mostly whilst travelling. I also tend to fill it with contacts and random personal thoughts along the way. This isn’t worth anything to anyone else I’m sure. Paper and ink, straight to the recycle bin. But I lost a bunch of ideas and all the next big hits for sure.
• Nintendo Switch and many games and all my save files. Mother fucker.
• House keys, headphones, 100€, bag of sunflower seeds, biography of Virginia Woolf. Flotsam and jetsam basically.
For what it’s worth the rucksack looks like this:
I don’t expect to see any of this stuff again and I’ve already started making plans to replace things I need to carry on working in the way I have been, with a little more security of course. But, as is often the case with this sort of thing, most of what was stolen is worthless to anyone that has it. I get that you can sell the games console right away and perhaps wipe the hard drives and get rid of those for a few euros each. The laptop is password protected and has other security enabled but I guess someone will buy it and do something with it. The bag is quite tasty and in good condition I suppose.
Anyway, had a nice little trip up north - met some fine folk and had some lovely shows but this whole thing made a very distracting time of it. I recorded half a dozen songs on the boat in Flensburg that I hoped to share with you but they are really gone. I do have some live recordings still on my audio recorder and I will post some music in a few days.
For now this is a belated moan and perhaps a call out for anyone in that area to keep an eye out for a rather anonymous looking black rucksack with a book of depressing lyrics inside. Who knows.
From the lovely people at Fritzen.
I’m in Stuttgart today, getting set to leave for Thun tomorrow morning where I will play in the beautiful Schloss Hünegg. Details about that here - please come if you can, I need a lift.
Stephen
Thun in the rainstorm (free download)
Here’s something of a random post - I was making space on my hard drive and found my recording of the concert I played in Thun, Switzerland last month. This was organised by my good friend Reto of Mundwerk at his summer residence the Strandbad. A lovely place with incredibly tasty food, a thick cut above the usual swimming pool chips and burgers I grew up on.
I rode down there for this one show, was a kind of stop between home and a little trip to Italy. I left in the morning sunshine but by the time I got down there and walked around the lake to the pool there was a dark storm brewing and, whilst we ate amazing steaks outside on the terrace, it soon began to rain. The room was fairly full and as soon as I started it lashed it down outside and the thunder started up. As such, much of what I recorded is rain and all - grand enough but there are other places for that kind of thing.
Anyway, here’s two songs free to download - the first played for Reto (check out that gnarly thunder at 1:45) and the second played for that unpleasant 50 year old German man that seems to appear at every concert and ask me about Brexit. I hope I don’t see him this month, have had quite enough of that.
As it happens, next month I’ll be back in Thun on the 7th of September playing at the Schloss Hünegg as part of a poetry slam event my buddy Marco is putting together. Hope to see some familiar faces there.
Have a lovely weekend everyone,
Stephen
Painting
Details of a painting made in 1998 whilst I was living in Ireland, photographed in 2005 after it had been stored in the old cottage for a few cold winters and many wet springs. Peppered with mould and mildew - most of what I made there was scrappy and messy but the damage here was a bit of a shock. I took these photos and then made a big fire for this and the rest.
I had graduated from Fine Art at Exeter a month or so before and then my father and I drove the Land Rover across Ireland, onto the Rosslare / Fishguard ferry and down through Wales to pick up what I had made and accumulated in my years before. I drove with the horse box behind us, a nerve wracking experience for me and I once begged him to take over after we took a wrong road and I was expected to make a 180 turn in a narrow cul-de-sac. I was cautious and painfully slow but we made it fine and in time. I’m sure we watched a film in the little cinema on the ferry, can’t remember what it was now but I recall the motion of the boat in the dark room threw my inner ear right off and overboard.
After just a night in Exeter, and with the box stuffed, we drove back up and across and then the next day I unloaded it all into the broken cottage and naively thought my adult life as a painter had begun.
A week later I had painted over and scrubbed one piece from my degree show exhibition work and took these photos as a threat to all the others.
Somewhere I have slides and reasonable photographs documenting the 5 years or so of paintings I had made but here so long after I just have these things to hand. Bit weird looking at them and kind of embarrassing but it is what it is, or it was what it was. I don’t know, sometimes people ask.
Has obviously been a bit of a slow couple of weeks for me but I’ve been working on recording music for other people and beginning to write again. Next week I get to play shows in the north of Germany and looking forward loads.
Have nice days - I always appreciate you saying hello if you’re out there.
Stephen
Potraits by Anke
Just two portraits by my dear friend Anke, from her house in Dresden earlier this year.
Atelierkonzert in Stuttgart last night (free download)
Photo: @helle.helle.helle
I played a concert in Dirk and Danielle’s studio yesterday evening down here in Stuttgart. First gig in a couple of weeks - was wonderful to be invited (perhaps I invited myself) and a very enjoyable evening.
I played kind of ok, the room was high and open with a lovely wooden floor so I played most of the set acoustic. Some new songs got out of the house for the first time and here’s a free download of the first performance of ‘It Don’t Stop The Bleeding’ from the new album.
I’m here for a couple more days and then will play a short set in Fürth on the 12th of August with dear Julia Laura at the Babylon Kino. A handful of dates at the end of the month in the north of Germany to come too. It all goes on.
Have a lovely Sunday,
Stephen
ps - adding this one too, which was dedicated to Dr Lamb and whose good stuff is here.
'It Don't Stop The Bleeding' video
Here’s something Selina and I filmed a couple of days ago for the song ‘It Don’t Stop The Bleeding’ from the new album ‘A Day’. Thanks to her for patience and for understanding something of what I was getting at with this one.
Making things is fun, more coming soon then.
Have a lovely evening,
Stephen
'A Day' - new album available now
My latest album ‘A Day’ is now available to listen and buy at https://thegreatpark.bandcamp.com/album/a-day.
‘A Day’ was recorded entirely on the 14th of May in a tiny hut in the countryside near Baach, Germany. I had written a bunch of things that I thought could be put down but when I got there a lot of it changed and I spent an afternoon and most of the evening writing and playing as I went. The album is a loose thing, as most of my things tend to be, and perhaps I’ll get the chance to record some of these songs later and with other people. I suppose I work better when I’m inspired by a place and have a limited amount of time there, so I thank Martina for giving me the chance to hang out in this wonderful little space and wander about in such beautiful surroundings. She also took the photos you see here and the one on the cover, whilst I filmed some for the simple video below:
Of the songs, I think these sit in an in between place for me. I have an album of kind of playful things, light, often saucy text written over the last few years and I’ve recorded some of these songs in different places already without putting them out. But I also had these new ones and it didn’t feel like the right time or place for anything else. At least three of these were written on the day (‘now we know how we won’t’, ‘a kind of dog is not a cat’ and ‘what you fear to be the end comes around’ for sure) whilst the others had melodies and most of the text set beforehand.
I’ve been playing a few of these at the recent shows and they seem to be coming out different already, which perhaps goes to show what a collection of sketches this is.
Anyway, this is what I make.
Thanks for listening,
Stephen
Claude Hurni
A couple of portraits by Claude Hurni taken in the grounds of the beautiful Löwendenkmal in Luzern earlier this year. Claude has a website here and his Instagram here.
These were posted to my Instagram here, where there’s quite a bit more of this sort of thing.
'Now We Know How We Don't' from 'A Day'
A simple video filmed where I recorded ‘A Day’ which is now available to pre-order here:
I was going to wait a few more weeks before I made this but then I realised that I have a little time right now so it didn’t make sense to sit around looking at the stuff and listening over and over to the thing.
So, you can buy it now and you’ll get a download of the song ‘Now We Know How We Don’t’ today and the rest of the album on the 21st. I’ve made a physical edition too which will be sent out at the same time. I’ll write more about that in a few days but this morning it looks like this:
If you’ve signed up to the newsletter I’ll send you a free download of an exclusive track before the album is released and you can do that here.
Recording this album was an intense, joyful experience. A concentrated but loose 24 hours. Writing fast and seeing how things fell. I really try not to think too much or try to make perfect music but rather keep a record of how things go and this is certainly one of those.
Anyway, more later as ever - have a lovely weekend.
Stephen
St Arbogast - part three (free download)
Back home yesterday evening and will be here for a few days, principally to wash or burn all the clothes I’ve been wearing in the heat of the past week. I have concerts in Freiburg, Thun and Schaffhausen next week and in between a drive down to Italy to buy teaspoons. Yep.
Back to wrap up my time at the Folk Festival in Arbogast and the Sunday found me scheduled to play a concert in the Dunkelkammer, or the photography darkroom. Taped up windows and no light getting in and sure enough pitch black and couldn’t even see my hands. I was set to play at 3pm and by quarter past I had an audience of 2. The sun was high and hot and other music being played outside and really no surprise that most people wouldn’t want to shut themselves in a black room with me and listen to me in my element. It was dark, somehow it went darker.
After ten minutes one of my audience had to leave (she did well to last that long) and so I gather it was me playing to one lady. It was like playing alone, but with a purpose. I lost myself a little and had such strange fun. Felt my way through everything, tripping up from moment to moment but no matter and it’s really just the shape changing all the time.
Shortly after this the heat got to me so I took a nap in my room. When I woke two hours later the audience had completely changed, most of everyone that I had got to know over the previous two days had left and there was a string group playing lovely African music in the sunshine in front of the stage. Backstage was deserted, the fridge empty and catering nowhere to be seen. I missed something for sure.
To be honest over the weekend I had sometimes felt that I was missing out on playing and on a couple of occasions my slot just vanished. When I had been scheduled to play 6 concerts over two days I had only played 3. It was a bit weird to not be able to play to people as often as I had liked to or as often as had been planned, but of course I understand that festival programs have a habit of changing and there are always casualties.
But I was conscious of being invited to be in residence there so it was important for me that I really made something of my time. That I was productive if not giving a concert. So at around midnight I took my things into the chapel up the hill and set up at the altar. Deathly silent outside and full of warm, fat echo within I recorded in it’s own particular darkness for two hours. I was anything but quiet and I do believe I have another album out of that time. This will have to wait.
Anyway if anyone connected is reading this then I’d like to say thanks to all who made me feel welcome and in good company. Particularly Johannes for the invitation of course - will visit you next year if not before.
Have a nice evening all
Stephen
ps - seems like I appeared on Austrian television which you can see here. I’m told that’s something.
St Arbogast - part two (free download)
Backstage at golden hour.
I have showered 4 times each day and sit here now in my darkened room dripping and sliding about the place. We have shade under the trees but the sun burns through. The heat is incredible, I suppose this week the most common thing to say and hear pretty much anywhere in Europe.
I’m still at St Arbogast Folk Festival - it’s Sunday afternoon but I’m going to write some words about Friday night and Saturday here and then I’m off to find ice cream and the breeze. I remember such a thing.
Friday night Buntspecht played on the main stage in the evening and killed it. Fantastic players, brilliant performance all the good stuff and I’m already looking forward to seeing them again in a couple of weeks somewhere in Germany. Some of the performance stuff is a little too cabaret for my taste but they all play so well and this night it just grew and grew and had such momentum and dynamics. Amazing.
Earlier Paul Plut had made a great racket too and basically I have been well happy to be surprised with enjoying hearing new people for the first time. I don’t really get to go to festivals and generally tend not to like most music I hear played live. I’m sure I don’t try hard enough to make the effort and I suppose I have a bit of a grumpy attitude problem.
Anyway at some point in the afternoon, I’m not sure when but the sun was certainly high and hot, I played under the linden tree to a lovely little crowd gathered in it’s shade. As I wrote yesterday I’ve been approaching this weekend with the idea that I could play different songs and it’s true that’s been happening. That being said here’s a song I know by now recorded under the tree.
Right after this, another shower and then I played back up the hill in the woods. A scrappy, messy set and little worth sharing from this I’m afraid. Can listen again and check later. Met some fine people up there and it was nice enough. Afterwards I retreated back to the dark room, another shower of course and then I recorded some songs in here for an hour and I think I’ll have stuff to share from that in the future.
I hope you’re having a fine weekend too,
Stephen
St Arbogast - part one (free download)
I’m at the Folk Festival in St Arbogast, near Götzis, Austria for the weekend. It’s absolutely scorching hot, people are being super nice and the area is very beautiful. I have a three day residence here and trying to play and write as much as I can - the weather and the countryside are distracting and inspiring in equal measure.
I played a short set in the woods yesterday afternoon and here are a couple of recordings from that. I’ve been preparing some folk songs and unfamiliar material to play for this weekend and if ‘The Royal Canal’ isn’t so new for me at least ‘Soldier Johny’ isn’t a song I’ve not really played before and is kind of based on a traditional song. This was a simple acoustic concert, sitting on a log in front of 20 people in the middle of the forest and perhaps there are photos and videos to follow but this should give some impression if that’s what you’re after.
I’ll write some more words about the weekend when I get the chance but I’m scheduled to play three more concerts today, more again tomorrow and there are some locations here where music could sound grand so hopefully more recordings to come from this most pleasant place.
Anyhow, good morning and more later. Have a lovely Sunday,
Stephen
UPDATE - Newsletter Exclusive #1 - April 2019
There was an error with this compilation but this is just a quick update to say I got on it and I’ve fixed it and now all songs are where they should be and hopefully working as intended.
Apologies for the break in service and please download again.
That is all, love from the sunny west of Austria where I will have more to share later.
Stephen
Newsletter Exclusive #1 - April 2019
Recently I wanted to put something new together for subscribers of my mailing list so I thought I’d start making regular compilations that will change every couple of months. Exclusive mixtapes, downloadable diary entries, what have you. This here’s the first - a 14 song set of songs played at various concerts in April 2019. I played a bunch of enjoyable shows that month and these recordings are from nice nights in Karlsruhe, Luzern, Bern, Thun and Baden. The track list goes like this:
The River Of Men Flows Without End (Karlsruhe)
The Royal Canal (Luzern)
Boys, I Am Worried (Baden, with Sophia Basler on Violin)
Pretty Peggy-O (Luzern)
Here (Luzern)
Song For Fee (Karlsruhe)
Suit Of Stones (Thun)
If You Build It They Will Come (Baden, with Sophia Basler on Violin)
Make Each Other Anew (Thun)
There Is Joy Yet Between The Pages (Luzern)
Super Good Advice (Luzern)
We Could Have We Should Have We Didn’t (Bern)
Annabel (Bern)
We Swam A Little Song (Karlsruhe)
Whilst there aren’t any train wrecks here I didn’t pick these as any kind of perfect version or anything like that - rather there was something about each one that I liked and felt was worth keeping. Some of them are recorded purely acoustic in the room, whilst others are with a mixing desk and microphones and all. I’ve tried to put it together so it flows but no one’s going to think this is a seamless single concert. It’s a collection of moments I enjoyed at tasty places. Hopefully there’ll be more in the future.
Previously when people subscribe I’ve been giving out download codes for the Stitch compilation, but that feels a little out of date now and not really how things sound these days. My plan is to change it every 3 or 4 months and it will only be available to people on the mailing list. It’s free to sign up and I don’t spam people with emails every week or anything like that. If you like the sound of this the form is below. I’ll send a mail out on Sunday with the password to grab this release.
In other news I hope you’re enjoying the summer and getting out in it as much as you can. Take care and be well,
Stephen
So Long Song with the swallows in Dresden (free download)
Photo: Peter Fischer.
Here’s an impression of my evening in Dresden last Thursday, playing outside in the courtyard of the Jazzclub Tonne. Swallows feeding overhead. I played new songs from the next album and had a very nice time of it. Thank you to all who made it along - I’ll be back in town next month so perhaps see you around then.
In the meantime I have something new and exclusively available for subscribers of my newsletter by the end of this week - more about that later but if you’d like to receive this please think about signing up here.
More later then, have a lovely Monday,
Stephen
Photo: @tonnedresden
The Woods (free download)
I’ve just released a new EP as a free download over on my Bandcamp site here. ‘The Woods’ was recorded a week or two ago in the forest near Baach, Germany. I set my audio recorder on the Hochsitz you see in the cover photo above and played for fifteen minutes or so. Three songs, including one that I also recorded for the new album coming next month. Much birdsong, a bee on the microphone, a plane overhead - all the good stuff, basically.
Here’s a simple video of the new song for those of you that can only listen whilst watching pictures move:
As with all this stuff, if you enjoy it please think about letting me know and if possible, share it somewhere online. All much appreciated.
That’s it, have a lovely Sunday evening.
Stephen
Hannover and Bonn (free download)
Photo: Jolin Masche
Photo: Jolin Masche
Ceven at Komplex 7 has been arranging little concerts for my friends and I for some years now and this week he set me up with an acoustic gig in dreiunddreißig in Hannover. It was a warm evening but the tiny wine shop was full with a lovely crowd and I sat there and I stood there and I played all the songs. After the show we drank some smuggled beers, talked loads and shook hands and all the good stuff.
Later we drove off to Béi Chéz Heinz of course for more drinks and shouting behind the DJ booth watching younger people dance. Assumed the creepy uncle at a wedding position, pretty much
That night I got to sleep in the lovely Trekkers Huus again and always nice enough and the next morning a rubbish breakfast at the nearby supermarket and then I walked the few miles back across town to the station.
Saturday I travelled to Bonn for the only the second time playing in town. The first was at the M********e back in 2008 or something with Tristan Brusch - the less said about that the better and they don’t get a link here and I only mention it because I’m a completionist and a wannabe archivist, etc. Anyway, Timo has been at a bunch of my concerts at different places and invited me to his house for a special concert there. There was a lovely bunch of people for the good company and I sat and tried to break through the floor to the apartment below.
By the end of the set everyone else was joining in and so we have this sort of thing:
Photo: Friedrich (Pape)
Since these shows I’ve been recording a lot and also putting together a live compilation from the concerts in April that I played. This will be exclusive and free for all subscribers to my newsletter so please sign up for that here and I’ll send you a link to download when it’s ready.
Baach
Photos by @mart.schneider from a couple of weeks ago in the countryside around Baach, Germany where I’ve been recording recently.
Back to the countryside.
Has been a full and fun weekend in Hannover and last night in Bonn. Not enough sleep but nice concerts and very enjoyable evenings both of them. I’ll probably write more in the next couple of days but mostly big thanks to Ceven and to Timo for the invitations and the good company.
Tomorrow I’ll drive back up the hill to this beautiful little spot and hopefully spend a couple of days finishing the album I started last week. I’ve had a few days to listen to everything and decided to leave the songs as they were written but perhaps just play some more guitar and sing a little on some of them. Wanted to do everything in the same lovely place. Nothing feels in any way clever or too considered, which I like, but I do feel that some of the things could use a little more meat on the bones. Perhaps I pile it on and then take it all off and it comes out as just the recording I made in a day. Let’s see. In any rate, I’ll be here if you need me but the internet is off.
I hope you’ve had a fun weekend too, more soon.
S
St Klara CDr now available
The recording of the St Klara church concert is now available as a simple, hand stamped CDr through my Bandcamp page here. Nothing fancy, but for those of you that don’t do the download thing or would rather just have a physical disc this is for you. All Bandcamp sales include an immediate download anyway and I’ll be posting any of these orders out right after the weekend.
Also - 50% of all online sales of this album will go to the Strassenkreuzer charity, for whom this concert was a benefit. For more information about them and how to help please visit https://www.strassenkreuzer.info/foerdern-und-spenden
Also, also - I’ll be at Radio Z for an interview this afternoon. They have this release as their album of the week so I think we’ll be talking about it and who knows what else. You can listen live here from about 15:00 CET.
I’m heading to Hannover tomorrow for an acoustic concert at Dreiunddreißig. The Facebook event is here. I tend to have nice concerts in town so I’m looking forward to that. Saturday I’m in Bonn for a house concert - very rarely there so if you’d like to join that please drop me a line and I’ll send you the details.
Otherwise, have a lovely weekend and more later!
Stephen