variousing

Hello * Hope this finds you well. I'm trying to organise some kind of meeting for this week, to discuss ideas about collaborating artistically/musically. * and I have talked about working together; and * is interested, too. I'm really in the dark, though, about how you feel about things. The jam on * /I'm certainly looking to get something together, and I have ideas about what I want to do. As I say, * and I have discussed it - over various lifts home, etc.; and I had a meet-up with * at his house. So I'm up to speed on how they see things; and I like what I see, believing it possible to give it a go. In contrast, we've not spoken about these issues at all - since the * is primarily social, it isn't really suitable for pinning things down. The only way I can approach this, then, is to say what I am about, and to ask what you are looking for. I've played for years - all kinds of bands, all kinds of types of music, from Big Black/Butthole Surfers influences, to King Crimson, postpunk, prog-ish things, to free jazz, rock, grunge, electronica, plunderphonics, some kinds of commercial things... endless. I can play 'conventionally' and 'unconventionally'. I got the six string bass in order to try to get away from playing bass as it 'should' be played; as I'd always tried to be different on the four string - using effects, bowing, tapping, harmonics, chords ... the usual array of techniques, trying to be unusual. So, my thing is to try to push things - to get away from what I've done before. I came eventually to improv - though I've always jammed. To my mind, the first stage of improv, if you like, is jamming - a vamp in Em, playing around with a sequence of chords, etc. A further stage is the 'turn up, plug in, see what happens' thing. Both of these, in my experience, are pretty well still connected to rock music - to its forms and methods. There's a beat, a texture, and a kind of solo; the mood goes up and down; it gets loud, it gets quiet again, etc. - even if atonal, even if supposedly 'experimental'. What I am keen to do now is take it all quite a lot further than that; really get away from rock-type things; really think about quality and difference; really set sights on originality, not resting on our tried and tested tricks and things. If you gander at my blog http://murmurists.blogspot.com you'll see something of how I like to work - though with visuals and text, rather than with sound. It's all interconnected for me, though. In that sense, I really don't know what kinds of things you want to do, and how you see the thing so far called murmurists. For all I know, you might want to do something like I describe above, or you might want to play something entirely different. As it stands, *, *, and I are probably meeting up Thursday - at mine or at * - to discuss ideas. You're welcome to join in, if any of this interests you. Appreciate you letting me know your thoughts beforehand, so we've stuff to discuss. Best wishes, Anthony