Lazarus Clamp

Following on from Michael’s thoughts…

I have had to work out at least 3 of the bass lines from scratch, having not played these songs live ‘for a while’, and in one case, ‘before’.

Are we holding true to some kind of misguided DIY ethic, or running along in the ill fitting but fashionable trainers of confidence? Either way, there is a high chance that either the tools will not be sharp enough or that our shoe laces may not be tied tightly enough.

I am intrigued to see what happens. jp

This week’s L.Clamp gig for Damnably with David Grubbs and Former Utopia is now Michael, John and Andrew, rather than just Michael on his ownsome.

There will be banjo.

And some mistakes (rehearsals have consisted of one early morning telephone conversayion about equipment, and a couple of emails about the songs we can’t play without drums). What can possibly go wrong?

On 22nd May, at Cafe OTO, Dalston, London.

Details here: www.damnably.com

You can now listen to Death to Technicians on Last.fm

This is a new project that Michael is involved in. Each month you get the chance to have a song written about your experiences.

Take a look, and please contribute if you like the idea:

http://exvotojukebox.blogspot.com/

Its not too late to save him from having to write a song about Huw’s slightly sore knee. Please.

We played at Silver Rocket this week. Apart from Tom, we all arrived on time (unusually), from our various corners of the country. Time enough to hang around listening to Big Joan’s basstasmic soundcheck, grumble about the weather, and eat pies. The soundman was good. As a result, the sound was also good. Our hosts played nice records. We drank free coca colas and token lagers.

Huw warmed up by providing some improvised drumming for friend and former Clamper, Former Utopia. About 90% of this worked extremely well. We nodded our heads, sang along to Double Negative, and smiled at Mr Utopia’s big ole grin.

Rob from Airport Girl turned up, unexpectedly, and happily drunked, and so I missed Herzoga, who were up next, while I chatted to him. We reminisced about the Go-Betweens. Imagine that!

We played. It seemed ok to me. Gigs quickly acquire a familiar momentum or identity. Sometimes this doesn’t become apparent until you’re underway, sometimes its evident even while you tune up and poke at stray leads with your toes. This was quickly one of those easygoing affairs where maybe we undersold ourselves a little, but enjoyed the process of doing it. I changed guitars too often and mumbled off-mic a lot. It didn’t really matter. Stagecraft. Pff.

We played three or four quiet ones to start (I remember Thieves & Curses, Sniper, and Night of the Steep Learning Curve). This was probably not a very Silver Rocket decision, but I enjoyed those ones the best. The sound was clear and crisp, and the room felt attentive. We played Liar then, which broke the shush, and although it perked things up, I wished we’d skipped it for once – but we then gave a very good account of Black Plumes, and a few other songs on the baritone. I remember a slightly clunky Canon (at least, I personally clunked – everyone else seemed fine), and an odd conversation with a rather polite heckler, which I probably asked for, having complained about my sausagemeat fingers. She came up to apologise, at the end – quite unnecessarily. Seriously, I get worse than that at home. Very considerate of her, though. We finished on Stone Beats This, which felt very good to me, despite the sausagemeat fingers.

We broked camp. In the DJ booth, Ms Smith admired the baritone. I was too flaked out to do justice to the conversation. We drank more coke and stared into space, thinking about our beds, while Big Joan got up and did it again. We ummed and ahhed about staying or going. The beds were calling, and we went, feeling a bit rude and trying not to make a big noise about it. Andy ran after us to pay us. Now THAT’s a promoter.

There’s a clip of the gig here (with some subtle subliminal messaging added by Mr Utopia) –

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p39XBduJwRI

Clumsily abutted onto the end of a gig preparation event, two new songs took their first breaths as children of the entire band. These were ‘Bow Down’ and ‘Simple & Easy’. Huw bashed manfully along to Michaels latest interpretation of these future classics. Andrew and Tom noodled away happily. I tried to make my bassline fit in. It fitted when I wrote it, it should damn well fit now.

Everyone was reminded just how much fun it is playing new songs.

A while ago I posted a note on the myspace page about the amusingly inefficient means that we use to develop and learn new songs [I’ve pasted it below, if you’re interested].

It occurred to me that it might be interesting to chart that process in real time, with a thread on the blog. It’ll be like ‘The Wire,’ only with less drugs, less sex, and a more complicated plot.

So here’s where we are so far:

1. In the spring, Tom, Huw and I met a couple of times after work, at some horrible electrical danger area of a rehearsal space, situated in a cowshed somewhere in the nexus of Too Many Roads between the West Midlands and Lichfield. We played around with a few ideas, and made a couple of two track stereo recordings on my laptop. Two of these ideas (This is how I cut my own throat; Piss and vinegar) have survived or developed since.

2. In the autumn, John came to see me in Birmingham, and one evening while Mrs L Clamp tried to put Little L Clamp to bed, John and I sat up in my loft and I played him about a dozen ideas for new songs, on a lightly amplified guitar. I sang them (fairly unconvincingly), where I had words, and he recorded them on a hand-held recorder.

2. John sent me a CD of those songs shortly afterwards (minus one which has gone missing somewhere). I made changes to a couple of them, wrote some more words, dropped a couple of bits. I recorded the changed ones, and a couple more new ones, and sent these to him, via FTP. He started working out bass parts.

3. Just before Christmas, I played a couple of these songs(Kick over the traces; Not sleeping; Membrane)to George and Huw, for possible use in the Philanthropists.

4. Today I burned the whole lot to CDs for Tom, Huw and Andrew. I also sent the possible Philanthropists’ ones to George. I guess the status of those might change if George doesn’t like them, or if L Clamp do, but its a start.

5. At this stage, I think these songs will turn into a recording called ‘How I quit being a service provider and became a service user.’ But that’s almost certain to change.

Now all we need is McNulty, and a subplot about the money.

—-

Here’s the original myspace bit:

> typically …
>
> i write new song[s].
> at some point i play new song with huw.
> time passes: huw forgets new song.
> i do a bit more work on the song.
> on another occasion i play same new song to everyone.
> huw claims never to have heard it before.
> everyone works out some new parts for the new song.
> it sounds promising.
> time passes: everyone forgets new song.
> on a later occasion, john records me playing the song [you can start here in the process i think, if you are in a rush].
> john burns everyone a cd of the new song[s].
> everyone claims never to have heard it/them before.
> john works out a part for the song [s].
> i do a bit more work on the song [s].
> on another occasion, we play the song, and this time john has all his parts written down, though tom has completely forgotten his part, and huw and andrew claim never to have heard it before.
> i piss john off, because what i am now playing is not the same as what i played on the recording. everyone else says, ‘what recording?’ and john, who burns about 2000 lclamp cds a year in this process, weeps a little bit.
> we persist. john makes andrew write his part down, and then we make a recording of the whole band playing the song so that tom and huw can remember their bits. usually we find that we do not have a decent recording device between us at this point, and resort to tom’s dictaphone.
> time passes: everyone except john forgets the song.
> we plan a gig or some recording. we meet to play the song. ‘what song?’ everyone says to me and john. we play the recording on tom’s dictaphone. its not a bit muffled, its a lot muffled. no one can tell how it goes or what they are playing. i weep a little bit.
> we reconstruct our parts from what we have written down and remembered, and make a better recording. andrew looks confused and sort of half-mimes through the song as we record it.
> john burns it to cd again, sends to everyone. huw listens to it in the car, and from here on in largely remembers it, though he does tend to combust a bit, if subsequently asked to do anything very different to what he has now done on this recording. john calls andrew every night for a week to make him listen to the cd and work out what he is doing. we all hear tom’s bit for the first time, and tell him it is too wishy-washy.
> at the next rehearsal andrew and tom are both poked with sticks until they come up with bits that actually work. we record it again, john burns another cd, writes ‘this one you idiots’ on the box, and sends it to us.
> we have learned the song.
> it has taken 12 months.
> i do a bit more work on the song …

On 22nd May, Michael is playing, part-lonesome-ownsome, part-duo with Former Utopia, opening for David Grubbs.

Its at Cafe OTO, Dalston, London.

Details here: www.damnably.com

On 17th April we are happy guests at Silver Rocket, along with Big Joan & Herzoga.

Its at Buffalo Bar, Islington, London.

Details here: www.silverrocket.org

Hello.

Lazarus Clamp is/are five people who make music together, and have been doing so in various combinations since 1994.

We tend to pursue a reasonably consistent aesthetic, preferring relatively straightforward recording techniques (i.e. analogue, and ‘live’ where we can), choosing tactile instrumentation (strings and drums, rather than bleeps and buttons), and requiring enough musical sophistication to keep our easily-bored attention-spans engaged. Within those constraints, we have also tended to be happy to move across genres and forms, and to blend ingredients with relatively little concern for recipes (or indeed, trends). We have made a (stubborn) virtue out of our out-of-stepness, and gained a lot of entertainment and amusement from the occasional moments when we accidentally slipped into step with some nascent scene (or even better, missed it by 6 months).

We have relatively few connections to other bands (apart from the handful we play in, and the even smaller number who’ve been outliving the press and promoters for as long as we have). This isn’t because we’re anti-social or rude, its just that all 5 of us live fairly complicated lives, in 5 different parts of the country, and keeping up with each other is about the best we manage.

We intend to use this site to post news and updates on our whereabouts and activities. But you can also find us at:

myspace.com/lazarusclamp
myspace.com/elclamp
www.ilike.com/artist/Lazarus+Clamp
www.lazarusclamp.co.uk

Our latest release is ‘Death to technicians!’ a 2 CD double album, which was released on Bearos Records in 2008. You can hear tracks from it on the myspace and ilike sites, above. You can buy it, with PayPal, from the myspace page.

Our next release will be ‘Against entitlement,’ a vinyl album (we hope), on Little Red Rabbit Records, in October.