Matt Stevens - Notes From The Wilderness: March 2010

Tuesday, 30 March 2010

Is this the future for musicians funding?

I made this messing around with the Hipstamatic app on the iphone:

and I've added a new page to my website its this:

Make a Contribution

"most people are accustomed to getting Internet "content" for free, as if it was created by fairies who lived on pixie dust. I always wanted to live on pixie dust, but it's harder than it looks!" Susie Bright

I really enjoy providing the content and music on this site, if you would like to help me provide this content(and make more of it) or if you have already downloaded an album and you'd like to pay for it you can here.

Its a bit like a busker leaving the guitar case open. I really appreciate it.

Just click on the guitar case below to make a contribution via Paypal and become a patron of the arts - thank you!!

Other Ways To Support This Site

Blog about it, burn a copy of Echo and give it to a friend, share the MP3's on a torrent site, use my music in your video,Tweet it, share it on facebook,join the mailing list and tell your friends. I really appreciate it.

Thanks so much for your support.

What do you think? You can also subscribe....

Is this the appropriate way to for musicians to fund what they do???

I'm not sure but i would value your feed back...

Thanks

Matt

Monday, 29 March 2010

There's This Bloke I Know

The most effective form of advertising is word of mouth. I don't really consider the stuff I've been doing online "marketing", more just throwing stuff out to the community to see what happens and if people discover the music that's great.

That's why i give so much music away free or as a pay what you want download - I'm more interested in building a community rather than trying to get every last penny out of the recordings.

Anyway, an interesting thing has started to happen lately. People have been telling me that they have been talking to there friends(often in pubs) about music and they have both found that had discovered my music completely independently. That's cool because spoken word is how music really spreads - if my mate Kev tells me its good I will at least take a listen because I know its credible and probably good.

That's how bands like the Grateful Dead, Iron Maiden built honest,real and loyal fan bases. Real connections(and great music).

More Twitterchords stuff:

The chord progression Twitter wrote continues to throw up interesting stuff:

This is by Andy Long - a lovely solo bass take on the progression

Andy Long - Twyn Du by mattstevensprojects

This is a score that my friend Matt came up with for the twitter chords - very cool:

Speak soon all

Matt

Sunday, 28 March 2010

Sunday Free Noodle 8

This week’s noodle is:

Matt Stevens (Guitar) Lextrical(Everything Else/Production) - Stir Fried Bean Noodle (Matt Stevens - Burning Bandstands Remix)

This is a bloody great remix/reconstruction/new song by my friend Alex of Lextrical’s daily music bean - he posts a song EVERY DAY - and the quality is really high - its amazing and he also comes up with art/videos and he’s very good friends with a monkey. A very busy man. One of my favorite noodles this one - its a crossover - his bean/my noodle - Stir Fried Bean Noodle.

I would really encourage you to have a listen to all his other beans - well worth it.

Please let me know what you think of this and if you would like to do a remix or collaborate give me a shout.

More noodles next week

Listen on my

Subscribe to my podcast feed here and get the Sunday Free Noodle every week:

If you like this you get get the original version on my album Echo as a "pay what you want" download here

About The Sunday Free Noodle

The Sunday Free Noodle project is a free MP3 ever week - remixes, collaborations, live stuff, spoken word stuff and other odd things - for the next year. 52 MP3’s (thats alot). I think it will be a challenge to keep this going and I’m really looking forward to doing it - please subscribe to the podcast feed on itunes to get it free every week and tell me what you think(yes you can say if you think if its crap). I hope you enjoy it.

This project has only really come about because i have injured my back and have had a chance to go through my hard drives whilst lying on the floor with the laptop on my chest. Odd how things happen.

I really it want to be a collaborative process. Let me know - if you are a remixer, cellist, vocalist, percussionist, film maker,trumpet player or visual artist or anything else let me know(although I draw the line at juggling) . Perhaps i could send you some stuff(loops and noodles) to add something to?

Speak soon

Matt

Speak Soon
www.mattstevensguitar.com
mattstevensguitar@btinternet.com

Saturday, 27 March 2010

Podcasting Noodles and Twitter Chords

Hello

Still lying down while typing. Progress on back is steady but sure - should be up playing soon hopefully.

I did this interview with Unsigned Underground Podcast recently - was fun, i'm talking about a lot of social media ideas and looping.

Also this weekend I'm Beta Testing a project for later in year - its an online music venue using web streaming technology - get involved here

The twitter chords project is still going really well - if you want to get involved you have until the 5th of April - after that i'm going to post them all as a podcast for the Sunday free Noodle.

Heres some of the Twitter Chords recording from this week:

Alun Vaughan - magnificent solo bass version

An Untaxed Hat by AlunVaughan

Tom Slatter did this version

&amp;amp;lt;a href="http://tomslatter.bandcamp.com/track/last-sunlight" mce_href="http://tomslatter.bandcamp.com/track/last-sunlight" mce_href="http://tomslatter.bandcamp.com/track/last-sunlight"&amp;amp;gt;Last Sunlight by Tom Slatter&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt;

Vonaxenbourg did this version and blogged about the process here

&lt;a href="http://music.vonaxenbourg.net/track/canary-on-a-color-wheel" mce_href="http://music.vonaxenbourg.net/track/canary-on-a-color-wheel"&gt;Canary on a Color Wheel by vonaxenbourg&lt;/a&gt;

And My friend Matt sent me a great chart he's done and Andy Long also sent me Fantastic Solo bass Version.

All very interesting

Speak soon

Matt

Friday, 26 March 2010

New Music!! More supportive podcasters and bloggers

Its been an odd time - still! Physio progress is helping my back (a bit) but progress is still slow - hoping to be playing and gigging again soon thou and at least we're getting there.

My album Echo is still being downloaded(as is the Fierce and The Dead) - which is amazing. I really like the way its become a word of mouth thing being passed around the web by people. All my music from the last ten years is here now.

My second album is still on the way - Kev is mixing at the moment. Then we shall see where we are at and if we need to record any more bits. He is one we are working on at the moment called Ghost - this is an un mix -not even a rough mix straight off the board:

Matt Stevens Ghost by mattstevensguitar

I like the way you can add comments to part of the track on the sound cloud player.

Some more bloggers and podcasters that have supported me:

Six String Bliss
Headphonenaught
Headspace
Reviewbru

My friend Alun Vaughan wrote in his blog about the remix he did for Burning Bandstands - interesting stuff...

Cool - i will do an update on the Twitter Chords project tomorrow.

Speak soon

MAtt

Sunday, 21 March 2010

Sunday Free Noodle 7

This week’s noodle is:

Matt Stevens(speech)/Kevin Feazey (speech) - Song at the end is The Fierce And The Dead Part 1 - a very shortened edit!

This is myself and Kev talking about the Fierce and The Dead and how it came about. The quality is a bit variable!

Please let me know what you think of this and if you would like to do a remix or collaborate give me a shout.

More noodles next week

You can hear the Fierce and the dead track in full here

You can hear the original version of Snow here

Please let me know what you think of this and if you would like to do a remix give me a shout. More noodles next week.

Subscribe to my podcast feed here and get the Sunday Free Noodle every week:

Speak Soon
www.mattstevensguitar.com
mattstevensguitar@btinternet.com

Thursday, 18 March 2010

Sad news - Alex Chilton - Genius Songwriter

Wednesday, 17 March 2010

Are any more stems going to be available besides Bandstands?

Yup - very soon - some of the stems from the first album are "missing" at the moment but i am hoping to make all the songs from the second album available to remix.

Ask me anything

Monday, 15 March 2010

From the reply you left about practising 8 hours a day but not becoming the best shredder in the world - Do you think 30 minutes of practising with an agenda and goals is better than 8 hours of playing without any clear goals?

Umm I did get scary fast when I about 16-17 but i soon found out it was pointless and not very musical. I think focused practice is better and now i have a little routine where I play a warm up then scales in all positions, then some Bach, then some improvisation. So to answer your question yes focused practice is the best. I think if i had carried on doing the 8 hours day practice the way I was I would have been a good "shredder" but I discovered Johnny Marr, The Beatles, Portishead, Radiohead and realised that what I really loved was chords and Harmony and composition.

Ask me anything

Podcasters and blogger are great part 2

ts been a weird few months as I have been stuck either lying on the floor with a laptop on my chest or doing Physio. Very odd but i am slowly getting moving again.

Here is a podcast from NickTann from last week which features lots of swearing(not by me) and some of my music, other great music and me talking about the 1000 True Fans concept.

The mighty Progopolis Podcast played all of the Fierce and The Dead single and Dolls house one after the other - amazing!

Just wanted to use this blog to say thank you to the following blogger and podcasters for supporting my music in the last few weeks:

Podcasts

Indie Radio Chattanooga

Bloggers

Progressive Rock Reviews

What are you listening to?

Biblical Christianity

Magazines

And someone else made this nice youtube playlist.

Thank you - you are nice!

Matt

Sunday, 14 March 2010

Sunday Free Noodle 6

This week’s noodle is:

Matt Stevens(guitars/loops)/Alun Vaughan (Bass/Keys/Programming/Production) - Burning Bandstands(Alun Vaughan Remix)(original engineer K Feazey)

This a great remix of Burning Bandstands off Echo by bassist, and composer Alun Vaughan. Love the Bass playing - hes really melodic and interesting as a musician. If you ever get a chance to see him play solo bass it’s well worth it and he also plays in the fine progressive beat combo Panic Room plus he has pretty much the busiest gigging schedule of any musician i know.

Love the distort on the acoustic guitar and the amazing bass passage half way thru, excellent stuff.

Please let me know what you think of this and if you would like to do a remix give me a shout.

More noodles next week.

Please let me know what you think of this and if you would like to do a remix give me a shout. More noodles next week.

Subscribe to my podcast feed here and get the Sunday Free Noodle every week:

Speak Soon
www.mattstevensguitar.com
mattstevensguitar@btinternet.com

Saturday, 13 March 2010

A Cover of Snow

An interesting day - my friend Rainer Strashill - who did the Snow Remix did a cool ustream concert today - he did an acoustic piano cover of my song Snow its about 31 minutes into the video if you would like to see it. It was a very cool experience to hear someone improvise around my themes and he did a blinding job. Thank you Rainer.

If you want to hear the original version of Snow Part 3 you can here

If you want to here the Fierce and the Dead Version of Snow Part 1 you can here

Speak soon

Matt

Hey man,you're hard to reach. I reviewed your fantastic album echo on the last Indie Radio Chattanooga http://www.indieradiochattanooga.com you are a fantastic artist and musician. -Jimi Lee indieradiochattanooga@gmail.com

Thanks SO much I will have a listen!!!

Ask me anything

Friday, 12 March 2010

The oddest food you like to eat regularly

Greggs (generally and I shouldn't)

Ask me anything

What are you listening to most nowadays?

Explosions In The Sky, Datapuddle, Bob Mould, Napalm Death, King Crimson at the moment

Ask me anything

Who inspired you to start playing music?

Guns N Roses, Iron Maiden lots of old metal stuff really. I REALLY wanted it - i used to practice 8 hours a day -I was rubbish but I loved it so much that I would not stop.

(never did get to be Slash thou)

Ask me anything

Updates on The Twitter Chords, TFATD and other stuff

Morning all

2 Days ago I posted the chord progression twitter wrote.

Some chords that my friends on twitter put together as a collaboration - Em/Em7 - Am7 - FMaj7#11 - Cma7#11 - nice.

I'm really please to say some people have come with some music based on these chords:

My friend Alex - mr Lextrical who releases a new song EVERY DAY came up with this - the backwards sounds re great:

Afraid of the Light by lextrical

And my friend Tom from Comrade Robot came up with this lovely sketch based on these chords. Its called Last Sunlight.

How cool is that? If you are up for doing something else with these chords please do - always great to hear - i'm going to post them all around the 20th of March so before then would be good.

Also the Fierce and The Dead(my other project) is looking for ideas for a video for this song. Send your ideas via the Fierce And The Dead website(please).

Also I think I have a title for the second song - there are some discussions about it here

Speak soon -

MS

Tuesday, 9 March 2010

The Chord Progression Twitter made

Last night I asked my twitter friends to come up with some chords. I suggested Em as a start:

The chord progression Twitter made is - Em/Em7 - Am7 - FMaj7#11 - Cma7#11

With contributions from .@ashxyz @miniontv @solobasssteve @alunvaughan and others the above is what we made.

Now what do we do with it - do you fancy making some music with it - any tempo - style - time signature you fancy - perhaps we could post the result on this blog/your blog/any blog you fancy - what do you think? Shall we say by the 20th of March?

Ok - lets see what happens.........

Sunday, 7 March 2010

Sunday Free Noodle 5

Hello!
This week’s noodle is:

Matt Stevens(guitars/loops)/Rainer Straschill (Electronics/Melodica) - Snow (Part 3)(Rainer Straschill Remix)

This a great remix of Snow off Echo by multi-instrumentalist, looper and composer Rainer Straschill, an excellent and interesting musician.
I really like the electronic atmosphere on this, brilliant work.
I love remixes because they give you a really new perspective on your stuff. Top Job.

Please let me know what you think of this and if you would like to do a remix give me a shout.
More noodles next week.

Subscribe to my podcast feed here and get the Sunday Free Noodle every week:

Speak Soon www.mattstevensguitar.com

mattstevensguitar@btinternet.com

Friday, 5 March 2010

Share your music

This week has been really amazing in terms of the way the Fierce and the dead has been rec'd by listeners, a wonderful response and the way they have shared it with others and how it has spread around the web. Great stuff - if you haven't heard it its here.

So what I thought I'd do was share some music that I like. This is Nick Tann's podcast that features lots of new music(caution features lots of swearing) - features me talking about social media:

This is Steve Lawson and Mike Outram, a preview of there forthcoming collaboration - brilliant stuff, looking forward to the finished album:

Rough Mix of 1st Track from forthcoming Steve Lawson/Mike Outram album by solobasssteve This is Alun Vaughan a friend and a fantastic solo bassist - however hes just a great all round musician:

I'm going to do this again as there are loads more artists i want to play you Phill Wain, Neil Alexander, Lextrical, Russ Sargent, Cross The Border, Atmos Trio, Menn Arsins, Improvizone, Jeff Duke, King Never etc etc etc Please feel free to share your music here in the comments - its always great to hear it. Matt Stevens www.mattstevensguitar.com mattstevensguitar@btinternet.com

Thursday, 4 March 2010

6 Music

How can they say they are focusing on quality when BBC3 exhists!!! Hotter Then My Mum?? Whats next monkey Tennis!!!

Email from BBC Trust RE: The closure of 6 Music

Thank you for contacting the BBC Trust, the governing body of the BBC, with your concerns about the future of the radio station 6Music.

As you may be aware, the proposal to close the station has come from the Director-General Mark Thompson as part of a wide ranging review of the BBC’s future strategy.

In July last year the BBC Trust challenged the Director-General to address questions about the scope of the BBC’s activities, focusing on how the BBC can most effectively deliver its public service mission and meet audience needs as well as deliver value for money. The full strategy, which is now available on the Trust’s website, is the Executive’s response to this challenge.

As part of his proposals to the Trust, which are focused on increasing the quality of the BBC’s output and setting a new direction for the BBC, the Director-General has proposed closing 6Music. The Trust is now consulting on all of these proposals, and we welcome your views.

We will of course take your email as a contribution to our consultation. Should you wish to know more about the overall strategy review and our public consultation, there is more information on the Trust’s website at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/our_work/strategy_review/index.shtml

To be clear, a decision on whether or not to close 6Music will need to be made by the BBC Trust and we will consider any formal proposal to do so very carefully.

Our consultation is open until 25 May 2010.

BBC Trust Unit

From: Matt Stevens [mailto:mattstevensguitar@btinternet.com]
Sent: 02 March 2010 10:47
To: Trust Enquiries
Subject: 6 Music

How can the bbc support new music when you close the biggest outlet for it!!!

A disaster for indie musicians.

Yours

Matt Stevens
www.mattstevensguitar.com

Tuesday, 2 March 2010

Fierce and the dead

The debut Fierce and the Dead single is out today, its Snow part one. Its a 19 minute epic and features:

On guitar its me, bass and keys and loops Kevin Feazey and on the drums its Stuart Marshall

Its available as a "pay what you want" download from band camp just click here to have a listen:

It was recorded last year before my back injury as part of the sessions for my second album but it kind of became its own thing. I enjoyed playing electric for a change - was much fun recording it and the interaction with the other players as opposed to my solo stuff was great.

Kev took the semi improvised tracks and added keyboards and some cut up loops etc.

Lots of fun indeed.

If you would like to hear the original version of snow its here, track 5 on my album which is also available as a "pay what you like" download:

I hope you enjoy it

Matt

Tuesday, 30 March 2010

Monday, 29 March 2010

Sunday, 28 March 2010

Saturday, 27 March 2010

Friday, 26 March 2010

Sunday, 21 March 2010

Thursday, 18 March 2010

Wednesday, 17 March 2010

Monday, 15 March 2010

Sunday, 14 March 2010

Saturday, 13 March 2010

Friday, 12 March 2010

Tuesday, 9 March 2010

Sunday, 7 March 2010

Friday, 5 March 2010

Thursday, 4 March 2010

Tuesday, 2 March 2010

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