2016 NEWS
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Winter 2016 News
12th November 2016
STRAWBS NEWS
Over the next few weeks I'll be practicing for the forthcoming Strawbs UK dates in Frome and Bognor Regis (the latter of which will be filmed by Vintage TV). It will be great to see the guys again. There will be extensive touring with the band in the UK and USA between March and May next year, by which time the Strawbs Live in Gettysburg DVD/CD, which we recorded earlier this year at RosFest, will be out. Further details at www.strawbsweb.co.uk
CELESTIAL FIRE DVD
I've now mixed the first set for the Celestial Fire band DVD/CD and will be continuing on with set 2 when I have time over the next month or so. We're hoping to have the music mastered in January and video edits done asap we can. Despite only being the band's 2nd ever gig I think it's sounding great and we're hoping that when promoters see footage of the band we'll be able to get a lot more interest. One thing we're considering is making it available on usb sticks and online via a film streaming service. Let me know (via Facebook or email) if these are options you'd like to see, so we can gauge numbers/interest.
LIFESIGNS CARDINGTON ALBUM
It was fantastic to see that the target for the crowdfunding campaign for this album was met within 48 hours! Well done to the guys! I'll be recording some more guitars for the album in the coming weeks.
ALPHA & OMEGA
The concerts in The Netherlands of Adrian Snell's epic work last month went great and I'll be mixing the album for a spring release. Depending on the results of pre-order sales from the concerts plus a new Dutch crowdfunding campaign, I'm hoping there will be enough budget to not only make this a record of the live performance, but to be able to expand on the live recordings with studio overdubs (additional strings etc), to make this the definitive version of the work for the 21st century!
What's new in Dave World!
12th October 2016
The past 4 months or so have been incredibly busy - here are a few of the highlights plus news of what's coming up! (you may need to grab a coffee!).
DAVE AND SALLY DUO DATES
Early in the summer we did a short run of duo dates, which were great fun and very well received. The highlight was undoubtedly playing in a beautiful old church in the small village or Barham, near Canterbury, with our sound engineer for the night being the legendary Simon Nichol from Fairport Convention! We're just booking more duo (and Celestial Fire band dates) for next year. If you'd be interesting in hosting one head over to the Contact section.
SUMMER OF 66
It was a great honour to be asked to be part of the house band for the 50th anniversary concert of the Windsor Jazz and Blues festival, widely regarded as the first ever 'proper' rock festival. Some of the artists who were at the original concert on the same site at Windsor Racecourse were there! It was great playing keys for PP Arnold, Chris Farlowe, Cliff Bennett and rising star Mollie Marriott (daughter of the late Steve Marriott), as well as doing a Cream tribute section with my old friend Norman Beaker (with whom I played with the late, lamented Jack Bruce back in the late '80's and early '90's). Keith Emerson was PP's keys player back in the '60's and it was especially moving to do a piano/voice version of Moody's Mood for Love, which Keith had especially loved PP's version of. Good to see Donovan and The Manfreds playing too!
GREAT FUN ON THE CELESTIAL FIRE TOUR
Most of August was spent preparing for the Celestial Fire Band UK dates, and then we had the band rehearsals at my studio in early September, prior to the tour dates. The tour was great fun and, despite smaller than hoped for audiences, it was very well received and we've had some fantastic feedback. We all felt more prepared this time round and introduced some new tracks into the set, including 'Innocence Found' from the Celestial Fire album, and the long suite 'Wind, Water and Fire'. It was the first time that the latter (a piece from the Iona album 'The Circling Hour') had ever been performed live.
This time we were able to take our own sound engineer on tour with us, the fabulous Paul Smith (Strawbs, Fairport, Robert Plant etc, etc!), and also introduced a few new instruments to the set: Sally brought along the tenor recorder that had been used by her dad when he was in Gentle Giant, Dave (Brons) and Frank both had new, great sounding TC Helicon processors for their acoustic guitar/vocals/violin, and Simon featured more Chapman Stick playing.
I felt that the band was really beginning to gell so well this time and I couldn't wish to be with a nicer bunch of people! We're hoping that once the Celestial Fire Live dvd is available, and promoters can see just how good this band is, that we will be able to get a lot more gigs and general interest. (We will be starting pre-orders for the dvd soon so stay tuned!).
SESSIONS
I recently played electric guitar and bouzouki on a great new album called 'Celtish' by my friends Nigel and Julie Cameron. They are fantastic musicians and the album is very much in the traditional Irish folk vein, though one track I played on is a sort of Gary Moore tribute and I did my best to try and capture the spirit of his incredible, incenduary playing. You can pre-order it from http://www.soundsofwonder.org/shop
Things have been a bit quiet on the Strawbs front as Dave, Dave and Chas have been doing loads of Acoustic dates, but there are a couple of Electric band dates in December (see gig guide) and then next March to May there will be some UK dates (including the HRH Festival in Wales) and another US tour. Chas has also been mixing our performance at RosFest last May for a forthcoming live DVD to be called Strawbs Live in Gettysburg, which will be the first Strawbs album I'll have played on! More info coming soon at:
http://www.strawbsweb.co.uk/
NEW VINTAGE GUITAR / IK MULTIMEDIA / CARVIN
Thanks to my association with JHS/Vintage Guitars, from who I got the fabulous Blug Amp 1 compact 100 watt valve amp last year, I will be taking delivery of their wonderful sounding and looking Paul Brett 12 string travel guitar in a few weeks time, which will be a superb addition, especially for recording. See
http://www.jhs.co.uk/products/guitars-folk-instruments/acoustic-guitars/vintage/vintage-viator-paul-brett-12-string-electro-acoustic-travel-guitar-natural
And check out Paul's video demo.
Also, thanks to my good friend Jason at IK Multimedia, I been using some of IK's incredible new plug ins extensively both live and in the studio, notably Sampletank 3 (great and ever expanding general sound palette), Miroslav 2 (beautiful orchestral collection), Amplitube 4 (superb sounding guitar fx/amps which I used live for the first time on the Celestial Fire dates) and their TRacks studio fx, which are in constant use when I'm mixing. For more info see:
Another instrument I've been using a lot on recent recordings (including to get the Gary Moore type Les Paul sound on the Celtish album and on parts on the Lifesigns album) is my Carvin CT624 electric guitar, which sounds and plays superbly. Anyone in mainland Europe should check out the Carvin range - great instruments that are significantly cheaper than some of the other comparable high end manufacturers. Good deals available at my friend Pat's great shop: http://musicalbox.ch/
Celestial Fire 2016 UK Tour
(featuring Dave Bainbridge, Sally Minnear, Dave Brons, Frank van Essen, Simon Fitzpatrick)
Friday 9th September - Fibbers, York
www.fibbers.co.uk/live-events/detail/celestial-fire/
Saturday 10th September - Wesley Centre, Maltby www.classicrocksociety.co.uk/shop/celestial-fire/
Sunday 11th September - Half Moon, Putney, London
Monday 12th September - The Robin 2, Bilston
www.therobin.co.uk/whats_on/giginfo.asp?gigid=4537
Great review in Prog Magazine!
4th April 2016
There's a very positive review of 'The Remembering' solo piano cd in the April issue (no.65) of Prog magazine! Here's a quote from it:
"Bainbridge's style is contemporary, yet imbued with the dynamic spirit of Ravel and Debussy, with a thrilling dash of Bill Evans....an album that's pure class from first note till last."
Tim, Iona's webmaster, is working on making the download version available in the next day or so, so please check the Iona webstore soon if you'd prefer that to the cd version, which is already available at www.iona.uk.com/albums/detail/id/34/the-remembering-solo-piano
'The Remembering' album just released
9th March 2016
"Much of the music I write begins its life in the form of a piano improvisation, hastily jotted down on manuscript paper or recorded on whatever device I have to hand. Being busy for many years with the band Iona and myriad other musical projects, the thought of doing a solo piano album never really occurred to me. It was during the recording of the Iona album ‘Journey into the Morn’ in 1995 that bassist Tim Harries suggested the idea to me. I thought that if such an incredible musician like Tim, who has played with many of the world’s greatest musicians, felt I had something meaningful to say through a solo piano album, then it must, at some point, be an idea worth exploring.
Fast forward to 2013 and the crowdfunding campaign for my album ‘Celestial Fire’, on which I rashly offered to record solo piano renditions of any Iona track that funders requested. The response was very positive and over the next year I recorded about 15 tracks - including a 26 minute long piano version of the whole of the ‘Snowdonia Suite’, music I had written (performed by Iona) for a BBC TV Natural History programme.
The idea of doing a solo piano album began to resurface. Originally I thought that it would consist entirely of these new piano versions of the Iona songs, but then the more I played, the more I realised that I wanted to release an album of music that was mainly spontaneously improvised. For me, this is where the real essence and soul of what communicates itself through my music manifests itself."
Dave
*The Remembering is available from www.iona.uk.com
where you can also hear extracts from all the tracks.
Strawbs UK & USA Tours
9th March 2016
After a fun warm up gig with The Strawbs in The Royal Oak pub in Hampton in front of some die hard Strawbs fans (I think I passed the audition!), I had a great time playing keyboards with the band on the Moodies Cruise sailing around Florida Keys and the Bahamas. We did two performances which went down really well and it was nice to meet and hear some great bands on the cruise, including a band that had a huge impact on my early musical education - Vanilla Fudge.
Next up are 6 UK dates in April and a full USA tour throughout May. I hope some of you will be able to make it along. The band is sounding great and it's a real privilege to be following in the footsteps of previous esteemed keyboard players like Rick, Adam and Oliver Wakeman, Blue Weaver, John Hawken and Don Airey! Further details on the tour dates at www.strawbsweb.co.uk
Celestial Fire Band etc news
9th March 2016
After really enjoying the first ever Celestial Fire band gigs last Autumn, we're currently arranging a few more for the UK for this September. Details coming soon. I'm hoping the Celestial Fire Live DVD (filmed and recorded in York) will be out by then, though I have a really busy schedule over the coming months!
As well as touring with The Strawbs, I'm still working on a 2 cd concept album for Mexican guitarist Pablo Ortiz (from the great band Flairck) called Cronofonia, and have live dates with Adrian Snell and Barry and Batya Segal. There is now also one Iona date in the diary - playing at a festival in the Czech Republic in June! More details on that as soon as I have them!