From: owner-avalon-digest@smoe.org (avalon-digest) To: avalon-digest@smoe.org Subject: avalon-digest V12 #493 Reply-To: avalon@smoe.org Sender: owner-avalon-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-avalon-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk avalon-digest Friday, November 14 2008 Volume 12 : Number 493 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [AVALON] Firebird V11 Launch Showcase [Andy Cooper Subject: [AVALON] Firebird V11 Launch Showcase Dear Avalonians, I was very lucky this week.....I won a ticket to the Launch Showcase for Phil's new album Firebird V11 here in London last night (Wednesday night)!!! Woo hoo - lucky me!!! Well, what can I say but, what a night! The ticket said 'plus one' so I called Jocelyn up who luckily was able to come along. The event was held at the Gibson guitars showroom, a cosy little venue, and drinks started at 18:30. So there we were - at the door at 18:30, straight upstairs to find Phil and his band jamming/warming up already. Free beers in hand we stood listening to some great axe work, obviously (probably) somewhat infuenced by recent Gilmour touring. The crowd started building up and hanging back at the back of the room. As it was a 'showcase' it seemed that most people knew each other and were from the 'trade'. We seemed to be in the minority as perhaps only a few people in the room were JUST fans like us two. Canapes and nibbles came around on trays and the warm up finished and Phil and the band left the room to do some TV interviews in another room. We stood around listening to tracks from the new Manzo CD and DVD compilation album on the sound system and chatted. Jocelyn spotted Bill and a few others of the Manzo crowd. What a good job I had invited her because I wouldn't have recognised them on my tod :-) After about 40mins of nibbles and drinks, the band came back on and Phil asked everyone to 'come down the front or we won't play for you'. Phil introduced the band and the themes behind the album and tracks and mentioned that it was recorded in a week (as he said unlike a Roxy album, which got a crowd reaction). There was a wonderful Polish keyboardist Leszek Mozdzer that Phil had met on the Gilmour tour in Gdansk who was fab, a great bassist (also from the same country and acquaintance) called Yaron Stavi, and a drummer who Phil used to go to school with called Charles Hayward that he re-met recently after a twenty year gap when they were both in a queue at Gatwick Airport. This band rocked! Despite some howl-round probs they launched into an amusing little number penned by Bill from 1970/71 called 'Fortunately I Had One With Me'......hmmm, wonder what he meant by that?! This was followed by Phil explaining an improv session he had used to come up with another track at the recording sessions. Phil had told them each to write some chords out on paper, cut up the paper, put them all in a Mexican Hat he just happened to have sitting around the studio, pick four chords each out of the Mexican Hat, stick the four chords back together in any sequence and turn up the next day at the studios with whatever instrument they wanted to play the chords with. They were all apparently in separate cubicles at the studio so couldn't see each other to interact and just played their thing in a sort of jam session. This was committed to the 'tape' and became an album track. Then they had to learn the improv to be able to recreate it live!! They duly launched into a weird and wonderful track called Mexican Hat - wonder why? - with snippets of BBC World Service radio in it and all sorts of other strange noises. Next was Firebird V11, the title track and then another one and then it was all over. We stood around with a few more beers, I managed to get Phil's attention long enough to get an autograph and we spent some time chatting to Bill and his daughter. It seems the Roxy project is still waiting for lyrics from you know who..... :-( So - in summary a fab evening with Jocelyn at Phil's do. I felt very privileged to have won the ticket from an Amazon competition. A definite high point in my week!!! (Getting home to my bed at 00:30 at my age was a defintely low point! - A bit fuzzy headed in the office this morning I can tell you...) Cheers all Andy C. _________________________________________________________________ Win #1000 John Lewis shopping sprees with BigSnapSearch.com http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/117442309/direct/01/ ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 11:05:39 -0500 From: jocelynfiske@aol.com Subject: Re: [AVALON] Firebird V11 Launch Showcase >I was very lucky this week.....I won a ticket to the Launch Showcase for Phil's new album Firebird V11 here in London last night (Wednesday night)!!! Woo hoo - lucky me!!! And I was even luckier to be a plus one - massive thanks to you Andy for your kind invitation. There we were surrounded by what must have been thousands of pounds worth of Gibson guitar hero memorabilia hung nonchalantly around the walls listening to Roxy chugging and Pink Floyd noodling. I'm not a fan of the latter but it worked really well in this intimate setting. In fact, I was so impressed I bought the album. Andy's pretty much summed up the entire evening musically - just a couple of asides. The start of Mexican Hat featured a tape of 'the owner of a Mexican restaurant around the corner describing in Mexican how the track was recorded." and Lesek Mozdzer, the pianist, put glasses and beer bottles across his strings as a 'treatment'. He would be a great addition to a live Roxy tour, bringing some much needed freshness back to that department. As would the effortless bassist Yaron Stavi (whom I mistook for security) if The Pratt Stand-Up Routine dates count him out of the running. Apparently, Lesek is massive in Poland and if Phil plays there they will have to book an O2 size venue to accommodate all his fans! It seems Phil is very keen to tour again though and there was a suggestion that maybe Phil and Andy might think about going out on the road together as a Phil set/Andy set/Joint set triptych. If only F could get on with the lyrics we might even see Roxy out there again. Should we start a BowieNet type competition to help? Let's all write one line of lyrics each and cobble them together to make a new Roxy magnum opus. Hey, if it worked for Big D... So thanks again Andy for an unexpectedly great night out. Andy and the Mets next week. That's all of Roxy in one week, bar Ferry. Not unlike the progression of the next album. Jocelyn ________________________________________________________________________ AOL Email goes Mobile! You can now read your AOL Emails whilst on the move. Sign up for a free AOL Email account with unlimited storage today. ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon ------------------------------ End of avalon-digest V12 #493 ***************************** ======================================================================== For further info, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: info avalon-digest