Griff profile picture

Griff

...old enough to know better, too young to stop...

About Me

I started my bass playing career on double bass when at school as my closest friend at the time used to get to skive games lessons by having his bass lesson at that time every week. Naturally my lesson was at a different time so I still had to get stamped on playing rugby and so on. I eventually became sort of OK at the double bass and as an undergraduate at Magdalen College, Oxford, I played for numerous orchestras before getting drafted into a jazz ensemble called Junk Jazz and the Swing Kings who sometimes operated as a 6 piece but mainly as a big band. I bought my first bass guitar (a really nasty P-bass copy) to save my fingers getting blistered to bits when playing with the big band but I wasn't allowed to play it as the double bass looked cooler. OK, fair enough, but they then drafted in a bass guitarist so he could be heard and I could look the part. I left the band soon after this. I then formed a rock band with some other music student friends which mixed elements of punk, Abba and late Romantic French music (a punk version of Cesar Franck's Panis Angelicus). I'm still in a band with one member of this outfit, 15 years later. After university the band continued in one way, shape or form eventually recreating itself in Edinburgh. The current line up is The Xtras and you can follow the link to check the band out. This myspace site has some songs from previous incarnations of the band plus some new things I've worked on recently as "side projects" from The Xtras. On a couple of the songs Rich and Dan from The Xtras sing and play guitar with Jake Perry, our old drummer, playing kit. On others its me doing everything.As well as all the bass playing stuff I'm also a classically trained singer. I used to sing with the band but microphones and PAs don't agree with my voice so I stick to backing vocals. I've sung for Scottish Opera in the chorus and as a soloist with many pro and amateur operatic and choral societies. I also compose stuff and the website link opposite is to my sibeliusmusic.com site where there are orchestral, choral, vocal etc pieces. I've added a lead sheet for GONE WRONG which you can hear here. . The other thing I do is teach music at a school in Edinburgh. This is great as I can be doing Palestrina one lesson followed by Motorhead the next (or even in the same one if I can find a connection). I won't knowingly link to any of my current pupils on myspace for pretty obvious reasons but would be glad to hear from former pupils.
I edited my profile with Thomas Myspace Editor V4.4 (www.strikefile.com/myspace)

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 8/20/2006
Band Website: members.sibeliusmusic.com/griff
Band Members: As this is sort of a "solo" site and on some of the stuff I play everything here is a sort of "bandology" of all the bands I've been in over the years, both serious and less seriousJunk Jazz and the Swing Kings (1989 - 1991) - the reason I bought a bass guitar and they wouldn't let me play it! Fronted by a sax player called Wendy Herring and featuring the mighty Tim Watson on drum kit. He was a really big influence on the playing style of Nick O'Neill in ChainsawChainsaw (1990 - 1992) - finest band to play a mixture of Abba, puink and classical music ever heard in Oxford. Line up - me (bass/vocals), Rich Lewis (keyboards), Nick O'Neill (now keyboards with Jebo but drummer back then), Pete Wilman (guitar, now an opera singer with WNO last I heard), Steph Lewis (violin)The Beverley Others (1992) - pub band, one and only gig at The Eagle in Merthyr Tydfil. Apparently we sounded "like chips frying" Line up - me (bass, vocals and guitar), Gezze (guitar), Klaus (guitar), Marni (tambourine)Esoterica (1993) - Great name, great band... Line up - me (bass/vocals), Rich Lewis (keyboards), Brian Simpson (guitar), Andy Tullis (drums)The Key (1993-94) - Did our first "proper" recording session with this line up. Brandon is one of the most naturally talented musicians I've ever played with. Met him again recently after many years and it was good to see him and play with him again Line up - as Esoterica but with Brandon Walker (now of The Conviction) on guitar and latterly Pete Lewis on vocalsThe Cry (1994 - 1995) - shortlived incarnation of the band but pretty good nonetheless Line up - me (bass), Rich Lewis (vocals and keyboards), Brandon Walker (guitar), Johnnie McLean (drums)Bliss (1995) - Yet another great name but it was a great band. Line up - me (bass), Rich Lewis (vocals and keyboards), Dan Davis (guitar), Jake Perry (drums)Stride (1995-1998) - A slightly better name which we only changed as we had to. Most successful incarnation of the band so far unless The Xtras get anywhere Line up - as BlissThe Xtras (2006-) The current version of the band, still with me and Rich Lewis. You'd think we'd know better by now. Line up - as Stride but with Keith Haldane playing drums live and Ali Murray of the Graeme Mearns Band on the recordingZoodoo (2006) - OK, I don't really belong in this band, they're some of my senior pupils, but, just in case they become rich and famous, I played keyboards for them at the Halloween(ish) Rock Nite 2006, November 3rd. And djembe on "Tiki Hut" when they recorded it! Line up - Andy Lyon (bass/vocals), Ruairidh Finnigan (guitar/vocals), Eddy Crawford (drums/vocals), me (keyboard for "Ghostbusters" and "Bad Touch" by the Bloodhound Gang) Inspired Lunacy (2006) - OK, they're another band of senior pupils but I did play drums for their recording Silence is Golden when Tobi was ill and now they've won a Battle of the Bands I'll take any fame by association. "The Uprising" is their ultimate song, though. It's terrific!!!! CCJ (2008) - again, predictably, some senior pupils that I played bass with for their last before leaving school and more recently I was dragged out of the audience at a gig at the Forest Cafe in Edinburgh to pluck some bass with them. Great band, great lads, great songs.
Influences: A huge number of influences in no particular order:Lemmy (Motorhead), Alan Lancaster (original Status Quo bassist), Rhino Edwards (current Quo bassist) Kelly Groucett (ELO), Nicky Wire (Manics), Guigsy (original Oasis bassist), Flea (Chillis), Mani (Stone Roses),the guy out of Rage Against the Machine whose name escapes me at the moment, , Walter Page (Count Basie band), Chris Wolstenholme (Muse), Johnny Colt (original Black Crowes bassist), Lenny Kravitz (let's face it he's multi talented and can do the lot from play the bass to produce the album but he really is some player), Steve Harris (Iron Maiden), Geezer Butler (Sabbath), Noel Redding (Hendrix), Bootsy Collins (all the funk stuff), Bruce Foxton (the Jam), JJ Burnel (Stranglers), Sid Vicious & Glen Matlock (Pistols. OK Sid couldn't play but he looked the part), a guy called Dafydd who used to play in the Mid Glamorgan Youth Orchestra (on trombone) who always brought his bass guitar on residential courses and played Bach 2-part inventions on it, Diane Thomas (my old double bass teacher), Big Ger (another bass teacher), Cleaton (got me into bass), Sholto Burns (no a journalist with Telegraph or something but at university we played in a jazz band together briefly, him on electric bass for the sound, me on double bass to look "cool" whilst getting blisters like smarties on my pizzicato fingers) and most definitely NOT Mark King out of Level 42. Other musical influences (ie non bass related) include Bartok, Shostakovich, Britten, Bruckner, Bach, Tom Lehrer, Spike Jones and his City Slickers and ABBA.
Type of Label: None

My Blog

Pitlochry Autumn Festival

If anyone is in Pitlochry, Perthshire, for the Enchanted Forest between 19th and 22nd October you can check me out playing for free somewhere on the streets in town (exact location tbc). As part of t...
Posted by Griff on Sun, 28 Sep 2008 08:05:00 PST

A bit of blues

It's chucking it down here in Edinburgh so I've done a blues song. OK, the lyrics were written in 1997 but the mood remains! It's different to most of the rest of my stuff but, after seeing Status Q...
Posted by Griff on Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:51:00 PST

Acoustic songs added

The summer holiday is here so obviously I have nothing better to do than mess about with songs! I've added acoustic versions of a couple of songs I wrote ages ago. "Valley of the Blind" will be fami...
Posted by Griff on Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:58:00 PST

New song added, hope you like it

Each year at this time I produce a charity CD with my pupil bands but always include one of my own tracks just to prove to myself I can still write something. Whether what I've written is any good or...
Posted by Griff on Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:00:00 PST

New Myspace for my "classical" stuff

After adding a Christmas carol back in December I decided to go the whole hog and dedicate a myspace area to my "classical" (in the loosest sense) output. Come and have a listen if you fancy somethin...
Posted by Griff on Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:25:00 PST

Christmas Music Added!!!

Whilst looking at some old mp3 files I happened across a Christmas Carol I wrote for na Clarsairean, the Clarsach Orchestra (a clarsach is a small, Scottish Harp) numerous years ago and, given that it...
Posted by Griff on Sun, 23 Dec 2007 03:26:00 PST

100 friends!

It seems that I now have 100 myspace friends. That's more than in the real world, I think. Let's all go for a pint some time.
Posted by Griff on Sat, 24 Nov 2007 03:12:00 PST

1000 views

It seems like I've had my page viewed 1000 times, and only 900 or those views by me or members of my immediate family! Wow, isn't the internet wonderful.
Posted by Griff on Sun, 29 Jul 2007 07:29:00 PST

Hope you like the new song

I've just added "Inside a Lie" instead of "Nothing to Say". Hope you like it. For once the lyrics actually mean something but I'm not prepared to say what it is.
Posted by Griff on Sat, 23 Jun 2007 05:12:00 PST

New Old track added

Thought I'd stick another new "old" song in the form of "The Smile in the Sky" from Stride days.  Written at 12:03 in the morning in 5 minutes when Rich complained that all my songs were miserabl...
Posted by Griff on Fri, 26 Jan 2007 08:30:00 PST