Post by Dan on Oct 8, 2009 7:06:19 GMT -5
Ian Anderson: A long time on the road
Jethro Tull founder hopes for some down time after current acoustic tour
Thursday, October 8, 2009
By Brian McElhiney (Contact)
Gazette Reporter
Ian Anderson, the front man for Jethro Tull since the band formed in 1967, will play acoustic Tull tunes Friday night at Proctors.Text Size: A | A | A
U.S. Jethro Tull fans, listen up — catch principal member Ian Anderson at a show here while you still can, because after next year you might not be able to.
“I’ll be back [with Jethro Tull] before my current work visa runs out, but I’m debating whether I can be bothered to get a new one — it’s such a hassle,” Anderson said, while in his studio in England, in the midst of some last-minute preparations for his coming U.S. solo tour. The two-month jaunt, billed as “Ian Anderson plays the Acoustic Jethro Tull,” heads to Proctors on Friday.
“At the airports, now I’m made to feel like Cat Stevens or something. I do get resentful of the fact that, not always, but sometimes people can be really quite rude to you coming into the USA. You know, just because I have a beard does not make me a terrorist or whatever.”
After four decades fronting one of the most revered (and criticized) hard/progressive rock bands, Anderson is understandably focusing on what makes him happy now. After almost three straight years of nonstop touring, playing close to 120 shows a year both solo and with Jethro Tull, Anderson is hoping for a bit of a break next year.
Ian Anderson
When: 8 p.m. Friday
Where: Proctors, 432 State St., Schenectady
How Much: $62, $52, $35, $20
More Info: 346-6204, www.proctors.org
“If you don’t enjoy it, don’t do it,” Anderson said. “I’m a little bit old to be filling out all those bloody forms. I’ll just stay at home more; I need to spend more time with my wife and cats, watching things grow in the garden. Not to sound negative, but taking it down from 120 shows a year, to maybe 90, just so I have a little bit of free time.”
No rest yet
Either way, it will be a while before Anderson has any time to relax. After the U.S. tour wraps in November, Anderson will bring a Christmas Jethro Tull set to Germany with his solo backing band, featuring guitarist Florian Opahle, pianist and accordionist John O’Hara, bassist David Goodier and special guest violist Meena Bhasin. Jethro Tull tours the U.K. in March, and dates are already starting to come in for a U.S. Jethro Tull tour next year.
In between performing commitments, Anderson hopes to continue recording in his studio. His last recorded output, “The Jethro Tull Christmas Album” and solo record “Rupi’s Dance,” was released in 2003. But he has continued writing and recording during the interim.
“I’ve been in and out of the studio doing various recordings over the last two years,” he said. “I have about an hour’s worth of music recorded, but not completed or mixed.”
He hopes to have an album out sometime next year. The reason for the delay comes down to the sheer difficulty of getting everyone in the studio together at the same time. At this point, Anderson isn’t sure if the next album will be a new Jethro Tull record or a solo outing.
“After touring, everyone’s not that keen to turn around and make a studio album,” he said. “We don’t all live in London; the U.K. is a moderate sized little country; there are some far-flung areas, and some of the band lives in those far-flung areas. Our drummer [Doane Ethredge Perry] is in Los Angeles, so getting folks together is very difficult. No one wants to be away on tour for six weeks and then spend another six weeks in the studio away from their homes.”
Anderson recording solo, even for Jethro Tull albums, is nothing new — he’s been going into the studio by himself to record as far back as 1971’s classic “Aqualung” album.
“Certainly by ‘Aqualung’ in 1971, I was tending to go into the studio on my own, not to exclude other people, but I had a view as to how it should be,” Anderson said. “If I wanted it to be in the acoustic domain, that’s the way I did them.”
Acoustic musician
Despite Jethro Tull’s hard rock trappings, Anderson has always considered himself an acoustic musician. After all, he writes and performs all his material on acoustic guitar, mandolin and trademark flute, and dislikes playing electric guitar. Therefore, any Jethro Tull song is fair game for these solo shows — any song, that is, except for the ones Anderson doesn’t like.
“There are certainly a few songs I really, really wouldn’t want to do, because I don’t find any relevance to those songs, or they don’t resonate to me in terms of the lyrics or music,” he said.
“There are probably about, I should think, three to four fairly well-known Jethro Tull songs that I can confidently say no, I will never play those again, and then there’s some that I’m playing on the forthcoming tour that I’ve never played live at all from ’70, ’71.”
Outtakes from “Aqualung,” including “Just Trying to Be” and “March the Mad Scientist,” have found their way into the set list. At least two or three unrecorded new songs will also be performed at the solo tour shows.
New music
Anderson describes the new material as more acoustic-based than Jethro Tull, while still maintaining the sound Anderson has been cultivating for four decades.
“There’s some unmistakable essence about them that leads people to think of my work, without it being ‘Thick as a Brick’ part two, or ‘Aqualung’ part three,” he said.
“You try to keep common threads with your work, older ideas. I’m not trying to re-create some past style or concept, but occasionally it’s nice to make a little reference to things, like a line of lyrics, just to use or make reference to something you’ve done earlier is quite a nice thing to do.”
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Jethro Tull founder hopes for some down time after current acoustic tour
Thursday, October 8, 2009
By Brian McElhiney (Contact)
Gazette Reporter
Ian Anderson, the front man for Jethro Tull since the band formed in 1967, will play acoustic Tull tunes Friday night at Proctors.Text Size: A | A | A
U.S. Jethro Tull fans, listen up — catch principal member Ian Anderson at a show here while you still can, because after next year you might not be able to.
“I’ll be back [with Jethro Tull] before my current work visa runs out, but I’m debating whether I can be bothered to get a new one — it’s such a hassle,” Anderson said, while in his studio in England, in the midst of some last-minute preparations for his coming U.S. solo tour. The two-month jaunt, billed as “Ian Anderson plays the Acoustic Jethro Tull,” heads to Proctors on Friday.
“At the airports, now I’m made to feel like Cat Stevens or something. I do get resentful of the fact that, not always, but sometimes people can be really quite rude to you coming into the USA. You know, just because I have a beard does not make me a terrorist or whatever.”
After four decades fronting one of the most revered (and criticized) hard/progressive rock bands, Anderson is understandably focusing on what makes him happy now. After almost three straight years of nonstop touring, playing close to 120 shows a year both solo and with Jethro Tull, Anderson is hoping for a bit of a break next year.
Ian Anderson
When: 8 p.m. Friday
Where: Proctors, 432 State St., Schenectady
How Much: $62, $52, $35, $20
More Info: 346-6204, www.proctors.org
“If you don’t enjoy it, don’t do it,” Anderson said. “I’m a little bit old to be filling out all those bloody forms. I’ll just stay at home more; I need to spend more time with my wife and cats, watching things grow in the garden. Not to sound negative, but taking it down from 120 shows a year, to maybe 90, just so I have a little bit of free time.”
No rest yet
Either way, it will be a while before Anderson has any time to relax. After the U.S. tour wraps in November, Anderson will bring a Christmas Jethro Tull set to Germany with his solo backing band, featuring guitarist Florian Opahle, pianist and accordionist John O’Hara, bassist David Goodier and special guest violist Meena Bhasin. Jethro Tull tours the U.K. in March, and dates are already starting to come in for a U.S. Jethro Tull tour next year.
In between performing commitments, Anderson hopes to continue recording in his studio. His last recorded output, “The Jethro Tull Christmas Album” and solo record “Rupi’s Dance,” was released in 2003. But he has continued writing and recording during the interim.
“I’ve been in and out of the studio doing various recordings over the last two years,” he said. “I have about an hour’s worth of music recorded, but not completed or mixed.”
He hopes to have an album out sometime next year. The reason for the delay comes down to the sheer difficulty of getting everyone in the studio together at the same time. At this point, Anderson isn’t sure if the next album will be a new Jethro Tull record or a solo outing.
“After touring, everyone’s not that keen to turn around and make a studio album,” he said. “We don’t all live in London; the U.K. is a moderate sized little country; there are some far-flung areas, and some of the band lives in those far-flung areas. Our drummer [Doane Ethredge Perry] is in Los Angeles, so getting folks together is very difficult. No one wants to be away on tour for six weeks and then spend another six weeks in the studio away from their homes.”
Anderson recording solo, even for Jethro Tull albums, is nothing new — he’s been going into the studio by himself to record as far back as 1971’s classic “Aqualung” album.
“Certainly by ‘Aqualung’ in 1971, I was tending to go into the studio on my own, not to exclude other people, but I had a view as to how it should be,” Anderson said. “If I wanted it to be in the acoustic domain, that’s the way I did them.”
Acoustic musician
Despite Jethro Tull’s hard rock trappings, Anderson has always considered himself an acoustic musician. After all, he writes and performs all his material on acoustic guitar, mandolin and trademark flute, and dislikes playing electric guitar. Therefore, any Jethro Tull song is fair game for these solo shows — any song, that is, except for the ones Anderson doesn’t like.
“There are certainly a few songs I really, really wouldn’t want to do, because I don’t find any relevance to those songs, or they don’t resonate to me in terms of the lyrics or music,” he said.
“There are probably about, I should think, three to four fairly well-known Jethro Tull songs that I can confidently say no, I will never play those again, and then there’s some that I’m playing on the forthcoming tour that I’ve never played live at all from ’70, ’71.”
Outtakes from “Aqualung,” including “Just Trying to Be” and “March the Mad Scientist,” have found their way into the set list. At least two or three unrecorded new songs will also be performed at the solo tour shows.
New music
Anderson describes the new material as more acoustic-based than Jethro Tull, while still maintaining the sound Anderson has been cultivating for four decades.
“There’s some unmistakable essence about them that leads people to think of my work, without it being ‘Thick as a Brick’ part two, or ‘Aqualung’ part three,” he said.
“You try to keep common threads with your work, older ideas. I’m not trying to re-create some past style or concept, but occasionally it’s nice to make a little reference to things, like a line of lyrics, just to use or make reference to something you’ve done earlier is quite a nice thing to do.”
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