Riadsala’s Blog

Up to date as of 22/02/10

Well, hello. Here’s a blurb about me: I’m 27 and currently work full time as a Post-Doc/Research Associate. Guess you could say I’m a vision scientist. This year I think I will be investigating the perception of light which sounds rather neat, doesn’t it. 🙂

In my spare time I play music. As of early 2010, I’m playing fretless bass guitar with Calum Carlyle and play ‘cello for Lindsay and the Storm. I’m still pretty rusty on the ‘cello: I started relearning last autumn and am trying to undo a decade of neglect! Lots of out of tune notes, but am enjoying playing Bach suites and Vivaldi sonatas. Finally, I’m also slowly teaching myself touchguitar, although progress is slow as nobody is very much interested in having a warr guitar accompany them.

Just for fun, here’s a list of previous musical projects I’ve been involved with:

• Lindsay and the Storm. (2010-…) Still finding my feet in this band, but its good fun… sounding better with every rehearsal and we’ve already played a gig at Celtic Connections. We’re currently working on learning some of Lindsay’s old songs (from the previous line-up) along with some new material.
• Calum Carlyle. (2009-…). Singer-songwriter stuff again, although it sounds pretty different from AlKandAlC. We should be playing our first gig next month.
  
• AlKandAlC. (2005-2009 ?) Fun little duo with a good friend. Last gig was March ’09 at the Listening Room. Had a lot of fun over the years and it brought out some of the best bass playing that I’ve ever played. While i still hope we’ll eventually play some more, I don’t think AliK is interested.
• The Al(s) and the Pussycats. (2008-2009). Side-project from AlKandAlC, which, (rather unfortunatly in my view) took over from the duo. Was good fun at times, and we nearly sounded good. But the line-up didn’t really suit the music and Ali’s far better on his own on his acoustic guitar. I eventually got kicked out for being too negative and complaining that we kept speeding up in ever song.
• Cantor. (2008-2009). A short lived, yet interesting “rock” band with Matt James and Doug Shanks. We had a load of great ideas, but failed to find a decent drummer to join us. Eventually it broke down and Matt still refuses to talk to me (still enjoy chatting to Doug over coffee though)
• E/T/C. (2007?). A wee blues trio with Roger Emmerson and Nick Trepka. We recorded This is the Modern Blues.
• Benny Tetteh-Lartey’s Afro Scot Beat. (2007). As the name implied, a mixture of African and Scottish music.
• Pretty Sound. (2005-2006). Fun little funk/pop band. As the rest of the band were students at Edinburgh Uni, the band came to an end when they graduated and left town. Had some fun songs and a good line-up though.
• Collaborations with Edlundart (2005-2006). Bard Edlund is a Norwegion living in New York. We collaberated on some songs via the net.  Some where done more as Riadsala tracks and some where done more as Edlundart tracks.
• puRe et Riadsala (2004-2006). Trans-continental musical collaboration with Jan Nemecek.
• T.B.A and N/A. (2004). Two fun joke bands put together for playing the Warwick Uni Battle of the Bands. T.B.A. was a daft hiphop thing with bass, trumpet, laptop, male and female vocals… i think I still have a video recording of it, so I might upload it to youtube one day! N/A was a performance with a fellow bass playing mathematician, Dan Roythorne, and whatever other musicians we could find). Two bass guitars, V-drums, trumpet, two guitars, didgeridoo, (have I forgotten anything?). Spent a couple of hours writing and rehearsing hte set the afternoon of the gig, then let loose. I think we managed to quote both Tubular Bells and Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Luckily, no recording of this was ever made!
• RumikoJazz (2001-2004). Small jazz band with my housemate and trumpeter, Derek Harland, and Cantus bandmate, Moz on drums. And whoever we could get from the Big Band to play with. We never really had a name, until our amazing pianist came back from Japan to play a final gig with us. True dedication to a mediocre jazz band!
• Cantus Cealestus. (2001-2003). Typical student “we all like Radiohead” rock band. Good fun and good friends. And we were a bit prog (and had a theremin).
• Warwick Uni Big Band (2000-2004). I reckon that playing with a good drummer and a 20+ piece horn section is the most fun you can have while playing bass. I still miss playing The Jungle Book and Have You Seen Them Cakes (note: from a gig 4 years after I graduated, i.e. not me on bass)