Category: Collaborations

Damon Albarn is a fantastic songwriter. Everyday Robots is his first Solo record, but he’s known for his band Gorillaz and if you go back even further, BLUR.  Yes.

A little side story: I play with The Secret City most months and we played the Blur song Girls and Boys as one of the Prelude songs for the March? service.  I didn’t listened to Blur back in the day (or Oasis…) or to Gorillaz in more recent times.  Anyway, the song seemed rather simple upon first look. But it turns out that it was the most fun to play, sounded the best, and I decided that it was actually a great song, as simple songs often are. (I have yet to master this- always getting too complicated…)
A month later, Martha Mooke from Scorchio told me we were going to be the string quartet for some sessions with Damon Albarn who was promoting his new record, Everyday Robots on radio shows for WFUV and Sirius. Oh! Turns out it’s that guy who wrote that great song! Turns out he’s written many great songs!
I just love the synchronicity of that.  I never would have thought I would be playing with the guy from Blur. And he’s still as cute as he was in the video for Boys and Girls, just slightly more mellow. Only slightly. He and his band were good humored and friendly. And his music director, Mike Smith writes a very nice string arrangement.

Scorchio playing with Damon Albarn at WFUV

We were asked to play with them again on The Tonight Show and at Bonnaroo! Ah….we accepted.