BasiaWeb on Twitter

I've started a feed on Twitter- this is very new to me!- but follow us while I figure it out:
twitter.com/basiaweb

New section: LIVE

The "Live" link at right is active now, and there will be gig reports etc. added as they come in, or darn near to it. If you had a gig report posted to the old site from the matt bianco tour, I still have those and will be re-uploading them in the near future.

Be sure to check out the rather long, exhaustively researched list of past concerts-- it's not complete but at present, I'm confident in saying it's quite definitive. If you have dates to add-- and provenance to back your memory up-- be sure to email me. I have a bit of ephemera from some of these old shows that will also see the light of day of the Internet hopefully soon.

"Springtime Laughter" lyrics

From Bob Stewart on the Basia2 list:

"For years several of us tried unsuccessfully to determine the correct
lyrics, resulting in several different lyric versions.
So, I decided to contact a co-writer of the lyrics, Joan Beal.

I sent Joan an e-mail containing one of the versions,
and asked her if she would please verify and correct it for us.

Joan very kindly and graciously did exactly that
in a very warm and beautiful e-mail to me.

We should all be very thankful to her."

And we are-- you can find the lyrics here. Great for all of us waiting for spring.

New BasiaWeb Flickr groups

Today I set up two different Flickr groups so fans can share their goodies. One has to do with sharing scans of those great vinyl, cassette, and CD covers along with the even more fun to collect things like flyers for shows, record awards, promo items... basically, if you have physical Basia-related objects, BasiaWeb Collectors is the place to show it off! On the other hand, if you have photos from past shows or those typically-hilarious pics of you throwing the metal salute with Basia or whatever, these go into BasiaWeb FanFotos (love those intercaps around here, haha).

Please be sure to read my little disclaimer paragraph before uploading, especially if you have never used a photo sharing group before. Something that I am going to be a huge stickler on: keep your links to eBay ads and personal sales web sites away, please, as well as pleads to check out your site or your profile. I want to keep this fun and smooth!

So please take part and enjoy! Now, many of you know I've been sitting on loads of material in the constant hope to upload it, until I get daunted and intimidated by the volume. ;) If I have your material and you'd rather me put it up for you, I have no problem doing that! Let me know and please, give me a few days to do it. Thanks!

I look forward to seeing all the great stuff!

Music section up

Music, lyrics and random bits of info can now be had on our Music section. The main releases have been covered and the others will be following behind. There's also a handy roundup of all the known new album info (no, there's nothing new since the last time except that Peter White mentions on his site that he just got back from working on it).

Surely something went awry in the course of putting this together so do let me know either in comments or via email what that something is. I also would love to know more trivia, Polish punctuation (and missing Polish lyrics-- I lost my copy of TSI when moving :( ), lyrics to "Springtime Laughter" from some published source (like sheetmusic-- something official, not fan generated) and how to get the main menu there to look more like the main menu here. You know, the basics. ;)

Contacting (almost) everyone

Ever wonder how to get hold of admin for this site? How about connecting with other fans, or are you looking for a way to contact management, perhaps? Now you can get all of the above at our revamped Contact page.

While you are at it, do check out the resurrected Library section which is in progress.

Welcome to BasiaWeb 3.0

As you can see, there have been some changes! Now that the main portion of the site runs through Blogger, we have some new features. Comments can be left about posts and while they will be moderated (gotta keep the spammers in check), there will be that degree of interactivity that the site has been lacking. Posts are labeled now too, so you can see all posts on any one topic at once. I posted some of the most useful label links at right for you to hit right away, but there are many others hiding about the old posts, too. There are some other features I'd like to implement as time goes on, but we'll deal with those later!

As I said before most of the old pages on the old site will return at a later time in a new, better-organized form-- those are the links grayed out at right. And inevitably there will be the occasional glitch or unattended detail in our first days-- do let me know what you encounter and we can make things better, together. (Aww!) Finally, thanks to you the fans for your patience as I dealt with family loss and personal life upheaval which required me to put fandom on the back burner for a while.

Now, back to supporting Basia and Danny!

"Time and Tide" demo; "Peppercorn Blue"

The demo for "Time and Tide" is now on the Downloads section, and our last song is another surprising lost track by Danny. Hope you guys have enjoyed these early works as much as I have!

"From Now On" demo

A nice, nice variant on the classic Time and Tide track.

"3AM Blues," Blue Rondo A La Turk

A "lost" demo from Danny's days in Blue Rondo A La Turk is the next track— and it's pretty much guaranteed to surprise you.

"The Night is Still A Child" and "Scrapple from the Apple"

Tonight, we have Basia without Danny and then Danny without Basia. First, Basia sings a Ronnie Ross composition in a touching, pensive performance from 1981. It may sound like a jazz standard at first, see what you think.

And for something completely different, a rendition of "Scrapple From The Apple." This one speaks for itself so we leave you to it! Listen here to both of tonight's tracks.

These mp3s are complete with ID3 tags for those who use iTunes, by the way.

Exclusive early tracks and demos

Basia and Danny are sharing music from their early years with the fans, and starting today it will be our pleasure to have a new song every few days on the Downloads section. These songs, recorded from 1981 to 1986, range from funny studio experiments to unused demos to the beginnings of songs from Time and Tide. Danny has also sent commentary on each song that you can also read as you download.

Today's track is practically mythical in the fandom, but it's very, very real! In 1981 Basia and Danny were part of a jazz-funk group called Bronze, and they cut a real gem of a track called "No Cinderella" for a demo being shopped to labels at the time. The band broke up after meeting a (surprising) lack of interest, sending this song to Danny's closet for the next twenty-five years: until today!