16th Oct 2011

ON AWESOME-NESS

There's nothing in Scotland to compare with the scale of it. The rumble of the Reekie Linn in Glenisla in full spate is impressive. But the Niagara Falls are monstrous truly furious. And all the water in all the lochs of Scotland would scarcely constitute a drop in the magnificent Lake Ontario. You begin to understand why the word "awesome" finds itself on people's tongues here (even if in vapid context). There's much genuine awesomeness to be found.

For three nights, the hotel is home to The Ontario Council of Folk Festivals, the central Canadian folk music equivalent of an old fashioned farmers fee-ing fair. On levels 3 and 4 every bedroom has been converted into a bespoke musical salon. The Manitoba prairie folky folks are in one room (heck they even have their own beer-filled green room in the bedroom next door), the down home Nova Scotians in another. Room 316 tempts you in with a bucket of help-yourself jelly beans. Whilst there's houmous and chips at the door of 412. And 306 is dressed with a deep blue velvet puppet show curtain and beadlike glass tea-lights. And so here we are - some 600 and more budding singers, songwriters, and musicians, stompers and poets, the urban cool and the peacenik crusties, the rural gents and the upwardly mobile Depression ear wannabes, the be-hatted, be-suited, be-bearded and slightly bemused, all hoping to catch an ear, an eye, an opportunity.

I'm invited as guest of Borealis Records, Canada's premier folk and roots music specialists, who, to my wonder, have signed me as their first ever non-Canadian recording artist. And my wee half hour bedroom spotlight moments (actually they're more kind of standard lamp moments) tout my understated Scottish ways and funny manner of talking, via queer wee songs about dead stars and steel ships, human invention and fish, babies and soldiers.

It's a blessing to have absolutely no idea who anyone is, who is "someone". After all, these convention style events are a sort of chase for "someone who matters" to "discover" you. I can't imagine just how unsettling it would be to know that some major dude was hunched up on the bedside table during your short acoustic set. Far simpler to not know.

I'm glad regardless to have  touched some people who had never heard a word from my mouth previously. That's my job. And where this wee trip across the ocean leads? Who knows? Let's wait and see.

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30th Aug 2011

IS WALES BETTER THAN A FAIRY?

Is it better than the Queen? Well, ahead of a first time Welsh adventure with The Burns Unit - and traveling in style in a Variety Club of Great Britain minibus  - my 4 year old son Arlo wanted to know just that ...

Why of course it is!

Big thanks to all who came to see The Burns Unit play on our second micro-tour of the year. Special commendation to the folks at Trelawnyd Memorial Hall for gargantuan hospitality and hand painted advertising. And a doff of the cap also to Noah and the Whale, who followed us at Green Man Festival in the Brecon Beacons - and in so doing tempted 7000 or so people to sing Bohemian Rhapsody as their opening gambit. Quite mighty (though the sub bass from the PA made our youth club transportation shake so much that we had to leave the site ...)

Birmingham MAC was the perfect spot for a weary band and some under fives to land on a Sunday - having an army of Polish pedalos and a miniature train at its back door, not to mention ice cream. And bless your weary knees if you came to York's Duchess on a Monday night. We were very well looked after indeed by the in-house crew. But I know a few of you would've liked a seat. I'll see what I can do for my return solo visit there in November ...

Last Wednesday's return visit to the Queen's Hall in Edinburgh was a match for last year's joyous knees up, and we whooped and hollered and danced on Saturday night at a soggy but happy Towersey Village Festival too.

No more dates for some wee while. But lots of new song ideas on the go ...

Meantime you can get a bet on for our Kenny (Anderson) - King Creosote - to win this year's Mercury Music Prize for his beautiful album with Jon Hopkins "Diamond Mine". It's 29:1 as it stands. Go on. Someone from Fife has to win it sometime.

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2nd Aug 2010

More Than A Side Show

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5th May 2010

VOTE VOTE VOTE

I've staked my political colours to the Green Party at this UK general election. It's handy then that my website and my limited 1980s art teacher kind of wardrobe is virtual subliminal messaging for the cause!

Of course, I dinnae take it as a pre-requisite that anyone who listens to my music should think likewise ... though I hope and suspect this is a BNP and UKIP free zone ... and nor would I want any party political affiliation to get in the way of my songs. But I'm tired also of the pretence of being non-partisan. And the fact that I'm not even sure what way most of my family and friends vote bothers me. Shouldn't we be talking to each other, even if it's just to disagree?

I’m going to vote Scottish Green at this election, even though they’ve only a slim chance of retaining their deposit in my home constituency of Midlothian (a safe Labour seat). They’re the only party making a genuine philosophical commitment to sustainable resource based economics, and laying out the links between environmental degradation, financial mismanagement and social inequality. I’d like to think the Green movement in Scotland and the UK is at the same stage as the fledgling Labour movement was a hundred years ago and that it’ll become a stronger political force before long. The likely election of Caroline Lucas in Brighton as the first ever Green MP would only help this. So instead of viewing my vote as wasted, I see it as statement of intent and an investment in the future strength of the Greens. For all that, I’m all for a hung parliament and electoral reform and would like also to see SNP and Lib-Dems doing well just to give the big two a kick up the arse.

So go kick some butt! No matter what colour you kick it!

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9th Mar 2010

VICTOR JARA

It's hard to conceive in the polite British Folk Scene of 2009 that being a folk singer could ever have been considered a radical and dangerous pursuit. But in the Chile of the late 1960s and early 1970s it most certainly was. Victor Jara was a teacher, poet, theatre director and popular folk singer and songwriter who, as part of the "New Song" movement, advocated revolutionary cultural and political change under Salvador Allende's democratic government. Allende's power was short-lived, however, and in a 1973 military coup, backed by the US Government, thousands of his political supporters were rounded up into stadium buildings, where they were tortured and murdered. As a prominent musician, his captors reserved particular attention for his guitarist's hands, which were mutilated before his death. He was 38 years old.

More than 35 years after the event a 53 year old former soldier has been charged with his murder.

You can see and hear Victor Jara singing here

And you can hear one of my own folk heroes Dick Gaughan singing a song in his memory. The song is written by Arlo Guthrie and Adrian Mitchell. "His hands were gentle, his hands were strong."

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