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The Last Post

At least the last post at Blogger for I have a new blog/site over at Wordpress.

Please update your bookmarks accordingly.

Upcoming

I've got bored of having a website and a blog, so I'm looking into combining the two. Expect changes in the near future.

Done, and Done

I don't really talk about the writing and such very often on here, but sometimes it's worth noting certain milestones.

So, I finished the novel. And I think...cautiously...that it's okay. The interesting thing is the routine I managed to settle into in order to get the last of it done.

I'd wake up, get out of bed (quietly), go through turn the laptop on for an hour. Then I'd get ready and leave early for work so that I could drop in at a cafe for 30 or 40 minutes more laptop time. Then I'd work til lunchtime whereupon I'd go to a local eaterie and bash out another hour's worth. All of which meant by the time I got home, mentally knackered, I'd already had 2-3 hours writing done during the day and didn't feel like I needed to push myself to do more in the evening as well (although of course, I often did anyway). This made me and those around me happier bunnies all round.

The really interesting thing is that now I've got this routine established I don't seem to be able to break it. So, I'm not going to. The cafes of Glasgow will not go bust at the loss of business from the beardy guy with the laptop and the headphones.

And this is a decent opportunity to give thanks to the following establishments which have been chief amongst those that fed me well and shown genuine interest in how the book has progressed: Bella Italia (Hope St), Di Maggios (Royal Exchange Square), Oko Express (Queen Street), The Rhodderick Dhu and Bar Sporta (Waterloo Street) and all of the Cafe Neros in the area.

Also, if you're looking for writing music that blocks out ambient yakking but still allows you to concentrate, I heartily recommend Explosions In The Sky's "All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone".

Performance/Face

So, I’ve been thinking about performance lately. Specifically I feel the indie circuit too often misses out on the theatricality and mystique that sometimes goes hand in hand with music. Don’t get me wrong I like going to see music for music’s sake, and I prefer to watch musicians without pretensions – it’s never good seeing unsigned acts who are pumped up with self-importance and acting like total cocks. But sometimes, you hanker for a bit more from a band than stylish haircuts and disaffected indie stances.And it seems I’m not alone.

It was refreshing to find myself at a gig at the Note on Saturday that fit squarely into the resurgent fringe genre they’re calling nu masque. Four acts whose power of performance relies at least in part on the creation of a persona that acts both as a wall and a window that alternately separates the audience from the performers and allows a carefully controlled glimpse into the world of their music.

Take Metal Petal, for example. The first band on the bill took the ‘mask’ element literally. Wild eyes staring out from moulded plastic and troglodytic stomping around combined with their engrossingly uncomfortable sonic output, all mutters and shouts and deep reverb, to create an experience akin to exploratory caving. In the stark, stuttering lamplight of a single strobe, guitars jangled and thrashed and echoed off the walls, keyboards washed in and out like black surf, and drum breaks promising order and pattern led you down dangerous blind alleys, only to pitch you up at the feet of a quartet of deeply unsettling glam morlocks. It wasn’t until well into their performance that I was surprised on realising that I knew three of the musicians, and I thought, “Now, that’s nu masque. Right there.”

Switch that on it’s head. Swap devils for an angel, and you have Miss Leggy Pee. A clever lipsynching act that entertains in spades. The antedote to the previous act’s dark madness, her sharp comedic interpretations of Peggy Lee’s greatest lightened the atmosphere with a sassy smile and sparkle-lashed wink. Not to mention her unconventional use of puppets. This is variety, this is burlesque. Bowie and Kemp and Bowery, and all the original maskcore pioneers would have approved.

You’ve been reading my blog long enough, you must be aware of Scunner and the Glasgow Glambangers by now. These are two acts who have been taking nu masque with their sugar puffs for years. It’s in the essence of what they do. The Glambangers describe themselves as “Gender bending glitter revivalists” and that’s them to a tee, from the thump of their glam-infused drumbox to the stomp of singer Paxton’s knee-high boots. The blurring of gender lines was a pillar of the old maskcore manifesto, and the Glambangers bring that home with a performance that is impossible to ignore.

And Scunner. The puppeteer and the engineer, along with their occasional friends. Paul Puppet arrived on the red-lit stage looking a bit like a publicity-shy Freddy Krueger, the space between the collar of his black shirt and the brim of his black fedora filled with a Burtonesque stocking mask of orange and black stripes. This striking effect was enhanced when he launched into album favourite, Zebra Grove, a dehumanised, angular halloween scarecrow bringing a menacing edge to the song. It was almost a relief when the mask was dispensed with a couple of numbers later, to reveal Puppet’s traditional make-up of comparatively friendly zig-zags and spangles.

An evening of characters then, each of them – the Petals, Leggy, Paxton and Puppet – creating a face to embellish their sounds, to challenge and engage the audience.

I liked it. A lot.

Spin forward a few nights. I’m still mulling over the nu masque thing, but the last place on earth I expected to encounter it was Andy Miller’s acoustic night at Tchai Ovna. Andy’s a technically astonishing guitar player who regularly fills the tea shop with eerie and shiveringly beautiful mellow sounds, but on stage he’s just himself. A very nice bloke playing a guitar. His guest for the evening, on the other hand, was a whole different kettle of bananas. Google ‘Uni And Her Ukelele’ and you’ll see what I mean. This utterly charming lady from San Franciso came on in a whirl of glitter and frills. You couldn’t take your eyes of her, the little body flicks that punctuated her playing, her expressive face, wide eyed and with a mouth that sang smiles. First impression was: ‘yeah, nu masque is global already’, but as her set progressed, and from talking to her afterwards, I began to suspect that this is no mask for Uni – she is actually as effervescently kooky off stage as on.

And it brings me back full circle to what it is you want from a performer. Yeah, sometimes you want more than music. You want spectacle, something weird, something wonderful to watch that complements, enhances the experience. A bit of stagecraft and performance is just the ticket. Unless you’re lucky enough to be watching one of those naturally unique people. People like Uni And Her Ukelele. But they’re special.

Out!

So, maybe it's the weather or maybe it's the clocks going forward or maybe just because it's May, but all of a sudden good people are putting on good things to go and see. In the last two weeks we've seen a shitload of good music, for very little outlay.

It all started two Saturdays ago with the Littlest Album 3 launch at The Note, and seemed to steam roll from there. There's too much to go into detail, but here are the highlights:

Tuesday 2nd - the ever-entertaining Scunner and The Glasgow Glambangers at Bloc.
Thursday 4th - Super Puny Humans (author Alan Bissett reading along to the music of Y'All Is Fantasy Island and Zoey Van Goey) at Oran Mor.
Saturday 5th - Popup Films' Music and Moving Image at Oran Mor. Five bands interspersed with showings of experimental films. The films were interesting, and the pick of the acts were A Band Called Quinn and Isa And The Filthy Tongues.
Sunday 6th - Boudica's Ball at Oran Mor. A six act bill featuring female-fronted talent (that could have been better phrased I think). Best for me were Lou Hickey and a soaring set by organiser Colette McKendrick.
Wednesday 9th - WordDogs at The Note. No music this time, but plenty of good stories and the entertainment was top notch. Great to see some old favourites reading new material, including the car-crash punning of Gavin Inglis' "Springheeled Jock" [spoiiiiing!], and to hear readers I've not heard before, like Martin Belk.
Thursday 10th - the last of eight T-break heats, at Tut's. Six bands given 20 minutes each to impress enough to grab a slot at T In The Park. Some great stuff going on here, interesting and varied. Top of my pile were the lush and majestic Miyagi, with honourable mentions to the spikily energetic Miss The Occupier and totally madcap Cider Spiders. I'd like to see more of the Sorren MacLean band too.
Saturday 12th - not an entertainment as such, but our friends Phil, Janie and VV held a party to wave goodbye to the West End. Lots of good craic there, but we couldn't last the pace, ending up plonking ourselves on the sofa with pizza, wine and Eurovision.

What do you think we are, party animals?

And that's it. Have a relatively quiet schedule lined up for the forseeable. Which is a good thing, all things considered.

Monkey Music

Things that have pleased me no end this week.

1/ The Littlest Album launch at the 13th Note. A very eclectic collection of musicians marshalled and organised by Adam from The Plimptons. Some great music, most especially from Only Joe Kane, and we got to play a loud set including a new song. So we all went home happy.

Best of all though is the disk itself. Man, when we first picked up instruments and got a band together in the early 80s, we assumed that if and when we made it the product with our name on it that people would be buying would be vinyl LPs. We dreamed of spinning black plastic encoded with our songs. And I guess that never leaves you. So, cut to 25 years later, and the dream is a reality. The Littlest Album is a thing of beauty. Not just Adam's idiosyncratic, iconic and instantly recognisable artwork and design, but the shiny black vinyl itself. And the best of it is - since I don't own a record player, it'll never get scratched.

2/ Passing it on. No not the lurgie of which both us have been deeply enamoured the last couple of weeks, but ideas, music, creativity. Last night we took our good selves out to catch Scunner and the GlamBangers at Bloc. It's been way too long since we last saw these guys, and had a thoroughly entertaining night (hey, giving noisy plastic toys to the audience is a stroke of genius). And of course the best thing is getting to hear new songs. I particularly enjoyed Scunner's "Cake and Fun" and a brilliant wee song that I believe is called "Monkey In The Looking Glass", which started life as an extrapolation of our song "Spidermonkey" during the Pass The Baton night we did for OxJam last year. I love it when stuff like that happens.

3/ Fitbaw. Got tickets for the UEFA Cup Final. Go me!

4/ The weather's been great, and it lessened the severe disappointment on Sunday of being turned away from Duncan's Ballads Of The Book reading at the Tramway.

5/ Logorrhea : Good Words Make Good Stories is out! I can't wait to get my copy and read, read, read. You should too. Go buy it!

One Of Those Things That Brightens Up Yer Life


I hear they call him the new Maradonna...


Don't know what they call this guy though...