October. Oh dear.
It hasn’t been a cut and dry case of all work/no fun over here for the last 2 months, but what has materialised is a bad case of the Blog Block! With two months of commercial and performance work sitting in the bag, I don’t even know where to begin in showcasing it. So in trusted fashion, I am going to begin at the end, and possibly show everything in reverse… maybe even etirw gnihtyreve sdrawkcab. We’ll have to wait and see.
But for now, I feel a little more at ease that winter has settled. What better way to spend a dark, uninspiring evening than cramming into a sweaty club and getting your ears blown off by some brilliant live music and clearing the head. And so it was last Monday, fresh from 2 months of work and play that I can’t think to talk about, Palma Violets and excellent support at Electric Circus on a dark Edinburgh night.
Why not live in the present for once.
There is a lot to be said for the cold and the rain to bring out a darker side of the imagination. Mid May, and I was expecting a slow incline of daylight and a steady blooming of heat. We should all know better. Five degrees and a lead sky. The Arctic howl of December through our clothes, a flowing mire beneath our jaded shoes. The worst shock to the system is the disappointment, that we have to wait in suspense for our summer to ever arrive.
The upshot is that I started touring my archive of the images I took over Winter for some consolation on how bad it can get. We need no reminding of the dark once the sun is baking our pavements again so I am happy to post them here for now. Tragically enough, these images of a very sombre Edinburgh Haar are only about a month old. Scotland, as ever, defies the definition of Winter.
Down in Leith it is business as usual. A busy football Saturday, pubs rammed. The opposing ends of Hibernian Stadium invisible to each other through a thick wall of white, according to reports. Shops’ shutters up, dogs to be walked, traffic lights green, football practice at 10, paper supplements, bus stop queue, Kirkgate pigeons, shopping bags at the bar, traffic lights red. And all the while, a heavy silence. Like holding the world on mute as the white envelopes everything. I walk around and see some of the most banal things blown out of proportion. A woman and her dog, burnished like two spots of ink on canvas. A flock of seagulls, noiseless from nowhere, bluster limply overhead like debris in a gale. A father and daughter emerge kicking a football in the Links. Shrouded in a cavern of grey, their breath on the air like coal trains as they run directionless, only to be swallowed again into nothing.
And a solitary figure, who seems more at home in the blankness than anyone. Hi Rab:-p
Here’s a little recap on some live music I have covered over the last month. First off is a solo set of esoteric loudness from electronica pioneers Silver Apples, live at Mono as part of the Glasgow Film Festival.
I shot the set of melodic drone masters Earth at the Caves a little while back. Clock their review for The Skinny here if you missed out, it does them supreme justice.
Put the brakes on and ask yourself this – What would you do if you were given one day? Not a workday or a holiday. Not a Monday, not a Thursday, not any day of the week. A day from the blue, all to yourself. A limited 24 hours. Would you go out and play?
Big problems with play the older you get. We get to where we want to, we live the dream, but we start to switch off the subsidiary senses that kept us from starving. We are no longer desperate for anything and we stop following our impulses. Real creatures of habit we become, and we start to expect everyone else to be the same. We get more and more excited at the prospect of doughier, sinkier sofas, a bottle of red, a moo-vie? Bed at 10 for an early start?
But imagine this one impossible day. With no plan, with no wild programme. Waking up in your own bed with only your world and your resources. Do nothing? Do everything?? In our mad rush to make the most of our time we end up leaving ourselves no space to play. There can be no doubt, good play is half spontaneity, half activity. But how can you be spontaneous in your own back yard??
Well, very if you let yourself rediscover it. I am no master, don’t get me wrong. I am blessed by where and how I live, but 6 out of 7 I am fully asleep to it. So, I had a visitor! For the first time in nearly 2 years, I had fresh eyes on my porch. Go through the motions all you like, see the spots and hit the views, but Edinburgh is unbelievable fun. I am no tour guide and Aidan is no tourist, but we basically stormed the city up and down and still only managed to scratch the surface.
In a single 24 hour swoop we beheld beauty, rewrote the rules of Guess Who, shopped a ludicrous hat, looked down from a mountain, blinded ourselves in World of Illusions, rewrote the lyrics to R.E.M, got chased by a street cleaner, swallowed Edinburgh’s finest coffee, doubled over laughing, watched a random 17piece jazz band, went for noodles, unleashed a Kraken, sang in a trad bar at the top of our lungs, and invented only a hundred puns on everything in-between.
Its the weekend again. Give yourself a day to play
Continuing our winter round-up, here is a selection of some live music i have been shooting between here and Glasgow for the Skinny the last few months.
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| Gruff Rhys @ The Bongo Club |
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| Muscles of Joy @ Orán Mór |
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| Gillian Welsh @ Clyde Auditorium |
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| The Dirty Dozen with Clean George IV and Riley from Aberfeldy |
