Edwyn Collins - utter genius

Friday night saw us out and about on the town, which is extremely unusual, as we normally prefer dinner and a few drinks on a Saturday.

We had booked tickets for Edwyn Collins at An Lanntair, and due to mainland travel and sick children we really weren't sure that we were going to make it.

What a night we had! Truly one of the best nights out we have had in a very long time, and the best live music that we have seen in years.

The support act, "The 1990s" came highly recommended by one of our staff, who had seen them live previously. They had a difficult job warming up the crowd who were predominantly slightly older than their usual target market i.e. 40-somethings and older. However, they were very good, suitably loud and made an excellent counter balance to the main attraction.

Although sparsely attended, the tour which is billed as "The Restoration of Edwyn Collins" (a reference to his serious illness) was utterly wonderful, from the moment Edwyn walked onto stage and perched on the speaker to the end of the encour. I saw the set list as we went to our seats and was delighted to see a mix of old and new, covering the Orange Juice years right up to a new song he had co-written with someone from the Cribs.

The highly professional band - which included the guitarist from Primal Scream - were absolutely excellent, and provided an excellent backing to an highly emotional and personal set from Edwyn. The songs were all so obviously chosen from an extensive catalogue to relate to his 'restoration', but poignancy never became mawkishness; and there was absolutely no suggestion of any self-pity.

My good lady ended up dancing to "A Girl Like You" along with some of the 1990s.

Afterwards we stopped in the bar for a beer or three, and ended up being very late talking to the bands, the management (Mrs Collins) and to Edwyn himself.

I remember seeing Edwyn and Orange Juice in (I think) the Locarno in the early 1980's, but it might have been the Edinburgh College of Art. And Friday night was every bit as good, as I'm not sure I would be up to a mosh-pit any longer.

The computer literate generation

Our youngest son who is now 2.75 (his age not his model number) was demonstrating his computer skills to us over the weekend, after I put the laptop down.

Having taught him good surfing habits, he used the touch-pad to select and open Firefox. Then he selected Cbeebies from the toolbar menu - actually he pulled down the BBC news front page, but the icon is the same, it's just the words that are different, and he can't read. Yet.

Having helped him to get to the right site, he spent a long while surfing between various Cbeebie characters and having a great time.

It was a surprise to my good lady to get a confirmatory email from Amazon to announce the imminent delivery of a CD. Panic set in, as she tried to work out just how son had managed to access her account, select the CD and arrange payment.

The clue was, of course, in the title of the CD. It wasn't the Teletubbies covering Eminem or even Postman Pat does Iron Maiden live in Greendale.

When son was distracted, I had taken the opportunity to order the new Lethal Bizzle album and then logged out of everything. After all, the kids may not know who The Ruts were, but they will do after they hear the cover versions.

Sad day we left the Croft

The website for the re-issued and remastered album can be found here, where you can also listen to some of the tracks.

Where are the various former band members now?

Many/most of them are now in sensible jobs with serious responsibilities and are a shadow of their former rebellious selves. Most of the time.

Perhaps someone can do a 'then' and 'now' photo for comparison purposes to give us all a laugh.

I know my pristine original copy on tape is somewhere in my loft.....

New music

Three new albums hit the CD player this week and were on continuous rotation whilst feeding and entertaining baby daughter.
- Maximo Park was an immediate hit, and is highly recommended
- Get Cape.Wear Cape. Fly was a grower, and after four or five listens is a current favourite
- Kings of Leon lasted for three listens before we decided it was bland and samey, and has been replaced by Icky Thump from the White Stripes (which itself was a grower, taking three or four listens before we appreciated it's qualities)

No doubt KoL will get another listen, but not for some time.

Toilet malfunction

A fabulous story reaches me about a toilet malfunction in one of Stornoway's most salubrious licensed establishments.

The Clachan Bar, a long time haunt of fishermen, drunks, underagers, drunk fishermen, women for whom the low intensity lighting is a blessing, drunk underagers fishermen, and Stornoway's foremost live music venue for youngsters, was rebuilt following a devastating fire in April 2003.

It appears that during the renovation, some of the sewerage services were accidentally blocked or never connected, and consequently have been backing up for some time. The patrons and staff have been noticing a smell that was getting worse for some time, other than that emanating from some of the patrons, but it was put down to the pipes backing up at high tide - the same problem as the Crown often faces.

Initial investigations discovered that the sewage had been seeping under the floorboards, but further investigations found that the sewage had been backing up in the cavity wall, and I was told that it had reached "as high as the jukebox on the wall".

This whole scenario prompts all sorts of questions. I did notice that the downstairs public was closed yesterday and the upstairs bar was - unusually - open. A massive insurance claim will no doubt follow, but it gives a whole new meaning to the expression "a shit pub".

Journalists: read the copyright notice at the bottom of the page, before you lift this as an "exclusive". ;-)

Election

Is there actually an election going on somewhere???



It's oh so quiet, apart from Calum MacDonald pressing the flesh on Cromwell St.

Danish Jazz

After the first meeting finished last night, we were "entertained" in the adjacent Fanø Jazz Club. Jazz is apparently very big in Denmark, and it appeared to me that we were in some kind of 1960's Beat Club with berets, Gitanes and a tight-suited, sweaty guitarist accompanied by a piano and a double-bass.

Singing in Danish, or quite possibly in English.

I made my excuses and left.

Hotel California

"You can check out, but you can never leave"*

It took us three check-outs before we were able to leave - it was that kind of a weekend.

For various reasons, we had to be away on Thursday and Friday, and I found myself temporarily unconnected. "No matter", I thought, as I had the weekend to catch-up. We went away on Friday night for a relaxing family break, but hadn't read the weather forecast very well.

We found ourselves storm-bound for three days, in a very nice hotel, but with no connectivity, no phones, no news (due to the telly being commandeered for a selection of Disney videos) and only excellent food and wine to keep us sane.

This morning the storms lifted long enough for CalMac to allow us to leave and, half-an-hour before the departure time, booked us onto a ferry that wasn't sailing leaving us nearly stranded again. A very quick bit of thinking and speedy driving got us out of this mess, but this was despite CalMac's best efforts.

I have long claimed that CalMac see the passengers as an impediment to the smooth operation of the ferries, and today fully confirmed my view.

The Loch Portain has an public wireless network to allow commuters, tourists and business people to log-on and avoid having to have a life and talk to people, which is innovative of CalMac. These two words don't seem to go together for all sorts of reasons. Not least as it is impossible to actually log onto the network or get anything other than wildly frustrated by your technical incompetence, until you realise it is actually not your fault.

It is good to be home - not least as I was out of clean underwear - and contrary to wild rumour, I have not been interred in Berneray for the mortal sin of not eating the home baking that I was offered. Look, I'm eternally sorry to my very kind hosts, but it was 10am, I had been up since 4am with the baby and I never eat breakfast except in hotels, and if I start on cakes at that time in the morning I'll get a sugar rush and not stop eating them until bed time**, and I wasn't feeling that great anyway with the crappy crossing of Sound of Harris.

* This is not to be taken in any way to assume that I like The Eagles. Quite the contrary. As a veteran of the Punk Wars we fought against gratuitous guitar solos.

** A female pensioner client said "I saw you on the telly and thought 'God, you've put on the weight'". In an effort to remedy the situation she then added, "But you don't look as bad as you did on TV." Hence the cake ban.

Avril Lavigne

On hearing her new single (I want to be your girlfriend), my son (aged 4) announced this morning that "He doesn't like this song, as one mummy takes a daddy away from another mummy".

He then described the video in some detail. It is good that we have installed basic moral principles into such a young child.

Personally, I think it sounds like a straight rip-off of "I wanna be your boyfriend" by the Ramones, and that's why I dislike it.

New York Dolls

We watched the documentary on the New York Dolls tonight.

I missed them first time round - and Sue claims to be too young to even remember their name - but I got into Jonny Thunders (and the Heartbreakers) in the early 80's, falling across LAMF and re-introducing me to the NY scene (not that I was ever there, but the influence of the music).

NYD were excellent tonight, but suitably worn and wasted, and Arthur "Killer" Kane was stumbling, an apparent casualty, but still able to play intuitively; but only 22 days from a sudden, unexpected, and undiagnosed death.

I would say farewell, but despite the deaths of most of the band, I expect they will still be touring for many year yet.

Musical fibs

The epitome of "Cool Britannia" was the handshake between musician Tony "Ugly Rumours" Blair and the leader of millions, Liam "Our kid" Gallacher* at a champagne reception in Downing Street.

Who can forget the use of D-Ream and "Things can only get better" as the theme song for the Labour 1997 election campaign? Look out for it being revived by the opposition at coming elections.

How cool for Tony to listen have U2 as his favourite band, and listen to the Foo Fighters and Coldplay at home. And seminal 70's hair band Free. And REM.

2/1/07 * This may be Noel: I've never been big on Oasis.

Oh yes, and Frank Sinatra, and the Darkness and whatever band will fit the perceptions of the questioner.

Now it is revealed that he not ashamed enough his musical taste to claim both Cliff Richard and Robin Gibb amongst his "heroes" (sic), and next year? Well the bookies seem to be able to guess.

My only question is, given the quantity and eclectic mix of music he claims to like how does he ever find time to be Prime Minister? Perhaps his faux obituary gives some clues.

Jackie Bird

The flight down was enlivened by a group of Scottish Water/Scottish Water Solutions/whatever-we-are-called-this-week employees on their way to a seminar at Riccarton.

The seminar was being presented by Jackie Bird the BBC newsreader, according to the boisterous conversations that went across the plane, and this seemed to be one of a large series of seminars, so presumably all the staff are going through some kind of service improvement course.

The assessment of the professional presentation skills of Mrs Bird? "She's a very scrawny bird", opined one of the SW staff. "Very good, but very scrawny", said another to general agreement.

Not many people know that Jackie Bird used to be a backing singer with Echo and the Bunnymen in the early 80's, and in about 1980 they played the Mermaid lounge in the Cabarfeidh Hotel to wild approbation from the massed ranks of the Stornoway punks. I know, because I was there.