Archive for the 'a little more personal' Category

“c’mon laura… we’re married now”;

Published on August 10, 2010 in a little more personal and music. 8 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .


Photo by Neil Thomas Douglas, And Do You Take…

But first…

The day before the wedding, a wise woman gave me a piece of advice (in the form of a video, all the way from Australia). “Don’t try to record everything,” she told me, “just enjoy.”

And I didn’t write down a thing until Tuesday.

The best day of my life went a little bit like this:

  • Joking on Twitter that a mention in the trending topics would be a fantastic wedding gift turning into us being the highest ranking topic in Glasgow by about 12pm;
  • An impromtu photoshoot in the park behind my house, culminating with me falling off both a swing and the goalposts (I have just been sent photographic evidence of the latter, but no chance am I sharing). The petticoats protected me from most of the damage, but you should have seen the bruise on my leg…
  • Showing up at the venue, being continually surprised to see people I loved there and having to take a minute each time to remember that it shouldn’t really have been;
  • Managing to walk in early (what bride does that at her wedding!) while everybody was trying to sing the Bridal March because we forgot about entrance music;
  • Stevie heckling the celebrant after his reading, from Love Is A Mixtape: she mentioned that she really ought to read the book; and he yelled from the floor, “you should!”
  • Struggling to get Jay’s wedding ring over his knuckle so just leaving it half on. Figuring nobody else would notice. Um, now you know;
  • What my Web Hedgehog said to me afterwards. I will not repeat it for the sake of all of our modesty;
  • Striding through a conveniently-erected funfair to get some impromptu wedding photographs with my bouquet hanging low like a rockstar in a music video*, and some East End old timer yelling after me: “you’re gonnae get it tonight, hen!”;
  • The epicness that was my brother’s written, composed and performed on guitar-by best man’s speech. And my sister’s verse, with the best line you never made out: I especially like all the cool stuff she lets me steal, now let me think // makeup, shoes and clothes and my new party dress, wink-wink;
  • SHE MEANT MY WEDDING DRESS. GET IT?!;
  • There were cupcakes. There was dancing. There was everybody I loved in the same room, and me running around like a kid in a sweetshop MADE OF FRIENDS;
  • And of course, at the end, it descended into a guitar party as my family + alcohol is wont to do. I won’t tell you what I sang, but there’s a video on Facebook and let’s just say that my indie credentials are completely ruined.

If I have one regret, and it isn’t one really, it’s that I didn’t have enough of the delicious food because I was too busy being a social butterfly (and drinking all this gin that just kept appearing…). We were brought chocolate-covered strawberries in our hotel room that night, and I’m sure they were meant to be used for something kinky, but by that stage I was so starving I pretty much just ate them whole and then stuffed all the little jars of jam from the room service breakfast into my overnight bag the next day. As you can see, there would have been no point in abandoning my own name as I haven’t changed a bit.

Thank you to everybody who made the day what it was. Thank you to my new husband (!) for just being a bit of a legend; and to Jody Vickery, a minister from Georgia, who in coining the phrase “narcissistic cleavage convention” in the Guardian at the weekend managed to sum up our day perfectly. What can I say. Best. Day. Ever.

And there might not have been ice cream, but there was gin and tonic sorbet.

A couple of people have asked, and since this is predominantly a music blog it makes sense to also share with you our first dance. Making the final decision about half an hour before we took to the floor from a shortlist of five, it was:

Marah – So What If We’re Outta Tune (With The Rest Of The World) [mp3]

Thanks Whitney for not being too mad at me for borrowing it for a while.

[*Incidentally, if anybody knows what I did with my bouquet after the photographs, let me know? It would have been nice to hang onto it...]

and i’ll dedicate this feeling to the ones in my life;

Published on July 5, 2010 in a little more personal and music. 6 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Certain songs get scratched into our shoulders, and certain songs get scratched into our souls. There’s no such thing as a glib one-liner in my life, even if the words spoken rarely correspond to the feelings they relate to. I’m still a “wee thinker”. Somebody told me once you get the bug after your first tattoo, but it took me four years of longing and planning before I settled on my cold rose and I didn’t think I’d feel that way again. There was this guy behind me in the queue when I went to make my appointment: how much for a tattoo? he asked. “What do you want?” came the reply. I dunno. I don’t understand that. Maybe it’s a… thing. You know what I’m getting at. Every scar, every ink spot, has to tell a story. I want to look at my markings in twenty years time, and I want to still understand. I want to bottle it up and tie it with a ribbon and a label saying 2010. I want every little moment to feel as good as it does right now.

Certain Songs… It’s a lyric of course, and a damn fine one at that. It’s a tribute to a band that exploded into my life one day and have continued to recapture that teenage feeling every day for as long as they’ve been in it. But it’s more than that. It’s a reminder about the songs that have kept you warm at night for a decade or more, and which continue to fill you with that heady rush of remembrance and longing every time you remember they are there. Jesse Malin’s The Fine Art of Self-Destruction is an album full of those songs; one which transports me to a rainy University Avenue or my mother’s living room or the New York subway. It’s one that, eight years later and me a few days from married, still vividly paints long-forgotten faces in every lyric.

allan fox

So, on the train to Edinburgh straight from work: it’s been a while, and I feel almost as if I have missed the city in which I used to exist if never actually lived. Early doors at the Cabaret Voltaire mean that I miss St Mark’s Social keyboard player Allan Fox’s solo set, but Claudia and Rachel are already in the venue and keeping me a space down the front. I make sure to be in plenty of time to see him the next night in Glasgow. His voice is smooth, soulful and polished and his playing is skillful, but his lyrics are angrier than the music gives them credit for. His slot only allows for four songs, but he assures us that he’ll be back before the end of the night.

the killing floor

I don’t know what to make of The Killing Floor when I see them first. Frontman Marco Argiro is all skinny jeans and sweat bands and rockstar posing and at first I giggle and wonder who he thinks he is, him and his band that have only been together for a few months after a chance meeting in Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland studios in New York. But then it dawns on me: you can get away with all of those things if you are mindfuckingly beautiful (sorry mum) and of course – if you have the tunes. I don’t even realise until the next day, when Claudia and I put their “limited edition” demo on as we get ready to go out for Round Two, but “Shout” in particular is a slice of perfect bass-heavy glam punk. Later that night I even sing along, before getting the band to sign my own copy of the CD.

jesse malin

But, beautiful boys aside, there is only one reason I’m on this intercity tour. It’s been far too long since Jesse Malin has graced a Scottish stage, and his Glasgow crowd in particular are pleased to have him back. King Tut’s shows almost seem like a homecoming for Malin, whose bar in New York once bore the same name. The St Mark’s Social are one of the strongest bands I have ever seen him play with, and they blaze through an incredible setlist which – although fairly similar both nights – runs the gamut of the singer’s entire solo career while incorporating covers from the Replacements and the Bad Brains.

Malin is one of those artists you have to see live. He’s engaging, funny, angry – and sweats more than any artist I have ever seen. Tracks from Love It To Life hold their own with such storming memory-makers as “Hotel Columbia” and “Wendy”; in particular album (and set) opener “Burning The Bowery” and the incredible “All The Way From Moscow”. Inspired, Malin tells us, by a long-distance breakup with a girl who shared his name, a support slot with gypsy punks Gogol Bordello and his discovery under the golden arches of McDonalds near Red Square that “we’re all the same, we all fall in love and we all get fucked over by corporations”, it’s the kind of song that makes me realise that I’m still devastated. But in the best possible way.

That night in Edinburgh, I ask Malin to play “TKO” – the song that inspired the title of this blog, and one I haven’t heard live since the night I changed its name. I’m half kidding, of course – there’s rarely much point to bellowing requests particularly when, as in this case, a relatively new band won’t have learned the words – but after complementing me on my new tattoo (“Certain Songs”, again) he says he’ll see what he can do. And since it’s not on the next night’s setlist, it’s the most incredible surprise when he breaks out the acoustic guitar and forgets the words before launching into my all-time favourite of his songs – and another oldie – “Downliner”.

Let me bottle that one up and label it 2010: the night one of my favourite artists went away and learned my song, just for me. And, thanks to my wonderful friend Murray and the sort of artists who don’t think show taping is killing music, I have the soundtrack to go with it. You can even hear me screaming down the front, if you know what you are listening for:

DOWNLOAD: Jesse Malin – “TKO/Downliner” [live at King Tut's, Glasgow, 1st July 2010]

the corporate shill diaries, part i;

Published on May 20, 2010 in a little more personal. 6 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

What’s your views on free stuff in exchange for blog posts? Okay as long as you’re honest about it? Music bloggers tend to get a lot of bits and pieces from bands looking for a bit of promotion, but I can honestly say I get sent it in such quantities it has never influenced what I take the time to write about – I still have to be genuinely excited about something before I can clear the time to put pen to paper (or two fingers to laptop keyboard). With that in mind, if I told you that Reebok had sent me a pair of their new Easytone trainers, with a view to me joining their community site and, I assume, mentioning them in this blog and my other online haunts, would you accept that I am unlikely to have turned into some brain-dead corporate shill overnight?

Let’s put it this way: I’m getting married nine weeks on Saturday. I’m not as svelte as I once was, and need an excuse for some kind of fitness routine. And at anything from £70 – £90 a pair, it’s not as if I have the money to splash out on a pair of these things for the good of my health, as it were.

[Incidentally, nothing says I'm getting married in a few weeks like 150 organza favour bags in the mail. Life really doesn't get any less exciting.]

100510 - Easytone

The first thing I noticed about them was how pretty they were. It sounds like a silly thing to mention, but the first time I wore them to work a couple of people commented on how odd it was to see me wearing trainers. And there’s a very good reason for that: I don’t care how comfortable a pair of shoes are, if they make me look like a hockey player and don’t go with my skirts there’s not much chance I’m going to be wearing them. So fair play to Reebok for the range of stylish, eye-catching designs these shoes are available in – although I’m sure the pretty pinks and purples add a fair few quid onto the price.

Easytone shoes apparently use “balance pods” to “create natural instability which encourages toning through increased muscle activation”. So far, so Pantene Pro-V, right? I was cynical too, until I gave them a try. For “balance pods” read “great big friggin’ air bubbles” on the soles of the shoes, which add a certain bounce to your step while walking. And they’re comfortable enough that you’ll be happy to do plenty of that. I’m not the sporting type, but I’m a big fan of long walks with my headphones on and the balmier weather we’ve been experiencing recently has meant ideal conditions for that. Partnered with the RunKeeper iPhone app, which uses GPS to track distances traveled (although it seems to think I managed a 55 mile walk from Oban in about an hour over the weekend) I’ve been wearing the shoes to walk part or fully-way home from work in the evenings: a distance of 2-3 miles. While I don’t quite have the jiggling bum of the girl in the television advert, I can certainly feel the good kind of ache in my leg muscles that I didn’t experience after similar walks in the past. It’s a little early to say whether I’m going to look like a supermodel by the end of July, but I’m having fun trying to get there.

Incidentally, I’ve just discovered on the website that I can actually pull the insoles out of the trainers to make room for my orthortics – excellent as all this walking has been playing a certain amount of havoc with my knees. Massive brownie points to Reebok for thinking of that one.

OBLIGATORY PURCHASE LINK: Buy yer own Easytones at Reebok.com

and they sell it out to the girls like you;

Published on May 11, 2010 in a little more personal. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

Wedding Season starts on Saturday with the Blonde tying the knot in her native Oban, and T&J following suit the following week. Appropriate then that, when Saturday comes, Stringer and I only have ten weeks until we become… well, Mr Stringer and Ms Ferla reloaded, this time with Tory tax credits and immunity against testifying should the other ever be accused of a crime.

Do you know why it is that girls like me don’t get married? Pay a visit to Berketex Bridal, or indeed any similar blancmange factory, ideally on a Saturday afternoon like my sister and I did. It’s probably just me – I suspect I was at the back of the queue or had my headphones in when they were handing out that particular give-a-crap chromosome – but doe-eyed brides-to-be surrounded by clouds of fluffy ivory train leave me cold. Indeed, it’s fair to say they freak my out a little. Such princess dresses might be every little girls’ dream, but I felt as if I’d stumbled into an episode of Doctor Who. I wouldn’t have been surprised if each on cue had turned around and started shooting killer laser beams out of her nipples.

“Can you see yourself getting married in this one?” I heard a sales assistant coo. It would have been quite sweet if the next bride hadn’t been addressed with exactly the same inflection by the next sales assistant.

Saying that, I did almost well up when I saw how gorgeous my little sister slash Maid of Honour looked in the perfect bridesmaid gown. Perfect apart from the price, of course: “she wouldn’t let me see the label as she put it on me,” Cha hissed as soon as our guard’s back was turned. Strangely, not being allowed to take a photograph to help me make my decision given her co-anchor’s London location without being expected to fork over five hundred quid did not exactly fill me with the required warm fuzzies to place an order. If the Internet was good enough for me, then take me to those Chinese eBay outlets.

Just comparing dress shopping to my only other proper bridal experience – Bobby, Jules and I stuffing our faces with chocolates and champers while trying on pants in Boudiche – makes me glad to have a blog in which to whine about these things. Knickers to dresses, frankly.

exerpts from a travel journal: i believe in a promised land;

Published on April 21, 2010 in a little more personal and travellin'. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , .

When I was leaving high school I had this little notebook I passed around for schoolmates and teachers to write messages and memories in. I’ll still have it somewhere – this travel journal is testament to the fact that I never throw anything away – but I still remember the dedication from one of my PE teachers: To the only girl I know who can swim without getting her hair wet.

There are a few things I dislike, including the above. Mud is another; as is “swimming” in water without the security of knowing I can touch the bottom with my toe whenever I want to. With this in mind, why I thought I’d enjoy the opportunity to float in the Dead Sea is anybody’s guess. You probably know that, at 422m below sea level, its shores and surface mark the lowest point on Earth and its waters are so salty it is impossible to sink in them. Well, almost impossible. There isn’t a body of water on the planet I am incapable of floundering like a beached whale in.

As we showered and toweled off afterwards, an American lady and I bonded over the experience. “That’s the worst thing I’ve done in my 67 years,” she said, and while I wouldn’t agree just for the fun we had trying to get the mud off my brother and sister – who had coated themselves as liberally as on those comedy postcards along the Via Dolorosa – it’s probably not something I’ll ever need to repeat. “Most people visit the Dead Sea twice in their lifetimes – the first time and the last time,” Mike is fond of saying. You can understand why – the smell certainly stays with you for long enough.

dead sea

It was an early start, even by the standards of this trip: we were switching hotels, leaving Jerusalem for the Galilee, and we had plenty of stops planned along the way. We began at Qum’ran, the place where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in a cave by Bedouin goatherds in the 1940s. The scrolls themselves are now displayed, for the most part, in Jerusalem and some of our party had already taken the opportunity to see them on our free day.

qumran

The day was hot – almost unbearably so, for the first time since we arrived – which made our exploration of Herod the Great’s desert fortress at Masada a little uncomfortable. Still it’s a fascinating place; reached either by the winding Snake Path or, for the more sensible, cable car which gives incredible views of the surrounding area. The site is an archaeologist’s dream due to the conditions in the area preserving much of it, and a black painted line shows where parts have been lovingly reconstructed. There are the remains of a Roman bath like the ones I saw in Bath last year, and an ingenious system of cisterns which enabled the inhabitants to trap and store water. You can also see where the Romans breached the fortress during the siege of 72AD, prompting 960 inhabitants to commit mass suicide rather than face capture or slavery.

masada
masada

In the blazing heat it’s hard to imagine the floods that would have kept the fortress irrigated but our guide has experienced them in dramatic fashion. He tells us about the Australian group whose bus was trapped for four hours once. Their biggest worry was that, after their own forty years in the desert, the hotel bar would have run out of beer.

“This is the land of milk and honey,” Mike says, gesturing at the rocks and the wilderness as far as the eye can see. Moses, he reminds us, never made it to Israel – when he saw what God had promised he took one look, said ay yi yi and died. “We Jews are too impatient a people, and we think we know everything,” Mike jokes. “God said take my people to Can- and Moses said I know, I know, Canaan. If he’d let God finish, we could be in Canada.”

heaven is whatever;

Published on April 18, 2010 in a little more personal and music. 5 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

Still, I believe, four Israel related posts to come – but it’s been a good weekend, and I’m going back to work tomorrow for eight days out of the next nine, and I wanted to take a little break to celebrate it. Sorry Mummy :)

It started at Auntie M’s Cake Lounge, on the upper floor of the old deCourcey’s Arcade; fast becoming my favourite little shopping spot in Glasgow. Neil-bear and I had been foiled by illness in our quest to sample Auntie’s wares before I left for Jerusalem, but I’m happy to announce it was worth the wait. A perfect little space to finish up my travel journals, like sitting in somebody’s front room only back in the 1950s, and in the raspberry and white chocolate the most incredible cupcake I have experienced in Glasgow to date. And I have eaten a lot of cupcakes.

2010-04-16 at 13-46-28

Those first days of Glasgow sunshine, when it’s still pretty chilly but half the city runs outside in t-shirts and ice cream sales skyrocket anyway, are my favourite. It’s like we appreciate them all the more after a long winter and rainy spring. I met Miss America for a wander, and we sat in the Botanics for a while messing around with the camera and peoplewatching. There were the usual overaffectionate young couples and crowds of students, two pensioners in shorts with their shirts off and a scruffy-haired boy with a pile of books by the pond. “You’ve been here fer a while if you’ve read aw them!” somebody shouted. Ah, Glasgow.

2010-04-16 at 15-34-48
2010-04-16 at 15-51-40
Credit to Miss America for the bottom photograph.

And then yesterday, of course, was Record Store Day so I got up early and planned to be at Monorail before opening hoping I could get my hands on one of the limited edition Hold Steady vinyl albums. However the queue was already halfway to the Note, and the guy two places in front of me was a lot luckier (as, unfortunately, was this chap). “Someone got in front of me at Avalanche, I know exactly how you feel right now,” he told me once I settled for the Bruce Springsteen single. All’s well that ends well though, because at least I got to go home and preorder my copy – even if it’s not the limited edition clear one.

2010-04-17 at 10-20-45

At least I got a cupcake. Although, Mono being Mono, it was a vegan one and made I think from flowers instead of flour.

You know what though? It was amazing to see my favourite record store so busy. I was evesdropping on the conversation the two guys behind me in the queue were having – basically one playing devil’s advocate, asking exactly what it was that labels get from bricks-and-mortar stores in an age when everything is accessible for cheaper online, and what sense of community do stores provide when we can trade recommendations on blogs and via Twitter. And I’ll tell you what it is: because had I managed to go home with that record tucked under my arm and if I had been able to play it that very afternoon, I would have been the happiest little girl in Glasgow. As it is, I’ll hope the planes start flying again so I can look forward to its arrival.

Which isn’t to say that there’s nothing to be gained from instantly accessible .mp3s downloads. “Ten Times”, the second single from the Kays Lavelle’s forthcoming Be Still This Gentle Morning, is out tomorrow from Wiseblood Industries – complete with a Japanese War Effort remix of the track. You can download it for free here.

exerpts from a travel journal: inflight interludes;

Published on April 15, 2010 in a little more personal and travellin'. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

The day before I was due to fly to Israel, I went to give blood. It seemed like a pretty logical decision at the time, but the nurses were horrified to discover I was planning to fly the next day. “Medium haul?” somebody tutted. “Well if you feel sick tomorrow, like you did last time, don’t say we didn’t warn you. And no aspirin.”

I was determined not to complain no matter how I felt, but all credit to the nursing staff at Nelson Mandela Place: when I ended up head swimming and my legs in the air, nobody said I told you so. And nothing tastes better than the orange juice they give you when you have just given blood, no matter where else you may drink the same drink.

You know the chat you get at the hairdresser? Holidays, celebrities, Saturday nights? It’s got nothing on the chat you get when you go to give blood. I’ve had some of the most obscure and most random conversations of my life in there, regardless of whether the lightheadedness contributes or not. They liked my stripes and red dress – my “nautical” look – and I was certainly sodden thanks to the April rain. “I wish I had worn my hat,” I sighed.

Oh, you like hats as well? It seems there had been a girl in the centre, just before Christmas, whose boyfriend was donating; and that she had been wearing this incredible red-trimmed top hat which it turned out that she had made herself. The technician gave her £20 to make a commission: “just the cheapest material, the cheapest of everything, and don’t take offence when I tell you what I want it for,” she said. She has a scarecrow which is famous in the village you see, and it’s going to look so dapper in its new top hat trimmed with yellow ribbon. “I need to get him a matching coat now,” the technician told me happily.

* * *

TERMINAL 5. Do you even remember me? The last time we met you were pure sex appeal, shiny and new; I hadn’t slept in a day and my ankles were the size of grapefruit. I suppose we all look the same to you, the millions of us who pass your way every year; us Manic Pixie Dream Girls with our wide eyes and our green suitcases and our hearts full of adventure, pretending to be Zooey Deschanel: anywhere you wanna go. Just you and me.

* * *

We landed in Tel Aviv late, and pretty tired, after a flight that didn’t make me sick. It’s always nice to break a curse. The horror stories we had heard about Israeli airport security either didn’t hold true, or we were lulled into a false sense of security by how pretty everybody was. There was a bit of a hold-up when the X-ray machine broke, but we were among the first to have our suitcases searched so we had time for an overpriced lunch at Heathrow. Security was a fellow Canon user, suitably impressed by my in-depth knowledge of exactly where everything was inside (as was I, given how hastily I threw in too many clothes and books I couldn’t beside between to give me more time to concentrate on playlists). It was easy not to notice getting asked all the same, seemingly innocuous questions, twice.

Mikhail, or Mike as he would have us call him, was waiting for us by the tour bus we’d be seeing plenty of over the next week. A native Israeli Jew with a selection of souvenir t-shirts from various American tourist traps; almost completely bald apart from a matted blond ponytail; speaking superfast in accelerated, hyperliterate English; full of life and punchlines and pearls of wisdom. “Welcome to Tehran,” he greeted us with a twinkle, “I’ve spent the past few days learning English especially for you.” And, just like that, I could tell this trip was going to be more of a riot than I had anticipated.

The road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem climbs up into the mountains, and even in my semi-delirious state there was something magical and otherworldly about our nocturnal ascent. In one panoramic view from the bus window I saw the lights of McDonalds and a truck packed full of crates of living baby chickens. We entered the New Town and headed for our hotel over a bridge constructed to look like an upturned harp and ate quickly, conscious of our early morning wake-up call.

exerpts from a travel journal: curiously literal, or the time i went to north berwick without the right notebook;

Published on March 28, 2010 in a little more personal and travellin'. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Travel sickness medicine is one of those things that taste so vile that they remain permanently etched on your childhood consciousness, like that time I stuck a fork in a butter bean and a little bubble popped out. I think I only had it the once, as it was never something I really suffered from – only when I brought it upon myself by reading too much in the backseat of the car. You can quell the waves of nausea by looking out of the window – I think I read that somewhere, probably on a dual carriageway headed north at 65mph.

But this weekend I’ve been feeling pretty queasy. I’d like to think it’s the excitement of being on the move again, finally; but I’m pretty sure it’s because I told myself that Julie’s hen weekend was always going to prove a break from my Lenten pledges* and I’d already been to two different Starbucks by the time we boarded the Edinburgh train.

[*Incidentally, I've got less than a week of my forty days of water challenge so if you were of the inclination to sponsor me a little I would really appreciate it!]

North Berwick’s solitary platform was chilly when Bobby and I got off the train, and with our assortment of bags and bottles we were glad that Rachel had given us a local taxi number although we had been assured the cottage was only a ten minute walk or so. I dialled. An older woman picked up. The noise in the background sounded as if it was coming from a television set in somebody’s front room. “Hello?” she said suspiciously.

“Uh… is this the taxi?”

“It’s already booked tonight,” she snapped and put the phone down.

Luckily the girls at the cottage already had had a similar experience, and were expecting our calls for help. As we waited, a car decked with genuine L-plates pulled up and four skinny teenaged boys climbed out on their way to a night out in the city. We were reminded of William’s first Black Sabbath show in Almost Famous as somebody’s mother hugged goodbye and got into the driver’s seat. Bobby and I looked at each other, grinned and shared the same thought.

DON’T DO DRUGS!!!

The bite of the ocean in the air. Long walks on the beachfront. One shopping street stuffed with charity shops and curios, flanked with lanes with curiously literal names: Bank Street with a branch of Bank of Scotland on the corner, Abbey Road where the nunnery was. I’m sure I wouldn’t want to live there, but it was a lovely place to lose myself for a while. With everything in the gift and homeware shops so cheap and pretty it was a struggle to remind myself I don’t have the money to spend on those little treats anymore and I did come away with a new necklace. “You deserve it,” said Hayley – who I wish I saw more often because although she is Julie’s friend I have always been at least halfway in love with her – “you work hard at… being your own protagonist.”

The house was beautiful, a treasure trove of lovingly-assembled knick-knacks: a broken old radio, a gingham bedspread, a garden swing, a wooden plaque with the names of shipping forecast regions. It was the perfect location for a weekend of laughter, friendship and girlish fun – good food I wish I could have enjoyed more of, seventies wigs and the usual hen memorabilia. Last night we went down onto the beach and as sand crept into the gaps between my shoe straps and tights we tried to write our wishes to one of the best couples I have ever met on sky lanterns the wind wouldn’t let us set aloft. Later Jules and I danced and sang every word to We Are The Pipettes like it was still that night in 2006. And I thought about how, whatever else I may think I have lost or be struggling to find and whatever else has changed beyond recognition or refuses to do so, I am lucky to have filled my life with the most wonderful people I know will still be in it for the adventures that are to come.

To Julie and Allan, and roll on May!

get right church and let’s go home;

Published on March 21, 2010 in a little more personal and music. 6 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

I’m just off the phone to the Stringer, who has been away the better part of this week visiting his family. It’s Sunday morning, or what’s left of it, and he’s wandering around the village in search of breakfast. “It’s strange,” he tells me. “Everybody knows my name, and they opened the pub early to make me a bacon sandwich.” (He says it like that, sandwich, in his accent that gets a little more regional every time he goes home. He knows the word will make me giggle, because we play-fight all the time about the curiously literal turns of phrase Glaswegians employ – and don’t get me started about his hatred of square sausage.) “Would any of our locals do that?”

I think most of our “locals” open early when there’s a game on, but I’m not sure if I’d trust their fry-ups.

Sometimes it’s nice to just wander. Camera, notebook, my favourite tunes in my ears. I rate and file my music, which probably doesn’t surprise you – four stars go to my favourites at any given moment, but five is reserved for the songs that stand the test of time. It’s this playlist I’ve got on as I switch from buses to an all-day pass on the underground. Every time the track skips on I get a secret thrill, that oh! I love this song! buzz you get when you’re in a bar and they’re playing something you didn’t expect; maybe something that you haven’t heard in ages but still remember all the words to. Given the nature of the playlist you’d think I’d know enough to expect it, but such is the nature of the relationship I have with my favourite songs.

…I’ll be the phonograph that plays your favourite albums back
as you’re lying there
drifting off to sleep…

During that month I was working in the university bookshop – and other times before that as well, but mostly then – I’d get the number nine bus straight from the flat to Kelvingrove, and I’d pass by this same curious little sign on Argyle Street offering underground records and tapes. It’s tucked away, and the sort of thing that apart from on that one lucky occasion you were gazing out of the window in just the right direction at just the right time you’d only see if you knew where and when to look for it. I always told myself I would visit some day but I never got around to it. But then yesterday, when I saw the sign, I took a stop to talk myself into it and then I jumped off the bus and walked back.

It’s a curious little place, Volcanic Tongue – you have to follow the sign, duck down a little alley and head up a flight of stairs. You almost feel as if you’re creeping into somebody’s back bedroom – a tiny cubbyhole, stuffed with records and tapes. I was a little nervous that there would be nothing familiar, that I would feel out of my depth in the absence of the bearded, earnest young men in plaid my boss who makes me Stooges mixes teases me for. But I spotted a copy of the first Cat Power album almost immediately and anyway, there is no pretentiousness here. As a record shop it looks sort of like the inside of my dear American friend Douglas Martin‘s head, right down to the pretty girl behind the counter. “I want to buy something I’ve never heard before,” I tell her, squirming a little at how gauche I sound as the words leave my mouth. She laughs, and pops a disc into the CD player when I expand that I don’t mind a little noise as long as it’s in some way melodic. “I’ve heard it described as freak-folk,” she says, which is pretty much perfect – it just sounds like this boy, and this girl, who’ve stayed up a little too late and she’s got her legs draped casually over his legs in that way that looks effortless but really means that you’re trying to get close in any way you can without looking like you meant it, and they’re lazily jamming among the leftover bottles and the late-night stragglers. I’m playing it just now actually, because of course I bought it along with an early Vivian Girls 7″. The inside of Douglas Martin’s head, remember?

I think I crossed most of Glasgow yesterday, at some point or another. I went searching for acoustic sessions on the underground, but only see somebody setting up at St Enoch and somebody else packing up in Partick. I lunched on cupcakes and caramel shortcake ice cream, scribbling in my journal while some tousle-haired little kids asked for chocolate on a chocolate cone. I rifled through Lady Drawers on the southside, and sat in Queen’s Park for a while just marveling that it was just about warm enough to wear my favourite jacket again. Later I met Aidan in Tchai Ovna, and he tried to put my head to rights while I drank Turkish Apple and ate crackers and cheese and wondered why no other cafe I have ever visited seems to consider it an acceptable snack.

Plans for today? Well it’s tempting to go through to Edinburgh where I know Franz Nicolay is playing Sneaky Pete’s, but I’m wondering if a late-night train back I can’t actually afford will make me no use to anybody on a full day’s work tomorrow. Edinburgh and an ex-moustache are, however, probably the closest I will get to my favourite band this year given that a London or Manchester trip to see the Hold Steady themselves would be even less practical. I have a pile of work to shift before I can even think about it though, so we shall see.

DOWNLOAD: MV & EE – Get Right Church
BUY: Barn Nova from Volcanic Tongue

tights and skirts baby, skirts and tights;

Published on January 10, 2010 in a little more personal, music and photography. 9 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

I want to be a better person. I’ve been saying this for years, but what if I’m going about this the wrong way? What if the key to making the most out of life isn’t in making lists and setting targets and taking ninety days to change your life and lose a stone and shift career? Who am I competing with – the online whizzkids who had it all on the back of that one big idea at twenty-three, my friends or the impossibly high standards I set for myself? Am I experiencing for the joy of it, or simply so that I may tell others what I have experienced?

100110 - Snow Walk

Maybe what I should be doing is slowing down; doing less instead of forcing myself to do MORE, NOW, AGAIN. When you’re constantly thinking three steps ahead when life hits you in its mystifying and unexpected ways it’s going to throw you more than if you were ready to roll with its punches. It’s not about having done this by such and such a time, it’s not about this year, I’ll… I need to focus on the short term, which right now is solving what I’m going to do for money, and let the big picture take care of itself.

snow walk

Snow boots. Big, brown, fleece-lined things I got with my Christmas money, and which are the only things that keep my toes warm in this weather. A red beret, pulled down over my ears against the chill and because I’ve never figured out how to wear it. A purple hand-knitted scarf and matching fingerless gloves I can hardly find my hands in but which I adore because they were made with transatlantic love. The last time I wore this tweedy coat with its fake-fur collar I was in New York, and I was surprised that it was almost as cold as it is right now. Three years ago’s badge reads RYAN ADAMS IS GOD. I grab my camera and make for the park, where the snow underfoot is just the right kind of crunchy and kids are pushing themselves down the hill in makeshift sledges put together from cracked plastic trays and black bin liners. For once I don’t have earphones jammed in my ears, creating my own fake atmosphere.

snow walk

This evening I decided to make a roast dinner, juicy pork with enough hot gravy to drown a plate. It’s not something I do very often, even with the convenience of those pre-packed vegetables from Asda, so it was so good. I’m hoping Monday lunchtime sandwiches with Sunday’s meat still taste as incredible as I remember them being from primary school.

snow walk

There you go. In 2010, I’m going to force myself to take more Sundays in my life.

snow walk

More Friday nights would be great too, though. As I mentioned It was the launch of We Sink Ships Radio and a fond farewell to Neil, dressed like a deranged gnome in one of those pixie hats with the earflaps and an Airdrie scarf. Euan McMeeken played stripped-down versions of his Kays Lavelle songs, fragile and haunting like a Christmas card snowscene, and Benni Hemm Hemm rocked a reindeer-patterned novelty sweater. The Second Hand Marching Band were as delightfully ramshackle as regular readers have come to expect, in their last show before disappearing into the studio (hopefully to record Jen and Dave’s haunting sea shanty that I worry exists only in my head). Lots of familiar faces, and faces-to-finally-put-to-names too, which was lovely.