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Category: A Blog… of sorts
R.I.P Chris Eccleshall
My old friend, Chris Eccleshall, passed away on 20th August. Chris built a guitar for me in 1988 and it remains one of my fondest possessions. You can see it and read about it here. I’m sad that we lost touch after he moved from London. I will record something with it soon and post…
Website Update
I admit that I’ve left this place to gather dust and I apologise to you if you have tried to follow links that have progressively become broken or redundant over the past while. Anyway, I’ve spent some time repairing these and removing things that were out of date or no longer relevant and it should…
To my friends in Bielefeld
My website analytics service shows me that, by far, the most visits my site gets from Europe is from Bielefeld in Germany where in the 1970s I spent a lot of time playing and making friends. That cannot be a coincidence so I must conclude that I still have friends there who remember me and…
Stoppin’ playin’
Well, kind of. It’s absolutely clear to me that doing a day-job in Aberdeen and my residency there during the week is incompatible with performing in Edinburgh – even at open mics and sessions at the weekends. My time when I’m at home in Edinburgh doesn’t allow practice and rehearsal time to do justice to…
Featuring Tonight at “Out Of The Bedroom”
I’m doing the feature set of about 45 mins. at Out Of The Bedroom tonight in Edinburgh (see link for address). Show start around 8pm and I think I’ll be on about 9.30, or so. Sorry for the late notice but I only got the invite very late on Thursday. Hope to see you there!
Eclipsed!
Fantastic eclipse of the sun this morning around Edinburgh and the clouds provided a great filter to allow me to very, very carefully take some photos:
Authenticity in the Folk Music Tradition
What is this? Do we recognise it? I’ve heard rumours of musicians having been thrown out of sessions in Irish pubs because what they played wasn’t Irish enough. And that the display of a characteristic singing accent when rendering some northern English 19th century mining song is a badge of honour and evidence of authenticity…
The Years of the Sheep
2015 is the Chinese Year of the Sheep. Of course, we all remember the Year of the Sheep in Scotland in 1792. And I even had one of my own in 2008. Meh!
On Songwriting: What’s the Purpose of Writing Songs?
For a long time I never considered this question since making up tunes and singing along to them – relying totally on serendipity – was a childish habit I developed as soon as I was big enough to hold a guitar. This was long before I asked why anyone did anything. Only later in my…
