Postcards from a tiny studio

Words

“Bigotry doesn’t often offend me. I usually find it laughable. That taxi driver you keep banging on about harbours views which are so utterly stupid that laughter is the only sensible response. Because if you give words the authority to offend you, they always will.”

– Jack Dee, ‘Thanks for Nothing’

Bands are like marriages

‘I loved The Curfew, when I was in college,’ he said. ‘Still do, I mean, but you know what I mean.’

‘Thanks,’ she said.

‘Why did you break up?’

‘Bands are like marriages. Or maybe only good ones are. Who knows why a good one works, let alone why it stops working.’

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He crouched there, suddenly aware of something he couldn’t name. The goddess, the noise of the port, the old man, the ten painted disks slung around his neck like blank sigils. Something was about to change. In the world, in his life, he didn’t know. He closed his eyes. Saw the blue vase glowing softly, where he’d hidden it, on the roof of his building.

Accept this.

I do, he told her.

– William Gibson, ‘Spook Country’

Mr. Pritchard

“Mr. Pritchard was a businessman, the president of a medium-sized corporation. He was never alone. His business was conducted by groups of men who worked alike, thought alike, and even looked alike. His lunches were with men like himself who joined together in clubs to so that no foreign element or idea could enter. His religious life was again his lodge and his church, both of which were screened and protected. One night a week he played poker with men so exactly like himself that the game was fairly even, and from this fact his group was convinced that they were very fine poker players. Wherever he went he was not one man but a unit in a corporation, a unit in a club, in a lodge, in a church, in a political party. His thoughts and ideas were never subjected to criticism since he willingly associated only with people like himself. He read a newspaper written by and for his group. The books that came into his house were chosen by a committee which deleted material that might irritate him. He hated foreign countries and foreigners because it was difficult to find his counterpart in them. He did not want to stand out from his group. He would like to have risen to the top of it and be admired by it; but it would not occur to him to leave it. At occasional stags where naked girls danced on the tables and sat in great glasses of wine, Mr. Pritchard howled with laughter and drank the wine, but five hundred Mr. Pritchards were there with him.”

– John Steinbeck, ‘The Wayward Bus’

We’re all Bastards

By Derek.

Poor listeners

Years ago, I remember watching the film ‘The Accidental Tourist‘ on TV. It was one of those films where nothing really happens, but I was still drawn in by the great characters, the slow atmosphere and the sweet dialogue.

A couple of years ago I read an article about the author Anne Tyler, whose book the film was based on. Some songwriters are described as ‘the songwriter’s songwriter’ (Ron Sexsmith, who I mentioned in a recent post, being one example). This article suggested that Anne Tyler was the ‘writer’s writer’, and that Nick Hornby and Roddy Doyle had nominated her ‘the greatest living novelist writing in English’.

At that time it was bothering me that all of my favourite authors were male; John Steinbeck, Iain Rankin and Douglas Coupland being a few. So I bought the first book written by Anne Tyler, ‘If Morning Ever Comes’. I loved it and am now working my way through all of her books chronologically.

Just like the film I mentioned earlier, nothing huge and dramatic often happens in her books, but her writing is beautiful, her characters believable and her stories perfect for getting lost in.

“Tyler is an exquisite chronicler of the everyday. Home and homesickness are her central preoccupations; repression, guilt and estrangement her prevailing themes. Her characters are at once infuriating and endearing, conservative yet quietly eccentric. They are all unheroic survivors.”
– The Observer

Here’s an extract from ‘A Slipping Down Life’, her third novel, that particularly resonated with me:

The congregation commented on the sermon during each pause. ‘”It’s true. It’s true.” “Amen.” “Ain’t it so?” Like poor listeners in an ordinary conversation, they seemed likely to jump up at any moment and interrupt to tell experiences of their own. Only none of them did. Instead, Evie began to worry that it would be her herself who interrupted. Pauses between paragraphs grew longer and quieter, swelling until they might burst forth with her own voice saying something terrible.

Ordinary ministers picked a single, narrow theme for each sermon; Brother Hope tried to cover the world in an hour. Faced with the leap from one topic to another, from the evils of pre-teen dating to the inevitability of death and from there to the unnaturalness of working mothers, he kept taking a breath and hesitating, as if he worried about the abyss he had to span; and every time it happened Evie drew in her breath too. She was not certain what would burst forth. She gripped the chair in front of her, and the man who sat in it turned to show her the expectant, circular eyes of a baby.

A Jealous Mistress

I read ’17’ by Bill Drummond during the first few exhausting weeks of having twins.

I would go to bed at 9 o’clock at night, read a little bit of the book, then grab a quick sleep before  my wife and I would get up at 10:30pm to give the babies a feed. Then we’d be up again at 2:30am for another feed, and then up any number of times after and in-between that to settle either, or usually both, babies. Just like anyone who’s had a baby really, except there’s two of them.

There wasn’t a lot of time or energy for reading (or for anything really), but thankfully this book had short chapters filled with great stories and original ideas.

I love Bill Drummond’s work and how he’s moved so easily from one art form to another, never putting limitations on what art is, or being precious about anything he’s created.

“Between the years 1977 and 1992 I had found myself involved in the making of pop music. It happened by accident but had taken over my life. In 1992 I found the strength of will to put a stop to it. Well, almost. I did have a couple of minor lapses.

There were a lot of reasons for wanting to stop doing pop. One of the main reasons was there was all this other stuff I wanted to do. Somehow the whole process of making music didn’t allow for this, music being a jealous mistress and all that. I needed to create time and space for the other stuff. ‘Music is not my first love and it won’t be my last,’ to misquote a lyric you might have heard once or twice.

– Bill Drummond, ’17’.

Stuff I Like

What I usually write about on this blog is stuff relating to Calamateur – what I’m up to musically, upcoming gigs, the usual look-at-me-I’m-awesome self-promoting nonsense. It’s something I don’t hate doing (but certainly don’t love), and I hope I’m getting better at it (and that it’s not too dull for other people to read).

But over the last wee while I’ve been collecting ideas, quotes from books, pictures, links, videos etc with the intention of finding a place to share them online. I considered starting a Posterous or Tumblr blog but can’t really see the point when I can just use this blog right here.

So you’ll see more of that kind of stuff on this blog from now on. Hopefully it will make it more interesting. If not… don’t read it 🙂

To start things off, here’s a trailer for an incredible film about Ron Sexsmith which I watched on BBC 4 recently:

It turns out that, despite all his success, awards and critical acclaim, Ron Sexsmith is still insecure, dissatisfied and, it seems, fairly neurotic. Which, despite my lack of success, awards and critical acclaim, still somehow makes me feel a whole lot better about feeling the same way.

‘Each Dirty Letter’ up on NoiseTrade

I just put my album from last year, ‘Each Dirty Letter’ up on the music site NoiseTrade.

You can download the album for free in exchange for your email address and postcode. You can also share the album on Facebook, Twitter etc and , if you like, put some money in the tip jar.

Here’s the wee widget:

Calamateur 2010

This past year has been another busy one on the music front 🙂

In May I put out my third album, ‘Each Dirty Letter’:

It was the first collection of songs I’d put out that wasn’t self-produced (this amazing guy did it). I’m really proud of it as an album and a lot of other people seemed to like it too.

In August I released a single from the album called ‘Banoffee’:

It was backed by three covers, including a version of The Flaming Lips’ ‘Feeling Yourself Disintegrate’ which was played by BBC 6Music.

In the process of promoting the album I played a handful of gigs (including two with the uber-talented Iain Morrison) as well as a couple of radio sessions, including this one on MFR:

I was also interviewed by Shadders Online, Cross Rhythms and Peenko.

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In other news, DUFI finished their short film about the Inverness Street Texts Project which I provided the soundtrack for:

I mixed a couple of tracks, Roddy MacIsaac and An Ann Air Mhire Tha Sibh, for Iain Morrison’s incredible album ‘Trust the Sea to Guide Me’ which came out in April:

And I also re-released my entire back catalogue via the wonderful Bandcamp:

And that’s it!

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The longer I do this music lark, the more I realise it’s about connecting with other people – whether it be with musical collaborators and/or listeners. So, if I made music with you this year, or if you bought a CD, download or t-shirt, came to a gig, helped spread the word via Facebook, Twitter, blog or plain old-fashioned word of mouth, sent me an encouraging email or just gave my songs a listen – THANK YOU 🙂

There will be more Calamateur to come in 2011. But first, there’s a house-move to be getting on with, a new home studio to be set up, and a heap of painting and decorating to be done. When the dust has settled after that, more music will be on the way.

Thanks for reading and for all your support.