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:
And I also re-released my entire back catalogue via the wonderful Bandcamp:
And that’s it!
————
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 đ
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.
“Do not dismiss a book until you have written one, and do not dismiss a movie until you have made one, and do not dismiss a person until you have met them. It is a fuckload of work to be open-minded and generous and understanding and forgiving and accepting, but Christ, that is what matters.” – Dave Eggers
If you’re reading this, the chances are that you already know I released a new album this year called ‘Each Dirty Letter‘.
The album received many good reviews, all of which I’m very thankful for. You can read some of them here.
It also got some pretty bad ones, and in the interests of transparency, honesty and commercial suicide, I think it only seems fair to let you hear both sides of the story.
So how about this one for starters:
“A breezy collection of no thrills pop…limp and pedestrian….far too often do the songs get bogged down in sentimental slush…”
– The Skinny
Or how about these kickers:
“If youâve lost your heart to a girl in a woolly cardigan then this album is the perfect paracetamol to add to your iPodâs pain killer collection. Otherwise, it will probably leave you cold.”
–Â Bluesbunny
“…too many of Calamateur’s songs are stillborn acoustic meanders. Too often the tunes limp along without focus…”
–Â Halesowen News
“‘A Bad Friendâ sounds clunky and out of place in what is otherwise a cohesive album and âSad and Lonely Worldâ is so slow and repetitive I defy anyone to not skip tracks through sheer boredom.”
– Red Hot Velvet
Red Hot Velvet think ‘A Bad Friend’ is “clunky and out of place”, while Drunken Werewolf thinks it’s “frankly embarrassing”?
But didn’t skiddle.com describe ‘A Bad Friend’ as “the strongest track” and say “It is the more personal moments like this that make Each Dirty Letter an engaging album”? And didn’t Americana UK say “the simple solo acoustic charm, and regrets of, âA Bad Friendâ…gains strength in its sparseness”?
Hmm.
Red Hot Velvet also say “‘Sad and Lonely Worldâ is so slow and repetitive I defy anyone to not skip tracks through sheer boredom.” But Americana UK think it’s ‘masterfully restrained”, while my good friend Dave Saunders think’s it’s the best track on the album.
Huh.
Both Drunken Werewolf and Crack in the Road directly compared my songs to that of James Blunt’s. Well, no one wants to be compared to James Blunt. After all, he did this:
Ugh.
But then the Scottish Sunday Express said “(Calamateur) belongs in that small band of clever singer-songwriters who write sharp, beautiful songs (Ed Harcourt, David Ford, Tom Macrae to name a few) but are destined never to reach the heights of stardom that infinitely less talented people like James Blunt have achieved.”
OK… so, uh, now I’m confused. Who’s right here?
When it comes to reviews – good or bad – the temptation has always been for me to let the value of my music be defined by what another person thinks of it. At my worst, I’ve allowed the value of my very self be defined by one person’s singular point of view.
So if I read a great review I would be as high as a kite, because I felt worthwhile and important. Conversely, if I read a bad review I would feel useless and foolish.
There was a time in my life when bad reviews like the ones above would have crippled me creatively and, to an extent, emotionally. Thankfully that’s no longer the case.
After all, whether a review is positive, negative or indifferent, it will only ever be one person’s opinion. Taste in music is purely subjective. I don’t believe there is such a thing as good music or bad music anymore – there is just music that you either connect with or you don’t. Music you like or dislike.
The very idea of having refined musical tastes, or thinking your taste is better than another’s is, to me, laughable I’m afraid.
Of course, there is the odd exception to the no good/bad music rule. For instance:
After having read all of these bad reviews, I realised I hadn’t actually listened to my album for a long time. So I put it on and remembered just how much I love it; how proud I am of the songs themselves, how I think everyone who played on it did an amazing job, and how Iain Hutchison pulled it all together so brilliantly.
I’ll admit it’s polished, it’s sentimental and it’s not anywhere near as rough, experimental or lo-fi as my previous outings. But that’s how I wanted it to sound. Some people will be disappointed about that but, to paraphrase my friend Steve Lawson, if you want to hear a glitchy, lo-fi, indie guitar record that all the hipsters will like… please, by all means, go and make it yourself.
So, I’m glad of the good reviews and that people are enjoying the album. And I’ll read the bad reviews carefully to see if there’s any criticism worth taking on board – a lesson I learnt after reading this recently:
“You should listen to feedback but you don’t have to take everything you hear as being absolute truth….Not all feedback is given with sensitivity, but we can still learn from it…We need to learn to listen to what those people are saying and overlook how they’re saying it. Not all feedback is given with good intentions, but you can take what is helpful and leave the rest.”
– The Heart of the Artist by Rory Noland
So what will I do next? It might be another album just like ‘Each Dirty Letter’, with the same producer and the same band playing on it. Or it might be a self-produced solo acoustic album. Or it might be a collaborative EP with Iain Morrison. Or it might a double album of acapella scat singing (probably not).
I don’t honestly know yet, but I do hope that whatever I make next is better than what went before. And while I might listen to what other people have to say about my music, and sift through it all to see if there’s anything constructive or helpful in there, I won’t let another person’s opinion define what I make, who I am or what I do.
I’ll leave you with the wise words of a man who’s been doing this a lot longer than I have:
“I’m afraid to say that admirers can be a tremendous force for conservatism, for consolidation. Of course it’s really wonderful to be acclaimed for things you’ve done – in fact it’s the only serious reward, because it makes you think “it worked! I’m not isolated!” or something like that, and it makes you feel gratefully connected to your own culture. But on the other hand, there’s a tremendously strong pressure to repeat yourself, to do more of that thing we all liked so much. I can’t do that – I don’t have the enthusiasm to push through projects that seem familiar to me ( – this isn’t so much a question of artistic nobility or high ideals: I just get too bloody bored).”
– Brian Eno
At the risk of boring everyone by repeating myself (and sounding like a big-head), I think my new album is some of the best music I’ve ever made….but that’s only because I had a lot of help from some very talented people.
I’ve written about some of them on this blog before:
The third track, ‘Retreat’ (which you can listen to here) is possibly my favourite of all the songs on my album, partly because it’s the one that was written last, but mostly because it features the beautiful voice of Jo Mango:
Anyone reading this will no doubt already know who Jo Mango is, but for those that don’t, she is a Glasgow-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who has worked with the likes of Vashti Bunyan, David Byrne and Devendra Banhart. She also co-wrote Teenage Fanclub’s latest single, ‘Baby Lee‘.
While I was recording the album, I sent her an email asking her if she would be up for singing on one of my songs. After sending an initial demo, she quite rightly sent me a refreshingly honest email telling me she liked the tune but that some of the lyrics were, well…crap. So I had another go and we were both much happier with the finished result đ
Jo has just released this gorgeous slab of etched 10″ double vinyl entitled ‘The Moth and The Moon / The Black Sun‘. Limited to just 190 copies, the two songs on it are amazing.
Here’s Jo and her band playing ‘The Moth and The Moon’ at the Solas Festival a couple of weeks ago:
As promised, here is the third and last part of the email conversation Richard Vernon and I had recently.
The purpose of it was for Richard (pictured above adorned with Calamateur paraphernalia) to find out more about the making of my new album. Did I mention you can buy it here? đ
————————–
R:Â What is your creative process? How has it evolved?
A: I started off writing lyrics on bits of paper and then finding chords on the guitar to go with them, or the other way round. It’s still the same, but I tend to write songs in my head a lot more. My day job involves a lot of walking around on my own and I’ve found myself writing songs to occupy my mind and keep me company. I then try my best to remember how they go when I get home and find some paper to write on and get a chance to pick up my guitar.
R: I like that. Do you ever think about your songs in terms of “art”?
A: I see art, not as something hard to understand that’s purely for the elite, but as just making things that hopefully say something about the person making it. It’s creativity, self-expression. The paintings my 4-year-old bring home from nursery are as much “art” as anything hanging in a gallery.
R: Do you think about your songs in terms of “craft”?
A: I’ve become more and more interested in seeing it as a craft recently, which is an attitude that can fly in the face of the opinions of those in the ‘cool’ indie scene. When a songwriter says a song just came out of nowhere it sounds a lot more interesting and magical than someone who sat down at a desk with a guitar and a writing pad for hours at a time. But I think an element of discipline is necessary for those moments of unique inspiration to arrive.
R: How important to you are the technical aspects of playing, arranging, miking, recording, setting recording levels, mixing, mastering, etc.? I ask because there’s always at least some element of lo-fi, or of rough-edges showing, which is obviously a philosophical and aesthetic choice at this point; since you record and produce for other musicians and you could presumably turn in very polished “product” if you wanted.
A: The lo-fi sound has to an extent been an aesthetic choice, but a lot of times it’s actually just been the best I can do with the time, equipment and knowledge I’ve had. I think I’m better at it now than I ever have been but having had someone else, Iain Hutchison, take over that side of things completely with this new album, I can see myself never going back. I could never have made the album sound as good as it does if I’d recorded it myself.
R: You’ve been discouraged at times about your progress in terms of success and so on; I for one am always glad you keep making up songs and making permanent records of them. What keeps you going when you can’t see any practical point in doing so?
A: For one, I’m not good at doing anything else. And I just seem to have a drive that keeps me going. Some of it comes from within myself, but I think most of it comes from without. When I sit down with a guitar I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing.
R: If you had to pick one song to represent yourself and everything you’ve recorded, what would it be? Okay, that was funny – which song that you’ve made up or covered would you pick?
A: Possibly ‘Jesus is for Losers‘ from my last album (of the same name), which was originally written by Steve Taylor. Feelings of failure have plagued me for a long time and that song helps me see that failure doesn’t have to be a bad thing. I also played and recorded it all myself and am close to 100% happy with how it turned out.
R: Talking of faith, What is the intersection and interplay between faith and art? How does the tug of commitments – God, family, making money, feeling useful, making music – affect you? How does it affect your music?
A: When you read the bible, the first characteristic you find out about God is that he/she is a creative God. The first thing you read about humans is that we were made in the image of God, which means that we are creative beings. So were made to create, write, paint, draw, sew, sing, play, blog, etc etc. That’s got to be the starting point of any discussion about the Christian faith and art, whether or not you believe the creation story in Genesis to be literally true or not.
I love making music but it’s got to not be at the top of my list if I’m going to be a good person, husband, dad or friend. But I hope making those things more important ultimately make the music more honest, powerful and relevant to anyone who’s going to listen to it. I tend to take a long time to write songs as well and have found that also helps them turn out better in the end, so sometimes having other things to do in my life is a way of ensuring I don’t rush the creative process.
R: How did you get here today?
A: Someone believed in me when I had no self-belief. Someone loved me enough to let me spend way too much time making music. Lots of good friends encouraged me to keep going.
—————-
Thanks for reading – feel free to comment if you disagree or agree with anything I’ve said đ
As I wrote in my last post, I asked my good friend Richard Vernon to write the press release for my new album, Each Dirty Letter (not bought it yet? Buy it here!).
We exchanged a few emails in which he asked me some great questions about the making of the album.
Here’s part two of our conversation:
Richard: What do you want to say with this album? Andrew: I want to say “Look, I l know I’ve been doing this with little success for over 10 years, and have at times been unfocused and genre-hopped way too much, BUT when I do focus, and when I get the right people to help me out, this is the kind of music I’m capable of making. I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever done and I hope it’s the start of something new.”
R: That’s a cool position for an artist to be in. Is there a theme to the songs, a message, a mood, something particular you really hope people will “get”? A: I think the overall theme may be a natural progression from what I talked about in the liner notes on my last album ‘Jesus is for Losers’; that of questioning both what we are brought up to believe, and what we currently believe. That can be a scary place to be but I think if we want to be on a true journey of faith and to grow in integrity and honesty it’s somewhere we need to be.
R: When you were making it did it seem like a collection of songs that combined into an album, or like a cohesive piece of work that was made up of songs? How about now? A: The songs I chose to record for this album were part of a much larger collection of songs I’d written over the past 6 or 7 years. ‘Testimony’ is the oldest and ‘Retreat’, which was written halfway through recording the album, is the most recent. Listening to the album now, the songs do seem to combine into a cohesive whole, but I’d say that’s far more to do with Iain Hutchison‘s production skills than anything I’ve done.
R: Can you explain that a bit more please? A: I’ll try! It helps that all the songs were originally written on the acoustic guitar. Having the same people play on them also helps, as does having the same person engineer, record, produce, mix and master the album. Iain did an amazing job pulling it all together and in some ways it’s as much his album as it is my own.
R: What do you want people to take from it? A: Hey, I just make music for myself and if anyone else likes it that’s just a bonus. Just kidding. Well, kind of. I think if someone wants to make music they have to be themselves and be honest and yes, follow their own heart/vision whatever. It’s often seen that the opposite of that would be to “sell out” and compromise your vision for the purposes of building an audience and becoming famous. But I think there’s a middle road that could involve doing your best to serve the people who are going to hear your music. I hope my music serves people in some way – gives them a melody to float round their head for the day, makes them see something in a way they hadn’t seen it before, or just gives them something to listen to while they do the dishes that makes the task less tedious.
R: How personal is the new record? That might sound strange, given the intimacy of your writing/recording process; but often your lyrics are either oblique or about something that’s important to you but not autobiographical. So, how much of this is actually about you in a way that isn’t veiled? A: It’s very personal. 8 of the 10 songs are in no way veiled – it’s all me. The other 2 are still very personal but are wrapped in the clothes of another person/story.
R: Could you expand on that a little? Can you trace the development from indirect/impersonal to direct and personal lyric writing? A:I find it hard to see how it’s possible to write a truly impersonal song. Even if I choose to write a song about someone else, or a story I’ve heard, I’ll still be incorporating my own personal take on the subject matter into the song itself. That, of course, is if I’m being honest, which for me is the most important thing of all when writing.
————————————
I’ll post the last part of this interview in a couple of days…please comment if you agree or disagree with anything I’ve said here!
Over the last few weeks I’ve been writing a series of posts on people I’ve recently worked with, with particular reference to my Jesus is for Losers album.
So far, we’ve had:
Steve Lawson (bassist, improviser, teacher, writer) Mark Hilditch (keyboard player, mad cyclist) Iain Hutchison (engineer, producer, musician) DUFI (photography, graphic design, spray paint)
and Phil Moir (drummer)
This is my final post in the series and there’s another couple of people I want to mention:
Firstly, my good friend Richard Vernon, who listens to my music before anyone else and tells me if it’s crap or not.
He also writes my press releases, including the ones for JIFL and the new album by my other band, The Trufflehunters.
Richard has also written some great articles for Sojourners magazine, his most recent being here.
So, if you need a good bio or press release written, get in touch with him here.
——————————————
And lastly, Gareth Saunders, who has helped me on countless occasions with web design problems, computing issues and basically any time I wanted to punch my PC monitor in frustration.
He helped me when I was designing my JIFL website (as well as other websites I’ve cobbled together over the years) and made it look much better than it would have done otherwise. He is a very clever and a very generous man.
You can read his blog here and follow him on Twitter here.
(This is the 3rd in a series of posts on people I’ve worked with recently. The first post is here, the second here).
Iain Hutchison is a musician, sound engineer, producer and one of the most talented, and nicest, people I’ve ever had the privilege to work with.
Iain mastered my Jesus is for Losers album a while back. When I then decided I wanted to re-mix the whole thing he listened to each new mix and gave me pointers along the way on how to improve it. He then mastered the album track-by-track, again, as I released the songs sporadically over a few months. Needless to say he’s a very patient man.
Iain runs his own recording studio, Glo-Worm, from his home in the west-end of Glasgow. He also works at Secret Music recording studios, where he’s worked with Capercaillie, James Grant, Eddie Reader and many other stalwarts of the Scottish folk scene.
He’s also got a couple of his own musical projects on the go, one of them being the band Torag, who put out a CD a couple of years ago which is lovely – have a listen here.
Iain also joined me on stage for my recent gig in Edinburgh, and I hope to play alongside him a lot more in the future.
So, if you’re looking for an experienced engineer, an imaginative producer and a genuinely talented musician to help you make your next record, I can’t recommend Iain enough – just go to www.glo-worm.com to find out more about his studio and to contact him.
Iain Morrison is a hugely talented singer-songwriter based near Glasgow, but originally from the Isle of Lewis. He used to be in the band Poor Old Ben, then Crash My Model Car, and is now going solo.
I first met him at the wonderful Greenbelt Festival about 6 or 7 years ago. We’ve been mutual fans pretty much ever since.
When Iain was putting together his second album, ‘Skimming Stones… Sinking Boats’ he got in touch and asked if I would be up for remixing a song, originally taken from his first album, to go on his new one. I jumped at the chance and, after much editing, tweaking and general faffing about in ProTools, eventually finished the remix you can listen to at the top of this post.
I’m really happy with it and am looking forward to hearing Iain’s new album, which is being recorded by the immensely talented (and similarly named!) Iain Hutchison.
I played in Edinburgh the other night. It was my first Calamateur gig in nearly a year and is now definitely up there as one of the most enjoyable gigs I’ve ever played.
For a start, everyone listened, which in my experience is pretty rare. It’s amazing the difference it makes though, both to my performance and to how much people enjoy the gig. It was also a fantastic venue, with a soundman who actually cared about how we sounded – again, another rarity. It was also great to play in front of friends who’ve supported my musical ventures for a long time. A big thank you to you all.
I was accompanied by the mighty Iain Hutchison onstage, who was like a kid in a toy shop playing with his new guitar and effects pedals. The man is a genius.
A couple of blogs have been posted by folk who enjoyed the gig – here and here.
Posted by calamateur 
calamateur 