Golf Tango Foxtrot

When I play blues harmonica and sing songs in a blues idiom, traddie music people sometimes say "but you're a fiddle player".  I play traddie fiddle or melodeon and other people will say "but you're a Blues Harp player and singer".  As for my minimalist electronica persona "The Indigenous Brothers" nobody has ever heard of that. I've stopped being surprised at the notion that you can only confine yourself to a particular field like music or even worse to a particular genre within the field. Let's look at two of the most creative people I know; Sheila MacFarlane and Freddie Wilkinson. Sheila is a visual artist who is well known for her print work but she also paints and sings.  Sheila turned me on to a lot of good traditional blues and traddie singers back in the day and also opened my eyes to a lot of visual stuff that would otherwise have passed me by. Freddie Wilkinson's musical interests are many and varied.  I have played w...

While not having a TV (or needing a license) I from time to time waste an hour or so watching the BBC iPlayer.  I'm a particular fan of Nordic crime dramas like The Killing or The Bridge .  The French also seem to do a good job on L'Engrenages  shown here as Spiral . The Wire , HBO's Baltimore-set drama is obviously a precursor and huge influence on all these shows and it's wonderful to see realistic drama which doesn't lie about the nature of its characters.  Or the nature of the state. Contrast this then with new BBC offering By Any Means .  Auntie Beeb describes it thus; "Drama following a clandestine unit living on the edge and playing the criminal elite at their own game, existing in the grey area between the letter of the law and true justice. Led by the sharp and elusive Jack Quinn, alongside straight-talking Jessica Jones and digital whizz-kid TomTom Tomkins, this brilliant team will stop at nothing to catch the criminals. Receiving their targe...

My friend Deshe has just had his application for asylum rejected by the Brit "Home" Office.   The "Home" Office is an ironic name for a (Westminster) Government Department which seems to spend most of its time splitting up families and not allowing folks to live together. The "Home" Office clearly think that Eritrea is a safe place to return to.  Clearly not so safe that Deshe can't prefer a life of destitution here (contrary to the lies of the Daily Mail, asylum seekers get NO benefits) to the prospect of death on his return. Deshe's problem of course is that he has no money.  If he had lots of money, some smart lawyer would easily persuade the "Home" Office that he would be a valuable addition to society.  Freedom of movement is only a right for the wealthy. When I was a kid at the height of the Cold War with the USSR, the constant propaganda was that these poor devils in the socialist world had no freedom of movement and couldn...

GTF is back from its summer holidays. It is now September and the summer is ending.  soon the geese will be returning from the north, passing overhead daily as they migrate to graze on fields and return to roost on the Montrose Basin. There has been a bumper crop of Geans (wild cherries in English) and the Plum tree overhanging from next door's garden is heavy with plums.  The air is getting chillier and winter approaches.  I will be heading for Barcelona soon for a few days to top up on some sun before digging in for the winter and the cold times to come. This week has seen the start of my reduction in hours at the day job to 21 per week.  Three days in effect.  This will give me more time to write and play music and do a bit of other work on the side with a view to keeping body and soul together. I am looking forward to some more freedom and self-efficacy.  For too many years I have been working too damned hard. That is not a rare complaint.  We ...

My musical connections with the House of Windsor have not been happy ones. I used to be in a band that was blackballed from the staff dance at Balmoral in the late 1980's. That was only the start of my musical confrontations with the English "Royal" family, oh no. During the time Prince Billy was an undergraduate at St Andrews University (what DID he study again?) I did the occasional gig at Aikman's Bar...a wonderful venue which I highly recommend. One fine evening I was playing there in an acoustic blues duo which had some popularity at the time. About halfway through the first set a group of young men entered the bar and ordered some drinks. You may know the type..Rosy-cheeked young men with blond locks, polished brogues, checked shirts, pressed chinos and sweaters tied around their necks. sometimes they are called “Yahs”, in a piss-take of their upper-crust accents. After taking their seats, one of them languidly detached himself from the group and ca...

Of note this week is David Cameron's plans to celebrate (sorry, commemorate) the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War in 2014. Now I am an oldish but by no means geriatric guy. In fact I was born in the year 1960.  This makes me fifty three this year. When I was a small child I first came up against the consequences of the First World War.  I was taken on a family visit to some distant relatives who lived in Laurencekirk, I would have been about four, certainly no more than five.  So, 1964 or 1965. These relatives were an elderly brother and sister who shared a household.  The sister had looked after the brother since he was invalided out of the the army in the First World War after being caught in a poison gas attack. Let's say 1916 or 1917.  This guy had basically been a bedridden invalid (as the phrase used to be) for more than forty five years.  That thought still has the power to shock me now.  Roughly the same interval of time a...

There is no difficulty in making an unremunerated career as a musician.  You can be out playing every night of the week for nothing.  However, as the Musicians Union says.  "This is work, not play".  As you may imagine, I write this on the back of another cancellation by someone interested enough to provisionally book. In doing so they prevent one taking any other gigs on that date but then of course never gets back to confirm, hums and haws, tries to beat you down in price and generally fucks you around shamelessly as if you are a worthless piece of shite. When someone complains to your face that "thon's an affa price for musicians.." You can tell that not only are they a cheapskate, they are probably too stupid to actually appreciate music.  If they did have the sensitivity and emotional facility to actually enjoy music, they wouldn't make such a crass comment to a musician. It seems that there is an expectation these days that musicians will play fo...