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...to everyone who came along to my two solo gigs this week in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Really enjoyed them! Special thanks go to Olympic Swimmers, Phil Hague and Joe Rattray for being such an important part of it all.
Next up, three dates with Sara Kazmi & Highlight Arts, as part of Edinburgh International Book Festival:
21st August - Unbound, Edinburgh
23rd August - An Lanntair, Stornoway
24th August - Mission House Studio, Finsbay
I'll be playing a solo gig on 3rd August at The Hug and Pint, Glasgow. The wonderful Olympic Swimmers (acoustic) will also be playing. More information here!
Photo by James Arthur
Last Sunday, I had a great time supporting Claire Hastings and band at the launch of her marvellous debut album, Between River and Railway.
I'm looking forward to getting out and about to play some more 'solo' gigs over the next few months. Inverted commas because for these shows I'll be ably assisted by the tallest man in percussion, Phil Hague. Here's the lowdown:
18th June - Killin Music Festival
19th June - Solas Festival
4th August - Electric Circus, Edinburgh *solo headline show | support TBA
24th September - Queen's Hall, Edinburgh *full band performance of Woven | double bill with The Shee
I'm looking forward to supporting the lovely Claire Hastings at her album launch this Sunday in Glasgow! Tickets available here.
I've loved being part of Inge Thomson's Da Fishing Hands project over the past couple of years; really looking forward to playing her excellent music again this Saturday 9th April at the Lemon Tree, Aberdeen. The five of us (Inge, Steven Polwart, Graeme Smillie, Fraser Fifield and I) will also be collaborating with Finnish band Kardemimmit. Tickets available here.
Andy Crabb's film of our time on Fair Isle in May 2014:
I'm really looking forward to being part of this special evening celebrating the music of Neil Young! Loved it the first time around, last September in Aberdeen. A few tickets left I believe...
Last weekend I went to Lahore. It was a very brief but packed visit to an incredible city, as part of the latest phase in Highlight Arts' City To City project (you can read about last year's experiences here). Sara Kazmi and I reprised our three songs alongside poetry translations, storytelling and new illustrations at the Lahore Literary Festival. I'm finding it difficult to sum up the whole experience in a paragraph or two, so here are my notebook ramblings instead...
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Emerge from stale aeroplane fug to the chaos of morning. Wry smiles exchanged at the rain in the air; we've brought it with us. Rose petals on airport floor. Journey to hotel, eyes wide, trying to capture everything. Drinking in the newness.
Colours, patterns, animals. Tiny chicks for sale, dyed bright pink, green and yellow. Donkeys. Goats. Black kites circling above. Painted trucks, rickshaws. Traffic swerves from all directions. Driver's palm permanently hovers over the car horn. Families on mopeds, curious toddlers peer through the window.
Stalls, barbecue smoke and smell. Hive of activity as the day begins. Homes and shops jostling alongside grand columns and walled monuments, a reminder of colonial past.
Security, military, guns.
Jewel coloured clothes. Warm evening air. Dusk at the mosque. Filigree and paint. Whispering wall. Calm. Smiles and selfies. Bubbles, LED toys, flutes drifting, dusty feet.
Hunger for discussion, debate, big questions, exchange of opinion and experience. Freedom of expression vs state control. Wealth and poverty side by side. Laughter, music. Celebration of the written word and its power for positive change. Adapting to circumstance: date, stage time, venue, equipment have all been in flux. Audience appreciation. Wah-wah!
Late night gathering, palatial surrounds, sculptures and palms, Jolene on the stereo. Drivers line the roadside, waiting patiently.
Rooftop view, grilled meat, saag, daal chawal, roghni naan. Bazaar. Onyx, wooden crafts, shelves of stoles and shawls, strawberry seller, children running.
Final meal at a long banqueting table, orange glow. Darkness falls and airport scheduling begins to clamour for our attention again.
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The trip was so much more than this. Quite possibly I'll return to this blog in weeks to come. For now, though: thank you to Dan & Ryan at Highlight Arts, the British Council, Lahore Literary Festival, musical partner Sara Kazmi, poets Vicki Husband, Jim Carruth, Gerry Cambridge, Kathrine Sowerby, Afshan Sajjad, Dr Khalid Javaid Jan, Kishwar Naheed and Ali Akbar Natiq, storytellers Mujahid Eshai and Ian Stephen, illustrators Mehreen Fatima and Kate Leiper, and photographer/designer extraordinaire, Ali Kamran.
It's been a whirlwind Celtic Connections this year! For me it all began on 15th January with a special Admiral Fallow gig in the beautiful Mackintosh Church, Queen's Cross. In the first half, we premiered 'Common Ground' - a new piece composed for and alongside us by Steve Forman. Then we were joined by Auricle Ensemble to perform six new arrangements of our songs by Gareth Williams, Aidan O'Rourke, Phil Hague and Chris Swaffer. It was the culmination of months of preparation and hard work by all involved, and we were delighted everything went without a hitch!
On the 17th, I was privileged to be part of a brilliant line-up for Hamish Napier's New Voices concert at the Strathclyde Suite. This was the first performance of his piece, The River, and also his solo album launch. Read more about the music and order Hamish's lovely CD here...
Then I shifted into Woven mode for the revisiting of my own New Voices music at the Mitchell Theatre on 22nd Jan. Big thanks to the Woven band (Fiona MacAskill, Mairearad Green, Ali Hutton, James Lindsay, Phil Hague and Iain Sandilands) once again; it felt quite surreal to be playing it all on the same stage two years later. A couple of nice reviews here and here.
The next day Sara Kazmi arrived from Lahore to get ready for our gig at the Old Fruitmarket on 25th Jan, where, as part of BEMIS's Burns celebration night, we reprised the collaborative material we put together for last year's Alchemy Festival. I love singing with Sara and am very excited to be visiting Lahore later this month, where we'll perform at the city's annual Literary Festival. Here's a blog I wrote for Highlight Arts last year, with a bit of an insight into our first musical meeting.
My final gig of this year's Celtic Connections saw another visit to the Old Fruitmarket, this time with Admiral Fallow on 30th Jan. We played songs from across our three albums and had a great night; it was a lovely way to round off the festival, and we were really pleased to sell out both our shows.
Since then...
I've been enjoying playing with Northern Lights Wind Quintet again. We've given two concerts - in Doune and Campbeltown - this week. The latter kicked off our February mini-tour of Argyll & Bute, supported by Enterprise Music Scotland. We'll be visiting Cowal, Bowmore, Rothesay, Lochgilphead and Oban over the next week - further details on the gigs page.
And I'm really looking forward to starting back at two community music projects for New Rhythms For Glasgow. They've got a great programme of workshops and events coming up.
The next update will probably be a post-Lahore one... I'll try and take some decent photos!
