Harry Potter and the Bastard Ska Band from Hell

Been hammered with the cold last week. Since we finished in the studio last Sunday, I have felt like death.  Normally I am immune to most things like infections or alcohol.  Somehow this got through my defences.

So I wasn’t looking forward to last weekend’s Wizard Festival near New Deer up in Aberdeenshire. At least Joe was driving the whole weekend, so I could sit in the back, feeling sorry for myself with a blanket, an MP3 player, and the world’s smallest bottle of whisky, for medicinal purposes. The plan was to play on Friday evening as Bombskare on the main stage, the Voodoo Stage (ooooohh!), then play a Skaramanga set on the smaller stage on Saturday, the Banshee stage (aaaahh!), and then drive back down to Aberdeen and play with none other than the Root System boys at our beloved Café Drummonds (wehaaay!). However after some confusion, naturally, we only discovered on the Monday beforehand that we were expected to be up there at the Wizard Festival at 5pm to kick start the whole event off. If we had known this, we wouldn’t have agreed to do it, because it was too early for us to get up there. With so many of us unable to get off work at such short notice it was looking like we wouldn’t be playing on the Friday, and possibly not the Saturday either. After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, and also by sheer luck that Joe was on holiday, seven of us out of ten had managed to be off on Friday, so we agreed we could do it. However that plan was far too straightforward and likely to succeed for us. After even more confusion and some general tardiness we set off an hour later than planned and by about a third of the way up we realised we were not going to make it on time. In fact we would be hitting Aberdeen in rush hour at approximately the time we were supposed to be playing. After some phone calls back and forth, it was agreed that we wouldn’t be playing on the Friday, because they couldn’t change the running order at this point in the proceedings. Darkwater would be filling in our slot on the main stage and then heading over to do their own set on the wee stage. We were gutted obviously, travelling all the way up there and not playing. At least we were still playing on the Saturday, and I liked Darkwater, I’ve played with them before in Aberdeen.

We arrived a good hour and a half late. It was a pity because it looked like a great festival. Definite memories of Shetland in 2004, travelling a distance and not playing at a great festival, and The Undertones headlining the night we were supposed to be playing. I couldn’t help but thinking The Undertones were bad luck for us. Or was it The Bluetones. Andy came back with a bit of good news at this point. Fortunately for us someone from Eddie and The Hotrods injured themselves when they fell over drunk or something, so they had to bow out of their slot on the Saturday afternoon. Ouch for them, great success for us. Isn’t that always the way? One man’s Angel Delight is another mans kick in the balls! We would be playing their slot and we now had the time to get the rest of the boys up in time. Nice. I love it when a plan comes together.

We scrapped the Skaramanga set on Saturday and just got ready for the main stage at around four. We were going on after, wait for it, The MacDonald Brothers, of X Factor infamy. Yes indeed. They played a set of covers and came off stage to a bit of a mob of autograph hunters. If I hadn’t had the cold and wasn‘t feeling rubbish, who knows what I could have said or done while I had the chance, I mean, they were right there! Curse this mortal frame!

So we came on and played for forty five minutes, in between The McKaraoke Brothers and Sandi Thom, strange bedfellows for us. It was surreal. I thought I was having a psychedelic experience brought on by the potent combination of max strength Lemsip and Bells whisky. Anyway the sound was awesome, and the crowd was excellent, maybe close to a thousand bodies, including kids. I broke a string. Thanks to the organisers for having us up and rescheduling us, after all the confusion and panic, our normal bedfellows. Thanks to Dod and Sally as usual for the photos, and our mate Dod Copeland who unfortunately had a run in with the local constabulary. We hung around for the rest of the afternoon and early evening to catch some of the other bands including Sandi Thom and The Cuban Brothers, but we had to leave before the great Hayseed Dixie. Still not managed to see them live. Didn’t see any real magic either. Don’t know why it’s called the Wizard Festival.

Another late one At Café Drummonds and not the busiest night we’ve ever had mainly because of the competition; two festivals within an hour of Aberdeen, but it was still a cracking night in Drummonds as always. We were supported by Root System who were awesome as usual. Kev insists that their band is more attractive than our band. That’s nonsense. He even suggested that our Papa Joe is so scary he looks like he eats people. Crazy talk. I will admit that the Roots guys do have that certain boy band charm about them, a rough sweaty boy band perhaps, one that you definitely wouldn’t want to meet in the back streets of Glenrothes, but a boy band charm, nonetheless. They definitely have that X Factor factor, or maybe it’s the X Files factor. And they have Handsome Dan, their secret weapon. Also, admittedly there are a few bodies in our band that might be described as ‘could do with losing a few pounds’, such as myself. In spite of that, I would say that the overall beauty of our band is far greater than their’s. Our beauty is of a more spiritual quality, a harrowing, appalling beauty, kind of like a Picasso. You could say that we’re so beautiful, you might be sick. Anyway, by the time we came on it was about midnight, and it had been a long day. We still managed a ninety minute set at least, and included a cheeky cover of Root System’s ‘Don’t Worry’ as a tribute to the boys, who unbelievable weren’t even upstairs when we played it, so they missed it. That’ll teach them to be relaxing in the green room while we were full effect on stage. Prima donnas. We also had a small fridge on stage with us, that we squeezed in behind one of the amps, so we had chilled drinks on stage. Excellent. Thanks again to Nathan for the photos, and to Eric and Callum. Back into the van around three and down the road to Edinburgh, rolling in at dawn.

Next gig is in Hartlepool. Note to self; don’t mention the monkeys!

 

Welcome Back My Friends, To The Show That Never Ends

After what seemed like ages we managed to spend the weekend in the studio recording vocals. It was our first time back in the studio for almost a month. We have been gigging every weekend for months so we have simply struggled to find the time. As you can imagine this is the main reason for the recording taking so long. There is so much to record in a ten piece band, over thirteen tracks, with a gigging schedule like ours. We may have to take a break from gigging for a bit. In addition Gav has been in California for three weeks. So it was great to get back into it, especially since we were recording vocals. Once vocals are on the tracks, they start to sound more complete. It was interesting as well, watching Gav’s reaction to hearing some of these vocal parts properly for the first time, hearing the songs come together. Some of the tunes he obviously didn’t get, when the vocals were missing, but as soon as the vocals were there, I could see the realisation on his face. We worked all day on Friday and went home around midnight, dropping Gav off on London Road, as he headed off to a party with a bottle of tequila. Next morning when we arrived at the studio, Gav was already there, passed out on the couch in the kitchen. The steamer had just rolled in from his party a full hour before us. As a result we left him passed out in his sleeping bag since he would have been useless, and I did the engineering on Saturday. We moved our Sunday recording session to the following weekend because Murray was busy that Sunday, splitting the weekend session over two weekends so to speak. After two days we got a substantial part of the vocals on about two thirds of the tracks completed and at least some vocals on the other tracks. Some tracks obviously take more work than others. Plus we like to try stuff out, experiment with different parts, different harmonies, different lyrics. Its starting to sound really good. We’ve also come to realise that Murray is almost definitely an android. When we have been getting him to double track his vocals, each take he does is identical to the last, right down to individual waveforms. It’s scary. No human could possibly do that.

Two gigs that week, the first on Tuesday night at King Tuts in Glasgow with The King Blues. We were the first band on the bill because we had sold almost no tickets. Going on first in the evening is usually good news for us because it means we sound check last and so have a reasonable chance of getting everyone there to the venue and sound checking on time. We went on first to a decent sized crowd and played a rapid fire set of about thirty five minutes. I have to say even I thought it was a cracking performance from us. The crowd and the promoters were certainly glad of our efforts. Next up were The Hostiles, who we liked a lot. Third wave of Ska type stuff, with horns and lots of jumping around. Finally, The King Blues who are really nice guys, and an incredible band. They didn’t have their regular drummer and were being helped out by the drummer from Capdown, who was excellent as a dep. I will confess to being only slightly aware of these guys before this gig but they were fantastic. They came back on for an encore and gave a big up to our good selves but also their three favourite Scottish bands, Junkman’s Choir, Ex Cathedra and The Amphetameanies. They then kicked into a medley of covers, mainly dictated by the crowd shouting out song titles randomly, including 54 46, Pressure Drop, and the theme from Bob the Builder, oddly enough. Good to catch our friends in the west, Esperanza, and of course, Gordon and Jane from the Meanies. Hope Gordon got home safely with his leaky petrol scooter.

Back in the Burgh. We’ve been overplaying Edinburgh a bit of late. Four or five gigs in two months or so. That’s way too much for a wee place like Edinburgh. The gig at the Exchange on Friday, was a bit of a last minute affair. We had moved the gig from The Ark because of health and safety concerns from the last gig, and we had left off promoting the gig until the last week because promoting music events during the festival is impossible because of all the competition. The Foo Fighters gig at Meadowbank was even struggling to sell out because of all the shows going on. They were practically giving tickets away outside the stadium last Tuesday. So with all of that in mind it was going to be difficult for us to fill the place, therefore getting two hundred of you down was not bad. I think most of the crowd were there to see Taking Chase and Big Hand, to be perfectly honest. Taking Chase kicked off the evening and included a couple of new tunes. Lee at one point broke a string on his SG so borrowed one of my back up guitars, my purple Tanglewood flying V, which is a bit much for most people, but not our Lee. I love Taking Chase. Even when they think they haven’t played a good set, its still usually twice as good as most other bands. Big Hand were up next. Also outstanding as usual. Anyone who doesn’t like Big Hand is quite simply wrong. They played most of their usual classics but also featured our Andy on harmonica (the name of the song temporarily escapes me) and also myself singing lead vocals on their final tune ‘Big Hand’. Our set went down well I thought, except for a few technical issues on the bass. I’ve started breaking strings again. It must be a lunar thing. Thanks to everyone who came out that night. Thanks to Jamie our engineer, who he haven’t seen since he did our sound in Lochinver in 2003. We only have two more gigs in Edinburgh this year. Hopefully October with Jerry Dammers, and then our Skalloween party with The Toasters. It’s the first time they have been to Scotland in either nine or ten years. Can’t wait.

Back into the studio the following Sunday, a bit hoarse from the gigs, but keen as a shed full of mustard. We got more backing vocals done and also more of the lead vocals from Andy. There are now only two songs needing vocals done. Which means we don’t have much more to do. Some more horn parts, a little bit of harmonica, and some more keyboards which we’ll do last. The only trouble is the more that we do, the more that we want to do. We put something down and then decide that something else needs changed or re done. Realistically another few days of studio time should have nearly everything actually recorded. Unbelievable!