Shutter Island

Actually it's Preston Island but it's spooky like that other place, a man made non-island that sticks out into the Forth and then sticks back in again. It has barbed wire, ruins, sparrows by the million and a crude landscape that could be best described as complete brownfield or a possible Dr Who or Mad Max film location. As it was out came the good weather and out came the cross over bike and I cycled for hours - there and back again and some random circuits around the island. I came home with a sore bottom and tired legs and then for the next few hours proceeded to get drunk, happy and talkative. I think that was all sometime on Friday and numerous other things have taken place since. I'm quite enjoying the summer of 2013.

A cat sneaks up on the new whirly thing.

Some vague illusion...

(Note non-Fender jack socket, scratch plate and configuration, let us do you a deal).

...of success.

I'm loving the warm weather. My brain and as a result my consciousness and functional competences are fried. Things are happening all around, people are getting excited about issues and life and death and that sort of thing. Somewhere a poor mouse is being chased and folks are working hard to ride their bicycles up very steep hills, it's all ok but meaningless. I'm just watering plants and strumming away.

Karma and buttons

Sometimes, quite rightly I suppose, I forget that we’re in the music business or at least that we have a toe in the shallow end of the music business’s guitar shaped and champagne filled swimming pool. It all came back to me today when I saw that Thom Yorke was pulling his music from Spotify (OK he's not perfect either). His reasons being that the financial returns are so small (about .01c a play) that new artists or new ventures can’t possibly make enough cash to keep producing music. It’s not a sustainable model when as Thom says “you get paid  fuck all" so I can’t fault his desire to protest.  I’ve always known we were being screwed to some extent and resented the paltry and meaningless payouts that streaming brings to us minions - but as has been said many times, what else can a poor boy do? Our own impossible songs’ music (over a hundred meaty tracks) languishes on numerous popular sites, many of which offer streaming but we know we stand to make something short of a fistful of peanuts. If all our recent streaming plays (currently over a hundred thousand in 3 years) were translated into downloads we’d have made roughly £70,000 or about £24,000 a year. That would’ve been nice. If sales were for actual CDs or full albums it’d be a lot more – there would be some low scoring tracks on each CD for padding to help the numbers, that’s how it goes. So that’s without bothering to play gigs, do promotions or anything remotely businesslike.

Other streaming deniers  ZZTop, Bob Fripp, Led Zep, Anstruther’s own Fence Collective and the erstwhile Thom are all  quite right, there’s no money to be made at our bargain basement end of the  iTunes, Spotify, Rhapsody, Xbox, Jamendo, Napster or whoever’s rainbow. The dilemma for the unprofessional or small time music maker centres around deciding what you want for your precious music. What might entice listeners to listen to an unmarketed, obscure, anonymous musical soup served up to bloated diners in a wanabee infected universe of millions of other floating soup bowls? Free stuff or a cheap subscription certainly does the job with the punters, I should know I still use entry level Spotify from time to time. We see the trends, they listen to a song maybe six or seven times, get the lyrical kick and move on, no final download and we are happy to have the .04c six months later. In another culture that might well be robbery.

So you’re virtually giving it away to the streamers but you at least have some nebulous audience with whom you’ve absently engaged – an audience that may like the music but don’t really want to pay for it and who don’t have to connect the hard economics of modern life with the blips and half listens on their chosen subscribed to streaming services. Now as writers and players and singers all we can have is a small sense of priceless satisfaction and a monthly reminder in piddling sales stats not to give up the day job and that somewhere on the planet, in a bedroom, café or street corner our music is providing a temporary backdrop to another private life moment or tiny human drama. Paradoxically despite what all the streaming avoiders may say (something’s always killing music etc.), new music keeps getting made, discovered, consumed, digested and trolled out as back catalogue material that will never go away as it pings and sizzles in hot server rooms before reluctantly venturing out across somebody’s cloud based data system and into their badly designed poundshop headphones. We won’t stop, that’s thanks to the OCD and junkie nature inherent in how you make a slab of sweet original music. So is it all about appreciating what it is you actually have, however abstract it may be, rather than thinking about what you don’t have?

Karma and buttons maybe; but then you look up and see what other people can gain just because they had a better idea and have adopted a key position in a cluttered up distribution chain that allows them to lord it over the low-life creatives who blindly  and regularly prime their money pump. The older you get the more there is to complain about. Modern life is rubbish.

Tales of the Wooden Fish #2

 Not a lot of movement from the Wooden Fish today. A casual observer may have thought that they were congregating or carrying out some other slo-mo fish manoeuvre. Not really much more I can say about this timber based, ocean themed, driftwood sourced, bleached and laid out stray art installation. It is what is, it does what is does. Celebrating the temporary world of the lonely Wooden Fish. Oops tea's ready.

Tales of the Wooden Fish

The first in an occasional series:

I'm not completely sure but I like to believe that after some social interaction, debate, sharing and reconciliation they all lived happily ever after in mild and clear EEC controlled waters.

Heat, insects etc.

A hot day eventually. Today I tried cycling in the opposite direction from the other day, so that was mostly West to East. I still was battered by many confused insects headed in at me this way (and mostly while going up a slow hill) and finally and absent mindedly managed to swallow one. I didn't much care for that and so I spat a lot. Maybe six times. The insect however must have gone straight down and that was that. I tried to cheer myself up by thinking about the wayside flowers and then by inventing a rather clever automated method for putting large amounts of coal into the firebox of a speeding steam train. I imagined that the adoption of my system resulted in a record breaking run, it was a good daydream. Then I wondered how the crews of speeding steam trains coped with flying insects coming at them. Then my chain came off and my fingers became oily when I put it back on. With that I forgot about the insects, records, trains and inventions and just puffed my way up the final long hill. Then an insect hit me in the eye and seemed to immediately turn into a soggy raisin (or perhaps sultana) in my blinded eye socket. Bravely I cycled along with one hand whilst scrunching my insect infected eye with the other. I was wobbling a bit at this point but failed to fall. Then my eye cleared up and the insect was gone but I've no idea where. About then I reached my final destination and considered cycling techniques that might prevent further insect related injury. Cycling with the mouth and eyes shut tight seemed the best option, though that may well lead to further problems and complications if I ever do try it.

Insects and genius

Today would have been Tesla's birthday. I wonder if the great man knew why it is that when you ride your bicycle on a hot and sunny day insects, despite all their keen flying skills can't seem to get out of the way and collide with your face and head as if attacking you just because you are there. I suppose the thing is, who is in who's way anyway? Probably me.

There was something missing

Sometimes words are not enough...I presume Wee Eck gets it next.

Hobs of Ceramica

Good Lad Andy: (During match) A late burst of near nationalism almost occurred in me today thanks to the fantastic efforts of Andy Murray at Wimbledon. Well Wimble-done son! Less welcome of course are the shameless freeloading glory hunters and politicians lined up like some Slitherin grease balls at a Quiddich encounter  - as seen above. We know their names, well almost,  and come the revolution...

Hobs of Ceramica: (Pre match) No it's not the latest album by rock gods Muse, just a gentle reminder to myself that when cleaning such surfaces the correct materials must be used. The same can also be said about guitar neck and fretboard cleaning materials.

Banana Fritter: (Post match) I clearly asked the very busy girl in the Chinese takeaway for a portion of fried rice (what else goes with Fife's own version of S&S chicken?). What I received was two sweet banana fritters in syrup, not really rice at all or even a good substitute. File under unfortunate kitchen mix ups and post- Murray Mayhem culinary disappointment coupled with mass hysteria in the Scottish Celtic-Chinese heartland.

If dogs run free

For a short while today we were dog people. Down on the beach, on the mudflats and by the old pier our guest's dogs ran and played on that rarest of things in a Scottish July; a sunny afternoon. The cats lay low for the afternoon and remained as bright eyes in the grass. Firstly we kept the work ethic alive by...working and doing a little shopping. Then it was prep time and then Pimms,  Cava, prawns and bread and the buzzing of insects and the throb of a distant unfamiliar sun. We dodged the BBC and tennis and non verbal opinions and scooted out towards the sand and seaweed. The beach changes by the second, tides and pools swirling and losing themselves. Dirty weed, rotten wood and plastic rubbish, then the golden punctuations of fine sand and shiny stones, dog ready sticks and footprints, beautiful articles of warm landscape detail, hazy horizons and the imagined barking of seals and puppies. Looking back at how far you've come. Up on the lane wild roses, mint and brambles made fragile paths of scent and prickles. I sucked on grass lengths and tried to look lazy but intense enough to grasp and measure the tides and the church spires and chemical chimneys of the other side. I naturally failed (or failed naturally) but picked the best driftwood from a bad batch and prepared the well exercised bleaching process. By that time we were ready for a cuppa tea (once I'd respectfully moved the dead crow). Then the dogs ran home.

Atomic

First of all I'll admit that it doesn't look particularly atomic, not on any level but I am assured that it is - atomic. Fender Atomic to be precise and a foundational part of the latest Moonbeam Partscaster. I may be be setting myself up for a major shredding disappointment or a dose of the low tone blues. The truth is I seldom use any meaningful volume so it's all either academic, arthritic or just absurdly aspirational. We shall see. Buyers beware.

Private sky

Not the actual sky in the text, a different sky altogether. A reverse sky (with added watery details).

One day I just sat down and thought about myself. I don’t know why I just decided, you may be familiar with that feeling and that action. The first thing I thought about (left to myself) was that my head was empty, really empty. Empty like  a blue sky is when there are  no clouds and there were no clouds sure enough. Pleasant to look at and quite nice to sit under but empty and sort of endless and rolling. So I looked around inside myself hoping maybe to see something else in the blue. Some shape or colour that would pierce and change it, some cloud, vapour trail or random object, there in the private sky inside my head. I looked around for a while but nothing materialised. Well nothing much that is.

At times it was hard to say what was going on. Sometimes my levels of concentration seem to drop a bit and I lose track of things. But that episode ended and I slowly became aware that in my sky a small bird was circling, just there at the edges. A  bit indistinct perhaps but clearly a bird with feathers and a beak and so on. I willed it to become sharper and less fuzzy and it did. There it was, really there.  I wondered why it was flying about loose and apparently free inside my head in my sky and then I wondered why I thought any of that was odd. Where else would I expect to see a bird. It was reasonable and logical if, based on it being inside my head it was all unreasonable and illogical.

Then I thought, well, these are just my thoughts. They are not bounded by rules or conventions (well not much) so a bird, any bird circling in a sky inside of my head is perfectly ok. So that’s the way it is and that bird is still there, circling inside my head today.

When I next get some spare time I’ll have a look around and see if there are any bright birds in there or perhaps there will be something else, more interesting and unexpected. Clouds this time? But I would be curious to know what the bird feeds on, how it got there, stuff like that. Perhaps I left a window open, perhaps I was careless (that’s a common enough weakness) or it came in via a crack or physical defect – you pick them up unnoticed the older you get, that’s what I’ve been told. It could be I made the whole thing up or that maybe, once upon a time there was just an egg somewhere…

Mystery cheese

Needs some minor repairs but still not bad for a tenner.

In the aftermath of a weekend spent in gay abandon with party fare and families I've encountered a household surplus of cheese and ham rolls. It forced me to consider for how long a person might survive on a diet of cheese and ham rolls but firstly taking the view that the ham is a constant, the rolls are a constant but the cheese is very much a variable. Add to this the raw spinach (non-variable) and the pickle and seasoning (very much variables). So after some head scratching and red wine I concluded that the answer to the question (how long can a person etc. etc?) was INDEFINITELY. There you have it.

The variable cheese factor is set of course because of the many (infinite?) various cheese types and families available. Ham (which has some variation) is mostly just that - boiled ham. I then realised that much of the cheese I was eating was in fact "mystery cheese". This is because at some point in it's recent history it has become detached from it's wrapping media and now is in anonymous cling film. This adds a spiced up mystery factor to the cheese and applied to the formulaic roll (and once the pickle is added) - you get a whole lot of variation - indefinitely.

These are the white blueprints.

"Where's your shame?

It always looked fine in my mind's eye...

You've left us up to our necks in it. Time may change me, but I cant trace time." So all really need now is to design the hippy dippy Moonbeam logo and pyrographically but not pornographically start assaulting these here guitar headstocks with it. Easy Peasy.

...and then reality set in once again.

Wolves of Fife

An old legend has it that once, on the pilgrimage route between Cramond Island and Oakley a poor beggar sat begging at the ferry landing at La Punto de Cromby on the the dark and gloomy northern side of the river. Everyday he was there, holding out a rusty tin cup in the cold salt air begging for alms from the passing pilgrims and passengers. One day an arrogant  rich young man travelling on the holy way passed and cursed the beggar casually throwing some dirty seeds from the bottom of his pocket into the empty cup. The beggar responded by blessing the man with the words, "You fail the Deil and I with your disrespect, the Wolves of Fife shall stretch your neck!" Angry at the retort the rich man had the beggar flailed alive at the root of the ferry pier. Some say that as the beggar breathed his last the howl of a lone grey wolf was heard from across the barley field as a new moon rose. The rich man continued on his journey eventually making it to the Priory of Oakley where he spent a troubled night. Next day the beggar was buried in the common plot but his few belongings were scattered to the four winds. In the process the seed the rich man had cursed him with  fell onto the stony ground that formed the base of the pilgrim's road.

The rich man completed his pilgrimage but found no lasting peace. On his return journey back to Cramond, miles out in the Forth the the ferry struck the Beamer Rock in thick unseasonal fog and sank with the loss of all. A few days later the rich man's body was washed ashore and on a some chilly morning devoured by a pack of hungry wolves near to Dalgety Bay. So now, at the spot where the beggar died some say those cursed seeds still take hold once in every 35 years (the age the beggar was when he was killed) and bloom there on the cold stones somehow, from the beggar's spilled and still warm blood. They rise up, defiant through the rocks and ruins, a testimony and tribute to a poor Fife beggar and in warning and remembrance  of the quick and unjust anger of a rich man - and in the nearby woods, the great grey ghost of an old Scottish wolf still cries alone and prowls unseen in the June half light. Well some say that kind of thing anyway.

Something profound

To be continued...eventually.

Amazon Cloud Player exists

Name the bonkers film then...

It's handy reading the Independent some days. I found out that as of today (probably but maybe yesterday) Amazon Cloud Player automatically accesses all the music you've ever bought on Amazon and dumps it into Cloud Player, even if it was CDs or Vinyl and more importantly even if it was someone else's birthday or Christmas present. I came home to find my cloud has 377 songs in it - including some Take That mind you and some that I quite like. Now can I get this all on my phone?

Don't be alarmed

This summer we'll visit the actual studios where some of this hot action was filmed.

Today the confusing and politically correct bin collection rota switches, well tomorrow actually but the bins go out tonight in order to annoy local barking dogs and neighbours. Just as well, having wondered what he strange noise outside was (and routinely checking all our electronic devices) I went out to place the blue and black bins by the kerb. There I found my car in full alarm mode, hence the strange and unfamiliar  loud beeping ten minutes before and a WTF moment. Clearly some reprobate squirrel or weasel has tried to break in and steal my precious Joni Mitchell, Mozart and Gin Blossoms cassettes and extra strong mints, that's the problem with having an eclectic taste in music and mints and parking your car in a deep and dark forest.

Teeth falling out

Typical everyday scene on the nearby Fife Coastal Path.

Apropos of nothing: Not so good but surprisingly painless when an ex-tooth (a filling I suppose) just fragments and falls out for no reason other than you munched the final piece of Sainsbury's Rocky Road. Then it becomes lost in the digestive system and is pretty much unreachable without keyhole surgery. It's the Fife-time equivalent of a pork bullet for a Muslim. The sweet ironic hit of a sugar and chemicals mix and then the dull ragged feeling of something not quite right in the back end of your mouth sending you to dental hell for however long it takes to get an appointment. Actually all was fine until I probed it with a sterile cocktail stick. The moral of the story is, leave the last bit for someone more needy that yourself or God (who let's face it has not much else to do these days apart from keeping NM alive) will take out some terrible revenge.

Scotland the lost

Need to look a little harder maybe?

Having been charged £7 for enjoying a 26 minute parking slot in the "Drop Off" Zone at Edinburgh Airport I've been pondering the merits of private transport v public transport v staying at home and watching the world go by on GoogleTube.  Naturally I've concluded that I must from time to time venture outdoors and move from A to B and even as far as C if need be. Costs and charges have to be sucked up and gotten over but it doesn't stop me from thinking FFS. 

I did notice a certain hostile friction today at the super duper  "Drop Off" Zone as the sweating parking attendants tried with little success to shepherd unruly cars and anxious passengers into their idea of parked order. Even on a serene Sunday afternoon voices were raised, windows rolled down, horns blared, gestures were gestured and pedestrians loaded with luggage struggled to connect with expected vehicles...I just thought one more little thought, "welcome to Scotland, we really think we know our shit here but..."