Harry Met Charlie

I found this review today

" 8 out of 10: Is it even possible to dislike a band who writes a love song about Charles Darwin and a tortoise (the titular Harry, who actually turned out to be a Harriet and died aged 176 in an Australian zoo)?

No, of course it’s not, especially when that band write a particularly charming style of folk pop. Even the dub remix is really good, as is the alternate version of the main song, even if it does sound a bit like it should be on a bad US sitcom."
Review by Will Slater.
DSD

The First Gig (originally posted on www.gardensessions.co.uk)

Another Beatles anniversary blows by in a flurry of screaming teens and bigger than Jesus bonfires. They, those who say these things, say that no band will ever see the frenzied mass of jailbait combined with the unrelenting media presence that became known as Beatlemania.

Looking back to the sixties it seems like almost every week a now legendary band exploded onto the TV screens blowing the tinny speakers of the only telly on the street. It made me realise that, as a child of the eighties and a teen of the nineties, I don’t really remember any bands that grabbed me like the Beatles had done in their heyday. To make matters worse the only band I do remember getting any real media was the Beatles when their Anthology documentary was released.

I did listen to music. I can remember when Graceland came out and our Ghanaian next-door neighbour taught us to dance African style. A style I promptly forgot and reverted back to my failsafe ‘hide outside the village hall and smoke rollies’ the dance technique favoured by all sweaty palmed wallflowers.

And, during those long dark winter nights, accompanied by my brothers and a ramshackle team of neighbours and visitors kids, arranging frighteningly complicated dance routines to Micheal Jackson’s ‘Bad’. Routines that usually ended in a performance to a bemused group of tipsy parents followed by a fight and Southpark style cries of, “Screw you guys. I’m going home.”

But the band, and I mean the band, that drew me like a spotty moth to a distortion-laden flame was Wolfstone. They truly are the band, like the Beatles for many fifty somethings, are inextricably linked to my teenage years. They are the band that I can preface a story with, “I was there when”.

I think fondly of staring out a maths room window, oblivious to the lesson, with merry sound of tinnitus ringing in my ears. The previous evening had been spent standing next to the speakers of the largest PA ever crammed into Elgin town hall while Wolfstone, turned way past eleven, leapt about the stage.

So, forgive me, here we go. I was there when one November night a little known local folk combo from Inverness were playing in the Stakis Hotel Coylumbridge. This purpose built pleasure dome located at the foot of Cairngorm was home to an ice rink, the Swim Lunch (not the Lunch Swim as that would have been dangerous), the largest crossbow in the world and a sticky floored monument to the boozy weddings that had been before known as Cairngorm Suite.

 

I had never heard of Wolfstone and I must remember to ask my folks why they chose to take me. It was a ‘Birthday Treat’ it may even have been my thirteenth birthday which would make it in mid November 1991.

The band overcame initial problems with the cold vibeless function suite by turning off all the lights. This prompted my now blinded mother to complain loudly to all within earshot, including the band and probably some mountaineers camped out in the Lairig Gru that this was NO GOOD and she couldn’t see. Following my Father’s lead I shrunk beneath table hoping this would deflect the daggers of the seething crowd of around twelve people that were rattling about in the gym hall sized room.

The buzz of amps, a squeal of pipes, a flickering as a dark shape passes in before a Marshall half stack. The ubiquitous bang as an unmuted cable is plugged in and they were off. The disco lights came on and everyone went crazy. I’m pretty sure by the end of the night there were only about fifty people there and all, including my folks, were throwing themselves around the dance floor like bedlamites.

Aside from the volume, the lights and the pure excitement the thing that sticks most in my memory is that after the raffle (!) and before the encore the band asked the audience if they knew any good drummers or bass players. We’d been listening to a drum machine all night and hadn’t noticed, presumably because it was so dark. Imagine being in the cavern club when John, Paul and George were looking for a replacement for Stewart Suttcliffe or Pete Best. I was there. This was a major moment in musical history and I was there. I was there soaked in sweat, knackered and awestruck wishing that I could play drums or bass. I should have just lied and said I could. Surely they would have taken me seriously.

Officially this wasn’t the first concert I’d ever been to. But, if this makes sense, it was my first gig. This concert was different in that: a) I remembered it for longer than a week and b) It was, in the full sense Oxford English dictionary sense of the word, awesome. So awesome in fact that it made me realise that I did not want to join the Merchant Navy or be a vet or a bed tester for Silentnight or any of the other list of so called proper jobs a teenager dreams of. Each year this knowledge was further galvanised by other birthday trips, usually to Eden Court, to see the mighty Wolfstone strut their stuff before an unhinged home crowd. Unfortunately by that time they had a bass player and a drummer and had completely ignored all my letters offering services on bodhran and backing vocals.

I know that late at night many twenty and thirty something fans, their pride washed away by a high tide of nostalgia and alcohol share their teenage Wolfstone stories and listen to Unleashed on repeat. At 5am a neighbour will call the police complaining of thunderous dancing followed by loud singing. Then there is quiet followed by the occasional sniffle as ‘Song For Yesterday’ fades out.

MyFaceSpaceBook 2.0 (originally posted on www.gardensessions.co.uk)

It's 2:30 AM, I have drunk a large amount of overpriced Irish cider and I am on Facebook. Why? It is simple, like most musicians I have become a web 2.0 addict. I see myself in a few years time, beard flowing round my ankles, a blanket wrapped around my skeletal form in an empty flat. Empty but for a winking wireless router and the warming glow of a battered laptop. The production of music will have ceased and all that my creativity generates will be a stream of 150 character outbursts that will largely be ignored by my close friends and fans alike. And the addiction goes deeper. I find myself mid conversation idly checking my Blackberry for a status update or a so-called friend request. Nevertheless it is amazing. I mean, you can actually hear what your friends in North America are having for breakfast today or delight in the unfocused photos from last night's post gig bender.

 My addiction took root in February. Celtic Connections over and faced with an empty diary I decided to make use of my time by exploiting online marketing opportunities or, in the common tongue, pissing about on the internet. I twittered, plurked, meemed, myfaced and spacebooked. I blogged and uploaded, I requested and commented and within one month I had more gossip and insights into lives of others than a hyperactive Stasi agent. 'How exciting', I thought to myself, 'I have all these friends who all love my music (and I, of course, love theirs too). I have a huge mailing list and the ability to communicate my every thought to my thousands of fans. But something feels wrong.'

I felt empty. I'd been living like Jeff Lebowski. No nihilist had urinated on my rug however I'd been pretty much living in my dressing gown and the floaty bits in my coffee indicated the milk was way past it's sell by date. I knew the whereabouts of all my friends, I knew where they'd been on holiday, I'd seen their cousin’s new baby and the pattern on their new wallpaper but I hadn't actually spoken to any of them face to face. All I really knew had appeared exactly 58 minutes ago with a link attached.

I had to go to the pub. I settled on The Ben Nevis. There were real people there, which at first was a bit unnerving. I talked to them. They talked back. I met people I didn't know and talked to them. They also talked back. There was live music, someone sang, too many percussionists joined in and a flautist took the huff. That was Public House 1.0, unchanged for centuries, the original and best. At closing time I jumped in a taxi headed home. Then safely ensconced in the bosom of Napier Towers a glass of single malt quivering in one hand, I posted it all on the bloody internet.

There's just so much out there. I checked on Wikipedia and the amount of social networking sites rises each day. In March there was around 80 today that's up to over 150.  Web 2.0 is taking over. I was once shown a load of post-punk fanzines and was amazed by what they contained. Ridiculous articles, outright slagging matches, love letters, hand drawn pictures of gigs and a real sense of what the fans really wanted. Those homespun pamphlets of the 80s and early 90s have been replaced by the slick interactivity of MySpace and Facebook Fan sites. Slick it may be but every interaction is either restricted or over edited.

The main thing Web 2.0 has lost, and I am oh so guilty of this, is the total lack of criticism. Everyone loves everyone on MySpace. "Your songs are awesome :-)" This from an American Country star who has failed to note that at that point I have not recorded let alone uploaded any songs to the internet.

I dare you. No, I double dare you. To post one balanced critical comment on MySpace and see what happens. There is the chance your account may be deleted or you will be swamped by a never-ending torrent of hate but I suspect that the real outcome is that no one will notice. Either you criticism will never see the light of day, deleted before it even reaches the publishing stage or it will be published instantly and never read.

Back to the addiction and the point of this Blog. If Twiitter were a spliff and Facebook a cocaine habit then blogging must be the intravenous users opiate. The chaps at the Garden Sessions have uncovered my secret and in exchange for my services they are providing me with the hit I need each month. I will rant, list and even perhaps review but don't be shy, I want your criticism so leave a comment- the ruder the better. Apart from anything else you might give me something better to write about.