Celtic Connections 2011: Day 3 (15/1/11)

Mine Strone Sowp

I'll be there in half an hour. Two hours later, still in my dressing gown, the office calls to see where I am. I am sitting at my table eating minestrone soup in my dressing gown. Saturdays are the only easy day. I get a lie in and only half to do the Late Night Session.

Standing in the rain the taxi eventually arrives. Despite waving the driver sails past me screeches to a halt further up the street and leans on the horn. I tap on the back windscreen and see him jump. Not really on the ball this guy. He chooses the slowest route available. We sit side by side in nose to tail traffic in silence. Glasgow Private Hire taxis are like the western isles B&B of the taxi world. It is not your car it is mine. You may be paying the fee but shut up and don't open your mouth until we are properly lost and then, and only then, may you hint at the general direction in which we should have gone. A careless tut will result in your immediate expulsion from the car leaving you stranded somewhere in Possil.

The Worst B&B ever

So as we sit side by side in silence on Bath Street I am reminded of a musician friend who missed breakfast by five minutes in a western isles B&B. Saturday night had spilled into Sunday morning and he awoke fully clothed in bed one shoe untied. Not daring to enter the kitchen he tapped on the door. Yes? He asked if there was any chance of a bacon roll. No. Maybe a slice of toast? No. You've missed breakfast. Is there anywhere I could get food? The shop. The shop? Yes it's along the road.



So in the pissing rain nursing a hangover he walks three miles 'just along' the road to the shop. To find it closed. It's always closed on a sunday. Good old fashioned Scottish hospitality. I digress.

In the office a slight bit of wrangling and the Late Night Session list is full. Not going to be so easy tomorrow night.

Rare photo of The Alison Brown Onetet

It's only just before I go on stage that it occurs to me that Alison Brown's quartet will need a drumkit, bass amp and a keyboard or it will be the Alison Brown onetet. The backline arrives about thirty seconds before the band and we get to look marginally professional. Though the sight of me trying to fit the snare drum onto a high hat stand raises a few eyebrows. I'm tempted to order a gong next week. Like the one from the start of the film. I'm thinking opening and closing the Late Night Session with me stripped to the waist kicking fuck out of a gong would definitely get the festival some more press.

Me (for ages because an act didn't turn up)
Ronald Jappy
Alison Brown Quartet
The Rose Room
AJ Roach
Gary Stewart
Iain Smith
...and me again.

SIGHT OF THE DAY:
17 vikings lurking in Island Bar.

Days without Smoking: 9

Days without Drinking: 0... but honestly I only had one beer...