One For the Ditch: Live at the Diving Bell Lounge

Here's the second of two videos I made with Richard and Jolene Crawford of Precious Productions at The Diving Bell Lounge in Glasgow.



Live at The Diving Bell Lounge - Findlay Napier - One for the Ditch from Precious Productions on Vimeo.


There are loads of Christmas songs but really, for me anyway, the best time of the festive season is Hogmanay and I felt it deserved a song. I was staying with my Auntie and Uncle in Rogart, Sutherland over New Year. We were discussing music and my Auntie reckoned I needed to write country songs as there's probably more money in country music. Later that night at a party her brother suggested the title 'One for the Ditch'.  So I set about writing a country song in the style of coke and booze addled country legend George Jones.

“Country music to me is heartfelt music that speaks to the common man. It is about real life stories with rather simple melodies that the average person can follow. Country music should speak directly and simply about the highs and lows of life. Something that anyone can relate to.”
George Jone

If you're not reading this on my blog you're probably not able to link to the George Jones videos I've posted here... FrankSinatra said he was the second best singer in the world... Sinatra was full of shit.

Celtic Connections 2011: Day 5 (17/1/11)

That's enough fucking tunes... Who's for a song?

It's not intimidating for the audience. But sitting at the end of the table in the late night session Ronald and I feel rather like two lonely Gladiators. The chairs are neatly arranged in a saltire/colosseum. Musicians and the centre and everyone else looking in. We're really hoping someone fed the lions dodgy meat and that the Christians have been at the communion wine.

You never can tell with an organised session who's going to turn up. You can book a few folk but no matter what you do a session at a festival is like an electromagnet for mentals. We are incredibly lucky tonight. Not one. Not a single one. Last year we had some guy dressed as a WWII soldier howling along to his staggeringly bad guitar playing; a woman who re-enacted Tam o Shanter through the medium of drunken dance and shouting and the usual collection of percussion belters with the timing of Private Jones. Just because one owns an instrument doesn't mean one has to play it loudly along with other people. There's a video that I'll post that describes this so elegantly that I'll stop ranting and try and find it to post here.



It's that time of year again. It wasn't until Christmas Eve this year that I remembered I hadn't done my tax return. Luckily, or unluckily, I forgot about it so it didn't ruin the festive period. It came back and it struck down upon me with great vengeance and furious anger. Surely by now someone at Centre One in East Kilbride has noticed that most folk musicians earn bugger all... Out with the usual futile excuses:

1) Does it make any difference at all us paying taxes?
2) In Ireland musicians and artists don't have to pay taxes etc.
3) Most of the teaching we do is government funded so cut out the middle man.
4) Feel free to add more in the comments section...

I don't actually mind paying the tax I'm just looking for any excuse to not have to do all the boring paperwork. (Hence these overlong blog posts)

Every year it's the same. Instead of just doing it trying to find some reason not to do it. The flat will be spotless before the end of January. I will have shampooed and individually combed each fibre of the living room carpet. Anything to avoid sifting through the mountain of receipts and the desperate search for P60s and all the associated shite that I've put 'somewhere safe' to make doing my tax return easier. What would make it easier would be to get a proper job or somehow employ a full time bookkeeper who was happy to work for free. Not going to happen though.

Right: My tax return. Left: A man who actually believes in Sci Fi.

SIGHT OF THE DAY:
Didn't see this but I overheard two teenage boys bragging about the amount of times they'd shat in Whitehill Swimming Pool. That explains the 50/50 water to chlorine mix they use.

DAYS OFF THE FAGS: 11
DAYS OFF THE DRINK: I give up giving up...

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...

Celtic Connections 2011: Day 2 (14/1/11)

Left the flat in plenty of time. Pushed past the smokers outside the chip shop. Past the smokers outside the hairdressers. Plenty of time to catch the train. Except today I've left my wallet at home. I sprint back to the flat and repeat the usual sprint to the train station.

Late Night Session book has only two slots filled. It'll be alright on the night. I hope...

Jamie McMemeny and Soig Siveril

I lurk in the office assailing passing artists and artist reps. A few beers and you'll be desperate to play. I am laughed back into my corner. By 5:30 I am nearly full. A great and varied musical program. It's going to be a fantastic first night. One slot to fill and Jamie McMenemy and Soig Siberil come to my rescue.

I know it's time for dinner when I ask Jen ,"What is a 'pah gay'? A page."

Marinated anchovies. Better without salad.

We dine tonight in Amerone. How posh. I'm still kidding myself that I'm sort of kind of on a diet so I start with salad. I'm only eating it because it's got marinated anchovies in it and I love marinated anchovies.

I grab a train home. It is delayed and I'm beginning to panic. I could have got an earlier one. I am regretting ordering my anchovies. The train eventually stops in a cutting somewhere between High St and Bellgrove. I need to be back at the concert hall in under an hour. We limp to Bellgrove where, after hanging about for five minutes, the train finally gives up the ghost.

20:14 to Springburn

A brisk walk up the hill in my new shoes is more painful than I imagined. I make use of the time by calling acts to see if they'd like to play the Late Night Session. An artist calls back in time for me to discover the reason for the terminated train. I answer the phone standing on the corner of Cumbernauld Road and Onslow Drive just as a bus passes. I see the wall of water just in time and turn my back. Soaked to the skin. The street is a river. Looks like I'll be needing that change of clothes.

BANDS ON STAGE:
Me
Seonaid Aitkin
Anna Coogan
The Fox Hunt and the Henry Girls
Jamie McMemeny and Soig Siveril
Iain Thomson (with Angus Lyon and Marc Duff)
.

Angus Lyon: Guaranteed to win a stating competition.

.. and Acoustic Butterfly were supposed to play but only their Drummer showed up. Perhaps sampling nectar in another garden. Drummers are like skirmishers in the 19th century. First on the battlefield and the last to leave. So a big thanks to Iain Murray (nicked from Acoustic Butterfly) and Angus Lyon (who I poached from Iain Thompson's band) for helping me finish the club.

SIGHTS OF THE DAY:
Old man in school shorts and grey school socks pulled up to the knee. Perhaps the Krankie's grandfather or roadie.

Fat woman in metallic blue spandex leggings. No. Just NO.

Days not Smoking: 8
Days not Drinking: 7 (soon to return to zero)

Celtic Connections 2011: Day 1 (13/1/11)

Begins with me running to catch the train. It is a recurring theme for me. Regardless of the alarm going off at 7:30am I find myself sprinting along Alexandra Parade, guitar in hand, bag bouncing off my back and ringing phone clutched in my other sweaty palm. I don't answer. Mornings are hard enough for everyone without being panted at by a rampaging Napier.

A Celtic Connections workshop at a primary school in Glasgow's deep south goes well. I recognise the school from my second failed attempt at finding the mountain bike trails on Cathkin. It was only after returning from that trip that I realised a time machine would have been a better mode of transport. The trails had not yet been built.

Finding the correct key for a song is always a tricky one. Made more difficult when you're writing a song with thirty seven people who's voices have not yet broken. So sounding like a cross between Aled Jones and the Proclaimers on helium we write the highest chorus ever written. It flashed through my mind that I was like a Scottish Sting... Soon to be purchasing acres of the Cathkin Braes to preserve the native dogging sites.

I still had an entirely blank canvas for the first Late Night Session. Blank canvas is a euphemism for fuck all. Well I do have one act. I can manage about two hours on my own but after an hour I think even the most die hard of Celtic Connections fans will be glancing at their watches and craning their neck to see if the drunk guy that just staggered in with a guitar might give us a song.



The torch light procession. Volunteers and festival staff joke loudly about burning down the city. Sure to grab some headlines. Festival Rises From the Smoke of Capitalism. Standing on the corner of George Square carrying the Celtic Connections banner. Without Provost, parade and pipeband we begin our half pace waddle to the Concert Hall. It's the closest we'll ever come to the media circus. Cameras, flasehes, tripods and videos. It's the real deal. My face wasn't designed to smile for this long. There's a guy in front of me whose sole occupation is to hold a flash. What's his job description? Opereater of the Flashgun 2nd class. Must be good at walking backwards and have very long arms.

I leave the concert hall as a bewildered Ross Ainslie is interviewed by an entirely over enthusiastic journalist and camera crew. If they want the really good telly they should be interviewing members of the Treacherous Orchestra after their gig.

SIGHTS OF THE DAY:

Frankie Boyle on Sauchihall street wearing a fur hat. I did a double take then leapt behind a litter bin in case he shouted at me or took me to a dark place in his mind.

• Days not smoking: 7
• Days not Drinking: 6... but it's not going to last.

4 Star Review of Harry Met Charlie EP

This review of the Harry Met Charlie EP was in today's Daily Record.

Daily Record, Saturday, May 16th 2009
Findlay Napier and the Bar Room Mountaineers
When Harry Met Charlie
"Darlings of Celtic Connections under the moniker 'Back of the Moon', Findlay's newest outfit offer up a delicatly crafted limited-edition storysong with frisky piano trickling through, soft, folky harmonies. 4 Stars"

You can purchase your limited edition of the Harry Met Charlie EP here...