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An Optimistic Sound – The Songs Of Michael Marra

Articles, Featured, Opinion 5 Responses »

Oct 042013

An Optimistic Sound – The Songs of Michael Marra, Dundee Repertory Theatre, 28 September 2013. David Innes reviews.

It’s difficult to believe that almost a year has passed since Michael Marra was taken from us, and the world was deprived of a supremely talented writer, artist and performer.

The affection and respect which poured out from fellow artists, fans and friends in October 2012 validated his status and the esteem in which he was held.

Such was this esteem that Celtic Connections, only three months after his death, featured an evening of celebration of his music and influence entitled All Will Be Well.

Quite what he would have made of this we can only guess; but as a fiercely proud Dundonian writer and performer, one can imagine that a further commemoration, An Optimistic Sound, played to a sold-out Dundee Repertory Theatre, would be the finest accolade that he could imagine.

Whilst the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall event was emotional and celebratory, by contrast the Dundee event had a more relaxed feel. It was as if Michael’s ‘bairns’ The Hazey Janes, with son Matthew on bass and daughter Alice compering and performing, and wife Peggy, had invited friends round for the evening to sing a few songs and share an anecdote or two.

That spirit of inclusion extended to the audience, loudly appreciative of every artistic effort extended for our entertainment.

Whether it was Rod Paterson telling of Michael’s generosity in completing a muse-deserted Paterson song overnight, Peter McGlone blowing heart-rending saxophone, or Saint Andrew declaiming Woodwork Woodwork and revealing that its refrain was based on the late Gus Foy’s school timetable, standards of performance never fell below outstanding.

Could Muscle Shoals have assembled a more soulful backing chorus for Eddi Reader’s white-hot Here Come The Weak than Alice Marra, Karine Polwart and sisters Fiona, Gillie and Eilidh Mackenzie?

Dougie McLean has thankfully preserved a song, never recorded, which Michael would sing in his early performing days at Blairgowrie Folk Club, and took obvious delight in performing it.

These are merely a few highlights among many. The whole was indeed greater than the sum of its parts.

Michael had always shied away from stardom. As our national Makar Liz Lochhead reminded us, he once said, ‘I don’t want my name in lights; I want my name in brackets’. Ever the songwriter. His generosity was well-known and he would have been proud, without doubt, that all profits from the evening are to go to Optimistic Sound, a Michael Marra Memorial Music Trust for the young people of Dundee.

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Is Fracking All We Have To Worry About?

Articles, Environment, Featured No Responses »

Sep 272013

Aberdeen Voice is grateful to citizen journalist Mel Kelly for bringing to our attention the little known, but highly controversial issue of Unconventional Coal Gasification, and for granting permission to use one of her articles recently published on the Open Democracy site.

As demonstrations grow against “fracking” in the UK, another controversial gas extraction method has quietly been licensed.

Underground Coal Gasification, or UCG, is the drilling of wells to set fire to underground coal seams and the channelling of the mixture of gas by-products including hydrogen, carbon monoxide, methane and large volumes of carbon dioxide up to the surface.

Two well heads are required in the UCG process, one to inject air or oxygen down to the coal chamber and another to extract the resulting mix of gases produced by burning the coal underground.

Water taken either from the surface, or from below the ground is also required for the UCG process (over and above the water private companies already want to use for “fracking”). Once the gas runs out in the initial well location, the well heads are moved to follow the coal seam. This process leaves behind underground caverns contaminated with toxic waste, as well as scarring the countryside further as the wellheads creep along.

But scarring the countryside is the least of the environmental risks caused as a direct result of UCG gas extraction methods.

Reports on onshore UCG trials from America in 1993, Australia in 2011 and India in 2012 state UCG onshore trials had to be halted after groundwater was contaminated. Contaminants included benzene – which can cause leukaemia and bone marrow abnormalities in humans and animals – and toluene, which can affect the kidneys, nervous system, liver, brain and heart as well as causing miscarriages.

Friends Of The Earth’s Australian website states:

“The Department of Environment Resource Management recently had to shut down a UCG project in Queensland by Cougar Energy, after the discovery that local bores had become polluted with carcinogenic chemicals such as benzene and toluene. The contamination meant farmers in the area were unable to use the bores.

“The company however, didn’t notify the department until two months after it became aware of the contamination.”

Cougar Energy announced on August 19th that it is trying to change its name to Moreton Resources as:

“its current name is strongly linked to UCG and may be disadvantageous for attracting and retaining the support of investors in the future”

Of course, groundwater contamination is not the only serious consequence of the UCG process to extract gas.

Experts admit UCG also creates major subsidence risks both above and below ground.

The Frack Off website also listing 20 different known environmental risks it believes are associated with UCG gas extraction).

A 2011 American Report states:

“While UCG has a number of advantages, significant technological barriers must still be addressed before UCG can be considered commercially viable. Costly environmental consequences such as aquifer contamination and ground subsidence need consideration before commercial application.”

A few weeks ago, a Queensland Government panel rejected the commercial UCG industry in Queensland “until the companies proved they could halt the combustion process once gas had been extracted”, this is despite the companies using “world-leading technology” according to Mines Minister Andrew Cripps.

Even the European 1999 UCG trial had to be halted, with the Department of Trade Industry stating:

“a blockage that was impossible to clear, caused an underground explosion”

The Department of Energy and Climate Change webpage actually refers to this DTI sponsored trial claiming the trial “has demonstrated the feasibility of UCG at depths typical of European coal” and neglects to mention that the facts of the trial was, in fact, a complete disaster which resulted in an underground explosion out of anyone’s control.

If numerous UCG pilot projects on four different continents were halted as a result of major groundwater contamination or events getting out of control resulting in an explosion what will the impact of an untested large scale industrial project in a country the size of the UK be – such as the one currently proposed in Warwickshire?

A newly formed British company, Cluff Natural Resources, has applied for the first onshore licence in the UK to start UCG gas extraction in Warwickshire, with their founder, Algy Cluff claiming underground coal gasification is “safe and unlike fracking”, despite evidence to the contrary from recent trials worldwide.

He also claims UCG “is a fairly well established practice internationally” – again despite the Queensland government banning UCG, on an industrial scale, just weeks ago because it is still not safe, even when using world leading technology.

If Algy Cluff gets his way, this proposed UCG project in Warwickshire, will result in an area affected about the same size as Coventry which would stretch from Ryton-on-Dunsmore through Bubbenhall, Weston-under-Wetherley, Hunningham, Princethorpe and Marton – just 7 miles from Leamington Spa – ironically once famed for the quality and medicinal properties of the local water.

And that is just the first UCG application for an onshore UCG project.

According to Frack Off, this is only the start of a number of “fracking” projects the coalition government are licensing across England and the rest of the UK.

David Cameron’s government is currently going to court with the aim to ensure private mining companies can shift their liabilities away from covering the full cost of cleaning up their toxic mess.

With “the Advocate General and KMPG arguing UK insolvency law trumps the Scottish environmental regulations, meaning liquidators would have the power to abandon environmental clean-up costs after the company with the responsibility for them has gone bust”, reinforcing Cameron’s demands we should all back his dash for gas “fracking” and UCG processes.

No wonder the people of Warwickshire are furious.

Images courtesy of Freefoto.com.

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Colin MacKay And Davy Cowan CDs Reviewed

Articles, Opinion No Responses »

Sep 132013

Whilst I’m not sure if there exists a specific and empirical Scottish identity, which leaves me a bit unsure as to how to vote next year, for the selfish purposes of this article, I’m saying that it’s been a good couple of years for releases by Scottish musicians, writes David Innes.

2012 saw terrific releases by Meursault and Two Wings, each experimental but melodic and thought-provoking. In 2013 so far, the John Langan Band’s so-called pan-European traditional acoustic music was displayed to magical effect on Bones Of Contention and bluesier offerings from Dave Arcari (Whisky In My Blood), Hot Tin Roof (All Night Long), King King (Standing In The Shadows) The Black Diamond Express (Brimstone For Hell) and the perennial Blues ‘n’ Trouble (Try Anything Twice) have all impressed critics, reviewers and fans alike.

Johnny and the Copycats have celebrated more than half a century of never-say-die gigging by releasing 50 Years On and new CDs by Colin Mackay and Davy Cowan, both the subject of Voice interviews, have come our way.

We’ll get a copy of the Copycats’ disc, but in the meantime, what about Buckie loon Mackay’s recording and Highlander Cowan’s release?

Do What You Love (Colin Mackay, Self-release) was recorded in Nashville, with production legend Bil VornDick at the board.

Colin is careful to point out that the Nashville connection does not necessarily mean that he’s recorded a country album, citing southern rock and soul as big influences on his writing. There’s no doubting that there’s a toughness and swagger about his own material on Do What You Love.

Perhaps it’s because he’s wearing his own clothes on his own six compositions that these are where he turns in his strongest performances. This is especially evident on the opening three tracks, the title track, the Miracles-esque Whisky Morning and Let You Go.

VornDick’s hand-picked session men are a massive part of the album, laying down surefooted, sympathetic tracks which enhance immeasurably Mackay’s songs. He has said himself that he was in awe of the talent surrounding him during the recording, and there’s little question that both producer and musicians have inspired Colin to demonstrate his own vocal abilities to fine effect.

www.colinmackaymusic.com
Aberdeen Voice interviews Colin MacKay

Further west on the Moray Firth, Davy Cowan, formerly of Celtic crowd-pleasers Coinneach has been coached and encouraged by producer and Barbaraville label owner Martin Stephenson to find his own voice and become known ‘beyond the village’.

Working Man’s Dream (Pictish Pop Records/Barbaraville) is already creating minor tremors beyond the Black Isle.

It’s a solid set of original songs, with a faithful cover of Tom Paxton’s Ramblin Boy included, and the producer has brought the best out of Cowan by encouraging him to find his own voice to emote his personal, yet universally-themed songs.

He’s a lucky guy.

At times displaying the tough yet vulnerable cracked emotion of Johnny Cash, and occasionally recalling the sonorous timbre of Tom Russell, his performances have credibility and are delivered without histrionics or Autotune.

Whilst for the genre junkies and categorisation obsessives Working Man’s Dream can probably index-carded and filed in the Americana drawer, the album is simply a welcome example of mature home-grown songwriting and delivery, drawing in Celtic and country influences, with an added energetic punk edge as needed.

www.davycowan.com
Aberdeen Voice interviews Davy Cowan

Ceilidhcatu – Brazilian Beats Meet Bogie Ballads

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Sep 132013

Itinerant Scots have been accused of many musical misdemeanours. Musicologists have built careers tracing the global paths that Scottish traditional music has wandered along, injecting swing into cowboy music, adding Hebridean angst to the blues and a hint of bothy life into bluegrass. Since the heady days when The Old Blind Dogs linked New Deer with New Orleans there’s been a consistent interest in setting traditional Scots tunes against global rhythms. Along those lines, and on the face of it, this looks like an interesting CD release from Huntly’s Deveron Arts, reviewed by Graham Stephen.

Brazilian musician Allysson Velez, inspired by ceilidh music, recognised rhythmic links with his own tradition and its African slave roots. He teamed up with Omar Arif, a West African musician living in the area, and a handful of local musicians, including fiddle maestro Paul Anderson. The result is Ceilidhcatu, promoted as ‘a transcultural community of art’.
What I expected was a cross-cultural stew of shared enthusiasm with musicians sparking off each other’s playing and musical styles.

This may well happen in a live situation, but much of this recording lacks a dynamic spark, sticking to repetitive, unadventurous arrangements and never quite matching its ambitions.

Too often it sounds like two styles brought hesitantly together, shyly inter-mingling, but happier to stick to familiar territory. That, you may argue, is itself a fundamental tradition in the NE.

Not that there is anything wrong with the performances. The musicians play well, which is frustrating, because at times the formula works, giving hints of the possibilities. The relentless African drum patterns, for example, enhance the gloom and menace of Twa Corbies.

Driven by Anderson’s strong fiddle, The Devil In The Kitchen set threatens to take off, demanding to be pushed into overdrive by some strong percussion. When the drums arrive, however, they stick to a repetitive groove regardless of changes in the tunes, where subtle shifts and textures would have brought the set to life.

Opening track Scotland The Brave also suffers from this sense of deceleration, giving a feeling that the two elements have been brought together separately, rather than being a natural bonding. The traditional songs and tunes chosen are also very familiar. Perhaps a choice of material beyond the standard session repertoire might have enhanced the project.

Significantly, the strongest tracks are duets featuring only Velez and Afif, their hypnotic Maracuta rhythms echoing the legacy of slave trade links between Brazil and Africa. Set against this, an unexpected unaccompanied version of The Rovin’ Ploughboy, perfectly sung by Shona Donaldson, somehow encapsulates the aching soul of the NE bothy ballad while Steve Brown’s pipes on Farewell To The Creeks sit well in natural sound effects.

CEILIDHCATU
NordEste/NorthEast (Deveron Arts)

Life Cycle: A Bike Ride Round Scotland And Back to Childhood

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Sep 132013

On a whim and a wave of memories of his love for his childhood bike, Gary Sutherland calls his younger brother Stewart and proposes that they go for a wee run, just like they did as bairns. This time it’s not a Christmas morning 5-mile round trip to Duffus from their home village of Hopeman on brand new bikes. This time it’s around Scotland. Despite neither having been astride a bike for years, the response is, ‘Yeah, OK’. And so it begins. David Innes reviews.

Part travelogue, part buddy movie storyboard, Life Cycle celebrates the simple pleasures and sense of achievement to be had by travelling, seeing the world from a different perspective and all via self-generated pedal power.

Sutherland’s narrative captures the joys of achievement, cholesterol-stuffed Scottish breakfasts, pints and companionship, even when he and Stewart are struggling with the gradients between Ullapool and Durness.

He dislikes hills. He grimaces at headwinds. He detours miles to visit a good coffee shop. He’s a proper cyclist all right.

Although sometimes the in-family anecdotes and snatches of conversation veer into ‘you had to be there’ territory, there are some gems.

Gary and Stewart have found a Callander bakery selling butteries. Yes, civilisation and Ambrosian lard-laden soul food that far south.

‘Do you think butteries are good for you?’ asked Stewart
‘Oh aye,’ I said, even though they’re nothing but butter and salt, ‘I reckon you could power your way round Scotland on butteries alone’.
‘I’d like to see you give it a go’.
‘I reckon I’d be able to do 10 miles to the buttery’.
‘That’s pretty impressive’.
‘It’s also a lot of butteries’.

Although two-wheeled trainspotterly stattoes like me would love to have had daily progress charts, tables of averages and maps of the journey included as an illustration of the tour, that isn’t the purpose of Life Cycle. In some places it’s almost cathartic as the struggle to self-motivate each morning and the mental and physical anguish of tortuous hill climbs are described.

Life Cycle is a tale of a couple of weeks one summer re-affirming life’s simplicity and familial ties. No more, no less. This is encapsulated in the description of a long and welcome descent after a day of excruciating climbing in Sutherland.

‘My eyes were fixed on my wee brother, flying free amid this majestic landscape. It was one of the finest sights I’d ever seen. It was all worth it for this.’

Now and again there can be too much seemingly-anodyne detail given, but on publication of A Journal Of The Plague Year and Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe was acclaimed for bringing journalistic verisimilitude to the fledgling novel genre. Gary Sutherland is in good company.

So, as we cyclists feel winter on the back of some chillier September mornings, as the shorts are consigned to the back of the drawer and the winter gloves are looked out, what better time to reflect on the pleasures of summer cycling and take inspiration for one’s own road trip once the days lengthen again? You may find it between the easily-read pages of Life Cycle.

Life Cycle: A Bike Ride Round Scotland and Back to Childhood. Gary Sutherland.
Birlinn Books. 214pp. £9.99

Facile Scotland

Articles, Opinion 3 Responses »

Sep 062013

Having seen a book entitled Fascist Scotland (Birlinn Books, 256 pages) at the library I thought I’d check it out as the name of the author, Gavin P Bowd, seemed oddly familiar. This proved to be correct as he wrote an article in Scotland on Sunday earlier this year linking Scottish Nationalism with Nazism for which he allegedly received ‘death threats’. Having read this awful book I can imagine the alleged ‘death threats’ can only have come from serious historians who have seen their profession dragged into the gutter and their status reduced to that of a third-rate fairground barker, writes Dave Watt.

Basically, the book implies that there has been a major connection between Scotland and Fascism since the 1920s.

It is shotgun mudslinging of the lowest order, even implying that Rudolf Hess arrived in Scotland because he knew the place was full of Nazi sympathisers and that the wartime government was afterwards involved in some sort of major cover-up.

He uses a ludicrous quote from an Evelyn Waugh’s Officers and Gentlemen, in which a lunatic alleged Scottish nationalist Miss Carmichael, an avid admirer of Hitler, proclaims that, ‘When the Germans land in Scotland, the glens will be full of marching men come to greet them, and the professors themselves at the universities will seize the towns’, as his basis for showing that Scotland was just waiting for the word to go Nazi during the war.

Presumably the 50000 Scottish servicemen and women who died in the Second World War were all rushing to join the Wehrmacht when they absent-mindedly forgot that they had rifles in their hands and the Germans were obliged to kill them.

Bowd also claims that although 549 people in Scotland volunteered to fight for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, and only one (yes, that’s right, one) went to fight for the Fascists, there were many Franco sympathisers in Scotland and, at one point, refers to us as ‘Mosley’s Lost Legion’.

Based on this kind of statistical interpretation I could state that there are many sympathisers in Scotland for the notion that the Earth is flat.

One of the more surreal pieces in the book alleges that the Protestant League in Scotland initially supported the Spanish Republic since they were kicking out priests from Spanish schools, but goes on to state that they all changed their minds as the Civil War went on and supported the Fascists as a consequence of becoming suddenly impressed with Hitler.

No evidence is supplied for this abrupt alleged Scottish Protestant devotion to Hitler, there are no voting statistics, no pictures of Orange banners with Adolf crossing the Rhine on a white dobbin on the 12th of July, no radio broadcasts from Ibrox with the crowd singing ‘Hello, Hello, We Are The Falangist Boys’ and stating that they were ‘up to their knees in Anarcho-Syndicalist blood’.

Nope. Nothing like that. It happened like that just because he says so.

Paralleling the surreal observation about Scottish support for Franco, he seems to imply that since the National Front got 0.08% of the vote in 2011, there is a huge secret groundswell towards Fascism in Scotland. The obvious corollary to this is that if the evil Jocks gets independence it will be concentration camps all over the shop and you won’t be able to get a quiet latte in Costa for people standing on chairs singing Tomorrow Belongs To Me.

This book is appalling. I don’t know if the smug-looking cock (see pic) did any serious research apart from cherry-picking anything, no matter how tenuous, to make his spurious point but he seems to be unable to relate his findings to his own statistics.

Don’t buy this book. Don’t bother reading it. It’s crap.

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I Like My Cats But I Hate What They Do

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Sep 062013

The Dalai Lama In Inverness.

By Duncan Harley.

It has been just over a year since the Dalai Lama visited Edinburgh, Dundee and Inverness.

The good folk of Dundee welcomed him with open arms and presented Tibet’s spiritual leader with a meditation stool and some very loud applause.

Some children from the city’s deaf school sang a song to him and several Dundee politicians refused to meet him. Seemingly, the Chinese Consul General to Scotland had met council leaders from all three cities scheduled for the tour.

The issue was raised during First Minister’s Questions in the Scottish Parliament, where opposition parties claimed China had put pressure on the SNP government over the visit.

First Minister Alex Salmond had visited China in December 2011 to strengthen trade, arts and cultural links following the arrival of two giant pandas at Edinburgh Zoo. One of the pandas may now be pregnant.

Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon warned parties not to politicise what was a ‘pastoral’ visit, saying that no UK government ministers were meeting the Dalai Lama during his trip.

A UK government source later pointed out that both Prime Minister David Cameron and his deputy, Nick Clegg, met the Dalai Lama in May.

Ms Sturgeon – standing in for Mr Salmond, who had been on a US trade visit – said, ‘There has been no discussion or contact whatsoever between the Scottish government and Dundee City Council about the visit of the Dalai Lama.’

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie claimed Mr Salmond had displayed an ‘ambiguous attitude’ to the issue of China’s human rights record.

He urged Ms Sturgeon to condemn practices in the country, which he said included the detention of 500000 people without trial, and forcing women to have abortions.

The Dalai Lama, one of the world’s most revered leaders, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 and was awarded the £1.1m Templeton Prize at St Paul’s Cathedral in 2012 for his engagement with science and people beyond his religious traditions.

He has lived in exile in Dharamsala in northern India since 1959.

He’s an awfully nice man. The folk of Inverness, Embra and Dundee agree.

When he came to Inverness he was shown the usual tourist places. When asked about local politics he said, ‘I like my cats but hate what they do’.

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Davy Cowan – Working Man’s Dream

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Sep 012013

With his Martin Stephenson-produced album Working Man’s Dream (Pictish Pop Records) on release and its Easter Ross blue collar honesty being well-received by critics, Davy Cowan was kind enough to take time off from creativity and promo to talk to Voice’s David Innes.

‘Home’ sounds very questing and personal. Can you enlighten us a little?

“It’s more about a feeling or a kind of longing for something familiar rather than an actual place. My father passed away two years ago and it made me think a lot about life in general, about the meaning of life, our reason for being here and what purpose we have as people. I think it’s about an ongoing search, about finding your roots and spiritual identity.”

So, is ‘Town That I Love’ about Dingwall or Invergordon, or is it one of these ‘everyman’ songs about returning home?

“I suppose this song was inspired by all the different and colourful characters that seem to exist in every town. It looks at all the day-to-day things that go on – doing the shopping, avoiding the traffic warden and dodging the gossip from the local fishwives. So yes, it’s about where I come from and live, but I suppose it’s relevant to most people’s home town. It’s much the same everywhere, I imagine.”

The Yobs was your first band. Very punk! Do those no-frills influences and that youthful energy still find their way into your songs?

“I like to think so. I still feel as passionate today when I find a hook, a lyric or a riff on the guitar as I did the first time I saw Stiff Little Fingers play at the Ice Rink in Inverness back in the early 80’s.

“It’s the whole spirit that punk rock created that made it so exciting, I think it was a natural progression from artists way before that, like Willie Nelson, Neil Young, Bob Marley, Dylan and Bowie. You can hear it in their music – they all had that same energy and drive. Punk was the catalyst that made everyone feel they could be part of something special, whether or not you could play an instrument.”

Your Celtic band Coinneach seems to have been a big part of your life. What are your favourite memories from touring with them?

“The old Ford Transit mini bus which we converted into our own little tour bus….catching the overnight ferry from Newcastle to Holland.

“We toured all over Holland, Germany, France and Belgium, had some amazing experiences, we saw some beautiful places and met all kinds of weird and wonderful people, forging some great friendships and alliances with people, most of which are still ongoing today.

“We really did have some magical mystery tours in those days!

“Our last gig back in 2004, at the Hogmanay party in Union Street Aberdeen with Hue & Cry and Deacon Blue, playing to around 4000 revellers is something I’ll never forget. It was a great way to bring that whole band chapter of our lives to a momentous conclusion.”

Tell me about working with Martin Stephenson – what did he get out of you as a producer that you might not have expected from yourself?

“Martin has this uncanny knack of getting the best out of you anyway. He seems to feed directly into the creative stream and encourages the artistic side to emerge from a song. He put me through my paces vocally. I think that if you’re used to playing in loud environments over the years you tend to shout over the top of the noise to have your voice heard.

“Martin helped me find my true voice from deeper within, almost like re-learning my whole singing technique. I really think I would have struggled to find that if it wasn’t for Mr Stephenson.”

When can the NE public expect to see you play live here?

“It’s been a while since I played the NE. I’m thinking about doing a series of busking tours around major UK cities to promote Working Man’s Dream. My idea is to busk outside major venues in each city, for example The Royal Albert Hall in London, The Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow and of course The Music Hall Aberdeen! The idea is to take the music to the people on the street.

“I’ll be outside the Music Hall in Aberdeen at 3pm this Tuesday (3 September) for a trial run!”

You have the choice of all the leading musicians, alive or not, to back you for a one-off gig – who will be in the Davy Cowan Fantasy Big Band?

“Oh now, that’s a difficult one.

“OK, this might sound a bit disjointed but here goes.

“Keith Moon on drums, Lee Rocker from The Stray Cats on upright bass, Jools on piano, Hank Williams and Emmylou Harris on backing vocals, Martin Stephenson on the washboard, Joe Strummer on rhythm guitar, Nigel Kennedy on fiddle and Gerry Jablonski on lead guitar. Oh, and not to forget Old Lizzie from The Gellions in Inverness on percussion. How does that sound?

“But I suppose for just now I’ll just keep plugging away on my solo mission and as long as I can keep writing and keep enjoying the music, I can’t think of any better way of spending the rest my working life. Onwards and upwards!”

Thanks to Davy for his input and to Donna and Mr Martin G Stephenson himself for their assistance.

Accompanying the promo copy of Working Man’s Dream was a most unusual and welcome personal letter from the head Daintee himself, outlining his vision for his Barbaraville label/collective in which he reveals, that he’s created the label ‘…to try to help support artists who I feel should be heard beyond the village’. Music to these ears. Go buddy go!

The Boat To Bolivia tour gig at The Venue in 1986 will live long in the memory of anyone who was there. Respect, Martin.

We have a review copy of Working Man’s Dream and a review is imminent.

If you’re in the city centre on Tuesday afternoon, pop along to hear Davy and to offer him encouragement.

www.davycowan.com
www.daintees.co.uk/barbaraville

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West Coast Whales – First Sighting Near Peterhead

Articles, Environment, News No Responses »

Aug 302013

There has been a confirmed sighting of the West Coast Community of killer whales off Peterhead – the first time members of this small and highly unique population have been reported off Scotland’s east coast, reports the Hebridean Whale & Dolphin Trust.

Killer whale ‘John Coe’ previously pictured by N. Van Geel/HWDT.

Video footage of the sighting, filmed by Peterhead man Ian Nash on 20 August, clearly shows a male whale known as John Coe, identifiable by a very distinctive dorsal fin notch, with another male and at least one female.
Led by Sightings Officer Mark Hosford, the Trust has established a wide-ranging sightings network and in cooperation with residents and seafarers continues to map the distribution of cetaceans off Scotland’s west coast.

The Trust has been monitoring this group’s movements since the early 1990s, with sightings recorded mainly in the Hebrides, Ireland and Wales.

Following this week’s Peterhead sighting, the charity can now expand significantly the known range of these apex predators.

Mark Hosford said:

“This confirmed sighting is a really exciting development. The West Coast Community is thought to be the only resident population of orca in the British Isles, and understanding their behaviour and movements is crucial to the conservation of these remarkable creatures“

John Coe’s distinctive notch allowed Sanna Kuningas of the Sea Mammal Research Unit to recognise him as part of the West Coast Community and to alert HWDT and Dr Andy Foote, who has extensively studied orca populations in the NE Atlantic as part of the North Atlantic Killer Whale ID (NAKID) project. www.northatlantickillerwhales.com

The West Coast Community’s entire population comprises just five males and four females, and no calves have ever been recorded in two decades of HWDT monitoring.

Dr Foote’s research confirmed that members of the West Coast Community never interact with other NE Atlantic populations, and are actually morphologically different from the area’s other populations in eye patch orientation. It is suspected that this small population preys exclusively on other cetaceans including porpoise and minke whale. All these variables point to a distinct, highly vulnerable killer whale population.

HWDT relies on members of the public to report sightings of whales, dolphins, porpoise and basking sharks to enable a better understanding of the marine environment, both locally and internationally.

Mark Hosford added:

“The West Coast Community of orca has a range which includes a large portion of the western coast of the British Isles. This, together with the small number of individuals within the group, means that sightings of the West Coast Community can be few and far between.

“The HWDT research vessel Silurian has a large area to cover and can only be in one place at a time, so having a community-based sightings network allows HWDT to gather much more information on the orca than we could on our own.”

Members of the public who encounter a cetacean or basking shark, can contribute to HWDT’s community sightings network by reporting sightings at sightings@hwdt.org

HWDT is dedicated to enhancing knowledge and understanding of Scotland’s whales, dolphins and porpoises and the Hebridean marine environment through education, research and working with local communities as a basis for the lasting conservation of species and habitats.

Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust,
28 Main Street,
Tobermory,
Isle of Mull,
PA75 6NU

Tel: 01688 302620
Fax: 01688 302728

www.hwdt.org

The Blether O Banffshire: An Interview With Colin MacKay

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Aug 272013

With his first full length CD Do What You Love, recorded in Nashville, attracting considerable radio and media interest, Voice thought it a good time to send David Innes out to interview his fellow Banffshire native, Colin Mackay. A Buckie loon and a Keith cyard meet without a fecht breaking out? The UN should take notes.

You’re still a bairn at 42, Colin. How long ago did you leave Buckie?

“I left Buckie where I’d lived all my life when I was 18, to study at The Robert Gordon University.”

Was there always country or folk music on in the house as you grew up?

“There was always a lot of music in our house growing up. A huge eclectic range. My parents love so many different styles.

“My dad’s actually a trained tenor and I can remember going to see Handel’s Messiah where he was singing tenor lead. I sat at the back of the hall with a huge ghetto blaster recording it. I was only about 8 at the time. That guy Handel can write some nice melodies, I’m sure he’ll do well.

“Dad still sings with Mario Janetta’s Big Band Sound, playing material in the style of Glen Miller, Count Basie, Sinatra and Dean Martin. Michael Buble has done a lot to make that style contemporary and popular in recent times.

“I used to love going to rehearsals to watch the guitar players. I loved the melodies and how all the instruments gelled together, to produce that big band sound.

“I’m sure that had an influence on me, although at the time I was struggling to play a B7 chord, and hadn’t even progressed to the mysteries of bar chords.”

The arrangements on Do What You Love are very full, come to think of it, but I’d never have picked up on a big band influence. What else has influenced you?

“I was only 6 when Elvis died (coincidentally we carried out the interview on the 36th anniversary of Elvis’s death), and that’s when things really took off. The TV was full of Elvis and that’s when I discovered my parents’ record collection – Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins. I wanted a leather jacket and a guitar!

“Similarly I was just 9 when John Lennon died, and I discovered The Beatles in the same way by digging into the records at home. Everyone else was into Duran Duran, and I’m obsessed by the White Album!

“I’ve always loved the raw energy that’s on those first 50’s Rock n Roll recordings. I find it totally infectious. I think if you don’t feel it you don’t have a pulse.

“In a similar vein The Rolling Stones are huge for me. I love how Keith Richards fuses rhythm and lead together and you can’t miss the Chuck Berry influence. I’m always picking things up from Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Mark Knopfler, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and U2. I pick up other new influences all the time. But to make a great song, I feel you have to make the lyrics read like poetry, the melody make you want to whistle and the rhythm make you want to dance. Get that right, then you’ve got something.”

What about bands you played in when you were a loon?

“I first played with my good friends Frazer Clark, Alan Mo Morrison, and Graeme Slapp in a school band called Exodus. We played the local pubs and clubs and wedding dances from when we were about 14 and carried on through university. Peter McKay and James Alexander, our music teachers were a great help to us.

“Our high point came in 1987 when we were placed third out of 600 bands in the UK Battle of the Band Competition, TSB Rockschool. We were on TV and radio and thought we were going to be the next U2. That’s when my writing really got an airing as two songs in our set had to be originals.”

Colin’s big break and the route to recording Do What You Love in the country music capital came when he was in Fochabers, at the Moray village’s popular Speyfest. His Sun Studios t-shirt was spotted by Craig Duncan, a big name in bluegrass circles and they got on famously.

“He invited me to Nashville and I was introduced to Bil VornDick, a producer who works with household names like Alison Krauss, Bob Dylan and Mark Knopfler. He liked what he heard of my demos and asked me to return to record an album. This was a chance I couldn’t turn down as he’s always in demand to produce records for big names.

“We sent mp3s back and forth across the Atlantic before the recording and he put together a session band of some of the most talented musicians I’ve had the good fortune to work with. These guys have played with some of the biggest names in rock and country music and I was continually amazed by their ability to find exactly the right lick or tone and by their humour and humility.

“I’m delighted with the records and to see my own songs up there beside the names of some of Nashville’s best writers delights me.”

Are there plans to record over there again?

“Nothing concrete yet, but I am hopeful that I can work with Bil again. We’re still in contact and it would be terrific with his contacts if one of the big Americana names picked up on one of my songs and recorded it.”

Given that you don’t really want to give up your day job, how do you fit in touring?

“I’ve always been able to juggle the two, so far. It takes a bit of planning and flexibility and I always travel with a guitar.

“One winter I was snowed in over in Applecross and I met a helicopter pilot who also was an accordion player. We had such a great time that we were hoping for more snow!”

Country’s been described as the white man’s blues – is this a fair assessment?

“Absolutely, you don’t only hear the music you have to feel the music. Hank Williams? Robert Johnson? It’s the same thing. You know that music is coming from the heart.”

I hear a lot of soul on your album – do you have influences from that direction too?

“I love all the stuff that came out of Stax in Memphis, and all the Motown stuff. Wilson Pickett, Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, Bobby Womack, so many greats.

“I feel the album is more Southern Rock, with shades of Lynyrd Skynyrd or the Eagles than strictly country. It was made in Nashville because that’s where my friends and contacts were, but there’s a lot more than country music coming out of Nashville. We used a pedal steel on the slow songs and that gives them a country flavour.

“It’s amazing how just one instrument can change the style. I’d never worked with steel before and totally loved it. It did help that we had the legend that is Sonny Garrish on the session.”

Are there any particular Scottish or NE influences in your songwriting?

“We were influenced by NE giants Johnny and the Copycats. We supported them a few times, including their 25th anniversary gig. Now I believe they’ve recently been celebrating their 50th year playing. They were in Hamburg at the same time as The Beatles, and had a deal with EMI, a proper rock n roll band.

“I’m also friends with Gavin Sutherland, of the Sutherland Brothers who wrote Sailing among other greats. He records at the same studio as me and both of us are helped by the Beechwood Studio recording colossus that is James Hunter, one of the best sound engineers I’ve ever met.”

We’ve got a review copy of Do What You Love and it’s impressive. We’ll carry a review soon. It’s available from any CD stockist and as a download.

Thanks to Colin and to Martin at Birnam CD Ltd.

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