Tonight was my third recent appearance at Out of the Bedroom since starting to release the “Deeperdown EPs”, the 7th and final one of which, “Where Are You”, was released on Monday.
My set consisted of three quite downbeat songs, in my mind, true Cloudland Blue material. “The Beauty of a Foreign Land” is one I wrote around this time last year during the rehearsals for the two full band gigs of 2004 at which it was slotted in as a closing solo performance from me after much loud stuff with backing tracks interspersed with some crazy Creek electronica (now available of course on the Creek album “Somewhere Between”).
In fact if I remember correctly, I ended up not playing it at our gig at The French Institute on 21 June as the night was over-running so badly that we, as the last act of the evening, ended up starting our set quite a bit after we ought to have finished and been on our way home. It was one of those executive decisions you make as leader of your own band, just to not play a song and end the set early. Those two gigs were two of my favourite ever performances, it was great to be in a six piece group playing loud music through a big PA.
Anyway, back to last night, and my second song was “Still We Doubt You” which is track 3 on the 1st “Deeperdown” EP. I wrote this as a reverse protest song when all the other earnest young writers at Out of the Bedroom were getting their knickers in a twist about the Iraq war and writing songs from the perspective of people serving in Iraq – pretty ironic considering they’re living in snug little Edinburgh without a cat’s chance in hell of ever coming face to face with conflict, the closest they’ll get is perhaps smashing McDonalds’ window during the Geldof-inspired mass march against the G8 summit next month. Ironically, I played this at the “Songs For Change” concert on the night of the US elections last November – slotted in amongst many of just such earnest young (and not so young) hippies.
Of course I was against the war in Iraq the same as they were, as it was plainly illegal – what I’m railing against here is the mediocrity of the songwriting it inspired….very little irony involved from what I heard…and when it came down to it, the soldiers they were singing about were, in the main, professionals doing the job they’re paid to do. Hmm, controversial spouting from CBQ….
Lastly, I played “Where Are You” which was probably one of the last songs I’ve written and I’ve only ever played it once before. This is likely to be the closing song on the album. Like most of my songs, when I was writing it I had no clear idea what it was about, but in singing and recording it, I’ve come to think of it as being sung by someone who’s long term partner has left them, perhaps even died. It is a very sad song.
A recent e-mail from an old friend now living in France to whom I recently sent the free “Calling Card” 80 minute CD Sampler (plug, plug) commented on the sadness of my material…in comparison to the mainly happy go lucky nature of this blog….and I must agree with her. I am fairly happy go lucky, but when I write a song, it’s uncanny how I always veer down a depressing path. I can’t remember actually writing a happy song. Many of my, ahem..”upbeat” numbers are undermined by a seriously downbeat sting in the lyrical tale – a good recent example being “The Crocodile Song”.
My set went down well and I was personally much happier with it than the previous two – I was more relaxed and calm tonight. A fellow performer who was a first-timer tonight at OOTB, Debbie, made appoint of telling me how much she enjoyed my set and indeed bought a couple of CDs. It’s these moments that make it worthwhile. And Debbie’s one song “squashee” set was pretty impressive too – she told me she’s just back from living in America for three years and is looking to get into the open-mic scene in Edinburgh. She should have no trouble judging by her performance tonight.
It was a particularly strong group of players tonight and I can reel off some names which will probably mean nothing to you unless you live in Edinburgh and/or frequent the songwriter scene here…Hannah O’Reilly, Dave MacGruar, Tommy Mackay, the very impressive Lisa Paton (who, along with Iona Marshall performs as SoulAlba), William Douglas, Lindsay West and even our very own Mr James Jamieson turned up at 10:30 and slotted in a rendering of “Fairytales”. There were also a couple of people I’d not seen before but there was no-one who played who I wouldn’t have wanted to hear again.
All in all I think, though technically less proficient than most (e.g. I can’t finger-pick), I held my own amongst this very strong field.
An enjoyable night.
Back home I drifted off to sleep listening to “Tonic”, a live CD by Medeski Martin & Wood” which arrived today, another result of my recent flurry of bidding on e-bay…
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