Friday night after work, went around Queensferry with Impossible John giving out leaflets for the Arts Festival, then realised it probably wasn’t a good time to do so, with the Ferry Fair in full flight (that’s alliteration, literature buffs) and repaired to the pub for a long natter. John dropped me off and became the first person to hear the new Nicole recording. Spent a couple of hours working on Roadblock, which is coming round nicely.
Saturday morning was a headlong rush, taking Pest to work in the Gyle, then dashing round Tesco for the weekly shop, getting it unpacked and back into the car to Edinburgh to do my spot in the Royal Mile to publicise OOTB’s set. No mic or PA, and no guitar strap either, so I hollered Nicole, This Horse, Dylan and Submarine Girl with a foot perched on a borrwed police cone. Good fun – I’ve never busked but I might enjoy it. Then sprinted back to the car to collect Pest, but not before buying a couple of CDs at Fopp: Our Endless Numbered Days by Iron and Wine, which I’d never heard of until I heard a track on Janice Forsyth this morning – figured for £6.00 I could take a chance. It’s quite intimate, whispered country. I think it’ll be a grower. The other was Tyrannosaurus Rex’s Unicorn – one of the formative albums of my musical life and probably the first non-mainstream band I got to like as a teenager, the first one that had friends saying ‘God, that’s awful, get it off!’. And it sounds even better now. Before Bolan became Bolan, and tried to recycle one idea for years, he had a fantastic gift for melody and the arrangements on Unicorn set it off perfectly.
Nicole’s a wee peach, the horn (synth) part is great and the funky feel is a nice, unexpected departure, you should stick it up on myspace.