Dave Christopher was one of the finest songwriters to come out of Edinburgh. But you won’t find him on YouTube or Spotify. Until recently you wouldn’t find him anywhere online. Only a few cassettes and singles in the hands of friends. His life negotiated personal tragedy and challenges that few have faced, but towards the … Read more
Today I had a look to see what the most popular posts and pages on my site over the last year have been. These ten pages (filtering out things like email signup pages and sales offers) account for 20% of the visitors to this site. Robbie Basho John Martyn 3 albums and 5 tracks Island … Read more
One of the things about making a lockdown project of clearing and cataloguing a lifetime of photos – four lifetimes if you count my wife and our children – is that memories get triggered. Daily. Nightly even, when you’re trying to sleep. One thing that’s come to mind recently is the fascination with death that … Read more
Long term readers of this site will be familiar with my fascination with the Incredible String Band. The first band I truly loved as a teenager, I keep coming back to them, thinking I’ve left them behind then having something trigger another wave of affection. This year it was when my friend Rossco played a … Read more
This a beautifully observed, concise jewel of a song with a disturbing twist. This description would be true of many, if not most, of the Handsome Family’s songs, but I find this one especially moving. I’ve considered singing it during a solo set, but was afraid I would choke up – it still gets to … Read more
Not moody, not blue, not cool After their heyday in the early 1970s the Moody Blues never seemed to be a ‘cool’ band. The 1977 punk attack on progressive and hippy music of course put them in the firing line. But even as retrospect has showed artists from the Sex Pistols to Nick Cave and … Read more