The Twilight Show series of videos started in 2020 as a version of the ‘tiny desk concert’ idea – a way to present an intimate, close-up version of a song with no fancy acting and no attempt to create excitement. This was, of course, during lockdown. The idea of tinting them blue and the ‘twilight’ … Read more
A few weeks ago I was staying with friends in London and remarked that I couldn’t foresee writing any more songs. Not that I was giving up my whole music career, but just that I had enough unfinished songs and snippets of music and lyrics that I’d never really need to visit the ‘starting from … Read more
Another Twilight outing – this song from the Roadblock album. A defiant down-and-out chats to the Virgin Mary.
This is an exercise I was given by my guitar/composition tutor Ged Brockie. It was based on a piece of work he was commissioned to do for the opening of the Scottish Parliament building. He originally created an orchestrated version, then replaced that with a lighter, guitar-based composition. For this exercise we simply removed his … Read more
Earlier this week I took part in an interview with Helen St Helen, an online journalist based in Ohio, USA. She has a connection with Edinburgh and, consequently, with Scottish musicians. We covered how I started songwriting, various bands I’ve had and my songwriting ‘process’ if it can be called that. Helen’s site – Helen … Read more
I’m very happy to share with you a song that’s been on the way to this version since sometime around 1979. This version has been an internet collaboration with bassist Bobo Lavorgna in Connecticut USA, the tabla player Ravish Shet whom I met in Kerala a couple of years ago, and his friend Santosh Chandran, … Read more