hola. i was in barcelona (then dipped my big toe into the coasta brava) for a little while and had a nice time, but i came back feeling strangely anxious, especially after a dream last night that involved paul mccartney and a drunk woman getting dragged along the road by a car, but that's all for another time. anyway, some things that i appreciated on my trip included: grilled oyster mushrooms, the fleeting warmth of spring sun on my face, moritz beer, sebastian and ana, the beach at barceloneta, the salt air of cadaques, calamari, a burger with caramalised onions at the base of the bun and goats cheese on top of the meat, lost baroque pop music from the late 1960s, proper coffee, borne, home-made olive and sourdough bread, focaccia pizza and a copo of vino, barri gotic, travelling light.
i was on lastfm.com earlier and i found some strange tags people had given to my music. here's the list.
i'm particularly chuffed with 'refridgerators' and 'quiet greenhouses'
finally in this kind of random outpouring of thoughts i have to say that i was sad to hear that mark linkous from sparklehorse had committed suicide :( i remember seeing him a year (or maybe two) ago in glasgow and i very much enjoyed his music.
sayonara,
ally
Hello,
I've been immersing myself in films lately, possibly as a distraction to the fact that I'm pretty frustrated at the moment. So, I thought I'd write a little bit about what I've seen just in case any of what I write makes someone want to investigate further.
Fast becoming a director I’m keen to know more about is Werner Herzog and Amazon is doing some great deals on box sets of his work. The other night I watched his rather bleak, poignant - and in parts absurd - outsider movie "Stroszek":
Bruno Stroszek is released from prison and warned to stop drinking. He has few skills and fewer expectations: with a glockenspiel and an accordion, he ekes out a living as a street musician. He befriends Eva, a prostitute down on her luck. After they are harried and beaten by the thugs who have been Eva's pimps, they join Bruno's neighbour, Scheitz, an elderly eccentric, when he leaves Germany to live in Wisconsin. In that winter bound, barren prairie, Bruno works as a mechanic, Eva as a waitress. They buy a trailer. Then, bills mount, the bank threatens to repossess the trailer, Eva wants privacy, and inexorably, the promise of a new life deserts Bruno.
The ending in particular will stay with me for a long time. It’s a lovely film from a wildly eccentric, unique director whose work I’m going to explore more.
I’d never seen “The Godfather” before and I’ll be honest - usually the thought of a three-hour film leaves me a little wary. In fact, I confess to having walked out of James Cameron’s 3D blockbuster “Avatar” after having had enough and knowing my butt was going to be numb for another 90 minutes. I went to the Atholl Arms opposite the Cineworld and got a Guinness instead. I don’t care how great the effect of 3D is (and it is spectacular and very absorbing) but if a storyline is rotten and the characters bore me then I’m walking. “The Godfather” was, of course, epic in every way. I’m looking forward to settling down with part two in the next week.
“The Third Man” was a book I remember being forced to read at school but not appreciating as much as I would now, so it was good to see the film the other night. It’s beautifully shot in black and white adding so much atmosphere and intrigue. Very enjoyable.
Late last night I sat and watched two documentaries that are currently on the BBC iplayer. Sadly they appear to be unavailable overseas, although both documentaries will be available somewhere I’m sure with a bit of digging around. The first was a very curious and subversive Danish documentary which for the purposes of the BBC Storyville series was renamed “King Jong Ill’s Comedy Club”, but is more widely known as “Red Chapel”. Here’s a brief synopsis:
A journalist with no scruples and two Danish/Korean comedians—one a self-proclaimed "spastic"—travel to North Korea under the guise of a cultural exchange. On the pretext of being a small Danish theatre group, named The Red Chapel, they are allowed into the country, but unbeknownst to the North Koreans, cultural exchange is not really what they have in mind. Mads Brügger, the journalist; Simon, the straight man; and Jacob, the ‘spastic’, use humour to challenge one of the world’s most notorious regimes. The troupe rehearse under the watchful eye of government officials brought in to "collaborate" on their performance and make it more palatable for the Korean regime. They are shown the important historical sights by a female government employee, who smothers poor Jacob with motherly affection. Fusing elements of activist filmmaking with theater of the absurd, The Red Chapel is an acerbic romp, as subversive as it is wildly original.
It won an award last month at the Sundance Film Festival which was great to see. I was really engaged by this infectious, at times comedic, dark, fearful, yet very human expose of a brutal place to live.
Finally, I watched another BBC Storyville documentary (again on the BBC iplayer) called “The Last White Man Standing”:
Tom Cholmondeley, heir to the largest white-owned estate in Kenya, stands accused of murdering a black poacher on his land. THE LAST WHITE MAN STANDING follows the ongoing case and gives an in-depth look at its socio-political context.
It was really insightful and gave a murky glimpse into the disparity between the rich and the poor in Kenya and the injustice that prevails to this day from its eerie, sinister colonial past. It’s a really gripping documentary and I found the very end to be extremely revealing and moving.
So there you go. Mark Kermode’s* got nothing to worry about here, but I just wanted to write about some great films that I got lost in recently. There are times when you have to lose yourself in music, films, books, art to keep sane. It’s got to be better than gorging oneself on chicken dippers of an evening, right?
Working in films is something I’ve always had a wish to do. I’ve always felt that one day I’m going to try to write a screenplay of a dark comedy. The more documentaries I watch the more that genre fascinates me too though. Right now however I want to focus entirely on music and more specifically on getting my new album recorded. I’ve even gone so far as to work out the sequence of the track list and have been listening back to the album (as ten demos) in its entirety. Here’s my provisional track listing. It’s way too early I realise and will mean nothing, but I wanted to share:
The Other Side
Man’s Man
Get Over You
All Day Long
5AM
Monkey Business (or “New York City Zoo”, I’ve not decided)
Everything I’ve Learned I Have Forgotten
The High Street
So Long Goodbye
End Of The Road.
Bye for now,
Ally.
* Mark Kermode is a fairly high profile British film critic.
i'm going to try and drink herbal tea and sparkling water this week and avoid any drinks with a % sign on the packaging. it's been a boozy time lately. i'm kind of in limbo right now as far as the business of music goes. as anyone who has been reading this blog over the last while knows, i've been working away at my home demos while coming up with new songs and it's now reached the point where all the songs and parts are complete and recorded on my very basic equipment here in the flat. along with guitars there's string arrangements, piano, violin, trumpet....... i'm really chuffed with how it's sounding and have it all mapped out for the studio. so, the next thing that needs to happen is to figure out how to record them in the studio. this is the tricky part coz recording in a good studio with good people costs good money. i've recently been taken on by a lovely manager so she'll be out there in music business land letting folks hear the new material. so she'll go in to the offices with the demo cd and while they're distracted listening to the songs she'll be dipping into coats and gathering money from wallets and purses. all this money will then go into a giant pot and once that pot is full, i call the studio and book two weeks. i think this is the best plan.
i want to make this album the best work i've done. i really believe it will be. the music business land is a tough place to navigate these days with many musicians scratching their heads and wondering where on earth the money is going to come from as cds sales continue to take a massive tumble and with streaming generating buttons (tiny fractions of money) for artists. so, with management help hopefully the pot can begin to fill up. i'll still be working away too, trying to create opportunities for myself and my music, just as i always have done and always will.
london was fun, though kind of stressful in a way. i went with ryan, mike and andy who do a really great job of backing me up. we played well i think and everyone had a good time. i think generally though i feel uneasy at the moment, but i just need to try to stay positive and be true to myself. seeing great live music helps - last night i saw laura veirs perform with her band. really beautiful vocals and soaring harmonies. life affirming stuff on a sunday night in limboland.
hello. it's a clear, crisp sunny friday in december here in glasgow. it's really cold but that's okay as long as the sun is out. november was miserable with wind and rain battering the city - and my spirits. i've had a productive (albeit boozy nocturnal) week and wrote and recorded a new song which i really like. the album choices continue to grow as time passes, but i feel happy with the collection of songs i have now. the other project i was involved in was to write lyrics and record vocals for a new cineplexx (wonderful argentinian artist currently based in barcelona) song - a christmas song no less! i've never been involved in a musical collaboration before and it was a great experience putting lyrics to a piece of music. i'll have more information about where you can listen to it etc once sebastian (aka cineplexx) completes the song and we find out more. in the future i'd like to explore more the possibilities of remote collaboration. we did a webchat too, with guitars so i could see what sebastian was playing but we just ended up mostly singing our new songs to each other and having a good chat. technology! wonderful!
i'm awaiting news of a show in london in january. will post more once i hear the details. i'm missing playing live at the moment.
i was thinking that if i ever get in to a good studio and record these songs with proper instruments it'll be a real moment for me, having been tucked away here writitng and recording over the last eight months or so. there's one song in particular (an instrumental called 'end of the road') that is very cinematic and i'll probably burst into tears in the studio when that gets recorded:P
time for another cup of tea i think.
for me these conditions seem to produce the songs. i'm feeling a bit down and fearful, the days are becoming shorter, the nights seem darker, heavier. i've got the lights low and a set of blue fairy lights are flashing on a wall, giving a kind of neon effect. i can hear the rain tapping on the pavement outside. there's hardly a sound, except for the raindrops and my guitar playing really softly. so, i was strumming, gazing out the window and a song came. musically it's done, i kind of know what it's about and i'll flesh out the lyrics from what i've improvised into my recorder and what i'm feeling right now. i feel like i've got a bit of something out that was eating in at me. it's a strange yet cathartic feeling.
maybe the song is rubbish. as always, time will tell. as i was standing at the window looking out after hitting the 'stop' button (i think i've been playing this song over and over, tweaking it for the best part of an hour) i saw a woman jogging. truly a curious sight. i've never seen a jogger at 2am. so, even if the song turns out to be absolute nonsense and never sees the light of day, at least the sight of this jogger ploughing through the soggy streets at 2am is a new experience for me. right, i'll go to bed now and listen to the rain bouncing off the leaves and the wheelie bins. shine on you crazy jogger...
i went to the cinema (a great cinema in glasgow called the glasgow film theatre - i'm very lucky to have this place nearby) on saturday afternoon and watched this lovely film -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/6251655/The-Beaches-of-Agnes-review.html which was really inspiring. if you're looking for a bit of life-affirmation or just want to get away from your own thoughts for a while, i'd highly recommend this flick. you need not know anything about agnes and her work. i didn't and thoroughly enjoyed the movie.
i've been working on two new demo recordings, one of which seems to have the words 'san francisco' in it (well it does when i'm singing a guide vocal) and i've no idea why. san fran is a place i'd really love to visit though. it's pretty catchy and has some almost spaghetti western movie-style trumpet arrangement in it right now. i'm not quite sure how to describe this part, it's almost like a call to arms or something. anyway, this might change - i'll fiddle around with it some more, but lyrics ain't coming to me at the moment. which takes me back to the film i saw on saturday. when i'm feeling lyrically bankrupt i usually indulge myself in films, books and music. lately i've been listening to the last silver jews album which has some great songs on it and some cracking lyrics. i've been taking advantage of my library card too.
my laptop cable was broken so i've not been able to edit the asian tour footage, but i've no excuse now. i will embark on that very soon. i think a beer would help the editing process for sure. in other news there are some important things happening in the background just now, i just need (as always) to be patient. at least the music is flowing, that's the most important thing, right?
over and out for now :)
and so i reappear, like a freshly plucked whelk. the tour is over. my rest and relaxation time after the tour is over. the warm, thick, humid air that enveloped me is over. and now, alas, i'm at a loose end as we spiral towards the shortening days of winter..
enough of the flowery chat - the tour was an amazing experience and a success. singapore was beautiful with that skyline behind us as we played the outdoor stage. taipei was warm both in temperature and friendliness too. 'stinky tofu' isn’t really for me though. the hotels were lovely, the transportation smooth, the people so friendly and we were really well looked after, every step of the way. manila was raw, more grassroots, edgier but great in its own way. japan was what I’ve come to know and love - an assault on the senses, friends, food, perfectly-served beer, karaoke, tiredness. i loved the two weeks. it was wonderful. came back last week and decided i needed to reflect and take advantage of having time to myself, so i did just that and didn't go online, tried to read my book, watched some films. but now i'm back in the game, though i'm craving some fresh excitement…..
a little tour video will be forthcoming…
i'm lying here, typing, drinking (tea - it's 8.40am) and thinking about the days ahead. today we leave for singapore. i'm packed and ready, i think. just need to do some last minute tasks this morning and drink more cups of tea. i'm excited and always a little nervous before i head off to the airport. i'm going to be keeping the blog up to date all things being well. also, i'm going armed with a little camcorder, so there will be some video footage as we stumble along from city to city.
i can't find my ear plugs. does ryan snore? i've no idea. i hope not. a kind person gave me a very nifty travel scale yesterday so i can keep a check on the luggage weight. very important that. my mini laptop is awash with top-flight entertainment. movies i'm particularly looking forward to include "anvil - the story of anvil", "the curse of the jade scorpion", "strangers on a train", "the thin blue line" (my documentary film-maker friend assures me this is an amazing example of the genre). what else? 0h, the wilco tour documentary "ashes of american flags", "juno" and a few more i can't remember. plus some episodes of "frasier", of course. nothing says "relax" to me like watching "frasier". hopefully i can fire that up in times of stress or irrationality due to tiredness. it's televisual macaroni cheese. comfort tv. ah, good old frasier.
got some swimming trunks for performing in taipei. nah, i will save them in case we manage to find a little time to have a steam/sauna. the hotel in taipei has this facility so hopefully i can take advantage of that.
so, i think i'm prepared. we've rehearsed around 23 songs, so that's quite a lot of material. be interesting to play some new ones.
right, it's time for a secondary cuppa.
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