Category: scotland

village orchestra v caydnss

flyer

A few of our friends put on a electronic music showcase on Saturday – giving us a taste of just what the get up to when they hide in their bedrooms hunched over laptops. Held in a local dive the music was good despite a thin attendance due to some of the worst weather of a particularly poor summer (apparently we think it is always like this).

For a taste of what was on offer see:

the village orchestra

bob techno

tersh jetterax

bem (athough our friend Emma decline to play on the night citing production difficulties)

The music on the whole was sound, although some of the samples were a little cheesy  (perhaps deliberately). Bob techno was probably my highlight despite playing at a tempo that teh crowd might not have been quite prepared for at 9 pm. The plan for the next gig is to find a vacant warehouse to make to space a little more atmospheric.

irvine

irvine grass

A couple of work projects have seen me spending a fair bit of time over the last few months down in Ayrshire, a hour south west of Glasgow on the Irish Sea.

irvine 2irvine 2
In particular I’ve been documenting Irvine, a sea-side town that with an interesting harbour that we are exploring the regeneration of. The harbour was cut off from the town in the 70’s by ‘New Town’ development but has retained a distinct character. The harbour lies alongside a marshy wildlife reserve and is dotted with enough old boats to keep me interested while boring the pants off Chhay.

irvine 1

edinburgh festival fever

fuerzabruta

Last weekend we gathered our first taste of the festival glut engulfing Edinburgh. We ducked over for a day trip and squeezed in a fair taste of the gazillion things the Fringe Festival has on offer.

The weather could only be described as ‘Scottish’ so the street atmosphere was a little lacking but we spent the afternoon hiding from the rain at Luke Wright’s Poetry Party, which in addition to being free, showcased some fantastic contemporary spoken word, verging on rap at times. Highlights included Polar Bear, Tim Clare & Joe Dunthorne.

luke wright

We then snuck in a quick insect circus at the Spiegel gardens – and were sorely disappointed when instead of real fleas we were treated to rather more anthropogenic versions.

The highlight of the evening was by far and away the next event. In a big tent down on the Forth of Firth at Leith we experienced Fuerzabruta (top). Part physical theatre, part dance, part rave it is impossible to describe but was easily one of the best theatrical events I’ve ever attended. Check out the clips under >visuals>video for a bit of a taste crazy acrobatics, a clear plastic tank suspended above the crowds head with nymphs sliding around, and a guy running on a massive treadmill pushed through the audience, running through walls – to me it was what a rave should be like.

Wandering out of Fuerzabruta in a slightly dazed euphoric state, splattered in fake blood and covered in water, paper and polystyrene we wandered back to the old town for a crazy outdoor version of Macbeth by a polish company (below), involving limited dialogue (in heavy eastern European accents), motorbikes, witches on stilts and lots of fire. The setting was spectacular, in a quadrangle of the university – thankfully the weather had cleared by this stage – only my knowledge of the play restricted my enjoyment.

macbeth

We got on the last train home exhausted but having gathered a good taste of the festival. We’re aiming to return next weekend for exposure to some of the other festivals on concurrently – the arts festival, film festival and inaugural visual art festival.

highwire

red road towers

French tightrope walker Didler Pasquette recently attempted to walk between 3 of the Red Road Flats (above) – one of Glasgow’s more famous mega housing tower complexes built in the sixties. The event, title Highwire was part of an arts project for the Glasgow International Festival of Contemporary Arts. The set-up was fantastic with huge support guys stretching off the main lines connecting the massive apartment slabs in a spidery embrace. There were metaphors a plenty with the symbolic linking of poorly constructed & maintained and much derided high rise towers that are (for now at least) a strong part of Glasgow’s urban fabric. Visiting the site in person reinforced to me how the greatest problems these towers suffer (apart from poorly perfoming lifts) is the terrible manner in which the hit the ground – so stark and without any landscaping on transition zones, and no amenity to speak of.

tightrope walker

The walk turned into a bit of a non-event when Didler (above) made it about a third of the way across the first wire only to decide that it was unsafe to continue due to high winds and therefore backed his way back to safety.

springburn wintergarden

On our way home we crossed through Springburn park and discovered the decrepit Wintergarden (above & below) that is housed within its grounds. While a shame that it hasn’t been restored like its more famous counterpart in the Botanic Gardens near our flat, as a derelict structure it possesses a certain beauty in it’s rib like structure and faded grandeur that fascinated Chhay & I.

springburn wintergarden detail

dazza in glasgie

drive carefully flier

Popped along to the ever so tiny basement of the 13th Note last Saturday for a very low key gig by Brisbane bred, Melbourne based singer/songwriter Darren Hanlon. The organisers (Drive Carefully Records – a local start-up label) mistook me for him twice (must be a distinctive Aussie look I have going), leading to some confusion but we did manage to have a bit of a chat after the gig.

The performance was fairly raw and low-fi which was nice in a way although I missed his usual babe-liscious drummer Brit, who isn’t travelling on his epic world tour. At least her replacement drummer/accordion player/singer extraordinaire Pikelet was a worthy fill in.

boris

boris

On the recommendation (…a kind of Velvet Underground meets Metallica without as many vocals) of one of my my musical docents: Seb, we soundchecked Japanese 3-piece Boris on Tuesday night. A noise band whose output spans at least 8 genres according to Wikipedia (although it is the first time I have heard of sludge rock!) they provided an unforgettable experience.

Their set was an intense ear bleeding cacophony outdone only by the Glasgow subway on the way home, with truly awesome moments of sheer noise, and brilliant guitar playing including a double headed monster (below). A 20 min extended final piece left very few in the full house demanding an encore however – my ears certainly couldn’t have taken much more.

Takeshi, originally uploaded by xkachoojix.

glencoe

With CJ in town our new flat was christened for visitors. In addition to the usual Glasgow attractions (an inordinate number of which seemed to be about consuming alcohol) we also took a quick day trip up to one of the more famous regions of Scotland – Glencoe.

Although we missed the Henderson stone, the scenery was fantastic as we took some very back roads including ‘Rest and be Thankful’ (below) on the way up. Dodging showers Chhay got to test the limits of her new gumboots with a small hill climb that involved some quite tricky scrambling.
rest and be thankful
The taste of the area was enough for me to want to go back and do some serious hill walking in the area – although my motivation seemed stronger when at the pub than when surveying our proposed route!

the rest of triptych

aberdeen

Aberdeen was lovely for a day. The gig on Friday night was an interesting mix of classical piano & guitar with some old school synth action. We then caught up with Claire’s friend and chatted away until about two in the morning. This was fine apart from the 7 am start that she had the next day – necessitating an early exploration of Aberdeen on our behalf. Thankfully the weather was beautiful and the Granite City was sparkling at its finest (we have heard that it is much less pleasant in the grey of winter). After wandering the city for a couple of hours including a trip to the beach and a visit to the medieval section of Old Aberdeen we meandered our way down the coast via a couple of charming spots.

Stonehaven Harbour

Stonehaven (above) was our first stop – a little fishing village that is the original home of the deep-fried mars bar! We grabbed elevenses at a cute cafe at the end of the pier before wandering down the road to speak to the ghosts at Dunnottar Castle which is sited dramatically on a narrow peninsula.
Dunnottar Castle
Late in the afternoon in the deepest heart of Fife we located the Henderson family’s old castle (well large house is a better term really) at Fordell. Now guarded by security cameras and the home of a reclusive Spanish film star we didn’t get past the gates however plans are afoot for the storming and recapture (I have contacted the local medieval society for advice).

Billy Childish and the Musicians of the British Empire absolutely rocked out the Bongo Lounge in Edinburgh later that night, with old skool moves very much the order of the day. A handlebar moustache and Legionnaires outfit completed the picture.

Struggling somewhat after a very long weekend we had a relaxing afternoon at the Tramway back in Glasgow on Sunday, lazing about at the Ballads of the Books gig. A little poetry, some sunshine and a helping of ‘fey indie pish’ (according to our electro-head friend Andy) spent with just about everyone we know in Glasgow was delightful.

Tramway

Not to be deterred by Monday looming large in the rear vision mirror we squeezed in a late nightclub gig at the styling Optimo watching James Chance & the Contortionists – the white man’s James Brown strut his stuff. Much like James Brown he seemed more dead than alive but despite hair to rival Donald Trump he had the kiddies baying for more.

wester ross

Loch Torridon from Liathach

With my new place last weekend limited to a quick visit to our friend Neil’s exhibition opening at the Southside Studios I made up for it by getting the furthest away from Glasgow that I have been so far this weekend. A three day hill walking trip called, and after sneaking out of the office early on Thursday and a 5 1/2 hour bus ride I was in Torridon in Wester Ross – one of the more remote parts of Scotland.

On Friday I woke my legs up with a climb up Liathach – bagging my first Munro – Spidean a’ Choire Leith and was rewarded with spectacular views of wild mountains, lochs and not a tree or sign of habitation in sight. The mountain has two Munros so we headed for the second peak – via a series of rocky outcrops (the ridge on the image below) that required some tricky scrambling skills and a bit of rope work to traverse. Of course there is a bypass track that would have made life much easier, but we had some hard-core walkers in this ‘high-tops’ group so over the ridges we went. The decent was a bone jarring ride straight off the second Munro – Mullach an Rathain leaving my quads like jelly – in fact I am still recovering.

Wester Ross from Liathach

Day 2 dawned more to the Scottish weatherman’s liking with cloud at 300 m and driving rain. We ascended directly up a scree slope which meant for every two steps forward we slid one back making it painfully slow going. As minor near death experience for enlivened proceeding for me, a climber above me dislodged a couple of rucksack sized stones on a ledge above me – with powers of jujitsu I never knew I had I deflected one of them over and away while I brought the Jedi mind trick into play to stop the other inches before it reached me!

I made it to the first of the Munros on Ben Eighe – Ruadh-stac Mor, but had had enough of the cloud, driving rain and freezing conditions, so rather than make a quick dash for the remaining Munro for more views of the inside of a cloud I joined a group that descended into the prehistoric feeling Coire Mhic Fhearchair with a beautiful loch, amazing rock buttresses and small burns cascading over steps in the rock. The two hour walk back out to the bus absolutely soaked was somewhat less joyous as you could imagine.

Wester Ross from Liathach

On our final day of walking the cloud remained but the wind had eased which made for an ethereal climb up Ben Alligin through the mist and focused our attention on more immediate aspects like the crazy purple lichen and small burns that appeared suddenly out of the gloom. Not quite the spectacular views that are apparently on offer on a good day but I figured that 1 out of 3 is pretty good going for Scotland. There was a couple of straightforward scampers to the top of the two Munros – Sgurr Mhor and Tom na Gruagaich before we returned to the bus for the journey home – somewhat footsore after 20 hours of walking in three days.