The Sketch is the brain child of Iain Copeland a very unassuming and humble character. He is most widely know for being the drummer in the Peatbog Faeries although he’s played in hundreds of bands over the years from folk , to jazz to rock. He’s a magnificent drummer and it’s fair to say, one of the best Scotland has ever produced. Iain is firmly sat in the producer chair for this venture, pumping out that infamous Sgitheanach, West Highland DOOF for which he is renowned.

Here’s the blurb on the band…
“Spearheading a radical new wave of Celtic-based dancefloor sounds, Sketch is the latest brainchild of ex-Peatbog Faeries/Session A9 drummer and producer Iain Copeland, and the perfect roof-raising act. With Iain on percussion and programming, the line-up also features the stunning Gaelic vocals of Maeve MacKinnon, with fiddler Neil Ewart and Steven Blake/Fraser Shaw on pipes and whistles and Chris Waite on guitar. Self-styled as “traditional music for the 21st century”, Sketch splice inspired instrumental and vocal work with powerhouse, live loops, beats and grooves. The band’s freewheeling improvisational prowess offer an exciting and dynamic live experience, as proved by several incendiary festival performances during summer 2011.”

Band Photography is a bit of a contrived issue for me. It’s pretty hard to actually get bands to put something across with their imagery. Often photos just turn out to be a bunch of folk hanging around a stair well or some grungy wall, looking moody, occasionally with instruments maybe making a funny face or that. To be fair I pump out quite a lot of these but when I see the chance to do something different I push for it. With this lot white boiler suits and over exposing to take away everything but faces seemed like a good idea so that’s what we did. Straight ahead portrait shots made up the rest and I have to confess to doing some blatant experimentation with lighting etc here. The boiler suit shot shot is what I had in my head and I think it portrays the very Sketchiness of the sketch that is The Sketch.

Check their site here http://totalsketch.com/

The album ‘Shed life’ is out on Skye Records http://skyerecords.com/

This is wee product logo and illustration for MK’s latest whistle range the Kelpie. It’s a simpler one piece whistle compared to the more complicated and expensive MK pro aimed at learners and people looking for the MK sound at a more attainable price.

Check out the product page here http://mkwhistles.com/mkshop/kelpie-1.html

The Kelpie is a mythical water horse from Loch Laide near where myself and Misha are from.

Check out the story here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelpie

Simone Smith is an up and coming film director and general theatrical idea factory from Glasgow. I’ve worked with her on a couple of films already and it’s always nice to work with someone who is so enthusiastic, focussed and down to earth. She has recently started a production company http://lookingatyou.me and these are the production stills from her first short film made under the new company.

“RED is a short experimental psychological drama in which a militant soldier and captured child lure the attention of an estranged war photographer.”

Shot in Cambusbarron Quarry a foreboding and particularly radical lump of rock just outside of Stirling. I love Cambusbarron mainly because of all the magnificent local built mountain bike trails but the place has an amazing aesthetic especially in the main belly of the Quarry. The place is a magical amphitheater it has a distinctly evil demeanor, with a history of facist jakery clearly emblazoned on the rock by idiots from the nearby city, a sense of what has past here only adds to ones uneasiness. So all in all a perfect setting for a psychological drama.

It was a long day on the shoot, the cast and crew performed really well considering the strain everyone was under, working for a sustained period in such an oppressive environment was hard on every one, apart from the kids who seemed to revel in exploring the piles of rock. The fact that the film is very confrontational, dark and uncompromising certainly didn’t help lift the mood much. This is how film works sometimes, to translate emotion and tension through the screen it is true that the director must tease out a genuine sense of what you’re are trying to portray, otherwise the whole thing looks fake and unconvincing.

Simone is currently touting the film round the festivals and looking to move the project into the heart of the film industry. With selection in the FESTIVAL DE CANNES short film corner it would seem that Simone has got this well on the way.

I’ll repost a link to the film as soon as it’s under general release. Until then please check out http://www.lookingatyou.me/

or the films facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/RED-Short-Film/292261874158028

See this post on high-8 for my ramblings on the mtb trails
http://www.high-8.com/blog/mountain-biking/cambusbarron-epic-trails/

Smart phones, are quite smart. Not as smart as we’d like to think. Phone calls seem to be harder and harder to achieve they are completely useless in bad weather, the batteries don’t last that long and if you don’t turn the bloody thing off, it constantly harrangs you into be some sort of cyber socialite. All this negativity however is not what I’m about, It’s fair to say that the smart phone has revolutionised photography as much polaroid did back in the sixties and seventies. Facebook and twitter are just choc-a-bloc with instagram photos of drunk folk and let’s be honest they are far better than the previous incarnation of party photos, where most people did just look ugly and drunk. Where as now, swamped in effects and digital tom foolery people look slightly more palatable. Some folk take a more creative approach to using their camera phone and in some cases the results are pretty nice. This is good if slightly irritating.

A photo is not about the equipment used to capture it or the amount of processing required to achieve the finished image. It is all about the picture is it not?

These pictures I’ve put up were taken on a 5mp HTC. The photos without filtering are flat lifeless and of poor quality however using a nice we app called vignette you can get a pretty decent result out of it. I quite like these, it took me a long time to come to terms with that but I actually do. Polaroids always had a sort of lo-fi vibe about them that was there main appeal and still is. Phones mark a second revolution in popular photography like it or not. You may not like these pictures, you might think they are just more populist un-fettered, poorly refined crap and in all reality I still have a bind in my mind about them, they are a bit shit but that is exactly what’s good about them. The fact is these little devices have generated a massive interest in imagery that simply wasn’t so prominent 5 years ago. This can only be good for photographers, artists and designers. The general populous benefit to and people get to have a wee taste of creativity in the process, this can only be good can it not? Pity the things are so bad at making phone calls eh?

At celtic connections the emphasis is often put on traditional music. For me – a person who has very solid roots in gaeldom what the Average White Band achieved in their day was nothing short of tradition forming. To me tradition is not about a specific genre (folk) or a particular sound (diddle) but the fervent and genuine want for people to master and create whatever it is they see fit at the time. For me the Average White Band are every bit as valuable to Scottish culture as say, Donald Riddle, Scott Skinner, The Macdonalds of Glenuig or even Robert Burns (Norman McCaig is my national poet).

So I’m a big fan of the Average White Band. Have been since I first started on the Bass and got my hooks into the funk. They are an exceptionally tight machine, regarded as kings of the genre and arguably one of Scotland’s most successful musical exports with Gold discs and Grammy nominations. I have to admit I was a little worried going to this show, these guys are heroes of mine and I wasn’t sure if they would live up to my high expectations or leave them shattered on the floor. I have to say that from the first note they pinned it. Total groove, tight as a fleas shit pipe.

Alan Gorrie plays and sings like he means it, this lot are not just turning out the hits by going through the motions. Onnie McIntyre, to my mind is one of the best rhythm guitarists the world has ever produced and to stand in front him and hear the attack of his amps and witness the ease and force with which he creates that groove is quite frankly, mind blowing. The rest of the band are equally hot, talent and funk just drips from them. My particular favourite was Mo Pleasure who was magnificent on the Bass, Keyboards and Guitar. He seems to have been hewn from a massive lump of primeval funk. Mo is in-fact a serious stalwart of funk history being musical director for Earth Wind & Fire and toured with Michael and Janet Jackson, not to mention Ray Charles. Holly Smokes; I think that makes Mo back-line royalty. Fred ‘Freddy V’ Vigdor on saxophone the only white addition to the line up is by no means average. Seering and charismatic with a particularly photogenic shirt. They were joined by Hugh and Cry and Niki King modern torch bearers of the Scottish soul flame, these guest stars gave the band some room to really perform and it has to be said that after Pat Kane started the crowd certainly lifted up a notch from the already buzzing atmosphere.

Why anyone thought the concert hall was the place to put a band of such booty shaking prowess is anyones guess. Maybe they thought they were past it, would play all the ballads and the fans would just be there for nostalgia and the odd sing a long. In fact this odd choice of venue turned out to be one of the most heart warming things I have witnessed over the whole festival. A few songs into the second half the audience could no longer contain themselves and despite the best efforts of security the place erupted in to a gyrating throng, blocking fire exits and dancing on their seats. Truly brilliant I cannot say how much I enjoyed seeing the reaction of the crowd and the security, the band simply intensified the groove and fanned the flames a little hotter. Classic…

The Average White bands are still legendary, totally fucking legendary, next time they’re here I’m there. They still cut it hard and deep, they are undoubtedly still one of Scotland’s best bands.

What can I say about Martha Reeves? She is an all time musical legend.

All I can say about this gig was that I had to leave after the fifth number. I couldn’t take it, it was simply to good!

The soul that emanates from this Lady is dazzling and fierce, add to this the fact that I could barely hold the camera for shaking my thang and that I was falling in love with both the Vandellas. I would love to consider myself a raucous wee soul G but in the end when faced with pure smouldering funk I had to turn tail and head for the hills.

Man Alive!

I’ve followed the Flecktones since the late nineties. Paul Jennings the drummer in the band I was in got a copy of Live Art (1996) and it blew our tiny minds.

Being a bassist I was instantly hooked on Victor Wooten’s charismatic, virtuoso take on the funk. In-fact his solo album “What did he say?” (1997) was part of the late nineties funk bomb that saw Jamiroquai’s “Travelling without Moving” (1996), Prince’s “Emancipation” (1997) and the “Return of the Headhunters” (1998). Man that was a good era for funk! Anything you imagined seemed achievable, the possibilities endless and bands like the Flecktones were out there forging new paths and redefining the limits of musicality, creativity and technical excellence. I don’t mind telling you this was a very formative period for me musically, artistically and philosophically. So yes Victor Wooten and all his brothers are heroes of mine and a major influence not only in music but on my whole outlook.

In funk I trust!

At that time I would say the the Flecktones were ostensibly a fusion band, mixing folk, blues-grass, blues, funk, jazz and even the odd bit of rock. However on witnessing what they played last night I would say that this fusion has developed and settled down into it’s own unique genre. What would you call this genre? Well; Flecktones I guess.

It’s hard to pin anything down listening to these guys. The melodies, chords, bass, beat and time signature seem to be continually evolving from one idea to the next. If it wasn’t for the absolute technical precision of the playing i would be inclined to liken it to a frenetic style of sketching. One thing is for sure, this band are at the cutting edge of musical innovation and have been ever since their inception. Even without the undeniable skill they posses their sense of adventure and gallus defiance in the face of blandness would be worthy of applause in itself. Well and truly a revelation.

http://www.flecktones.com/

Sometimes life becomes a little Abstract, you can’t really put your finger on anything and a mind swim ensues. I label these times as purple, it seems the appropriate colour for such vividly, non de-script moments. As much as purple is blue it is red. I quite often get struck by how weird things can seem in real life, the normal suddenly becoming surreal, intensely vague and wonderfully sad. Truth is – as they say – always stranger than fiction.

These photos serve no real purpose other than to provide some eye candy. Artistic types might well harp on about how abstraction can draw a viewer in. Give an insight which would not normally be grasped and to be fair I’d agree with them. However the modern world seems to have little time for such innocuous introspection and as a result – it would seem – neither do I.

Search for things that are illusive, chase them, capture them; then shrug them of as fleeting intangible moments of clarity. They are after all worthless.

That said, it’s important to note that the most expensive photo to ever be sold, is fairly abstract. A very geometric scene of the river Rhein, nature fitting nicely into human ideals of order and structure. It’s a nice picture in my view, well composed and coloured with plenty of high fidelity detail. Click here to see it.

So does this mean i value abstraction more. Because it is worth money? No! To find something abstract in real life is palpable, when you and you alone are witness to something unique. With the camera as a tool these moments can be captured and sometimes even manufactured. Whether you are witnessing the abstraction or seeking it out through experimentation what you are looking for is essentially the same. Something magical, un-earthly even spiritual but without the tools to record, ultimately lost.

Rant over, normal business will be resumed next week. I thank yaw!