Artist Dave Mach ‘in conversation’ with our pal Rab Noakes. Fantastic event.
MARGARET drives to the village after breakfast to get stuff to make lunch for some pals passing by later…I get busy with my accounts in the office. Looks like my PRS royalties this quarter could save our (financial) ass.
When Margaret’s back I accompany her on day two, week two of her ‘couch to 5k’ regime.
Next, into the studio for my daily songwriting effort. Was gonna do a process/progress livestream this morning but better leave it ’til tomorrow. I’m a bit tight for time.
Jane. Tricia and crew – all eight of them – arrive just after 1pm. They’ve been on a walk over the Conic and ready for Margaret’s lentil soup, stovies and brownies. They hang out for an hour or two then wander off.
We make for Glasgow to pick up the flooring for the kitchen – the fitters start work on Monday – and Margaret’s got tickets for For Fact’s Sake..a new BBC comedy series being prouced at Pacific Quay.Doors open at 6pm and when we get there a few minutes after we’re told ‘sorry, the studio’s full’. Even when you;ve successfully applied and been allocated tickets, there’s small print that says ‘first come first served’ and apparently folks were queueing outside from 3pm. Fuck that for a game of soldiers.
I remember our pal Rab is hosting an ‘in conversation’ event with fellow Fifer, artist Dave Mach at a gallery in Queen Street where he;s been working on an installation. It started at 6pm and we didn’t RSVP as we’d already committed to the BBC thing (obviously the BBC didn’t!) but we decide to stop b y anyway. The gallery folks are very nice and welcome us with open arms…Margaret gets a glass of red and we join the audience in the packed gallery.
Rab does a fantastic job steering the chat and both he and Dave provide non-stop interesting conversation. For me, anyway, this has been a much more interesting event than being in the audience for a BBC comedy. Every cloud and all that 🙂
We’re home by 10pm, crack open a beer and a bottle of red and watch a movie about Steve Jobs and Apple.
Rab plays a fantastic show at Gartmore Village Hall
WE have a pretty lazy morning…I still haven’t quite shaken off the lurgy, so maybe a bit of a rest’s a good thing.
After a late breakfast I pick up a guitar and run through a bunch of songs I haven’t played in ages. It feels good. Margaret asks me about the new song I’ve been messing with in the studio…I explain I couldn’t ‘find’ the vocal melody and it was all over the place when i tried to record it yesterday.
I pick up the guitar and run through it. Works pretty good and sounds fine. So what was the problem in the studio? I think it’s because I was overdubbing the vocals rather than playing the song live….somethingI rarely – actually never – do and that reminds why. I need to play the guitar and sing at the same time, That’s just the way it is.
After the recent interruptions in internet service, I investigate possible causes. We have a fancy-assed Netgear router which doesn’t have a built-in ADSL modem (ie: for ‘normal’ BT Broadband). To get round that, we used our old BT Homehub as a modem and disabled the wireless router…the Homehub, though, I think is goosed…plus, running through two devices could be causing sporadic IP conflcts.
I go onto Amazon and find a cheap ADSL modem for a tenner and a ethernet switch to plug all our ‘internet enabled’ devices into – they should be here tomorrow (Sunday) with free delivery courtesy of Amazon Prime.
Meantime, Margaret prepares a roast and knocks up a big pile of Yorkshire puddings. Catriona’s coming to stay tonight and we’re having an early dinner so we can get to Gartmore in good time for my pal Rab’s gig there tonight.
Catriona is driving and we get there with time to chat to our friends from the village then settle down and enjoy the show. Gartmore Hall has (fairly) recently been renovated and it;s a nice space for gig. Rab, of course, plays a blinder mixing some of his older material with tracks from his latest I’m Walking Here album. Great songs, engaging performance and an incredibly assured and strong guitar playing.
We bid farewell and head home for a snack, a few glasses of wine and plenty chat before bed.
Margaret’s Yorkies are amazing!
