Here is the video for Kirsty's new single, 'Foundations' - produced by the legendary Stuart Epps, and set to photographer Mark Gee's breathtaking real-time footage of the rising full moon over Mount Victoria, New Zealand.

Songs are like children.

It must be flattering to have one's song covered. Kirsty's song 'Broken-Hearted' hasn't even been released yet, except in the video I posted a few days ago, but it's already popped up on a Youtube video from a cafe/brewery in Brive-la-Gaillarde, in the Limousin area in France. I gather the performance was unpractised and the violinist hadn't even heard the song before, but I think it's charming.

I suppose songs are like children; you go through a trying confinement, give birth, and then one lets them go and they take on a life of their own (or not!).

Eurovision 2013

Of course we can’t win. We won’t ever win again now, with the politics of it all. And we tell ourselves that we don’t even want to, which we do, and that it doesn’t matter, which it doesn’t, and that of course we never watch it because it just makes us angry and it’s not the kind of thing one admits to…but a lot of us will.

So here’s to Bonnie Tyler tonight, with her post-operative gravel voice, still rocking at my age. She’s earned a place in the Rock Hall of Fame several times over, but most of all for ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’. The 1983 video, appropriately filmed in Holloway Sanatorium for the Insane, still works, and the song remains one of the biggest grossing singles of all time.

Go Bonnie.

Foundations

Daughter Kirsty's new single 'Foundations' has just been released. It was recorded and mastered in his Cookham Studio by legendary producer Stuart Epps (Elton John, Robbie Williams, George Harrison, Bill Wyman, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Paul Rodgers, Mark Owen, Barry White, Kiki Dee, Paul Weller, Oasis, Led Zeppelin, Bad Company, Twisted Sister etc.). He's done a good job and so has she; I think you'll like it.

You can listen to the song on Stuart Epp's website. Turn up the volume and enjoy.

Available on Amazon here for a paltry 69p, and it should be on iTunes in the next few days.

Brokenhearted

New video of daughter Kirsty's song, 'Brokenhearted' just completed. This was filmed and produced by the talented writer, director and cinematographer James Crow, who wrote the screenplay for the 2012 film 'GBH' set in the London riots of 2011, which starred Nick Nevern, Kellie Shirley and Steven Berkoff amongst others.

This song reached the semi-final of the 2012 UK Songwriting Contest.

Kirsty MacLeod - We'll Be Broken Hearted Again (Music Video) from James Crow on Vimeo.

Girl in the Mirror

Hot on the heels of daughter Kirsty's headlining at the Brussels Folk Club, someone's posted this video of her performing at Maidstone's Hazlitt Theatre last year, with a song she'd just written.

Winter Sun and Summer Rain

It's a red letter day.

Daughter Kirsty's first album arrived this afternoon. In a big lorry. When the back was opened, it was like the Albert Hall inside, with a single pallet at the back.

But what a pallet! A thousand copies of 'Winter Sun and Summer Rain' - ten cracking original tracks, hot from replication in France. Tears, commitment and joy laser-burnt into plastic. Expertly mixed by the awesomely talented Nick Wilson at Dave Neal Studios (Dave Neal was Suzi Quatro's drummer).

Yes, I know. A thousand? It's the economics of the business. Less than 500, and you get duplication, not replication, which isn't half as good. Beyond 500 the unit cost drops radically, and it just makes sense to cover yourself.

That probably won't help, when we still have 900 bending the floorboards in the spare room in 2021.

Faute de mieux, I've been acting as her manager. It's a steep learning curve; drafting press packs, designing album graphics, arranging photo shoots and mail shots, negotiating with labels. BA (Hons) courses in Town & Country Planning don't prepare one for this, and it's one reason I've been such a rotten blogger. Not to mention the horrific overheads which make being an independent musician more of a calling than a career.

So here's the deal, loyal remaining bloggers. If you would like to be in at the start and invest in this limited edition indie album, it's £10 plus £2 P&P, and for you guys I'll include one of the real wood propelling pencils which are included in the press/DJ packs (apparently you have to include freebies to get anywhere), because you're special. And if you ask, Kirsty will sign it for you, ready to sell on eBay when she's famous.

Contact me at RMacleod at aol . com, and I'll give you the details.

And if you're in Maidstone on 18 August, she's playing a set at Pizza Express.

Hannah Scott

Achieved a small ambition last night in finally hearing Hannah Scott live. We weren’t disappointed.

Actually she had a mountain to climb. Neither the venue billing nor the tickets mentioned the supporting act, so she came as a complete surprise to the audience, who were there to hear Spiers and Boden (of Bellowhead), full stop.

It was a full house, not a spare seat, and they were full on folk fans. So full on that someone in the front row was stitching a hat whilst waiting for the show to start. I thought I’d be the oldest there, but most of us were. Very Sevenoaks.

I read somewhere that Hannah believes her live performances deliver something extra, and that’s true. You get the soaring vocals and the subtle lyrics and the skilled guitar and piano instrumental, but there is more. It’s the passion, I think, and the directness of connection. That voice which cries out, and then drops almost to a whisper. The intimacy of confidences shared and guards dropped.

We wanted it to go on, and I know she won converts.

I’m ashamed to say we sneaked out before Spiers and Boden were done. No disrespect; they are as good as it gets. But the SS had an early start, and we’d had our money’s worth with Hannah, and it’s just...I don’t know...Folk should be hot and sweaty. Three pints of cider and sunshine in a field or a tatty back room, a dog under the table and a crush at the bar. It’s a foot-stomping participation sport, not a performance art. Where under forties are allowed as well.

It was good to have heard her live and good to say hello (trying and failing not to come over as a pervy middle-aged stalker). She has a charming smile.

Thank you Hannah.

(Watch out for her new album, which she’s about to record in Italy; it’s going to be a good one).

Burn it to the Ground

And another (I did warn you!). This girl writes songs quicker than Ernie Wise wrote plays...

New Song

More to come...Plus K's first CD is due for release shortly.

Worth the Ride

K's latest song. I'm proud of this daughter of mine.

Post Mortem

I became curiously caught up in the attempt to deny Cowell his automatic Christmas No.1, and the cheer that went up from this house that Sunday night echoed across the valley and sent the dog under the sofa. Childish really, but as it seemed increasingly unlikely that we could succeed, I began to feel that not failing was more important than succeeding. It would be absurd to place too much significance on what was essentially a light-hearted exercise, even if there was a serious underlying message about corporate manipulation of the music industry and its impact on original, independent artists. But I suspect that the success of a grassroots Internet campaign to overturn a £50 million media machine, against all expectation, may not have gone unnoticed in government circles here and overseas. Any failure might equally have been noted.

In what was the coldest week for years, one happy side effect of the campaign was the £100,000 odd which the Facebook group members donated to Shelter, to which 'Rage Against the Machine' have promised to add their unexpected windfall income. The band have also announced a free UK gig in 2010, and rumour has it that tickets will be allocated to the people who made a donation to the charity. This may be apocryphal, but there is logic in it, and it would be consistent with Rage Against the Machine's moral awareness. It became clear that only a minority of the million or so people who signed up to the Facebook group actually bought the track. On the other hand, while not everyone who bought donated, everyone who donated most certainly bought.

One odd thing became apparent in that interesting week; the average age of the Facebook campaigners was a lot older than you might think. Whilst the critical voices on the wall and on the rival Joe site spoke in SMS txtspk and looked pre-pubertal, the Rage site spanned every generation. In a bizarre rôle reversal an older generation was encouraging the young to stop listening to schmaltzy covers and turn on to some angry hard-core metal rap. Whatever is the world coming to?

Thea Gilmore, Rod Clements, Rage Against the Machine and Simon Cowell

This is not a music blog. I haven't got the qualifications for that. But we went to another Thea Gilmore gig on Sunday (if there's repetition in the bands I see, it's because not many of them come to Maidstone). The last local place Thea played closed down, no connection, and this one was in the strangely ambienced and faintly effete upstairs room of the local Pizza Express.

It's not an ideal venue. Waiters and waitresses clatter about between the audience and the stage, and the acts look down on people shovelling capricciosas and tiramisu into their mouths an arm's length away. More to the point, a glass of white wine costs £4.40 or £5.75 depending on size, and a beer is about £6. That's maybe fine with a meal, but if you're there for an entire evening, it's prohibitive. Add that to the cost of a meal and the tickets, and you're into House of Commons expenses territory. No wonder the clientele were not very rock and roll.

Last time, K's boyfriend and I whipped out for a pint at the pub next door. We got funny looks, Straw Dogs style, and had to act particularly macho (not normally a problem for either of us). This time, forewarned, I'm afraid I arrived with a flask in my pocket and spiked my soft drinks. Tacky, I know, but needs must. It involved lowering my empty glass into my lap at intervals and bringing it back up full. I hope I didn't put anyone off their meal. (They probably won't let me in again. Pizza Express, I'm the tall cross-dresser with the handlebar moustache).

The Social Secretary had her own difficulties. She went into the windowless Ladies and immediately recoiled because it was untenably...there is no other way of putting it...smelly. In a very SS kind of way she was standing in the corridor flapping the door open and shut in a vain attempt at ventilation (this is the sort of thing that comes naturally to her) when Thea herself came along. Like a-pong-in-a-lift scenario, there is no socially smooth escape from such situations.

But it was worth it. My American Hot was good, and the supporting act was Rod Clements (Lindisfarne), a legend from my Tyneside days, who played guitar like a dream. Thea herself was superb, She has a new album out, 'Strange Communion' (if you look at the sleeve notes through a magnifying glass you can spot my name amongst the sponsors), so it wasn't like a repeat performance. It's not a Christmas album (she calls that the C-word), but an alternative, more pagan take on the season. I think her voice has deepened, and she just gets better and better. The opening song on the album, 'Sol Invictus' has a full choral accompaniment. Not having a choir in tow she sang it a capello, and it was hauntingly beautiful.

Thea's album is sort of relevant to the current Facebook/X Factor battle. I abhor X factor. There is something unsavoury about a promoter with a self-evident financial interest manipulating the public through hours of prime-time TV. Christmas number ones haven't meant much to me since I was a teenager, but the dumbing down involved in the annual inevitability of Simon Cowell's latest karaoke protégé seizing the spot is destructive, and I've joyfully signed up to the Facebook group which is trying to steal it from him with Rage Against the Machine's 'Killing in the Name'. The idea is for everyone to download the track next week. A mere 79p to wobble Cowell's stranglehold on the music industry seems good value. At the time of writing the group had 592,684 members, and it is growing nearly as fast as Cowell's current account. They might just do it.

Hobo Jones and the Junkyard Dogs

Local boys Hobo Jones and the Junkyard Dogs travelled all the way to a big city recently, all on their own. Someone had suggested they visit 'Britain's Got Talent' and, always eager to try a new pub, they removed their tags and went for it. They never found the bar, but someone let them play a few numbers instead.

I hope they get through and you have the chance to see them on the programme. Hobo Jones is the nicest chap, who has gone out of his way to encourage K with her songwriting and performing. Hearing him singing his 'Tyburn Jig' in our kitchen was an unforgettably moving experience. We have redecorated it since.

'Britain's Got Talent' seems an obvious next step for a band that opened at Glastonbury this year (somewhere between the Main Stage and the cider wagon), and for whom development strategy probably consists of choosing between a new set of strings or another round.

Go see them if you can. They transcend greatness.

New Song

In haste, K's My Space link here. 'Say Goodbye' and 'Just a Boy' (You Tube link for the latter here.)

Hannah Scott and John Carden

I mentioned Hannah Scott when her debut album came out last year . Her new CD - a collaboration with John Carden, arrived yesterday, signed by the two of them without me asking and with a wee handwritten thank-you note from Hannah enclosed again. I find that really sweet; it's that precious moment when a band is teetering on the cusp of greatness, but still have time to appreciate you and take nothing for granted. When each order matters and they're grateful for every supporter. This girl is destined for big things, and it's a mystery to me why she hasn't been signed yet. She is like a butterfly beating her wings against the glass; any moment someone's going to open the window and then you'll need a telescope to see her.

'Falling into Spring' is an EP with just five tracks, but they're all crackers. It's maybe her register or the east coast accent that reminds me of Beth Orton (I know, her's is west), but this is lighter and less plaintive. I've never met these two and have no axe to grind, but I reckon I'm putting a good tip your way in suggesting you visit this link and have a listen. And if you like what you hear you just click the button and for the price of a pint or two the thing arrives in the post, and you can shoot a line to your pals and you have the sound for this summer's braais and a collector's piece to boot.

Ascendant Band, Astronomical Beer

To a gig last week; a guy named Paul Dunton from Tunbridge Wells has established a series of candlelit soirees featuring local artists. This was the first to be held in Maidstone, upstairs in the local Pizza Express. Most of the musicians came from Tunbridge Wells, and may be familiar to Justme and Completely Alienne

Any showcase for local talent is worthwhile, and this was potentially a good venue. Unfortunately the twin emphases on food and music clashed. It was a distraction having waitresses clattering to and fro with orders, and the restaurant prices for drinks were prohibitive. With beer at £6.50 a pint and entry at £7 per head, a party of four could be £50 out of pocket before they'd sipped the first drink. Order a meal as well, as was clearly expected by the staff (we didn't, and we weren't alone), and you were into serious money. When we'd seen the price list we whipped straight back out to the pub next door and sank a quick pint before the first set, and then nursed an expensive bottle of cheap wine for the remaining three hours.

The evening opened with a 16 year old pianist/singer/songwriter, Annabel Durnford, who performed with grace and maturity. She was followed by the event organiser Paul Dunton and friends. Piano, violins, flute and cello delivered an unusual fusion of pop/rock ballad and chamber music. I'm not sure the room did them justice.

Third act was singer/songwriter Joanne Louise Parker. Her spare guitar technique placed the focus on a voice of bewitching tone and clarity, and she showed an almost celtic ability to sing on pitch without accompaniment (or 'a cappella' as it's poncily known down here). Perhaps there is a Free Church enclave in her native fens. Folk/blues flavoured, she is very good.

Headliners Cyrano came from Tunbridge Wells. They produced a consistently tight, studio-quality sound which belted around the room in a sustained, plangent attack. When I looked at the audience they were tapping and twitching as if they were wired in series, and women were dancing on the steel stairs to the mezzanine floor. Joe Ackerley's voice soars with plaintive purity, Karl B hammered away on lead guitar like an onanistic gnome, and bass and drums were balanced, punchy and harmonious. Cyrano are currently putting together their first album. Watch this band, because I reckon it will become a household name.

Cerulean Blue

Falling

It's ages since I blogged. Don't know why; nothing to say, I suppose. Anyway, I like K's new song. She wouldn't be persuaded to appear on camera, so she's stuck it onto some footage of the Inverness-Kyle line I took years ago.

I suppose I must have travelled that line two or three hundred times, but I never tired of it. Skye-bound, my heart lifted with every mile that the island drew closer and my office desk receded. In summer, sun sparkled on absurdly blue water and the banks wore gold epaulettes of gorse. In winter the deer lifted their heads from foraging in the snow, to watch the carriages clatter by. Like a time-lapse film houses were spruced up, and faded. Generations of sheep and cattle trod the same braes. Oil rigs appeared in Loch Carron, and then were gone. Eagles soared.

Enjoy the song.

John Logie Baird / Aeolian Harp

My Scottish grandfather liked gadgets. Around 1935 he built a television set to pick up Baird's daily 10.00 - 10.30 am test transmissions from Alexandra Palace. It was only supposed to be possible to pick these up within 80 miles of London, and my grandfather's success in picking them up in Ayrshire interested Baird enough for him to visit and discuss it. The set comprised an aluminium disc with tiny square holes around the edge, each a tad nearer the centre than its predecessor. In one revolution of the disc the holes scanned the width of a (selenium?) cell which could vary in brightness very rapidly. In front of the disc was a magnifying glass through which the pictures could be viewed.

At five to ten a picture of a five bar gate was transmitted, for tuning. The spinning disc was mounted on an electric motor with a variable speed control, and at the correct RPM the gate would appear - usually in two pieces until it was fine-tuned.

Hung above a door in the hall of my grandfather's house, amongst the weapons and oars (Uncle Alastair was a Boat Race and Olympic oarsman), was another device that appealed to him; an Aeolian Harp.


Aeolian harps were popular in Georgian times. They were placed in open sash-windows, where the wind could play over them. For over seventy years this one was strung cosmetically with silk fly-fishing line because my grandfather feared that any tensioning of the strings would place too much strain on the supporting posts.

When it was eventually passed to me I noticed two holes in the carved, porpoise-shaped posts, as if something was missing. These allowed me to rig up a spring-loaded copper bar to compensate for any strain, without having to physically adapt the instrument. After some research (there are several schools of thought about how to tune aeolian harps) I strung it with twenty guitar 'E' strings, all tuned to the same pitch. We opened the front and back doors and held the thing in the ensuing draught with a microphone nearby. And, hauntingly, perhaps for the first time in 170 years, the harp began to play. It felt as if we were hearing a recording made around the time of Waterloo, an echo from the past.

I found the tape this week and digitised it. You should be able to hear a bit by clicking the title of this post.