LATEST DIARY

25th January 2010

A hard working farmer

It’s Burns night as I write this. Our Burns supper was quite sedate – haggis, neeps, tatties and a glass of beer, a Bunny Wailer album on in the background. No piping in the haggis, raised glasses or reciting poems. I’ve been to plenty of Burns suppers though, and even on occasion stood up and read ‘to a haggis’ as it got dished up. I like haggis, but must admit eating it once a year is enough. I feel much the same way about Burns’ poetry though. The man wrote some iconic poems for sure, and was, by all accounts a hard working farmer. His poems were full of his daily hopes, fears, humours, affections and despairs. The stuff of good poetry. It’s more the cult of Burns I’m not so into, the romantic wish fulfilment. Edwin Muir puts it well…

‘The burns of popular legend is an imaginative incarnation of a people’s desires, unfulfilled in life. It has no fundamental resemblance to Burns himself. Burns was not, for the age he lived in, an immoderate drinker; nor was he a careless lover, and he perpetually cursed the weakness in himself which his admirers glorify’

Still I’ve always thought it cool that Scotland has a national celebration for the life and work of a poet.

January has been a quiet month for me, but very nice all the same. We avoided much of the snow and bad weather that affected most of the country. I’ve been to a few bonfires, and went to a ceilidh in a barn on Hogmany. Since then I’ve started work on writing songs for a new solo album. I hadn’t planned on doing another, but people seemed to want one, and if you haven’t planned on doing something, it’s often the best time to do it.
20th December 2009

Didn't win, but still

I found myself saying it the other day - “Christmas seems to come quicker each year” . Maybe it does the older you get. There never seems to be enough time to do everything. And then all of a sudden it’s Christmas. It's maybe my favourite time of year though - an important winter festival to break up all the bad weather and days spent indoors. It’s also always a good time to look back on the last twelve months. 2009 has been a good, productive year for me, I played 70 concerts, half with Idlewild, the other half with Kris and John. The band recorded our ‘post electric blues’ album in February which eventually came out in October to good reviews and a positive fan response. My Sunday herald column finished in April, but I continue to write my monthly column for the TGO magazine, and even got a nomination for ‘Scottish columnist of the year’ for it. Didn’t win, but still.

Idlewilds extended family grew with the birth of Colin’s twins in July, and Gareth’s wee boy in November. Our old bass player Gavin Fox also had a son in the summer. Soon we'll be organising band family picnics. Our pre-order idea turned out a success, and now with a record deal with Cooking Vinyl, things are looking good for idlewild going into their fifteenth year. We’re playing more UK concerts in March and May.

Bob Dylan’s ‘together through life’ and Vetiver ‘tight knit’ were the two albums I listened to the most this year, particularly Vetiver, whose intricate album manages to be both dense and laid back at the same time. It sound tracked most of the summers journeys. Devandra banharts latest was as good as always, and also the XX, who remind me of the young marble giants, but that can’t be a bad thing. I will say though that this year has seen a change in my listening habits, down mainly to my discovery of spotify. Listening to records is a thing of the past with a toddler in the house, so listening to Spotify through speakers (placed on a high shelf) has been a constant throughout the year. It has introduced me to a whole new world of jazz, blues and reggae artists that I’ve never heard of. It’s an irony of recent times though that people listen to so much more music these days, yet pay for so little of it, and although I subscribe to spotify, I do wonder how much reaches the musicians. That said, going into a record shop, buying an Lp then getting home and spending the afternoon listening to it is something (I think anyway) that can never be beat. Even if little sticky handprints end up all over the vinyl.

Merry Christmas and a happy new year to all readers, and here’s hoping that 2010 will be a healthy, fruitful and peaceful year for you all.
18th November 2009

likely places with little joy

Sitting alone in my Hebridean home, the fire going, the wind howling outside, I’m introspective some might say, but I’m enjoying listening to the radio (in this kind of circumstance, It’s company). I don’t know what I’d do sometimes without radio 4 and 6 music. Together they educate and entertain me with music and conversation. I’ve also been phoning some friends, who always sound surprised to hear my voice. I suppose I don’t make phone calls that often. I’ve been told that on the phone I either tend to talk non stop or sound like I want to get off the line. I must practice calling people more often.

Of course, this quiet time would be the perfect opportunity to work on some songs. There’s an electric guitar and small amplifier in the house, but try as I might, I can’t find a lead. I’ve searched through all the cupboards and likely places with little joy. It’s no excuse really, yet writing songs on your own is hard enough, and with an electric guitar that you can’t plug in, it’s even harder. I have some words, and more to work on, but I suspect it’ll be a while before they turn themselves into songs, and it’ll take someone else to help me do that – Rod, Allan, Kris Drever or John McCusker namely. I need someone beside me to tell me if they’re rubbish.

We took a trip up to An Tobar in Tobermory last week. It’s the haven for the arts here on Mull, and is run by an enthusiastic staff. They have a great little studio and performance space there. Along with a café and gallery. It made me want to start a new record, which I’ve been thinking about. Since 2005 I’ve put out an album every year. I like the symmetry of documenting each year in song. I’m starting to think that 2010 might be a stop gap though, what with more idlewild shows, families, and other commitments for John & Kris. But maybe it’ll mean that I’ll have a whole year to collect extra thoughts & words.

The one other thing of wonder is Beck and his ‘record club’ thing he’s got going on his website (beck.com) where he assembles musicians together for the day to cover a classic album. So far he’s got wilco, devandra banhart, MGMT and a bunch of other involved doing albums by Leonard Cohen, the velvet underground, and a personal favourite, Skip Spence’s ‘Oar’. Doing music in a day and putting it online – is this the way music is going? Maybe so, but if only it’d always sound this good….
9th November 2009

with a worn out feeling

it's always with a worn out feeling of tiredness that you end a tour. It's great to get home and concentrate on the normal things in life - baking bread, making a fire, reading, going for a walk, and hanging out with your family, but there's a secret thrill in getting to still play songs in front of an audience that takes a while to disappear. I know that we're all very much looking forward to the planned concerts in February and April now, and then on into festivals next summer. A long way off yet i know, and for the time being I'm happy to sit here in my chair and think about our shows and all the bands we played with - the Xcerts, Olympic swimmers, make love, and Sparrow & the workshop: great people that we got to spend time with this last month. We were working our sets from a list of 60 songs, most of which i think we got through, some more than others. Next year we'll continue to rotate as much as possible, and bring some back to life that we rarely play. It's never a good idea for me to pick favourites since every night has its highs and lows, but London, Exeter, Birmingham and Fort William stick in the mind for a variety of reasons. The B.A club in Fort William is a great place, complete with venue cats and snow capped mountains looming over the venue. Inside it reminded me alot of the fiddlers bar in Monikie where I played my first concert, drumming with a covers band, back in 1993. A small wooden stage along the wall of a lounge bar. Our dressing room, which was the pub upstairs, had a jukebox and a pool table and a view onto Ben Nevis. Everyone in the audience was dancing and after wards we hung out drinking with the locals until our bus had to leave. Lots of good people. So thank you B.A club, and thank you to everyone who came to see us play on our 2009 Post electric blues tour.
5th November 2009

My lack of sunlight

The tour bus pulls into Inverness drawing towards the end of the UK tour. Only Aberdeen and Fort William to go after this. I’ve already made my usual pilgrimage to Leakey’s (the biggest second hand bookshop in Scotland); I’ve had some breakfast and walked along the banks of the Ness in the cold sunshine of Bonfire night. The Highlands in November is a lovely place.

It’s been a good time so far on tour, and apart from suffering symptoms of what I’ve been told was a panic attack onstage in Sheffield, the concerts have been some of our best, the set lists interesting, and the crowds always enthusiastic. I’ve never had a panic attack before, and if it was one (thinking you can’t breath, that you’re away to pass out, vomit, go mad, or a combination of all the above) then I don’t want to again. I blame my lack of sunlight that day, and spending the two hours pre-ceding the concert in the dank windowless, basement dressing room, which smelt of what I thought was sewage, only to later find out was the stench of rats. Escaping that for a loud, hot stage with flashing lights isn’t probably the best, but aside from forgetting the words to the first verse of ‘city hall’ and dropping one song out of 23, it passed with minimal incident, and the feeling has not returned. Ever since I’ve been spending as much time as possible out of the venues. Being on tour can sometimes feel like the venue, the tour bus and the stage are all there is. Which of course is not true.

The record is selling steadily, had some good reviews and we’re playing to more people on this tour than we did on our last one, in Oct 07, so together it’s a good sign that people are still interested in what we’re doing collectively. On another note, the last batch of DMW shows for ‘before the ruin’ take place in December in Southport, Middlesbrough, Glasgow and Stirling.

LATEST DIARY | Official Roddy Woomble - roddywoomble.com

LATEST DIARY

Live

SHOP

DIARY

LINKS