You don't need philosophy, where you can make do with binoculars

9th November, 2011

Blog tags:
- Thelonious Monk,
- biographies

You cannot sustain quality by giving things away. This is my stock answer when I’m ever asked my opinion on the current state of the music industry and illegal downloading. I’ve been getting into a few conversations about it recently, which I must say I try to avoid, as it’s all a bit depressing. Out of context, there’s a line from a poem by the Gaelic poet Ruaraidh MacThomas that sums it up perfectly

‘You don’t need philosophy, where you can make do with binoculars’

i.e. – I can see clearly what’s on the horizon and it’s looking fairly bleak. Still, a least there are always gigs and the merch table – the lifeline for the jobbing musician/songwriter/troubadour. We had a fantastic time on the Oct/Nov UK tour, played some great shows, ate some nice meals, drank a few ales, sold a few tea towels. There will be another week of concerts in England beginning March 6th til March 14th. These concerts will be with the acoustic quartet rather than the full band though, so just Sorren, Seonaid, Gavin and myself.

Fairly quiet on the gig front until then (apart from the CHRISTMAS HOOTENANNY at the STIRLING TOLBOOTH on FRI DEC 16th) so it seems the right time to indulge in my other favourite pastime of reading biographies by the fire. I’ve just finished Robin D.G Kelleys masterful re-telling of the life of Jazz legend Thelonious Monk. A complicated, brilliant man & musician, under-appreciated in his own time as innovators often are. The book took fourteen years to research and write which is some commitment to a subject and one of the reasons I find biographies so interesting (I’m taking about the good ones here, not the knock-offs you can pick up beside the chewing gum in supermarkets). People are interested in people - in other peoples stories, especially men and women who pursued originality – the kind of people in fact, who would never think about having biographies written about them. An irony that is not lost on me as I put my feet up and turn another page.