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David
McGuinness's diary Friday
27 October 2006 Yesterday we had a business meeting: Andrew, Alison and myself looking at the forthcoming diary into 2008 and making some decisions. I left with a list of lots more decisions still to be made. It's funny how some offers of gigs or collaborations, which a year or two ago we would have jumped at as exciting and flattering, now for a variety of reasons provoke responses of 'well ...', 'dunno', 'not yet' or simply 'no'. But the upside is that when we do hit the stage, we will actively want to be there, engaging with the audience. And there is some very nice stuff in the diary, and some new repertoire to be explored in due time. The ongoing history of the Lion CD has taken yet another turn. After we failed to make an October 10 release, stopped by our veto of a staggeringly inappropriate cover design which I would love to reproduce here but won't, another very promising avenue has opened up. Thanks to Jeremy Tranter and Hamish Lawson for advice on accessing melodicas: you can buy an Angel L-37 very cheaply in the UK here, and the nice people at Yamaha are going to import some Pianica P-37Ds so that I can have a spare. Hamish was at my mum's 80th birthday party on Monday, a rare gathering of the entire McG clan. I kept quiet about Chris's theory (below) in case I got lynched. Saturday
21 October 2006 After my usual morning swim and some shopping for presents to take home, it was time yesterday to head for the Chapelle de la Visitation for the CBC Radio-Canada balance test and a quick photo session (this picture is from Gaël's phone though). The lashing rain rather spoiled the original plan to have us walking through the trees outside. That and the fact that it was already dark: coming back from sushi at dinner time it was snowing... L-R:
Sylvain Bergeron Anyway,
it was rather strange to be in front of an audience again after three days of
recording, and there were plenty of unscheduled happenings in the concert. I
still have sore calves from providing 7 minutes of harmonium drone for La
Passion de Jésus-Christ: Chris suggested I should have been wearing a lurid
track suit and a sweatband. We didn't rehearse this song, and what were meant to
be little irregularities in the drone came out sounding like alien communication
from Close Encounters. Oh well. Chris managed to get chants of 'Bunnahabhain'
and 'Laphroaig' into Les Pélerins (discreetly of course), and my slightly
perverse arrangement of La Pauvre Lisette where alternate verses are accompanied
in different keys went almost perfectly: hardly a missed cue, and everyone
keeping eye contact. Or as Marie put it afterwards: "you're the worst kind
of control freak: you control everyone without them realising it". I asked
Sylvain what he thought of my tendency to boss people about in rehearsal and he
said "well, someone has to". I'll blame it on my producer's instinct
to make decisions even if they're the wrong ones. But
the most spectacular unplanned moment in the concert was when Suzie prepared
DG's chair for his playing of Pigeon on the Gate: he had to sit down so that he
could do Cape Breton style foot taps as well. Unfortunately the chair slipped
back and David hit the floor on his arse while still playing. Suzie and I were
frozen to the spot for what seemed like minutes. Somehow he got up and just
carried on ... Matt
W joined us for a great meal afterwards at café TNM and we compared notes on
how many of us are the fourth child of four. Chris's theory is that number 4s
can have a certain sparkle from 'all that extra love'. What a nice band. A
final burst of present shopping this morning. I like Montréal very much.
1.30am harmonium
(back view) with optional accessory My favourite moment was our recording of Pigeon on the Gate with DG adding extra beats, and the bassline deliberately out of sync with him for about 8 bars. I laughed myself silly with the sheer stupid joy of it when we heard the playback: I think I said 'my whole life has been leading up to this moment' when we went back for the next take, but it was a joke. Kind of. Marie
took me out for a celebratory curry on St-Denis and then we joined the others
for a healthy combination of business and socialising. But to suggest that
HTF have negotiated a six-album deal with ATMA
would be overstating the case. Back at the apartments, Chris and I returned
briefly to the bottle of Laphroaig before I crawled off to bed, too late... Wednesday
18 October 2006 Day
two at St-Augustin de Mirabel. Last night the jolly boys (now rechristened HTF:
Hommes à tout faire, after an ad for a local odd job man on our paper place
mats at lunch) drank too much Laphroaig, so we made up for it this morning by
having DG's patent porridge for breakfast. I was ash-tay-eff laundry boy for the
day and had my morning swim while our clothes got clean in the hotel's
enormous industrial washing machines. Five strokes in the not very enormous pool
and you hit the other end, but it's still a good way to start the day. Lots of good work in the sessions, which finally finished mid-evening with a trapped nerve in DG's left index finger after working on a spectacularly crazy set of reels. He thinks he'll be OK in the morning. Suzie
polishes her melodica technique I
finally got the internet to work in my hotel room after today's sessions. Had
forgotten that I'm registered here as 'Mac Guinneff' which I quite like, but it
did mean that it took a while to convince them last night that I actually had a
reservation. The
first day of recording went very well I think. Gaël arrived with the Ottawa
Chamber Music Festival's harmonium, which is in tune and works like a dream, and
by mid-afternoon we'd recorded the eight-verse epic that is the Chanson de
Terre-Neuve, which was rather satisfying. There's lots of experimentation going
on but I don't think we're wasting time, and Johanne Goyette seems very happy,
but then it's the producer's job to look happy at this stage.
Musically
it's been a mixture of the deadly serious and the downright silly, with Chris
goading me to do ever more outrageous things for his amusement. And we persuaded
Suzie to play harpsichord on a couple of tracks so that I could play harmonium.
It's her instrument after all... I've
just been talking to Matt Wadsworth who's coming to our gig on Friday. Haven't
seen him since he lived in Walthamstow! Monday
16 October 2006 Now
settled into my hotel room in downtown Montréal, taking stock of the day. We've
been rehearsing at Suzie's place, adding Sylvain 'Mr Cool' Bergeron's guitars to
as many pieces as possible before sessions start tomorrow. And learning a few
more tunes of course: there was great fun to be had cooking up basslines at the
piano with DG. It feels like we've now amassed all the ingredients we need, but
we haven't got round to cooking them yet. So there's plenty to do. I'm aching a
bit from over-enthusiastic cycling too ... Sunday
15 October 2006 I
think my favourite musical moment in the gig was DG's outrageous transition into
Keep It Up from La Disputeuse. You'll get to hear it if it survives on the CD. Most
of us made our fair share of uh, unplanned excitements, but I think mine was the
most ridiculous. My extended improvised intro to the encore of Bisogna Morire
didn't seem quite right somehow, until a voice on my right (Suzie) gently
pointed out 'it's in the minor, sweetie'. Oops. That's what comes of having
hardly any of the notation in the right key. Still, I don't think anyone
noticed. Much. But we all agreed that in an all-male band my error would have
been pointed out with much less grace: "it"s MINOR, you stoopid
******! What the ... ?" or something similarly discreet.
My
room phone 11.45pm Saturday
14 October 2006 Time
for a quick lunch to escape from the very noisy film crew and the pouring rain
before tuning the harpsichord. DG, Betsy and I worked our way through the new
tunes this morning, and at one point I got to sit at my room window writing out
parts (while listening to something else), which seemed a very civilised thing
to do. Unfortunately I failed to change my flight to Montréal tomorrow, so it's
a 4.30 start for me. Just the thing after a concert... Friday
13 October 2006 Back
at the Motel after two days of rehearsal at the Monument Lefebvre in Memramcook.
Yesterday's pouring rain gave way to warm sunshine today; and yesterday's gentle
progress gave way to today's rather frantic scrabbling. The songs are going
great, but there are four sets of tunes unarranged and unrehearsed. So I now
have DG's Estey organ in my room in preparation for a morning rehearsal
tomorrow. And I'm having an early night. Earlier
Chris spotted a poster for a called Bois-Joli. Playing Acadian music too. Damn.
So the Jolly Boys are going to have to revert to their alternative title of
Grosses Coques. (see photo 5 Aug 2004) Chris
doesn't think it'll get us many gigs though. Thursday
12 October 2006 I
sat on the verandah this morning to get a wifi signal, and looked through the photos
from Tuesday's party (where I wasn't in order to get here) with mixed
emotions, before coming for a first look at the songs with Suzie. We improvised
a jazzy 'how to say "no" unsuccessfully' song at the piano while being
photographed, then headed for the excellent Café Mosaique for lunch before we
were filmed for TV cooking up a quick arrangement of L'Alouette et le Poisson
for voice, shruti box and melodica (!). Then Betsy joined us and off we went to
meet the jolly boys to start rehearsal proper. Wednesday
11 October 2006 Sunday 8 October 2006 I caught the end of Sting-sings-Dowland live, on Radio 3 when I was out in the car earlier. I read some sneering reviews, but I have to say I liked it, and I'd rather hear Sting sing Dowland than Ian Bostridge or the like. The chorus were a bit duff though, they sounded like 1960s American early music. My harmonium flight case arrived made at right angles to my specification. So much for that idea. Still, I got some arrangements done, scanned and sent on Thursday, and Suzie has kept up a constant stream of PDFs, mp3s, song texts, running orders and the like to all of our email addresses. On Friday morning I had time for a welcome cup of tea with Catherine Bott when she was in town to work with Craig Armstrong. Plenty of gossip was exchanged, none of which will appear here. Thursday 5 October 2006 One un-trivial matter arising from going to Pittsburgh last weekend concerned the very visible signs everywhere at checkin announcing Continental's new weight restrictions on baggage. If I'm going to take my harmonium with me to Canada next week in its new red flight case (arriving tomorrow), it's going to be over the weight limit. Hmm. So this morning I completely dismantled it and discovered that the action will fit into my huge old red suitcase - ironically, the one that Continental dented severely a couple of years ago - reducing its weight by 5kg. It doesn't leave me much room for my stuff in the suitcase and it does seem a bit perverse to have a serious foamlined fitted flightcase for the wooden box, and a dodgy old suitcase and some bubblewrap for the delicate mechanism, but anyway ... I'll weigh it all again tomorrow in the new case and see what the chances are of me being allowed to take it on the plane.
1953 Estey organ minus its innards; its innards as unconventional luggage But now I'd better do some thinking about the music. Monday 2 October 2006 Home. The new Flipron CD 'Biscuits for Cerberus' is on the mat, in its handmade sleeve. Go to Tiny Dog and buy one, or several: any album that starts with the line 'If you pat one head you've got to pat all the rest: pat them all and Cerberus will love you the best' immediately engages my enthusiasm. Sunday
1 October 2006 honest advice from the toilet wall in Crazy Mocha Yesterday before the gig was dominated by serious amounts of rehearsal and an unexpectedly wonderful piece of sea bass in the Union Grill where everyone else seemed to be eating turkey burgers. 'Honest American food' it said outside and it certainly was. But what is duplicitious American food? The
R&B Society audience did us proud,
greeting us with screams - this doesn't usually happen with early music - and an
instant standing ovation at the end, which must be how it feels to lead a
political party in conference season. Nick missed the final curtain call as he'd
had a beer in the interval and was desperate to get to the bog. And then he
couldn't get, um, done in time to get back out: hysterically funny. James and
Nick had acquired their usual audience of adoring teenage girls, including four
in customised CNE t-shirts, each featuring one of the band. Many photos were
taken. I can't remember when I last autographed someone's body either (only a
hand, not sleazy at all). I spent about an hour chatting to people from the
audience, then it was off to the spectacular Church
Brew Works for beer and pizza till 2. Chris's
Oliver Goldsmith programme is judged a success I think. As for my playing, well,
I'm conscious of sounding more brittle than usual, the notes come out but I'm
not as relaxed. And the 'shipwreck' scene in Corrette's Les Voyages d'Ulysse was
more of a train wreck: there were about 8 bars where Chris and I stayed
resolutely unsynchronised. But I've been enjoying the developing of a
harpsichord style for accompanying tunes, and for that matter having to invent a
musical language very quickly for my 16 bar solo in Malts Come Down. Saturday
30 September 2006 I
spent yesterday morning tuning Chris's Estey 1870 cottage organ with the help of
this rather good
piece of software. It took me 4 hours to do the single set of reeds but it's
quite a satisfying job. And no, don't ask me to tune yours. It's the instrument
I played at the end of Suzie LeBlanc's La
mer jolie album. Andy: 'Who's Ella?' Thursday
28 September 2006 I'm
typing this erratically on a new Pocket
PC which is the result of a phone upgrade and 6 hours on the line spent
trying to get through to Orange customer service. The keyboard isn't a patch on
my old trusty Psion 5mx but
i'll stick with it for a while yet. I'm not convinced by multi-function gadgets
at all, in that I'm still using my old phone as a phone and keeping this as a
wifi-diary-address book-multifunction whatever. I can't deal with being on the
phone and needing to look something up simultaneously. Being
at home has given me the chance to listen to some music: special mentions go to
Shirley and Dolly Collins's Snapshots,
Andy Partridge's final Fuzzy
Warbles in their spectacular stamp album box, and Alison's CPE
Bach concerto (don't waste your time listening to the symphonies on the same
CD though, they show Andrew Manze at his most childish: complete nonsense). The
new Flipron album didn't arrive in
time before I left, unfortunately. I've
been passing the time here before what I hope will be some peaceful sleep,
listening to a hugely entertaining phone
interview with Mr Partridge: there's a great Phil Spector story 3 minutes
from the end. I'm also reading the second book of Eve Garnett's wonderful
stories about The
Family from One End Street: I read the first one when I was about 8 (I'm now
reading it to Susie at bedtimes) and I remember nothing about it other than that
I enjoyed it a lot. I'd wondered why the 2nd book wasn't in print any more, and
now having located a secondhand copy I've realised that the casual repeated use
of the 'n' word in a later chapter might have something to do with it (it was
the 1930s). I'll be careful there's no-one looking over my shoulder when I get
to that bit. I've
been nesting at home, in that my study now has lots more pictures on the wall,
including the Marc Marnie triptych I
bought ages ago at another gig with Chris, an authentic Ivor Cutler sticky label
given to me by Sushil, and some old trade ads for albums by Fox, Mike Oldfield
and XTC. More of my musical history on the wall alongside Joe Davie's paintings
for Colin's Kisses. I've
also had a very
overdue
Alexander lesson from my longstanding teacher Evelyn Tingle which has been
helping me to breathe properly again, a chat to Suzie LeBlanc about what songs
we might be recordlng in a couple of weeks' time in Montreal, and Alison and I
have started to think about new repertoire for the 07/08 season: a long way off
yet. Thanks
to everyone who's been
sending good
wishes and kind responses to various
posts for the last few weeks ... Much appreciated, thank you. Later,
on another plane Much
later Monday 18 September 2006 Having some time off. Thursday 14 September 2006 It's been a week for bumping into people unexpectedly. My favourite was on Monday when as I emerged from Haymarket station in Edinburgh, Bob Deegan was wheeling his bike towards me. What were the chances of that? I'm now starting to approach (from a respectful distance to begin with) a mountain of songs and mp3s from Suzie LeBlanc, in preparation for our recording in a few weeks' time. I like working from field recordings, even if the temptation to make the joke 'and how long have you been working in this field, professor?' never goes away. You need sheep sound effects for it to work really. The appreciation of Katherine I wrote for today's Scotsman is here. Sunday 10 September 2006 A day off, buying furniture and a tree, and planting the latter. A good thing to do. Well, we got through the last few days somehow. We recorded a lot of music on Wednesday, rehearsed on Thursday, and after a spectacular journey through Aberdeenshire hills, gave the lovely people at the Woodend Barn an energetic and entertaining couple of hours, playing on its brand new stage and in its wonderful acoustic. For the first time ever, my melodica breath tube fell out of my mouth while I was playing, leading to an unexpected and very embarrassed silence: fortunately I was upstage and had my back to the audience at the time, but it still made me feel like a complete incompetent. Before the concert, the three of us had a picnic on the grass, and Alison managed to fit in some mushroom spotting in the nearby woods. Afterwards, a beer on a park bench in the moonlight by the river Feugh. Incidentally, we achieved the 'extra thing' that we wanted to do on Wednesday, which was to record a set of Katherine's tunes. The session tape is sitting in front of me here awaiting my proper and full attention. At 7.30am yesterday we put DG on the first leg of his flight home from Aberdeen (which turned out to be via London, Ottawa and Montreal after he missed the connection to Halifax at Ottawa, and during which he was surrounded by barfing adults and crying children) then Alison and I headed for Stonehaven to take some sea air on the way south. Special mention is due to Molly Gunning's cafe bar on the front, where we sat outside and had enormous fried breakfasts (mine even had fried clootie dumpling, included on the menu 'for Glaswegians'), and we watched the sun on the water. Shame the open air pool was shut. Well, we're over the first hurdle of playing again. Now we can start to get to grips with re-thinking what the group is and how it operates. A long process I think. But we've learnt a lot already. Wednesday 6 September 2006 Thanks to the wonders of Bluetooth, here's one of yesterday's commemorative photos from Sushil's phone.
Tuesday 5 September 2006 Coming to the end of a full day.
I've just been writing a bassline for Richard Leveridge's tune for 'The Tippling
Philosophers', after the tune we had in rehearsal this afternoon clearly didn't
fit the words. The wonderful people at the Wighton
Collection came to our rescue and emailed us a copy of Leveridge's from The
Musical Miscellany of c.1730, which fits the text perfectly and is a fascinating
tune into the bargain. Now to work out a schedule for tomorrow's recording: there are 19 items to record, 20 if you include a brief bit of spoken material which we might get to. 21 if you include the extra thing we want to do at the end. Lots of achievements today. The three of us playing music together again (with some help) is possibly the greatest. Sushil came in and took a commemorative photograph, so I took one of him. Now listening to Fox 'Tails of Illusion', an LP I bought at the age of 8 and loved from the beginning. Finally out on CD and still sounding great to these ears. Monday 4 September 2006 Gently back to work after a couple of very welcome days off, with a bike ride, lots of playing in the garden, and time to watch and be enthralled by The Devil and Daniel Johnston. Today I've been sorting out the parts for the next couple of days, learning notes, moving my harpsichord and harmonium to the BBC with Allan, and I fitted in a quick trip to the library to check a couple of dubious textual questions with the Oxford English Dictionary. DG walked me over to see my GP this morning, and as I talked I saw him write the words 'Major Life Trauma' on my notes. I haven't just been imagining it then. Saturday 2 September 2006 Well, DG and I played a good gig yesterday I think, to a very supportive audience with some very welcome friends in it. Once you get on stage and the adrenaline kicks in it's not so hard really. And I like the Russell Collection's 1769 Kirckman a lot. I like all of their Kirckmans actually. But the run-up to the show was something altogether different. To varying extents we were both overtired and overwrought. On one level we were doing something very familiar, playing music we know in a safe, controlled environment to some nice people. But on a subconscious level, lots of other things were going on - as you might expect. The personal cost can be much greater than it appears. And right now my body seems to be telling me that giving concerts is a dangerous thing to be doing. Anyway, I picked up David from the airport on Thursday and rather than rehearse, we played swingball and did some trampolining, and then he got himself acquainted with Ruth's violin. Our chairman Noel kindly offered his library as a rehearsal space yesterday - it's his fantastic Italian harpsichord that I play on the Mungrel Stuff and Lion of Scotland CDs - and I even found the energy once I'd tuned it to fit a new quill, and voice it inexpertly with a loose scalpel blade. We rehearsed in fits and starts, saving our energy for later. So now we have some free days before Alison joins us on Tuesday for a BBC studio recording. I think the coming week will be quite tough. But once we're through it we'll have a better idea of what kind of group we now have, and we'll also be in a better position to make decisions about the group's future. But I can't say that I'm looking forward to the next few days very much. © 2006 David
McGuinness |
concerto caledonia
Friday
20 October 2006
harpsichord
maker Yves Beaupré doing unscheduled harmonium maintenance, watched by Chris
and DG
