Sunday 17 June 2001

I'm now more than half way through the bits and pieces of arranging for The Gentle Shepherd - one of Sir William's songs has come out like a cross between a minuet and an 18th century Scottish psalm tune, which is probably about right.

Yesterday I was in Edinburgh for the day, first port of call being the launch concert of John Kitchen's new CD, played on instruments from the Russell Collection.  At the end he told me 'I saw you coming in and thought I'd better start telling some funny stories, because that would you'd do'.  I bumped into Rob MacKillop briefly (his new CD of the Oswald Divertimentis for Guittar is just out www.robmackillop.com), and I also collared a friendly journalist who might be able to get us some advance features before August.

Just time to fit in a random act of violence on a parking ticket machine before heading off to the Queen's Hall for the McFalls gig.  The City of Edinburgh authorities dissuade people from taking their cars into town with some hefty parking charges, and rightly so, but I had to take a large box of tapes with me so I had to drive.  The system has a failing, which is that most of the machines which issue parking tickets don't work.  So the third machine of the day to take my money and offer nothing in return got a flying kick, which prompted it to offer me £1.40 in the returned coins slot.  A bit like those old-fashioned fairground machines that you whack with a mallet and try to ring the bell.

The gig was great fun, to an appreciative and noisy audience.  My harmonica solo was hugely inaccurate, but it still brought plenty of whoops and cheers in the middle of Dave's song.  Come to think of it, there was quite a lot of ruthless upstaging going on throughout the concert - Lise and I put on an impromptu puppet show with the squeaky hammers I'd brought along (they have smiley faces on) during Raymond Scott's 'Square Dance for Eight Egyptian Mummies', and then Greg trumped us with a wonderfully evil B-movie cackle in one of the drum breaks.  And Su-a's musical saw accompanied by massed whistling in 'La Vie en Rose' had some sections of the audience in uncontrollable giggles.  I went out and listened during a couple of numbers I wasn't in, and the PA sound was excellent - we haven't done any ConCal gigs with a PA for a year and more, but it's good to know that there are people (and gear) around that can do it properly.

But it was occasionally sobering to realise, as I was blowing whoopee whistles, thrashing a piano and trying to sound like Bob Dylan on an off day, that the next time I'll be on that stage, I'll be reciting 18th century Scots as the prologue in The Gentle Shepherd. I'm sure it'll be just as much fun.