Wednesday 10 August 2011

I’m making a rare stage appearance tonight with the ScottishPower pipe band at Piping Live, in a performance of Martyn Bennett’s Mackay’s Memoirs.  I get to sit in the middle of the orchestra beside Catriona, who puts my sense of rhythm to shame, and the entire pipe band are stretched out in a row at the back, which is a riot of sonic 3D when they all get going. It’s a chance to catch up with bits and pieces of news and gossip from various characters too. I cycled in to last night’s rehearsal, careful to leave my bike away from any shops, but the city centre was peacefully busy, with just a few extra police vans around.

For the last two days Brianna Robertson has been helping me archive and catalogue nearly 20 years’ worth of ConCal scores, correspondence, reviews and accounts, which now occupy two large crates and a box, with another crate for solo keyboard repertoire. It’s exhausting work: by yesterday afternoon I was incapable of any sort of coherent thought. One of the most revealing finds was a wee sign from a 2004 tour showing the prices of CDs we were selling at the gigs. They’re still selling at the same prices seven years on.