Friday 4 May 2012

on the last train home from Stirling
I’ve been at this year’s Distil showcase, which is always interesting. Special mention from tonight’s concert goes to Steven Blake’s mapping of the harmonic structure of Patrick Og MacCrimmon’s Lament to the language of Debussy preludes, Amble Skuse’s very subtle use of multiple perspective, and to Kate Young and Suzanne Houston for some imaginative string writing. I happened to be sitting next to Mairi (last seen on Lismore), and also had the joy of Su-a telling me her story of turning up at British Grove Studios to play on Eric Clapton’s new album – I won’t even try to recount it here, but it involves jumping up and down and it’s very funny.  Afterwards in the bar I managed a quick chat over a Guinness with Robert, Steven and Amble before running down the hill to the station, where the vending machine on platform 3 sells giant size Tunnock’s caramel wafers for a quid.

I got to Stirling a bit early, so before the gig I sat in the sun on a bench halfway up the Rock, got my manuscript notebook out and made notes from some of the ballad demos that Alasdair sent me back in January. We now have two dates in the diary to start work on muckle piano sangs. Not sure if I’ll manage to work in any French impressionism though.