Live video stream tonight - Aug 23rd

WATERBOYS SHOW TONIGHT - LIVE VIDEO STREAM ON INTERNET
(23 Aug 2008)

The Waterboys hour-long set tonight at Parken Festival in Bodo, Norway will be video-streamed live on the festival website. The set runs from 6pm-7pm Norwegian time, which is:
5-6pm UK
12-1pm EST
9-10am Pacific time.

To view, visit: www.parkenfestivalen.no

2:26 PM - 18 Comments - 18 Kudos - Add Comment

Mike’s world: return to the West of Ireland

I've been picked up at Dublin airport by Sharon Shannon's tour manager Damien, who is driving me to Galway to do some recording with Steve Wickham and Anto Thistlethwaite for a future album of Sharon's. I know this old east-west road across Ireland well; I've travelled it hundreds of times over the years, especially in the Waterboys' Irish days during the second half of the 1980s.

Today, however, I learn just how much of it has been replaced by new motorway. No longer do we zip through Kinnegad, Enfield, Tyrellspass and a dozen other small towns and villages. All are bypassed. But we veer off the motorway to have lunch in Athlone, one of my favourite points on the old road; the spot where the Shannon is crossed and east becomes west. I also remember a good fry-up joint here called The Genoa Cafe.

Damien parks and we walk up to the Genoa, but its front section has been changed into a fast food parlour, and we decide to try elsewhere. Fifty yards up the main street is a little bistro, with a funky modern Starbucks-esque coffee logo in the window. Looks promising. We go in, and it looks like a pub. But wait, over there's a sign saying 'Bistro upstairs'. We climb the old-fashioned carpeted staircase to the first floor - and step into the past. For on the landing it's still the 1960s, or maybe even the '50s: ancient decor, ancient old wooden and glass doors, frosted skylight windows, outmoded pastoral paintings. We go through the doors into the Bistro itself, and the timewarp deepens. Everything - the look, the smell, the wallpaper, the tables, the placemats, the menu, the desperately naff Irish tune muzak - is from the middle of the last century, unchanged, unmodified, not redecorated since 1965 at the earliest. I remember places like this from my childhood, and I thought they were all gone.

At first Damien and I are bemused and somewhat enchanted by this novelty. And when we get to the counter we find they're still selling hot food, so we order up a hearty fry. But between sitting down and the fry arriving the novelty wears off, as these things do, and we begin to feel about as out of sync and threadbare as the place. Finally the food arrives. We wolf it down in three minutes flat - and it's not bad, it just tastes of the 1960s - and head back out into the street and the twenty-first century.

Next door is a joke shop. I slip inside and spot a handsome horse's head. Twenty euros later it's mine. This'll raise a few laughs in the studio especially when Wickham gets a hold of it.

We get back into the car and drive out of town. Within a few minutes I notice, or am reminded, that the landscape west of the Shannon has a different soul. Less is changed from the deep past; prospects and views remain unchanged from centuries ago. And the motorway has hardly protruted into the West at all. The road is an ancient one, its old character still preserved. And as Damien throws the miles under our wheels my eyes begin to "come on" and I start to see the soul of the West shining through the landscape. It's a sweet, old, familiar sight, partly like returning to a loved homeland, partly like being stoned without any drugs.

After Ballinasloe, as we come within 20 or 30 miles of the Atlantic, the quality of the light changes. It becomes somehow 'expectant', and a significance, sad and luminous at the same time, is on every line of trees that stands silhouetted on the ridges and low hills. An old atmosphere is here, still intact from the youth of Ireland, not yet dispelled by the modern age, and this renders everything different, makes alternate ways of seeing possible. And as we come closer to the coast there is a sense of finality, of rolling downhill towards the great end of all things; the sense that something magical, festive, convivial and dramatic waits there for us.

In the last miles the final wonders of the Burren mountains emerge above the horizon to crown the landscape; queer, scarped, conical hills rising on the far side of not-yet-visible Galway Bay, looking huge and immediate, their dramatic faces all stark, visceral and rich with personality. And over all the land is nature in her power, and Pan in his. This is His stronghold. Britain is tamed, but here? No.

A stand of trees, incredibly abundant, appears on the left, half a mile away. It has an aura about it, as if it's in an old Dutch or Victorian painting. And I notice that in the presence of the Atlantic wind and air, things grow and look different; lichen on a wall, bushes, trees. All is wilder, archaic.

And now the headwaters of Galway Bay itself can be seen through the trees lining the road, countless delicate inlets, peninsulas and sweet mazy headlands becoming visible, flashing through the gaps in the trees.

We roll down a west-facing slope into Galway city and enter human territory. Down we drive through streets that are old friends. The natural landscape now recedes but the soul of the West of Ireland becomes visible instead in the faces of the people; canny, sharp-eyed men and imperious women out strolling, glimpsed as we hurtle past.

At last, hitting South Park and the Claddagh, we reach the open, unobstructed Bay for the first time, its whole twelve mile westward sweep coming visible, with the Burren hills wholly revealed, tumbling in great reckless slopes to the water. The physical power of stone and sea is overwhelming.

Here is the border between two of the four great Irish provinces: Connacht, domain of knowledge, to the north and Munster, land of music and poetry, to the south. Here is the end of Europe and of all that constituted the known world before the discovery of America. Here is where the human domain gives way to the wild, faery realm which still casts a presence over Connemara and the Aran Islands to the west. Here is the border between English speaking regions and the Gaeltacht, where Irish is the native tongue. Here is the border between the fertile and the wild, between the known and the unknown, between the tangible and the dreamtime.

Here also happens to be my favourite place in the whole world. And now, walking into the hotel lobby, comes one of my favorite people in the world. Anto looks well, still sporting his rather fetching slaphead baldy look, dressed in a brown jacket, a smile on his tanned face, eyes blue and sparkling. Wickham won't arrive till the morning, and Sharon, who we both want to see and hug tight after the death of her partner Leo last month, isn't around till later on. So there are a few hours of evening free to us, and Anto and I head out into the wild night of Galway, aiming for some old haunts, laughing as we go.

12:36 AM - 54 Comments - 66 Kudos - Add Comment

Mike’s world: an experience observed

I've been maligned in the press by an old associate and it's a strange experience. This individual has done it before, so it's not a surprise. This time around every word is heavy with sarcasm and bitterness. He says I don't know how to be "generous, gregarious or happy-go-lucky" - which I take to mean I don't know how to be a normal human being worth knowing. He belittles all the music I've ever made other than the couple of records he contributed to, and he mixes up dates and events and accuses me of highly insensitive actions when he was ill. It is clear that I am a demon figure in his life.

So, while acknowledging that his words may have been in some degree amped up by the magazine journalist seeking to enhance his story, I observe my own feelings.

As always when this individual attacks me, for a few moments I feel worthless. This is because 'worthless' is the judgment his words and tone transmit, and I feel this judgment like a visceral punch in my guts. His words seem to deny me the right to an objective existence outwith his rage and prejudices about me. Or to put it another way: at some long-passed point the criticism became so strident, so continuous and so removed from any rational discourse that I cannot imagine this individual approving of anything I do, in any area of my activity.

So I apply the 'worthless' test to my life. If I am as worthless as his words suggest, then my wife who married me and loves me, and who clearly thinks I have some value other than the space I occupy, must be a fool. And the people I've just been conversing with on the street outside my house, friends who smiled and laughed with me, must also be fools. And all the members of my band, my colleagues, and the other people I work and function with, or who I correspond with by email and letter, or who interact with me through the miracle of the internet, must also be fools.

The whole thing is so patently absurd, so perfectly ridiculous, that the 'worthless' feeling evaporates on examination like so much froth in the air.

Then I move into another phase; one of anger that this individual attacks me in public. I've never attacked him in the press, or belittled or dismissed his music in interviews. Nor have I responded when he's attacked me. I've consciously chosen not to engage with him or give oxygen to his statements. Yet still they come, decade after decade.

This individual contributed a lot to the sound of my band during the time of his membership, for which I'm grateful. But it is also true he received a lot from being in my band. I've tried to honour his contributions, yet since soon after he left the Waterboys he has never honoured the contributions that being in the band made to his own musical life and prospects. Nor has he acknowledged that there was a two-way exchange of influence, ideas and inspiration between me and him, or that I have anything to offer as a songwriter, musician, performer, bandleader or singer. It seems to be impossible for this individual to ever say anything plainly good about me. All this angers me, and I feel a sense of having been used and abused.

So, for a few minutes, I consider all the possibilities of redress: send him a letter; offer my differing perspective in an interview; send a message to him via his website saying I don't accept his behaviour; write to the magazine that published his statements. But none of these is attractive to me in the slightest. They will dignify or magnify his comments, engage him in a correspondence in which I don't trust him to be civil or honest, or bring me down, in the eyes of those who don't know what it's like to be publicly maligned, to a level of pettiness.

When the anger subsides I move into another mode. And I like this one. It's an old trick the gospel preachers used to talk about: "shake it off and pack it under." Shake off the enmity or ill-will directed at me, step on it and pack it into the ground under my feet so I can use it to stand a little taller. And yes, this makes a lot of sense to me. And that's what I do, also remembering Barack Obama doing the Jay-Z brush-off move recently, and imagining myself brushing the individual's statements off my shoulder, with ease.

After all this I come, not surprisingly, to the gates of wonder: what the hell is going on with this individual? Why am I such a demon figure in his life, and why does it fester after two-plus decades? And why does it barrel off his tongue with such bitterness and pain? And does it actually have anything to do with me at all? I'm not responsible for his state of mind or happiness, and I never was. So how come I seem to have become responsible for his unhappiness? How come that when he thinks of me his mind morphs into shapes of disdain and what appears to be hatred?

But that is something only the individual can answer and I don't and won't presume to answer for him.

Let me make clear I'm not asking anyone for solutions, sympathy or advice with this situation, or for their interpretations of it. I have my own ideas about what is going on but they are in the realm of personal issues, not professional or musical, and they're nobody's business but mine and the individual's. What I'm doing here is expressing how it feels to be me on the receiving end, and that's all. Maybe some of you can relate to this phenomenon of being attacked, whether or not you're in the public eye.

And a final word: while I don't accept what he says about me, I truly wish him well.

1:28 PM - 99 Comments - 83 Kudos - Add Comment

KISS THE WIND - feedback blog thread

Hello Waterpeople,
this is a special blog thread where everyone's invited to leave feedback about the new Waterboys download album KISS THE WIND.

Kiss The Wind is downloadable from The Waterboys online store now - here is the link:

www.townsend-records.co.uk/sites/waterboys/

You're welcome to post any comments you have about the album's tracks, songs, the whole thing, artwork, whatever. Just post them as comments on this blog.
Happy listening!
love
Paige and John

10:28 PM - 92 Comments - 53 Kudos - Add Comment

KISS THE WIND DOWNLOAD ALBUM & NEW ONLINE STORE
Category: Music

KISS THE WIND - EXCLUSIVE DOWNLOAD ALBUM & WATERBOYS NEW ONLINE STORE

We're delighted to announce our new online store goes live Monday 28th April at www.mikescottwaterboys.com. We will celebrate this event with the release of a download-only album, KISS THE WIND, exclusive to the store. Kiss The Wind features 16 rare or previously unreleased tracks, recorded 1991-2006, selected by Mike Scott from the Waterboys archives. Highlights include the breakneck title track, Mike's demo of On My Way To The Big Light, an alternative Let It Happen, live versions of The Stolen Child and Jagger/Richards' Wild Horses, plus many many more. For the first week only the album will be available bundled with extra track-by-track notes written by Mike. From May 5th it will be available by individual track or bundled, but without the extra notes. The album's price is £7.99. Individual tracks retail for 79p. Samples of two tracks can be heard on our myspace page click here. For the full tracklisting see below the cover artwork.

1. Kiss The Wind
2. On My Way To The Big Light
3. Follow The Fellow Who Fiddles
4. Your Baby Ain't A Baby Anymore
5. Wintermind
6. Let It Happen (1999)
7. I've Been In The Storm For You
8. Anatomy Of A Love Affair
9. Independence Day
10. John Coogan Is Going
11. Wild Horses (live)
12. Big Day Boogie / Always / Broken Ring
13. Martin Decent
14. Send Him Down To Waco
15. The Stolen Child (live)
16. This Old Boat

Our new online store will offer all Waterboys CDs by mail order and goes live Monday 28th. We will send out a news email on Sunday night, April 27, with further information and the web address to link to.

TWO NORWEGIAN SHOWS IN AUGUST

The Waterboys have added two shows in Norway in August. These are full band performances like all the shows this Summer except Pickering Folk Festival.

21 Aug: Union Scene, DRAMMEN. Tickets from Union Scene Café and www.unionscene.no Price: NOK 375 + box office fee NOK 10

22 Aug: Parkenfestivalen, BODø. This is a headline and tickets are available from www.parkenfestivalen.no or +47 75549010 (Bodø Kulturhus). One day passes cost NOK 650.

MIKE HAS AN ARTICLE IN NEW ISSUE OF KINDRED SPIRIT MAGAZINE

Mike has contributed an article to the May/June edition of UK holistic magazine, Kindred Spirit. The piece is titled Early Morning Meditation, and the issue goes on sale Thursday 24th April.

CALI - WHAT HAPPENED

Mike and Steve guested with their friend, top French singer Cali, at Zenith, Paris, 15 & 16 April. For a full account check out Mike's blog here

STRANGE BOAT IN THE IRISH CHARTS

The new version of Strange Boat, recorded by Mike Scott, singer Eleanor Shanley and various friends peaked in the Irish singles charts at number 16. Meanwhile former Waterboy Sharon Shannon, as well as playing on Strange Boat, is number one in Ireland for the second week with Galway Girl, her collaboration with Mundy. Congratulations Sharon! 

3:42 AM - 7 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Mike’s world: clear up CD-day

It's a special day today, that day once every four years or so when I get up the will to go through all the piles of CDs people have given or sent to me that lurk, in tall decaying piles, in my music room.

Let me make clear I do swiftly listen to some of the CDs people give me, but there are some I never seem to get round to. I'm selective in my listening and just because someone has given me their CD to listen to doesn't mean, especially if I don't know them, that I'm gonna listen to it. It's too much like homework. I did as little of that as I could when I was a schoolboy and I ain't picking up the habit now.

But today, as I view the three separate piles that have grown organically over the past several years, one on a green box by the door, one at the corner of my writing desk and one on a shelf on the high wooden unit that houses the stereo system, I decide enough is enough and start wading through them.

First up is a CD by a Scottish singer called James Yorkston, given to me two years ago the chap who interviewed me in my house for Word Magazine. By golly, though, Yorkston is good, and I fall in love with one of his songs, "I Awoke" which goes straight to the 'Favourites' file on my iPod.

Next is The International Tussler Society, by the band of the same name. They're Norwegian and my Norge friend, the rocker Askil Holm, gave me this one, also two years ago. It has an intriguing cover and I've always wondered what it would sound like. Now I'm gonna find out. Sharp, sassy southern rock with killer harmonies bursts from the stereo and it's another winner. I could have been listening to this fabulous record for the last two years!

Here's an odd one - a CD in a colourful homemade sleeve with a little green and silver stone embedded in the package. It's I.M. Pulse by Iona Marshall. I know Iona slightly. She was a waitress at the Argyll Hotel on Iona, oddly enough, one summer when my wife and I were staying there, and it turns out she's a singer. She got in touch with me via myspace last year. The songs on her page sounded good and I told her, so she sent me her album. It ripples out of the speakers, with sweet, breathy, high vocals over odd, curious soundscapes. I like it. She sounds like Karine Polwart after a gap year spent hanging out with the Dalai Lama and listening to the Velvet Underground. You can find her in the Top Friends if you wanna check her out for yourself.

Then we have one that just says 'WB Yeats'. What on earth is this? I stick it on and it turns out to be a recording of a broadcast on Irish radio about the great poet, sent to me kindly by my mother, goodness only knows how long ago. I stick that one on the iPod for a rainy future car journey.

Underneath it is a 2CD set of JM Synge's famous play Playboy Of The Western World, also from Irish radio. Actually I bought this one myself in a little music shop by Dublin's Halfpenny Bridge and never got round to playing it. I'll stick it in the iPod along with Willie Yeats.

Uh-oh. Here's a pre-release copy of the new one by Wickham's 'other' band, No Crows. He slipped it to me when we were in Paris this week and it's found its way onto the pile, with an accompanying note saying that he wrote the first tune himself. It's a stonker, shades of Stephane Grappelli and the Hot Club of Paris. The second track is Spanish and mournful, with a sense of gravitas conjured by Anna's cello. The rest of the album's just as good, beautifully produced (incognito) by my mate. But I won't say that to him.

On to the next pile and there's the new one from Andy Smythe. Andy's a singer/songwriter from down south and I once went to see him play in an Earls Court basement club, sometime in the late 90s. He's sent me all his releases since. He has a beautiful, almost choir-boy voice, and sings earnest, quite delicately calibrated songs straight from the heart. He ain't photogenic though and has picked a seriously odd shot for the cover - him with a quizzical semi-glazed expression and a towel half round his neck, like he's just come offstage and bumped his head on a low ceiling. Glamorous it ain't. But the voice and words are the thing with Andy, and both are in fine shape.

Now here's one I've been resisting. Dylan's Theme Hour radio show, one episode on a CDR which a kind lady has sent me from New York. Everyone tells me how great Bob's radio shows are but so far I've been putting off hearing any of them. I just don't wanna hear Dylan as a disc jockey. Something about the concept doesn't compute for me, doesn't square with my image of Bob. But I figure, ah well, today's the day I listen to all the CDs in the pile, so what the heck. I stick it on and this jive-talking, heavily accented, scripted sounding voice comes in and...I was right. I just don't wanna hear Bob doing this. I know he picks great music and he educates and entertains people with these shows, and gives exposure to stuff that time - or mankind - has forgotten, but this version, this incarnation, of Bob isn't for me. My heart is stuck on the sharp-tongued stream of consciousness jester of the mid 60s, or the mysterious aloof avatar of subsequent decades, or the gentle, mischievous fellow I was privileged to meet a couple of times in the 80s....all of which probably says more about me than it does about Bob, who is clearly comfortable shapeshifting into his own take on Wolfman Jack, as well he should be.

A sweet surprise follows: the new album by Ronan Snodaigh, a member of the Dublin band Kila. I love Ronan's stuff, strange paganistic rhythmic music that sounds like it was recorded in a bedroom by candlelight. The new Kila one's with it too, and I can't believe how African it sounds. The singers are hollering lustily in Irish but they could be from Lesotho.

A dozen or so other CDs get their shot in the sun - four or five minutes of my ear-time - and, not tickling my taste buds, are shunted onto a pile which will go in the Findhorn 'boutique', a little shed on the Findhorn Foundation's campus where people leave stuff they no longer want (books, clothes, shoes, hats, magazines, cassettes etc), where it lies, free for whoever wishes to take it.

Finally, at the bottom of the last pile, are two CDRs left at my house for me a few years ago, while I was away on tour, by an old friend called Lance. Lance is South African and once played dijeridu with me at a show at Findhorn's Universal Hall. He now splits his time between Norway and Africa and has put a selection of music from each country on each CD - one marked just 'Africa', the other just 'Norway'. Listening to CDR compilations made by people can be a terrifying task, but not this time. Lance has good taste and there's not a duff track. As I clear the debris and distribute the discs to their new homes - official CD collection shelves for the faves, a storage box in the garden shed for the others I want to keep or the 'boutique' pile for those I don't - the music of Africa shimmers through the room, blessing the air with its cleansing tones.

1:18 PM - 34 Comments - 32 Kudos - Add Comment

Mike’s world: Cali

I first met Bruno "Cali" Caliciuri in 1995, after a one-man show I did at a Parisienne club called L'European. He was standing backstage waiting with his girlfriend and a pile of Waterboys albums for me to sign. He was skinny, nervous, happy and friendly and I liked him; the kind of sweet fan it's a great pleasure to meet and whose enthusiasm makes a performer's day.

Ten years later I got a letter from a French manager, telling me that his artist, Cali, was a fan of mine, had met me a couple of times after shows in the past, and would I meet with him? The letter enclosed a copy of the first album by this "Cali", L'Amour Parfait, with a cover picture of a handsome, intense Frenchman holding a cat in his arms, cat-claw scratch marks on his face. I didn't recognise the picture as the nervous fan from 1995, but the album sounded great so I wrote back and said I would meet him.

The meeting happened in Galway, where I was doing a benefit show in May 2005. I hooked up with Cali and his manager in the lobby of my hotel. The moment I met him I remembered him as the skinny enthusiast from the Paris show. We hung out, had a meal in Donnelly's of Barna, 5 miles out of Galway on the road to Spiddal, and then Cali came and saw our show in Galway the next day.

After that we stayed in touch and Cali hired Steve Wickham to play on his second album. Steve subsequently played onstage with Cali at several Parisienne shows during 2006-7 and so kept me up to date with Cali's doings, and his considerable success in France where he had become a seriously big star.

In the Summer of 2007 Cali emailed me and asked if I would write a spoken-voice outro for a song on his new album. He sent me the track, titled Pas La Guerre, with accompanying translation of his French lyrics, and I concocted a vocal piece for it, recorded it at home on my own gear, and emailed it back to him as a soundfile.

But I also had a glimmer of an idea for a new song for Cali. I put together a piece of music called A List Of Lies, with a power-groove and a chorus but no verse lyrics and sent it to him. As I hoped, he dug it and promptly wrote verses (in French) and cut the track with his band. It sounded great - different from my demo, more Bo Diddley-ised, and featuring killer brass and a trombone solo. I overdubbed the chorus vocals in English, again on my own gear, during the last Waterboys tour, actually recording the vocals in my New York hotel, where the people in the next room must have been freaked out by the constant refrain of "Here is a list of lies" being hollered out by a jetlagged madman at eight o'clock in the morning.

The album - Cali's third - came out a couple of months ago and it's called L'Espoir. Darn good it is too. And so I was invited to sing the two songs at his Paris shows this week. The shows were at Zenith, a great barn of a place a few miles out of the city centre, and the two songs - plus an added Fisherman's Blues with Steve Wickham also playing - fell towards the end of the show. While waiting for my spots, my wife Janette and I watched the set from the side of the stage, perched on two high stools, with an ideal view.

And so I was able to see what the young guy who had waited with his pile of albums outside my show thirteen years ago was like on stage. Was he good? No, he was Great: a consummate showman and master of stagecraft, generous with the spotlight, sharing it with his band members, and working the audience like a dynamo. I've seen many great performers - from Mick Jagger to Bono to Iggy Pop - and there was something of all of those in Cali, yet he has something none of them has. Though he has the wisdom of his years, and a striking maturity as a performer, singer and songwriter, he also has an innocence, a sense of easy joy that radiates from him on stage and infects the audience. He performs with a delight as if it is the first show he has ever played, as if this is his first band. The keynotes of his persona are love and fun, and he carries himself deliciously lightly. There is an intensity in his being, but it is not the threatening, revolutionary intensity of Iggy, or the preening, predatory, strutting intensity of Jagger in his prime, or the serious, issues-concerned intensity of a Bono. Rather it is an intensity of light and of play.

Yes my friend is like a child-man at play on the stage, radiating light and a loving warmth that brings everybody into the party and turns the frigid wastes of Zenith into a parlour.

Then there's the music, which runs from dizbusting punk rock to old-time conjuring French chanson. And he has a fantastic band. The brassmen from List Of Lies are there, complete with a sly trombone player with long sideburns who, defying type, also plays sheet metal punk guitar and makes hip hop groove noises with his tongue. There's a stonkingly good bass player, Daniel, with a mohawk, a powerful showboating drummer, a crack guitarist (English) called Robert Johnson, not the one who met the devil at the crossroads, but he might as well have, his playing is so sharp, a trumpet and flugel horn man who supplies some of the show's most beautiful musical moments, and a superb keyboard player.

So it's a thrill for me to step out, three times each of two nights, into the happy musical inferno of the show, and find myself among new friends, musical peers, basking in the enthusiasm and generosity of Cali, Bruno, himself.

Wickham is late arriving. His passport, unfortunately, is at the Irish passport office for renewal, so he tries to fly internationally by proferring a driver's licence, the chancer, and is unsurprisingly turned back at the flight gates. This folly will give the rest of The Waterboys ammunition with which to genially roast him for many years to come! After a day of negotiations he gets a chit from the passport office that enables him to fly and he arrives at Zenith just in time to dust himself down, shake a leg, and hit the stage for a three-man Fisherman's Blues: himself, Cali and myself. Cali and I trade verses, Steve plays the familiar riffs and melodies and all is well with the world.

On the second night Steve plays on four or five songs, sounding as great as ever, and looks rather dashing in his red velvet jacket. After the show I collect some email addresses from the musicians - you never know when we might need some trombone! - and hang out with Cali, who, I'm pleased to see, is still wearing his stage clothes an hour after leaving the stage. The sign of a true believer, a true performer.

He is incredibly gracious about my having participated in his show, keeps telling me how much of an influence I've been for him. And he is gentlemanly with Janette, calling her to join a photo, making sure she feels perfectly welcome and at home. A beautiful, courtly man. But I have the last word. I have something to say to him, to this man I met backstage after a show so long ago who is now a consummate shining star. It's simple, it's to the point, and it's the truth.

Bruno, I tell him, You are a great artist.





www.myspace.com/brunocali

8:03 AM - 28 Comments - 37 Kudos - Add Comment

Our world: Obama’s speech today

The best, most honest, most courageous speech by a politician I’ve heard in my adult life. View it on our myspace page or read the text by clicking here.
Mike S

12:56 PM - 121 Comments - 75 Kudos - Add Comment

Mike’s world: out of the box 5, poems, notes and stuff

Here is the last selection from my wooden box - at least for now. Like many writers, I guess, I often jot down instructions to myself, and I include some of those here, along with a couple of poems, a declaration or two, and a few more unused lyric extracts from well known Waterboys songs. As for my work project: it proceeds excellently! Thanks for all your comments on the last four selections, and for taking the time to read all these.


WHITE MAN'S HIGHWAY (1985)
Interstate 94
and it's strange to be alive
on this drizzly day in 1985
barrelling forward at sixty-five
as northwest we drive
Amoco signs breaking the sky
verges, headlights, flat roofed buildings hurtling by
landscape blasted
long tamed by telegraph wires
and yet
out of the corners of my eyes I see them
the ghosts of trees
like the ghosts of great indians
standing witness
over the white man's highway


items not used in the 'list' section of
THE WHOLE OF THE MOON (1985)
geniusses and generals
tambourines and trains
party girls and jugglers
caravans and queens
skyscrapers, crackerjacks
parasols and jazzmen
schooners, battleships
secrets, victories
frieghtrains and steamboats
babies, floods
highways full of blood,
hammers and tomahawks
palaces and slaves
oceans full of waves
pumps, bars,
carriages and cars
every dream and aspiration underneath the stars


SELF-INSTRUCTION (1984)
Let
the woman inside of you
write your next
songs


SELF INSTRUCTION 2 (1984)
The attitude
which one brings
to bear
in music
must be to
Forge Ahead
new spaces
new shapes
new experiences
inhabit this mode while playing


DECLARATION (1984)
Many of my songs are spiritual but I am not a Christian. Rock and roll has been about cars, rebellion, sex, love, fantasy, dreams, drugs, alienation, politics and intellectual versions of the dream. Now is the time to head out and up into the Spiritual and bring back the news - whatever we find there - and build a climbing tower of the soul.


HOW ROCK AND ROLL WORKS (1983)
A sound dreamed by God
transcribed and decoded by Mike
played by Anthony, Roddy, Kev and Karl
recorded and mixed by Biff
released by Nigel
heard by the kids


INSTRUCTION TO SELF (1985)
Resurrect the narrative in poetic/wild/impressionistic form
- the non linear ballad cometh
Create new acoustic electric cold-country rock/folk music
jagged and rollingly pure as the land
folk music corresponds in shape and form
in nature and character
to the land it springs from
Bleak songs
5 string acoustics (no 'G')
droning electrics
pagan drums
bells
bells with drums
pagan drum grooves like the bass drum on Be My Baby
guitar rhythms like December and A Pagan Place
Guitar on low 'E' first half of line
high 'E' second, drumless half
this is the sound of rocks, caves and strong places, stony places
fantastic places
The lyrics to be removed from word reality
create another sense
and a sense of other
By this I mean not to come into centre
from where I am
but fearlessly express and use my own language
and do not simplify or codify for All
The lyrics - metaphysical, spirit/soul analogies, with correspondences and symbolism
But NARRATIVE


unused verses for
LET IT HAPPEN (1997-8)
Here comes the peace campaigner,
says the end justifies the means
Her voice, so full of reason,
burst like napalm on my dreams
I said "Peace is now or never"
She said "You must be joking", I just grinned
I said "You gotta live it every moment
or else you're just sucking wind"

My gambles and illusions
though patently absurd
left me so damn hungry
I had to eat my words
I sat down and wrote a letter
to the thief who occupied my mind
it said I've come to love you better
in the mellowing of time

The DJ cast his malediction
as the wedding guests appeared
it was as cruel as any fiction
I still carry the souvenir
He stood strapbacked with the spotlight
reflecting off his shining pate
I saw the quicksand in his eyes
and executed my escape


unused verse for
THE CHARLATAN'S LAMENT (1998)
The king of the jews
woke from his slumber
he said "give me the news
before I go under"
I kissed him upon the cheek
blood rushed to my head
in terror I heard him speak
this is what he said

Here I am
Here I am


HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE IN EIGHT WORDS (1994)
Love splintered
into infinite fragments
then collected itself

7:16 PM - 35 Comments - 35 Kudos - Add Comment

Mike’s world: out of the box 4, tune titles and fragments

More from the wooden box of old papers and writings that sits in my music room. These below are a short miscellaneous selection. There is so much material to work through, and my work demands I sift through it all, so I won't post any more for a few days. Just need to git on with the work. A further salvo will follow during the week.

TUNE TITLES
(note: these are titles for imaginary trad tunes (not songs, though they could be used for that too, of course). I love how evocative titles of trad tunes can be, eg 'The Quarrelsome Piper' or 'The Britches Full Of Stitches'. They don't exactly tell a story, but they suggest one. I often amuse myself inventing tune titles. Here is a selection. And these are available. If you're a trad player and want to write the tune to go with any of these, fire away. Send Paige an MP3 so I can hear it)

The Nosy Landlady
The Lapsed Catholic
The Late Pint
The Stranded Hitchhiker
The Lovesick Lilter
The March Of The Giant Gherkins
Gone Fishing
The Salamander
The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter
The Waltz Of The Toadstools
The Dancing Dustman
The Jaws Of Wedlock
A Night Of Fun
The Cat In The Tree
The Lonesome Bachelor
The Lucky Penny
The Buffs Abroad

unused sleevenote to
THIS IS THE SEA album, 1985
come with me on a journey under the skin down the highways of old england with the wind at our heels to fabulous places We will race like phantoms through cathedrals and churches with wide open doors singing 'what spirit is man can be' wearing coats and scarves hopping trains that run to medicine bow hearing trumpets and oysters and skirmishing violins What's to be had from these murderous skies? blues like showers of rain, a fistful of hurricanes, gene kelly breakdancing, a bucketful of babylon, heads full of lead I am sabotaged by nazis goons thieves cannonballs and television but I have heard the rumour of a golden age and I know how to let it come!

A GORGEOUS DAY (1988)
A gorgeous day it is outside
though not for the fly
that just now died

STEVE WICKHAM ON GOSPEL MUSIC (1986)
"I used to think God wrote those songs
when they sang them in church"

A MESSAGE (1983)
I'm speaking to you today
on behalf of Evolution
He sends his best
but would you please hurry up?

1:34 AM - 26 Comments - 36 Kudos - Add Comment

Mike’s world: out of the box 3, more unusued verses

These also from the wooden box. Something else tomorrow.

a Narnian twist on
MEDICINE BOW (1985)

I hear the sound of trees
being ripped down
the tearing of roots
as they crash to the ground
I know that I'll see
what I don't wanna face
when we ride on up
to Lantern Waste


unused verses for
BE MY ENEMY (1985)

Liars on my phone
criminals in my bed
gangsters in the background
and they're all wearing red
I've been smacked all around
by hands belonging to you
well if you'll be my enemy
I'll be your enemy too

My brain's in disgrace
'cos it won't keep still
the shade of my curtains
is making me ill
these shackles and irons
all of them forged by you!
Well if you'll be my enemy
I'll be your enemy too


unused long verse for
EVERYBODY TAKES A TUMBLE (1986)

ET he ain't comin' home
Prince is MIA
he went lookin' for the ladder
out California way
Dean is on the road again
Jack is in his grave
he not busy being damned
is busy being saved
Jesus walked out of Heaven
Saint Peter shut the gate
Furnaces are closing down
and time is getting late
L. Ron Hubbard has opened his cupboard
Elvis Presley style
Junkmen, Sandmen, Candymen
are puttin' on the style
heads are gettin' set to roll
politicians in too deep
Johnny Cash is rising
from a thousand year long sleep
The three wise men are running dry
their heads are on the block
Ronald Reagan's waltzing
on the roof with Baby Doc
The Stooges are playing 'Dirt'
and playing it damn well
Brer Rabbit has hit the hills
and Mister Toad as well
Huck Finn just went out for sticks
he ain't comin' back
and you just stumbled blind babe
right into my track!


unused verses for
THE NEW LIFE (1991)

fear of a beast
fear of a man
I've had about all the fear
that a body can stand
the new life starts here

users, abusers
wondering how
to sieze my attention
they can't touch me now
the new life starts here

are you building heaven?
are you building hell?
when the great day comes
will you be able to tell?
the new life starts here

are you coming together?
are you coming apart?
are you listening to fear
or to your heart?
the new life starts here

god of all love
who ignited the sun
not my will
but thine be done
the new life starts here


unused verses for
LONG WAY TO THE LIGHT (1992)

I got straight down to business
taking in the shows
Pearl Jam rocking the Roseland
Ray Charles blowing his nose
Soaking up the Gospel
sweating in the heat
buzzing up and down to Woodstock
and back to Hudson Street

We got right down to business
taking in the shows
Pearl Jam rocking the Roseland
Graffitti Man blowing his nose
Ray Charles at the Blue note
smokin' up a golden dawn
Ravi Shankar sweatin' light
and layin' the ragas on

Spent a weekend in Chicago
Jesus, it was cold!
the wind was whipping off the lake
and howling through my soul
I must have seen a hundred bands
in forty seven hours
what was that cloud of dust?
That was me and Mister Powers

The story of how they arrived
at the windblown caravan park
inspired and lit up my path
like a searchlight in the dark
Mrs Caddy moved me
like nothin' and no one else
I had to go there straightaway
and see it for myself


unused verses for
SUSTAIN (1999)
The enemy has the biggest tanks
and he sure knows how to use 'em
our best and only chance
is to thoroughly confuse him
I learned how to sustain myself
in storms

I wrote my songs in foreign rooms
I'll tell you about one day
I washed the sickness from my wounds
and rose on black stoat sunday
I learned.....

My manner at first mistook by you
you said I'd always fake it
I'm use to bein' rebuked by you
but that doesn't mean I'll take it
I learned...

Stayed up all night the night before
and when I woke I wondered
I knew that when I heard the door
the men at arms had blundered
I learned....

All was silence in the wood
a wicked spell, unbroken
she summoned all the strength she could
and spoke the great unspoken
I learned....

The thunder cursed and, raincoat clad,
we saw our bridges broken
she summoned all the strength she had
and spoke the great unspoken
I learned....

5:11 PM - 22 Comments - 37 Kudos - Add Comment

Mike’s world: out of the box 2, unused verses

Here's a second selection of writings I found in my wooden box. These are extra verses, written during the composition of each song but not used in the final released versions. I'll post some more tomorrow.

unused verses from
BRING 'EM ALL IN (1994)

bring 'em in the moment
bring 'em in the dawn
bring 'em from the wilderness
back where they belong

bring 'em from the deserts
bring 'em from the rain
bring 'em in their power
bring 'em in their pain

bring the little babes
innocent as they sleep
bring the pimp, the rapist
lay them at my feet

bring 'em in their hundreds
bring 'em in their hordes
bring 'em in their billions
lay them at my door

bring 'em from the battlefront
bring 'em from the hills
bnring 'em if they suffered
bring 'em if they killed

bring 'em from the cities
bring 'em from the land
bring 'em by the highways
bring 'em by the hand


alternative last verse to
OLD ENGLAND (1984)

Pan is afoot
the larks are singing
the first of morning's bells is ringing
a beautiful new born babe is crying
and old england is dying


poem which sparked the song
TRUMPETS (1984)

Your heart is like a church with locked doors
standing still and stone
rising out of the flat lands
give me the key to its door
and let me worship
at the sepulchre of your soul


unused verses for
THIS IS THE SEA (1984-5)

There's a crying in coaltown
there's a weeping in Slane
they're saying all down the line
Jesus is coming again
but it won't be flesh and blood this time
that ain't how it will be
no, not flesh and blood this time
that ain't how it will be
that was the river
and this is the sea

You've been reading about Churchill
You've been reading about Marx
educating youself for decades
but you're still in the dark
these things don't count now
when will you see?
these things don't count now?
when will you see?
that was the river
this is the sea

you're still doing business
you're still making bets
you're still riding around in taxis
and still smoking cigarettes
you better close up your mouth now
for we will not agree
close up your mouth now
for we will not agree
that was the river
this is the sea

you've been sharing my bed
you've been breaking my heart
you don't know what it does to me
knowing how soon we must part
you're young and you're gifted
you're slipping away from me
you're young and you're gifted
and you're slipping away from me
but we were the river
this is the sea

you've been twisted at home
you've been twisted at school
you've been twisted at work
turned into a clown or a fool
twisted all of your life
but you could be free
twisted all you life
but you could and you can be free
that was the river
this is the sea

you've been reading the Bible
and the Golden Dawn
MacGregor Mathers, old Crowley
the list it goes on and on
but you better close all your books now
listen to me
close up your books
and listen to me
that was the river
this is the sea

12:21 AM - 28 Comments - 50 Kudos - Add Comment

Mike’s world: out of the box 1, poems/fragments

For a project I'm working on, last night I had to go through all my old writing notepads and papers from the 1970s, 80s and 90s. I keep these in a wooden box. I came upon some unexpected odds and ends which I'll share with you over the next few days. Here's the first salvo, a selection of short poems and fragments.


THE SECOND COMING (1985)
There will not be one messiah
there will be billions


ON THE REMOVAL OF ST PATRICK'S STATUE FROM THE HILL OF TARA (1992)
So long, Saint Patrick
your statue is gone
from the high hill of Tara
but the light that shone
on this pagan hill
in the morning of Ireland
is shining still


WHAT THE THIRD ONE SAW (1989)
There was three ould witches
walking 'cross a heath
one had nae hair
and one had nae teeth
the third had nae sense,
nae sense at' a
naebody kens
whit the third one saw


TWENTY FOUR (1983)
I am twenty four years old
and I've never been so sick
everything I see just makes me
want to scream and kick


I GO OVER THE TOP ABOUT IGGY POP (1983)
Believe in him. Believe that it's true; that every hint of nobility, every drop of grace, each articulacy is real, no passing fancy or echo. It's all real, everything you expect it to be. There is more in his work, more depth, more passion, more soul, more communication, more language, more humanity, more intelligence, more greatness than in that of any of his contemporaries. His is the flagship forging forward, always further, always real. In real things there is always more after, more than the perceiver imagines or suspects. He is real. Believe in him. Love him. Learn from him.


WICKHAM (1986)
his black black
gypsy soul
his winter coat
is full of holes
his stubbly beard
is three days old
his head is full
of tales untold
the richer for the telling


MISTER WALLINGER (1983)
God bless Mister Wallinger
please take care of him
he doesn't eat well, you know
and he's much too far too thin
he smokes like a locomotive
and coughs with every dawn
God bless Mister Wallinger
and keep him keeping on


HEAVEN (1986)
It's only in the minds, deeds and effects of humans
that heaven does not exist!


DUBLIN DOLDRUMS (1991)
Drunks begging on Baggot Street
a cute whoor in the driving seat
weirdoes knowing my home address
bullshit in the Irish press
dog barking at 9 am
Sinead O'Connor giving out again
nothing but oldies on the radio
Tennants Lager selling rock and roll


OFFICIAL MEN (1983)
Official men ask "where are you going?"
I have no answer to this kind of question


A CHEERFUL COCKNEY (1988)
"Oi loikes a bit of sauce"
says Ross
"but dirty jokes
are for uvver blokes"


THE MORE YOU GIVE (1988)
The more you give, the lighter you get
the lighter you get, the further you go
the further you go, the more you see
the more you see, the more you learn
the more you learn, the more you can give
the more you give, the lighter you get
the lighter you get.......

12:15 AM - 39 Comments - 52 Kudos - Add Comment

WATERBOYS NEWS - Cali/Room To Roam/Celtic Conns/Thea
Category: Music

MIKE SCOTT CONTRIBUTES TO NEW ALBUM BY FRENCH SINGER CALI

Mike has contributed vocals to two tracks on L'Espoir, the new album by top French singer Cali, released by EMI/Virgin France on 4th February. Both Mike and Steve Wickham have been friends with Cali for several years, and Steve played fiddle on his last album, Menteur. On L'Espoir Mike contributes a spoken word section (in English) to the song Pas De Guerre, and sings co-lead vocals on the bonus track A List Of Lies, available only with the first pressing of the album. Both songs were written by Cali and Mike. Says Mike: "Cali is a true rock and roller, a troubadour, a chansonnier. It's a thrill to contribute to his album." For further info visit: here

ROOM TO ROAM - REMASTERED VERSION IS COMING

The fifth Waterboys' album, 1990's Room To Roam, is being prepared for remastering and reissue by EMI during 2008. Like the recent remasters of This Is The Sea and Fisherman's Blues, it will be issued as a 2CD set, the second CD comprising previously unissued material recorded during the same era as the original album. Mike Scott is currently selecting tracks for inclusion. As soon as we have more details and a release date we'll let you know.

CELTIC CONNECTIONS - WHAT HAPPENED

Mike appeared at the gala opening of the Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow on 16th January, sharing the stage with Julie Fowlis, Sharon Shannon, Luka Bloom, Karine Polwart, Kate Rusby, John McCusker, Karan Casey, Damien Dempsey and many other artists. The sold out concert, titled Common Ground and held at the Royal Concert Hall, included Mike's performance of two unreleased songs, The Wedding and The Wyndy Wyndy Road (a new lyric to a tune by Scottish musician Phil Cunningham). For the encore the whole ensemble performed Sunny Sailor Boy, with lead vocals by Luka Bloom and Mike, and Mike's rearrangement of the Scottish classic Will Ye No' Come Back Again?, set to the air of the great Irish song Mo Gile Mear. To read reviews click here and here.

STEVE WICKHAM GUESTS ON NEW THEA GILMORE ALBUM

Steve plays fiddle on The Lower Road, the closing track on Thea Gilmore's new album Liejacker, released March 31st on Fulfill Records. Thea is an old friend of The Waterboys; she supported on the band's 2006 UK tour and two songs on her last album, Harpo's Ghost, were co-written with Mike Scott. As well as featuring Steve, The Lower Road has guest vocals by Joan Baez. For further info visit: here

2:11 AM - 12 Comments - 18 Kudos - Add Comment

Mike’s world: folk versus rock prejudices

Last week it was my pleasure to play with many fellow artists at the opening night of the Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow. I shared the stage with my old friends Sharon Shannon and Luka Bloom, fellow Scots Donald Shaw and John McCusker, and lots of new pals including the up and coming singers Julie Fowlis and Karine Polwart, soulful Irish singers Karan Casey and Damien Dempsey, as well as some of the finest instrumentalists from these islands. Oh yeah, and some impossibly brilliant Americans as well.

I always love these kind of events, the thrill of being part of the musical club, hearing and joining in the sessions backstage, the unexpected musical collaborations and explorations that arise, and the simple inspirational effect of being among other artists.

Yet I also experience a sadness when I participate in shindigs like this one which are grounded in the folk music tradition. The sadness arises because, as a child of rock and roll, and regardless of my many years of interaction with traditional musicians, I am seen by a small minority of folkie diehards in the audience as an interloper, a representative of what they see as a shallower, more superficial, less musical, less worthy world. It's bollocks of course, but it still happens and I can sense it in the air.

I should say at this point that this prejudice, to give it its proper name, very rarely emanates from musicians. Between the participating musicians, in my experience, there is only the mutual respect and fraternity of fellow travellers, and genre or background have damn all to do with it. No, the prejudice is in the heads and hearts of a small conservative portion of the folk audience. These are the same people who cried foul when Bob Dylan went electric, and, equally sadly, they have their counterpart bigots in the rock audience - dopes who think folk music is only about sticking your finger in your ear and wearing a woolly jumper.

Fortunately most music journalists and DJs are above this argument and accept musicians as musicians, but every now and again I encounter this genre prejudice among members of the press. No writer is more reactionary and churlish than the conservative folk music 'expert'. One such, writing about last week's concert in a Scottish newspaper, praised all the 'folk' musicians to the heavens, and then went to great lengths to surgically rubbish Luka Bloom, Damien Dempsey and myself, the three interlopers from pop and rock. I knew what was coming even before I read through the article, being alerted by the prejudiced anti-rock slant of the first paragraph.

What saddens me is that this absence of respect for people from different backgrounds from oneself - one of the biggest problems in our world, as we can all see on our TV screens every day - exists, in degenerated but self-righteous form, even within the magical realm of music, like a mean little snake in a beautiful wild garden.

There is also a fun side to this, however. It gives me great pleasure to f**k with such peoples' expectations whenever I play at so-called 'folk music' festivals - and especially to outrage them by doing new things with 'their' music!

7:41 PM - 79 Comments - 94 Kudos - Add Comment