Madness
Category: Life

I have long been an admirer of Michel Foucault, the French philosopher, and have ransacked his book, The Order of Things, for appropriate quotations when writing about the philosophical/theoretical aspects of architecture.  I would have to say I didn't find The Order of Things an easy book: it's not the sort of thing you take to the beach on holiday; much better read by a blazing fire in the depths of winter with a glass of Pinot Noir to hand.  Having said that, the access he provides to ways of thinking throughout the ages is staggering and I have found my own inchoate explorations given considerable enlightenment through reading the book, not once, but twice, and delving separately into relevant sections.

A more recent, though less weighty tome, which I did read on holiday in Strathyre was Modernism: the lure of heresy by Peter Gay, a fantastic tour d'horizon of art and culture.  With that book dispatched I was casting around for something else demanding and came across Foucault's earliest work, Madness and Civilisation, first published in 1961, in Borders.  I am gripped.  It's bursting with revelations and quotable quotes and I suspect I'm about to become very boring on the topic quite soon.

This is not your soft self-improvement therapy account but an exposition of madness in its varying degrees in all its disruptive transference.  With my own bi-polar therapy proceeding at a leisurely pace it's fascinating to have the nature of madness dealt with so viscerally and it's thrown up a number of interesting points of argumentation that I am keeping in reserve for my next session.

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The band
Category: Music

Following my conversation with Nick in London ten days ago and with my younger son Daniel at the Maltings last Friday, I've been encouraged to revisit the idea of "the band". 

I felt last year that both The Emmerson/Trepka/Clarke Band (e/t/c) and the Modern Blues were showing a positive direction just at the point they ceased, both having been, quite consciously, construed as projects of limited duration.

Since then in conversation with various promoters it has become clear there's a real market for the right sort of electric band and opportunities have been offered to me to play (as a band) in Glasgow, Perth and Newcastle, which, lacking that very thing, I've had to turn down.

Here then is the plan: over the summer, I will seek to enlist guitar, bass and drums (I'm not into complex instrumentation: if that traditional format is good enough for Neil, it's good enough for me); start rehearsing in early autumn; demo CD late autumn; first gigs in the winter.  So if you know of / are a reasonably-experienced Edinburgh or nearly-based guitarist, bassist or drummer and are looking for a different outlet check out the songs on www.thebluesfather.com. If they're to your liking and you think you have something to add musically, just email me on the myspace or at roger.emmerson@3dreid.com, give me some idea of your musical background and interests and we can take it from there. All replies treated with seriousness. 

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London
Current mood: breezy
Category: Travel and Places

It's all been a bit hectic recently and this has been my first opportunity in days to sit down at the computer other than doing a flying visit to check emails.

Chris and I took Ben to London for his 15th birthday treat and as a reward for working hard (kind of) towards his exams.  A brief list of the highlights would include: the Imperial War Museum Holocaust exhibit and the Focke Wulf Fw190 fighter (my favourite WWII airplane) and the Ian Fleming exhibition; the newly restored Albert Memorial (pagan and imperial); Lords Cricket Ground; the Dan Dare exhibition at the Science Museum (fabulous original storyboard artwork); the Globe Theatre and meals at the Indian restaurant in Hammersmith (where you sit on cuchions at a low table on a dias), the Chinese buffet in Chinatown, the pizza in Covent Garden and the Greek restaurant in Soho.

I also managed fit in several pints with Nick Trepka who, as I had guessed, is doing great things in music in London.  We sat in a local music bar which had exactly right kind of scruffy ambience that live music requires. Be good to take the guitar next time. Nick is working with a couple of bands, helping out in a recording studio and mastering albums and providing a soundscape to a local art project.  He is clearly having a fabulous time.

Speaking of scruffy ambiences brings me to last Wednesday's Blue Wednesday. With the help of the lovely Fernando we had the sound set up inside of 5 minutes! I was a bit off on the night: the return from London on Tuesday and a hellish return to work with attendant mega-emails and 6 hours' worth of meetings had taken its toll. Still we had standout sets from BW virgins Jenny Concannon and Rossco Galloway which were much appreciated by a great audience.

Thursday night Daniel, now permanently returned from Inverness, and I went to hear Shannon in her guise of Beth Adams singing a jazz standards set at the Ark.  I was intrigued almost as much to see how the Ark operated (a spin-off of Henry's) as I was to hear Shannon. I had even toyed with the idea of asking to play. Not now, however.  An entirely amateurish set up which seemed to be run like a youth club and was entirely unencouraging for strangers to join in.  £4 on the door for a show that started an hour late and whose performers were not even being paid.  I could go on, about the promoters who monopolised the show, the unshuttered windows which meant daylight streamed into the room, the expensive beer, the misuse of a town centre location, the lack of adequate advertisement, but life is too short.  Despite the imperfections of The Forest we don't charge, we start on time, we finish on time, we don't muck about in between, we advertise and we've gained a reputation for never having put on an act that was less than brilliant.  It doesn't take much, just a bit of hard work and conviction and the realisation that the audience comes first, the acts second and the promoter a distant third.

In an effort to escape the Ark we headed up to Infirmary Street to the Royal Oak where, surprise, Rossco was hosting a totally unplugged session.  This was much more the thing.  In addition to the incredibly-talented Rossco there was a shy young man called Paul who we persuaded to play (fantastic) and two amazing women performers, Hannah and Susannah.  Along with the name of another female singer Rossco plays guitar for I managed to add three acts to the BW roster just by accident.  If you don't go out and listen and talk to people you can really miss the good stuff.

Off to the Maltings in a moment.  Hope my playing's improved from Wednesday!

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Now and then
Current mood: rockin
Category: Blogging

What not to say to your boss

I was in the kitchen at work the other day sticking the latest Blue Wednesday poster to the wall unit (look to your left) as the chairman of our company fussed around with the coffee percolator. He is a lovely, charming man and shows a genuine interest in what each individual in the company is up to.  He obviously felt moved to comment that after a year of my postering the kitchen he hadn't attended a gig.

"One of these days...." he said.

"Don't feel obliged," I replied, "I put the posters up as a public service announcement."

He laughed. "I always enjoy the posters."

"I'm just a frustrated comic strip artist," I offered at which point the conversation kind of dried up.  Was there an implicit criticism of architecture, his company, my job contained in that throwaway remark?

Bannerman's

A small but enthusiastic crowd were present at the Bluesfather's Bannerman's debut including (surprise, surprise) one of my work colleagues. A lot of nice people came up at the end to say thanks and I conducted, for the benefit of one, a masterclass in the use of the capo.  My workmate said he'd enjoyed it and would try to get some mates along to Blue Wednesday next week.  He then said,

"I hope you don't me saying, but you sound a lot like..."

"...Neil Young," I finished the sentence for him. "Everyone says it and I'm flattered."

Richard behind the bar, who set everything up, seemed pleased and will contact the promoter to get me another gig.  It's a cool wee venue at the very bottom of an 18th century ten-storey stone-built tenement in Edinburgh's Kafkaesque Old Town.

Whistlebinkie's

The clock struck 12 midnight and my workmate and self made the stiff walk up to the top of Niddry Street, past various music dives and practice rooms tucked into the mysterious, uncharted and haunted basements beneath the Bridges, and into Whistlebinbkie's for Alan's (aka Little Pebble of the Fence Collective) open mic night (open till 3.00am). I've got a lot of time for Alan, especially since our joint gig with Anna in Melrose when we actually had some time for a conversation. 

Whistlebinkie's was its usual raucous self so not the time for subtlety.  I settled on what I have come to think of as the Newcastle medley: Simma's Song, Blue Star and Enigma Triangle.  It's a convenient group in the keys of E and B which entails the use of the capo (see above) covering the top 5 strings at the second fret to produce a drone on the A-shaped Bmajor chord and the Eminor-shaped Fsharp minor transitional chord, a double octave on the D-shaped Emajor chord while permitting a straightforward G-shaped Amajor. It also has the advantage that I can use the same harmonica in the key of E on all three songs both by playing it straight in E  for Simma's Song and bending it down five semi-tones to B for Blue Star and Enigma, consequently obviating the need to change harmonicas in mid-set. Do keep up! 

The medley starts slow but gets into a nice rocking groove in the coda to Simma's Song which it maintains throughout the slightly funky Blue Star before I hit the tasty (though I say it myself!) rawk riff to Enigma and has the merit that it can be played LOUD to considerable advantage.  No wonder my hearing is going and incipient tinnitus a peril. Fantastic sound from Alan with monitors, for once, giving a clear idea on stage what it sounded like out in the body of the kirk.

Serendipity being what it is, there were a group of lasses from Newcastle in the crowd who knew Enigma well before it closed (a sad loss, one of the better music bars in toon) and got a number of the references in Blue Star. Consequently, great banter with the audience who gave a fantastic response and, yet again, the Bluesfather had them on their feet dancing.  It's what it's all about - it's visceral not intellectual, it's rock even when played on an acoustic guitar and a mouth organ.

Back to work

Despite the strip cartoon crack I still had a job this morning though I was not feeling the brightest of bunnies as I sat down in front of the computer at 8.30am. Still, within minutes, Jo, one of my assistants, produced cups of her industrial strength coffee and it was all good again.

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Gigs 2
Category: Music

A wee update:

18.05.08: The Bluesfather plays Acoustic Angels at The Centurion, Central Station, Neville Street, Newcastle upon Tyne.

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Gigs
Category: Music

Upcoming gigs for the Bluesfather are:

18.04.08: The Liquid Ship, Great Western Road, Glasgow, 8.00pm

28.04.08: Bannerman's, Cowgate, Edinburgh, 10.00pm

07.05.08: Blue Wednesday, The Forest Cafe, 3 Bristo Place, Edinburgh, 9.00pm

May, date tbc: Acoustic Angels, The Centurion, Central Station, Neville Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, 8.00pm

04.06.08: Blue Wednesday, The Forest Cafe, 3 Bristo Place, Edinburgh, 9.00pm

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The Bluesfather is back!
Current mood: amused
Category: Blogging

Hello

Well, it's cool to be back online and very nearly fully functioning.  It's been some weeks since my last blog of any length.  I was going to say, of any consequence, but that seemed to imply I thought that any or all of my blogs were of consequence rather than what they really are; the ethereal meanderings of a half-mad, half musician.

Robin Hood

One of my holiday activities was archery.  I did archery, very briefly, at school: briefly for reasons I will come to in a moment.  Archery at Strathyre, however, was a revelation. Not only could I hit the target every time, but I was scoring regular golds and reds.  Once, after joking about splitting arrows in two - a la Robin Hood - I managed to get two golds almost in the same spot! 

I was asked whether I was right- or left-handed.  I said left, but then realised I held the bow right-handed.  Ambi-dextrous, schmambi-dextrous, who can say or actually, care.  Anyhow, it transpired that drawing back the string right-handed meant that the fingertips of my right hand, calloused through years of holding down steel strings on the guitar, were entirely suited to the task.  I also managed to guess correctly what compensation I needed to allow for wind, arrow drift and general clumsiness and there I was, Kevin Costner with the dulcet tones of Bryan Adams in my ears.

The Bayeux Tapestry

Archery at school was short-lived.  About ten minutes short-lived as I recall.  The school sports ground was large with a pavilion at one end, behind which were tennis courts.  The archery was taking place at the farthest point from the pavilion.  Our gym teacher, Mr Carson, was a fascist shit (part of the job description, I think), boastful and arrogant, and had been giving us a big spiel about his prowess with the bow and arrow (the same prowess as he claimed with the rugby ball, boxing gloves, oars, hockey stick, you name it).  The class was getting restive now, eager for a shot at the archery, as he droned on.  At a suitable break in his self-congratulary monologue I asked him how far he could fire the arrow. "Do you think you could get it to the pavilion, sir?"

Flies, dogshit: you arrange the words.

Carson took aim and let loose a mighty shot.  The arrow arced into the air over rugby pitches, sand pit and running track on a determined trajectory for the pavilion...no, wait a moment, over the pavilion and, yes!.. into the tennis courts behind. "Gosh, well done, sir!" "That was amazing, sir!"  "I didn't think anyone could fire it that far, sir!" As he bathed in this sycophantic crap, my mate Graeme staggered out from behind the pavilion, a distant figure, clutching frantically at the arrow which appeared to have pierced his eye. 

Carson blanched and staggered a bit himself. Graeme was now writhing on the ground in front of the pavilion and had drawn quite a crowd of onlookers, bored of punishment circuits round the running track.  Carson, now in possession, just about, of his faculties, set off towards the pavilion at a pace not inconsistent with his claimed prowess on the running track.  As Carson began loom into his view from the eye not obscured by his hand and the arrow, Graeme leapt to his feet, dropped the offending barb and disappeared, at speed, in a homewards direction.

Of course, it had been a fix, but Carson was so embarrassed at his arrant stupidity in falling for the bait and for firing the arrow so recklessly that he was unable to undertake his usual macho punishment stunt of belting the entire class on both hands and then getting them to do press ups on their reddened palms. 

Graeme and I, however, were (specially) marked men from that day onwards in the gym or on the sports field and, until Strathyre the other week, archery was a closed book to me.

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Blog on the run!
Current mood: rushed
Category: Life

I’ve been gigging, on holiday and the home computer is in for a bit of colonic irrigation so I’m dashing this off at work.  Hope to be back in full working order (the computer, not me - too late for that) soonest.

Holiday lo-ku

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Good bye
Category: Life

Good bye

We drove down the coast today to North Berwick where the Firth of Forth meets the North Sea, principally to get some fresh air.  And, believe me, in a biting north-easterly wind with the occasional flurry of snow it doesn’t get much fresher than the beach at North Berwick. An ancillary purpose was to scatter my mum’s ashes which I’ve had in the house for the past two years.

North Berwick was where my mum and dad spent many happy days right from the time they acquired a car.  It’s an easy and interesting drive hugging the shoreline for a fair part of the way, passing through couthy villages such as Longniddry, Aberlady, Gullane and Dirleton with its superb castle and with views of the Bass Rock and the Isle of May and the Fife coast from the Bridges to the East Neuk.  Once in NB my parents would picnic beside the beach - always the west beach - walk round the harbour, have a game of putting and then take high tea in a tea rooms in the main street. I think they might liked to have retired there.

We spent some time pottering round charity shops, always looking for a bargain off the beaten track, where Ben picked up a video history of cricket, and a local art gallery where we saw the painting, actually a collage, that we really, really want. It was made up of strips and shapes of torn paper, tissue and art paper, which had been soaked in bright water colour and assembled into an abstract landscape which just pulsed with luminosity.  Chris and I love strong colour - all the paintings we’ve ever bought are bright and challenging and we’ve always painted our homes in strong colour, we’re currently going through a purple/blue/green/yellow/stone phase - and the painting appealed immediately through its subject, colour and technique. However, at a cool £1200 it wasn’t going to happen yet.

Today, the walk along the west beach to a convenient rocky headland was straight into the gale and I had to position myself carefully when I got there to ensure I was downwind when I unscrewed the lid and tipped the ashes into the sea.  Back home I put the used container into our wheelie bin and was amused at the embossed notice on the lid: NO HOT ASHES. 

A significant number

The last person to visit the blog clocked up the 7000th visit. A pleasant and significant number containing a seven and not one, not two but three zeroes. Thanks for your interest. No prizes, I’m afraid.

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Aerial
Category: Automotive

I’m typing this in Arial as it seems relevant.

Last night possibly, I only noticed the loss this morning, but it could have been earlier, someone carefully unscrewed and removed my car aerial.  Removed, take note, not snapped off. We get a better class of vandal in Shandon.  It’s this kind of trivial nuisance that really irritates as it almost always entails wasted hours sourcing the part.  It also reminds me how I have not been treating the poor Puma very well recently.  It’s unwashed, the interior is full of mud, straw and worse and smells like a stableyard, the boot is a tip where I’ve piled all the used juice cans, Greggs’ bags and sweetie wrappers from various lunchless jaunts round the country.  The only thing that has been looked after is the mechanics.

I’m feeling doubly guilty since, during a bout of channel hopping the other week when off sick, I hit on a second-hand car programme on some obscure channel. The screen filled with a close-up of the gorgeous, sensuous, spherical aluminium knob on the gearstick with it’s 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and R gearshift identifiers in a delightfully retro Compacta typeface - probably the single thing that sold me on the Puma when I test drove it over five years ago.  There was a lot of chat about acceleration, road-holding, performance, fun, etc. which I knew anyway.  The crunch was the model.  Phew!  I’d got the right one -  1.7 litre with air conditioning (which I never use as it costs in petrol).  The presenter suggested the car is currently valued at around £4000, not bad for a 1998 model, and is depreciating verrrrry slowly, bearing out my contention that one day it’ll become a collector’s item.

Shorn of its aerial and with numerous small dents at those awkward corners where it never seems quite to fit between other vehicles, walls, bollards or cones, it is simply not living up to it’s £4000 price tag or collector’s item status.  I need to institute a programme of loving care and attention and restore the vehicle to as near pristine condition as I can.  My only concern now is the engine, fast-approaching 100,000 miles.  Still, I like to think that we’re growing old together, looking forward to metaphorical evenings in front of the fire with pipe and slippers, a whisky to hand, and a damned good read; Erskine Childers, Percy F Westerman, H Rider Haggard, John Buchan or some such. Us chaps have to maintain standards.

In passing, if anyone is offered a Puma aerial in a local pub chances are it’s mine. Buy it back and I’ll refund you and offer a pint of Deuchars into the bargain.

Currently listening : Foo Fighters By Foo Fighters Release date: 16 December, 2003

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