MUSINGS OF A WANDERING OAF

BLOGGER: fren attic
WEBSITE: wanderingoaf.blogspot.com

OBSERVATIONS ON 21ST CENTURY LIFE FROM THE RELATIVE SAFETY OF A GARDEN SHED.
OAF(N): CHANGELING, USUALLY DEFORMED, LEFT BY THE FAIRIES; A DOLT; A LOUT; AN AWKWARD FELLOW



Thus far I have avoided infection from the beasts of the air and the beasts of the field and I feel a minor celebration is in order. I rest my worn quill (my prodigious digits) and crack open a bottle of Pinot Grigio, pouring it down my gullet like a starved cormorant - no Sideways reference intended.

Having no wish to carnify my apportionment of wit and wisdom, however slight that may be, I have begun to exercise not my sickly corpus but something all together more important - my judgement. It is my intention to regale the weary surfer with delectable titbits on myriad subjects, including politics, culture, sex, drugs and sofas. I hope no one gets injured in the process.

I shall do my best to be succinct for, as my granny was fond of saying, non multa, sed multum – not quantity but quality. She was a Latin scholar who occasionally lapsed into drunkenness. I, on the other hand, am a scholar of drink who occasionally lapses into Latin. Nota bene.

PAUL VICKERS COMEDY, SARAHJANE'S "GHOST", KONO MICHI in THE STRAD

BLOGGER: shark batter records
LOCATION: scottish borders & brooklyn, new york
WEBSITE: sharkbatter.com
MYSPACE: myspace.com/sharkbatterrecords

Paul Vickers performs live in Edinburgh with help from Twinkie, Bruntsfield Lottie and Joyce Bananas. Includes the famous story of the elephant chimney sweep. Dancing Jim, and Barbara Bananas's death-trip train ride.





Sarahjane Swan singing a rendition of her next single, Ghost, with rogerSIMIAN (The Stark Palace) playing fairly bad piano.



Kono Michi 9 Death Haiku review in The Strad, June 2009:



Kono Michi is a New York-based concert violinist and erstwhile Silk Road Ensemble collaborator, and has come up with this intriguing and exquisitely beautiful setting of Japanese deathbed haikus. 

If you listen to this wanting to hear violin music, you might be disappointed. True, Michi's pedigree on the instrument is manifest, with a dexterity and refined expression, whether in the crystalline melody and pulsing accompaniment of Vanish or the gossamer-light pizzicato of Cherry Blossoms. But these songs are about the whole package. The spare, open-ended lyrics, peaceful and occasionally darkly tinged, demand subtlety, and Michi delivers.

Her voice is gently honeyed, with a Bjork-like quirkiness that tempers the languid, summertime ambience of the sound. And around the succinct text, she crafts precise, imaginative textures, with layered violin lines and delicate percussion, expanded by touches of reverb that do not tarnish the solo violin on top. Michi draws on Gershwin, Weill, impressionism and Japanese traditional music within a popular format - a bold venture that occasionally jars as so many styles rub up against each other, threatening to overpower the words. Then again, the variety of moods and range of musical allusions explore the acres of unspoken meaning that each haiku offers from a number of angles. And overall, the album coheres into a distinctive sound that reflects Michi's personal blend of cultural influences (she was born to Japanese and Polish-American parents). This is a great advert for music that breaks through the pop-classical barrier.

SHARK BATTER feature in SUNDAY HERALD

BLOGGER: shark batter records
LOCATION: scottish borders & brooklyn, new york
WEBSITE: sharkbatter.com
MYSPACE: myspace.com/sharkbatterrecords



Sound of the underground
The big-time music industry may be suffering as the internet and economy bite, but in Scotland the grassroots scene is thriving. A new generation of web-savvy talent is emerging from unlikely places, ignoring all the rules … and taking on the world. Edd McCracken meets the bands, venues and labels creating a vibrant community of new music...

THE LABELS

News of the demise of major music labels is nothing new. They reacted to the internet as swiftly as an oil tanker doing a three-point turn in a shipping lane. And so, where once talks of international record deals were the preserve of musical ivory towers in London, LA and New York, today the scene shifts to a day-glo cafe in an Asda in Galashiels.

Two brothers sit at their usual table by the window, enjoying cheap coffee, discussing what to do with their signing from New York. Roger Simian and Mike Small played in a mildly successful Britpop band, Dawn Of The Replicants, but have swapped sweaty live venues for running their own record label, Shark Batter. Begun in 2006 and named after a defence technique for dealing with Jaws (rather than a Borders delicacy), it is part of a resurgence in Scottish indie labels, a musical sub-genre that gave the world Postcard Records in the 1980s and the booming Fence Collective. They are rising in bedrooms, kitchens and supermarket coffee shops, nimbly filling in the gaps left behind by crumbling majors.

"Indies are coming back, although it's different to what it was before" says Roger. "It is easier to set a label up now, thanks to the internet, but there are new difficulties, too."

The withering of the independent label's trusted distribution method is one such difficulty. The number of small, dedicated record shops has dwindled. As has the music press: only the NME remains as a weekly diet, while monthly magazines are in thrall to stadium acts or slavishly cater to the baby boomers' record collections.

While Shark Batter still burn promotional CDs, packed in home-made cases, they will be sent as readily to mp3 bloggers and online fanzines as to Q magazine. In an age when such a DIY ethos reigns, their tagline has an agreeable Del Boy chutzpah to it: "DIY Indie Label from Scottish Borders & Brooklyn, New York".

"It's somewhere between tongue in cheek and our ambition," says Roger. "One of the things now is that instead of indie labels being identified with one label and one country, thanks to the internet you can reach out and find an audience in America, Europe or Mexico, as well as your own country. There is a fascination with other cultures. Connections will be made, like twinning cities." He stops, as if contemplating whether to put his tongue back in his cheek for the next remark. "We'd like Galashiels to be twinned with Brooklyn."

The link with New York's hippest borough is not speculative. It comes from Shark Batter signing Kono Michi, right, a classically trained concert violinist and singer who manages to embody the sound of both John Cale and Nico in her slight frame. Mike bonded with Michi via MySpace over a love of The Cocteau Twins. She recorded violin for his band, The Stone Ghost Collective, before agreeing to be signed to their label.

Reflecting the "Think Global, Act Local" approach to running a label, Shark Batter's signings are highly personalised: Sarahjane Swan lives in their old house and Mike was her guitar teacher; the lead singer in the wonderfully titled Vacuum Spasm Babies worked on the same music fanzine as Roger; and The Stark Palace is Roger's own band.

As a career, they "get by" running Shark Batter. "We're not making any major profit out of it," says Mike. "We're always looking for new angles. We're full of ideas. One of us keeps the other on the ground. But we'll always be based in Galashiels. You don't always have to be based in big cities and follow the traditional routes. Besides, we get free coffee refills in Asda."

Kono Michi's 9 Death Haiku and Vacuum Spasm Babies' Whipping Clowns are out now on Shark Batter Records; www.sharkbatter.com