Gigs and stuff - Shrag, Tunabunny, Allo Darlin', Maple Leaves, Grouplove and Butcher Boy

It's been been a while since I've posted here so I figured I'd do a quick roundup of gigs I've been to recently. 

Starting with the most recent, I saw Shrag supported by Tunabunny at The Captain's Rest earlier this week. I've been a Shrag fan for a while now and seen them live at least half a dozen times, but this was the first time I'd caught them in Glasgow.

Shrag

Most of the set was from their forthcoming album, coincidentally recorded just up the road in Hamilton, and it was a pretty good set. They're the kind of band that doesn't really blow you away, they're just consistently very good. They play a lot of gigs and it shows.

Tunabunny were relatively new to me. A few people on the Anorak forum had raved about them, so the fact that they were playing was definitely an incentive for me to go.

They were kind of shambolic, deliberately so, and the sort of band that I have to get into a certain mindset to enjoy. I'm more into the polished end of the spectrum when it comes to bands so I have to consciously go with it when I'm watching a ramshackle group and try to enjoy it for what it's meant to be. I don't think I'll ever be a massive fan but they easily kept my attention for the half hour they were on.

Tunabunny


Tunabunny

About a week before that we saw another couple of bands at The Captain's Rest - Allo Darlin' supported by Maple Leaves. Allo Darlin' are another band I've been into for a while and seen live a number of times but they never disappoint. They've got a new album coming out soon and played quite a few new songs - all sounding good.

We were sitting off to one side, so I could only see the band through a tiny gap between the PA and the wall. It took me a while to fully get into it, maybe because we couldn't really see the band, but I enjoyed it and it was encouraging to see a band rooted in the indiepop scene doing well and selling out the venue on a Monday night.

Allo Darlin'

Maple Leaves are a really solid Glasgow band that leans in more of a folky/singer-songwriter direction than my usual taste, but they've got good tunes and are nice people. 

In fact, they're so nice that their on-stage banter gives the impression that a group of children's TV presenters have got together and formed a band. I don't mean that as an insult! They gave out free CDs with some new material too, which was a nice touch.

Maple Leaves

The order of this post is a bit jumbled, but the night after Allo Darlin' we went to see Grouplove at King Tut's. I hadn't been to Tut's for a long time and I think it's a bit overrated as a venue, but I enjoyed it. Grouplove are a band Louise put me on to and they're pop without the indie, but they've got brilliant tunes. Their album is pretty much hit after hit, musically if not in a commercial sense. 

I was a little distracted as I tried to work out who the singer reminded me of, until it clicked - a combination of Tom Dugan and  Ollie from Made in Chelsea (not that I watch that...).

Grouplove


Grouplove

Finally, we went to see Butcher Boy play at the Glasgow Film Festival. They were playing instrumental versions of their songs along to a friend's home videos from the 1950s and 60s, and at the end they played Helping Hands from their new album. I took a video on my phone - it's dark but the sound quality is decent:

In between the gigs and work Louise and I have done some other stuff. We took a trip to the new Riverside Museum (transport museum) the other week, which was decent. I came back with this awkwardly-posed photo as a souvernir:

We both wanted to get out of Glasgow for a bit after a busy Christmas and new year so we booked a cheap overnight in the Atholl Palace hotel in Perthshire. Not sure if I'd rush back - the food was pretty dire from a vegetarian point of view - but it was good to get away and relax for the night,

That just about brings you up to speed. Louise is away in Brighton today getting tattooed so I've got a day to myself for blog posting, football watching and sitting around in my pyjamas-ing. We spend so much time tgether that I don't know what to do with myself when I get a free day. She'll be back tonight though, thankfully.

Brighton and New Year

Guess where?

Me

Lou

Tender Trap

Brighton Wheel

Once again, sorry for the lack of blogging. It's the 31st of December and in previous years I've done a bit of a roundup of how the year has gone for me, but I'm not really in reflective mood.

Having said that, 2011 has been pretty cool. I've got engaged, got a new job, FINALLY finished my BMX video, and things are overall pretty good. Not saying it's been an easy year by any means but things have taken a big step in the right direction.

There's some other stuff that has been less good - I'm sad about taking a step back from putting on club nights and gigs but it was becoming more stress than fun and I never wanted to string it out after I stopped enjoying it. I've also felt pretty out of the loop in terms of new music and seeing my friends and stuff but I've only got myself to blame for that one. I'll try to be less of a recluse in 2012!

If you're wondering, the photos above are from a little weekend trip Louise and I took to Brighton a couple of weeks ago. She's really into tattoos and the guy who tattoos her has moved there, so it was a good excuse for a weekend away. She got a new tattoo and I got to drink in some nice pubs - can't complain.

By a happy coincidence, there was a really good gig lined up on the Saturday night so we went along. Riots Not Diets had put together a showing of the K Records documentary followed by three bands, including the brilliant Shrag and Tender Trap. It came at the end of a long day so we were a bit out of it, but it was a good night.

I'm just planning on staying in tonight with Lou and a few beers. Neither of us are really into the Hogmanay party thing. After that, my dad's getting married on 3rd January which should be a good day, then back to work on the 5th.

I hope you've all had a good year too, and thanks for sticking with the blog despite the less-frequent updates. I can't promise they'll be more regular next year but I'll certainly keep checking in when I get a chance.

West brewery tour and Lawrence of Belgravia

I'll just make this a short post. I had a busy weekend just there, with the West brewery tour and the Dolly Mixture/Lawrence of Belgravia screening at the Glasgow Film Theatre.

Louise got me the brewery tour as a present and it was pretty sweet. We had left it late to book so the only available slot was midday on Sunday. I have to admit I wasn't fully up for the samples of beer followed by a pint that was part of the deal, but I choked it down. Some would call it heroic...

Awkward posed photo? Check.

Someone forgot to tell the tour guide that Movember's over.

 

L to R: Stuart Murdoch, Paul Kelly, Lawrence

Later on we went to see the band documentaries at the GFT. I had already seen the Dolly Mixture film at London Popfest a couple of years ago but it was good to see it again. The second film was about Lawrence (no surname), frontman of the amazing 80s indiepop band Felt.

Unfortunately, the film was about Lawrence in the present as he was recording an album with his new band, Go-Kart Mozart. His new stuff doesn't come close to Felt in terms of quality, so I was a bit disappointed in that respect, but it was still an entertaining film.

There was a short question and answer session after the film with the director (Paul Kelly), Belle & Sebastian frontman Stuart Murdoch and Lawrence himself. Lawrence has had his share of problems, not least heroin addiction, but he came across as an amusing and sharp (if highly eccentric) guy.

The Naked and Famous

Sorry for the lack of posts recently but I've been on a bit of a work-sleep-work cycle that doesn't really make for interesting reading.

Having said that, Louise and I went to see The Naked and Famous at the ABC on Tuesday night. I had never really heard their stuff but L's a big fan and we managed to get tickets stupidly cheap on eBay (Ł9 for two tickets with a face value of £28 - score!).

The band was good but the gig-going experience is starting to get more corporate and souless at the ABC, or should I say the O2 ABC. My bag was searched on the way in and I was told I couldn't bring my SLR inside because it's classed as a professional camera. That's why you've only got a shot of the outside to look at...

After producing ID and getting a wristband we had to fight our way to the bar to get me a pint that didn't give me much change from a fiver (in a plastic tumbler, natch). As you may know, L is on the small side so we went to the balcony to try to get a better view from behind the mixing desk but were soon told to move by a security guard in case my drink spilled on the equipment (which was about six feet away on the other side of a metal fence).

I shouldn't grumble too much though; it was a good gig. It just reminds me that the experience of gigs in my indiepop bubble isn't representative of how they are elsewhere, particularly at bigger venues.

On that note, we're going to see Death cab for Cutie at the O2 (them again) Academy at the weekend. Again, they're not a band I've heard much of but they're a long-time favourite of L's, and I'm partial to a bit of emo now and then, so I'm looking forward to it. The only downer is that it clashes with a Butcher Boy gig, and I'm really into their new album, but I know they'll play here again a lot sooner than Death Cab.

Apart from that it's pretty much been weddings wall-to-wall. Not really, but my dad's wedding is only six weeks away now and ours is still in the planning stages. I went and picked out my kilt for dad's wedding last weekend - starting to look forward to it now.

That's about all my news for the moment. Things are kind of stressful and bleak at times but I'm trying to keep my head down and get on with things in the knowledge that good stuff is around the corner. Hope everything's good with you guys.

Engagement

It's fair to say that a lot has changed since my last post! Louise and I got engaged last Thursday (27th October).

We've been talking about getting married for a while now and we pretty much decided we were going to do it a couple of month ago. Since then we've done everything backwards - by the time I proposed we had already bought the ring together and even booked our flights to New York.

That's the other thing - we're going to New York to get married! We'll be there from 20th - 26th September next year and the wedding will be some time between those dates. We'll have a reception for friends and family in Glasgow when we come back.

In terms of the proposal itself, I wasn't sure exactly when I was going to do it. I was just waiting for a good opportunity. We went out for dinner to The Living Room on Thursday night and it seemed like as good a time as any. I put the ring in a cupcake, got down on one knee and did the deed between the main course and dessert. The waitress came with our sweets a few seconds after I'd done it and was a bit surprised to find a ring, a cupcake and a bright red crying woman.

 

The last few weeks have mostly been taken up with wedding planning. We've booked an apartment in Brooklyn and we're on the way to getting a dress and reception venue sorted.

In non-wedding news, we had a great day on Saturday. Louise had a physio appointment in the city centre at 10am so we got up early for that, then went to Peckham's for breakfast. After that we went to see the Glasgow Roller Girls at Caledonian Uni (which is where most of the photos in this post are from).

 

After the bout we went to The Arches for dinner, then along to the Tron theatre to see Days of Wine and Roses. After that, home in time for Match the Day. Not bad, as Saturdays go!

Apparat and Pinto

Pinto

Sooo, quick update time. Louise has been working crazy hours since we got back from Spain so we haven't been out much, but last night we went to The Arches to see Apparat.

I picked her up from work and we headed to Pinto on Queen Street for some food before the gig. It's a Mexican takeaway (+ a few indoor tables) that has been open for a couple of months and has become a bit of a favourite with us. The menu is fairly limited - pretty much burritos and nothing else - but the food is immense.

 

Apparat

We headed to The Arches after that and had a couple of drinks, then wandered through to see Apparat. I had never heard any of their stuff but Louise is a big fan, and to be fair I really enjoyed it.

I don't have all that much planned for the weekend coming up. We're going to go to the cinema to see a couple of films - Drive and We Need To Talk About Kevin.

I'm also DJing at The 78 on Saturday night with Lynsey. I've missed the last two months due to gig/holiday clashes so I'm looking forward to getting back on the CD players of steel.

I had become a bit burnt out on indiepop but I've started to get the fire back recently. The time I've got to listen to music has reduced because I've been driving to work and listening to news on the radio and I've been taking my lunch with my workmates so I've really been missing it.

Glasgow BMX 2006 - 2010: The making of my video

I know it's a bit lax of me but it's been a good few weeks since I put my BMX video online and I still haven't posted it here. 

It was always my intention to have a proper showing/premiere, either at someone's house or at a skatepark. When it came down to it though I was going to have to wait a few weeks until after my holiday and there wasn't really a good time to do it, so I just posted it online with a minimum of fuss.

I always liked the idea of producing a zine to go along with the video but I supposed that's another one of my big ideas that I didn't follow through. I'll write a bit here about the video though, and hopefully that'll serve in its place. 

If you've been reading this blog for a while you'll know that the project has dragged on for waaaay longer that it should have so I won't go over old ground. Instead I'll just list a few observations/some behind-the-scenes information. Like a DVD commentary written down, or something. 

 

Photo by Fraz Watt

This is the clip I was filming as it appears in the video 

I edited the video fairly simply. There aren't really any effects, except for transitions between clips where it seemed appropriate, and the titles are very simple. 

I did it that way partly through necessity; I'm not good at graphic design and the idea of slaving for hours over editing a sequence that lasts a couple of seconds doesn't excite me. The other reason was to keep the video pared down, no bullshit. Like the Animal videos were. Minimal intro, straight into the riding, no messing about.

I suppose my filming was fairly straightforward too. The vast majority of the shots were either done with a fisheye lens (static or rolling along on my bike) or long lens (with the camera on a tripod or occasionally handheld).



I had a couple of attempts at filming rolling long lens - in other words, rolling along on the bike filming with no fisheye lens attached. It's harder than using the fisheye because you can't get as close to the rider and it's harder to frame the shot but the few clips I did film like that came out pretty good.

If you're looking for examples, the last clip in Dario's section (above) was filmed this way, as was the clip in Luca's section where he does a toboggan over a hip, tailwhips another hip and does a barspin air to fakie on a quarter pipe (below).



I wanted the riders to enjoy filming for the video so I tried to stay away from attempting shots that would potentially take a long time to get right (the rolling long lens being an example). I don't mind if a rider takes a long time to pull a trick when I'm filming but I would've felt awkward if they had to do it several times because I messed up the filming.

I think the most important thing, filming-wise, is to know what angle suits a particular trick or location and to have a steady hand. I'm my own harshest critic when it comes to filming and there are plenty of clips I'd like to have filmed better but I think on the whole I managed to get things right in terms of shot selection and steady-handedness.

I ended up using a fair amount of footage that Dario and Luca gave me in the final edit. I had mixed feelings about using clips that I hadn't filmed myself or been present at but the video was already pretty short and I figured it would make for a better end product.

Having said that, I had a bit of a sinking feeling when I saw the 20Twenty video for the first time and saw that Dario's section featured a couple of clips that he had given me and I had subsequently used in my video. It's seen as a bit of a no-no to use the same clip in more than one video but by that stage I had finished editing his section (actually, the second version of it after I decided to change the song) and I figured only a handful of people would ever see my video so I let the duplicate clips stay.

There are a few quirks in the editing that were deliberate. I've always been a fan of riding clips with no music, where all you can hear is the sound of the bike. I started quite a few sections that way, with the music coming in after a few seconds of bike noise.

I found it hard to get the audio levels right but I thought it was important that you could always hear the ambient sound from the clip over the backing music. There seems to be a bit of a trend in bike videos now where there's no ambient (bike) noise whatsoever and all you get is the visuals and a song playing over it. I really can't stand that and think it totally removes the viewer from the experience.

I love the noises that bikes make. I love the sound of grinds, of freewheels (okay, cassette hubs - showing my age!), of landing from a height. Stripping that out totally sanitises the footage and it's boring as all hell.

In terms of the song selection, at first I was keen to avoid using indiepop because I know 95% of BMXers don't like that kind of thing. In the end I just thought fuck it, it's my video and hardly anyone's going to see it so I may as well do what I like. Hopefully I picked some stuff that non-indiepop people can enjoy though. Just for the record, here's the songs I used:

Best Coast - Sun Was High (So Was I)
Jens Lekman - You Are The Light
Standard Fare - Fifteen
McCarthy - Write To Your MP
The Lucksmiths - Sunlight In A Jar
The Strokes - 12.51
Summer Cats - In June
The Magnetic Fields - The Luckiest Guy (On The Lower East Side)

For some reason, naming the video was the hardest part of making it and it was the very last thing I did before finishing the edit. I only managed to pick a title in the end because I needed one for the intro and end credits. I went with the very unimaginative Glasgow BMX 2006 - 2010, which should be self-explanatory.

I was a bit concerned that people would think I was trying to pass it off as a comprehensive video of the Glasgow scene when it really just shows a very small part of it but I was at my wit's end trying to pick a title so I just went with it.

I think that's it, in terms of background information. Despite the length of time it took I did enjoy making the video and it represents five years of my life so it'll always be something I can look back on. Hope you enjoy it.