Sinister: Triptychtottie with a walking bass

[Gordon]

verging on protocolic difference: jazz and pop, see, people don't know
exactly when to clap: after a solo or after a song without words; and in
the groovetastic ambient continuum, does it end at all? It did for the
BILL WELLS TRIO last night, but only after some considerable melodic
smoothness. Including. Yes, including our man Stevie Jackson, presumably
the bespectacled man wearing a blue shirt and playing a harmonica. He
looked tall. That's just the stage, I thought. Then he walked past. He
is tall, relatively speaking.
Gig speakers dispense with the hosiery of the home hi-fidelity and
display their curvy plastic black bits to the audience. The stage is
clad in what appear to be oversize ceramic tiles. These are, in fact,
bits of maroon painted medium density fibre board screwed into the
plasterboard. Their acoustic function is dubious, and moreso their
decorative one. The toliets are small. The wc cubicle a place, methinks,
for private pissing or semi-public puking, to judge from *their* tiles.
For any other function one would be wary of the prospect of infection of
one sort or another.
Back to the stage, under the starlit folds of tented ceiling, and enter
a black-clad woman, lugging a double bass. Expectant chatter. Una, Ulla
U-something. Whatever her U-value, she does wonders with a double bass;
even a wee jazzy improvisation while mister futurepilot sah smiles
broadly, wearing shades. What a lovely fellow. He's even supporting a
campaign to restore the boat that paddles on Glasgow's resevoir, which
is called Katrin. (oops.. wrong bit of water: Loch Lomond, I should have
said. The boat that plys Katrin is another).This boat is called the
*Maid of the Loch*.
http://www.maidoftheloch.co.uk/
The happy Clyde coast collective play their new *99pee* single 'the only
thing to make you move is the beat of the drum' which is hardly the
point, since the previous track contained a far more moving quality, in
the motional rather than emotional sense: a motion picture quality,
even, set in the epic Indian sub-continent. A vocalist, who seems to be
on a fashion tip fron J-Que? out of Jamiro-Kwhy? has trained in from
Glasgow due to the record company Geographic's shortage of air miles.
With their latest single, I envisage the funds to hire one of those
comfy buses that have the blacked-out windows. I saw Texas in one
outside the Queen's Hall in Edinburgh years ago, not that I wish our
Pilot an MOR future.
Downstairs someone rather excitedly informs me that a couple of members
of the Pastels are walking by. My informant is from northern Sweden, and
passionate about Glasgow pop. He engages fluently in conversation about
the meaning of life too, which I always find handy for chatter over a
pint.
I miss the train home, and get a hotel room. Which allows me to
re-sample some Edinburgh nightlife: City Cafe and La Belle Angele. And
full of them it is too. I'm glad I wore my white corduroys for, in here,
they glow like the light off an oxy-acetylene torch.
The train on the way home. Dreamily perusing the *Observer* to the tune
of an accordion-heavy track by Bridget Storm. A few seats in front, a
girl gazes out of the window, repeatedly drawing her fingertips through
the dark roots of her autumn-tinted hair. Ah.. could she have written
this song...
I meet a friendly dog on the way up the road. I'm one happy unit.
Gordon


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