The BombLog

We Are Bombskare!! (And So Can You!)

2008-02-06T12:14:00.001-01:00

People occasionally approach me and say ‘Hey! Aren’t you him that plays guitar in Bombskare?’, to which I reply ‘Bawbag! that’s my Indian name, and by the way, your grammar is shocking‘. They sometimes follow these semi-coherent outbursts with the revelation that, they too, are in a band. ‘You don’t say!; It’s like we’re cousins!;’ followed by, do I have any ideas or advice on how I can make their band more Bombskare-tastic, to which I always reply, sorry pal no idea. I don’t even know how to make us more Bombskare-tastic. I suspect it has something to do with duct tape.

Just to be clear: I yield to nobody in my outrage over bad ska bands, and yes indeed, there are one or two of them. I won’t go into details but I can offer some general advice and opinions on the subject of ska bands to anyone who cares. I don’t know much but there are a few definite do’s and don’ts in my opinion. First thing you’ll need is a drummer, any kind will do, but preferably a ginger, and if not ginger then at least make sure that he is a dangerous bastard and that he can count to two. Next up you will need a saxophone player, two if you can get them. You can find saxophone players in a number of places, lurking about pubs in Leith busking for pickled eggs, in Universities, almost anywhere. I like to get mine in Sainsbury’s. Watch out for trumpet players; in my experience they are prone to violence and are complete bastards. If you can get any other brass or woodwind, all to the better. Next up, you will need a singer, someone to front the band, represent your ensemble and also, most importantly, kill time and distract the audience between songs whilst everyone else tunes their instrument, or refills their drink. It was once the case that your front man had to be attractive to members of the opposite sex/gender/persuasion. Thankfully that is no longer the case, although you should take your time in selecting a vocalist, as they can sometimes be hopeless idiots. If you do decide to go down the hopeless idiot route, try and emphasise the idiotic aspects rather than the hopeless aspects. Singers usually range in size, from the behemoth twenty stone variety (the Nebuchadnezzar), the fifteen stone variety (the Jeroboam), or the eleven or twelve stone variety (the Magnum). If you are going with the Magnum variety, best get two. After that you are almost ready to go. You will need an assortment of other personnel in your band to take up space between your singer, your horns and your drums. They will be required to play guitars, keyboards, lifting stuff, water carriers, etc. These nobodies can be in shape or condition. Best just to get them at the Job Centre; you can decide what instrument they will be playing once you get to your first rehearsal. If the Job Centre is quiet, try the Hospital, or else the Zoo.

Of course, then your pain has just begun. You’ll need some songs. It’s easiest just to get the most unemployed member of your band to write the tunes as it’s a tedious, thankless task. Most people in their ignorance think it takes about three minutes to write a ska tune, after all, that’s how long it takes to listen to one. In my experience it usually takes the same time it takes to smoke a fag, and maybe drink a small coffee to write a ska tune, depending on how long the song is of course and how good you are. As for the actual song itself, history and tradition dictate that only two or three chords are required in the composition. Any more than three or four chords and you risk being called jazz, and you don’t want that. Also it’s best to be in the key of G major, because everyone likes G. It’s the vanilla of musical keys. After that all you need are a few words, in any language. Lyrical content, or libretto, can make or break a tune, as good songs can be about anything; love, revenge, super lager. So choose wisely. Bombskare lyrics cover most subject matter; string theory, comparative female anatomy, alien invasion, and so on in that fashion, but my advice is stick to what you know.

Well that’s about it I think. After that you’re all set. Put everyone together in a small room, preferably with little air conditioning, and just add alcohol. You can use any kind but we like to use refreshing Charisma Artois. Once you’ve had a rehearsal or two, you’re all set. Time to get straight to that very important first gig, where your new ensemble will perform their debut, stunning the unsuspecting public with sheer raw ability and musical talent. After that you are on your own. By the way and for the record, I saw an early incarnation of Bombskare in 1998 at one of their first gigs, and it was so bad it nearly gave me cancer. I was puking blood, it was that awful!

That was then, this is now, and these days we don‘t suck so bad. We’ve got a busy year lined up for 2008, even compared to 2007, and last year has been a pretty busy year. We met The Skatalites and played two gigs with them, we met Lester Sterling and of course our patron saint Lloyd Knibb. Not many people can say they have met their patron saint. We met and played with Toots and the Maytals in front of a thousand people at the Arches in Glasgow. We played with Lynval Golding and Pama International. We played two dates with Jerry Dammers. Very strange. We played with Buck Hingley and The Toasters. Not to mention all the other amazing bands that we played with such as the excellent Underling, Taking Chase, Junction Pool, Tyrant Lizard Kings, Root System and loads of others. We also played Knockengorroch Festival, the Sound of Rhum Festival, the Wizard Festival and the World Justice Festival. We’ve met loads of new people, loads of new friends. A big thank you to all of them, and of course all youse lovely people who keep coming back to see us jump around like clowns. Still not bored, eh?

One other thing. We are also in the process of putting the finishing touches on our new single. Before we make any rash promises about when we will be releasing it, lets just get this appearance at Big Hand’s album launch out of the way first. It’s on the 8th of February and it will be an early one. Should be exciting stuff. Maybe.

Abnormal Service Has Been Resumed

2007-12-11T10:30:00.001-01:00

Yes, I‘m back, in front of the computer, and in the words of Mark Twain, the rumours of my early demise are greatly exaggerated. Just because I leave town for a bit and have thrown my computer and mobile phone out the window, people assume that I have ran off and joined Hezbollah. Pure nonsense. My commitments to them have been fulfilled ages ago. I have simply been too busy, and also wasted, to think about Ska. Too wasted for Ska?! I know, I know; its crazy talk but what can I say? My father gave me two things before he died; male pattern baldness and a genetic predisposition towards alcohol. Don’t worry, we cremated him. It was the only way to guarantee there was no chance of him coming back as a zombie.

We have had a few gigs since our last update, most notably our big Skalloween show with The Toasters, all the way from Noo Yawk. It was a great success. Thanks to everyone who came down, especially everyone who came in fancy dress and there were plenty of you. Cheers again you nutters. We love you. We have also had a couple of gigs in the North, Inverness and Aviemore which were also good nights. Its our first trip back to Inverness since our gig at the Ironworks. Ah yes, The Ironworks. Fond memories of that place. This time, however, we were back to our old haunt Hootenannies, which was a lot more relaxed, just how we like it. We turn up when we get there, we set up, we play for two hours and everyone’s a winner. We played Aviemore the following day, right after the England v South Africa rugby game. I am always amazed that whenever England play anyone, at any sport at all, everyone in all the pubs across Scotland are rooting for the opponent, even South Africa, traditionally a very unpopular place. Even if England were playing a German side from the 1930’s there would probably be Scottish punters wearing ginger wigs and bunnets, silly wee Hitler moustaches and rooting for the Nazis. As soon as the game finished, with England being gubbed, we kicked off with the usual shenanigans; up-tempo, bombastic pop tunes with a strong emphasis on the off beat. Sounds fucked, I know, but when you hear it, it makes sense.

One other piece of band news is that we have finally disposed of our van. Yes it was emotional at the time, selling it for scrap. We got eighty quid for it as scrap metal. We could have fixed it up and made it road legal again, but it was going to cost too much, and anyway I need another piece of dodgy unreliable machinery like I need a hole in my head. I don’t have a good track record with cars, or vans. Invariably, I always end up with the one cursed car in the entire fleet. Don’t get me started on cars. Anyway our van is history. I was driving past the scrap yard about a fortnight ago and noticed that our van was still sitting in the yard, on death row and un-scrapped. I still had the key for it, and had the idea of breaking into the yard and breaking the van out. We could have drove on to the next scrap yard and I could have got another eighty quid. Not a bad plan actually. We could have went on a spree, across country, scrapping the van repeatedly, collecting the ’reward’ and then breaking her out. Scamming scrappies across the country, a life on the road. Sounds great. It would have ended badly though. Eventually I would have to leave it somewhere, abandoned in the back of beyond. Let’s face it, I don’t think I’d ever get more than eighty quid for it. Tragic but inevitable. Cue the music.

We have pretty much finished recording our album. Some bells and whistles and other bits and pieces. Should be done by crimbo. We are going to try and have a single ready for the end of January, but I‘m tired of predicting deadlines. Every single deadline we have set has been ignored or abandoned. Patience, my lovelies. We have a few more gigs before the end of the year, our last being back up in Inverness. Do we love that place or what? After that its 2008. Where does the time go? It seems like it was only 2006 when we said, ’hey, lets record an album. It’ll be super killer fun!’

Normal Service Will Be Resumed (Maybe)

2007-11-18T21:59:00.000-01:00

Editors Note:  

Our regular Ska Desk correspondent the Reverend Scott McCafferty (RSM) was due to post the latest edition of Bombskare’s exploits; this hasn't happened. Three hours before deadline RSM left a voice message at the Bomblab; although we were only able to establish this as fact after we had ran the recording through a piece of  voice recognition software. The results were not pleasant.   For the previous edition we had asked RSM to write a piece on the recording of Bombskare's album; ‘One Year in Portobello’ was the result. Shocking.  Since then RSM has only been in contact through sporadic text messages with demands for microphone stands, heavy duty guitar strings for optimum detuning, coffee, and strong continental, fighting lager.  According to the Reverend, these requests are ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY for the tasks at hand whatever they may be.   We were not concerned about this; after all he is a man of the cloth.  More worrying were the bills and invoices that started to arrive at the Bomblab.  A dentist's bill from Paris, a bar tab from Hamburg, a plastic surgeons bill for breast implants in Bucharest,  and most peculiar of all an invoice from an undertakers in the Hague. Frantic calls to RSM went straight to message service. When we finally contacted him he sounded delirious. Between the silence and the screaming it appeared that the Reverend had got closer to the story than as first imagined.  Too close, perhaps?  We had asked him to report on the two Toasters / Bombskare / Fandangle gigs in Edinburgh & Aberdeen. The Reverend had played guitar on both those nights, and was best situated to accurately witness the proceedings.  Pulitzer Prize winning stuff for Gonzo journalism in anyone's books. However the exertions seem to have rendered RSM house bound, unfound and unbound.   Incommunicado in terra incognito, so to speak.  So we have no copy for the gigs with the Toasters. Nor any photos. If any readers do have photos please be in touch with the Bombskare photo desk.   All we have to go on is the Reverend’s last voice message. An insane, curdling babble about Madness in Aberdeen. We are none the wiser.  

The Editors.

One Year in Portobello

2007-10-15T14:59:00.000-01:00

Has it really been a year? Tempus fugit.

When we started the recording, Sam had only been in the band two months. He was so young back then. Innocent. Fresh. Now look at him. Tarnished. Spent. Completely ruined as a human being, his hopes and dreams crushed; a soulless, tired hack like the rest of us. Only good for one thing. Jumping about like an idiot, making a bloody racket. And whilst I admit, it is fun, isn’t there more to life? Nothing that’s worth recording, that’s for sure.

Over the last year we have spent a considerable amount of time in the studio, but don’t forget, we aren’t exactly the hardest working band in the world. Whenever we get together there’s usually an hour spent smoking, drinking, talking shite and generally taking the piss out of and abusing one another. Oh aye, you should hear the banter! Even at a three hour rehearsal we’ll spend an hour sitting about scratching ourselves before we even play a note. Sort of getting into character. It’s very important for the esprit de corp. And so it is in the studio. The difference is that we have to be a bit more professional (ha!) and also flexible because we have been sneaking into the studio when we can, doing bits and pieces. Time is money and all that. And of course we aren’t signed to a label or anything, and so we are financing the whole thing ourselves from what we get paid for playing live. It’s quite a lot to juggle; our reasonably busy gigging schedule, the availability of studio, availability of Gav, availability of myself and the availability of whoever has to record. Only a couple of weeks ago Murray was in New York, Tom was in Italy and Matt was in Spain, so as you can imagine, it can be a headache juggling everyone‘s schedule, especially when no one is being paid. Planning is the key, as far in advance as possible. I’m the only person I know with a 2009 diary. I’ve said it so many times over the years, and I’ll say it again. Organising anything involving Bombskare is a bit like invading Iraq: it takes a year to plan, and if you don’t do it right, a lot of innocent people are going to get hurt. I’ve actually used a very similar strategy in the past, for getting the band to gigs that they didn’t really want to do. When we first gigged in Aberdeen, for example, I told the guys we were going up there to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Of course when we got there, the guys realised that this was bullshit, so then I explained that, actually, we were there to bring democracy to the region. They calmed down after that, and didn’t suspect for a second that what we were really there for was all that delicious north sea oil. Yum.

Almost everything is actually recorded now except for keyboards. We had recorded keys at the same time as the drums, followed by some overdubs later, but they were used as a guide for tuning, not the definitive takes. Now that everything else is down we wanted to re record the keys with our new Hammond organ. We were in the other day for five or six hours and got through about a quarter of what we need to do so another few days of that before we’re done. It was sounding great. Matt’s a terrific player and the organ sounds amazing, Ideally I would like to spend a lot of time trying out different sounds and experimenting a bit, but of course, time is of the essence. The trouble is that Matt is so busy working, and he is constantly out of the country, the bastard. He’s missed two out of the last four gigs so getting him into the studio is nigh on impossible at the moment. In fact he’s away for the next two weeks as well, in Ireland, and after checking his diary, my diary and Gav’s studio diary, there simply is no time before November that we can do even one session in, let alone two or three which is what it may well take to finish his parts on all the songs. Which brings me straight to the matter at hand. It doesn’t look like we will have this project finished before the end of the year. We will have the recording actually completed by Nov but its unlikely we will have it completely mixed and mastered before Christmas. We have been pressuring ourselves to have it done and dusted this year, but then there is the danger that we would rush the process, and start making compromises because of a self imposed deadline. We will probably have a single ready by December with some live tracks on it. Maybe. I will take this opportunity to mention again how fortunate we are to have Gav engineering. I’ve worked with Gav a bit before this recording. I played bass in Disciples of Panic Earth, Gav’s old band, for a couple of gigs. After this past year, Gav has become the eleventh member of Bombskare. I quite frankly don’t think that Verden is a particularly great studio, I mean, its OK, some decent outboard and microphones, but in the end its an Apple Mac with Cubase SX. Nothing special. The real advantage to working at Verden is working with Gav who knows his shit and has never once grown impatient or annoyed about the long hours or working with a band like us with our unusual and controversial work ethic. Hats off to Gav.

We’ve had a few gigs since Knockengorroch, the most anticipated of which were the two with Jerry Dammers. Apparently he’s quite well respected as a DJ, which I find quite a bizarre notion. Respecting a DJ? Nah! Only kidding, it’s a real skill (honest, they’re just like real musicians). Both gigs were pretty quiet, being billed as a Jerry Dammers night, with only slight mention of ourselves. The Amphetameanies had been playing with him on the Friday in Glasgow, so the following morning I asked Gordon how it went. He said it was dark, drunk and echoey, and that was just Jerry Dammers. In other words, pretty quiet. So the Saturday night was in Dundee in this mental wee place next to the bus station. Apparently it used to be a casino, and then a strip joint. Nice. We went on around 11pm to a reasonably quiet place. By the second half of our set the place was pretty busy and everyone was bouncing, so by the time Jerry came on to do his thing, the place was warmed up. Jerry himself is quite a reserved chap and didn’t really speak much to anyone, although he did shake Andy‘s hand after our set. We’d hoped to get him up with us and play some Specials tunes but it didn’t happen for some reason. I was a bit disappointed about that, but also secretly relieved (I don’t think he’s really good enough to be in our band). In the end, even though it wasn’t heavily promoted, most people were there to see us and left after we finished. Still, Jerry played a decent DJ set although I personally found it bizarre when he played Ghost Town and other Specials tunes, when he could have actually played them with us, but there you go, that’s the kind of guy I am, that’s the way I roll! The Sunday night was in Edinburgh at the Citrus Club and was basically an exact rerun of the previous night except it was a lot quieter. We hadn’t played in the Citrus since 2003. That was the night we were playing with Bad Manners, and Buster Bloodvessel had a hernia the same size as Oor Wullies bucket, and had to leave the stage half way through the set, leaving the band to finish the set instrumentally. It was awful watching him lurching about, clearly in some distress, trying to sing. He should have been in a hospital. I was convinced he was going to die that night. I was urging people who cared about such things to get his autograph that night, because he definitely looked like he would pop his clogs there and then.

We also played a gig in the student union out at Heriot Watt last week, on a Wednesday night which is unusual for us. We went down well with the students. We introduced a brand new song that night, ‘The Ballad of Lloyd Knibb’ (working title), dedicated to the patron saint of Bombskare, Mr Knibb. Not many people get to meet their patron saint, let alone have a drink and a smoke with them. But we did. That’s why we wrote a song about it. It went down surprisingly well considering it was its debut. One young lady kept flashing her lovelies at the band which was distracting. This has happened a few times of late and although I am a red blooded heterosexual male with all the accompanying benefits and design flaws, I confess to being confused. Is it intended as an insult, like flashing your arse at a policeman, or is it a compliment (‘hey guys, you’re doing a great job, I thought you might enjoy these’)? Don’t get me wrong, I aint complaining. Its just that if I was at a gig and wanted to express approval, I probably wouldn’t get the lad and shout “Hey, you ever seen one of these before? It’s a wee cracker, no?” Quite inappropriate I’m sure you would agree. Anyway I’m going to start calling these people breast hecklers, because their intent is clearly to disrupt our carefully planned and meticulously timed set.

We’ve a couple of gigs up in Inverness and Aviemore next week. However our next big gig is going to be our Skalloween party at the Exchange on the 2nd of November, which we are promoting ourselves. I realise we have over-played Edinburgh a bit this year but this is going to be the one. We are bringing New York Ska legends, The Toasters, up to Scotland as part of their 25th anniversary world tour. This is guaranteed to be a belter so get ready. Tickets will be £8 in advance. It might seem a pricey one for us, but the short answer to that is, buy a fucking ticket ya cheapskate! Do you think good Ska grows on trees! It costs twenty odd quid to watch Hearts ‘perform’ and they usually don’t play longer than a ninety minute set, excluding stoppage time, so in comparison it’s a total bargain. Plus unlike Hearts, after our performance you’re guaranteed to go home with a smile.

(I’ve included some shots with this post, from the last twelve months in Verden. Enjoy.)

Love and Peace or Else

2007-10-13T08:57:00.000-01:00

Time to catch up. I will forego my usual preamble which normally goes,’ me so busy, me so busy’. People have actually complained to me, that’s right complained. That I haven't been

updating the blog. Writing blogs?! I ask you? Whose got time for that? No one, that’s who. I’ve got twenty minutes before I need to go so here goes.

After we returned from our gig in Hartlepool, which included every possible reference to monkeys including a cover of Monkey Man, we were off to the Knockengorroch Festival, somewhere south of Ayr and west of the rest of Europe. It featured an impressive line up including The Herbaliser, Aberfeldy, Nizlopi, Mungo’s HiFi, Son Veneno, some clowns called Big Hand (!) and many others. The weather had been really bad over the weekend apparently. Most of us only arrived on the Sunday around five o clock, just as the rain stopped and the sun came out. Those who had been for the duration, looked cold and a bit miserable. Apparently a number of festival goers had baled by the Sunday. I suppose two days sleeping in a puddle might test the mettle of most music lovers. Can’t say that I blame anyone who did bale. The place was just a sea of mud, great festival conditions in my opinion. I was at a festival once when it was dry and the sun was out the whole time. It was crap. T in the Park I think it was called. I just remember that Pulp were headlining. Says it all.

We took to the main stage just as the sun was setting, perfect timing. Like most festivals, when we went on it wasn’t all that busy as people are spread over the length and breadth of the whole site, but a few tunes in and we definitely had most of the crowd. We played for over two hours and by the end, it was proper nightfall and the whole festival crowd was there to see us. Top marks to everyone who managed to dance for two hours in First World War conditions. One courageous young lady even had her top off for half the set. Fantastic but a little drastic to my mind. We included our famous cover of ‘Trying to Grow a Chin’ by the great Frank Zappa which hadn’t been aired for a while. I sing lead vocals on this one, ostensibly because I am the member of the band with the closest physical resemblance to Frank Zappa. (“It’s my eyes!“, I remember saying.) We don’t usually play covers these days unless we are playing an unusually long set, or as part of an encore or as a special request. I don’t know what it is about Ska bands and covers. I suppose it must stem from the fact that Ska music initially derived from re-workings of classic or traditional tunes, but with that catchy beat behind it. And of course the Two tone era had a heavy reliance on covers. All the great Two Tone bands, in fact, had hits that were covers. When we started gigging back in 98-99, our set was approximately 50/50 covers and originals. We even had reviewers confusing our material with classic Ska tunes (one time a reviewer said that we do an excellent cover version of Dance to Ska!; eh yeah, it is good, some might say definitive!) These days we have so much of our own material we can’t play all the old tunes we used to. Not enough time. On this particular Sunday we did two or three covers. The aforementioned ‘Chin!’ (as Andy calls it), also ‘Inspector Gadget’ which is a cover but also has a rip off of the Ska King Crab version at the beginning. Also ‘Sally Brown’ by the late great Laurel Aitken, which nearly always sneaks into the set at the end, and has been a staple in our set since mediaeval times. I met Laurel Aitken once, when we played with him. He had gold teeth. I expect they’re still gold. We also played ‘Ali Baba’ by John Holt which is a bit of a cigarette break for us, and the audience too obviously. I personally don’t smoke cigarettes so don’t see the need for cigarette breaks, but it does allow Tom to get his flute out. Coincidentally some of us even took the opportunity to actually smoke on the stage, since we were outdoors. All in all a great day. After we came off the lady who was MC, and whose name eludes me, said that we were one of the best bands that they had ever had down here. After being described as a musical highlight, we came back on and played an encore. Check out the festival’s myspace page (www.myspace.com/knockengorroch) for photos of the whole event. Thanks to everyone there who stayed in spite of the mud, and to the organisers for having us down and all their hospitality. We saw lots of friends from Rum and it was also good to see Uri, Jules, Tamir, and Orren from over in Coldstream.

Back to the Burgh. We keep working in the studio. The first anniversary of this recording approaches and we are all getting cabin fever. Surprisingly no one has quit the band and there have been few major disturbances in the force. Even Colin and I haven’t really fought. We both believe in the McCafferty family motto; ‘Love and Peace or Else’, a sort of Mutually Assured Destruction. Everyone more or less agrees on the approach we have taken so far. Recorded live at first, but then edit the shit out of it so it sounds good, and then multi-track the shit out of what’s left for about a year. The Stevie Wonder method. The trouble is knowing when to stop. We’ve already nearly fell out over whether or not we should have strings on the album. The correct answer is, aye right!

Next gig will be with the elusive, and some say, magical figure of Jerry Dammers doing a DJ set. Some people say he doesn’t really exist. They say he’s this mythical character conjured up to frighten children, like Jeffrey Archer, or Davina McCall. If so, then who was it that formed the Two Tone label, and played in The Specials? We are going to find out soon enough.

Toots, Man! Part Two

2007-09-06T21:20:00.002-01:00

We have just recently received some photos of our gig with Toots and the Maytals, including a few shots with us and the legendary Toots Hibbert. Behold!

Harry Potter and the Bastard Ska Band from Hell

2007-08-30T21:31:00.000-01:00

Been hammered with the cold last week. Since we finished in the studio last Sunday, I have felt like death.

So I wasn’t looking forward to last weekend’s Wizard Festival near New Deer up in Aberdeenshire. At least Joe was driving the whole weekend, so I could sit in the back, feeling sorry for myself with a blanket, an MP3 player, and the world’s smallest bottle of whisky, for medicinal purposes. The plan was to play on Friday evening as Bombskare on the main stage, the Voodoo Stage (ooooohh!), then play a Skaramanga set on the smaller stage on Saturday, the Banshee stage (aaaahh!), and then drive back down to Aberdeen and play with none other than the Root System boys at our beloved Café Drummonds (wehaaay!). However after some confusion, naturally, we only discovered on the Monday beforehand that we were expected to be up there at the Wizard Festival at 5pm to kick start the whole event off. If we had known this, we wouldn’t have agreed to do it, because it was too early for us to get up there. With so many of us unable to get off work at such short notice it was looking like we wouldn’t be playing on the Friday, and possibly not the Saturday either. After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, and also by sheer luck that Joe was on holiday, seven of us out of ten had managed to be off on Friday, so we agreed we could do it. However that plan was far too straightforward and likely to succeed for us. After even more confusion and some general tardiness we set off an hour later than planned and by about a third of the way up we realised we were not going to make it on time. In fact we would be hitting Aberdeen in rush hour at approximately the time we were supposed to be playing. After some phone calls back and forth, it was agreed that we wouldn’t be playing on the Friday, because they couldn’t change the running order at this point in the proceedings. Darkwater would be filling in our slot on the main stage and then heading over to do their own set on the wee stage. We were gutted obviously, travelling all the way up there and not playing. At least we were still playing on the Saturday, and I liked Darkwater, I’ve played with them before in Aberdeen.

We arrived a good hour and a half late. It was a pity because it looked like a great festival. Definite memories of Shetland in 2004, travelling a distance and not playing at a great festival, and The Undertones headlining the night we were supposed to be playing. I couldn’t help but thinking The Undertones were bad luck for us. Or was it The Bluetones. Andy came back with a bit of good news at this point. Fortunately for us someone from Eddie and The Hotrods injured themselves when they fell over drunk or something, so they had to bow out of their slot on the Saturday afternoon. Ouch for them, great success for us. Isn’t that always the way? One man’s Angel Delight is another mans kick in the balls! We would be playing their slot and we now had the time to get the rest of the boys up in time. Nice. I love it when a plan comes together.

We scrapped the Skaramanga set on Saturday and just got ready for the main stage at around four. We were going on after, wait for it, The MacDonald Brothers, of X Factor infamy. Yes indeed. They played a set of covers and came off stage to a bit of a mob of autograph hunters. If I hadn’t had the cold and wasn‘t feeling rubbish, who knows what I could have said or done while I had the chance, I mean, they were right there! Curse this mortal frame!

So we came on and played for forty five minutes, in between The McKaraoke Brothers and Sandi Thom, strange bedfellows for us. It was surreal. I thought I was having a psychedelic experience brought on by the potent combination of max strength Lemsip and Bells whisky. Anyway the sound was awesome, and the crowd was excellent, maybe close to a thousand bodies, including kids. I broke a string. Thanks to the organisers for having us up and rescheduling us, after all the confusion and panic, our normal bedfellows. Thanks to Dod and Sally as usual for the photos, and our mate Dod Copeland who unfortunately had a run in with the local constabulary. We hung around for the rest of the afternoon and early evening to catch some of the other bands including Sandi Thom and The Cuban Brothers, but we had to leave before the great Hayseed Dixie. Still not managed to see them live. Didn’t see any real magic either. Don’t know why it’s called the Wizard Festival.

Another late one At Café Drummonds and not the busiest night we’ve ever had mainly because of the competition; two festivals within an hour of Aberdeen, but it was still a cracking night in Drummonds as always. We were supported by Root System who were awesome as usual. Kev insists that their band is more attractive than our band. That’s nonsense. He even suggested that our Papa Joe is so scary he looks like he eats people. Crazy talk. I will admit that the Roots guys do have that certain boy band charm about them, a rough sweaty boy band perhaps, one that you definitely wouldn’t want to meet in the back streets of Glenrothes, but a boy band charm, nonetheless. They definitely have that X Factor factor, or maybe it’s the X Files factor. And they have Handsome Dan, their secret weapon. Also, admittedly there are a few bodies in our band that might be described as ‘could do with losing a few pounds’, such as myself. In spite of that, I would say that the overall beauty of our band is far greater than their’s. Our beauty is of a more spiritual quality, a harrowing, appalling beauty, kind of like a Picasso. You could say that we’re so beautiful, you might be sick. Anyway, by the time we came on it was about midnight, and it had been a long day. We still managed a ninety minute set at least, and included a cheeky cover of Root System’s ‘Don’t Worry’ as a tribute to the boys, who unbelievable weren’t even upstairs when we played it, so they missed it. That’ll teach them to be relaxing in the green room while we were full effect on stage. Prima donnas. We also had a small fridge on stage with us, that we squeezed in behind one of the amps, so we had chilled drinks on stage. Excellent. Thanks again to Nathan for the photos, and to Eric and Callum. Back into the van around three and down the road to Edinburgh, rolling in at dawn.

Next gig is in Hartlepool. Note to self; don’t mention the monkeys!

Welcome Back Again My Friends, To The Show That Never Ends

2007-08-29T17:31:00.001-01:00

After what seemed like ages we managed to spend the weekend in the studio recording vocals. It was our first time back in the studio for almost a month. We have been gigging every weekend for months so we have simply struggled to find the time. As you can imagine this is the main reason for the recording taking so long. There is so much to record in a ten piece band, over thirteen tracks, with a gigging schedule like ours. We may have to take a break from gigging for a bit. In addition Gav has been in California for three weeks. So it was great to get back into it, especially since we were recording vocals. Once vocals are on the tracks, they start to sound more complete. It was interesting as well, watching Gav’s reaction to hearing some of these vocal parts properly for the first time, hearing the songs come together. Some of the tunes he obviously didn’t get, when the vocals were missing, but as soon as the vocals were there, I could see the realisation on his face. We worked all day on Friday and went home around midnight, dropping Gav off on London Road, as he headed off to a party with a bottle of tequila. Next morning when we arrived at the studio, Gav was already there, passed out on the couch in the kitchen. The steamer had just rolled in from his party a full hour before us. As a result we left him passed out in his sleeping bag since he would have been useless, and I did the engineering on Saturday. We moved our Sunday recording session to the following weekend because Murray was busy that Sunday, splitting the weekend session over two weekends so to speak. After two days we got a substantial part of the vocals on about two thirds of the tracks completed and at least some vocals on the other tracks. Some tracks obviously take more work than others. Plus we like to try stuff out, experiment with different parts, different harmonies, different lyrics. Its starting to sound really good. We’ve also come to realise that Murray is almost definitely an android. When we have been getting him to double track his vocals, each take he does is identical to the last, right down to individual waveforms. It’s scary. No human could possibly do that.

Two gigs that week, the first on Tuesday night at King Tuts in Glasgow with The King Blues. We were the first band on the bill because we had sold almost no tickets. Going on first in the evening is usually good news for us because it means we sound check last and so have a reasonable chance of getting everyone there to the venue and sound checking on time. We went on first to a decent sized crowd and played a rapid fire set of about thirty five minutes. I have to say even I thought it was a cracking performance from us. The crowd and the promoters were certainly glad of our efforts. Next up were The Hostiles, who we liked a lot. Third wave of Ska type stuff, with horns and lots of jumping around. Finally, The King Blues who are really nice guys, and an incredible band. They didn’t have their regular drummer and were being helped out by the drummer from Capdown, who was excellent as a dep. I will confess to being only slightly aware of these guys before this gig but they were fantastic. They came back on for an encore and gave a big up to our good selves but also their three favourite Scottish bands, Junkman’s Choir, Ex Cathedra and The Amphetameanies. They then kicked into a medley of covers, mainly dictated by the crowd shouting out song titles randomly, including 54 46, Pressure Drop, and the theme from Bob the Builder, oddly enough. Good to catch our friends in the west, Esperanza, and of course, Gordon and Jane from the Meanies. Hope Gordon got home safely with his leaky petrol scooter.

Back in the Burgh. We’ve been overplaying Edinburgh a bit of late. Four or five gigs in two months or so. That’s way too much for a wee place like Edinburgh. The gig at the Exchange on Friday, was a bit of a last minute affair. We had moved the gig from The Ark because of health and safety concerns from the last gig, and we had left off promoting the gig until the last week because promoting music events during the festival is impossible because of all the competition. The Foo Fighters gig at Meadowbank was even struggling to sell out because of all the shows going on. They were practically giving tickets away outside the stadium last Tuesday. So with all of that in mind it was going to be difficult for us to fill the place, therefore getting two hundred of you down was not bad. I think most of the crowd were there to see Taking Chase and Big Hand, to be perfectly honest. Taking Chase kicked off the evening and included a couple of new tunes. Lee at one point broke a string on his SG so borrowed one of my back up guitars, my purple Tanglewood flying V, which is a bit much for most people, but not our Lee. I love Taking Chase. Even when they think they haven’t played a good set, its still usually twice as good as most other bands. Big Hand were up next. Also outstanding as usual. Anyone who doesn’t like Big Hand is quite simply wrong. They played most of their usual classics but also featured our Andy on harmonica (the name of the song temporarily escapes me) and also myself singing lead vocals on their final tune ‘Big Hand’. Our set went down well I thought, except for a few technical issues on the bass. I’ve started breaking strings again. It must be a lunar thing. Thanks to everyone who came out that night. Thanks to Jamie our engineer, who he haven’t seen since he did our sound in Lochinver in 2003. We only have two more gigs in Edinburgh this year. Hopefully October with Jerry Dammers, and then our Skalloween party with The Toasters. It’s the first time they have been to Scotland in either nine or ten years. Can’t wait.

Back into the studio the following Sunday, a bit hoarse from the gigs, but keen as a shed full of mustard. We got more backing vocals done and also more of the lead vocals from Andy. There are now only two songs needing vocals done. Which means we don’t have much more to do. Some more horn parts, a little bit of harmonica, and some more keyboards which we’ll do last. The only trouble is the more that we do, the more that we want to do. We put something down and then decide that something else needs changed or re done. Realistically another few days of studio time should have nearly everything actually recorded. Unbelievable!

York, York! So Good They Named It Once

2007-08-29T08:27:00.002-01:00

Sometimes when I’m bored, which is often, I imagine what element each of the band members would be if Bombskare were the periodic table? Colin would be Lithium of course, highly reactive and popular with mental people. Jay would be Argon of course, abundant and inert. Murray would be Copper, mildly valuable and highly conductive. And so on in this manner. What about me, you say? I would be Iron obviously. Iron is the most stable element in the universe. Essential and stable. All other elements are trying to combine with others to become as stable as iron. Well, that’s me to a tee.

We don’t often gig in England, and no, its not a racist thing. Some of my best friends are English. It’s simply the logistical difficulties of transporting a small army and all the gear so far south. Ask William Wallace. So it was with a great deal of planning, and a hire van for a change, that we set off the other Friday for Ashington near Newcastle for the first of two dates down south, Travelling on Friday is always shit, especially if your starting point is Edinburgh. Leaving The Burgh on Friday is like trying to escape from quicksand. The more you struggle, the slower you go. However because we had a sexy hire van, we could travel fast once we hit the A1. We arrived in Ashington around eight which wasn’t too bad and got into our set pretty soon after that. The Elephant is a nice wee place and the natives definitely appreciated our efforts. Wasn’t too busy but apparently there was a scooter rally up the road which explains a lot. Thanks to our host Tony, and all his family, who put us all up in his house. We got to play pool at night and swing ball in the morning. Civilised. We’ll definitely be back down soon.

York, York! So good they named it once. The York gig wasn’t as straightforward as Ashington. We were playing at a place called The Junction and the first thing to mention is that both Murray and Tom wouldn’t be featuring with us. They were busy doing other things with other bands. Sluts. Sam arrived at York first in his wee van ahead of us by about an hour. He phoned me and said “I’m here. What should I do?“ Now, it’s a popular belief, thanks to Mel Gibson, that William Wallace sacked York in the thirteenth century, but there is no evidence for this. It’s too far south, but still, while we were here we wanted to make a good impression, for Wallace‘s sake. “OK Sam here’s what I want you to do. Surround the place for three days, then set fire to it.“ It’s what he would he would have wanted, sniff! The rest of us also arrived in York early, even earlier than This R2 Tone who we would be supporting yet again. This meant that to kill time we all went into York for drinks. You would think we would learn from our mistakes but no. To cut a very long story short, everyone got pretty drunk before the gig and ended up fighting and falling out. I know lots of shenanigans happened in my ‘absence’. I excuse my own behaviour because I was pissed off with everyone plus I had been doing all the driving again and was decidedly unhappy. Anyway our Mike has thoughtfully filled in some of the blanks.

Mike says:

“The hostel in York proved a problem. Up front it was straight forward, £14 per person per night with breakfast thrown in; we had already paid in full. It transpired, upon arrival however, that there was an undisclosed £20 cash insurance per person for the night. This was returnable at checking out time the next day (10am), subject to good behaviour. The manager summed it up like this. "Look, you're a group of British blokes, we know why you're here. If you tell me you're here for a prayer meeting, I'll know you are lying". I bit my tongue; I was tempted to say that we were but humble musicians in York to join in fellowship with the faithful of York Minster to hear the organ recital from Colin Andrews & Janette Fishell that evening after Evensong. I bit my tongue a second time. Paradoxically, the hostel bar would be open as long as the bar staff were tipped. We paid up. The next problem was some time after the gig. The Skebabs were leaving in their mini bus to head back up the road to Edinburgh, so Andy jumped in to get home early to be with his kids. Half an hour later we couldn't find the keys to our van / dressing room. A phone call to Andy quickly established that he had the keys and that he was somewhere on the M1; along with a dozen or so merry Skebabs and their mates. He was unable to persuade his fellow travellers that the best course of action was to turn around and head back to York. (selfish bastards - Scott)

Now, it is a little known fact that we, Bombskare, are like Santa Claus in that we keep a Who's Been Good, Who's Been Bad list. Our Good list has a new top 10 entry. This R2 Tone had organized for the whole night to be filmed and had got a friend in to operate the cameras. Borrowed cameras, so he was being extra careful all night to the extent that he was on soft drinks. "I'll drive up to catch them", said Michael. "I haven't been drinking and I am fully comprehensively insured". Andy phoned back. In a compromise to all concerned, the van keys had been left at the desk of a service station somewhere on the M1. A quick conversation between Andy & Michael established which service station. It was at least 40 miles away. Our wellbeing was now dependant on the milk of human kindness lactated from the breast of a night shift worker on minimum wage somewhere in the Midlands of England. No matter, we had a plan. Michael would drive Sam's van to the service station, pick up the keys & drive back. Sam was reluctant to the whole idea. In a 20 minute impassioned outburst of emotional rhetoric Sam refused to hand over the keys. As was his right. Could we persuade Sam that it was perfectly legal for Michael to drive his van and sort out this mess? 10 minutes later Sam was won round with a compromise. Michael would drive the van and Sam would be the co-pilot. Great success. Off they went.

At the back of 3 Michael phoned. They had picked up the keys. However, Sam's thinking had become more lucid and he had started to ask some pressing questions. "Who are you? Why are you driving my van? Where are we? Where are we going? What's happening". Michael & Sam finally arrived back with the van keys. Now, what to do with an unlocked van full of amps, instruments & a ‘fatigued’ Scott asleep in the van? We lock the van, head back to the hostel, persuade the night porter to let us in, go straight to bed only to be awoken at 7 in the morning by a group of hill walkers heading off for the Yorkshire Dales. And the hostel had shut the bar at 1 o'clock because there was a school party staying that night. No matter, after multiple rounds of toast, coffee & cereal on Sunday morning we got our insurance deposit back and left.”

Cheers Mike.

I woke up the next day in the van, which I didn’t immediately recognise, in a car park in York, which I didn’t immediately recognise and I had somehow vomited down my own back. I was quite disorientated at first. Even though I was crippled from alcohol abuse I had to drive back to Scotland. Not a problem because remember folks, I am Iron. Stable, except at high temperatures. I had definitely cooled off and was too poisoned to care about much except making it back home without killing myself, and others. Thanks again to This R2 Tone for having us down there, and thanks to everyone in York for putting up with us. In spite of all the nonsense we actually played a pretty good set considering we were two pipers down so to speak. Hopefully be back down there sometime next year. Next gig in England will be Hartlepool. Next gig in Scotland will be at the Exchange with the always lovely Big Hand, and the always handsome Taking Chase, which is only next week. Don’t worry people. We are all best friends again.

We will be in the studio next weekend getting more vocals down for our long, long overdue album. Stay tuned for a progress report.