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OCTOBER 2006 - As Jupiter meets Saturn

Watch Electra's 'DEEP SIX ' video on YouTube

Wed 31 Oct  2006  -  MGCK Music       All Hallowed Eve  Z

No witches or warlocks

Just a lovely sunset in pinks and orange

After a wonderful weekend on the West Coast.

Scotland is beautiful

I'm so glad I've been a tourist here....  for years....

What more can I say?

Sat 28 Oct  2006  -  MGCK Music       After all is said and done

It looks like the TWELFTH NIGHT 'Voices In The Night' album is a likely-to-proceed in the next month or two.  The three 'Electra' tracks will be added to that compilation of previously unreleased material.

A couple of other things.. that DEEP SIX video has been a great success in terms of securing future gigs for the aforementioned 'Electrical One'.  London calling indeed.  "But she'll be in California!", I hear you say.  .. Don't worry, she'll be back next year..

Still it's currently THIS weekend and this weekend, we're all heading over to Argyll.  The last sail may be done, but the parties go on.

Speaking of which, TONIGHT at the Westport Bar in Dundee, Mr Dead Earnest's BIG BIRTHDAY PARTY/HALLOWEEN party.  Electra was invited to sing the 'Happy Birthday Mr President' Monroe version amongst other musical turns, but as we've discussed before.. without teleporting, nobody can be in two places at once!  So ARGYLL it IS!! at the behest of the Fabulous Anya!

Fri 27 Oct  2006  -  MGCK Music       IT was a surpise 

ZERO 7 - A popular two-man idea .. have a super-talented female vocalist. Her name: 'Sia Furler' and her voice is stylistically a cross between classic jazz and urban pop: Dusty Springfield for cool, Cristina Aguilera for command of popular style, and Barbara Streisand for all the hidden vocal ability she would effortlessly let loose in our direction from time to time.  She is comfortably smack dab in the running for title 'Queen of R n B', such a natural singer and such a beautiful voice and the only thing that really made it for me.  The music is ok... very popular with the university audience and used in LOTS of ads and they dragged Jose Gonzalez out there too, who reminded me of SO MANY people I've heard before (i.e. early Cat Stevens) old and new and I just wanted 'Sia' to come back out and sing..  it was that simple.  Also.. another great guitarist off to Stage Right... don't know his name either.

THURS 26 OCT @ USHER HALL, Lothian Road, Edinburgh: ZERO 7 

Trying to prepare to spend a long winter hibernating in California.. but doing a REALLY CRAP JOB at preparation. Maybe spontaneity is my dab hand.

Tues 24 Oct  2006  -  MGCK Music     So... Who is your audience? 

A question well and truly answered last night by 'CATFISH KEITH'.. a man who knows exactly who his audience is and how to please them; how to make 'em feel like they'd be welcome at a barbecue in his back yard in Iowa.  The Pleasance Theatre was surprisingly full considering Catfish is a man armed only with a mailing list, magic fingers and no Hit Parade top singles.  I spoke to his wife, manager, sound engineer and booker 'Penny' at her place by the mixing desk, doubling as the merchandise table.  She glowed with delight at the apparent success of this tour.  Dave Arcari (late of the MU - no, that is NOT a band.  For those of you who have forgotten, if you PLAY LIVE, you should be a member of the MUSICIAN'S UNION!!)  anyway... Dave Arcari, (also a superb blues guitar player and singer in his own right) who helped with the Scottish dates of this 30 night whip 'round the UK, said all the southern dates had been very well attended, but I've forgotten to tell you why:  The man can play.. acoustic blues guitar.. 'like a baby sucks titty'.. or something like that.. he wouldn't be that crude.. he's got a groovy line in patter as well between songs.. and he makes you FEEL GOOD.  There was one song (by some amazing blues female thang who 'passed away this past summer' whose name I must re-discover) which enraptured and took me to the place of it's title, 'Eagle Land'..   in all a beautiful solo evening (intermissioned only by Catfish deciding to stretch his legs 'round the room to speak to his fans and friends) with a lovely guy who just happens to be an absolutely GREAT guitar player and interpreter of 'the blues'..

***Nota Bene:.. I went to a gig because I received a beautifully packaged CD in the mail.  Never underestimate the power of packaging and promoting.  You may want to lie back, be cool and let 'discerning individuals' discover your gigs or deliver your next hit single in a 'stick', but the truth is, so much intrigue and generation of interest comes in how a thing is packaged and promoted.  What it looks like. Our culture is geared to the surface. Luckily last night there was much more beneath.

PS - Post Catfish Blues News... Catfish Keith has also accompanied Rich Hall at past Edinburgh Fringe Festival gigs.. so.. the guy gets around.

Sat  21 Oct  2006  -  MGCK Music     The problem with Deep Space? 

We haven't sorted out 'teleporting'. As we speak, I can be in only one place at a time..   Of course I'm referring to that experiment where the guy managed to 'move' or as in Star Trek 'beam' a molecule from one location to another using a 'computer' roughly the size of an oil refinery in Yakutsk.  The very complex process requires perfectly 'copying' the thing you're beaming.. i.e. a molecule, an ant's leg, and if you're really ambitious, a handsome bloke cradling a bottle of Möet, and then 'pasting' that copy elsewhere, which means you've got to get rid of the original.. or then there's two of you walking 'bout the place.  Apparently, our 'science' does not yet have the computing capacity to copy all of the details, i.e. DNA.. and other messy bits.. so it's a ways off yet.. but will be happening.  There are so many people dying from diseases (old and new), starvation (incomprehensible when we in the west throw away so much!  I guess 'famine' is the perfect culling instrument) and inappropriate values (work that one out your lazy self) on this VERY mixed up planet of ours and yet, there are so many people just going about their wacky business, trying to teleport tiny bits of being across a room.  Strange species, humans.

Anyway.. long lead in to the point.  In a last minute announcement, Brian Hutton of ALTRES called Electra to invite her to join them at their  Friday night gig at a place called The Retreat in Perth (Scotland, not Australia or Idaho).  Electra had made a prior promise to attend the My Electric Love Affair gig at The Wee Red Bar in Edinburgh and although a gig with the sonic ALTREAN savants is one of Electra's FAVOURITE indulgences... she could not be in two places at once.  Not yet any way!  

I hear it was a very FULL night of music up in Perth (lots of bands playing) and ALTRES' set went down a storm.  They're always great.  Always roll out a professional sound.. no matter how large or small the venue and background location.  They could probably gather on a postage stamp and deliver a mind-blowing set with light show.

At the same time, The Wee Red Bar was a revelation.  It takes me a long time, sometimes, to catch up with what is right under my nose and I must admit, I've never been in The Wee Red Bar  @ The Art College on Lauriston Place, Edinburgh,... ever.  It's a groovy little spot tucked away behind an aesthetically cool and pleasing glassed entrance, on the side of that massive building and PERFECT for any band with the right image and sound and MY ELECTRIC LOVE AFFAIR have that image and that sound.  Freshly kitted out with a new bass player and stunningly stylish Japanese chick on keys and occasionally altered vocals... I loved the set.  But I always do.  And full kudos to 'Dave', the drummer, who is a living metronome.  For something so directly delivered, MELA's music is so beautifully 'out there' and sonically yearning to take you to that star or just comfortably get lost in where you are.. so far IN or OUT THERE.  If they had teleported from the stage mid-set, I wouldn't have batted an eye.  It was that kind of night.. or does that tell you nothing about it?  Just go to their MySpace and listen to the music and then put yourself in a darkened venue on a red leather sofa surrounded by all kindsa folk, some rising steam, pounding reverb  and LOTSA DRY ICE!  You'll get it, one of these days.  It's an event.

and here comes yet ANOTHER!! missed opportunity due to imperfect science: we were asked to go sailing in Argyll this morning.. just a call out of the blue.. "Hey.. we're going for the last sail of the season around lunch time.. you want to come?'  Uh.. YES.. I would LOVE to COME OVER.. if I could TELEPORT!!!!!! Otherwise.. chances are, since you've called me at 10am, gotten me out of bed... I'll have to brush my teeth, get the other guy OUT OF BED.. get some clothes on.. make a few phone calls hop in the vehicle and DRIVE like a bastard and STILL won't get there til 1:30 or so... we're likely to miss the sailing part of it!  Come on Mr Science.. let's step it up.  Take us into the future.. NOW!

Just to let you know.. she's also occasionally a flippin' brainy girl:  'Electra'.. who is a longtime member of MENSA has one of her letters-to-the-editor on 'the proposed connection between promiscuity and genius' published in that group's October magazine.  If you can find one, it's a must read.. maybe there's a link on the net.  Adios til the next.

Oh.. what is NEXT??? CATFISH (FLIPPIN') KEITH!!!! On Monday night at the Pleasance Theatre!!!

Told you.. we do 'eclectic' very well.

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It's not often I recommend a gig; but 20 OCTOBER @ The WEE RED BAR, Edinburgh, MY ELECTRIC LOVE AFFAIR the 'love sons' of Nico and Andy Warhol are doing their unique thing.

Wed 18th Oct  2006  -  MGCK Music     “I’m sorry, but I cannot take calls that are not integral to the plot.”

LAST NIGHT AT 'THE STAND', a Swedish comic (Henrik Elmar??  I know that's wrong, but I'll take a stab at it anyway) came up with an astute observation:  Characters in movies never receive communications that are irrelevant to the story-line.  James Bond never takes a call from his accountant or shirt-maker, his ex-university days buddy or an ex-girlfriend asking for that lamp she left 7 years ago.  He doesn't get endless email newsletters from Rolling Stone or ITunes, he doesn't pick up junk mail, or tear his hair out at a letter coming to the wrong address again and again.  Listening to the comedian reel out his examples, I realised, I am that character and my life is a two-hour movie.  I never take calls that aren’t 'integral'  to my story-line or it’s desired outcome.  I turn my phone OFF, set my junk-mail folder to HIGH and would rather seal the letter box with tape than risk such an event.

.After all was said and done, HOPE ETERNAL walked the audience vote with a tight, bright, shiny, original and very funny set.  She'll be coming back for more gigs.

and as you can see from the marquee sailing across the top of the page,  THE FINAL CUT IS HERE! Electra's 'DEEP SIX(XXXXX)' (The Movie - now on YouTube - produced by ALAVALA ) 

Tues 17th Oct  2006  -  MGCK Music     ..Out of the blue

Sometimes I am so flattered.. (or sometimes I am so EASILY flattered).  This morning, completely out of the blue, received a 'personally autographed' CD - "Sweet Pea" - from American acoustic blues guitarist CATFISH KEITH!  He's on a 30-date whistle-stop tour of the UK, with Scottish gigs in Edinburgh Mon 23 Oct @ The Pleasance Theatre, Glasgow Tues 24 Oct @ The State Bar and in the legendary township of Arbroath, you will find Catfish twanging the blues on Wed 25 Oct @ the Inverpark Hotel.  It takes gumption and the smiling face beaming out at me from the cover of the CD tells me he's got it.  With song titles like 'Gonna Get My Hambone Boiled', 'Baby I'm a Fine Artiste' and 'Salty Thang'... he's already got a fan.  Find him at www.catfishkeith.com.  It's not like anybody else would be using that URL. (The real beauty of this package?? He sent the CD from Iowa City, Iowa on 10 October - the UK tour begins 13 Oct - and it arrived here today. In time for me to tell you 'bout his Scottish dates.  So... YESSIR I will write about you!!!)

TONIGHT AT THE STAND (Edinburgh, York Place)!!!!  'HOPE ETERNAL' STRUTS HER IMMACULATE STUFF!  WE WILL BE THERE!

and everything you ever wanted to know about beautiful PLANET EARTH!

Sun 15 Oct  2006  -  MGCK Music     ..WHAT I'D REALLY LIKE TO DO...

Get some new photographs!!!  As I said to a 'friend' on MySpace, who commented on how pretty I looked in my pictures:

""First: Your words are too kind. Faces look good for the 15 years before the divorces, car crashes, house crashes, and all the other bankruptcies that allow one to be 'sculpted by life'.""

So yes... I want ( I NEED) some NEW photos.. something gritty and 'defined'. Something that gives me a look of 'substance' and 'no messin'.. something that says everything I want to say and tells the audience absolutely NOTHING they really need to know.

Fri the 13th Oct  2006  -  MGCK Music     ..Superstitious? Nah.  I LOVE LUCKY 13!...

A couple of classic YouTube finds:  

1)  SOUTHPARK's 'Tom Cruise Won't Come Out of the Closet' clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI4mVVQhzoc

2)  "10 Things You Don't Know About Us": Filmed on a mobile phone: men read 'the 10 things' article in Esquire magazine written by a woman.
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O0Do0idci8  and

3) KORN's: Twisted Transistor... brilliant humour from the Alternative Heavy Metal kings.  Reminds me.. I'll be on the West Coast of the good old USA (Kal-I-Forn-I-A to you!) in November !!!... a sunny warm smiley place to spend the long cold winter.. brrrrrrrr!   This page will have to divert to RenegadeRaydio's weblog at that time:  Now to KORN:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmXTCQ38FJo

oh and... a little experimental DEEP SIX(XXXXX) vid clip - which ain't nuthin' like the final being uploaded to YOUTUBE. This is just the abstract arty version, currently embedded in the DEEP SIX MySPace.  This will probably be gone into the annals (watch that spelling Einstein!) of history at some point soon as the REAL clip has arrived.

and, finally, I've become a fan of Eleanor Morgan's MySpace blog, especially this one entitled: "If Girls Designed Condoms": http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=87344130&blogID=177266781&MyToken=5939ee7a-4a14-459a-810a-9e6a61aa746b

and here's a memory... found this yesterday: another photo from DEAD EASY's Marble Arch session (photos courtesy of Paul Loasby.. and what a helluva guy he was too..):  Gosh.. we  were pretty.  Of course, Nick (far left) played bass and didn't last too long. It looks like at least one band member was assuming the 'crash' position.  She must have known what was coming.

Mon 9 Oct  2006  -  MGCK Music     "...And where have all the A& R guys gone???"

Email this morning to Mr Dead Earnest: ""Now.. to a new topic of conversation.. something I've been thinking about lately with the advent of the MySpace phenomenon or 'Non-nomenon' as I'm coming to think of it. When I was last in a band.. a band of my own… we had one obsession: courting the favour of a record label. A REAL record label. We weren't interested in 'friends', as such. Actually, I don't think we even HAD any friends. Rock bands use up everybody's love and money pretty quick and run out of friends faster than, well.. . you get the picture. 

Everything we recorded and every gig we played was with the intention of attracting Record Company A&R interest. We sent them our demos and we invited them to our gigs. Fans (or 'friends') had to fend for themselves.  In those days (we're talking anytime in the decade before the millenium), there was not really any way to 'make product' or distribute it without the complete involvement from start to finish of a record label. The bigger the better. Now, the trend is do it yourself, and I know how hard that is.  Just try paying a mortgage, paying the rent, running a vehicle, buying groceries or even buying a pint for a mate on the sales of CD's from your website and it all comes painfully clear. 

There's whole kind of dance of the seven veils (without the aid of Jack Straw telling us to take it off) on the 'everrnet' or, as I'm coming to call it, the 'never never net' and on MySpace; where you are asked to give more and more and more for less and less and less. And what unisgned acts don't realise is they STILL NEED A RECORD COMPANY.  In real terms, it's an absolute necessity. Every Mercury Prize winner has a Record Label behind them.. and usually a goddamned BIG one. There's no way to distribute any more without them. You can put your CD's and 'downloads' up for sale on the internet, up on 'I-tunes' 'til the cows come home. If you haven't had the benefit of a BIG LABEL promotional budget (i.e. a buy on to a major tour and full print advertising from street to billboard), then probably nobody on earth knows who you are anyway. And a little bird in LA tells me, the BIG record labels are working their asses off to keep and get control of the internet download market.. so.. .. the machine will still be there. Probably BIGGER and BETTER than ever, even after the CD, the tape cassette and vinyl, completely disappear in the last EBay bargain bin clearout.

So,.. those are my 4-5am ramblings… Musicians are funny people. It's almost more important to them that people can hear their music, i.e. the My Space Music Anti-phenomenon, than that they can sell it and make a living from it and actually afford to continue making music. Just the ramblings. Sleep tight…

Sun 8 Oct  2006  -  MGCK Music     "It's in the water..."

Had a terrifically stimulating conversation with 'Pete' in the gym this evening.  The flow of the subject matter was kind of an 'ode to heavy metal' and I don't mean 'higher atomic weight elements', like lead, mercury and cadmium.  We were talking music... the full panoply of styles and intensities (Mars Volta have another album out soon)... and that little 'sucking of air' through the teeth when you tell people you like anything 'metallic'.  Like it's uncool or something even WORSE!  In this country maybe.  In the States they breed metal-makers.  Northern Europeans do it pretty effortlessly too.  Italy is catching up with their own brand as offered up by female-fronted bands like  Lacuna Coil.  Norway is famously on fire with metal.  Anyway.. the conversation reminded me of a review I wrote about an American band called Luther's Fall in Spring 2004.  So I had to go and find it.. see if it was still on this website somewhere and, YES it IS!  On the Listening To Archives page... (and I still listen to the first track on their CD called 'RISE'): 

"" Down to the nuts and bolts.  In general, the Americans have an advantage where this music is concerned.  It's as much a part of the culture as, say.. George Washington, dollar bills, Wrestlemania, Marilyn Monroe, Microsoft,  big cities, big cats and bears, burgers, fries and pick-up trucks.  Guitar culture: it's in the water; heavy metals, all that wide open spaced vibe of the wilderness; 'don't fence me in' sentiments abound.  There may be a gun under every pillow, but it's about freedom and the right to choose and fuck off anybody who seriously trespasses on your turf.  Right, wrong, whatever... that's just how it is.  ""

Sat 7 Oct  2006  -  MGCK Music FULL MOON tonight.. so watch yourself.. 

Blue hat for a blue moon

Thurs 5 Oct  2006  -  MGCK Music And...in the month of the harvest moon... 

A tree grows in Leith



I have to admit, it was a bit of a surprise...  this happy little bush sunning itself on the Leith Links.  
   The only question left (apart from how did it get here???) ...is it a girl?? or a boy???   

Had lunch yesterday with Mr Dead Earnest from Dundee.. and a surprise visitor, Brian Hutton of ALTRES.  So, a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon.  

Other than that.. the month is off to a relatively slow unlimbering.  I can't even remember what happened last October.. ahhh.... yes... ALTRES played a gig at the Mills Observatory.. and we were there.  

Brian also handed me a Live CD of the ALTRES performance @ the Elemental Arts Festival in August.  I went home and listened and could not believe my ears.  HOLY FUCKING COW!  We WERE FUCKIN' INCREDIBLE on the day.  It sounds like silk.  So great to sing with those guys.

Sun 1 Oct  2006  -  MGCK Music A penny for your thoughts...

Today's musings on my life on Earth: I'm very fatalistically optimistic about most things: "what's for you won't go by you.." etc.

I have 'met' deadlines only to have the 'deadline' I bucked and fought to meet turn out to be irrelevant in the long train of events called a lifetime.  The small meagre excessive outpourings of a hill full of ants; romping at full throttle, building a tiny useless Troy, which will be burned and decimated by some careless campers.  I have been that ant.  I have been that camper.

Agendas tie us and hog-tie us and un-tie us again.  I hate agendas.. I hate plans.. I hate anything that is SET IN STONE.. as I think the very nature  of molecules is mutable.. and as with the concept of quantum leaps.. if it's set in stone.. it ain't goin' nowhere.

So.. cheer up.  If what you thought was important is dead in the water.. it was probably already dead.. and you just learned about it a little late.

So.. You think you know everything????

ONE MILLION WAYS TO DIE:  http://quinnell.us/society/deviance/death/index.html

Horoscope for October: Haven't decided who the lucky sign is yet.

If you're looking for LAST MONTH's stuff : go to Last month's blog: September 06

Still smokin'!!!!

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  BE THERE...... or BE SOMEWHERE ELSE!  If you don't know how.. take lessons on COUNTERCULTURE.

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SPACE: The FINAL FRONTIER! Always an eyeful: The Universe Today

Sites worth a visit and support are: http://www.adbusters.org and Be an 'Antipreneur' - anti-corporate - self-motivated activist: http://adbusters.org/metas/politico/antipreneur/

http://www.indymedia.org.uk

as always www.clearchannelsucks.net  (note: this site WAS closed down in a court battle with the Media Giant who got awarded the rights to the website name.. but it has sprung up again in an Appeal.. gripping stuff..

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MySpace for Electra: www.myspace.com/electrasong or www.myspace.com/electramagick (we can't log in to upload or change anything as we've forgotten the frickin password!)

MySpace for Deep (and meaningful) Six: www.myspace.com/deepsixxxxxx

MySpace for Jimmy Miller 1: www.myspace.com/anonandon

MySpace for Jimmy Miller 2: www.myspace.com/jimmymilleredinburgh

MySpace for MAGICK 101: www.myspace.com/magick101

MySpace for Diamond Kitty: www.myspace.com/dkinfo

MySpace for DEAD EASY: www.myspace.com/deadeasy