Alan Lomax & The Gaels

06Feb10

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Texas-born Alan Lomax began his folk song collecting career alongside his father John A. Lomax (1867-1948). In the early 1930’s, the Lomaxes developed the Library of Congress Archive of American Folksong, lugging a 500-pound recording machine through the United States. They collected hundreds of songs, including blues man Leadbelly in a Lousiana prison. In the early 1940’s, Alan Lomax recorded Woody Guthrie (Shakespeare in overalls) and Muddy Waters. During the McCarthy period, when left-wing performers were blacklisted, he left for England. He collected in Britian, Ireland, Italy and Spain, helping in turn to spur folk revivals throughout Europe.

Alan Lomax’s mission was “to put neglected cultures and silenced people into the communications chain.” He advocated “cultural equity: the right of every culture to have equal time on the air and equal time in the classroom.” He believed the centralized electronic communications system is imposing “standardized, mass-produced and cheapened cultures everywhere,” “crushing the life out of all the other human possibilities. My life has been devoted to opposing that tendency.”

On a visit to Scotland in 1951 Alan Lomax recorded over 250 songs within a few days. One of these collections was Gaelic Songs Of Scotland: Women At Work In the Western Isles. This collection documents a way of life almost entirely lost in twenty-first century Scotland. It contains a rich variety of songs performed with breathtaking beauty and tenderness by women at work at a time when work patterns in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland were still traditionally gender-based and women did most of the child-caring; domestic and dairying tasks; carding, spinning and dyeing of wool; and waulking (fulling) of cloth after it had been woven. Singing made the work lighter and more meaningful and apparently induced the cows to give more plentifully of their milk.

It is some of his most earthy and genuinely folkloric material, trudging through the Hebrides and propping his microphone against a horse trough to record the people singing in their working life. On the sprawling 38-track album, the subjects are the callused hands and melodious throats of weavers, sheep shearers, and crofters going about their business with equal parts joy, humor and despair. It doesn’t get any more rustic than hearing an a cappella lament sung against the rhythmic beating of tweed against a table and the squirt of milk into a pail. You hear women tell stories drifting inadvertently into Gaelic and then checking themselves back to English for the benefit of Mr Lomax, laughing mischievously as the recordist obviously has no idea of their often ribald lyrics, Songs are sung, tales told, people and places recalled, women whoop and hoot…

It’s wonderful stuff.

Filed under: Community, Crofting, Culture, Gaelic, History, Living, Music, Poetry, Textiles, Tradition   |  Leave a Comment

Stornoway In Stornoway

06Feb10

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The bold Stornoway play Stornoway on Friday 9th April.

Should be a good gig and kudos to them for making the long journey north.

Tickets on sale now. I got mine!

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http://www.myspace.com/stornoway

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Tags: band, Music, stornoway

Mumford & Sons

06Feb10

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Just a little musical interlude.

www.mumfordandsons.com

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Tweed Ride

06Feb10

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In what may be the greatest idea ever concieved, cities all over the globe appear to be embracing the twin joys of Tweed and Two Wheels.

The Tweed Run is a group bicycle ride through the centre of their home metropolis, dressed in the tweed garb of traditional british cycling attire, particularly tweed plus four suits. Any bicycle is acceptable on a Tweed Run, but classic vintage bicycles are encouraged. Some effort to recreate the spirit of a bygone era is always appreciated.

The original run started in London in 2009  and has since been held in places including San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, DC, Philadelphia, Toronto, Paris, Sydney, Tokyo and Durango, Colorado.

Photos

This year myself and snapper chum Sweeney hope to get down, hook up with friend Chaswell and represent the Harris Tweed. Timing may be tricky, a mad dash from the lambing in Lewis may be in order, but it should be worth the effort.

Filed under: Clothing, Culture, Living, Photography, Sport, Textiles   |  3 Comments

Dries Van Noten

05Feb10

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Harris Tweed in Lewis has clinched a “significant order” from the star of the recent Paris Fashion Week.

Belgian designer Dries Van Noten, who’s won rave reviews for his menswear collection which featured Harris Tweed and other traditional fabrics, has struck a deal with Harris Tweed Hebrides to supply him with the iconic cloth.

The textile will be woven by a squad of weavers around Lewis and Harris and finished at the Shawbost mill.

The firm which exports to over 50 countries now manufactures over 90% of total Harris Tweed production after taking over a disused mill in the crofting village in west Lewis over a year ago.

Mark Hogarth, Harris Tweed Hebrides creative director, welcomed  the order.

He said: “Dries Van Noten is widely credited as one of of the world’s leading designers. He has a deep knowledge of art and fashion which was evident in the Paris collection.

“Seeing Harris Tweed used in such an original way is great for the industry – where Van Noten leads, others normally follow.”

Iain Angus Mackenzie, HTH chief executive, confirmed that Van Noten’s company has now placed a “significant order” with the Shawbost mill.

He said: “We were delighted to work with him and to produce exactly what his collection required. It is another boost for Harris Tweed that it has been so well received.”

The Guardian rated Van Noten’s show at “number one” in its top ten of Paris menswear collections.

Filed under: Clothing, Crofting, Design, Living, Textiles, Tradition   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: Dries Van Noten, harris tweed

Donnie Dotaman

01Feb10

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Dotaman (Gaelic for “spinning top”) was the first Scottish Gaelic children’s TV programme for pre-schoolers. It began 17 October 1985 and was written by and starred Donnie Macleod, formerly of Na h-Oganaich.

Donnie had a different silly hat for every song, with something relevant to the song on it. One of his most famous was a hat with a red telephone on it. The songs were about things every day to the children watching while the style and structure of the songs were traditionally Gaelic.

Many young Gaelic speakers today learned much of their early vocabulary from the programme. Not me though, I just learned the all words to the fleeking songs but still have no idea what I’m singing. Which is kinda weird given it was a program for pre-schoolers and I was ten when it started…

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Filed under: Gaelic, History, Music   |  1 Comment

Recovery

01Feb10

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For some reason I’ve never done a Runrig blog post. An uncomfortable silence on The Croft’s part given they were the first band I ever went to see play live. Most folk probably get to say their first gig was The Ramones, The Clash, AC/DC…not me…it was fleeking Runrig. Needless to say I keep that little historical gem under my hat working as I do with the hip movers and shakers of the Glasgow music scene.

But should I?

Admittedly there’s nothing very cool about Celtic Rock, a fairly modern and slightly contrived genre designed mainly to stir the blood and tug the heartstrings of locals and exiles alike through the power of Marshall stacks, drum solos and the electric guitar. But Donnie Munro and Co. made some good albums and their live shows were 20th Century ceilidhs full of singing, drinking and dancing. I went to a fair few and had a blast.

I’m far less enamoured with them now than I was in my early teens, the last album I had being Searchlight released in 1989 so I guess I was tired of the Gaelic Folk Rock scene by the grand old age of 14 and had moved onto flares and flowers thanks to the arrival of the Stone Roses and the whole Madchester thing.

However one album remains firmly in my iTunes Recently Played list…

Recovery was their third album and was released in 1981 on their own Ridge Records label. It deals with the social history of the Gàidhealtachd, mirroring a renewed sense of cultural and political identity within the Gaelic community at the time. Six out of the eleven songs are in Gaelic and there are some great ones on it. However it’s difficult for me to listen to it with any sort of objectivity as it reminds me of holidays on Lewis, travelling in my Uncle N’s Volvo over to Uig with my cousins to camp at Riof the album seemingly always in the cassette player or to hand. Happy days and very evocative for me in weird way.

Anyway, you can listen and buy via the power of iTunes if you feel the need for a little old school Gaelic Folk Rock in your lives. And don’t worry about being cool: mullets, tight frost wash jeans, Hi-Teks and leather jackets are due for comeback any day now, mark my words.

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Filed under: Gaelic, Music   |  1 Comment

Tha Mi Sgith

01Feb10

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As per my previous post about Gaelic phrases I know but have no recollection learning, there are songs too. “Tha Mi Sgith” was on an internal mental loop today for some reason and God only knows where or when I learned this song. Maybe my Uncle N taught me it or my Granny sang it or it was on one of those Dotaman tapes responsible for ingraining other random Gaelic songs into my brain. Like that one about a tractor.

Anyway it’s an old Gaelic song,“Tha mi sgìth ‘s mi leam fhein” go the lyrics, Gaelic for “I am tired of being by myself every day in the blessed hills” and is also known as “Buain na rainich” (“Cutting the bracken”).

There are many variations of the story relating to this song, but one version says that the song was originally sung by a fairy who caught sight of a beautiful girl when he was cutting bracken. They fell in love, but alas there was no fairytale ending. When her family learned of the love, they stopped the girl from seeing the fairy and they locked her away. His song mourns the situation.

The tune of this song is very old and it is often used as a lullaby.

Anyway there’s Alan Stivell’s version of it to rock out to Dunringle style.

Filed under: Gaelic, Music, Poetry   |  1 Comment

Catskills

31Jan10

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If I never make it home I’d settle for a house with Catskill Farms.

Filed under: Architecture, Community, Design, Living   |  3 Comments

Joanna Newsom

27Jan10

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I’m a total sucker for Joanna Newsom.

A lyrical wordsmith with a voice, despised by so many, that gives goosebumps of the good kind. She is notorious for her meticulous compositions and conspicuous virtuosity, instrumental, lyrical and conceptual. She sings intricate narratives of longing and loss.

I saw her live a couple of years ago and she played her harp until her fingers, literally, bled. She held them up at the end and apologised if her playing had faltered.

Her third album, the follow-up to 2006’s acclaimed orchestral opus Ys is now unveiled as a triple LP. Have One On Me will be released internationally on 23 February.

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Here’s ‘81, a preview of her new work…

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Filed under: Music, Poetry   |  3 Comments
Tags: joanna newsom, Music