Burnistoun

Burnistoun returns to BBC Scotland for its third (and final) series this week. Iain Connell & Robert Florence's fictional-town comedy is a really nice mix of Scottish humour, wordplay and weirdness and is worth a watch.

I know that, as a fairly traditional sketch show, Burnistoun can divide opinion. The genre hasn't exactly been fashionable of late, which is a shame. In the no-laugh-track / post-Curb / post-Office world, it's easy to forget that sketch comedy has given us some of the best. stuff. on. telly. ever. and, like Limmy's Show alongside it, when Burnistoun hits, it hits big. I really like it.

I was motivated to mention this / draw a picture when Rab urged people to watch more written comedy. To "tell the telly people you've seen enough panel shows". Hell yeah. Who want's to live in a world where there's more of this than this, or this, or this? Throw more money at the writers, costume departments and set designers, please.

Via their production company Bold Yin, Connell & Florence have recently been encouraging growth, collaboration and innovation in Scottish comedy. A wonderful thing. We've got some of the funniest people in the world living up here and, with a poke and a prod, they might get a little of the attention they deserve. AndyDee, I'm looking at you. Let's get Swatpaz on the TV too.

You can watch the new series of Burnistoun as it airs on BBC iPlayer and there's a bunch of old episodes and clips on YouTube. Rab (who, incidentally, Alex & I spotted in the town the other week but were typically too shy to say hello to - sorry) also has had his fingers in a lot of other pies. Pies close to my heart. Heroquest, anyone?

Paying £8.20 For A Song: An Acid Jazz Confession

Hijack by Marden Hill

This is a risky post for someone who likes to imagine his entire audience is made up of snobby teenagers. I'm going to, tentatively, raise the subject of... um, acid jazz.

Oh, and if that isn't enough, I'm getting there via aggressive rollerblading.

...

*cough*

...

Righto, now that it's only us cool kids left - I'll continue.

Over time, I've slowly been collecting a number of obscure-ish songs based mostly on nostalgia for my early teens. Back then (1995-6), I, like many of my friends, got into the inline-skating boom in a BIG way. I wore the gear, had the moves and watched the videos.

Through these videos (think 30 mins of dudes jumping down stairs) I got my first introduction to music proper. Before then, I'd had little exposure to anything beyond Disney theme tunes or my little Michael Jackson cassette. Hearing something new - a surprisingly mixed bag of pop-punk, hip-hop and unexpected gems got me psyched in a way that only a kid with a wallet-chain can be. Through many, many many repeat viewings, I knew all the words to every song and loved them with all my XXL-covered heart.

Royale at Stirling Skatepark
Royale at Stirling Skatepark

Myself, circa 1996. Note the pink t-shirt / cut-off white jeans / kneepads on my shins(?) / claw arm style

Revisiting this soundtrack of my youth, if you will, has not been easy (I've hunted before). Many of the tracks were obscure even in 1996, let alone after nearly 2 decades. Some were only released on small US / Canadian labels and, with limited access to the (often uncredited) videos, I'm often searching by little more than a handful of lyrics and a misremembered melody. I never bought CDs back then, y'see. They were too hard to find and too expensive.

Anyway, to the aforementioned acid jazz (Hijack by Marden Hill above / below). This track, which I discovered through the intro to the 1996 classic* Hoax 3: Broken English, has proven to be one of the most elusive. Unlike the other music featured in the video, the intro had no artist credit. Searching for the lyrics "You're taking over, I'm taking orders, you're taking all of my time" proved fruitless and name-that-song apps yielded no results.

Hoax 3: Broken English intro

My desire to find the tune soon outgrew all fondness I had for it and "Hoax 3 intro" quickly wormed its way to the top of my "music to get" list. Over the course of months, nay, years, I'd frequently take a little time to sniff around YouTube comments and messageboards to see if I could get any closer.

Then, last week, a breakthrough! Midomi recognised the track! I had a name (Hijack), I had an artist (Marden Hill) and the hunt, for the most part, was over.

Marden Hill, from what I can tell, were a prolific UK-based acid jazz outfit that some credit as being the first band to be labelled "trip-hop". They haven't been active since 2002 and possess neither website nor Wikipedia page. There's a nice wee discussion about from 2008 over at Soundological which includes a recent comment from bandmember Kevin Saunders. The internet is a wonderful thing.

Despite my discovery, Hijack remained slippery. It wasn't in the UK iTunes or Amazon MP3 stores (yet it was, infuriatingly, available in the US) and other, less honest, means of procurement turned up dead ends due, I guess, to the track being a bit of a niche commodity nowadays. The album it comes from, Blown Away, was available but, Christ, did I want an hour of this stuff? It's a fair stretch from my usual tastes and there's only so much flute a man can take. Add that I've not bought a full album for one song (remember that?) in years. It felt crazy... almost nostalgic.

I weighed up my options - wait it out a little longer, hoping that it either becomes available on iTunes / through some music nerd's blog or (and this is what I did) bite the bullet and pick up a second-hand copy of Blown Away through Amazon Marketplace for £8.20.

So, yeah, the CD arrived today, intact but with (appropriately) dusty joint-totin' cover art. I popped it into my computer and invited Marden Hill to sit alongside Punky Brüster, Herbalizer and The Cherry Poppin' Daddies in my "Skate Video Nostalgia" playlist. And, y'know what? After a couple of spins, I've decided it was worth every penny.

-

*I'm only half-kidding with this. I may be all about skateboarding nowadays but, honestly, Hoax 3 was a thing of beauty. It a was wonderfully rich (I might be wrong, but I think they used film rather than video) tour of the world, full of colourful European streets and bleached-out American schoolyards. You can watch the full thing here.

Chimera, 1991

This video ruined a holiday.

In 1991, the sci-fi / chiller miniseries Chimera "BBC Chimera, 1991") aired on the BBC while I was spending a week in Center Parcs with my parents. Being the summer, I was allowed to stay up a little later than usual to watch TV. Usually we'd find a film or a sitcom or something that we could all enjoy. I was 8.

One night, one horrible, dark night, however, I picked Chimera. Silly idea. I'd caught a little of the first episode back home and, although nervous (ep.1 featured a stabbing by an unseen aggressor!), I was curious enough to stick it out. Mainly because there'd been talk of... a monster!

Episode 2, for the most part, was fine. Actually, being a fairly serious production, it was low on monsters and kinda talky for an 8 year old. It mostly confused or bored me. Only the scenes that centred around a couple of kids - a brother and sister who had an imaginary friend called "Mr. Scarecrow" - really caught my imagination. As is the way with horror stories, imaginary friends don't often turn out to be all that imaginary and, true-to-form, in the final shot Mr. Scarecrow went and showed his bloody face. As the credits rolled, I knew my life as an innocent, happy, fearless child was over.

Looking back (above at the 5 min mark), it seems Mr. Scarecrow didn't actually show his face, just his stripy jumper. Goddamn it though, that must've been the freakiest stripy jumper in the whole-wide-world because I got scared. Really, really scared. (SCARED!). That night (and each subsequent sleepless night for at least the next 6 months) I was haunted by a face that I'd never even seen. I knew, I just knew that, right outside, the dark of Sherwood Forest was full of Chimeras. One was up on the roof. One was peeking in at me through the window. One was even preparing to slowly open my door and, when he did, I'd see that stripy jumper and I'd be dead.

Chimera, despite showing its age, seems a fairly interesting watch. Someone named SonofChimera has uploaded the whole series as a YouTube playlist. From what I can tell, Mr. Scarecrow (real name Chad) (...honest) is a genetic experiment - a chimera being a combination of different species, in this case, man & monkey - who causes havoc when he escapes from a fertility clinic. He's a tortured fella who's handy with a knife and wears dungarees. Most importantly, you very much do get to see his face.

As soon I get the chance, I'm gonna sit down and confront Chimera, my biggest childhood demon. Maybe if it's rubbish, I won't be scared anymore.

Hair of The Dog - Available as a Free Download

Today, Jonnie Common has announced that Hair of The Dog is now available for free download from his website. The album, a reinterpretation of Master of None (best record of 2011 in my opinion) features remixes by Geese, Dems, Found, Ben Butler & Mousepad, OnTheFly, River of Slime, GRNR, A La Fu, Miaoux Miaoux and The Japanese War Effort and is most definitely worth a listen - it's free for Christ's sake.

For those, like myself, who are a little, um, wet behind the ears when it comes to electronic music, I'd recommend checking out GRNR's brilliant remix of Bed Bugs as a good starting point - a real treat of a track with a great rap(?) by Jonnie and an all-trumpeting, all-squelching climax.

Visit jonniecommon.com for more information and to download the full album. The original tracks can be heard on Master of None which, for the millionth time, I really recommend.

To celebrate the now-freeness of Hair of The Dog, I put together the little video at the top of this post using footage from the launch gig (an art/installation/music collaboration between Jonnie, Zero Waste Design and myself) at Mono here in Glasgow last November.

Footage from the night was scarce - we were super busy setting everything up and whenever we did remember to shoot something, my wee Nikon's video mode kinda struggled with the low light and our shaky hands. I was pleasantly surprised to get anything useable at all.

I've Been Remixed

My friend Steve McEwan is an odd fellow. He likes to amuse himself in baffling ways - weird drawings, weird videos and now, weird music.

Recently, and completely out of the blue, he posted the above track on my Facebook page. It's pretty incomprehensible and features my voice 'remixed' to a bouncy wee beat alongside footage of a man with a lawnmower.

I was at once amused, confused and embarrassed. Was he having a laugh? Taking the piss? Bored? I don't know. There's another one called How To Fix A Car That Idles Poorly too.

The Cosmonaut Stylus

Cosmonaut Stylus

On the recommendation of Marco Arment (he's usually spot-on when it comes to product reviews), I've decided to give Studio Neat's Cosmonaut Stylus a try. It arrived this morning in a beautiful little box.

I've played around with it on my phone and, yeah, it's pretty good. It's well made, it's heavy (in a good way) and it works. I was on the lookout for a stylus for drawing with when I re-enter the world of tablets and I can already tell that this one'll work great on an iPad. On a phone, it's maybe a little chunky (if you're going for detail it definitely obscures exactly where you're drawing, but nowhere near how badly your finger does). Also, slightly more pressure than I'd expect is needed to register a tap - possibly because I'm being fairly ginger with it on the smaller screen. These are nitpicks though, on the whole the Cosmonaut is really nice to use and I'm looking forward to trying out some 'proper' drawings soon.

Draw Something

I'm not a massive fan of app-of-the-moment Draw Something. It's has loads of problems and if, like me, you've played a whole lotta iSketch over the years, it's kinda boring in comparison. Playing Draw Something using the Cosmonaut does improve things, however, and I'm gonna stick it out in the hope that the forthcoming update, at the very least, adds a frickin' undo button.

If you'd like a game, my username is davidgalletly.

I'm Selling an iPad 2

First off, let me apologise about the un-classy self-serving sales post. I will keep this short.

Like most of the world, I'm selling an iPad 2. It's a black, 32gb, wi-fi model in really good condition. It's the first ever thing I've sold on Ebay - hence this post. There you can see more photos and information. I even made a horrendous video of myself to accompany the auction to prove, as someone with no feedback, that I'm a real person.

If this is of interest, you can find it here. As a wee incentive / apology for clogging up your RSS with what is essentially a big advert - should someone buy this gizmo who reads my site, let me know and I'll chuck in a free print or something.

The auction ends tonight (Monday) at around 10pm and it can be picked up in Glasgow tomorrow if that's helpful.

Sorry x

Withered Hand: Heart Heart EP

Of all the things I work on, I think the stuff I get to do for the Scottish music label Fence Records is my favourite. I've been a fan forever and this latest project has allowed me to be involved in something that I remember wishing I could do back in college.

Back then, Fence would release really cool little EPs on CD-R as a kind of record-club called Picket Fence. I had tons of these things. The artists had complete freedom and, because it was quite a small-scale set up, you'd get loads of odd music and weirdness that you couldn't find on 'proper' albums. Each PF release came in a neat wee cardboard sleeve with artwork by the act themselves and, if I remember correctly, a spray painted issue number. *

I loved that stuff. I remember showing them to my classmates saying how cool it would be to work on something like that.

Well, recently Johnny and Kenny asked me if I'd be interested in working on the artwork to a kind of spiritual-successor to the Picket Fences. Of course I bloomin' would! Didn't they know I'd said to my classmates how cool it would be to work on something like that 10 years ago?

So, as of last month, I'm happy to announce the launch of Chart-Ruse. The initial set in the F3NC3 R⅓CORDS’ 33s subscription-based EP series. **

Kicking things off, is Heart Heart EP by Edinburgh's mighty Withered Hand. The 7'' vinyl features 3 tracks plus a King Creosote remix which is exclusive to the record itself (as in, you can't even download it like you can the others). The title track is particularly fantastic and can be enjoyed here:

For the artwork, I gathered together dozens of ancient maps, charts and diagrams and set to work with my (digital) scissors and glue to collage together a bright green (chartreuse - get it?) fantasy-world of mountains and sea monsters. The reverse (which can be seen properly here) features a broken-heart design that I adapted from Withered Hand himself.

The end result is something I'm really happy with. I tried to keep it loose and fun and, well, Fencey, while at the same time giving the series its own particular look and feel.

Moving on from here, the artwork for the next two Chart-Ruse EPs (by Delifinger and a still-secret third artist) will feature different islands and additions to part 1. Following that, we'll change the colour, change the title and change the artwork for the next 3. And so on, and so on. Confusing? Yeah, kinda, but that's the fun of it. As time goes on, it'll start to make sense.

The Chart-Ruse subscriptions have sold out but you can buy Withered Hand's Heart Heart EP and pre-order Delifinger's Escapes EP individually. Keep an eye out for news on the third release, and subsequent sets in the series, by following Fence or myself on Twitter. The full artwork is on my site and there are more photos on my Flickr.

* The spraypaint would make the CD stick inside the sleeve in the most maddening way. It somehow added to the charm, however.

** Fence, as you may have noticed, LOVE a convoluted title and a bad pun. KC's doing, I think.