Really enjoyed this beautifully moody music video from one of my favourite Scottish bands: The Twilight Sad
Tag: songwriting
An Evening with Fire Cloud
Recently played a gig as part of the popular Catholic festival in Glasgow “Lentfest” – we were asked to play “An evening with Firecloud’ which was an inspiring night of dance, drama & music. The set we prepared had Kenny Waters on keyboards, Tracy Milligan on acoustic guitars and vocals and myself on electric guitar and vocals. I’ve included some pictures from the set below and video of some of the songs also. (c) All photographs by www.lintonpix.com/
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We played a 25 minute set which included;
- Night*
- Don’t Lie Down*
- White Horse^
- Use Somebody**
- Tequila Farewell*
* written by Keith Beattie | ^ written by Taylor Swift | **written by Kings of Leon
Any Given Sunday
The NFL season is officially over for another year, this leaves me with a feeling of sadness but also holds open a new window of time to use wisely on something else. For those of you who don’t watch american football or any sport for that matter, the first thing to mention is that its a real drain on your personal time! For example
If my local football team were playing (Glasgow Celtic) and I watched that game on a Sunday afternoon at 1:00 pm, then watched the first NFL game at 6:00 pm, followed by the second at 9pm and then to put the icing on the cake watched the late game at 1:00 am, I would’ve watched approximately 12 hours of sport! Incredible!
Obviously this rarely happens due to a number of contributing factors, but the main point is that even If I watch 2 of the games – thats six hours of sport in one evening.
My hope from the end of this season is that I can now concentrate on my music, by this I mean writing and recording my own material again. Since moving into our house I’ve setup my studio which I haven’t made best use of because this room has become a drying room for clothing and a dumping ground for the materials of the many projects my wife and I are involved in throughout the year.
But anyway, the stand out parts of last season’s NFL extravaganza have to be based around the action by the San Diego Chargers, the sheer brilliance of the New Orleans Saints, Pittsburgh early games, but more importantly. The Arizona Cardinals Vs Green Bay Packers game was the best match-up I’ve ever seen in NFL history. Simply Amazing!
New Year Resolutions
As 2010 begins, it seems like the ideal time to take a look at what I hope to achieve on a personal level. I have 360 odd days left complete the following goals.
- Travel around the parts of Scotland I haven’t visited,
- Home improvements that I’ve ignored, door hanging etc. .
- Surfing trips to breaks I haven’t visited yet,
- More reading & songwriting,
- Quality time with family & friends,
- Specific weekly exercise & relaxation time,
- More cooking and reliable diet,
- Visit at least 4 malt whisky distilleries,
There are obviously many many more, this list is due to grow as the months move on.
Songwriting
I haven’t really been doing much writing lately on my blog. This is due to a combination of things that have been taking priority over my free time. One of the main ‘distractions’ has been that Scotland has been having great waves on both the east and west coasts – which I feel I ought to enjoy whilst we have them to surf on, the water may be freezing but at least its moving enough for me to get my board on top of.
Leading on to the point of this post. I’m promising myself to write more songs over the coming winter months, I set up a studio at home when we first got married and moved in, and to be honest I haven’t really made the use of it that I though / should have. So I’ve been great recently and have began rediscovering old songs and beginning completely new ones at the same time.
Something I’ve normally been opposed to was reading books about songwriting because I think its something you either can do or can’t. However after a great chat with fellow surfer and songwriter Findlay Napier he suggested a few books he has used in the past. Having great respect for Findlay’s lyrics and songwriting I thought I owed myself the chance to read these books, so they’re ordered!
Another reason for my new burst of songwriting is that I’ve been asked to play a gig in November and was hoping to add some new tracks to my usual set. The gig is on November 20th and details can be found here .
Bubblebeach 