I drove 400 miles at the weekend. This involved watching sport in the Highlands and North-east of Scotland. During my trip I never witnessed a Scottish team score a point. Not until Sunday. I was up in Inverness on Friday to announce and DJ at The Tulloch Caledonian Stadium. Sadly Scotland went down 15-0 to Ireland in the U20 6 Nations. There was a good crowd despite the weather. Highlights of the match are available at the fantastic Scottish Rugby TV website. You can just about hear me at the start! The Inverness Caley Thistle FC staff very hospitable. The half time pie was a real highlight! In fact I think the guy who brought me the pie baked it, he was so enthusiastic about it. Or at least has shares in the Bakery. Now, if that Bakery was the Strathisla Bakery in Keith then I’d be an interested investor. Despite every town between Inverness and Aberdeen having “a” Tesco, it’s refreshing to see this small enterprise going like a fayre on a Saturday morning. Tremendous bacon roll.
I won’t buy shares in the McDonald's at Forfar, but I may be eligible for loyalty points. Every time I drive up/down the A90, a few miles north of Dundee the Golden Arches appear. My regular “away trip” co-pilot claims this is one of the highlights of the football season. A highlight when put up against other such trips made annually. It takes only a few minutes more to travel to Edinburgh from Aberdeen than it does from Govan to Edinburgh on a wet Wednesday night in February. The luxury of stopping for a Quarterpounder rated against stopping on the Kingston Bridge for no reason other than the sporting event that has taken place in Govan seems to attract many people not from Govan does render the Forfar McDonald's a “highlight.”
Last week was really productive music-wise. One thing that I have been working away on was a TV opportunity for The Elements. On the back of the release of New York City an influential music distributor got in touch acknowledging, “Lovely video and lovely record. Makes me want to get out to NY”. After some discussion it was felt that a good place to start for them would be to attack the sport market, starting with doing a live set on ESPN's Premier League Show Talk Of The Terrace. So, The Elements will be performing live on Talk Of The Terrace on Monday 11 April. They will be the house band, playing live throughout the show including a performance of their single "New York City". Talk of the Terrace is a Premier League highlights show presented by Kelly Cates (Kenny Dalglish's daughter).
On Thursday I had a great night recording some live tracks with The Deadly Winters for use in the run up to the official release of the album. The boys, as usual, have some interesting ideas for the artwork and packaging for the CD. Always enjoy our brainstorming nights, especially with bands who can think beyond the music and spend time and understand the importance of how you promote the song. I can’t wait until you all get to hear this album. The boy certainly knows how to write a tune or two. The launch date and gig to be announced soon (it’ll be early April). If venue and support acts all come together then it’ll be a belter! Huge thanks have to go to the work of the amazing duo that is Andy and Mo, aka The Little Rooms. Once they have finished with The Deadly Winters it’s immediately onwards with Alan R Davison’s album.
Enjoying The Cricket World Cup. Followers of this Blog will know that there were claims that there was an opportunity to find money in the street. The news is that this opportunity still exists. Somewhat strongly.
