Monday, April 30, 2007

MacBeth






















"MacBeth the real person was a very benevolent and kind king. During his reign (1040-1057) Scotland didn't have any expansionist ideas. He was concerned with what happened within the country. It's interesting how a very clever playwright can come along and destroy your reputation entirely for possibly propagandist reasons. At the time the play was written it was important for the English to believe that Scots kings were bad people -- heathens and primitives.

It was a good way of darkening the soul of a powerful character from Scottish history."I looked into it and I got really pissed off that that had happened. I like the darkness of the name MacBeth but, knowing the historical truth, I thought that I'd like to use the name for both purposes. It has a power, but also in the context of dissemination of information -- if I can sort of lighten the name of the true MacBeth then I'd be quite chuffed about that."

Snippet from soon-to-be-published Cindytalk interview for French Magazine "Trinity":

"MacBeth was in many ways destined to become a one-off project.In truth,the track "Help Me Lift You Up" was intended to be a Cindytalk track (for the CD compilation Volume 5) but I never felt happy with it.The line-up on the track was all wrong.Robin Guthrie and myself managed to cancel each other out,leaving only Nadia Lanman's cello as a bright spot.I decided not to use the name Cindytalk as the whole process lacked the energy or creative spark that was always present in our recordings.It just felt wrong.In doing so,I had a brief flirtation with the idea of more songs of that nature but time just moved on so quickly and left that idea in it's wake.It's always possible that I will return to the idea of recording some acoustic based songs in the future but I doubt if I will resurrect the name MacBeth".



MacBeth was a Cindytalk side-project established to explore covers of songs or traditional Scottish songs."Help me lift you up" is a Mary Margaret O'Hara cover that appeared in 1992 for the CD+book magazine Volume,number 5.


Volume 5 MacBeth photo by Simon Bower
Pinky Cindy photo by Nicole Huber

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Rare Hearsay



Cocteau Twins live recording
The Venue,Victoria London
November 16th 1982

Gordon Sharp sings in the first track,"Hearsay Please"
(added to the player) and the last one,an encore,
"It's All But An Ark Lark".

Recorded by CB and mastered by Josef Karol.

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Not In Colour



"It's October, so it's raining. Only 50 yards walk fast, faster, trotting, running jumping, made it. The train ticket wasn't an option and the barrier's only 4 feet high. Money for drink now and that drink will be in Chamber Street tax dodgers union where The Freeze will play an encore longer than a set - it's always the way.

I'm on the guest list because I've got a car, shit I've got a car, why did I catch the train! I meet Billy and go to the pub first, Ramones on the jukebox, "Go Mental", so we do. One hour to Freeze time, a slow walk, more pubs on the way. Two pubs from Chamber Street Billy remembers he's late getting home, should've been back in June. Truth is he won't go to the Freeze because he auditioned on keyboards and Gordon said he was bottom of the list, he was the entire list so an optimist might say top, he's still waiting for the call.

In Chamber Street I see Gordon, he's sitting in the corner, a finer display of undisguised indifference to the students who talk at him, I have never seen. He's obviously writing in his head. The sounds he writes may be for tonight or may be 20 years time, his concentration span is rather longer than that of most.
I decide to talk at him too. "What's Paranoia about?" "Can't say, figure it out." He never would explain that song to me but I know he's told everyone else, why, why them and not me, what's going on, am I the only one he won't tell? I'll work it out later, he will sing it at least twice, because he has to, if he doesn't the audience will rip him to shreds, so they all know.

The set will include BG123, I know that's a lift, Her Eyes, I don't know who she is, For JPS, Jean Paul Satre, Celebration, Louise Brooks and of course PsycoDalek Nightmares, doomsday.
The encore will cover the rest of an expanding repetoire. Fifteen minutes to go, the band disappear into the bogs to change. Bandages to be applied for a three minute opener during which bandages will be unravelled to reveal Gordon's face. The opening number is always the same and sets the tone, if I could remember the name of it I would share it, but I can't, if I could remember the words, I would share them, but I can't. I know the tempo, slow to fast put very before both. I know the chant it ends with, so I will share it, "you're gonna die, die die, die die, die, die, you're gonna die, you're gonna die. I know who died but that's private and tragic and still hurts us all.

The gig is over, time to break the news to Gordon that I forgot I have a car and we're going home by train. If we had the car he would sit in silence for the entire 30 minute drive back to Linlithgow, then I would stop at his house and he would talk for 2 hours. Last week he mentioned something called CindyTalk. CindyTalk would be his next venture. Named after Sindy the kiddies doll, you pull a chord in her neck and she would speak a randomly chosen inane, incomprehensible phrase, could you base a band on that, I didn't think so!"

Text by Andy Hutchinson,aka Plastic Orcadian