First off, a hearty congratulations to R.M. Hubbert who has won this year’s Scottish Album of the Year Award. Who he?! He’s a nylon string strumming quasi-flamenco guitar player from Glasgow who now sleeps on a bed scattered with £10,000. In pound coins of course, otherwise that would seem like extravagance.
By all accounts he’s a lovely chap and deserving winner. His album, Thirteen Lost & Found is a fine collaborative effort and winning the award manages to pat several Scottish musicians on the back at once. Wha’s Like us! Anyway, he’s gigging and likely to be asked to gig a bit more so look out for a chance to see him live. Until the album is released on vinyl and we get a copy or 2, you can buy it for a fiver here.
This year we have a Youtube Channel VoxBoxMusicBox and I’ll stick a new video up from time to time. This week it’s eagleowl vs Kid Canaveral.
On record shop day earlier this year, we wanted to have some Fence bands on the bill to show our support for the label. Ideally an artist with something to sell or promote. Johnny Pictish Trail who runs the Fence label had released his new album but was away touring on RSD. I asked Kid Canaveral who said something like ‘well we would but only the female half of our foursome is available’. Oh, that’s a shame. ‘But,’ says Kate, ‘we could maybe do an acoustic set and would you like me to see if eagleowl are available?’ Yes that would be great, please do ask Eagleowl too.
The first rule of Eagleowl is that it’s not ‘Eagleowl’ at all. It’s ‘eagleowl’, in lower case you fool. The band have been around for seven years and everyone in town knows this. Drat, they now know that my knowledge of eagleowl could be written on the back of an pygmyowl -but I’m learning, slowly.
Got him! Pass my black marker!
The second rule of eagleowl is that they (probably) don’t realLy MiNd aBOut HaVinG a LoweR CASe LetteR at the start. Phew.
Anyway, at some stage a Doctor Moreau style hybrid of eagleowl and Kid Canaveral came about which led to a name quandary. It went from Kate and Rose from Kid Canaveral and eagleowl (too descriptive) to Kate Canaveral? Girl Canaveral? (not serious enough) all the way to Kid eagleowl, eaglekids, Kid Canaverowl, eagleaveral, then to Evil Carnivalkid before settling on the catchier abracadaberarnivaleralowl with a lower case ‘a’ which we put on the poster. The experiment came to a wonderful conclusion.
After 2 weeks of practice, this unique Edinburgh supergroup sounded like this:
eaglowl’s 1st album is out now. They have recently had an incredibly successful album launch and short tour and I’ll get in early and say that they should be up there as a contender for next year’s SAY Award. Saying that, Kid Canaveral and Pictish Trail should be up for next year’s SAY Award too.
I don’t really do album reviews so you are getting this instead:
We’ve been lucky to meet several bands and artists and I can say that my new friends kick out the jams. Indeed, my new friends eagleowl kick out the jams but in a really, really slowly slow fashion, a bit like bits of The Velvet Underground’s third album and Lou Reed’s Berlin. Mainly in that the songs really take their time, they go slow. Low? No that’s a lazy comparison. Achingly slowly. So… So… I’m not sure how to say this… So. So slow. 95% of No. Pause. Comma, comma, comma, . H-y-p-h-e-n-s. That’s not it. Slower! So Slow. So Slowly. So quietly slowly. So peacefully slow and gentle that you’d fall asleep in the bath and drown. Shh, be quiet you and better wake up. Sowing slow poppy seeds to keep you in this sweet flat wet bath naked knackered slow opi-ate state. Then, so quickenly slow. So oddly quickening slowly slow. So slowly quickening. So slowly teasingly slowly speeding up and slowly intensifying. Slow drums pounding slowly faster and then the song levels out and is finished.
lower case and utterly compelling wow
To see what the fuss is about, you can hear and see eagleowl live tonight with the wonderful Wounded Knee in Dalkeith. It’ll be like a mini Record Shop Day. Read about it and get yer tickets here.
If you can’t make it to the gig, I’m happy to say that we have their eaglly awaited new album, This Silent Year in the shop on LP with free CD and on individual CD too. Both come with free poster.
Next week: Kid Canaveral vs eagleowl and a cheeky plug of Kid Canaveral’s new album Now That You Are A Dancer. Some talented folks on that Fence label.
Oh and I just found this short taster on YouTube. Bootleggers… fantastic!