The folks who run The Skinny are game. A young crowd turned up to one of the most miserable Saturday’s I’ve spent outside– and to the Skinny’s “Boat Party” on Cruz (Leith’s nice but not homely floating restaurant, nightclub-bar combo) and it was barry. Yes, ‘barry’ is Leith for ‘pretty fekkin’ nice’. An all-day DJ set moving through hip-hop, jazz, soul and a little latin inspired thingy in the middle sums up most of the stuff i nodded along to… an ambitious idea i suppose; keep 400 (I’d say 150 max turned out) punters bouncing along all day and night- but it was a good laugh, and the free drink helped (it lasted… a short time) free BBQ too.

I had a kind of press-pass (involved saying to the door-men “yeah, i’m with the Leither… look there’s the editor across the road- ‘ave a word with him” –the editor promptly disappeared leaving me to wrangle myself in on the basis that I had a big camera and knew the owner of the boat) the orginisers were a pretty good laugh and the uncomfortable early moments of turning up sober to a gig where you know no-one passed quickly. met and had a laugh with the lee, photo editor for the skinny, and some fella named ian who’s an event manager and has an incredibly optimistic take on most things manufactured a waterproof ceiling for the promo girls from Kopparberg who stood in the pouring rain handing out free pear-cider.

There were pirates. Dead of course, and they did some stuff with fire which was nice, made for an interesting photo set; dj’s, rain and fire. On a boat, in Leith. Went home early after a great campari-esque cocktail, which I helped Esmeralda (possibly not her real name) the Cruz’s newest foxiest barmaid, invent. Doug showed up and we had a few drinks in an old man pub across the street where I complained about the mad-house we’d just left with the locals “aye, i said calm down ya loon– t’won of these pirate lads”. bloody pirates, eh.

So. this is my new attempt at keeping you a’breast. I’m no William Rennie but i really should start drafting these or taking this psudo-journalistic spree seriously, just a little. First stop: English for beginners. Stay with me! Photos are with The Leither- if you’ve found yourself here via my scribbled notes whoever you may be.

i.e. how to hack the iPod- there’s a great Mac app I’ve been using for a month or so to save my music collection (my backup is in Aberdeenshire while i’m down south) and I have a new iPod. the app is called ‘Music Rescue’, and it does exactly what it says on the tin: “Recovers” (Copies) your iPod’s contents to your iTunes library. It does this for free… nearly – if you don’t pay up a tenner you get a reminder every few minutes. Well worth downloading.

Music Rescue is on just that level of simplicity which will save your arse in a hurry and do just fine for more advanced ‘recoveries’ – the naming system is very CDex, circa ‘99. I love it.

I believe that you heard your master sing

when I was sick in bed.

I suppose that he told you everything

that I keep locked away in my head.

Your master took you travelling,

well at least that’s what you said.

And now do you come back to bring

your prisoner wine and bread?

You met him at some temple, where

they take your clothes at the door.

He was just a numberless man in a chair

who’d just come back from the war.

And you wrap up his tired face in your hair

and he hands you the apple core.

Then he touches your lips now so suddenly bare

of all the kisses we put on some time before.

And he gave you a German Shepherd to walk

with a collar of leather and nails,

and he never once made you explain or talk

about all of the little details,

such as who had a worm and who had a rock,

and who had you through the mails.

Now your love is a secret all over the block,

and it never stops not even when your master fails.

And he took you up in his aeroplane,

which he flew without any hands,

and you cruised above the ribbons of rain

that drove the crowd from the stands.

Then he killed the lights in a lonely Lane

and, an ape with angel glands,

erased the final wisps of pain

with the music of rubber bands.

And now I hear your master sing,

you kneel for him to come.

His body is a golden string

that your body is hanging from.

His body is a golden string,

my body has grow’en numb.

Oh now you hear your master sing,

your shirt is all undone.

And will you kneel beside this bed

that we polished so long ago,

before your master chose instead

to make my bed of snow?

Your eyes are wild and your knuckles are red

and you’re speaking far too low.

No I can’t make out what your master said

before he made you go.

Then I think you’re playing far too rough

for a lady who’s been to the moon;

I’ve lain by this window long enough

you get used to an empty room.

And your love is some dust in an old man’s cuff

who is tapping his foot to a tune,

and your thighs are a ruin, you want too much,

let’s say you came back some time too soon.

I loved your master perfectly

I taught him all that he knew.

He was starving in some deep mystery

like a man who is sure what is true.

And I sent you to him with my guarantee

I could teach him something new,

and I taught him how you would long for me

no matter what he said no matter what you’d do.

I believe that you heard your master sing

while I was sick in bed,

I’m sure that he told you everything

I must keep locked away in my head.

Your master took you travelling,

well at least that’s what you said,

And now do you come back to bring

your prisoner wine and bread?

-”Master Song” from Songs of Leonard Cohen

today LittleCatgut.com went online. i’ve stuck to HTML; table as frames – all very old-school standards – no 2.0 crap for this little site. its a sturdy ‘website’ in the long tradition of band homepages. plent of room to grow, and I really hope our friend does well with this venture.

there’s a fine ‘listen’ section, which uses a great free php-player (FlamPlayer), track-listings are in place and the ‘buy’ pages are operational Lord Vader, and I’m really happy about Paypal’s “Buy it Now” system which requires no up-front commitment or long term planning in terms of scale; on-the-fly editing is possible with a few tweaks on the page that delivers punters to payment… no running back to Paypal to authorize changes.

we bypassed the whole cart system that had in the past caused considerable ’scope-creep’ with previous site builds. i’ve just learned that selling in 1’s and 2’s does NOT require any level of eMerchant-ing, php-carts and all that.

sadly Paypal take an unfair cut in my opinion (1.9% to 2.9% + 20p) on every sale – although not shocking I should have thought the amount of money paypal have already made from eBay sales (if you accept money via Paypal it costs you, if you send money to a bank account it costs you) should balance out any security costs involved in this p.r. ritch Website Payment sector… with our integration of Paypal on Catgut Music .com they are pretty much getting the only ad on the entire webpage (links don’t count!).

oh my.

thom yorke told me the ice age was comin’ and i couldn’t say no to his wonky little face… oh yea’ i did dance like a mudda-fukka’. well i danced like a thom yorke to be exact. photos on flickr.

to paraphrase the wonky-faced midget: “this is a song from when radio one had balls… not that there’s anything wrong with J-lo, i’m sure she means well”. women and children first.