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		From 2001: LEE'S TOUR DIARY, 2001 1. CALGARY TO PALERMO Thursday 26 July Well, how strange to be hurtling along in a metal cylinder for thousands of miles to North America. Surreal. Eating food you can't taste, watching crap films, breathing bad air. Clouds, timezones, and a sense of displacement and imminent cultural challenge: so similar, this place, yet so different. Gloriously huge and wonderful land, thinly spread with people struggling to get by and taming nature for their own ends. See the specks below - big farms, tall blocks, teeming freeways. Stop off in Minneapolis airport and drink beer. Arrive at last in Calgary, trying not to remember it's 2.30 am in England. Dump our gear in the hotel and head down to the festival site. Must stay up and fight the jetlag. Get there in time to see David Byrne do "And She Was" and "Once In A Lifetime", but too late for food. Meet some old friends including Terry Wickham (of Calgary and Edmonton Festivals) and Lenny Podolak (of banjo notoriety). Sip weak beer and chat until my eyes half close and my brain congeals. Sneak back to hotel just as a session kicks off in the artists' bar. Collapse in bed at midnight and sleep fitfully. Weird dreams. Jetlag fights back, I wake at 6.30. Doze, but it's no good, my brain whispers, "It's 2.30 in the afternoon, time to get up...." Friday 27 July ....so I do. Stroll to the park and do some tai chi, an excellent way to deal with time confusion. Amble to a bookshop. Psychology section is full of self-help books. Feel vaguely irritated. Watered-down wisdom in a palatable form.......hope I'm not becoming an intellectual snob? Buy an unfeasibly cheap electric toothbrush in a drugstore. Wander Downtown Calgary among glittering tall buildings. At last, the gig, the point of the enterprise. We have been given a 15-minute change-over limit, which is nowhere near enough. The stage manager introduces herself and asks if we will be ready to go at 7.40. I tell her we will, provided the previous act is off stage on time, but no one must introduce us until we're ready. If we're not ready, I say, we'll cut our set so as not to overrun. The whole thing is a touch chaotic. I have to reset the drumkit, which is a pig as I can't get it into the right position. I give up after a while as I still have to get changed into my skirt and stuff. I ditch the headset mike, there just isn't any time. I race back to the dressing room and just as I reach it I hear someone on stage say, ". . . and now, all the way from Britain. . . perhaps the finest folk-rock band in the world. . . . . .Oysterbaaaand. . . . . " I can hardly believe it. I hurriedly pull on my kilt and top and sprint back to the stage. Mayhem. We only have a 40 minute set and this is not what you'd call the perfect beginning. JJ heard the introduction and went on stage only to find his melodeon still in its case. Ant, our backline technician (or roadie, as they were called back in the days when rodent extermination operatives were rat-catchers), is still trying to do 7 other things. The gig goes by in a blur. The drumkit is all over the place and I have a boom microphone which gets in the way. I rely on my (ha!) professionalism to see me through. Who knows what it sounded like - probably fine, but I am livid when I come off stage and sit and share my anger with anyone who comes near. 5000+ miles for this! It's the band who come out of it looking bad and that pisses me off. The people here are so nice and accommodating, it feels quite difficult to be angry. Everyone tells me we were excellent. Maybe we were. After an hour or so I have got it out of my system and go off to eat/drink/talk/watch the other bands. I see Gord Downie (of Tragically Hip, Canada's quintessential rock band of the '90s), whom I enjoy. The drummer is especially good. Really sitting on it and very inventive. I wonder what I would think if I could watch myself play. Then Billy Bragg. I've seen him before of course, but I enjoyed this immensely. He pitches his performance just right. The consummate pro. Just him and his guitar. He doesn't have the best voice in the world, but he sings the songs absolutely brilliantly and engages with the audience. Good songs too. Suddenly his set is over which is always a sign for me that I really got into it. I check out the time and find I have to get back to the hotel where we are playing a party for the volunteers. Try to ignore the fact that my body tells me it's 7:30 in the morning at home. Party gig exorcises the angst from earlier in the evening. We get Leonard Podolak up to play, then various members of Spirit of the West, old friends from previous Canadian jaunts. Billy Bragg gets up to play a fierce "I Fought the Law" with us. We rock. Saturday 28 July I wake up the next morning unable to remember going to bed. Flight to Seattle where we are playing WOMAD. Still jet-lagged but running on that special sort of energy that is available at such times. Another airport and it's already blurring around the edges. Oh the glamour of touring. Wouldn't you like to do my job? Hitting things for a living and perfecting sleep deprivation techniques. Arrive to find we have a heavy schedule of interviews so JJ, Chop and Ian have to forgo the pleasures of the hotel and go straight to the site. No rest for the wicked. We are on at 9:30. It is drizzling and chilly but a large crowd is gathering. We go on to much shouting and cheering. The last time we were here was 7 years ago, and there are lots of faithful fans making the most of us. CNN is filming it to go with the interview JJ and Chop did earlier. The gig is really excellent and so is the crowd. After several encores we do a CD signing session where we meet some of our audience and chat and scribble. We promise not to leave it another 7 years. Chop tells me he met a man called Mike who had driven from Mexico (2000+ miles!) to see us here. An hour before we went on stage he got a call to say his wife had been rushed to hospital, so he got back in his car and headed off. If you are reading this, Mike, much love and best wishes to you both, and send us your full name so we can put you in our all-time Travelling Heroes Hall of Fame. Sunday 29 July The morning sees us heading to the airport for a flight to Victoria, on Vancouver Island. A special place for me. Dr. Chi, a tai chi master, used to live in Vancouver, and when I stayed with him years ago I headed out to the island for a break and stayed in a log cabin in the middle of the island. Lovely place. Wolves and bears roam free. Victoria, the main city on the island, is very laid back, quite touristy and very 'British'. Well, you can't have everything. Testing few hours as we arrive at the airport to find the flight has been oversold and although we have tickets, we don't have reservations. Tedious. Especially for Mr.Telfer who is the unlucky random member of our party not to have a seat. The airline eventually bribes 2 people with return flights to Mexico and they make way for a relieved fiddle player. Delightful flight to Victoria. Islands all over the place. I visited someone while I was out here who had a large house on an island and a boat tied up in their back garden. Some life-style. "Just popping out to get some milk and a paper. . . ." Greeted by a welcoming committee who break into spontaneous applause when we arrive at the airport. How flattering. Whisked to our hotel then to the site. Beautiful backdrop of serious mountains and more very friendly festival volunteers. Braggy is on the bill directly before us so I get to catch his set again as the sun comes down, then it's our turn. Have an excellent time. Typical laid-back Canadian festival audience. We charm them then force them to their feet. End of festival party finds me beaten into submission by an Aussie band playing heavy and powerful music at an uncompromising decibel level. I am more in the mood for something chilled. So is nearly everyone else apparently, so we make our excuses and leave. JJ harangues us as he is up for it and we are being wimps. We leave him to it. Monday 30 July 4 gigs in 3 days. I am knackered, but we have 2 entire days off now. Hooray! Time for a trawl around the second-hand bookshops of Victoria. I find loads of cheap and brilliant books which I buy excitedly. I sit by the harbour in the sun and read. I decide to pay for the books by not going out to dinner but staying in and eating noodles from Chinatown. Spend the second day walking and reading and reading and walking. Alan, Ian and John visit an old friend who has moved here from England. Chop and Mike (our sound engineer) go off somewhere to practice archery and terrify the local populace. Wednesday 1 August To Vancouver, by boat. Bus to the ferry terminal. Suddenly Ant says, "Where's the bass guitar?" And there it isn't. We fear it's been stolen. Chopper is gutted, so are we all. Apart from not having a bass for the rest of our tour, it was custom-made and irreplaceable. We have to leave Chop behind to deal with the hotel management and the police while we plough on. Lovely gentle journey through the islands. Sometimes you can see dolphins and even whales. No luck this time. Vancouver is as pleasant as cities can be. I spent some time there before I joined the band when I stayed with Dr. Chi, I lived in his basement and had 2 lessons a day with him. Amazing time. Fond memories for me. As we drive into the city, we pass by where he lived. I used to pay him a visit whenever we were here, but he died a few years ago. Chop came with me one time and took a beautiful picture of Dr. Chi and myself. We check in at the hotel and go to the gig. Chop is there but no joy with the bass. Club looks quite good. It also has the most miserable bastard manager I have come across for many a year. Didn't get his name, but hey, thanks for trying so hard to make our visit unpleasant, mate. Takes real persistence. As expected, the club is teeming with rabid Oyster fans, most of whom haven't seen the band for many years. Hello to Steve and Cathy Pope, you were gone before I could say hi personally; Doug, who got 'Polish Plain' by shouting long and hard; Tara and Shannon from Winnipeg with whom we had a drink or two or three afterwards, as well as all our other friends in Vancouver. See you in 7 years then. Thursday 2 August Flight to Edmonton to pick up a van and drive into the Rockies. I was feeling distinctly unwell after my previous night's excesses, so the flight passed me by somewhat. Eventually woke up, feeling half-human, in the foothills of the Rockies, and enjoyed some spectacular scenery as we entered Jasper National Park. Spotted an elk by the roadside and wondered at the vastness of the mountains stretching away in all directions. Humbling. Arrived in the fluffy tourist town of Jasper, checked in. Find our room is directly above a club that's hammering out naff dance music until 2am. Have you ever tried to sleep on a washing-machine? Friday 3 August Morning, and a fine view of mountains from my window. Out for breakfast then off to an internet cafe to check the score in the third test at Trent Bridge. England holding their own for once but it's early days yet. Drizzle.Gig tonight, hope it goes away. Rain gets worse. And it's cold. Feel most sorry for the festival organisers, who are always at the mercy of the weather. Everyone gets issued plastic macs and the crowd seems oblivious to the wet. We go on and the audience is warmed and distracted from the conditions by our particular brand of Fiery Folk Rock. We whip it up and the rain stops. The clouds roll away and a full moon and starry night smile down on us. Good gig, against some odds. Saturday 4 August Off to Canmore this morning. I check the test score in an internet cafe and find England have somehow contrived to lose the Test and the Ashes. Luckily I had a small bet on this outcome, so I have conflicting emotions. 4 hour drive through the Rockies. Whoever designed this should definitely get some sort of award. Stunningly beautiful. Up-hurled rock-strata, ice fields and glaciers, oddly green lakes, blue ice, pointy peaks. I keep my eyes peeled for a sight of a bear, but the bears are smarter. Arrive in Canmore. How nice can a town be? This festival has been going 24 years, so they know what they're doing. Everything seems perfect - then we find out it's a dry site, as in: no alcohol. Gulp. But it's all very welcoming and civilised, the people here are fantastically friendly. The musicians before us, Richard Wood and J.P. and Hilda Cormier, are storming into their encore when the power suddenly goes off. We are all in our stage gear and ready to go on, but no one is going anywhere. The local lineman is called out, shins up a pole and gets to work. He has a spotlight on him and an entire festival watching. No pressure, mate! We discuss calling off the gig and rescheduling for the next day, with all the attendant problems. But after an hour or so, the lineman does the business and the lights surge back on. A huge cheer goes up and we go for it. The circumstances focus us and the audience, and a magic gig ensues. We do seem to be coming up against a few 'challenges' on this trip - lucky I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories..... Sunday 5 August Main stage gig over and done with, we have half a dozen 'workshops' to do in the next couple of days. For those who don't know, a workshop is a mixture of acts brought together on a stage with a common theme as a flimsy excuse to jam or generally create something novel. Sunday morning (yes, morning) sees JJ, Al, Chop and Telf hosting something called (I kid you not) 'Songs from the Old Sod'. Obviously the theme here is the 'Old Country' and our common cultural heritage etc., not anything to do with some Old Grumpy Git songwriter. I stay in bed. Well there has to be some advantage in being a drummer. It all goes well, apparently, and I make an appearance around midday for the second workshop, this one entitled 'Vocal Harmonies'. We are on stage with The Arrogant Worms, a vastly amusing trio from Ontario, and Hart Rouge, three siblings from a French speaking community in Saskatchewan who make hauntingly beautiful music. We can't compete with these guys, but luckily it's not a competition, so we have a fine time. We sing 'Auld Triangle', 'Please To See The King', 'Bold Riley', 'General Taylor' and finish off all together with 'Bright Morning Star'. The audience seemed to love it so I reckon we got away with it. With the rest of the day off, I wander around listening to the many musicians playing all over the place and am greatly entertained. Especially impressed with Dougie MacLean. He plays one song, called something like "You Can Fall Down, But You Can't Lie Down", that gives me goose pimples. JJ, Chop and Ant decide to walk up the nearest peak with new acquaintances Bob and Dennis as local guides. It's a serious walk: not quite a climb, but a 'grunt' in Canmore-speak. The intrepid mountaineers return, knackered but exhilarated. They made it to the very top and their reward was a truly spectacular view. Their success is announced from the main stage and the whole band is bombarded with offers of therapeutic massage. Monday 6 August Fight our way through another three workshops in intensely hot weather, guzzling pint after pint of (yes) water, then an album signing. I enjoy these things usually - we get to find out who it is that really likes the band, and they get to tell us how fantastic we are. Musicians are of course notoriously insecure people who need positive feedback on a regular basis (please!). JJ spent the day showing people pictures he, Chop and Ant took on top of Ha Ling Peak. It looked so amazing I began to wish I'd gone too. They were the talk of the festival and gained a lot of respect from locals. Can't emphasise too much how hospitable everyone here has been. We decide to stay an extra day and do more of these healthy things. Find myself on main stage for the closing song, 'May the Circle Be Unbroken'. Never noticed what a gloomy dirge it really is apart from the chorus.... See if I can stay awake for party. Fall asleep. Wake up groggy, rush to party, get stuck into almighty jam session. Dare not look at clock: I'm committed to a mountainous mountain-bike ride tomorrow. Tuesday 7 August Day dawns warm and sunny for the Oyster Outward Bound Adventure Holidaymakers. JJ, Chop and Ian opt for the glacier walk; Ant and I go for the mountain biking through the Rockies option. Bob has it all arranged and drives us to the start of the trail. We get out and unload the bikes and Bob says, "Now what do you know about bears?" We smile weakly and look for signs of Canadian humour. None is evident. Bob tells us about bears. Grizzlies have a big hump on the back of their neck. They are generally peaceful unless threatened or with their young. With grizzlies you can lie down on your front, cover your head and play possum. Black bears are a different proposition. If they attack you you have to fight back. Ant and I smirk nervously at each other. I can't help thinking of Krishnamurti's definition of real fear as opposed to general human neurotic anxiety. Real fear, he said, is how you feel when you turn the corner in a forest and come face to face with a real live bear. Hmm. But we don't. Some bike ride though. What can I say? I think I've used up my store of superlatives. A 12 mile route from Canmore to Banff. Down a valley, along rocky trails, through forest, beside eerily green and icy mountain streams, over gorges. . . . . Pretty hairy at times. Hurtling down a rocky path at high speed. And if I hit a large stone now. . . . . And what are those piles of poo? If anyone ever again says to me, "Do bears shit in the woods?", I shall have a snappy answer from now on. 2 hours later we reach Banff, dusty, sweaty and exhausted but very elated. Thank you again Mr. R.C. Egglestone of the Timber Creek Lumber Company, Canmore, Alberta. We meet up with the other guys in Banff, they had another peak experience up a hanging valley under Stanley Glacier. Ian was with them this time and they made it to a tiny alpine meadow just below the icefield and lay in the spray being blown back from waterfalls off the glacier. We swop stories over a beer and I go to bed aware of a surprising number of previously unused muscles in my body. Tomorrow we are heading for Edmonton, the final leg of our tour. The last time we played there, to my surprise we drove past a cricket ground. Predictably, I became excited. When the festival was confirmed this year, I found Greenfield Cricket Club, Edmonton, on the Net and e-mailed them. Their captain, Arees Rauf, got in touch and we arranged that I might play a game for them. He is picking me up from the hotel tomorrow and taking me to practice, where I can meet the rest of the team. I feel quite nervous about it, much more nervous than for any gig on this tour. I'm staying on for a couple of days after the band go home so I can play a game on Sunday. I hope they're not too good, I may have boundless enthusiasm but I have strictly limited ability. I'll find out soon enough. Wednesday 8 August Leave the Rockies with some regret and head for the plains. Pass a sign to Kananaskis, where the next G8 Summit is scheduled. Wonder what the bears will make of that. Next stop Edmonton Folk Music Festival. Another well run, established event. Last time we were here was 4 years ago and I had a ball. Loads of friends to see: Terry and Lori, Eliza Carthy, Great Big Sea, Ron Kavana, Niamh Parsons and many more. Plus some other quality acts I want to catch - Toots and the Maytals, Dougie MacLean, Baaba Maal, Eddie Reader, Richie Havens, Natalie MacMaster. We check in at the hotel and I suddenly realise Ihave a single room for 6 whole days.... I strew my belongings everywhere. Thursday 9 August Yesterday evening I met up with Arees and Greenfield Cricket Club , taking part in a 3 hour training session. Yes, they take it seriously. Yes, they are quite good, but I am not out of my depth. Fingers crossed for the game on Sunday. Relaxed day today. Stayed in my hotel room and chilled. Met up with the rest of the guys at 4:30 and took the shuttle bus to the site. It is held at a ski school, so the audience sit on the slopes with the stages at the bottom - exceptional sightlines therefore. The view from the stage is impressive too: at night a lot of the audience light small anti-mosquito candles (gentle Canadian Folk folk), sitting on their tarps they become a flickering curtain that blends into the stars. This festival is as good as it gets - a mainstage audience of up to 12000 and run by people who not only know and love what they are doing, but have real heart and soul. Today (Thursday) is the first day. Dougie MacLean starts the whole thing off, an unenviable proposition. People are still claiming their patch of ground and settling in. Most of the crowd have blankets or tarpaulins and/or little chairy things and they mark their territory like anxious holidaymakers by the pool. Next on is Ron Kavana. Good to see him, we haven't crossed paths for some time. Then it's our turn. Bigger festivals can afford more backline gear, so there are 3 drumkits and 2 sets of amps backstage, which allows us to set up all our gear an hour in advance, then just wheel it on and plug it in. We are all set to go in 10 minutes of feverish Ant activity. I am determined to enjoy myself even though the sound coming out of my drum wedge (the big speaker next to my drum stool that theoretically allows me to hear what we are all playing) is pants. I relax into the music; which makes sense, considering. We are, after all, just 5 people moving air. Everyone is smiling - usually a good sign. We chill in our dressing room in all senses of the word, as the air-conditioning is fierce. We are treated royally - plied with food and drink as we sit and are visited by friends old and new. The party spills out into the moonlight. It truly doesn't get much better than this. The Mounties always get their bass, apparently, and they've found Chopper's in a pawn shop in Victoria. Relief all round. They are 'leaning on' the shop owner to find the culprit so I have no doubt the felon will be brought to book forthwith. A very fair cop, we say. Thank you officer R*****, I'm sure you'll get a dedication on the next album cover. Friday 10 August Very very hot today. Ant and I go shopping and return exhausted. Quick shower and head down to the party. It's well past midnight and nothing is happening, so I go back to my room and distractedly flick on the TV to find 'Destry Rides Again' is on. Yeehaw! Fab film. I am sucked in. I suspect that Baaba Maal, who is on directly before us, will be running late, so I return to the party at 1:30 am. I am correct. We end up going on an hour after the bar closes, at about 2:45. These party gigs are for the volunteers who work hard all festival long and often miss the bands, so they are by way of a thank you. We give our all until about 4am when everyone surrenders. That leaves me at 4 in the morning with heaps of adrenalin surging round my body. Sleep is not an option, so I talk and drink and drink and talk then watch crap TV then try to read and eventually fall asleep with the light on. Saturday 11 August Today a workshop with The Waifs, a three piece + drummer from Australia, and David Francey, a singer-songwriter born in Scotland and hailing from Quebec. The theme is "they call it democracy", so I wear my Chumbas Anarchy t-shirt as I am a rebel. (Joke.) There are 12 of us on a smallish stage and a huge crowd filling all the available slope space. The Waifs are excellent. Not, I have to say, very political, but high energy harmony folkpop songs played with verve and aplomb. David Francey is new to me. Good incisive songs, most definitely political, and accompanied by two great players. We really hit it and the whole thing lifts off. We eventually get the entire audience on their feet (ass off tarp time, folks) for an ensemble "Rocking in the Free World" (and by a Canadian songwriter, too). And that is that. We're finished. Last gig of the tour. Just a record signing to do, eat dinner and catch Toots on Mainstage. Toots, alas, has become a cabaret parody of himself so I get bored and go back to the hotel. Anyway, I have to visit room 762, the Cocktail Workshop, an Edmonton Festival tradition hosted by 2 demon mixers from Winnipeg. They have a high balcony with a serious full moon hanging over Downtown and an unending supply of dangerous ingredients. Telf and JJ pass through, followed by various Toronto luminaries then half the musical population of Texas. Then it's time for the party, at which Toots is playing again. I decide to give him one more chance for old times' sake. Maximum bass at all frequencies! He repays my faith and this is reggae music. The dance floor calls and does not let me go until my knees ache and my brain reminds me I am getting up in 4 hours to play cricket. Bugger. Sunday 12 August 10am. I say goodbye to the guys as they head for the airport. Strategic Nurofen applied, I meet Arees and we head off. We are playing Millwood who are league contenders while we (Greenfield Cricket Club) are trying to avoid relegation. Game on. It is 80 degrees plus. We play on a matting wicket with a grassy outfield. Unfortunately we are dismissed for a score that's not nearly enough (I don't score a run though I am not dismissed) and our opponents beat us easily. I have no chance to take a blinding slip catch or run someone out but I am in heaven, feeling slightly surreal but playing cricket in Canada. Greenfield CC don't play as well as they can, but I get to meet a bunch of great people, eat samosas, and hey, cricket is the winner. Arees gives me a present of the 1996 Sri Lankan Cricket World Cup shirt as well as a brand new set of batting pads. Coming back from Canada with far more cricket gear than I went with. How strange. How nice. How astonishingly generous. How the hell am I going to get it all in my bag? Down to the site for dinner. Feel as if something is missing. It's the rest of the band. Every other person asks me about the cricket game. I hone the story. Great Big Sea are on at 9. I go and say hello. It's excellent to see them all again. They are big pop-stars in Canada. Girls scream at them. They do our song "When I'm Up I Can't Get Down", which, as you may know, was a rather large hit for them in Canada. In the absence of other Oysters, Alan dedicates it to me at the end. Awwww. Another party. One too many. Shooglenifty get it going though. Speak to Mitch Podolak (father of Leonard) who has lived and has a beard to prove it. We talk about all sorts of stuff concerning violence and political change and challenging fascism. He sets me thinking. I want to go home now. I was bitten by nasty bitey things while I was playing cricket. I have over 50 red bumps. Monday 13 August Chop's bass fails to turn up and now seems to be lost in the Canadian delivery system, or possibly the rings of Saturn. Enquiry reveals it may turn up by Wednesday. Unfortunately I am leaving Canada on Tuesday. Arrange a fallback position: it can be brought to us in Denmark in ten days by an Edmonton person who's going to Tønder Festival (thanks Lori for your work on this, and Kim for volunteering to be lumbered). Have a sudden vision of Chopper being pursued round the world by his own bass guitar crying "Wait for me! Wait for me!" Spend the evening chatting in the bar to all the stragglers. Set the alarm and sleep the sleep of the just. Tuesday 14 August Breakfast but no bass. Shuttle to the airport and I squat by a power point, plug in my laptop and update this diary. Phone Ian in London several times to tell him the bass news, but as usual he seems to be constantly engaged. As I write this I am high over the Canadian Prairies drinking apple juice. This has been an immensely enjoyable and successful trip. We've had a good time and rekindled some Canadian Oyster enthusiasm. We've travelled a few miles, climbed a few mountains, forded a few streams and drunk a few drinks. Oh yes, and played a gig or two. 2nd leg is 7 hours+ and east toward the sun. I sit next to Steve, a Christian stockbroker from Wisconsin. We have a 2 hour discussion on capitalism and theology, which certainly passes the time. The sun comes up indecently quickly then we circle Gatwick for 45 minutes in an annoying holding pattern, but I catch a glimpse of Brighton Pier. Hooray. We touch down. The idea of going home is strangely unsettling - I have to be at Heathrow airport in 18 hours to fly to Sicily. I am met and whisked home, dispense presents and try to keep my eyes open as long as I can. I don't bother to unpack and it's suddenly 4am and I am off on a bus to Heathrow. Meet the guys again and we're flying. Somehow it has become Thursday 16 August without my noticing, which is kind of alarming. 3 hour stopover in Rome then off to Sicily across the smoky blue Mediterranean. Hope to catch a glimpse of Etna erupting, but no luck. We land, the doors open and there is that wave of hot, humid air, like being hit in the face with a warm wet flannel. Met by a WOMAD representative and we all fall asleep in the bus to the hotel. The edges have blurred again. The other guys have had a 2 day start on overcoming their jet lag, for what that's worth, but I am struggling. We eat together and the food and wine momentarily revive us. Ant and I decide to go for a walk to explore Palermo and its mad mix of Roman, Moorish and Norman architecture. If I lie down now, I will wake up at 4 or 5 am and the whole thing begins again.... 2. PALERMO TO SALAMANCA Friday 17 August Afternoon spent in Palermo trying to be a tourist with Ant and my friend Lesley from WOMAD. This we do for less than an hour as the intense heat melts my ice-cream and drives us into a bar. Striking place though. Like Naples, you know you are in the South. Afternoon siesta turns into a 3 hour deep sleep and I awake with no idea of who I am let alone where. We gather and head down to the site which is a large outdoor arena complete with ornamental gardens, huge and mysterious plants and vast stage, all run with the usual WOMAD efficiency and attention to detail. I watch Alessandra Belloni, a weird and wonderful Italian/New Yorker who sings soaring songs whilst banging various tambourines and hand drums; and Officina Zoe, Sicilian I believe, playing Tarantellas in a style that sounds ancient and powerful. Dr. Stage turns up with his adrenalin, and that fuels our performance. The audience take to us and stamp their feet rhythmically in appreciation. It is 12:30 and we have just finished. We must get up at 4am for our flight tomorrow. Cruel. We make it back to the hotel serenaded by our opera-singing local driver at 1:15am - and who are those people in the bar? It is the Republic of Tuva's finest export, Yat Kha, and Mr. Lu Edmunds, drinking schnapps. Hugs and kisses and maybe just a quick drink. It would be rude not to. . . . . . . . Saturday 18 August Later that same morning the ride to the airport is mercifully in the dark but lit by a huge electrical storm and torrential rain. Our erstwhile singing chauffeur hurtles on regardless and we make the plane. The 7am flight was full - we are forced to fly business class to get a seat so JJ drinks the champagne on principle. 4 hour stopover in Milan and we are a sorry bunch. JJ seen eating pizza and drinking coke, Chop curled up on a seat with his sleeping mask on, Ant snoring on the floor, Telf is pacing, Pross listening to his mini-disc player, Mike asleep with his eyes open and me scribbling. Is this travelogue boring you? Just want you all to know that it's not all peaches and cream, free booze, air-conditioning and monographed shower caps. We suffer for our art. I want to go home now - I don't want to go to Belgium. Sorry Belgians, nothing personal, just a field too far. Never mind. We'll probably have a lovely time. The only way to get there is, apparently, to fly Palermo - Milan - Heathrow then taxi to Waterloo then Eurostar to Lille then van to festival. My bum is numb, my brain too. But what the hell, what else would I be doing? Rather unbelievably, it all goes to plan and here we are in Deerlijk, a fab little festival we have played before. We are greeted with smiles and beer and Belgian chocolate mousse. The evening gets better and better. We get on stage around midnight and go into overdrive. Energy from some hidden source makes itself available and we tear the tent apart. We play and play and they dance and shout and it all makes sense. Various travelling heroes turn up (hi Thomas, Iris, Dagmar and friends) so we chat and drink and finally head for the hotel and sleep deep deep blessed sleep. No recurrence of the incident the last time we played Deerlijk, when an enormously fat sleepwalker wearing only a T-shirt and a walrus moustache sat on Ian at 5 in the morning. (I believe Ian locks his bedroom door these days.) Eurostar home. Quite a pleasant way to travel. I bale out at Ashford and head cross-country homeward. I have my heart set on a pub lunch at the Snowdrop in Lewes. Monday brings an unexpected 4th test victory, courtesy of a mystical innings by Butch. Tuesday I play tennis with my son and see a band with Martina in the evening. Wednesday and Brighton Nomads achieve a close victory over Glynde (I am out first ball) and then Thursday and it must be Denmark. Thursday 23 August Last festival of the summer. I was beginning to feel at home, so it must be time to go off somewhere. Tønder is a joy. 27th year and they know how to run a show. This was my very first gig with the Oysters 11 years ago this weekend. Hard to believe, really. Chop is re-united with his long-lost bass, as planned, so he is a happy bunny, even though it has suffered at the hands of some careful baggage handler. I say careful because, as all musicians know, hurling instrument cases about is a competitive sport in airports, with complex rules designed to inflict maximum damage. We have brought James O'Grady and Benji Kirkpatrick with us and I am writing this in the hotel room just before the first gig. It's almost sold out so it'll be a good one. Feels quite exciting to be doing something a little different here. Hope we take the audience by surprise. I'll let you know later on..... Well, sometimes gigs are good, and sometimes gigs are very good. This was even better than that. Bit of excitement and tension in the air with James and Benji playing the set with us for the first time. We have never actually all played the set together yet. We were in North America and then off gallivanting round Europe and there was just no time when we all coincided. We've never been a band that over-rehearses at the best of times, but this was us at possibly our most under-prepared ever. Anyway, it all worked out much better than all right, because the audience in their generosity lifted us right up and allowed everything to gell. Not only that but it was Benji's 25th birthday, and 3000 people sang him happy birthday. We dubbed him 'Bouzouki god' in honour of the occasion. Best 25th birthday he'll ever have. Hang out with some MacDuhks and drink and chat and drink and... Friday 24 August Day off. Nothing I have to do. Woke late and wandered about a bit. Found out Australia had scored over 600 runs at the Oval in the final test. Oh well. James has a full page feature on him and his piping in a Danish paper, so he is chuffed. Tonight our friends from Canada, Scruj MacDuhk, are playing. Hope I like their music, since I like them as people. Potentially embarrassing to like someone and not like the noise they make, eh? (Needn't have worried.) Also see the excellent Danu whom we haven't bumped into for a while. Hang around the artists' bar then decide to save myself for tomorrow. Saturday 25 August Tomorrow is very hot indeed - stifling. Reflexology session. Soundcheck. Eat. Relax at the hotel then back for the gig. We are doing a semi-acoustic show. That means we are just as loud but don't play electric instruments. All goes well, though it was like doing a gig in a sauna. The audiences here are very kind and enthusiastic, and, as on Thursday, they know our music. They sing along and shout and clap and lift us up. Lots of friends turn up backstage and we hit the artists' bar, where JJ dances on a table. Sunday and the Ceilidh. More like a huge jam session, 4 hours of loosely arranged musical mayhem featuring North Cregg, 422, Beolach, Scruj MacDuhk, Fiddler's Bid, Oysterband, Karan Casey, Tim O'Brien, Darrell Scott and Dirk Powell and Bluegrass Etc. MC'd by Ron Kavana and Alistair Anderson. Mix and match. Chances taken, mostly one-offs which take everyone by surprise and make it special. Some heavy duty musicians here. We do "Road to Nowhere" and get everyone onstage for "Keep on Rockin' in the Free World", which is fast becoming our party piece. Sweaty or what? Well that's it then. Summer festivals over for another year. I manage another reflexology session, shower at the hotel then back to the site for one last drink and chat and chat and drink. I am beered out, partied out and festivalled out. Seek out as many people as I can find to say goodbye to then watch La Bottine Souriante who are excellent then wander back to the hotel, where I get this diary up to date. What an excellent time I have had these last 5 weeks. We have played a succession of outstanding festivals, performed at our best, met loads of old friends, made new ones, and seen some beautiful parts of the world close up. Now I have some time off. 2 games of cricket and my mum's 80th birthday party and then we'll be off to Spain. Leave Ian and JJ behind to party on and eat the traditional curry on Monday while we leave early for the airport. As we drive to the site to collect our gear at 8am, last night's session is just finishing. Fiddle and box players stagger around in the morning light, still playing, still dancing, still smiling. Seems like a fitting finale to our summer. But wait. It's not quite over yet. How could I have forgotten we are off to Salamanca in 10 days? We all go our separate ways, off home to try and remember how to do the washing up, then Friday 7 September here I am again at an airport, meeting everyone and collecting their passports. James is coming with us - they like pipes in Spain, and what is that thing on JJ's wrist? It transpires that Ian and JJ certainly did stay behind to party on. In a fit of late-night revelry, while teaching three energetic women a Kerry polka, JJ slipped and broke his wrist. Yes, alcohol was involved, presumably in the puddle that caused him to lose his footing. How cruel people can be - in a cricket game, some poor bloke gets hit somewhere extremely painful and the whole team (theoretically his friends and allies) falls about in unrestrained mirth and jollity. Is this a 'bloke thing'? Anyway, we did the same here. JJ, Irish dancing, broken bone, ha ha ha. We land in Madrid and are met by Carlos, our Spanish friend and promoter. Ian tries to leave his folder on the plane. Not important really, it only contains 2 years of his lyric writing. He runs, he sweats, he gets it back. We drive to Avila, a medieval walled town a few kilometres from Salamanca, check in and find a restaurant. Eat fiercely hot yet very sweet red peppers, drink fine wine and talk to my mates. Fuelled by the above, we go in search of nightlife, and find several very dodgy bars. Wander back and end the evening talking and drinking underneath the town wall. I love Spain. Saturday 8 September Power breakfast where we discuss the new album. Tortuous business talking about music, especially our own. 5 opinions and little consensus. We use the tension creatively. Salamanca, a city of cyclists today. There some sort of Big Deal Cycle Race occurring, which means we drive round and round the diversions for hours to find our hotel. We are playing in the most beautiful Plaza Mayor (town square) you could hope to see. My powers of description can't do it justice. It's old, it's big. It's full of cafes and old bars, painted wooden shutters and balconies and golden sandstone on all sides. Ant and I visit the cathedral. Huge bare stone walls and pillars interspersed with skiploads of gold and ornate carving. High, high vaulted roof and immense sense of space intended to evoke the glory of God. Beautiful, beautiful city. It's midnight and the Plaza Mayor is full of about 6000+ people. It's warm. We do our job and get them dancing and making a noise. I enjoy myself. It's our last gig for nearly 3 months so I intend to make the most of it. We come off with smiles on our faces and screaming in our ears. High note to end our summer on. James is so smitten he sets off to walk all night round the city, but then, this being Spain and Saturday night, half the population of Salamanca has the same idea. We drive back to Madrid early the next morning. As we cross the bridge in the morning sunshine to leave town, I glance back and am filled with a sense of satisfaction and a feeling of being somehow 'European'. So that really is it for the summer. If you've read this far I hope you have some sort of sense of my last few weeks of touring. This is a personal 'diary' and in no way reflects the experiences or opinions of the rest of the band. I'd like to thank all the lovely people I've met, their generosity and friendliness, and hope to see you all again soon. That's all folks. lee xxx
		From 2000: JJ'S IDENTITY CRISIS....... (..........or, STILL looking for a New England) And when the alleluia boys Drum their December din, Why do you call the constable That he may lock them in? - Charles Causley, "O Billy, Do You Hear That Bell?" Crushed in the centre of Meltham, Yorkshire, at midnight on Christmas Eve, drunkenly singing carols to the wonderful sound of Meltham and Meltham Mills Brass Band. Well, not all of them, just the ones who are young and foolish enough to be stripped to the waist and perched on the shoulders of their mates, struggling with icy fingers to find the keys on a freezing winter's night. A police car, blue light flashing, is parked across every road into the market place - tradition has to be 'controlled', somehow, these days. The usual regrets are voiced: "They don't sing the old Meltham carols any more!" - "It's too violent!" - "Outsiders have spoiled it!" - the same concerned voices that accompany tradition and celebration everywhere, and probably always have. An old friend recognises me and updates me on his life in 20 seconds flat and at maximum volume: births, deaths, divorces. I have been here every year of my adult life, and I keep it up like, well, like a religious observance. Maybe this alcohol-fuelled community sing-song teetering on the edge of mayhem is the nearest I get to a ritual that means something real to me. Let's face it, I've spent enough time in my life inventing and re-inventing tradition and celebratiion. I've burnt wickermen, built Green Men, and got drunk in the pursuit of rediscovery more times than I can easily remember; a life spent in pursuit of the identity and spirit of these islands. It's there, but in England these days you have to look long and hard for it. The power of the drums at Padstow on May Day, running with the tar barrels at Ottery St Mary, or being carried by the crowd at Lewes bonfire night are powerful "English" experiences, but they seem to belong to another world. Sorry, the global success of Vodafone or Blair's pathetic Cool Britannia don't cut it for me as sources of pride and inspiration, and neither does John Major's warm beer and cricket. We have become separated from real tradition, our own celebrations emasculated or lost to the heritage industry. More words, more information, more clothes, more drugs; less meaning, less identity, less consequence. Maybe that's why I love Spain. Tradition and fiesta seem to be a part of most people's life, even though in the new hip Guggenheim Spain many are reluctant to admit it. There is a wonderful book of photographs called "Espana Oculta" by Cristina Garcia Rodero (Smithsonian Institute Press) which caused consternation a few years ago by revealing the extent to which strange pagan-Christian-crossover festivals and rituals still prevail in a forward-looking contemporary society. Many were even thriving and growing after decades of being suppressed under Franco. In Portugalete, a suburb of Bilbao, we once witnessed a street celebration so wild we wondered what everyone was on. The fireworks flew crazily in all directions, fired at arm's length, chaos and cordite filled the air; but without a whiff of litigation. And later that night, as Chopper queued up in the local hospital (part of a burnt-out rocket had hit him in the eye), all the casualties of fiesta were taking their treatment without a murmur. Earlier we'd watched a curious event where youths play soccer in a bullring - a normal game with goals, pitch-markings and so on - while a bullock is loosed on the pitch to chase them. (It certainly adds an extra level of excitement to the proceedings, the lower divisions of the Football League should be actively considering it.) Admittedly the animal had lumps of cork to blunt its horns, but that doesn't mean the riskof injury was negligible. And where were the concerned parents all this time? Up in the stands, of course, cheering their sons and neighbours on and occasionally shrieking when the boys tripped and fell down........ A crazy way of keeping a community together, but maybe more memorable as a rite of passage than watching Trooping the Colour on television! There's no doubt that the English regions did once have their own distinctive and outrageous traditional celebrations, and a few still survive. Maybe these areas and their cultural and linguistic eccentricities were the first victims of British colonialism, of that drive from State, Church and Empire towards conformity, propriety, decency, 'knowing your place' and (worst of all) temperance. A drive to keep us subjects, not citizens. A drive that incidentally squeezed out local differences only to repackage them, when safely extinct, as the cosy, tidy artefacts of the heritage industry. And as all this breaks down, we are left with a weakened concept of community to hold on to. If we want to discover a new identity, where shall we look? There always were two Englands, and now there are probably many more. If you love the landscape, the humour, the sheer diversity and energy of the place, yet hate the hierarchy, the politics, the greed, just where do you start? With England's national symbols, hijacked and discredited by the xenophobic right? An identity based on bashing the foreigner and gut-wrenching subservience to royalty was bound to collapse once there was peace and freedom of movement in Europe, and the dysfunctional royals have become a national soap-opera. Maybe we can come together through 'soaps' - an episode of Eastenders or Blind Date! - maybe that's the nearest we'll get. But it's a hard lesson being brought up to think you're superior and then suddenly you're not. Not even at football. "My countrymen piss in your fountains, To express their national pride"......about sums itup (Billy Bragg again). It would be easy to despair of looking, and to turn away for inspiration. Maybe you can become Welsh or Scottish, or even "Celtic" - let's face it, it's tempting! Scotland and Wales have their own social divisions of course, but they also get to claim a unity of identity versus the perceived arrogance and 'occupation' of the English. The desire to be "Celtic" may have a fair bit of romantic fantasy and fashionable nonsense in it, but it's driven by positive things: a wish to escape xenophobia and the imperialist baggage of nation-states, a taste for justice, a spirit of rebellion.......and the music's great. (The tattoos are not bad either!) So in a sense "Celts" are to be found anywhere, however you want to call them. And if the alternative is having an identity so weak and uninspiring as to be swamped by American corporate culture............ Strangely enough, my musical fantasies were always British, even when I was young. Despite my passion for Northern Soul and American black music generally, and my undisputed claim to have been the first mod in Meltham, I can't remember ever wanting to be a black sharecropper, a Motown carworker, Wilson Pickett or even Brenton Wood. I certainly never wanted to be a white American. I never wanted to sing like them either. Maybe it was down to those uniquely excruciating evenings when my dad dragged me next door to Jim and Dorothy's - whose sitting-room had saloon doors, where Jim, dressed as the saloon-keeper, would greet me with "Howdy, John!" Dorothy was a showgirl. Their daughter and son-in-law sat on the settee, all guns and fringes. You can see why I'd find a taste for Country and Western a bit laughable, and the wish to sing like an American just plain sad. Americans do it much better. So when I discovered folk music it was a way for me into another world completely, a world of poachers, labourers, miners, gypsies. Sad? Well at least it was mine. And it uncovered a sense of my own history, of people's real lives: history from the other side, politics from a different perspective, not the kings/queens/Churchill/Empire stuff And just as important, it was an alternative to the safe, packaged musical mainstream, as pop disappeared up itself. It felt like an underground, and it was about my sort of people. The tunes were great, and if you could play an instrument a bit there was all this music and socialising just waiting for you. It was heady stuff. It still is. It was a way of making an identity. A way out.....and a way through. John Jones (To be continued, at some point)
		From 1999: CELTIC CONNECTIONS Ian Telfer cuts a swathe through some Celtic mist There was a time, even quite recently, when I could miss a night's sleep and still function. Partying, or lunatic drives (Los Angeles to Denver to Minneapolis?), or perverse tour schedules (Singapore - Luton - Helsinki?), or all three, it goes with the job. The wicked life keeps you up and running somehow, almost as if your immune system learns to move fast enough to dodge the raindrops. Now, though, I admit I need a little down-time in a darkened room, otherwise I lose my famous sweet temper. So I¹m writing this in the lobby of Glasgow's Central Hotel "by dawn's early light", brain lightly stewed by two hours just under the surface of sleep, waiting for the 7 am pickup to the airport and listening to the noise of a most thunderous session. A pack of demon teenage fiddlers and accordionists is chasing the fox of craic to a kill somewhere over my head. They were going strong when last seen at 4 am, they're still going strong, and they obviously don't want to admit that the Celtic Connections Festival for 1999 actually finished yesterday. It's a serious bash, by the way: people come from all over the world for it now. Anyone who can put on Capercaillie, La Bottine Souriante and Oysterband at the same time in different venues is clearly not short of audience or money. But that's not what I'm thinking about. Where does it come from, this mad thirst - the right word, believe me - for playing dance tunes in bars? I don't remember it from when I was growing up in Scotland. I've learned a little about the history of these things since, and I don't think it was just that Aberdeen was the wrong place. If it was happening, it passed me by, and I wonder now how that could have been possible. I was an urban child all right, and my first conscious collision with traditional music was the accidental consequence of a quite different priority: the Station Hotel, which is where Aberdeen folk song club met, looked like a safe bet for underage drinking on a Sunday night. But there I heard Jeannie Robertson, complete with awesome pink cardigan, and was rivetted by the control and power first of her singing and then of the songs themselves. So the world changed. There also we met Jimmie McBeath and others, who would later come occasionally into the students' union for a pint and a sing in the little cellar bar. My point is, the buzz then was about songs, that's what seemed wider and deeper and sometimes stranger than what we'd known before. Dance tunes by contrast seemed so commonplace, so much part of the air you'd breathed, that you could hardly think about them. Anybody's dad could manage Bluebells of Scotland on the mouth-organ, if pressed. Later I got the bug myself, took up the fiddle and learned reams and reams of stuff, half of which I may or may not have forgotten. Good times.... Once at a small festival in Vermont, on Oysters' first trip to North America, with about 50 cents in our pocket between the lot of us, we got involved in a session that reached such heights of drive and swing and hilarity that it was like that dream where you find you can fly. JJ and I stepped out momentarily for air, and watching a copper moon rise over Lake Champlain as the music roared on behind us, I thought "This is what we do it for!" That¹s not the whole truth, as it turns out, but the moment and the feeling remain important to me. Later still I rather came out the other side of session playing. I know and admire people who play professionally and have the stamina to keep on playing amateurly on a regular basis too, but I'm not that obsessive. I need to do other things in between to keep my appetite for music........To read more about the theory and practice of sessions, by the way, try Last Night's Fun (Jonathan Cape) by the Ulster poet Ciaran Carson - a very diverting book, and you'd never have imagined the subject had so many angles. What's vital about session playing, though, is that it's not part of the heritage industry, nor is it an attempt to keep anything alive. It's done for no other reason than pleasure. DEATH TO THE GREAT SATAN OF THE HERITAGE INDUSTRY! is something I've always wanted to write, like that, in 14-point caps, preferably also in fluorescent ink; the heritage industry being defined as taking material characteristics of a culture and assembling them in one artificial location to offer the visitor the illusion of an encounter with the life of wherever-it-is. Never trust anyone who wants to sell your own history back to you in bite-sized pieces: it has no nourishment, and like Woody Allen's mother's chicken it's been through the Deflavouriser. You don't need a London Experience, you need to get out there and meet a few people; you don't need a Shakespeare Experience, you need to see some amazing plays. You'll have deduced I'm not a person who's going to approach a Celtic Experience very starry-eyed either. I can see why they would want to call a festival Celtic Connections, so might I in their shoes. And yet, and yet...... Whoever would have thought that Celticness could become such a universally glamorous notion? Well, it has a long pedigree. The first time round it was Scotland. In 1807 was published a volume supposedly a translation of the works of 'Ossian', grand bard of the Highland tradition; a figure portrayed with a mighty harp and a suitably bardic ankle-length robe. This had a huge vogue all over Europe. 'Ossian' was hailed as "the Celtic Homer" by literary persons whose first language was in many cases neither English nor Gaelic, and who really might've known better. In fact it was an interminable romantic blather cobbled together by two (unrelated) men called McPherson. The McPhersons had an agenda: the invention of a high and ancient Highland culture, because they thought the Highlands deserved one. They faked it out of scraps of Irish ballads and stories that were floating about in Scotland. But the revelation of their fakery did sales no harm at all. People didn't care that it wasn't the real thing. It was better than the real thing, it was Europe's very own version of the Noble Savage, complete with atmospheric props. (And notice that this fantasy could only happen after the real Highland clans had been broken and suppressed in the aftermath of the 1745 rebellion.....) In the wake of the 'Ossian' fad a tidal wave of Scotophilia engulfed Europe. We got Sir Walter Scott inventing clan tartans for the benefit of the Hanoverian George IV's visit to Edinburgh in 1822 (something to do with bolstering the political symbolism of a unified British State); we got Fingal's Cave and Lucia di Lammermoor; Scott's own novels, Queen Victoria capering at Balmoral, the invention of tourism, and much much more. 'Ossian', I reckon, powerfully influences the associations people have with the word Celtic when they're not thinking very hard, even to this day: misty, remote, faery, wild. Tea-trays with a painting (Landseer?) of sombre Highland cattle staring out of gloomy glens were a feature of my childhood. I think they were sold cheap by a newspaper sometime after the Second World War. The second time round, in the 1970s, it was Ireland. Irish music sold well in Europe in the 60s, on the back of class acts like the Dubliners and the Clancys. There were also, notoriously, second-rate tosspots who couldn¹t get a gig in Ireland or Scotland but scratched a living in the folk clubs of Germany and so on. That scene was getting pretty tired and should have faded away, but it was overtaken by changes in Irish politics. Nationalist politics in Ulster successfully rebranded itself with the language of civil rights, borrowed from the black struggle in America, and acquired a good deal of that movement's moral clout. It became 'obvious' to youth in many places that 'the Irish' were an oppressed people in their own land, trampled under the heel of the Brits. You can only believe this, in this form, if you know nothing about Irish history (try mentioning the Irish Civil War to Celtophile believers and see what kind of blank looks you get), but in the minds of a great many young people the Irish became the beautiful losers of Europe. It rapidly became very hip indeed to be Irish, and where hipness is the advertising budgets soon follow. Celticness became a marketing concept, beyond the wildest imaginings of anyone who played pipes in the Chicago Police Irish band or whistled Youghal Harbour in a back bar in Rotherhithe. There was a time (don't laugh) when I even wondered whether it might become the symbolism of a resurgent fascism, like Hitler's taste for Nordic mythology. We know sufficiently little about the real Celts of history that you can make them into almost anything. Look at them: "white", pan-European, warlike yet artistic, and they didn't leave much in the way of written records, so you can put any words in their mouths you like. It didn't happen: some German skinheads were very interested a few years ago, but eventually hippies arrived in greater strength and hijacked "the Celts" off in the other direction. (A music magazine recently inserted a spoof album in its own pages called Sounds From An Ambient Celtic Rainforest by The Dolphin Children. No one seems to have noticed.) Then, as generally happens with hippy ideas, Celticness was taken over by corporations with all kinds of things to sell. Celticness has become alt.Europe, alt.everything now, and not just in music. Our current emerging global capitalism has done its usual routine: alternativeness (which seems to be as basic a human need these days as food, shelter and getting out of your head) is turned into a commodity and sold back to you, or used to sell you something by association. Normally when ideas become universally hip they instantly cease to be hip at all. So far, Celticness is defying gravity. The market is still rising. And I think we're in for the long run, in fact. In France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic, linguists and musicologists are unearthing traces of "the Celts". This is not without a basis - like most of our ancestors, the early historical Celtic peoples whizzed round the map a good deal under the pressures of war and hunger, and you didn't have barbed-wire borders then - but how wonderfully convenient to be able to redefine yourself as coming from Celtic roots, at a time when the nation-states of Europe are under challenge both from the local (Catalonia, Bavaria, Lombardy, all the old names coming back) and from the supra-national (the EU). No, I'm no longer a boring conventional Spaniard, I'm a groovy authentic Galician Celt! The beauty of this is that it allows you to define yourself in opposition to whatever bits you don't like of the society you actually have to live in; but cost-free. We Scots are artists at this, past-masters. We like to define ourselves versus the English, but we don't like it at all when people point out that our payoff for signing up for the Union was a share in the spoils of the British Empire. Out of which at least some of us did exceptionally well, including the venerated Scottish financial sector. All hail, MacSwag, Lord of the East. The less rooted our existences become, the more we're cursed with the hunger for the authentic. We rush off in pursuit of it, and it recedes as fast as we approach, because it's a mirage. It sells a lot of beer in franchised theme pubs though (remind me to take you to the one in Örnsköldsvik in Sweden called Braveheart) and it certainly makes some kinds of music a lot easier to sell. I've never minded Oysterband being mistaken for Irish: I realise Finnish or Croatian promoters mean it almost metaphorically rather than literally. As a fan cried in a bar in Köln once, ³You play like this, you MUST be Irish!² It's well-meant, and at times it's a positive relief: such as when we played in Oslo the night England lost to Norway in the European Cup, and the boneheads were doing bar windows in all round the venue. (Then we went to our hotel and found some of them were not only booked into the same place but had hung a 10-metre-long hyper-Loyalist Red Hand of Ulster banner out of the windows. A curious thing for England football supporters to do, we thought....? Sorry, I digress.) But I do strongly object to having the music (yours, mine, anybody's) reduced to a soundtrack for the heritage industry. It's said that so many of the first-rate Irish players have been out with productions of Riverdance in recent years that there has been a major expansion of work opportunities for the less-well-known. Which sounds fine and dandy until you consider the pressure towards the bland, the already familiar, the pre-digested that that represents. It's scary. What need is there to renew and revitalise (and thereby give a future to) Irish music if the safe old thing will sell in bucket-loads? I don't think this is a healthy state of affairs for new young players to step into, and I'm not really surprised so many of them are taking a conservative attitude to their music, in more than one sense. Did The Pogues suffer in vain? It's not true that the Celtic Experience is only exportable instrumentally - the Corrs write songs, after all - but it's certainly easier not having words get in the way of that roguish twinkle or that misty yearning. The classic case must be Enya: a most beautiful human voice carefully stripped of meaning anything whatever. I get uneasy with contentless music after a while - I don't mean wordless, though when the chips are down I am a words man at heart, but stuff that's so smooth that your imagination has nothing to get a grip on. The Corrs are sweet, but they don't half make me reach for my Fatima Mansions albums. And I'd happily swap a dozen choreographed epics for Feargal Sharkey dancing on in his old white vest. What I'd really like is for a new generation of musicians to, yes, delight in their session playing, but also look at the world around them and astound me with songs and angles I haven't heard before. I'lll know them when I hear them. Meanwhile I'll have to make do with Oysterband as usual: awkward, unclassifiable, not exactly a pop band, not exactly a folk band, not exactly a dance band, not exactly "Celtic", not exactly "English', not exactly tasteful; and furthermore given to writing far too much lyric and trying to stuff far too much significance into everything. In short, a marketing man's nightmare. But still kicking, still meaning it, still changing, still here. Whatever else we do, we try to tell the world the way we see it. Ian Telfer PS: Do I miss Scotland, living as I do now in London? Yes indeed. The "northern light" on the harbour at Haugesund while I was waiting for the ferry to Newcastle reminded me so precisely of summer nights in Aberdeen that the hairs prickled on the back of my neck. There's a line in a poem of Robert Lowell's about how the life we get is "the one life offered from the many chosen", and sometimes I have a feeling that there's a parallel IT living in a parallel universe, but in Aberdeen. Then I remember that one in six of my school contemporaries went on to become quantity surveyors, and realise that the line between sentiment and sentimentality is a pretty damn narrow one.

		Thanks to MARIA REDMAN for the fab illustration re-habilitating the old Viking rune 'Othila'. The fascists in Sweden are trying to use this as a racist symbol - Why should we let them have it?l