Leo Kottke, 12-string guitars, and a wonderful Paul Siebel song

In 1973 I bought, simply as a result of seeing a poster of the cover, Leo Kottke's live album My Feet Are Smiling. This led to hours, days, weeks, years of messing around with open tunings, bottlenecks (including a mild injury sustained while trying to cut the neck off a wine bottle). And the purchase, eventually of a Guild 12-string which I still regret selling. I've since had a Simon and Patrick 12-string and am currently in a kind of guitar-orientated fugue-state (having sold three recently on eBay) which will probably result in the purchase of another double-six. But not an Eko Ranger 12, which, as a 16-year-old, I considered the best guitar in the whole wide world...

As for the song....this is the incredibly poignant Louise, written by the hugely interesting but essentially tragic songwriter Paul Siebel . His excellent and only)albums Woodsmoke and Oranges and Jacknife Gypsy are available as a double pack - try eBay or Amazon.

Kottke, despite a host of trials including partial deafness and tendonitis, is still playing and touring. He is just fantastic. So much acoustic instrumentalism can be samey and tedious. Not Leo.

Party in Eshaness!

Another beautiful, calm night - just perfect for Linda and Christina's surprise birthday party at the excellent Braewick Cafe. The view from Braewick, over to the Hillswick Drongs and beyond, was exquisite. It was a splendid night all told - great food, music, chat AND weather.
Magnus and Christina have made a great success of the Braewick Cafe, which is also a camping and caravan site, and they're on the point of adding four wooden wigwams (very like Norwegian hutte) which look like being very popular.
I don't know why, but I always seem to specially enjoy social events in Eshaness...and visitors love the place too, not just for the phenomenal scenery. A couple of camper vans-full of tourists were at Braewick last night and fully welcomed into party proceedings...what great tales of Shetland hospitality they'll have to tell when they go back south.

The Mighty Torslanda!

Best buy from eBay so far, the old Volvo 240 Torslanda SAILED through its MOT and is now ready for James to learn to drive in...it's a primitive old beast but the turning circle is smaller than anything else on the road and good grief, it's tough. According to Steve Woodward, formerly of Hampshire Police, it's also the best police traffic car ever.

£390. Now, all I've got to do is get him insured...

Telephones, the folk festival and guitar madness

To the Hillswick Hall (just across the road from The Radiocroft) for the local outpouring of Shetland Folk Festival activity. A fine night too, bright and calm. The hall was absolutely packed - most events at the festival sell out quickly - and a good night was had by all. I was particularly impressed by Lissa Schneckenburger from Vermont and her band (featuring Crooked Still's Corey DiMario on bass) and by the astonishing, not say bonkers guitar playing of Andy McKee from Kansas (pictured). Corey's comments about 'people in Shetland not having phones' met with good natured forbearance at the sublime ignorance of visiting Americans. I could have shouted out something like: 'A national network radio programme is broadcast using digital telephony from that run-down cottage across the road, you idiot' but didn't. However, it does seem that British Telecom want to get rid of our remaining telephone boxes, as we're all so mobile-ridden these days. A shame. This is the one on the seafront at Hillswick. Pure 'Local Hero'.

Proper journalism

An extraordinary piece about the death of an American soldier in Iraq. Be warned, it's extremely long and harrowing, but this is what Pulitzer Prizes are provided for. It's from Esquire, so be prepared, in addition, for pictures of Posh Spice and various other women wearing hardly any clothes.
It's the incredibly detailed reporting that sticks in the mind, journalism which stems from a long American tradition and which avoids the very British temptations of glibness, cynicism and an undermining flippancy. Some may say it's a style which is too conscious of its own importance, but what could be more important than this story, so human and yet so politically charged?
The red lights on digital bugles played at funerals by trained military mime artistes; that empty white glove; the mother's cigarette kit; the world's biggest mortuary...extraordinary.
It's by someone called Chris Jones. He seems to be an all-round hack, too, tackling showbiz (Scarlett Johannson and Naomi Watts) and sport with equal aplomb. People trust him, I think, and talk to him. And he respects that.


http://www.esquire.com/features/things-that-carried-him