EEJITS
Tell Me Why – Stu Who?
My latest wee vid, done whilst trying out new editing software, as a learning exercise … and a long, slow fukken annoying process it was
I did the music on an old steam-driven prog … vox added on the laptop … rather lo-fi, but that’s the way I like it
After lotsa mistakes and hassles, I give up … this’ll have to do
The next one will be better … as I dumped that software and will start afresh
The words are from poem that I wrote, performed over a bit of music that I also wrote, and played, … they just fitted perfectly together somehow
“Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings” sounds like screen directions for a crap, porn film … but it also has that ring of truth to it … Kids can ask the most naive and simplistic of questions that cut through the bullshit and flim-flam, getting right to the heart of the matter … the real questions which need answering
FUCK CLUB
THE 12 COMMANDMENTS
Mall Teaser
Sculptor, Tony Morrow, famous for his Loby Dosser & El Fideldo statue in Woodlands Rd, used to live near me, in Kildrum, here in Cumbernauld. At that time, he was a fireman, hadn’t yet been to art-school, and was a mate of mine .. with a great sense of humour. The first time I ever visited his flat, I sat down on the couch, as he went to put the kettle on, and I started to skin-up, a wee number on his large coffee table
Situated at the opposite end of the table was a box of Maltesers … but a box which was maybe four or five times bigger than even the biggest, family size, Malteser box
.
“That’s some fukkin size of a box of Maltesers, Tony!” I shouted through to Tony in the kitchen
“I love Maltesers. Have one” he shouted back
I lifted the partially opened flap top of the box.
.
‘
Inside was one HUGE brown, chocolate Malteser, the size of a volleyball.
“But don’t eat the last one” Tony shouted ….
“Leave the last one fur me”
I doubled up, pissing myself laughing
“That is fukkin genius … You should do stuff like that professionally” I told him … constantly for the next few years, … and eventually, he did
Over the years, I saw dozens of people fall for his little trick … he’d made the box and Maltesers, perfect to scale, and it was typical of the daft visual gags he eventually did in his sculptural work
FLAT OUT
In the mid 70’s, I played acoustic guitar (badly) and sang (enthusiastically) in a wee four-piece combo called Flat Out, alongside Eddy Cavin, Alan MacMaster, and Keith Shirlaw; and the occasional addition of Jim(my) Jazz (Alexander)
We had a good laugh doing sorta folk/blues/rock, with just a wee touch of The Bonzos too, and even released an EP – FLAT UOT – An Accident Looking For Somewhere To Happen.
Keith did the cover artwork, and although I can’t seem to locate the original B&W cover, I did find this version that Keith and one of my kids coloured in – the cover was intended for that very purpose, at my suggestion, as was the deliberate typo.
I was doing posters for the band and organising gigs too, and produced a poster for a night down at Cumbernauld Theatre, still called The Cottage at this point, and decided on a whim to call the event “An Evening Without Bing Crosby”. I’d completed the pen and ink drawing that was the poster, given the artwork to someone to print them off, and received the finished posters, which were then distributed around Cumbernauld.
A copy of the poster was sitting on my drawing-board when a mate arrived, looked at it, and giggled furiously: “Wow, that was fast” he exclaimed.
”What was fast?” I asked.
”Being that topical, that quick”
Turned out that the famous crooner and child-beater, Bing Crosby, had died that very day, just as the posters were being put up in shop windows and bus-shelters
In a simpler, less shock-weary time this was considered to be in rather bad taste
I was so chuffed, and well-pleasedwith the synchronicity … and began a long tradition of introducing a wee shock element into the band posters I produced from there onwards