Raymond on how a man of 77 gets to make his recording debut

In 2014, I started writing about the process of recording some songs with the intention of making an album. The project that I started documenting back then has grown arms and legs and morphed into a multi-headed beast (more about that some other time). I’ve taken several detours along the way, but the one that means the most is about to get a proper release on an actual record label, something I had barely even considered as a possibility when I started out.

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Raymond on a band who could have been contenders …

In 1993, the rock press started to talk about something called ‘Britpop’. I had no idea what it meant, other than that someone had invented yet another music genre. The phenomenon went on to carry some cultural weight, although perhaps not always for the reasons celebrated by some commentators. Depending on your point of view, Noel Gallagher hanging around Downing Street with Tony Blair was either the zenith of ‘Cool Britannia’ or the precise moment at which rock music relinquished its risible claim to be the standard bearer for anything resembling a counter-cultural movement. Here’s a clue: If you’re sipping tea with the Prime Minister, you may still fancy yourself as a rebel, but you are most definitely inside the tent, pissing out.

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Raymond on the remarkable rise of Doctor Peterson

If there is anyone out there who still hasn’t watched Cathy Newman’s Channel 4 News interview with the Clinical Psychologist Jordan Peterson, I would strongly recommend that you check out what was a wonderfully illuminating piece of television. I found it riveting, but I’m not sure if that was in spite of -or because of- the interviewer’s insistence on trying to put words into her interviewee’s mouth at almost every turn. If you try counting the number of times she says “so what you’re saying is …” before inserting a ridiculously skewed interpretation of what he has actually said, you will need all of your fingers and some of your toes. It is evident that ‘listening’ and ‘responding to what the other person has actually said’ were not part of Ms Newman’s game plan.

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Raymond on the template for an eccentric pop career

As a tragically obsessive consumer of music, I am used to the idea of ‘expectation’ out-performing ‘reality’. It has too often been the case that the act of imagining the tantalising possibilities of an eagerly-anticipated album has provided rather more fun than the experience of actually listening to it. Having learned to live with that kind of disappointment, it was always a particular treat when something managed to match my hopes and expectations.

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Raymond on tracing the musical lineage of your heroes

For a nerdish young music-obsessed Glaswegian in the late 70s and early 80s, the ‘Lost Chord’ record shop had an almost mythical status. It was located in the bohemian West End, the part of town where poets, intellectuals, posh kids and people who played in bands hung out. If -like me- you lived on the dull south side, getting there required not only dedication, but an ability to decipher bus timetables which openly mocked the restrictive notions of linear time.

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Raymond on buying vinyl

I recently bought my son a turntable for his birthday and, since he owned no vinyl, I spent a couple of weekends scouring various second hand and charity shops in the hope of assembling an interesting little ‘starter’ collection for him.

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Raymond on 1960s football as performance art

In his classic dystopian novel 1984, George Orwell famously had the party apparatchik O’Brien make the following assertion: “If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.” Watching Scottish Premier League football can be a bit like that. It was bad enough when the Old Firm routinely carved things up between them, but since Rangers had their liquidation event in 2012, watching Celtic demolish the opposition has become about as much fun as watching a big rich kid beating up a bunch of poor little kids. The Scottish Cup, at least, has managed to provide some welcome relief from that, with Hibernian, St Johnstone, Hearts and Inverness all winning the trophy in recent years. And this season, once again, the only game that matters is the tie at which one of the so-called provincial clubs will (hopefully) thwart Celtic’s pursuit of the domestic treble.

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Raymond on the sights, the sounds, the smells of a cup-tie down the coast.

For lovers of the old trophy, there can be no more romantic side to watch, surely, than Queen’s Park, the oldest association football club in Scotland and ten times winners of the Scottish Cup. As I drove to the coast to take in their fourth round tie at Ayr United, I was full of the joys of a crisp clear winter’s day and had high hopes for some raw footballing entertainment.

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Raymond on the wee teams dreaming of glory

Several days of cold weather meant that the morning of the third round of the Scottish Cup was a time of anxiety for the roving fan with hopes of taking in a game. I had picked five possible venues within reasonable driving distance, but overnight frost meant that pitch inspections were taking place at most of them. As information about postponements started to filter through, I was relieved to discover that perhaps the most intriguing tie -Bonnyrigg Rose versus Dumbarton- was going ahead. The Bonnyrigg twitter feed posted this simple and joyous message shortly after completion of their pitch inspection:

“We are … ON!!!! To the bodies that were here yesterday and in darkness this morning – Legends.”

Raymond on the ruminations of a Tragic Football Tourist

For the second round of the Scottish Cup, I decided to head to Annan to watch the home side take on East Stirlingshire. My extensive pre-match research revealed that these clubs had something remarkable in common, in that each have endured a single ‘ghost’ season when they disappeared off the football map.

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