I could bore you straight up with all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but you’re here to see if I’m any good at music, right?

(The David Copperfield crap is under My Story, below the videos)

You can look up my Bandcamp profile here. Or, if you prefer Youtube, here are a few videos: the first of a performance at Shoreline of Infinity in Edinburgh’s Pleasance Bar, and the rest made for me by my uber-talented friend and fellow musician Audrey Russell.

 

 

My Story

I was 14 in 1976, teen spirit hitting its straps in that perfect storm of classic rock, punk, and everything in between. It’s not surprising really that I picked up my brother’s cast-aside Spanish guitar soon after and started teaching myself some chords. Springsteen, Dylan and Knopfler were my guiding stars.

So far, so standard for someone my age. However, it took a long time – and a lot of writing in other formats – before I started to call myself a songwriter, far less a singer-songwriter.

The first of these happened almost by accident when, working with singer Kelly Brooks, I formed acoustic duo Tribute to Venus Carmichael in 2008 – basically because I didn’t reckon a Fringe audience could stand listening to my spoken word for an entire hour! I still play in the world’s only tribute band to the ‘mythical’ Venus, as well as an Americana-based duo, East of Appalachia, with my son-in-law Scott Harrison, as well as a supergroup of Edinburgh singer-songwriters, Anchor Line Review.

And my own singer-songwriting? That project comes under the moniker SIASA, for Songs in a Scottish Accent. That’s basically to remind me to sing in my own voice.