Joe blogs: Gary Crosbie – love, life, rabbit

On 1st December 2020, Dunfermline solo artist Gary Crosbie released his album love, life, rabbit. Two months later, I’m listening on Spotify and finding it predictable; Gary written all over it. It sounds good, it entertains, and it makes sense, mostly. It’s almost exactly how I’ve found Gary in real life.

love, life, rabbit is as expected and that’s good, as I expected the best from a singer/songwriter I’ve appreciated for, I guess, about 6 years now. We’ve even kinda worked together when I booked him to play regularly at The Creepy Wee Pub and Tappie Toories.

The only surprise with love, life, rabbit is it’s extremely well produced. I used to find Gary’s own mixing desk preferences slightly odd. Let’s not dwell there. Instead, congratulations to Dominic Hardy at GraceNote Recordings, Dunfermline, on his studio engineering. Together, Gary and Dominic have created an excellent work of art: an album I can listen to over and over again, especially on a lazy Sunday morning like today (I’m on my third listen already).

The cover art by Ruby Rhod is brilliant too.

Gary Crosbie’s love, life, rabbit cover art by Ruby Rhod.

My highlights from love, life, rabbit start with track 2. Tear. Actually, haud the bus, on checking Tear is track 2., I just spotted that almost all my highlights are listed as Popular on Spotify. Looks like I’m predictable too.

Gary’s Popular tracks on Spotify match my own favourites. I’m nothing if not predictable.

Tear starts ominously, the bubbling brook from track 1. Call My Name, a heartfelt love song for Hippies, is still bubbling as track 2. Tear begins. The eerie musical shudder tells me something bad is about to happen.

In only 4 minutes and 8 seconds Gary is heartbroken. From lying side-by-side in bliss, listening to her breathing, he’s now counting his loses and making his escape. It’s over, the call and response ending is bitter, appropriately heavy on drums, and angry. I feel like the album could end here. Maybe that’s just me.

Teaser video for love, life, rabbit by Gary Crosbie.

I won’t spoil the ending of all the songs, but you can probably guess things aren’t going to go well for the wee rabbit caught in the headlights. I hope that doesn’t reflect Gary in real life, although he has been playing that song for a long time. YouTube tells me I videoed Gary playing Rabbit at The Monarch Bar, Halloween 2016.

Gary Crosbie at The Monarch Bar, Halloween 2016.

Along with Tear and Rabbit, Life and Love are also strikingly good songs. Life’s frivolous cuckoo clock intro quickly turns into a hard, driving, blues-orientated number. It provides contrast; giving shade to an album full of light.

Life and Love blend seemlessly together and I suspect Gary (with producer Dominic) is trying to tell us something. Both tracks display influences from The Beatles, although maybe I’m just saying that ’cause I can’t stop playing the 2018 remix of Helter Skelter – something else worth looking up on Spotify.

Talking of influences, Gary’s penultimate track Diamond features an outstanding guest vocal performance from Laura Crosbie and the song reminds me of one of my favourite bands, The Beautiful South.

There’s also an ever-so-catchy guest vocal from Misha Sutherland on track 4. Just Another Day. Misha’s strong stage presence gives way here to a cute cameo performance, something fans of indie popsters Saint Etienne will love.

Last but not least Ian Clyne plays tasty bass guitar throughout.

Gary Crosbie’s Links

To help you find and buy love, life, rabbit I’ve copied and pasted links from Gary’s Facebook:

• Spotify
• Bandcamp
• Amazon

Well done Gary and all involved. Another triumph for Dunfermline and Scotland.

Coming soon…

TwinsTown’s stunning debut album Brankholm Brae is due out sometime this year, 2021. Watch this space for details.

Brankholm Brae the stunning debut album from TwinsTown coming soon.

Stay alive!

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TwinsTown’s Brankholm Brae Album Cover Revealed

Today TwinsTown reveal their cover art for forthcoming debut album Brankholm Brae and it’s a typically brilliant painting by local Dunfermline artist, and friend of the band, Jack Paton. We’d like to send a big thank you to Jack, his effort and support is very much appreciated.

TwinsTown’s twins Stuart and Donald painted specifically for debut album Brankholm Brae by local Dunfermline artist, and friend of the band, Jack Paton. Thank you, Jack.

The work, painted specifically for Brankholm Brae, follows the theft of Jack’s original take on TwinsTown’s twins Donald and Stuart.

The earlier work featuring Stuart and Donald Mackay by Jack was stolen from Dunfermline High Street.

Jack’s earlier work featuring Stuart and Donald (as shown above) was stolen from Dunfermline High Street. For years now Jack has been adding colour to the auld grey toun by strategically placing art in the centre of Dunfermline.

A friend told me, “you’re nobody in this toun until you have a Jack Paton,” needless to say she reached for her mobile phone to prove that her famous fizzog does indeed appear in a Jack Paton.

Unfortunately, I don’t have that one in my phone, but I do have Pars fan Andrew Carnegie and The Skids’ and Big Country’s Stuart Adamson.

Stuart and Donald sharing the limelight with Dunfermline legends Andrew Carnegie and Stuart Adamson.

Here’s more of Jack’s art and I’m sure the boys will love this.

Noel and Liam Gallagher by Jack Paton pictured alongside their heroes Stuart and Donald Mackay. Or is it the other way around. Who knows!?

My favourite Jack Patons are of Billy Connelly and if you look carefully below you might spot the man himself, toun legend, Jack Paton.

This time Double Trouble, Stuart and Donald, are overshadowed by Jack Paton himself and three of his paintings featuring Billy Connolly. Top left is the Big Yin looking down from the gap site towards Dunfermline High Street.

For the back cover of Brankholm Brae we’d like the full band photographed; Harry Dixon, Wayne Robertson, Mark Guyan, Donald Mackay and Stuart Mackay. However, with lockdown and all the Covid-19 restrictions I have not managed a single shot of the full TwinsTown line up, nevermind one with their backing singers, TwinsTown manager Billy George, Billy’s daughter Ellie and former TwinsTown member Ben Sharp.

Billy is planning a vinyl release for Brankholm Brae but with everything going on we don’t have a date yet. Hopefully it will be 2021. Just for Billy I’ve photoshopped a mostly black and white alternative album cover. I like to call it 52 Years A Par. Well done for supporting the band, Billy. You’re a star!

Black and white version 52 Years A Par for long-suffering TwinsTown manager Billy George.

Thanks again to Jack Paton. To view and buy Jack’s art please click here: Art by Jack Paton.

Stay alive!

Happy Birthday Rabbie Burns!

Burns Night is tonight and I’ve polled TwinsTown to discover their top three works from Scotland’s National Bard.

3. A Red, Red Rose

In 2008 The Guardian reported that Bob Dylan was asked to name the lyric or verse that had the greatest impact on his life. Rather than quoting his idol Woody Guthrie or poet Dylan Thomas, from whom it is thought that Robert Zimmerman took his name, Dylan selected ‘A Red, Red Rose’ written by Robert Burns in 1794.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,

   And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;

I will love thee still, my dear,

   While the sands o’ life shall run.

A brilliant verse in what is essentially a Scots love song. For the climax, Burns puts The Proclaimers’ efforts to shame.

And fare thee weel, my only luve!

   And fare thee weel awhile!

And I will come again, my luve,

   Though it were ten thousand mile.

Craig and Charlie are lightweights compared to Rabbie. 500 miles indeed. Oh, and 500 more, is it, aye!? That’s twins for ye! Try 10,000 mile and I bet Burns didn’t fall down at her door. No half measures for Rab.

2. Tam o’Shanter

Hmmm, I wonder why Tam o’Shanter is number two? Could it be that Tam liked a drink and spending time with his pals… enough said for now. Here we go.

O Tam! had'st thou but been sae wise,

As ta'en thy ain wife Kate's advice!

She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum,

A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum.

Who’d have guessed TwinsTown would like a waster, a rambling, blustering, drunken boaster!? I suppose they like me well enough. I really should have stopped before stumbling into that conclusion.

Anyway, it’s time for number one, the top of the hit parade, and it’s undoubtedly the greatest egalitarian song ever written. It has even been covered by Midge Ure although his choice of venue was questionable.

Midge Ure sings Burns’ A Man’s A Man for A’ That. Click the link above to watch TwinsTown’s favourite.

1. A Man’s A Man for A’ That

Nothing if not predictable, I hear you say. Well aye, but it is good, and appropriate. In TwinsTown we have two actual brothers, but the rest of us are brothers too, you know…

For a' that, an' a' that,

It's coming yet for a' that,

That Man to Man, the world o'er,

Shall brothers be for a' that.

Coming soon…

Brankholm Brae the stunning debut album from TwinsTown is coming soon. The album cover has been painted by local Dunfermline artist Jack Paton and it will be featured in our very next post, also coming soon.

In the meantime here is one of Jack’s portraits of Rabbie Burns.

Alloway’s Robert Burns by Dunfermline’s Jack Paton.

To see and buy art by Jack Paton please visit: Art by Jack Paton on Facebook.

Happy Burns Night.

Stay alive!

Lock up your daughters, sisters and mums!

“Don’t call me Scarface!”

We all have our favourite lyrics. I just love Neville Staple’s “Don’t call me Scarface!” line from Gangsters by The Specials. The whole song is a masterpiece.

Can’t fight corruption with con tricks

They use the law to commit crime

I dread to think what the future’ll bring

When we’re living in gangster times

(Don’t call me Scarface!)

The Specials

Neville Staple, The Specials, don’t call him Scarface.

“Say hello to my little friend,” screams Al Pacino, before blowing up home invaders with his grenade launcher in the movie Scarface. The film’s soundtrack was composed by Giorgio Moroder who co-wrote Together In Electric Dreams with Phil Oakey of the Human League.

I only knew you for a while

I never saw your smile

‘Til it was time to go

Time to go away (time to go away)

Philip Oakey, Giorgio Moroder

The song tells us that love can endure even when the opportunity to properly share in the love is lost.

Sometimes its hard to recognise

Love comes as a surprise

And its too late

Its just too late to stay

Too late to stay

Philip Oakey, Giorgio Moroder

Together In Electric Dreams is a simple, catchy wee track, recorded in only ten minutes, yet it’s poignant. Oakey talks about the Human League taking a year to record singles and failing to achieve the chart success he enjoyed with Moroder and Electric Dreams.

Talking of lost love, here come the Wölves.

You’re an animal

You never loved no one

You’re an animal

Changed our relationship to complicated

I must admit I felt a little jaded

Talking cheap and acting shady

I found your tweets and your Facebook, baby

Wölves

Wölves’ video for animal featuring our very own Donald and Stuart, and me! I’m in there somewhere as an extra. I did see myself once, honest.

Animal by the Wölves is now a modern classic; heartbreak and trauma, expressed through the medium of social media. From Keats and Yates to Wölves, love lost is love lost. The desolation remains the same. What is it with me and lost love, I wonder? Let’s not dwell on it.

Here’s a picture from the Wölves’ video for Animal.

Jason Duffy drumming on the Wölves’ Animal video.

What is it with Jason and baring his chest, I wonder? Let’s not dwell on it. I’m sure the girls like it.

Here’s an altogether more lovable snap from the same video shoot.

Mariam Amhaz during the Wölves video shoot for their outstanding track Animal.

Mariam’s accordion playing being cut from the final video edit is shocking.

Actually I promised Mariam I’d put that picture up in Tappie Toories but that’s now another tale of lost love.

I can’t face the heartbreak of reopening Tappies for a fourth time only to face who knows what restrictions and potentially a fourth closure due to Covid-19, and a third wave or whatever.

Instead, take yer chances at Tesco with unlimited alcohol sales fuelling drunken, unregulated everything. Other super-spreaders and superstores are available.

We’ve had pubs only open until 6pm but prohibited from selling any drink, under any circumstances. We’ve had an 8pm curfew but only if you sell a substantial meal, and a 10pm curfew with hundreds or thousands huddled together in the dank streets at exactly the same time with no taxis available. We’ve had lock-up, lock-down, you know, anything but a sensible, sober, regulated and socially distanced lock-in.

That reminds me.

Serbia 1-1 Scotland (4-5 on penalties).

A great night, a great sing-a-long and an outrageous 20-man conga lauded by all.

Oooohh! Yes sir, I can boogie

But I need a certain song

I can boogie, boogie woogie all night long

Yes sir, I can boogie

If you stay, you can’t go wrong

I can boogie, boogie woogie all night long

Soja Rolf / Dostal Frank

The Baccara disco classic Yes Sir, I Can Boogie was just as good as the Scottish conga line singing the name of penalty-saving goalie David Marshall to Whigfield’s Saturday Night.

Scotland have qualified for the European Championship finals 2020, our first major tournament since 1998. That’s 22 years! Or 23 as it’s being played at least one year late, maybe more. The first major finals I properly remember was 1978…

We’re on the march with Ally’s Army

We’re going to the Argentine

And we’ll really shake them up

When we win the World Cup

‘Cause Scotland are the greatest football team

Samuel Dennison

Ally’s Tartan Army by Andy Cameron contains one of the best lyrics ever. Here it comes…

When we reach the Argentine we’re really gonna show

The world a brand of football that they could never know

We’re representing Britain; we’ve got to do or die

For England cannae dae it ’cause they didnae qualify!

Samuel Dennison

Talking of England, I now work for NHS England and, on a serious note, it has reinforced my view that doing everything we could to keep people safe in Tappies was absolutely the right thing to do. I hope our parliaments, supermarkets, schools, universities, etc., can, in time – hopefully a very short time – do likewise.

Lyrically, it doesn’t get much better or funnier than Ally’s Tartan Army with; “England cannae dae it ’cause they didnae qualify!”

Although, never shy of a challenge, TwinsTown have given it a go. Former member Ronnie Dalrymple sings on Double Trouble…

My name is Ronnie and I play the drums

I’ve got eight fingers and I’ve got twa thumbs

So, lock up your daughters, sisters and mums!

TwinsTown

You really have to see it. Find Ronnie and TwinsTown in the Double Trouble video here: Double Trouble

Ronnie sings arguably the best lyric ever as Donald pretends he can play poker.

Stay alive!

Welcome to the new year 2021

Welcome to my World is the opening track on TwinsTown’s forthcoming debut album Brankholm Brae. This post is a TwinsTown welcome to the new year.

Always keeping up with the Jones twins next door, this year the Mackay twins are keeping their tree up longer.

TwinsTown’s twins, the Mackays, Stuart and Donald, always keeping up with the Joneses.

“It’s a 2021 trend,” explained Stuart, “and of course we’re keeping up with the Joneses.”

“AYE!” screamed Donald, “the Joneses don’t have an album to release this year, and if they do, it won’t be a patch on Brankholm Brae.”

Okay Donald, keep the heid.

You have to admit though, it’s a stunning display of self-confidence from boys wearing matching Elton John T-shirts.

Talking of Elton, he appears in today’s MusicWeek.

Click the link above, it’s an interesting wee read. It’s all about Elton’s online popularity and success. Actually, I hope the twins don’t click. I don’t want Stuart and Donald turning into green-eyed monsters. Maybe the Mackays are keeping up with the Joneses but Elton is the Rocket Man.

Are you keeping your tree up this year? I hope so. 🙂

Stay alive!