Archive for the ‘Blog’ Category

Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2022

Wednesday, April 13th, 2022

I’m delighted to announce I’ll be performing at this years Edinburgh Fringe Festival on the 20th August. This date was moved back from 2020.

Once again I am performing at the Acoustic Music Centre, however they have moved home from Dalry Road to the Ukrainian Centre in the City centre.

Tickets:

https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/colin-clyne

Lyrics – “Where The Ships Go To Die”

Monday, August 31st, 2020

By Colin Clyne Copyright 2020

Flown further than the wind carries leaves

Sinking lower than the roots of old trees

Sun beats so hard that it reddens black skin

Yet we bask in its heat and we try to begin

To rekindle the warmth but the candle is dead

Dead like the cold side of a widow’s bed


Where once there were ports

Well I can’t berth in those lies

Like lightning strikes

From the murderous skies

Where once there were ports

I can’t berth in those lies

We’ll beach this lost love

Where the ships go to die


Hearts and minds swirling out of control

Not enough fingers for too many holes

Taking on water faster than prayers

Bailing the sadness with a cup of despair

Shelter once known, so far out of reach

Dead and abandoned she lays on a beach


Where once there were ports

Well I can’t berth in those lies

Like lightning strikes

From the murderous skies

Where once there were ports

Well I can’t berth in those lies

We’ll beach this lost love

Where the ships go to die


Times a picture that we paint in our minds

Sinking ships, nobody gets out alive

Cover Art for New SINGLE…

Wednesday, August 19th, 2020

…i thought I’d share with you the story behind the cover art for upcoming single ‘Where The Ships Go To Die’.

I found this wonderful photograph attributed with an online article (the economist) on ship dismantling in Bangladesh. The picture was everything I had been looking for in terms of the mood of the song. We tracked down and contacted Bangladeshi based photographer Saiful Huq Omi/Counter Foto to seek permission, which he duly granted. Saiful’s work has been displayed in the following publications (New York Time’s, Time Magazine, Newsweek, The Economist and the BBC to name but a few).

After we had the photograph we sent it over to New York based graphics designer Scott Braun (who we’d already hired to work on a new logo) and he did a fantastic job putting the artwork together . Scott also has long list of established clients on his resume / cv!

Massive thanks to both gentlemen for their talents and wonderful contribution to the project. The single is due out on the 28th August 2020, pre-save link: https://ingroov.es/where-the-ships-go-to

New single ‘Where The Ships Go To Die’!

Tuesday, August 4th, 2020

My new single ‘Where The Ships Go To Die’ is finally ready to have a vintage bottle of champagne cracked off her bows and sent off to sail far as long as the wind may carry her.

Its been a long road but I’m delighted to announce ‘Where The Ships Go To Die’ is available from Royale Music via INgrooves (Parent Co, Universal Music) on Friday the 28th August….more news soon.

Oh and here’s the pre-save link for all your Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer requirements. It’ll be available on all digital platforms.

Cheers

Colin

https://ingroov.es/where-the-ships-go-to

Stonehaven Radio Station P&J piece

Tuesday, June 30th, 2020

The Press and Journal’s Scott Begbie has done a historical piece on Stonehaven’s old Ship to Shore Radio Station from it’s role in World War 2 and the Piper Alpha tragedy. He spoke with some of the folk that used to work there as a working ship to shore radio station, including my Uncle Gordon Reid and Ally Taylor.

He also talks about it’s future as a brewery for Six Degrees North Brewery in Stonehaven.

I was interviewed for my input on my 2010 song ‘Stonehaven Radio Station and Me’ and touched on my upcoming (comeback) single ‘Where The Ships Go To Die’.

Please give it a read. It’s a wonderful piece.

Thanks
Colin x

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/nostalgia/2289107/the-north-east-radio-lifeline-that-saved-countless-lives-through-war-and-peace-and-tragedy/?fbclid=IwAR0U9Lt0ULC_g0ATbxMK5KBopeivL2vijw_dkx9eZe_M1l0MxrrDScbjspg

Voices in my head be gone, I’m just the guy that writes the songs!

Thursday, February 27th, 2014

Well, once again I find myself staring over the stormy sea, as I do from time to time. Not metaphorically you understand, but actually standing, shivering my balls off, staring over the freezing cold, bloody sea…..just before you think I’m getting all deep and ‘sensitive singer songwritery’ (a cool new word).

I’ve actually found myself a moment where I can breathe and reflect on the last year, it’s been absolutely mental, really it has! Where do I start? I made a record, I moved back to Scotland, I finished said record after heading back to California and I interspersed all that with lots of travel, gigs, life and trying my best to be a good Dad and Husband.

Ok, let’s back up a wee bit shall we? April 2013 saw myself and Grammy award winning Engineer Alan Sanderson……………you do know he won a Grammy right? Have I not displayed that enough online? Well, it’s good for us all and he’s a good friend, so, I’m rightly mighty proud of him. Anyway I digress, myself, Alan and a band consisting of Brazilian guitarist Pedro Talarico, Larry Grano and Rick Nash unpacked our gear, beer and cheer into Analog Chew studio in Santee. It’s actually the old Strate sound studio where some of Doricana was recorded (Good for something, Into my garden & Peace in my mind) back in 2008 (I certainly took my time with that bastard)!

Myself, Alan and Pedro had actually started working on the pre production of the album back in the January where I basically presented the songs to Pedro (in his tiny bedsit 5 minutes after meeting him), we sat down and played them, most were born with their boots on but we ended up ‘tweaking’ some, and some more than others. Did I also mention that at this point I couldn’t even go for a pint/shit/lunch/dental appointment *delete as appropriate* without San Diego superstar film maker Craig Rian training his camera on me! We’ve had some journey, however that’s a whole other blog, pint, conversation…..quite possibly a DVD……if you get my drift!!!?

Anyhow, these early sessions really set the tone for the whole record and as always, my good friend Craig Rian was there to capture the whole thing. I think it’s been an incredibly great learning process for Craig as he’s now filmed the recording of an album almost from start to finish. I say almost because, before the pre production there is the ‘magic’, the writing of the song and as people know, songwriters are usually quite aloof and unrevealing of the whole writing thing…..well, I certainly am, it still surprises me that I can actually write songs, but we’re away to launch release number 4 (2 albums, 2 EP’s), so I should probably be a little less surprised these days!

During these pre production sessions we demo’d about 18 songs, my intention was always to have just the 10 songs on this new record (The Never Ending Pageant in case you hadn’t heard) but I turned up with an 11th song at the 11th hour and quite frankly, it was just too good not to put on the record. I say that because you never know when you’ll do it again, if at all.

The funny thing is, I always say that after I release a record…….’…never again, I am done, I am fulfilled creatively…’, blah, blah, bloody blah…I wish, but it’s like a drug to me, it goes away for a bit then I slowly write a few songs here and there and then BOOM it comes hammering back at me, gnawing and clawing at me, sometimes I actually try not to write songs because I know if I end up writing a good one I’ll be like aaaargh, I’ve got to record that just in case I get hit by a bus tomorrow (superb Scottish optimism at it’s finest).

Getting back to these 18 songs we demo’d, where did they all go? Well, we dropped some because they were a little too bluesy, they were good songs all the same and ended up being pretty decent demo’s, but it didn’t fit with the direction the main songs were taking the album. I’ll get back to the bluesy ones at some point (I woke up this morning derum duh dum with a whisky in my hand derum duh dum ………anyone?).

Some of the other ones just didn’t quite work, they may have had great choruses or a great lyric or good energy but they just lacked that little bit of spark or magic that was needed for it to be worth our while pursuing it. This level of QC, I’m lead to believe isn’t common place in the indie artist field! Actually, we had one song which everyone thought was going to be the ‘hit’ but fat boy here just couldn’t quite hit the chorus, t’was a little too high and the verse t’was a little too low……sigh, I’ve since rewritten half of it and may well look at it again in the future on a cold and stormy night! The problem initially lay at the fact I had written it for a rather talented singer friend of mine by the name of Terry McDermott, you may have heard of him? The Voice? Season 3? Scottish?

Anyway, fast forward to…….or in fact………hold the press, I seemed to have gone off on some sort of ‘Billy Conellyesque’ ramblings, I hate when I do that but I can’t help it, I tend to write as I speak…….. when I can in fact be arsed doing one of these blogs. Where were we?? Ah, right, April 2013, Me. Alan. Heading into Analog Chew. Santee. California. Bunch of songs. Band……right?

Over the course of the next week, we proceeded to record the basic tracks for the album, usually doing two a day. The following week we added overdubs of acoustic guitars, vocals, harmonies, keys, strings etc. The guys involved in the overdubbing that weren’t involved in the initial basic tracks were the brilliant Dave Curtis on keys, the amazing Rick Schmidt on Lap steel / dobro and the beautiful and wonderfully talented singer Taylin Rae on harmonies!

Everyone involved pretty quickly realised we were making something quite special here. I know we all say that and ‘yeah man, we’re making the most amazing piece of music ever known to manfuckingkind’, much bumping of chests, cracking of whisky bottles and popping of champagne corks later and you realise it’s pretty much the same ol’ shit!

Anyhow, I’ve already recorded one fairly well received album (Doricana, you heard of it? right?) and I can tell you, it wasn’t the same feeling making that as making ‘Pageant’, there was an emotional connection that we all felt, maybe it’s because everyone knew I was heading back to Scotland, maybe the planets aligned, maybe everything just came together for a reason because we’ve been working towards it for 7 years and used Doricana as a test run (sorry if you really like that record…..I do too), maybe we got lucky or maybe just maybe every single one of us in that room has just got better and better and we peaked at the right time? No, ach, who knows, I’m not here to assess, I’m just the guy that writes the songs!

So, a little later in the year, myself and my family moved back to Scotland. I don’t know if you have moved house before? I’ve moved house 37 times, yep, 37 bloody times, I’m actually 37 years old…in my fairly pish mathematics that works out at 1 move every year. So, as you can imagine, I hate moving house and if you’ve moved house, you’ll know it’s a jumbo pain in the arse, especially if you have to move to another continent!! So, myself, the bairn, the wife and the cat, all moved back to Scotland. Where we spent the next few months getting settled, working, living, growing older and basically setting ourself up for the next chapter of our life.

However, at the back of mind this record was tugging and nagging at me ‘…come on Colin, you really need to finish me off, you’ll never be as good as Bob Dylan if you’ve got a bunch of half assed finished recordings and demo’s from Alan Sandersons front room…’, damn those nagging voices!

So, come the turn of the year (January 2014) and after a great recording session up in Nairn, Scotland with MOD Gold medal winning Gaelic singer Margaret Stewart and world renowned engineer Ken Allardyce (Supertramp, Fleetwood Mac, Celine Dion), I pulled the trigger and we booked the wonderful Hyde Street Studios in San Francisco to mix and master my new record ‘The Never Ending Pageant’. I’ve got ‘previous’ with this studio, 11 of the 13 songs from Doricana were actually mixed on this wonderful old Neve desk. You’ve got to love analog…..no, analogue….no, analog…whatever.

I knew this desk was wonderful but I also knew that this studio is WHAM BAM right in the middle of the Tenderloin district which quite frankly is the big yellow boil on the arse of San Francisco. The stench of shit, piss and god knows what else is prevalent and the daily walk to the corner store is a journey unto itself…..in fact, by the end of the week I was actually out busking for the good folks, junkies, crack whores and drug dealing gangsters of the place. Man that was great fun, didn’t get any tips! Stingy buggers!

Myself, Craig Rian, Alan Sanderson and Pedro Talarico were all involved in the mix / master session, Craig filmed all the important, interesting bits. The rest of the time we just chest bumped, cracked bottles of whisky, popped champagne and proclaimed this to be the most amazing piece of music known to #ManFuckingKindYeBas!!!

Haha, naturally I jest….. well, time will tell! 😉 I honestly don’t know when it will be released, I’m hoping for Spring but I want to make sure we don’t make an arse of it like we did with Doricana (long story, full of clichés and the usual crap, maybe buy me a pint sometime?).

Till then, I will enjoy the silence in my head and the lack of self created pressure on my part to make another record…….well, till next time!

New Album, Pastures New, errrrrrm DVD release????.

Saturday, May 18th, 2013

Once again I find myself back in ol’ Blighty for a few weeks, I will be here a lot more soon, more on this later

Where do I start with regards to the last few months…..well, I finished recording my brand new studio album out at Analog Chew Studio in Santee, California. Once again, Mr Alan Sanderson is on Production and Engineering duties and did a terrific job. Alongside him we had the Brazilian Wizard Pedro Talarico who is a very valuable member of the team (it truly was such a great team effort). Actually, before we pop the corks, throw this bad boy in shrinkwrap and start selling it to the masses at StarBuck’s we have a few very small things to record / tweak (blah blah blah) in an overdub sense but it’s pretty much done.

Thanks to Jerry Sisti and Zach at Analog Chew who were incredibly hospitable and profesional. Special shout out to his brother (John Sisti), who took some amazing photographs of the session (will air some soon). Everybody involved did an amazing job. The general consensus is that we have created something emotional, something special, however…thats not really for us to decide, is it!? Much chest bumping, high fiving, whisky cracking etc has been had but we still have a lot of work to do in a mixing and finessing sense. Also, I’m working on a special guest or two! More later.

I won’t say too much about the new album at the minute other than we recorded 11 songs, a couple have been in my set for a while but most are new. The album title is also the title of one of the songs…….. I know, I know, I always feel that it’s a bit of a cop out when acts do that but the title just fits the general vibe of the album, plus the title is great and the track is really great too………hmmmm, well that’s really not up to me either (right?), the wife has told me to rein it in a bit (as always….she’s Scottish) as I get too excited (not visibly of course being Scottish) and tend to bump my gums about it, more with regards to what a great job everybody did than anything else. 🙂 One more thing I shall say is, I stepped out of my comfort zone for some of these songs and I left everything in the studio……….I was knackered for about 2 weeks afterwards:)

OK, the main reasons I can’t say too much about the release of this new album yet is that I first have the ‘small’ matter of moving from San Diego, California back home to Aberdeen, Scotland. After several years myself and the family are heading back to our homeland. I’ll be posting a date and venue for a ‘See you soon’ soiree of sorts in San Diego, CA for all our Southern Californian friends.

Finally, Mr Craig Rian continues to follow me about like Paparazzi to Kim Kardashians arse, he filmed the whole recording process and we continue to capture great stuff for the mooted DVD release. What can I say? It will be done when it’s done!!! 🙂

I hope to see you somewhere down the line sometime, somehow…….. soon.

Love
C x

2012, taking the foot off the gas downhill!

Wednesday, January 16th, 2013

Apologies for the lack of blog action on here of late. Life has been something else for sure!

Well, 2012 was a hell of a year for me and I don’t mind telling you that it’s been the best year of my life so far. As you may or may not know, I became a Father for the first time back in March and that came with it’s own set of challenges. My time has become very limited and precious. So, it was my intention to take the foot off the gas a wee bit in 2012 and as you may have seen, that didn’t quite happen.

I managed to maintain some kind of live presence albeit in a much more regional sense throughout California. I was also blessed to win another San Diego Music Award for Best Acoustic Act in August, it was particularly special as my wife and daughter were both there to share it with me. We also captured it on film, this will be featured on my upcoming tour DVD that I’ve been working on with Craig Rian since 2010, we are excited to share this with you later this year……..oh I also release a limited edition live EP called ‘Doon tae the wid’, this was taken from a gig Idid in Sacramento during the 2011 Sacramento and Woodland Highland Games and Celtic Festival. This was also used as further promo for the upcoming DVD.

2012 was finished off nicely with an appearance at the New Year party in my hometown of Stonehaven, Scotland. I was the opening act for Scotland’s ‘Red Hot Chili Pipers’ in front of 6000 folk, it was a brilliant night all round with the exception of the long lines for the bar, the guys will get that sorted for Hogmanay this year, that I have no doubt of. Special thanks to Michelle Ward and June for their support and drive.

So, currently I’m in the middle of demoing new songs for my new album, I have loads of songs but I’m in the whittling down process where I decide what my best 15 are, then we demo them and then whittle them down to 10. I’m also on the look for some funding, so, if anyone is interested in possibly coming in on an executive producer basis give me a shout, I’ll bring the beer…..if not then I guess I best crack open my piggy bank again!!! 😉

Love
Colin

PS, I promise to update this a tad more this year.

Twitter made a ‘#Belieber’ out of me!

Sunday, May 20th, 2012

I’m going to start this blog with a disclaimer. I have never (knowingly) heard any of Justin Bieber’s music and up until yesterday I had never been on his Twitter page.

Anyhow, I was having my usual Saturday root about on Twitter, looking for football stories, seeing what is ‘trending’ and of course, coarsely attempting to punt (give away) my music to the masses via t’interweb (naturally)! Usually, Mr Bieber is trending in the US and worldwide, you can see that on the ‘trending’ list next to all the other pertinent info and useless gossip of the day!

So, I decided I was going to come up with a brilliantly ‘funny and clever’ idea of tweeting something along the lines of ‘…Would everyone stop mentioning @JustinBieber as he is always bloody trending on my bloody Twitter feed………….AH, DOH…’!

Now, I thought this might be quite amusing (in my own little sad way), albeit, probably too long for your standard Tweet (answers on a e-postcard) and quite likely to cause me to be the subject of serious online abuse from the more fervent of his ‘Beliebers’. I have no idea, how I know this term (Beliebers) and unfortunately I can’t use my 6 week old daughter as an excuse either.
Actually, light dawns on Doonie Point…….. we give a little bit of light hearted abuse to the wife’s young cousin Cameron, who is in the incredibly fortuitous position of being an 18 year old Justin Bieber ‘lookylike’, so much so, he was actually mobbed on a school trip to Peru by the locals who thought he was that very song and dance man!!! Cash those chips in son, cash those chips in!

Anyway, I decided to go and look at his page and see what his ‘digits’ are and more importantly to see if this guy actually ‘tweets’ his own crap or if it’s all corporate pish being fed to the wee lassies around the globe.

So, I’m pleasantly surprised to see that young Beaver actually does tweet and he supports the Lakers, good man, so do I……………..I then clock the amount of people that follow him or the amount of ‘followers’ he has! IN THE NAME OF WORLD DOMINATION!!! This guy has nearly 22 Million people follow him on Twitter, read again, yes……22 MILLION. Infact, at the time of looking he had 21,984,452 people actually following and hundreds of thousand of re-tweets to his various ‘Go Lakers’ and various other blah, blah, blah tweets!!

Let’s put this into perspective. If Justin Beiber’s Twitter followers were actually a Country, they’d be the 52nd most populated Country in the world between Australia and Syria, I can’t help wonder if there might be some kind of significance to these Countries, however allow me to soldier on. Oor wee Justin has 0.53% of the World’s population at his very mercy with one mere tweet……….‘…hey guys I love you, buy my new single…’, BOOM, 0.53% of the Worlds population have been instantly spoken to in the space of a few seconds and a few pressed buttons on his gold plated iPhone!

As a relatively newcomer to the ways of the tweet and as a shit kicking, grass roots, 35 year old folk singer who is happily married with one beautiful child, naturally, I have a fairly paltry looking 202 followers. So, if we compare my ‘digits’ in the same way we compared Bieber Vs The World, I am competing with………. The Isle of Jura, which is described as ‘one of Scotland’s last wildernesses’. A little over 200 people are outnumbered by 5000 deer on this stunning wee Scottish island.
Now, this, I wouldn’t change for the world………. not one bit, but maybe, just maybe…….. if Justin were to tweet “…Hey guys, check out my new Skatch Homie fae Stoney. Colon Klyne’s new dope cut, Stonehaven Radio Station and Me, drops today man, buy it here, most amazing song I’ve ever heard about Aberdeen Football Club, the way he rhymes Park with Billy Stark is frikkin siiiick dude…” …………………………………………………..STOP!

Naturally, you’re probably thinking that Justin would have run out of space by now, and yes, he quite probably would have run out of characters if he was indeed wielding your standard twitter account, but no no no, not my main man Beiber, he’ll have one of these wee extended tweet things so he can actually tweet the whole bloody message including lyrics, where to buy it, my website, my ‘digits’ and possibly an obligatory showbiz apology for quite clearly getting my name wrong, citing either exhaustion or non inhalation as the reason, he better give his homie Snoop a call!

Upon refreshing his page; which took all of about 30 seconds, due to my current location being on a boat (working for the man), where we have a slower than Dave ‘Donkey’ McPherson running in a vat of treacle Internet service (sat link), it became apparent that another 200 twitterer’s had succumbed to Young Beiber’s prose like charms, which infact doesn’t sound like a lot. However, he accumulated more new followers in 30 seconds than I have in 35 years, quite bloody impressive I’d say!

So, how about you help an acoustic guitar wielding, Guinness slurpin’, occasional house husbandry superstar, Father and twittering novice to at least surpass the population of the beautiful Isle O’ Jura??

www.twitter.com/ColinClyne

Doricanite’s, Industry types and Nappy’s filled wi’ shite!?

Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012

Fit like Doricanite’s? Are my blog titles getting worse or what? 😉

It’s been a wee while since I’ve ‘blogged up’ and a LOT has happened since then!!! Looking back, it appears I say that with every blog. ‘They’ (industry types) tell me I must blog more, but truthfully I usually can’t be arsed. Let’s be honest, who wants to read my ramblings and shite anyway!? You do? really? Wow!

Musically, I continue to creep onwards and upwards to Global super stardom and I’m pretty sure if I make it to 200 years old I’ll have this music thingymajiggy cracked by then!

Seriously though, there has been a lot of great things happening in the UK and the US with regards to my music since I won that wee bronze looking San Diego Music Award for Best Acoustic Act last year (did I mention I won that? Thanks again to everyone that voted, I love you as much as I love pickled onion Monster munch).

So, where were we? Ah, yes. I’ve got a few TV show things in the pipeline, Jim Gellatly (‘the voice of new music in Scotland) has given my song ‘Stonehaven radio Station and Me’ the wee kick up the arse it (me) needed (and he’s a Dundee FC fan, who would have thought) and I finally got the video for it launched, my mailing lists and various other social media outlets continue to bloom and ‘Doricana’ continues to get into new hands and under new coffee mugs every week (I jest of course).

It’s funny but as an indie artist, it takes years to ‘properly’ promote an album, not that I truly know how to promote an album but I’m learning with each one! However, I don’t think I’ll ever stop promoting this album as I believe it deserves to be in many hands and in many CD players…………apologies for that wee burst of confidence, I’ve just had a wee skinny latte!!

Talking of which, I’ve lost approximately half a stone (7lbs)………………without any exercise (well the occasional walk). How did I do this I hear you ask? Simply by not being in the pub / club every night singing songs and drinking Guinness (and shifting my rehearsal space from the Ken Club to Hindsight studios). I know, it seems like a strange thing to not be doing when you are a touring artist but I have been having some ‘time off’ from the touring recently and have been spending time at home due to the fact I became a FATHER on the 31st of March 2012 to a lovely wee lassie called Catherine!!! She is just amazing and is my world!!! Both her and Mummy are doing splendidly!!

Naturally, I’ve been singing all the nursery rhymes to her and she loves it (naturally). However, I must disclose that I had a cunning plan all along for her to love my singing by constantly singing to my wife’s belly when she was pregnant. My cunning plan featured my wife lying down, closing her eyes, relaxing and thinking happy thoughts and then O’l Booby Dylan here would begin to finger pick and croon ‘Twinkle Twinkle’, ‘Old MacDonald’ and various other well know wee ditty’s to my child ‘in utero’. Unbelievably it works! Literally one verse of each and that wee bugger is out cold, I actually feel a wee bit guilty as she never really stood a chance with my brain washing ways!!!

So, myself and the family are heading home to Scotland in June / July time for some time in the Motherland. There will be news on gigs there soon (keep checking back). Also, I have a few Southern Californian gigs lined up over the next few months too (check my tour page). Release wise, I’m hoping to have a live CD out in the next few months. I have a bunch of tracks ready to go, I just need some time and a studio and we’ll probably bang out a wee 8 song CD of live tracks from last year’s Sacramento Highland Games (complete with annoying bloody bagpipe droning in the background between songs……seriously)! Hopefully we will have a trailer for the Doricana tour DVD out by Autumn (more on this at a later date)! Oh did I mention that I have approx. 30 new songs for a new album?? So, if there are any potential investors or rich fans that fancy being an ‘Executive Producer’ on an international record, then hit me up! 🙂

As always, thank you so much for all the love and support I continue to receive from family, friends and fans!