brian rutherford
music and stuff
Behind
I’ve begun writing a series of songs based around the Kilmartin valley telling the story of a small group of people from the Neolithic times. I’ve been writing lyrics first as a different approach. This example finds our hero looking back on the journey across the minch to the shoreline below the Valley and on back to his home and his wife.
Behind
Behind the push of the waves
Like a fathers gentle chiding
Behind the croak of the leather
Binding beam to beam
Behind the slurr of the water
Moving under me, moving
Moving towards the grey horizon
And the distant strip of green
Behind the almost silent sweep
Of the oars in the foam
And the vertiginous promise
Of the dark dark sea
Behind the distant birds keening
Black against a grey sky
Wheeling and turning
in some unknowable trajectory
Behind the rumble and complaint
Of keel on stone
Torn by the stubbled rock flake
Of the welcome shores
Behind the sand ticks tiny patter
Like a summer storms first rain
Always threatening to break
Over and over
Behind the muscular buzzing
Of the horse flys constant harry
As I return to you
Moving tree to tree
Behind the laughter of friends meeting
The moments recognition
The joy, the sadness
And the misery
Behind the pot bubbling
On an unseen fire
And the logs constant talking
About their death
Behind the hopping sigh
Of the rabbits restless spirit
And the inaudible pity
Of the surrounding earth
Behind the bright and shining tinkle
Of the shell necklace
Coming up through the trees
Lambent and clear
Behind the laughter and the tears
As you throw your arms around me
And the happiness in your eyes
And the uncertain fear
Behind the slough of cast off clothes
And our spirits constant weaving
And the joy of feeling
And the joy of being
Is breathing……
June 2008
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Caberfeidh at the Corbie Ha
Well, its been a busy few months. I’m getting pretty steady traffic from my youtube videos which are under ‘folk fingerpicking’. I have to admit that I am pleased that so many people have checked them out and that they find them useful. I have stopped doing my guitar classes for a while but I did learn quite a lot about teaching guitar and one of the lessons that I learnt was to keep each teaching point as succint and simple as possible. I’ve tried to apply this lesson to the the fingerpicking videos. If you check them out at:
The band has been re-named as ‘Caberfeidh’ and here we are in an earlier incarnation:
March 2008
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Freshwater
Well, its been a busy few months since my last posting. I have finally gotten my new bouzouki, hence the lack of posts. I will be recording some new stuff soon which I hope to post. Sorry. I hate these kinds of posts where people go on about their lack of doing anything but I have been busy, honest. I’ll be doing a video blitz where I will post all the various videos in the guitar lessons section. If you’re one of my students then , hold on. Finally I went to see ‘30 days of night’ tonight. I thought it was really, really good. Very scary.
November 2007
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The Fairy Dance
As I said in the ‘About Me’ pages I’ve been learning to play the bouzouki. In case you think your about to listen to ‘Zorba the Greek’ I should qualify this and state that its the ‘Celtic Bouzouki’. Its become very popular in Irish music. I first came across it , like many people, through the playing of Any Irvine from the band ‘Planxty’. I’m really enjoying learning to play it as I just love the way it rings out. It has a wonderfully full sparkling sound. Anyway thats the build up. I hope the results are worth it. This was recorded on Garage Band, the free mac recording software. I’m still not entirely convinced that Macs’ will one day rule the world but they have managed to pull the rabbit out the hat on so many things and ‘Garage band’ is a really good bit of software design.
September 2007
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Craigieburn Wood
We’re coming around again to that time of year when the annual Milngavie Gathering occurs. This is a charity night in aid of the Beatson Institute in Glasgow. I’ve played there for the last few years and this is a recording from last year of a burns poem that myself and my twin brother set to music and arranged. Alistair is on main vocal and I am singing the Harmony. Putting aside the odd flaky note this is actually pretty good. At least I’m proud of it.
August 2007
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Don’t Leave Love Out
This is the third song from the ‘Recovery Room’ sessions that I recorded with Kathleen Higgins. I’m not sure of this song works or not. Its one of the first I ever wrote so to me its a bit dated plus my voice has changed since then. Since no-one has ever heard it before I suppose that doesn’t matter.
July 2007
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How Long?
This is another old recording from the ‘Recovery Room’ session. Its not a particularly profound song but I like the way it turned out. It helps that Kathleen was such a fantastic singer
June 2007
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Fade Away
This is a song written by my brother but I’m going to post it anyway as I am singing and playing guitar on it. Plus I really like it. We did this for the Glasgow girls soundtrack - basically a movie that was never made. We did a lot of songs for this soundtrack and this is by far the best thing.
June 2007
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Hard Times
This is the second of my promised posts from the old days when I had an acoustic duo with Kathleen Higgins. This song is another that I am quite proud of. It sounds like an old traditional song (I probably stole the melody subconciously from somewhere) but it was written round about 1992. The story it tells is very old and has been done a million times but like all the best stories its the way you tell it that matters.
May 2007
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The Golden Ring
Last but not least is the third of three sets that Donald Mackenzie recorded for our wee band ‘Noise and Smoky Breath’. This takes its name from the first tune which is called ‘ The Golden Ring’.
May 2007
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Breton Scots
This is the next in the folk sessions that Donald Mackenzie recorded with Donald on small pipes and me on acoustic guitar. The main tune ‘Breton Scots’ was written by his father and has a ‘breton’ sound to it.
May 2007
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Lady Mackenzie
I played with my old band ‘Jump City’ last year at the same charity concert as ‘Craigieburn Wood’ was recorded.(see the post below). Milngavie pipe band also played there and I met the pipe major Donald Mackenzie who is an amazing piper (www.mackenziebagpiping.com). Anyway , we’ve been putting some tunes together with the small pipes and the guitar and are going under the name ‘Noise and Smoky Breath’ for the moment. This is the first of three sets of tunes I am going to post and this set is named after a tune that he wrote for his mother which is the last one in the set.
May 2007
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Glory Days
Its funny but I always thought this song, out of all the songs that I’d written, would make me rich. It hasn’t happened yet and I’ve grown to have ambivalent feelings about the song itself. This has Kathleen Higgins singing on it. We had an acoustic duo together which was a bit hit and miss but like the band songs I am only going to post the good stuff and this is the first track from an e.p we recorded.
May 2007
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Strange
I was imagining a walk from the west end of Glasgow into town and down Sauchiehall Street when I wrote this song. My wife tells me that the character in the song is how I imagine myself but the the reality is that I’m much more ordinary. Still, I liked the end result as I did spend a bit of time writing the lyrics and it grooves along fairly well. This song is about as funky as the band got. It also has the distinguishing factor that I’m singing through a megaphone.
May 2007
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The End of Summer
This is kind of a story song. It rattles along quite nicely. Watch out for the ‘We’re all going on a summer holiday’ guitar line at the end. No-one seems to have ever noticed it so I thought I better point it out.
May 2007
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Between Today and Tomorrow
When I lived in Paisley I had a small batchelor pad right at the top of the student flats in Lady Lane. I was lucky to get the only one person University owned flat in the whole block which cost an amazing £80 a month to rent. Really cheap. Anyway, one night I had a disturbing dream. One of those where you are trapped and can’t get out and not long after that I wrote this song. Its kind of about death or about that state in dreaming where you are suspended between the world of the living and some other place. We did this as part of the Glasgow Girls soundtrack and it has Eileen Hunter singing the lead.
May 2007
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The Dark Isle
The dark isle is a wonderful old scots tune that seems to capture perfectly the haunting distances you sometimes feel when looking out over the sea to Skye. I liked it so much that I put together a wee piece with the guitar. Its nothing fancy but I like it.
May 2007
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The Late Lamented Foxglove
I’ve been a fan of guitarists like John Renbourne and Bert Janch for many years now. Bizarrely a local entrepeneur has been putting on folk gigs in my wee town of Milngavie and we’ve had just about all of the guitar gods of the 60s including John Renbourne. Here is my take on that 60’s sound with a short guitar piece named after the band. I put this together after the band had split hence its name.
May 2007
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So Long Tomorrow
Way back when , in the dim and distant days when I was a hungry musician I formed a band called Foxglove. It had me on guitar, Al (my twin) on Bass and Gordon Hastie on Drums. We’d both known Gordon for years, in fact I was the one who got him into drumming when I invited him down to the pipe band - but I digress. So we were the proverbial ‘three piece’. Let me tell you, trying to sound good with only guitar, bass and drums is a bit of an art. The guitar has to be rhythm and lead which is a tricky balance to get right. We did manage to hit gold occasionally and this is one of those moments.
May 2007
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Fortingall
I visited the Fortingall Yew a couple of years back and came back thinking again and again about the Yew and how old it was. Very old things exist in the world today but few of them are alive. Somewhere in its 4000 year old lifetime it passed into a state which is beyond age.
Fortingall
April 3rd, 2005
Conceived by a bee
Whose bumbling tenacity
Held him just long enough to brush the burr
Of one leg across the flower of my mother. The Pollen,
Ripe with age, came from a line of Yews older than pebbles
Older than the pebbles parents. Those rocks who sat brooding on the hills behind.
Peeking through green at a world
Turned as lush as their fantasies would allow
And more. They were embarrassed (as rocks are wont to to do)
With the profusion of Green and missed my beginning
Which was a moment less than the blink
Of those who padded by me.
But more than their sad existence. Which was
One of endurance, death and poverty. I
Reached out and curled my roots
Around their bones.
Time passed.
A boy played in my branches and whispered his secrets
To the gnorl that bunched at the junction of my first split.
I sent one Arm towards the sun. I unravalled that knot
Over a thousand years and felt the
Slow drip of those secrets fall
To the mossy ground.
Now I squat over
One generations length of wet soil. The cage
Around me varnished black, coloured ribbons
Tattling in a wind that I no longer feel. Suspended over
Mogwart and rattleweed by my roots. I am.
I will always be.
The cage is not to keep you out. Its
To keep me in.
May 2007
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