A couple Saturdays ago, while on the lawn bowling courts at Kelvingrove Park, I had the odd and utterly awesome privilege of playing beside Belle & Sebastian front man Stuart Murdoch and his wife. Although I recognized him, I was unable to place his face, even after one of their balls rolled into our court, it was not until I went home and Googled who I thought he was that I indeed discovered it was Stuart Murdoch.

Two weeks later, that's yesterday, I was working the regular Saturday night shift at my job and guess who sits down at a table in the back? None other than Stuart Murdoch and his wife. We ended up chatting about Glasgow for a while, my master's degree, and the state of the journalism industry! He even suggested that I write a novel to curb the economical impact of the recession!

Star-worship aside, the music nerd in me thinks that this is probably one of the coolest Glasgow experiences that I've have. After all, we are talking about the genius behind Dog On Wheels, Tigermilk, If You're Feeling Sinister, and The Boy With the Arab Strap!

Stuart Murdoch, lead singer of Belle and Sebastian

Originally featured in the Austin American-Statesman

From grand influence, a grand sound

If West Texas had a soundtrack, Balmorhea, with its vast and explosive emotion, would play it

By Shannon McGarvey
SPECIAL TO THE AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Thursday, May 21, 2009

GLASGOW, Scotland — Outside the tiny Soviet-inspired Bar Bloc, it was a typical spring night in Glasgow: A humid chill swaddled the city and rain spat on sideways as the sun receded behind the brown tenements and a kaleidoscope of gray filled the sky. Inside, wooden tables outnumbered warm bodies and framed a path to a small stage where the Austin-based instrumental sextet Balmorhea played, silhouetted by red light and evoking a cinematic soundscape that moved the listener from a cold, nearly empty bar in Scotland to the epic pastorals of West Texas.

The narrative symphonic elements of Balmorhea, paired with the experimental and folk music influences of co-founders Michael Muller and Rob Lowe, have garnered comparisons to Glaswegian post-rock icons Mogwai and celebrated cinematic composers Max Richter ('Waltz With Bashir') and Yann Tiersen ('Amelie').

Although the complex sound of a band like Balmorhea typically avoids genre classification by nature, Lowe says, such comparisons aren't off the mark. The 'cinematic' band recently has been hired by French writer-director Kim Chapiron to score the film 'Dog Pound,' which is set to be released in France next spring.

In light of this professional accomplishment, Muller conceded that the band's fan base in Europe is 'way more than America' and even credited a theater performance in the coastal Italian town of Rimini as having been 'the best concert (the band) ever played.' Lowe added that some fans traveled almost the width of Italy to attend their most obscure shows, while in larger cities such as London and Glasgow, most fans simply failed to show up at all.

'It's hard to gauge why people come to your shows,' Lowe said about sparse attendance at U.K. dates. 'I don't know if it's actually a good barometer to tell how many fans you have in a city.'

The May 6 performance at Bar Bloc marked the two-thirds point of a one-month tour in support of Balmorhea's fourth release, 'All Is Wild, All Is Silent.'

The venue, outfitted in an ironic sickle and hammer aesthetic, modern art and wood-slatted walls, was unequipped to handle the size or sound of the band. Low ceilings and a tiny stage forced the classically trained Lowe to forgo the use of his electric piano, which shot holes in their intended set, Muller said.

Some of the piano-driven highlights from 'All Is Wild,' such as the layered and crescendoed 'Harm and Boon,' as well as the somber dialogue of 'Truth,' were replaced with the string-based tracks from the band's repertoire.

The standout was 'Remembrance,' a nostalgic and despairing tune that opened with the sparse rhythm of Muller's acoustic guitar, layered with the respective picking of Lowe on banjo, Aisha Burns on violin and Travis Chapman on double bass. Slowly, as the song inched forward, the whine of Burns' violin led the listener further inside the musical narrator, marrying the deep mournful hum of Nicole Kern's cello to the rattle and eventual release of Bruce Blay's explosive percussion. At the close, the song doubled back with the return of the banjo and a final, haunting exchange between the violin and a lone melodica.

The diversity of the band is showcased not only within the menagerie of instruments or the raw, creative talent of its members, but also in the emotional and narrative variety of their music. At one moment, the band captures the listener in a bittersweet and tortured requiem, such as 'Remembrance,' and in another, the listener is again captive, a witness to the hope and happiness of wide open spaces and impending change, such as within the Texas-inspired 'Coahuila.'

This diversity and artistry is what propels the popularity of Balmorhea and ensures the longevity of its members' respective careers — be it in film score, within a groundbreaking neoclassical rock band, or straddling the fence between both.

While Nick has been in Rome with his family touring the sights, eating hoards of pizza, and sitting in on services by Pope Benedict XVI, I've been having my own adventures — most notably, aural adventures starring the Pope of rock 'n' roll, Bob Dylan.  

Touring in support of his new album "Together Through Life," which officially dropped just days before his 2 May performance at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Center (SECC), Dylan and his accompanying band hit the stage promptly at 7:30 p.m. and played for a full two hours. This was in stark contrast to precursory reports I'd heard from friends who'd seen Dylan in the past. One friend warned that his voice is shot. Another friend said that the set would be short. Yet another friend scolded him for never acknowledging the audience. The quibbling list went on though, personally, I tried to forego any expectation and hope for the best.

To my amazement, the show was great. Sure, his voice is a bit hoarse but give the guy a break! He's been at it for fifty years and at sixty-eight he's not going sound like a spring chicken (I'm sure the Marlboro Reds don't help much either).

Admittedly, he didn't once acknowledge the audience but when all was sung and done, he gave us what we came for: a live performance from one of the greatest and most influential rock legends of all time.

Bob Dylan performing "Visions of Johanna" at the SECC on 2 May 2009


Bob Dylan and Band performing at the SECC

Earlier today an American friend sent me a list of things he's missed most about Glasgow while visiting the States over the holidays. I was so inspired by his list that I decided to make one of my own (and steal some from his, too).

1. my expatriates
2. Kelvingrove Park
3. the 78
4. the 13th Note
5. Scottish accents
6. Friday screenings
7. trains
8. Magner's
9. mountains covered with snow
10. Glasgow Taxi
    
11. rogue foxes
12. Nice & Sleazy
13. Stereo
    
14. Taste of Punjab
15. Charles Rennie Mackintosh architecture
    
16. chips and cheese
    
17. the Cellars
    
18. the Uisge Beatha
19. Workshop and Transmission classes
    
20. the Postgraduate Club

Nice & Sleazy, a Glasgow music venue and pub

The first week of every year, the Red River District turns into a veritable cornucopia of free local music performances. Every major and minor venue — Mohawk, Beerland, Room 710, Emo's — opens their doors to hordes of music-loving Austinites for night after night of rock'n'roll madness.

Unfortunately, I'll be in San Antonio and, eventually, in Glasgow by the time Free Week wraps up. Fortunately, I was present for the first Friday of the annual unofficial festival and got to see two of my friends' bands: Gobi and Pataphysics — and a lot of innocuous faces from my past, none of which are featured below.

Enjoy the last photos from my wild and wooly Austin vacation. I'll miss my town!

This is one of my best friends Phil.
He and another of my good friends, Dillon, are in a band called Gobi.


This is Silver Pines.
Loren, Reed, and I went swimming with vocalist Stefanie the week before I moved to Glasgow.
She's has a Jack Russell Terrier and she's really nice.


My friend Dirk (in the sunglasses on the left) is in this really awesome band called Pataphysics. He's a genius.
I've told him this a million times but I don't know if he believes me yet.




  "How do you fit an elephant inside a Safeway bag, Shannon?"
"I don't get it, Reed!"

GLASGOW — On the surface, Austin and Glasgow don't have much in common. Dig a little deeper and the cities, regardless of geographical or cultural differences, share two very important commonalities: the fanaticism of football and the love of live music. It is the latter appreciation for music, specifically independent music, that draws hundreds of touring acts through Glasgow each year and packed the Òran Mór for a sold out performance by Austin's Okkervil River last weekend .

Okkervil formed in 1998 and are currently on tour in support of "The Stand Ins," their most recent release on the Bloomington, Ind.-based record label JagJaguwar and a follow-up to the 2007 critically acclaimed "The Stage Names." There are six of them — nine, if you count the road crew and the Czech tour manager — crammed into "a Gypsy wagon," as bassist Patrick Pestorius calls it, for a 20-date European tour that began in late October with a rather adventurous kick-off performance at the Loppen Christiania in Denmark's capital city Copenhagen.

The Loppen, Austin music veteran and Okkervil keyboardist Justin Sherburn says, began as a "squat" in 1971 and, in recent years, has come under pressure from conservative local government. "There was actually a police raid the morning we were trying to load out," Sherburn says. "(The police) were trying to tear down some buildings so we had to basically just grab our gear and split so we wouldn't get locked down." Lucky for Okkervil, everyone escaped with an interesting story, the likes of which are surely commonplace for a band that tours six to eight months out of every year.

Sunday's performance at the Òran Mór marked their eighth stop in Europe and, judging by the looks of sheer enthusiasm and elation among faces in the audience, probably one of the more electric live shows on this tour to date. The Òran Mór, which is Gaelic for "the great music" or "big song," was originally established as the Kelvinside Parish Church in 1862 but after many years spent derelict, the building was refurbished in 2002 and opened as a theater, restaurant, and live music venue in 2004. From the outside, the Òran Mór is an impressive, three-story Romanesque relic with a towering brown stone steeple and an imposing arched front entrance. Once inside the basement venue, in contrast, the old church transforms into an intimate, dimly lit gothic chamber with chiseled stone walls and low wooden ceilings that draw the eye to a small stage at the heart of the room.

Lead singer Will Sheff and the rest of Okkervil walked onto stage at 8:40 p.m. and began picking through the opening chords of "Singer Songwriter," the third track off "The Stand-Ins." At the mere sight of the band, the audience — a sea of more than 500 bobbing heads — unleashed a deafening barrage of screams and hoots that, for a moment, threatened to drown the vocalist's recognizable tenor and continued between songs throughout the entire 80-minute set. Who would've thought: Thousands of miles from home, across the Atlantic, on rain-soaked Scottish soil, that these hometown favorites — this group of Austinites — could incite such sustained musical fever among Glaswegians? Any silence, such as the hush before Sheff eased into an acoustic rendering of "A Stone" with multi-instrumentalist band mates Lauren Gurgiolo and Scott Brackett, was filled with requisite song requests, genderless shrieking, or the occasional desperate cry of "I love you."

Admittedly, though, an Okkervil River show is an emotive experience. Sheff is the quintessential front man — engaging, enigmatic, tender and slightly aloof — but it's the chemistry and talent of the band together that really make the live show fun. Even through the sure strain of countless weeks of touring, innumerable performances of the same songs, and various drafts of set lists, the band maintains a dedicated passion to their performance and pours that emotion over every song and every person in the audience.

One couldn't help but feel moved at Gurgiolo's banjo picking and Pestorius' baritone as the band cut into "Lost Coastlines." There was a collective, venue-wide swoon at the sound of Brackett's bellowing trumpet in the literary and musically allusive "John Allyn Smith Sails," which ends with a brief cover of the Beach Boys' bittersweet 1966 single "Sloop John B" and the haunting repetition of the verse "I want to go home."

Home, for the sextet, is about seven performances and just less than a month away. Okkervil River's return stateside precedes a four-month respite, the longest amount of time the band has spent in Austin in more than two years, Pestorius says. Time at home leaves most of the band entertaining ideas of a "normal life," returning to respective relationships, side projects, and day-jobs in the live music capital of the world. While Glasgow — "Europe's Secret Capital of Music" as Time Magazine once called the city — anxiously awaits the next Okkervil return.

Originally featured in the Austin American-Statesman and on Austin360.com