Alasdair Roberts

Looking forward to Garforth Festival, near Leeds, on 8th July with trio. See ‘Live’ listings for information.

Noble’s Bar, Leith, tonight.

Alastair Caplin (fiddle) and Alasdair Roberts (guitar, voice) will be doing a duo show at Noble’s Bar, Leith, Edinburgh on 2nd July 2010. Some new songs will be premiered.

Yestreen Roberts visited Blantyre’s famed Chem 19 studio to do some recording with young Jockrock group The Phantom Band. This may or may not see the light of day.

Check the Live page for a couple more dates in August. In Newcastle, England and Glasgow, Scotland. Solo.

Caplin and Roberts played a duo set at Insider Festival, Inschriach House, Aviemore yesterday and had a lot of fun. Thanks to everybody involved - those who watched and listened, the technical staff, our hosts. Good to see Mike Heron with Solveig, Mike and Georgia playing again, as well as Alex Neilson, Lavinia Blackwall, Simon Shaw and Mike Hastings again.

The day before that, Fitzpatrick and Roberts played at the Captain’s Rest, Glasgow as part of the West End Festival. Thanks to Captain’s Rest people and the audience. But to the guy who asked me after the gig whether I was full of my own shit, I say this: ‘YOU don’t expected to be verbally abused at work, and neither do our employees.’ Like the song says, my friend, with all due respect, if you were listening: folks be only trying for to turn an honest shilling. Peace and joy be with you in any case, however unnecessarily rude you decide to be to others in future. Maybe we can play together some time.

Next weekend, on Sunday Caplin, Roberts and Jones play at Leigh Folk Festival in Essex. We are looking forward to playing on the Sunday at one of England’s finest and longest-established festivals.

At Moseley Folk Festival on September 3rd, Alasdair will lead a songwriting workshop. See here for more details of this and other available workshops at the festival: www.tradartsteam.co.uk/training/MFF10wkshop

Alasdair Roberts is no longer working with Isla Angus. He wishes to extend his deepest gratitude to her for her hard work, patience, perseverance, open-mindedness and tolerance over their time doing business together.

Keen-eared ones among you will have noticed an occasional predilection for avian imagery in the word-work of Roberts. He’s told us that he’d like to express his indebtedness to Mark Cocker and Richard Mabey for their compendious tome ‘Birds Britannica’, which is very useful for checking all manner of birdular facts - historical, biological, literary, folkloric, u.s.w. u.s.w. It’s a highly recommended volume for any lover of winged things.

In the meantime, before Al unveils some of his own recent ornithological interrogations in song form, he has sung a song on an album called “The Life of Birds” by David Rotheray, former guitarist and songwriter with Hull, England’s The Beautiful South. Al sings the song ‘Draughty Old Fortress’ and David has assembled a great team of other vocalisers including Kathryn Williams, Camille O’Sullivan, Eliza Carthy, Jim Causley, Bella Hardy, Jack L, Julie Murphy, Eleanor McEvoy and Nat Johnson.

David Rotheray’s “The Life of Birds” is available now on Proper Records. Check out www.davidrotheray.com for more information.

Pekko Kappi and Alasdair Roberts played and sang a version of ‘The Bonnie Banks o’ the Airdrie’ (Child 14) at Sabhal Mor Ostaig on the Isle of Skye recently. It features on a CD launched recently to promote the tremendous Leigh Folk Festival (in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, England), at which Alasdair, Alastair Caplin and Stevie Jones will be playing this year on Sunday 27th June. Extreme thanks to Paul and Diana Collier for this.

Thanks to Emily Roff for last night’s enjoyable solo gig with Finland’s Pekko Kappi (jouhikko, vocals) and Pitlochry’s Gary West (Scottish smallpipes) at the Roxy Arts Centre, Edinburgh. Thanks to the people of Edinburgh who listened, particularly to the fellow who gave a heads-up about a town in Galicia possibly named after Lugh, the Celtic sun-god and culture hero. And also kiitos to Pekko for joining in on jouhikko (Finnish bowed lyre strung with Japanese winter fishing line instead of horsehair) on a version of the traditional ballad ‘The Bonnie Banks o’ the Airdrie’ (or ‘Babylon’ or ‘Babe Alone’) from the singing of the late Stanley Robertson.

This weekend: Saturday Alasdair and Rafe Fitzpatrick at Captain’s Rest, Glasgow. Sunday Alasdair and Alastair Caplin at Insider Festival, Aviemore.

Back from an exciting and rewarding collaboration with Benni Hemm Hemm in Iceland. There were two performances of Benni’s song cycle for Icelandic and Scottish voices, guitar, piano, woodwind, brass and percussion - one in Reykjavik and one in Akureyri. Mr Roberts also did a couple of solo gigs - one in Venue in Reykjavik and one in a village storytelling hut just outside Akureyri.

Special thanks to Frank, Dutch timpanist with the Reykjavik Philharmonic Orchestra, for playing musical saw on the song ‘Farewell Sorrow’ at Alasdair’s solo gig at Venue in Reykjavik.

Recently Mr Roberts was a guest on Glasgow University’s Subcity Radio show She Said, hosted by Derek and Allan. Hear him sing an unaccompanied song, and him and his hosts chat and play their selections of recorded music, here: http://www.subcity.org/shows/shesaid/015e2

Upcoming gigs: Wednesday 16th June in Edinburgh with Pekko Kappi and Gary West. 19th June in Glasgow with Rafe Fitzpatrick. 20th June in Aviemore with Alastair Caplin. 27th June in Leigh-on-Sea with Caplin and Stevie Jones. And more. Please see gig pages for more information.

Currently listening to Wergo Deutscher Musikrat CD free with Wire Magazine.

Thank you to all those people in Hamburg, Duesseldorf, Frankfurt, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo and Helsinki who came to see Joanna Newsom and her tremendous band, and chanced to see Mr Roberts opening up for her, with the partnership of Rafe Fitzpatrick on fiddle in Denmark, Sweden and Finland. Alasdair and Rafe were playing older Roberts songs and songs from the forthcoming LP ‘Too Long In This Condition’ as well as premiering some new, as-yet-unrecorded compositions.

Alasdair was also recently joined by Stevie Jones and Elle Osborne for a gig at Brighton Festival. Now he is in Reykjavik, Iceland preparing for live collaboration with Benni Hemm Hem. Benni has written a suite of songs in Icelandic, translated them into English and scored them for guitar, voice, percussion and wind ensemble. Alasdair will sing the English lyrics and play some guitar and piano. There will be two shows of this material - one in Reykjavik (3rd June) and one in Akyureyri (5th June).

Mr Roberts will also do a solo gig at Rosenberg, Reykjavik on 6th June. A few years ago he wrote a song about Theodor Adorno and is currently working on a cartoon illustrating said narrative. During these travels, Alasdair has also been stealing time here and there to work on new songs, which are being earmarked for a future release of non-traditional material, just as soon as it’s figured out how and with whom best to present such material.

In order to learn about contemporary Iceland, Alasdair has bought a huge volume of English translations of the Icelandic sagas, with a glowing endorsement by the great Seamus Heaney on the front of it.

Love to you all, from the humblest minion to the cruellest oligarch.

A new album of ten traditional ballads and one tune is coming out on Drag City in the USA in June, Navigator in the UK/Europe in July, and possibly on other labels in other territories across the known world. There will be touring in support of it.

Recently Alastair Caplin and Alasdair Roberts did a duo tour of France, Spain and Portugal. Despite some logistical problems, the gigs were, for the most part, enjoyable. They found the time to enjoy a concert of mediaeval music on bagpipes and harp at the mediaeval museum in Paris.

Like myriad other people across Europe, the two Alis were stranded (in Lisbon) for three days because of the aberrant volcanic activity in Iceland. The time was used wisely in researching the work of Michael Giacometti, Corsican ethnomusicologist who recorded a lot of traditional Portuguese music, and in eating great seafood. Thanks to Isla Angus for working on the tour, and to all the people - promoters, hosts, other musicians, music lovers and haters - we met along the way.

Mr Roberts just got back from a four-date solo tour of Australia. During this time he watched ‘Dr Zhivago’ and ‘Samson and Delilah’, read ‘La Bete Humaine’ by Emile Zola, met many friendly, welcoming, kind people, shared bills with many tremendous fellow musicians, ate well, only bought one book, saw kangaroos, glowworms and the southern constellations and, mostly, had a good time. Special thanks to Lawrence English of Room40 in Brisbane for facilitating the tour, and all the other kind folks who were met there. Particularly Voss and Steph Hughes who let Alasdair borrow their beautiful guitars.

Mr Roberts is currently touring in Europe (Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland) opening for his Drag City label mate Joanna Newsom. He is playing solo - a mixture of old songs, songs from the new record ‘Too Long In This Condition’, new song material, new auld sangs and the occasional Keltic folk tale.

After the Newsom support tour, Alasdair is going to Iceland to collaborate with Benni Hemm Hemm. Benedikt has written a suite of songs in Icelandic, scored for an ensemble and translated them into English - Alasdair will sing the English parts and Benni the Icelandic. There will be two concerts of this programme. Roberts will also do one or two solo gigs in Iceland.

Then in the summer there are a few festival appearances. Please see the ‘Live’ section of this site for more information.

Alasdair is currently listening to: Ryan Francesconi ‘Parables’ (Sweet Dreams, 2010).

• 3rd May: Canberra, The Front Cafe And Gallery, 8pm.
• 6th May: Sydney, Raval.
• 7th May: Melbourne, Northcote Social Club.
• 8th May: Brisbane, Syncretism at Judith Wright Centre, presented by room40.org.