From Dundee to Newport

Rather than clogging up the Dave Hughes Music (TM) website with a diary of every gig I do, I've decided to write them up in this blog. I'm taking inspiration from Chris T-T here, who has his main website news feed and also Blognostic (and now the awesome Songnostic) as more personal blogs. Hope you enjoy, I'll try and make it as interesting as possible.

Yesterday I went and took the massive 10 minute coach trip from Dundee to play in Newport. This was the first gig I've done in the East Coast of Scotland since I moved up here, and in front of a totally new audience. An old friend of mine, Dominic Venditozzi, puts on these completely unplugged gigs in a wee cafe in the town. I met up with him a couple months back to talk about places to play up in Dundee, and he invited me along to play a few songs.

Newport is a lovely wee town, the type of town you can walk from one end to the other in 10 minutes. It has quite a few hotels which double as the local pub, a really good smelling fish and chip shop and a co-op. Perfect for the settled the life. I found myself looking in the estate agent's window and saw a 3 bedroom cottage with "outer shed/workshop" for around £135,000. This is now my goal for the next year.

Anyways, I got to the cafe and found a large-ish crowd standing outside the locked doors, a few kids carrying guitar cases and adults with boxes of wine. This was very helpful in giving me an idea of what type of show this was going to be. Around half seven, Dom showed up and opened the doors, put down a masking tape sqaure to mark the stage and the gig got underway.

Around 4 acts played before me with everyone doing 2 songs each (except for the main headline act, Sarah Collosu who was booked for 30 minutes). Nervousness set in as most if not all the other acts played a softly softly style of acoustic music, much associated with the new-folk scene that's going around at the moment. I rattled through my mind trying to work out which songs of mine I could play that would fit the night.

Eventually I had the revelation of "fuck it", and just played songs that are representative of what I do, namely The sinner and the saints and "I want something". I don't know how well they went down, people clapped, and there was a softly softly sing a long at the end of I want something. Later on I was asked up again, and played "never took the time" by way of apology.

Time was getting on so, in the absence of having a car now, I had to go and find the bus stop for the coach back to Dundee. So I said my good byes, gave apologies to Sarah who's set I was going to miss and left. A 15 minute wait in the cool night air was only made longer by the Midges. I got back to my flat around quarter past midnight, had some leftover cake and went to bed pretty content.

Today I am getting the bus from Dundee to Glasgow, then the train to Ayr followed by a local bus service to Failford in the South Ayrshire valley for tonights gig. I can't wait.

Fairwell my four wheeled friend

Yesterday was a very eventful day. A good day of data analysis means that I have perhaps unearthed something very interesting, and potentially publishable. Although, in the true spirit of science, it manifests itself as a small shift in a graph and not the explosion of light and sound that may happen in a blockbuster movie.

The other thing that happened yesterday was the disappearance of my car. Don't worry, it's not been stolen. Lisa and I decided that it would be a good idea, environmentally and financially, to get rid of the car and so the haulage company came along and took it away. I've been thinking about doing this for the past 6 months, and so I pulled my finger out and did it.

I've had a car since I passed my test at the age of 17, which, come September will be a decade of being an automobile user. I have many great memories attached to driving, from the many long drives I've done for gigs and tours, to driving away from my wedding with can's tied to the bumper and foam spelling out Just Married across the back window.

I'm sure I'll get used to taking the bus and train again, and walking the short distances that I used to endanger the planet by driving. And, of course, there will the extra cash at the end of the month which means we might actually be able to start saving.

A wee history of the car's I've owned:

Nissan Sunny: The best car I've ever owned. A G-Reg, sky blue, 5 door saloon 1.4 litre machine. I got this car after I passed my test so that I could drive to university. I'll admit it wasn't the prettiest car ever designed, but it always started (until that fateful day), had lots of space inside for passengers, drums, guitars, amps and more. This was the car that I had when I decided that being in a band doesn't mean you have to just play your own town, city or country, and so we (Dan, Puggs, and Myself) set off on a wee tour of northern England.The following week the exhaust came detached from the engine, at the engine, somewhere under the River Clyde causing a massive noise echoing through the tunnel and a maximum speed of 5mph. It was made in to a metallic cube the following day.

Rover Metro Kensington: While the Nissan Sunny was the best car I've ever owned, this one is perhaps the worst. It was tiny, 1litre engine, 3 doors and had less power than a hamster farting. I could quite easily get the car up to speed in towns, perhaps even to 50mph on a nice slope. However, motorways were a terrifying proposition with many an angry lorry driver being stuck behind this vibrating, floored 65mph monster. This car came to an end when I had parked it outside my flat in Govan. The immobiliser (!) failed, meaning I couldn't start the car, so while it was sitting on the pavement until I could afford to get it fixed, my local friendly neighbour hood Young Team came along and smashed every window and stole the front panel for the CD player. I found it with my CD collection scattered around the road, and a Policeman writing a report. It was towed away to be made in to a metallic cube later that night.

Peugeot 206 : This was the first car I bought new. I had just started my Phd, and decided that I wanted a car again, so signed up for a finance agreement. I've always said that this is the reason the recession happened. Anyone who would give someone like me credit to buy a new car shouldn't be in charge to giving out credit. I had this car when I first started seeing Lisa, and so I have good memories about long drives to Dundee to visit her in the early days. This was also the first car I had that didn't end up as a metallic cube, as far as I know. The terms of the financial agreement meant that I could trade it in for a brand new car after 2 years (see recession comment above), and that's what i did.

Peugeot 207: This is the car we just got rid off. It was all right, nothing remarkable really, 5 door, 1.6 litre engine and good CD player. This, along with the Sunny, is the car I have the most memories attached to. I clocked up around 30,000 miles in two years with this car from driving around the country to play gigs and visit people. Although, one of the best memories attached to it is encapsulated in this video

Ah well, I'll get another car one day.