It's less than two weeks to go till Broughton-based band Whisky Kiss take the stage at the 85,000 sell-out T in the Park Festival. Band bassist and blogger Iain MacPhail will keep Spurtle readers bang up to date.
Already the celebrity merry-go-round has opened for business, and Whisky Kiss have been more than happy to 'Scream, if you wanna go faster'. (I think that’s actually what happens on the waltzers, but you get my point.)
Our piper and whistles man, Ewan Duncan, is mildly obsessed with Melody Hossaini, the supercool ice queen with the dulcet tones who is currently appearing on BBC1's The Apprentice. So, we have invited young Melody to be one of our VIP guests on the day.
[img_assist|nid=1857|title=|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=200|height=149]Our theory is that Ewan’s liking for Melody stems from her name ... he plays melody all the time, and so perhaps there’s perhaps something subliminal there attracting him to her. It’s unarguably a powerful theory, and given that he is the bagpiper in Whisky Kiss, it may be prudent over the coming weeks for locally based parents to lock up daughters whose names relate to the pipes and piping – names like Harmony, Reid, or people known as the Old Bag or Drones. Multi-talented though Ewan is, I guess we’re just grateful he doesn’t also play the horn.
Our fiddler, Siobhan Anderson, just graduated with a BA in Music, and the talented girl she is, she waltzed away from uni with a First! We are awfully proud of her, as this was a thoroughly deserved accolade for a talented and dedicated violinist, and the nicest girl you could meet. TITP should be a perfect stage to celebrate on, and we’ve every intention of doing so in style!
Our gift from the band to Siobhan is going to be a new jacket from Broughton Street’s own legendary creative force, Joey-D. Joey supplies all of our jackets – he is some boy!
So, to the music – we always like to take a couple of new sets into a Big Gig, and this one is no different. Whisky Kiss mash-up classic dance grooves (mixed by our international superstar DJ) with great tunes from Scotland. It’s been described as the sound of 21st Century Scotland, which suggests we are still only one tenth of the way to fulfilling our potential. I’ll settle for that!
[img_assist|nid=1858|title=|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=133|height=200]Our new set for TITP is a fabulous mix of the Bee Gees 'Stayin Alive', set against a gorgeous reel in A minor, played on the whistles and violin, with additional rapping from Ricardo Da Force. Ricardo was huge in the 1990s (in at least 2 senses) and is best known as the rapper with N-Trance and the KLF. His unique style was to carry a cane and flash his two gold teeth on stage. More pimp than blimp, in other words, and we got a great reply from him last week.
We made contact with Mr Da Force and asked him if he wanted to join us on stage at the gig. He wrote back saying 'Thanks mate ... unfortunately though I’ve got to stay out of the UK indefinitely ...”. Move along, there’s nothing to see here, it's just a guy, who was in the music biz in the early '90s, who flashed gold teeth and a cane, whilst rapping. I suspect there’s a perfectly good explanation for this situation.
If you want to see an exclusive sneak peek of the Whisky Kiss mashup of Bee Gees vs Whisky Kiss vs Ricardo Da Force vs N-Trance (Stayin Alive vs Free Fallin in A minor) then just click here:
If nothing else, it’s worth checking out the final 20 seconds, for our Circular Firing Squad routine. Now there’s a clever idea ...
More to come as the big day approaches. Whisky Kiss play T in the Park, 5–7pm on Sunday 10 July. You can also keep up to date with the band on Facebook.