Ripped From The Wire Spine, with support from Liam McCormick and Declan Welsh, at Eden Court, Inverness on the 29th of October, 2016. Review.
This wasn’t a gig not in the traditional sense tonight, even if there were a couple of support acts in the form of poet Liam McCormick and singer songwriter Declan Welsh. The format effectively developed as the evening went on.
truth is always strange; stranger than fiction
Liam McCormick is a poet and it’s not often that you have that as an opening act locally. Describing it as a reverse Catcher in the Rye, Liam performed his 10 minute piece “Arms in Arms’ about a boy signing up for the army with great intensity. Poetry has in the past left me cold, mainly as I’ve read it from a page without the poet’s input or interpretation of their work. However, this gripped me more than I would have expected. So that at least dispelled my myth that poetry these days was the domain of hipsters playing the part of would be Byrons… This was impressive not only literally but the movement it created within the piece as it shifted scenes. I really didn’t expect that much from this performance when I sat down but it’s not often that the opening act commands 10 minutes of silence from their audience. For truth is always strange; stranger than fiction…
Declan Welsh was next to appear. I saw Declan around a year ago in the more passive environment of Starbucks in the Eastgate Centre. Declan picked and chose his set that day to avoid anyone choking on their lattes but tonight he homed in on the theme of coming of age and chose his songs well. In the last year year Declan has continued to grow as an artist, and change physically too – he looks all grown up all of a sudden! Declan can articulate his thoughts and the backstory to his songs better than most whether it be nationalism, being unsure of yourself, or loyalty and belonging. His music stimulates an audience and prods at you with a pointed finger to make sure you are really listening. A short set but littered with shades of dark and light, and an overall feeling that as good as he is we haven’t seen the best of a developing Declan.
There was then a short interval before Josephine took centre stage. As I said at the beginning this was not a gig, not in the traditional sense. Effectively these were the sleeve notes of Josephine from age 15 to the present day taking into account various life events and not just creating a narrative around them but baring herself to her audience. This was very personal but from the overall experience of the night it was essential to convey what Josephine experienced as she came of age. This was augmented by video of various questions being put to musicians; pertinent questions to Josephine and her sense of direction or understanding.
The video sequence opened with the question ‘What’s it like to be a musician in Scotland?’ A range of opinions were expressed from the likes of Declan Welsh, Finn LeMarinel, Emma Pollock and Kyle Burgess amongst others but it was Rachel Sermanni who said ‘it was a beautiful life but a difficult one’.
I remember Josephine’s early songs and enjoyed her take on Dr Who and movie villains, but tonight Josephine explained that those were her life experiences at that time, not the more mature, for want of a better word, subject matter of other performers. She was young and she truly reflected her life and that would do her good stead in the future.
the backstory was one that was shaping Josephine
Having been taken through the early songs we arrive at what Josephine refers to as her first real song, Little Footsteps. Without tonight’s narrative this could just have been seen as a next step in an artist’s musical direction. But the backstory was one that was shaping Josephine into the young woman that she was becoming and the profound effect that the death of a very young baby cousin had on her.
Josephine then asks ‘What advice would you give your younger self?’ The video projection gives us many answers from take more gambles and relish opportunities to Emma Pollock’s ‘Try not to drink too much, you won’t remember it’.
This then leads onto the beginning of Josephine’s uni years starting in 2013 and her sense of feeling lonely in first year and the chance encounter of someone feeling the same way leading to the song ‘February Has A Smoking Problem’.
Shortly after Josephine’s life took a further turn when her granny died, MSP Margo MacDonald. This had a very profound effect on Josephine and her grief was reflected in her musical output. She couldn’t write. This was at a time when she was involved in the Yes movement at the 2014 Independence referendum. Her contribution was a cover while others produced new material. This desolate period lasted a year, a year where she lost her passion for her uni course as she went through the grieving process.
This in turn lead to the next question for the video responses as she stepped on from grief to a more personal question ‘Has mental illness affected your passion for music?’ The answers were quite revealing when each artist revealed to a greater or lesser extent of issues that have affected them and their understanding of others who have been affected. The next musical spot featured another poet, Ross MacFarlane, who tackled mental illness head on, head on in the headlights, with an extremely emotive piece drilled with repetition and mind shaking intensity. One of the highlights of the night.
By now the evening was drawing to close. Josephine closed with a plea that we support local music and right the wrongs of the music industry. This closing piece seemed a little off the cuff and less constructed as other sections and left us with ‘Vincent’ as van Gogh ate yellow paint to make his insides happy! That’s how Josephine operates.
An encore of Hurricanes boomed out to round off the evening but the evening belonged to Josephine. She had turned her teenage years into a retrospective, warts and all as they say, but with a relevance.
Overall the night was a success. This was an ambitious project a little rough around the edges and a little homemade at times but that was probably part of the charm and made it personable, as it catalogued Josephine’s coming of age. Josephine put herself out there and can be very proud of what she presented.
