Tag: Alex Kapranos

Gigs From Abroad Part 27 – Greece Part 1

The country of Greece is located in Southeast Europe and is bordered by four other countries and four different seas. It has a long illustrious history, and it is regularly cited as the birthplace of Western civilisation which incorporates eclectic elements such as philosophy, science, theatre and mathematics.  

It also has the accolade of creating the original Olympic Games, the first iteration taking place in 776 BC which then ran until AD 393, with some fantastically named contestants, one that caught my eye was Herodorus of Megara who was a ten-time trumpet champion!  The modern version was initially held in Athens in 1896, and they subsequently also hosted the event in 2004.

Herodotus of Magara in a post-Olympics black and white photo shoot. Image Credit parthenon-greekjewelry.blogspot.com

In the 4th century Greece partook in a considerable amount of pilfering by conquering much of the ancient world. They had many wars and strife in the 20th century before democracy finally took hold in 1974. They adopted the Euro in 2001 but then had a bruising debt crisis for around a decade commencing in 2008. Tourism is their main income source, and they have been recorded as the ninth most visited country in the world.

 There is a staggering proliferation of islands which number between 1200 and 6000 dependent on how you quantify your size classification. In fact, because there are so many they are organised into clusters, with seven different colour coding’s. I wonder how many people can lay claim to having visited them all. It is estimated that there are between 166 and 227 that are currently inhabited.

The one with the largest area is Crete with a population of 625k, with the second one on the list being Euboea (or Evvia), which I had never actually heard of. The latter apparently resides only 60m from the mainland over the Euripus Strait. A decent swimmer could easily cover that distance, but my 10 metre badge might result in me needing a rescue! The smallest populated island is Gavdos with a grand total of 142 punters, as a result I am sure there are no secrets on that island.

Greek music dates to way back when with mixed gender choruses performing for entertainment and spiritual reasons with archaic instruments such as the double-reed aulos (similar to a flute) which coincidentally has been recently digitally recreated as part of the wonderful sounding Lost Sounds Orchestra. There was also a twelve string instrument called a lyre or kithara, which could perhaps be lazily described as the first guitar, if so, I am eternally grateful to whoever invented it!  

A Lyre instrument. Image Credit ar.inspiredpencil.com

There have been many famous Greeks including the actors Telly Savalas and Jennifer Aniston, King Constantine II who won an Olympic sailing gold in 1960 and poet Homer (not from the Simpsons) who wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey which are renowned in ancient Greek literature.

On the musical front there is Marina Diamandis, lead singer of Marina and the Diamonds, Tommy Lee of Motley Crue, Dimitri Minakakis from Dillinger Escape Plan, the Foals lead singer Yannis Philippakis and Alex Kapranos who fronts Franz Ferdinand.

Gill and I’s first foray abroad was on a budget trip to Paris and the journey each way was twelve hours in total involving three trains and a hovercraft. On the next sojourn in 1990 we sensibly decided to fly and headed off to Corfu and stayed in a resort in the far north called Kassiopi. The commute involved a vertigo inducing coach transfer around the sheer drop hairpin roads, leading to my assertion that those drivers are so accomplished!

Marina Diamandis. Image Credit upload.wikimedia.org

When I first started in my current job on 28 July 1986 (my fortieth anniversary is rapidly approaching) my initial timesheet was signed off by a manager called Vera Egan. Now a couple of years later Vera relocated to live abroad, but I wasn’t aware where she had emigrated to. That question was answered when I went to report a small accommodation issue at the agent’s office near the harbour, and there was none other than Vera behind the desk!   

I recall us visiting the UNESCO world heritage list Corfu town which was a bonny atmospheric place. I am sure we must have seen some live acts whilst we there, but I have nothing recorded in my annals, thus any will be in the unquantifiable Jimmy ‘lost gigs’ list. In those days the only music I can recall being provided was through the headphones of a portable tape deck and whilst lounging in a secluded cove, my ‘burning’ memory of the song that was playing was Eternal Flame by the Bangles.  

Glasgow Venues 6 to 7

In August 2014 I made another trip up the scenic West Coastline to Glasgow to see Mogwai with the usual ‘Mog trio’ of Uncle George, John Dewhurst and I in tow. It was a late arranged sojourn, so I had secured some slightly unusual accommodation as I recall it was linked to a church and located somewhere near Bath Street.

We fancied heading to a couple of different places on this trip but naturally prior to that it had to be music part 1 first, thus our initial port of call was Glasgow 13th Note Cafe. This bar was originally a pub on Glassford Street before moving to its current home on King Street in Merchant City in 1997, the original site has now become Bar Bacchus. The franchise subsequently then hoovered up a bigger club venue on Clyde Street and the 13th Note was then taken over by the Barfly group in 2002.  

13th Note Cafe. Image Credit wee-dundee.co.uk

Many of the local bands of the time, namely Bis and Urusei Yatsura played there, and it was famously the location of one of Mogwai’s very early gigs as detailed in Stuart Braithwaite’s engaging autobiography ‘Spaceships over Glasgow’ which I have recently consumed.  The chap who booked the bands was Alex Huntley who latterly changed his name to Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand fame, many of the gigs in the early days were free of charge.

The ground floor is a bar and a thriving vegan café, and the basement room is the music venue with gigs virtually every night. I had heard the local act The Vex were undertaking a Saturday afternoon residence so down we headed into the sweat box. They were a punk/new wave band and playing an epic 2 hour set which in our 30-minute portion we caught an excellent cover version of Cure’s ‘The Forest’, one of my fave tracks of theirs. 

We jumped on the subway at St Enoch’s station for a foray out to the West End of Glasgow where after a sally around the Botanical Gardens we visited the very grand building of Oran Mor for a beer, I have never yet managed to attend a gig there in the music room located upstairs. We then visited the ‘Harry Potter’ style street of Ashton Lane before undertaking the return journey and randomly jumping off at Bridge Street station.

Glasgow Oran Mor. Image Credit Pinterest.

We decamped into the Lauriestown Bar by the river, the Mogwai gig was taking place at Glasgow Richmond Park but when we asked for directions in the pub, we drew blank expressions from the resident punters. We decided to obtain a taxi number and our transport duly arrived. The taxi driver was also lacking in local knowledge and more intent on imparting his current employment woes on us, but we persuaded him to ‘do his job’ and we finally found the park about ten minutes before the show started!

Laurieston Bar. Image Credit tripadvisor.ca

Richmond Park was opened in 1899 and is a huge location of 12 hectares in size, and it appears the area is closed for major investment works at the moment as part of a regeneration programme. The event was part of a two-day shindig called the East End Social Last Big Weekend.

There was a partial marquee where Mogwai took the stage and apologised for drinks availability during the earlier sets, though they stated it had been beyond their control. They were as enjoyable as ever and post gig due to a dearth of taxis we undertook the long walk via Glasgow Green back up to Sauchiehall Street where we ended the evening with ‘one for the ditch’!