bogmusic

A fine concert at Ni Muser on Saturday with Triakel who have been on a wee tour of Norway. The Garmarna-connection made me dig out my one and only Garmarna CD, purchased long before I ever imagined I would be living in Scandinavia. Once I'd found it, it seemed like so much additional effort to put it in the CD player, so I played it on Wimp instead. Honestly, I don't know.

And nothing to do with Triakel, but the best yet Made-up history of Stornoway explains the true origins of a famous scary novel.

Finally got hold of Hotas (via Mr Amazon), by Finland's Tsuumi Sound System, who are currently flavour of the month in my head. Very pleased with it too, even if I'd heard half the tracks on myspace. Similar sound to Aldargaz, I would say. Hard to find their stuff mind you - drew a blank in local shops and online stores. Their new album only seems to be available by download, and I shall do just that very shortly.

Staying on a musical theme, there's what promises to be an excellent concert on Tuesday by The Nordic Fiddlers' Bloc - a trio of fiddlers from Røros, Shetland and Sweden. I won't be in town unfortunately

I heard a song by Lily Allen a few times on the radio recently; I don't recall which channel or channels it was on, probably NRK P3 was one of them. I'm not a fan of her music; I find it pretty bland at best, but more usually just irritating. But anyway, that's not the point, nor is the target of her lyrics.

It took me a while to figure out what the song was called. It sounded an awful lot like Fuck you, but I thought, nah, nobody would call a song that and release it for airplay. Must be a mockney-fied Fank you (Thank you), I thought. But no, sure enough, the song is called Fuck you, and stations like P3 are quite happy to play it. Digging further I find that the song has been number one in Belgium, and has reached high in the charts in many countries, including Norway.

The song hasn't been released in the UK (as a single, if that's what they're called nowadays), I read, which doesn't surprise me.

Swearing is a strange thing. Fuck is still, I think, a strong word, but Feck, a staple of Father Ted for example, and the brand name FCUK, are acceptable, despite giving more than a nod to the aforementioned sweary word. And the impact of such words appears to be lost on non-native speakers of English.

I've heard Norwegian DJ's quite happily use words like fuck and motherfucker during the day on national radio; such behaviour in the UK would get you the chop faster than you could say Jools Holland. Scandinavians generally have excellent English ability, but presumably the impact of swear words isn't something that can be learnt like other aspects of a language.

If a band released a song called Fy Faen, I don't suppose NRK P3 would play this during the day.

Språkteigen har en ny programleder, Gøril Gro Sørdal, og det skal ta tid for meg å bli vant til dialekten hennes. Jeg vet ikke hvor den forrige programlederen, Randi Lillealtern, kommer fra - sannsynligvis Oslo området - men hun snakket klar og bokmålesque, selv om sendingene kom fra her i Trondheim. Men det blir god språk-trening for meg.

Sylfest Lomheim oppfant - hvis jeg forsto riktig - et nytt trøndersk ord for underdog, som skulle kanskje bli skrevet punnjhunnj (fra oppunder hund ). Er jeg derfor en av de første å bruke ordet på nettet? Nemlig her:

På onsdag blir skottene punnjhunnjer mot nederlanderene.

Eller kanskje jeg bare misforsto hele sendingen.

Anyway. Neste uke (egentlig i dag, men jeg er litt træg...) snakker de om det jeg tror lingvist-nerder kaller Ingressive Pulmonic Speech - når man snakker på innpust. Det har jeg hørt mange ganger hjemme i Hebridene, men bare en gang her i Norge så lenge. Jeg ser frem til å høre på sendingen.

Der var min første norske blogginnlegg da. Det var ikke så ille. Bortsett fra at det var helt uforståelig for alle unntatt meg. Men ellers var det kjempefint.

Arriving in the post the other day was a CD of Capercaillie's Secret People, which I played to death on cassette in the early 90s. This is probably my favourite Capercaille album - before they'd gone a bit too world-musicy. The instrumental sets and traditional songs are stunning. Apart from their first few albums, they've tended to intersperse the trad tracks with their own compositions; this is a shame, because they're frankly pants. But on this album two originals (both by John Saich) are pretty good, particularly Four Stone Walls.

The first time I saw or heard Capercaillie was on a Gaelic TV show, possibly Brag, in the late 80s, and I was amazed by they way they arranged and performed a set of reels; I'd heard plenty rocked-up reels and jigs before, but I'd never heard tunes played quite like this. I was hooked, and I went to see them in concert umpteen times over the next few years around the central belt. Donald Shaw even displaced Phil Cunningham as my accordion-hero.

They seem to be winding down now, the various members being busy with other projects. They released an album in 2008, after a 4 year gap; I don't have it, and I'm not even tempted to buy it, uninspired as I was by their last few releases. Flute-wizard Michael McGoldrick's presence contributes to some great instrumental sets, but overall the albums lack the excitement of the likes of Sidewaulk, Delirium and Secret People.

Three pieces of Capercaillie trivia:
1. They* stayed in our house once when I was wee, before they were famous.

2. My sister's folk-group beat them at the Mod in 1984. Hah! (although I'd concede that Capercaillie probably had the last laugh there, what with achieving international stardom and the like).

3. On my first ever trip abroad, as a skinny student on the way to a summer job in Leipzig, I bumped into them at a London train station. It was my first time in London, and I was a bit overwhelmed as I tried to find my bearings after stumbling off the train, with a rucksack roughly twice my height and weight on my back. And guess who come running along the platform: it's only bleedin' Capercaillie. This was pretty much at the height of my Capercaillie infatuation, so I was tempted to muster enough courage to ask them for their autographs, or ask them if they wanted another roadie or an accordion technician, or even if they just wanted their shoes polished. But they looked pretty stressed and hurried; they had a pretty big line-up too, so an autograph session would have taken some time, and they'd probably have missed their train. Besides, if I'd have tried to turn round, I'd probably have knocked 3 of them on to the tracks with my rucksack. So I let them be and continued on my way to darkest East Germany.

(Actually no. 3 doesn't really qualify as Capercaillie trivia at all. But I've typed it out so I'll leave it).

*not all of them; our house wasn't that big. The rest of them had to stay down the road at Mrs MacIver's.