Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Edwyn Collins: Innocent

Grace Maxwell read from her book Falling and Laughing: The Restoration of Edwyn Collins last night at Waterstone’s in Piccadilly. It was by turns funny and very moving – many grown men noticeably had ‘something in their eye’.

After the reading, Edwyn and his band – editfeaturing his son William on guitar and backing vocals -played a great acoustic set including a new song, I’m Losing Sleep, which Edwyn described as “punk and northern soul and disco”. It sounded fantastic; you can listen to it streamed here.

At the proceeding book signing, the opportunity to clear up a criminal matter was too good to miss.
FET: My friend was burgled at university. All her CDs were stolen with the exception of Gorgeous George and The Best Of Orange Juice. Can you account for your whereabouts on February 28, 1995?
GM: Oh, I can remember what we were doing that night. Hang on.
EC: I’ve not got much of a memory now.
GM: I’ve got it. We were coming back from Australia. Do you remember, Edwyn? It couldn’t have been us burgling.
EC: Perhaps the burglar already had the Edwyn Collins and Orange Juice CDs. Or just had good taste in music!
FET: Thanks, that narrows down my possible suspects. It was probably James Kirk.
EC: Yes, you should ask him where he was!
GM: You should definitely ask James Kirk. Not to be trusted…

If the producers of police procedural drama Cold Case would like to option this story, I would be willing to listen to your offers. The soundtrack, at least, would be amazing.

8 comments:

brogues said...

Funny! I went along to the Glasgow signing and it was both moving and funny. Hope you were quicker getting to the signing queue than I was, mind. Due to my dawdling I had to wait over an hour. I didn't mind a bit, though. I was just glad that it was busy. Grace is now on my fantasy dinner party list...love her sense of humour!

Fire Escape said...

The queue went on forever. I simply had to have a pint afterwards. Most of the audience wanted a signed book and a bit of a chat with the Collinses, and Edwyn's not the fastest autographer. Yeah, I'd have the pair of them round for dinner (so long as they don't mind a Pot Fish supper).

harveyw said...

Where's the link to the stream? I can't find it on that (link-filled) page anywehere...

Also, I don't think that was Edwyn's son on guitar.

Fire Escape said...

Top left of the page, there's a box with four songs streamed.

To be fair, my view of where not-William-but-some-young-lad-with-similar-hair was very obscured, so I'm sure you're right. Thanks for the correction.

L said...

Nice to get that cleared up, finally...

Fire Escape said...

Readers, "L" was the wronged party in the burglary. She is now looking for James Kirk or a tone deaf thief with crap taste in music.

harveyw said...

I've actually just found out that the new guitarist is Tom Edwards, ex-Fosca (and Dickon's brother??).

How did that happen?

Fire Escape said...

Probably not through Dickon's influence. It does, at least, explain why I thought Edwyn was calling his son "Tom".

Why were you not asked to join? Eh?