mostly david ephgrave

I mentioned a little while ago that I'd rediscovered a cassette of my old band Big Day Out's early demos and was struck by the songs and their energy. One such track was I Get High: a burst of musical sunshine that's very evocative of the time and captures what those first few years of BDO were all about. David Ephgrave · I Get High The demo comes from a session we did with our then-manager Martin Goodrich in 1997ish. Martin was one of the first people to buy into the band and support us. He was a lovely guy with a fair bit of musical knowledge, who also owned an analogue 8-track recorder, which was a dream come true for the band's two songwriters, Rich and me, to get to play with. My friendship with Rich must have seemed unlikely at the time - he was one of the cool kids at school whereas I definitely wasn't - but it was a sparklingly productive thing. We first got chatting in Design Technology classes (when we should have been working) when we found out we both ...

I'm struggling to motivate myself at the moment and don't know where to put my energy next. My enthusiasm for the projects I usually depend on for a sense of forward motion has vanished (ironically along with the projects themselves), partly because I'm tired of often being alone in the driving seat. Mostly Comedy's still closed due to the pandemic and looks unlikely to reopen before the Autumn, if that. I could do with booking more interviewees so we can resume the podcast, but I'm fast running out of ideas for good people to do it, and don't know why I invest so much time on something that makes so little money and wouldn't happen if I didn't put so much energy into it. I know Glyn enjoys doing it when we do it, but being honest, I don't think he'd miss it that much if we didn't either. And after so many years being the catalyst, I long for someone to match me and occasionally take the mantle when I'm not at my best. I feel like I'm...

I'm forty in three months and very conscious of all the negative self-talk I still do. And I'm worried that if I don't address this habit soon, it will start to define me (if it hasn't already). That may sound melodramatic, but it's meant sincerely. The fug of depression frequently slows me down and affects my sense of self-worth. I work on this with therapy and meditation, but the recent fallout from a difficult familial relationship that I had little control over knocked me sideways while  filling me with enough projected responsibility  to feel like I'm rebuilding from scratch. Add my dad's death to this - along with the financial implications of my mum's unyielding approach - and it's like I'm running on empty.  I can't help but compare what my parents were doing at my age. When I was born, my mum and dad were 35 and 34 respectively and had been married for nearly thirteen years so they had time on their side to have a baby (though they w...

The Proclaimers are a band I've developed a soft spot for (like that patch on the top of a baby's head). And of their music, two songs often make my early-morning playlist: 'On Causewayside' and 'There's a Touch'. While the songs are stark opposites, they both ignite the part of me that loves being in a band and make me tempted to call up some friends to see if we can cobble something together. Playing with other musicians is something I've taken for granted when you consider how often my work has put me in that position in the past, and it's such a distant prospect in the current circumstances. Pandemics and live music make unhappy bedfellows after all. I only stumbled across 'On Causewayside' recently while shuffling Proclaimers music on my household's trusty privacy-infringing Amazon Alexa. It stood out to me for several reasons: firstly, because Causewayside is a part of Edinburgh I've stayed in a few times while on the Fringe, wh...

I need to turn my head to new thoughts and a different direction before my narrative becomes so weighted in the past that I become trapped in the role of a toxic person's definition of me and tied to their disordered expectations. The damage a narcissist causes is too complex to sum up in a few words and seeps into any space you let it. And the truth seldom plays a part in your dialogue, nor is there any recognition for your previous actions or character traits. It's all projection and recrimination in the hope they'll provoke a reaction that's big enough to deflect from their own behaviour; it's the bully who pushes you over, then tries to blame your decision to obey gravity for you hitting the ground. But while I'm still coming to terms with our toxic relationship, I recognise it's wholly down to me to remove the validity of their critique. Every so often, I remember the times I begged them to treat me fairly like it was down to me to make a case for it. A...

Compiling my records in time for the now-extended self-assessment deadline over the past week was emotionally hard for many reasons. The fact the 2019/20 tax year crossed two cancelled Edinburgh Fringe runs - both outside of my control - was bound to make for grim reading, even outside of me losing my dad that year too. It's strange noting the mundane transactions leading up to his death and remembering what was happening then and what would follow. Every aspect was tough, with the pain multiplied by my mum's stonewalling behind the scenes that only worsened when I asked if I could buy her out of the house that we'd joint-inherited so I could live there instead of putting it on the market. And when I asked if we could at least draw up a temporary agreement to cover the month I went to Scotland so that her share wouldn't automatically fall to the person she'd secretly married a few months earlier without telling my dad, should anything bad happen while I was away - i...

I'll breathe a sigh of relief when Trump leaves the White House tomorrow (presumably throwing a handful of smoke pellets to the floor so he can sneak out before Biden's Inauguration).  My heart sank when he won the 2016 election. I was staying at Center Parcs on the day they announced it, so my pretty surroundings at least cushioned the blow, though I couldn't look the bald eagle in the eye at the bird of prey demonstration I attended that afternoon. Four years yawned ahead like a tetanus-fuelled bout of lockjaw while my face resembled a cross between Edvard Munch's The Scream and Macauley Culkin after applying aftershave in Home Alone. It's hard to imagine a person less suited to the job of President; something that only played out during his time in office, to be compounded by the storming of Capitol Hill that his outright lies stoked last week. The only person Donald J Trump cares about is Donald J Trump; that's very J evident. But that's only a fraction ...