…and Tom Morton’s Leaky Feeder show is another story

The story so far: Philip and Mandy Creighton, music business managers from Edinburgh, have turned up at the Broken Record Inn, looking for former client Fingal, once front man of Glamour Ghost, the band they managed. They’re sent on a supposed short cut to their hotel in Helmsdale in the midst of a gathering snowstorm, and having run off the road, have to be rescued, in a Land Rover driven by Fingal himself. Who announces that he is now Sister Pop of the Order of Iggy, and is revealed as wearing a nun’s habit, not very convincingly. He is also the landlord who owns much of the land surrounding the Broken Record Inn.

Read on – not available as spoken word, I’m afraid, text only.

Oh, and the landlord has recently asked retired gob-on-a-stick and Broken Record Inn regular  Tom Morton to put together a playlist every week and experiment with talking about the records he plays. Goes out via a ‘leaky feeder’ on illegal FM around Slanachan and Sandvoe. Tom may have had his arm twisted by Fingal to include Biblical On Your Ass, but it’s at the end, so beware… If you just want to listen to the music, (though obviously you can read at the same time) click here:

https://www.mixcloud.com/tom-morton2/at-the-broken-record-inn-toms-leaky-feeder/

The Flirtations — Nothing But a Heartache

Don Thomas — Come On Train

Old Crow Medicine Show — Paint This Town

Steve Butler ‘Til We All Have Faces

Lori McKenna — Letting People Down

Mary Gauthier — Go Your Six

Lucinda Williams — Are You All Right?

Gillian Welch — The Way It Goes

Whiskeytown — 16 Days

Al Green — Tried of Being Alone

David Heavenor — Jenny and the Cold Caller

John Baldry — Don’t Try to Lay No Boogie on the King of Rock’n’Roll

Rod Stewart — Every Picture Tells A Story

Levon Helm — When I Go Away

Tony Clarke — Landslide

Alfie Davison — Love is a Serious Business

Justin Townes Earle —  Maybe a Moment

Fingal Ghost — Biblical On Your Ass (Balaam and the Donkey)

“Divine Being. Transforming. Transitioning,” said Mandy, her voice dripping with Kelvingrove disbelief. “Aye, sure. You were always one for dressing up, Fingal. Remember that time at the Caird Hall when you got nearly got bottled off for saying you identified as JK Rowling, and wore a Catherine Walker dress you made ME go and buy from that crazy Morningside charity shop? For 520 quid, as I remember. I’ve still got the signed Hogwarts postcard it came with. All proceeds to the Labour Party. Good grief.”

“Those were different times,” said Fingal, sipping his coffee and hoisting his habit in the direction of the rapidly warming fire, the better to warm his impressively hairy bare legs. “I’m a much more settled person now. Mature as all get out.” I placed a large measure of Slanachan blend on the old stone mantlepiece. “Never knew there were so many Slytherins in Dundee, right enough. Must have come in from Broughty Ferry.”

“Mature as a piece of Orkney Cheddar”, said Philip. “This is bollocks. Certainly not the lack of them. Look at you: you’re still like a rugby second-row forward run to seed. And that beard didn’t grow in a few days.”

“Well, they make you live as a nun before you can actually transmogrify into one. Kinda…get the habit, I suppose.” Fingal scratched his beard, which was, admittedly, heading for wild viking territory. “And the male pattern baldness is actually an advantage, at least in certain orders. If you cover your head more or less permanently. But the Sisters of the Order of Iggy are a wee bit more…casual. Anyway, I’m still genitally intact and not taking any drugs other than hallucinogenics, alcohol, opiates and herbals, as per usual. Keeping the, uh, faith.”

“Aye,  that’s a fairly reflective scalp you have there.” Mandy was, I thought, being a little unkind. “Tufty at the sides, though. That’s it for you as a rock star, anyway. I mean how many frontmen  are there who’ve successfully lost their hair and retained their fanbase?”

“Elvis Costello, though there’s some artful gelling going on, and FIH – frequent indoor hats. Bruce Springsteen. Bono. Ronnie Wood.” Fingal looked thoughtful. “Though admittedly that’s mostly weaves and wigs, and transplanted pubes. Francis Rossi! Him out of Judas Priest.”

“Do not say that about Bruce,” said Adelaide, interrupting her mopping of the bar and looking upset,. “This is not to be thought of.”

“Wizened wee soul these days, and he never could dance, in the dark or otherwise,” said Fingal. “Actually, in the dark would be better. Remember that video? Rolled up sleeves, muscles bulging like a sackful of sausages. He was like a wee Staffordshire Bull Terrier on steroids. Poor Courteney Cox. She looked terrified out of her wits.”

“You can talk.” Philip shook his head, and sipped gingerly at the large whisky he was holding in trembling fingers. “I mean, what was your appeal in Glamour Ghost? I could never really see it myself. But then you did have hair, then. And you were thinner. And let’s face it, younger and not a nun.”

“Mysterious charisma. Flirted with the faith even then,” said Fingal. “Now I’m more in the Sinead O’Connor nunnery mode, with a  touch of Midnight Oil and Long John Baldry, the best unrecognised vocalist who ever lived. Did you know Rod Stewart has a guitar with his ashes in it? No Long John, no Rod, no Elton John. Sixt foot seven. Makes me look like Mother Mini-Me.”

“So,” Mandy was becoming sneerier by the minute, thanks to the neat gin she’d been pouring down her throat since arriving. “You own this place? And all the land round about? You’re some kind of Lord of the manor, only without the manners?”

“Rapier-like wit still intact, then Mandy? I suddenly found myself, thank God, with a more than adequate  sufficiency of funding, if you recall, thanks to the last piece of negotiation I let you have anything to do with. Crytown Productions! Deductions more like. I thought I’d invest it in being decent and ecological and that rewilding stuff. And also get the hell out of Edinburgh and away from you. Which brings me to the main point: what are you doing here, now?”

I remembered the moment I heard Glamour Ghost’s minor anthem Staring at the Moon on the soundtrack of that Charlie’s Angels movie, the one where for some reason they got both Matt Damon and Michael Barrymore to act in it, right at the height of their fame. Plus the women of course. Cameron Diaz. Lucy Liu. Dame Edna. It was an enormous success, and I remembered that (true) story about a drunk Nick Lowe opening an envelope one morning to find a cheque inside for a million dollars, the rights for using one of his songs in The Bodyguyard. A song that wasn’t even in the final edit of the movie. And that he had no idea was in the film anyway. Fingal had got a great deal more than that. And spent nothing like all the cash, because the Ardnashellach Estate, including what was now the broken Record Inn, various lodges and great huge lumps of hill and bog, was sold at a bargain price.. 

“It was going cheap,” Fingal announced airily, because of the wind farm.”

“What windfarm?” said Philip

“Exactly! Planning blight. Government plans went awry. They had compulsory purchase orders in place and then decided to sell their souls to private developers who wanted to do it offshore. Then the idea was for a rocket range, but it was too close to Slanachan. And also, Lord Ardnashellach was a stubborn young bastard who liked Glamour Ghost and wanted nothing other than to bugger off to Jamaica and smoke weed with a few reggae producers. Which I was able to arrange. Then he had that nasty accident with a bong, a surfboard and a submachine gun. Anyway, long story short,  I bought the place, Found someone to run the pub, so to speak, and here we are. Cheers! Triples all round!”

“Here we are,” I agreed. “So, anyway. What exactly do you want to talk to Fingal about? His alter ego’s art? Are you going to market Jingle as a Kind of multi-talented Bryan Adams impersonator only without the camera and Princess Diana? What’s the sccoobie, Philip?”

“I’ve looked at the pictures, “ said Mandy. “He’s no David Hockney, that’s for sure. Well, here’s the thing. It’s Glamour Ghost. It’s time to get the band back together. We’ve had…an offer. And it’s the kind of offer nobody should refuse.”

Fingal sniffed haughtily.

“And you need the money” he said. “Your percentage. Not Putin;s daughter’s wedding, again, surely? Anyway, you know as well as I do that Glamour Ghost can’t tour. Not since…”

And then he fell quiet. Nobody spoke. Even Adelaide stopped shuffling glasses at the bar. Only the crackle from the logs I’d placed on the fire punctured the silence. We were all thinking about the last American tour, and the mystery that both tore the band apart and resulted in the kind of media attention that propels records to the top of the charts. Or the digital equivalent. Plays on Spotify.  The kind of attention that plucked an obscure song onto the soundtrack of a movie. and consequently brought us all here.

But it was still a sore one to think about. 

“Never mind that,” said Fingal. “All in the past. I expect Crytown Productions would like to hear some of the new material I’ve been working on.”

There was a low moan from Adelaide. “No. Not the religion. It is too early in the day for religion.”

There was a guitar, a nice old Gibson J40, propped against the always-tuned piano, an elderly Bechstein upright. I hate sessions, in fact I hate folk music, but sometimes it was unavoidable if the likes of Aly Bain and Phil Cunningham turned up. Though there is obviously an accordion ban at the Broken Record Inn, so Phil has to play the actual piano. All bodhran players are intercepted and warned about impending violence if they proceed to make any noise whatsoever.  I flinched as Fingal picked up the guitar and gave it a violent strum: in tune. All strings present. Damn. Whisky early in the morning: inhibitions abandoned. But then, as he said, it was his pub. Technically. Financially. Actually.

“I’m working on a concept album,” he announced. “Characters of the Old Testament. Overall it’s called Biblical on Your Ass, and this is the title track. You know about Balaam and hs talking donkey? Well you should. Look it up. Book of Numbers, Chapter 22.” And then he began to sing. It was quite a sight. A bald, bearded, giant male nun, half cut, legs akimbo, unaware that his habit was smouldering due to a spark from the fireplace.