Yesterday during my lunch break I turned on 88.1 and was pleasantly surprised to hear an unmistakeably glaswiegan accent (glaswiegan is the local accent in Glasgow, Scotland). I listened as he spoke, thought of friends I know there, and as it turned out Terry Gross was interviewing Stuart Murdoch of the band Belle and Sebastian. This was cool because I was driving and could listen, and Belle and Sebastian is a band I know almost nothing about other than the concert description I read on Funke's blog, and since then I've called into UTC's music radio program two or three times to request Belle and Sebastian songs - and they've always played them quickly (awesome local radio programming, so why'd the station cut the hours of local coverage?). Anyhow, back to the interview, until about a year ago Stuart lived in the church halls of a presbyterian church (Church of Scotland) which he attended. He was the caretaker of the halls in exchange for his rent. How cool! I wonder if the caretaker I knew at St. George's Tron ever started his own rock band?
Today on the radio I head about the Mali musician, Ali Farka Toure, in this interview on The World. The cool part was after doing the world music recording and touring circuit for years he decided to return to his farm in the Sahara, and work to help feed people in his village.
Posted by swanson at mars 7, 2006 10:47 EM | TrackBack