Robbie Lesiuk

Whis was, in all, pretty good. Alan Bissett joined them on stage for the first time since we did the Super Puny Humans tour, reading some of his prose while the band provided melchy, low-fi background noise.

It was pretty interesting to hear how it sounds not that I am not involved and can give an objective opinion from the audence’s perspective. I have to be brutally honest and say that it was great. They seem to have coped with the loss of my talent and personality admirably.

It was my intention to take loads of pictures, but an unwillingness to use flash and an unfamiliarity with the camera I had stolen from my father made for poor results. I messed with this in photoshop for a while… I am not sure it is all that great, but I kinda liked it.

Still, it’s nice to show face, support my friends and make sure we are all still talking to each other.

I made this picture ages ago, forgot all about it and it took me a good few minutes to notice/remember what the joke was.

Well, at least I thought it was funny.

After leaving Y’all is Fantasy Island, I feel sort of free. Not that I was feeling particularly opressed and I did love the music we were playing. Some of it I really loved.

But I don’t suppose playing in that band would ever really satisfy me. It started out as a friend asking me to fill in for a couple of gigs as a bass player was required Then before I knew it I was playing in every gig, playing more instruments and being the unofficial driver. Maybe in another life that would have been enough to keep me happy, but I think I am far to egotistical to sit back and continue to be part of someone else’s musical vision.

Maybe because I joined the band after it was established, maybe because song writing was not really a group-effort within the band, but I did not feel like it was my place to come up with creative ideas, or to write tunes for us to play. So what do I do after leaving a band in which I was feeling unfulfilled playing somebody else’s music? I join a covers band.

Falkirk based covers band Arthur recently suffered a major fracture and lost two members. Like so many times before, word of a bass playing vacancy came my way on the local music grapevine and after a couple of meetings, a bit of an audition-ey rehearsal and some practice sessions I found myself playing with the re-christened R-4 in Inverness. We are going back up this coming weekend too. What is even better - we seem to actually make money out of it all.

So I am being kept musically busy with performance and teaching, I have the new College year looming. Am I fulfilled and happy? Of course not.

I am still playing other people’s music, which as fun as it is, still leaves a bit of yearning in my soul. I don’t know if I am a good enough songwriter to ever fulfil that yearning, but I suppose I have to try. So amongst gigs with the new band, an ever increasing number of lessons to teach and lots of fresh college work I shall have to finally write myself an album to record. The good news is that it is partly done - I have been writing it since I was 12.

So as I said to begin, I feel a sense of musical freedom. To misquote Morgan Freeman in The Shawshank Redemption, it’s the kind of freedom and excitement you feel at the start of a long journey. Some kind of musical journey, hopefully.