I've been asked about the origins behind our 2017 "soundscape" Coney Island Rain...so here goes...
One Sunday in early October 2016, I flew from Edinburgh to New York to spend a few days with my ace Scots / American songwriter friend Freddie Stevenson and his partner at that time, Celtic Harp virtuoso Maeve Gilchrist, at their home in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn. It was also my intention to catch two shows by ex-"Mott The Hoople" frontman Ian Hunter and his superb "Rant Band" locally.
After what seemed like a very short flight I found my way from the terminal building at JFK to my waiting cab.
Now, I'd paid the cab company three weeks previously for the journey from the airport to Freddie's apartment but the moment I got into the cab the driver started shouting at me in very poor English about paying him money. I explained I'd already paid for the journey but he was having none of it and as we drove he kept saying "You pay me! You give me money!" His ID laminate badge was hanging over the back of his seat so I took a quick photo on my phone just as a precaution.
About ten minutes into the cab journey I began to feel extremely sick. Another thirty minutes passed and we pulled up outside Freddie's apartment with the driver still ranting about money and me feeling sicker than I had been in the previous three decades or more. When we'd pulled up to the kerb outside Freddie's apartment block, he turned around in his seat and showed me his phone which had the words "Tip (Optional)" displayed on the screen. It transpired that the driver had in fact been demanding a tip since the moment I got into his cab. Now I'd already put aside $10 before I entered his cab for this very purpose but decided there and then that, due to his extreme rudeness, I was going to give him, to use a somewhat colloquial Scottish phrase, "Fuck all".
Now that I finally understood his demands, I pointed at his phone screen and said, "It says "Tip OPTIONAL"", to which he pretty much took leave of his senses and screamed "Noptional! Noptional! NOPTIONAL!!!", and lo, a new word was born, "Noptional" - Meaning when something "Optional" is suddenly declared "Not Optional"!
I ended up giving him $5 to shut him up and we bid each other "Fuck off."
I took the stairs to Freddie's apartment and as he answered the door I pretty much had to push past him in the direction of the bathroom, vomiting long and hard into the can, then spending the next three days and nights lying on an inflatable mattress, mainly sleeping and unable to eat or drink or keep anything down. I still have no idea of the cause.
Aircraft food most likely.
A few feet from where I lay, Maeve had left two of her harps standing upright on the floor. Between vomiting bouts I would sit at one of them in my t-shirt and underpants plucking away just to pass the time between bouts of sickness.
I suddenly found myself plucking a four bar phrase that came from nowhere, continuously for the next 5 days, Maeve finally and politely pointed out that I was actually sitting at and playing the harp the wrong way round! I had no idea of my grave error but had I sat the correct way around, this piece of music would almost certainly never have happened.
So no harm done.
I decided that I'd do something with it on guitar and keyboards when I got back home to Scotland.
I didn't see as much of Freddie and Maeve as I'd have liked that trip as he was back and forward to New York on an acting job and Maeve was busy with her Berklee music commitments between NYC and Boston, but I kept myself busy in and around Ditmas Park.
Freddie and i took the subway to Coney Island where it was grey and wet, just like the Scotland I had left a few days previously! It was fun despite the weather and we walked around the boardwalk and the pier and saw the "Wonder Wheel" which had been etched into my mind since seeing "The Warriors" movie almost 40 years previously. We had a beer at Ruby's...maybe it was two beers...but certainly no more. The vomiting bug had knocked my taste for alcohol for six. I could barely face the stuff...most unusual!
As my strength returned I ventured into New York City a few times. Freddie had taught me how to use the subway and I'd become pretty good at it. I'd been to NYC several times since my first visit in 1989 but it was still fun visiting the now familiar sights and hanging around Washington Square Park and Greenwich Village, with its cool bars and funky shops. However the crowds annoyed me a lot as they do in any city. I'm not a big fan of crowds and city centres to be honest.
On the Thursday I made my way to The Bell House in Brooklyn to see Ian Hunter's show and then again the next night to see him play the New York City Winery. Both gigs were excellent. What a proper rock'n'roll frontman...he was one of the main reasons I started playing music in the mid-1970s and his band are world class.
I left the City Winery around 11pm to make my way back to Brooklyn in order to meet Freddie for a late beer at The Highbury Pub on Cortelyou Road. I'd started feeling a bit under the weather again and the walk to Canal Street subway station seemed to take ages. On the journey to Ditmas Park I sat slumped in my seat thinking of how to expand my "harp song". I was still looking and feeling somewhat rough...and I was pale...Scottish pale and then some.
It was enjoyable eavesdropping on the people around me chatting and listening to the cool sound of the saxophone a fella was playing as he walked up and down the carriages.
The following day I felt relatively okay so went back to NYC with Freddie to see the somewhat peculiar though enjoyable play he was appearing in and it ended up a very late night out, with musician and film maker Irakli Gabriel joining us for beer and food in an all night diner at lord knows what time.
My flight home was on the Sunday night at 10pm so I had most of the day to myself as Freddie was back acting and Maeve had left to drive up to Boston. I decided to re-visit Coney Island one last time so hopped on the subway.
It was still wet and grey and reminded me of Edinburgh's Portobello seafront neighbourhood.
I wandered, had a beer, wandered some more then returned to Ditmas Park to collect my suitcase, catch Freddie to say farewell then take an Uber (a new transport discovery to me) to the airport. No hassle this time. The driver was a quiet German fella.
Just before I left Freddie's apartment I sent the ID photo I took of the taxi driver, now and forever known as "Noptional", in an email along with a complaint to the cab company who refunded me the full fair and tip...which was pretty decent of them.
"Manners cost nothing" as my late mother probably once said...
On the plane back home and over the next few months "Coney Island Rain" gradually took shape in my head. Not a song...but a "soundscape". I took it to my musical keyboard / producer mate Allan Knox and with the help of several very fine, albeit somewhat confused, musicians, we kicked it into shape, got some kind of result, finally deciding to release it a few months later.
Thanks a million to Freddie Stevenson, Maeve Gilchrist, Allan Knox, Rab Howat, Roy Martin, Alex Weir, Kathy Stewart...and whoever prepared the dodgy airline food.
Ali Wilson
9th April 2019
One Sunday in early October 2016, I flew from Edinburgh to New York to spend a few days with my ace Scots / American songwriter friend Freddie Stevenson and his partner at that time, Celtic Harp virtuoso Maeve Gilchrist, at their home in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn. It was also my intention to catch two shows by ex-"Mott The Hoople" frontman Ian Hunter and his superb "Rant Band" locally.
After what seemed like a very short flight I found my way from the terminal building at JFK to my waiting cab.
Now, I'd paid the cab company three weeks previously for the journey from the airport to Freddie's apartment but the moment I got into the cab the driver started shouting at me in very poor English about paying him money. I explained I'd already paid for the journey but he was having none of it and as we drove he kept saying "You pay me! You give me money!" His ID laminate badge was hanging over the back of his seat so I took a quick photo on my phone just as a precaution.
About ten minutes into the cab journey I began to feel extremely sick. Another thirty minutes passed and we pulled up outside Freddie's apartment with the driver still ranting about money and me feeling sicker than I had been in the previous three decades or more. When we'd pulled up to the kerb outside Freddie's apartment block, he turned around in his seat and showed me his phone which had the words "Tip (Optional)" displayed on the screen. It transpired that the driver had in fact been demanding a tip since the moment I got into his cab. Now I'd already put aside $10 before I entered his cab for this very purpose but decided there and then that, due to his extreme rudeness, I was going to give him, to use a somewhat colloquial Scottish phrase, "Fuck all".
Now that I finally understood his demands, I pointed at his phone screen and said, "It says "Tip OPTIONAL"", to which he pretty much took leave of his senses and screamed "Noptional! Noptional! NOPTIONAL!!!", and lo, a new word was born, "Noptional" - Meaning when something "Optional" is suddenly declared "Not Optional"!
I ended up giving him $5 to shut him up and we bid each other "Fuck off."
I took the stairs to Freddie's apartment and as he answered the door I pretty much had to push past him in the direction of the bathroom, vomiting long and hard into the can, then spending the next three days and nights lying on an inflatable mattress, mainly sleeping and unable to eat or drink or keep anything down. I still have no idea of the cause.
Aircraft food most likely.
A few feet from where I lay, Maeve had left two of her harps standing upright on the floor. Between vomiting bouts I would sit at one of them in my t-shirt and underpants plucking away just to pass the time between bouts of sickness.
I suddenly found myself plucking a four bar phrase that came from nowhere, continuously for the next 5 days, Maeve finally and politely pointed out that I was actually sitting at and playing the harp the wrong way round! I had no idea of my grave error but had I sat the correct way around, this piece of music would almost certainly never have happened.
So no harm done.
I decided that I'd do something with it on guitar and keyboards when I got back home to Scotland.
I didn't see as much of Freddie and Maeve as I'd have liked that trip as he was back and forward to New York on an acting job and Maeve was busy with her Berklee music commitments between NYC and Boston, but I kept myself busy in and around Ditmas Park.
Freddie and i took the subway to Coney Island where it was grey and wet, just like the Scotland I had left a few days previously! It was fun despite the weather and we walked around the boardwalk and the pier and saw the "Wonder Wheel" which had been etched into my mind since seeing "The Warriors" movie almost 40 years previously. We had a beer at Ruby's...maybe it was two beers...but certainly no more. The vomiting bug had knocked my taste for alcohol for six. I could barely face the stuff...most unusual!
As my strength returned I ventured into New York City a few times. Freddie had taught me how to use the subway and I'd become pretty good at it. I'd been to NYC several times since my first visit in 1989 but it was still fun visiting the now familiar sights and hanging around Washington Square Park and Greenwich Village, with its cool bars and funky shops. However the crowds annoyed me a lot as they do in any city. I'm not a big fan of crowds and city centres to be honest.
On the Thursday I made my way to The Bell House in Brooklyn to see Ian Hunter's show and then again the next night to see him play the New York City Winery. Both gigs were excellent. What a proper rock'n'roll frontman...he was one of the main reasons I started playing music in the mid-1970s and his band are world class.
I left the City Winery around 11pm to make my way back to Brooklyn in order to meet Freddie for a late beer at The Highbury Pub on Cortelyou Road. I'd started feeling a bit under the weather again and the walk to Canal Street subway station seemed to take ages. On the journey to Ditmas Park I sat slumped in my seat thinking of how to expand my "harp song". I was still looking and feeling somewhat rough...and I was pale...Scottish pale and then some.
It was enjoyable eavesdropping on the people around me chatting and listening to the cool sound of the saxophone a fella was playing as he walked up and down the carriages.
The following day I felt relatively okay so went back to NYC with Freddie to see the somewhat peculiar though enjoyable play he was appearing in and it ended up a very late night out, with musician and film maker Irakli Gabriel joining us for beer and food in an all night diner at lord knows what time.
My flight home was on the Sunday night at 10pm so I had most of the day to myself as Freddie was back acting and Maeve had left to drive up to Boston. I decided to re-visit Coney Island one last time so hopped on the subway.
It was still wet and grey and reminded me of Edinburgh's Portobello seafront neighbourhood.
I wandered, had a beer, wandered some more then returned to Ditmas Park to collect my suitcase, catch Freddie to say farewell then take an Uber (a new transport discovery to me) to the airport. No hassle this time. The driver was a quiet German fella.
Just before I left Freddie's apartment I sent the ID photo I took of the taxi driver, now and forever known as "Noptional", in an email along with a complaint to the cab company who refunded me the full fair and tip...which was pretty decent of them.
"Manners cost nothing" as my late mother probably once said...
On the plane back home and over the next few months "Coney Island Rain" gradually took shape in my head. Not a song...but a "soundscape". I took it to my musical keyboard / producer mate Allan Knox and with the help of several very fine, albeit somewhat confused, musicians, we kicked it into shape, got some kind of result, finally deciding to release it a few months later.
Thanks a million to Freddie Stevenson, Maeve Gilchrist, Allan Knox, Rab Howat, Roy Martin, Alex Weir, Kathy Stewart...and whoever prepared the dodgy airline food.
Ali Wilson
9th April 2019