All the Latest Smoke

1993	My first tape 'Red guitar, 3 chords and the truth' came about in 1993 not long after my Graduation from Napier University. The material was pretty diverse and featured a lot of collaborations as I was pretty sociable in those student / unemployed days and I was learning to use the 4-track and tried a number of different things. The tape was received well by DEF=Adder, along the lines of it being a great drug album as it's changes in style and tempo tend to fuck pleasantly with the head of one in a chemically / botanically enhanced / impaired state. Big Sick Dr K said is was a real kick to hear something creative done by a friend. The sound quality and the quality of the material here are actually the best sounding of all my work because as my work progressed I put more and more tracks on and suffered the associated sound degradation during track popping. These earlier songs were more spartanly recorded and fitted nicely into 4 tracks. There are a couple of good instrumentals one of which I would like to re-record at some point as the present version doesn't sound the way I wanted it to. Also a couple of cover versions, my guitar playing on All along the Watchtower being unsurpassed to this day. I'm buggered if I can remember what I was on that night but I wish to hell I could find it again occasionally. A significant amount of comedy numbers. I was in America that year and renewed my fascination with the Comedy records played on the Dr demento show. this is a passion which I still indulge in to this day. I get some funny looks for playing Tom Lehrer at work but I'm not bothered a toss. I'm saddened by the DALEK song as it has become something of an Albatross around my neck. Everyone has that one song, that little throwaway number that means fuck all to them but ends up being the one played all the time. This was mine. It's not that that saddens me though. It's the fact that the person I made it in mind of never heard it. We had been at Teviot that night royally pissed on Snake'n'Black as per usual and we were gibbering away listening to the Sisters of Mercy and I made the observation to Dougie and this lassie he worked with that Andrew Eldritch in full on Goth angst wail sounded or could by application of imagination be reminiscent of a hysterical (is there any other sort ?) DALEK. This ludicrous point was picked up by the Snake'n'Black I absolve all humans present for any involvement with these events, and made into the idea of a: A Goth band singing about DALEKy things (you know, Exterminate!ing things and hating everything especially 'that bugger with the scarf' ,etc) and b: A bunch of DALEKS, with floppy hats, bangles and completely swamped in dry ice, Gothing it up a la The Mission on Top of the Pops. b: seemed to go down quite well. Next morning I took a brainstorm and took to work with the 4-track and an alka-seltzer. Late that afternoon I came up with a: then later c: (c: being a bunch of DALEKS grating away (as they do) about Exterminating (usually 'that bugger with the scarf') and so on) which was a Goth song about being a DALEK. It had the dodgy drum machine, the plodding bass and the jangly guitar. I hoped to take it out with me that night but alas. Noone was going out. I never met Dougie's mate again but everyone else heard the song and I always feel it's a bit of a pity.
1994	My second tape appeared very quickly, coming out just before Christmas 1993, Musically it's more accomplished than before, but lacks direction. I was basically improving my guitar technique at the time and the tunes are more like exercises in faffing around. There are less changes in direction and as such failed to reach the Stoned audiences hearts as easily as the first had. I am however, exceptionally fond of 'Personal Effects' as there are some nice sequences and playing. Too many instrumentals, I wasn't into lyrics at the time. there's a rehash of the DALEK song (I eventually clocked up six odd versions) and A few covers, Losing My religion - crap vocal badly mixed backing, Mongoloid - quite like this DeVo cover but it's nothing far different from the original, Rainy Day women - Heard Tom Petty's version of this Dylan song and was well impressed, pity mine's is shite, A Strange Day - I love this, it's my Favorite recording I made. There are a couple of Electronic things Karl and I knocked up on the Amiga and a collaboration with Steve Briggs whose guitar playing I sampled and put onto this Amiga module. I was quite chuffed with the Artwork for this tape too, it came out quite well. Pity it's only later I discovered the title had already been used in the Novel Espedair Street by Iain Banks (a really good book!). Had another shock as I heard the new Rush Album (Counterparts) for the first time and heard something eerily similar to the DALEK song on the opening track Animate me. I nearly met my end. If I ever see Alex Lifeson or Geddy Lee......
1998	My third tape never appeared. In 1995 I was about 70 - 80 % of the way through new material, a lot of it complete updates of my previous work when I on the verge of completing it had firstly so many mental health problems that I let the music slip and secondly fell into a relationship with the Lovely Vikstik and suddenly discovered all sorts of excuses for not recording stuff. I eventually wrote the material off in 1999 when I decreed it unrepresentative of my musical output of the time and endeavored to start again from scratch. My third proper tape came out June 1998 when I packaged together the songs from the tape above but all the Controlled Substance (a spin off project) tapes and my unreleased stuff onto a compilation tape called 'Flotsam'.
2000	My fourth tape has JUST been completed within the last couple of weeks. It's more of a Hip Hop style thing than i have been previously doing. This has led to moaning from a lot of my mates who are dissing it because they don't dig rap. It's a bit daft because there has always been that hip hop thing going on in my work. With a name like Smoke-T do you expect anything else. In any event, the whole rap moan is overplayed, less than a third of the material is out and out rap. If anything, the dominant style in the album is Electronic 'film soundtrack' music like Tangerine dream, John Carpenter, and jean-Michel Jarre. It all goes to form an illustration of how not to 'listen to something before you comment on it'.