Mike Scott
Shedsongs

Mike Scott is the name of about a million people, among whom is the mastermind of the Waterboys. And while I was searching online for bootlegs, collections, or anything related to him, I stumbled upon this gray gentleman, wearing glasses, shorts, and holding a guitar, standing at the entrance of a sort of wooden shed surrounded by nature. Obviously, he wasn't "my" Mike Scott. And although I could sense a certain folk attitude about him, very little was clear to me about him... Could it be that this somewhat elderly man, with a white beard, hadn't released any other albums? If he had, I would have come across him long before 2005... And why is it that online, apart from this CD cover, the only thing you'll find about him is this definition: "west country troubadour"?

Then there's that title, "shed songs"... And that vegetation... The vegetation of the British countryside, the vegetation that reminds me of my journey through pubs and inns, moors, and little towns, searching for the England least associated with the compulsive youthfulness of the overhyped "forever swingin' London"...

In the end, it wasn't much of a trip, that one, and the people I met didn't surprise me at all, just like the places, almost all the same... But perhaps, not adventurous and not surprising, that was one of the most meaningful trips... Pubs and drinks, old folk and traditional songs, groups singing Oasis with the awareness of having nothing to dream about or ask from music and youth...

And thousands of Mike Scotts...

So let's get this record, let's evoke the images, the atmospheres of that journey with a friend from back then, who now has two daughters, thirty kilos more, and thirty thousand hairs less, from Cornwall up to the top of Scotland, at dad's expense...

Produced by such UNLaBELLED, a branch of Irregular Records (!)... Two booklet pages, no lyrics but with a brief, sometimes ironic, summarizing line of the sense of each song... In the inlay, the face of this gentleman peeking out from the window of the closed shed... The songs? A guitar and the voice of an elder. Very serious, semi-serious, and comic tracks, where the voice changes, oscillating from suffering but dignified like that of an old cowboy or a weary bandolero, to theatrical and mimicking that of highly intelligent nursery rhymes...

The music, therefore, warm and gentle watercolors like in "Pasties", one more country episode in "Dogsong", playful folk lullabies for "Warstars", "Catsong", and "Sneakin'"... And yet, epic folk of a gold seeker or simple acoustic watercolors that "jazz up", as Ralph Towner would, in "Miss Appleton's Bell" and the magnificent "The Door". Finally (finally yes, but backwards) in the opener "25 To 3", a nice folk-blues drama. And the lyrics... Extremely painful, but always with a subtle underlying irony. Or comedic, but with a certain inexplicable sadness inside... The production: zero, as for all "true folk"; some tracks even recorded live, and you can hear the laughter of people in the folk clubs during the most hilarious episodes (especially "Catsong").

Very talented, this Mr. Nobody: I won't leave you any samples because (learning from past experiences) you don't listen to my samples. Indeed, it's already a miracle if anyone reads my reviews! And then who should care about my journey from so long ago, or a folk man I don't even know, or an album whose label is called "Unlabelled"?

I am left with the awareness that music, like life in general, apart from the also very necessary exceptions, isn't better if it's the ‘big one’; that the best people may be the simplest (or predictable, even boring), not those who are known by everyone, who appear everywhere... That the things to live for are the beautiful and simple moments like a hearty laugh at the verses of a somewhat elderly singer but with a fine repertoire, all crammed inside a folk club on the moor, while outside it might be raining as if God had sent down another great flood... Far better than all this sophisticated, artificial, and meaningless stuff, like the Vertigo Tour stop of U2 in Milan in 2005, an obligation I couldn't (due to the duties of societal living) shy away from.

That year, not U2, but this record, this all-white gentleman, this guitar, these songs, those shorts, that vegetation, those laughs, were "my event"... And, naturally, that shed.