One of the maddest aspects of my life in recent weeks has been the number of times I've been on social media, scrolling through the needless tidal wave of posts, and seen our album, Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 1, pop up- from London to Scotland, from Ireland to Poland, Holland to Toronto, New Zealand and Australia, copies landing all over the globe, Rusty's eye catching artwork propped up next to turntables and record collections everywhere.
The first vinyl pressing of 500 copies sold out in a day in February. The second pressing, a further 500, is close to sold out- there are a few copies at Manchester's Vinyl Exchange and maybe some at Stranger Than Paradise (London) and Monorail (Glasgow). This week a box arrived at Piccadilly Records, a record shop in Manchester I've been frequenting since the 1980s, and there it is again, sitting in the racks at my favourite record shop. Unbelievable in so many ways, an album that started as a chat between three of us last June has become this actual, physical thing, packed from start to finish with amazing music and being played all over the world.
Back in the Golden Age Of Blogging (circa 2004- 2009) Moggieboy (Alan McGregor) wrote the legendary Ripped In Glasgow blog, one of the inspirations for this blog. Moggie posted dance music mainly, some indie and goth (The Cure and The Mary Chain both appeared), plenty of early 90s techno and lots of Andrew Weatherall's music. Around 2011/12 he pulled the plug on Ripped In Glasgow and called it a day and in an act of scorched earth blogging deleted the whole thing too. Not long after he re- appeared with a Ripped In Glasgow Facebook group which quickly became a forum for all things Weatherall. I only joined Facebook because of the RiG Facebook group. When Moggie closed the doors on that group Martin got in touch with me and asked if I wanted to co- run a new Weatherall related Facebook group and that was where, ten years ago this year, The Flightpath Estate was born. No Ripped In Glasgow, no Flightpath Estate, no album. All these things are linked.
I met Moggie/ Alan at AW61 at The Golden Lion a few weekends ago and as has always been the case, meeting bloggers/ internet friends in real life has always been a good thing. They say you shouldn't meet people you only know from the internet and I'm sure it's wise to be cautious (especially if you're in the world of online dating) but every time I've met someone that I've known through the internet hit's been a good experience and I've made many real life friends.
Moggie/ Alan returned to Glasgow after AW61 (he did Todmorden Park Run on the Saturday morning too while some of us were feeling the after effects of the Friday night at The Golden Lion) and this week did his Ripped In Glasgow radio show, an internet radio on Radio Buena Vida. Moggie's show is an hour long, he plays five of the tracks off our album and a few other AW61 related tracks ending with Radio Slave's massive version of The Lunatics (Have Taken Over the Asylum) and talks through his weekend at The Lion with some lovely words about us too, not least 'it's great to meet people off the internet who aren't complete nutters'. You can listen to Ripped In Glasgow getting Ripped In Todmorden here.
Another perfect mix to get over a cold and rainy Sunday. Thank you Adam
ReplyDeleteSo heartwarming. A well-deserved reflection too of what you clearly bring to everything personally.
ReplyDeleteI went to the ACR album launch at Soup lat night. I called in at Piccadilly Records to see our album in the racks, an amazing moment. As we went into Soup the man in front of me had a copy of our album in his carrier bag.
ReplyDeleteHope you took it out of the bag and signed it. Whether he wanted you to or not
DeleteRipped In Glasgow was the Bagging Area of my blog youth. I can think of no higher praise to give you Adam
ReplyDeleteHa ha! Wow, that's an amazing statement Ricky- one I'll gladly accept
ReplyDeletenice!
ReplyDeleteYou've every right to be basking in this glory. You've more than earned it for the way you've kept the AW flame burning brightly.
ReplyDeleteMy copy hasn't arrived yet... :/ If I knew, I wouldn't have rushed, and would have bought a copy straight from the GL. Eitherway brilliant show from Alan. So great to have met you all! 🖤⚔️🖤
ReplyDeleteI'm blown away by this post! Great to come full circle and funny to think that my wee project from 15(!) years ago is still being discussed. Hats off to you for carrying the flag and delivering quality posts after all these years - it was all too much for me.
ReplyDelete]If anyone is interested, there are links to the rest of my radio shows here, including some themed 'lunchtime specials' that I did for another station (Clydebuilt) a year or two ago. Cheers for the support! https://linktr.ee/rippedinglasgow
Thanks Moggie- RiG was great while it lasted, can't believe it was 15 years ago now!
ReplyDelete