March Guest Blog - McDroll

This month I am joined by another fellow Scot,  McDroll. She shares the songs that can be heard in a variety of forms from her very musical family as well as some of the tracks that inspire her. I'll let her explain.

As I live in a very open plan house (it seemed like a cool idea before we had children) I always have to write in the middle of noise. So Sinclair, I hope you don’t mind but instead of the 10 songs that I listen to while I write, I thought I’d give everybody a flavour of what I listen, or try to block out, while I write.

1. At the moment, my two kids (11 and 17, boy and girl) are preparing like mad for our local music festival so there’s a lot of music goes on in our house and many musical instruments to trip over. Gavin plays guitar and thinks he’s Chris Martin (Coldplay) so very often I’m listening to him sing Viva La Vida which he’s really good at but I’ve now heard it at least 1000 times.

2. Lindsay, my daughter loves…and I mean LOVES musical theatre. The piece she is perfecting for the festival this year is Cock-Eyed Optimist from South Pacific, which suits her voice and personality very well. She hopes to make singing her future and currently is part of Scottish Opera’s Connect group. More about that later!

3. You will laugh at this. We have an open plan house with no hiding places, as I’ve already said. What instrument does Gavin play and practice all the time? The tuba. We call it Geoff because it’s so large it’s like having another person in the house. I sit and look at Geoff most nights as I type. One of the pieces that Gavin is trying to perfect is Tijuana Taxi; I remember this from my youth, listening to my mother’s Herb Albert records.

4. My husband and both children are addicted to Top Gear, that ghastly car programme with those three moronic men which is constantly repeated on a variety of channels. There is no escaping it in my house so I hear that theme tune a lot. I think it’s Jessica by the Allman Brothers.

5. Then of course, having a teenage daughter, the theme song from that mind numbing American comedy show ‘Friends’ is never far away. I’m afraid that when I hear this one I do shout, ‘Is there nothing else you can watch?’ and then feel a compulsion to murder one of my characters as I write. If you don’t know it (you are VERY lucky) then it’s a song called I'll Be There For You by the Rembrandts.

6. Sometimes, I actually get to listen to music that I like, mostly to drown out what else is going on and I stick on my headphones and listen to Alfie Bow with my favourite being Bring Him Home from Les Miserables. Makes me cry.

7. I also listen a lot to a guy called Brett Detar. I know nothing about him other than it was a free download and I enjoy it. I suppose you’d call it country or bluegrass or something but then I’m no expert. I particularly enjoy The Devil’s Gotta Earn.

8. I like buying random music just to find something new to listen to and my most recent purchase is Deaf Havana, Fools and Worthless Liars. It’s noisy and fills my head with sound. My kids think I’m far to old to be listening to it but that’s just because they still think that you are some other kind of person once the years start to stack up. Hey! I’m still the girl that went to see Lynyrd Skynyrd at the Apollo in Glasgow in 1977ish.

9. I’m a huge Curtis Stigers fan. Forget the image of the guy with the long hair and the saxophone. That’s not him. Try listening to My Funny Valentine; his voice is very special.

10. Back to my girl, we take her to Dunoon every week for her singing lesson, this is a 4 hour round trip and that’s just the driving not the hanging about, so I just have to include Voi Che Sapeti from The Marriage of Figaro, which she’s sung many times for different auditions, competitions and concerts.

My guilty pleasure? Well, I’ll always be a David Cassidy fan….Could It Be Forever?

McDroll lives in Argyll, Scotland, easily one of the most beautiful places in the world, steeped in history from prehistoric standing stones to Celtic crosses with castles and countless lochs and glens.

She sits at night, laptop on knees, and writes about romance or murders depending on what mood she is in…well, what else would she do?

McDroll has had stories published in Shotgun Honey and The Flash Fiction Offensive and Near to the Knuckle. She is one of the contributors in the anthologies OFF THE RECORD, THE LOST CHILDREN and BRIT GRIT TOO.

Her collection of 10 short crime/noir stories Kick It Together and he serialized novel THE WRONG DELIVERY can be found at

http://goo.gl/wFh5t

http://goo.gl/u1Mzj

McDroll also writes book reviews and interviews a variety of writers on her blog.

http://imeanttoreadthat.blogspot.com/

Thanks McDroll for a diverse and fascinating selection of great music.