Alan is one of these people I kept sort of half meeting on and off over a few years. Enough times to think, “he looks familiar” when our paths crossed, but not quite enough to remember his name.
A little over a year ago, I started seeing his band playing here and there, and discovered he was working on placement as a teacher at my daughter’s school, so thought I should make more effort to properly establish a connection. I consciously started making a point of saying hello when we were in the same places and loitering nearby in the hope of someone mentioning his name out loud.
Eventually it paid off and I felt quite pleased the first time I was able to say, “Hi Alan,” as my opening words to him.
Earlier this year when I realised I needed faces to photograph for my Staring Back exhibition, I asked him if I could do some shots of him and the band and in return, if any of them worked out, they could use them for publicity.
I took quite a few, although eventually the stand-out shot for me was one of Michelle, Alan’s wife and fiddle player of the trio. This found its way into the exhibition and, more recently, on to the cover of Prole magazine.
However, the other shots didn’t go to waste, and this month The Geese have brought out a 5 track EP on CD called, Cursory Rhymes One of my photos adorns the sleeve, with another on the back and the CD label.
My favourite track is the first one, Ariel, which opens with the wonderful line, "It was a dark and stormy night. I’m sorry, but it was." Alan is also a Storyteller and poet, so his attention to lyrics construction always makes for fun listening.
I did ask if it’s possible to buy the CD online, but at the point of writing the only options are to either turn up to one of their gigs with £5 at the ready, or to contact him through his MySpace page and in return for a cheque he’ll post one out to you.
Here’s a version of their track, Undiscovered Scotland, which will give you a bit of a flavour of their music, although Michelle is running a piece of pipe over a ridged metal thing rather than playing the fiddle.
I'm not sure if this will work in all browsers - I've just cut and pasted the code from MySpace.
However, more about The Geese and their music can be found here:
http://www.myspace.com/alanmcclure
