indie-pop christmas

Christmas in Scotland was a good time. For the journey up and general reading i had just bought the Belle And Sebastian biography, Just A Modern Rock Story, by Paul Whitelaw. I was probably about 30 pages in when i started travelling. A really good read, even if the author can be a bit of an arsehole sometimes, and gets a bit fervent with his own opinions. Informative none-the-less, tho a bit rose-tinted in its portrayal of Glasgow, as being only populated with an army of bowlie kids, and bohemian coffee shops. Still, it did make me think of relocating back at some point, reminiscing on my own times living in the west end of glasgow, just into your twenties and wanting to do something different and interesting.
There were some Stuart Murdoch coincidences in place and time i wasn't aware of. He had moved out to San Francisco for a brief time in 1994, as had myself and Pat back then. Then in 1996, he had been about to move back, when the whole Stow College / Tigermilk record came about, thereby preventing him from doing so; '96 was the year that myself and Pat moved out there for good.
I wasn't a massive fan back then, and didnt know too much about them, although i remember missing out on the Mitchell Library gig, as it had sold out within about ten minutes or something silly. We were all skating around that area that evening, and i think we were minus Toby who had managed to go along.
I had actually made it to an earlier gig of theirs, without realising who it was - For around five minutes one saturday night, i had dated a girl called Aislay. I dont think thats how it is spelled, it was Gaelic. She was a quiet girl, and i thought we had gotten on well that evening, she came back to mine to stay after a night out at the Art School, just sleeping over mind. The next morning, i never did find out what was going through her head, and she took off. The following evening however, she had a gig she had told me about, for a band her college class was releasing a record by - guess who - at the Art School again. So i went along to that show in the Vic bar of the art school, but Aislay wasn't for talking to me again that evening, and i had no idea what was going on, and paid very little attention to the band in my confused ways. Alas, history!
While me and Pat were living out in San Francisco was when i got into "If You're Feeling Sinister" and "The Boy With The Arab Strab", so to me they are both San Francisco albums, and reading this biography was a nice way to tie them back into Glasgow for me, and yet to see some San Francisco parrallels in there, with the band and Stuart Murdock being such fans of the city also.
Funnily, i also learnt that one of my friends Thea Martin, now lives in Australia, through the book, and one of its footnotes - it mentioned how the band had bumped into her last summer in Australia and how they hadnt seen her for years either.
Reading the book, I also learnt of another band, called Camera Obscura who Stuart Murdoch had done some work producing and recording. When i got back home after christmas, my wife/ex-wife had actually bought me a copy of their album "Underachievers Please Try Harder", complete coincidence and a right good one at that, as the album is ace!

Feeling lazy about going out tonite. I just been sleeping since i got back from Glasgow...