BRUCE MACGREGOR tells the Arts Journal about the latest Blazin’ Fiddles tour, plans to expand their record label, and this year’s Blazin’ in Beauly.

BLAZIN’ FIDDLES hit the road for our Scottish tour this month, and in classic Blazers fashion, we start in Brittany and finish in Denmark. In between though, the dates are all in Scotland, starting off in Huntly on 6 August 2003.

We’ll have some new material for the shows, and we are visiting a couple of places we haven’t played before, in Dunoon and Perth, so that will be good.

What happened was that Tonder Festival in Denmark came in first, and that was right at the end of the month. We got the chance to play at the big Festival Interceltique in Lorient in Brittany for the first time as well, which was at the start of August, so we filled in from there.

The priority dates on the Scottish tour were the Eden Court in Inverness and the Fringe concert at the Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh. The trick was getting the right dates. You really need to be booking the following year in Edinburgh more or less as you come off the stage, and it is getting more and more that way at Eden Court as well, there is so much going on there now.

That is great. For us, it’s still one of the most exciting places we can play, but even setting aside our local roots, it’s a great facility and a great stage.

The other main thing we are looking at just now is expanding our record label. It was set up specifically to issue the group’s own recordings – we have done two so far – but we were all doing solo projects for various labels as well, and we began to think that if we centralised all of that under our own company, it would give us a bit more control over the whole thing.

We see the label as specifically for fiddle music, and it will just concentrate on the various members of the band for now, although we would hope one day to extend beyond that. Everyone is free to do their own stuff elsewhere if they prefer. Basically it will be a case of paying for their own session just as they would anyway, but without the hassle of having to set up their own label to do it.

I think if we build up a wee roster of albums on the label it also becomes easier to work with distributors and so on. We’ve been talking of Charlie McKerron and Gordon Gunn about maybe issuing a joint compilation record next year as well.

The next disc on the label will be my music I composed for the Jacobite Experience cruise and bus tours on Loch Ness. The CD will just have the music arranged in proper sets, and I then adapted it to go with Willie Cameron’s descriptive voice-over for the tours, but that isn’t on the record.

The music is all inspired by the people and stories round Loch Ness, and I’ve included a piece for my folks, since they live by Dores! They wanted an atmospheric approach, and the music was written with that in mind. Some of the stories Willie had compiled are jolly and jaunty, but there is also a piece on Alastair Crowley’s house at Boleskine, which is obviously a darker piece. That should be out this month, and I’m hoping I may have it for the Eden Court gig.

Looking ahead, Blazin’ at Beauly is now fixed for 20-24 October this year, and both places on the course and concert tickets are already going fast. We’ve got the great Irish fiddler Frankie Gavin and Bruce Molsky from America for the main concert this year. We will all be tutoring again, apart from Allan Henderson, who is getting married just beforehand, so he won’t be there this year. Charlie McKerron is stepping in to take his place, and Archie McAllister will be joining us as well. Archie is one of those guys that fiddle players think is brilliant, but isn’t that well known generally.

Bruce MacGregor spoke to Kenny Mathieson.

Blazin’ Fiddles play at:
Lorient Festival, Brittany, 1-3 August 2003
Stewarts Hall, Huntly, 6 August 2003
Eden Court Theatre, Inverness, 7 August 2003
The Lemon Tree, Aberdeen, 8 August 2003
Bowmore Hall, Islay, 10 August 2003
The Queens Hall, Dunoon, 14 August 2003
Perth Theatre, 15 August 2003
Lonach Hall, Strathdon, 16 August 2003
The Tolbooth, Stirling, 17 August 2003
The Queens Hall, Edinburgh, 21 August 2003
Langholm and Eskdale Music Festival, 22 August 2003
Tonder Festival, Denmark, 28-31 August 2003