{"id":5976,"date":"2023-10-15T11:53:03","date_gmt":"2023-10-15T11:53:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/platinummind.net\/?p=5976"},"modified":"2023-10-15T11:53:04","modified_gmt":"2023-10-15T11:53:04","slug":"blog-interview-uncle-kid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/platinummind.net\/index.php\/2023\/10\/15\/blog-interview-uncle-kid\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog interview: Uncle Kid"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"645\" src=\"https:\/\/platinummind.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Uncle-Kid-1-1024x645.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-5977\" srcset=\"https:\/\/platinummind.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Uncle-Kid-1-1024x645.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/platinummind.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Uncle-Kid-1-300x189.jpg 300w, https:\/\/platinummind.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Uncle-Kid-1-768x484.jpg 768w, https:\/\/platinummind.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Uncle-Kid-1-95x60.jpg 95w, https:\/\/platinummind.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Uncle-Kid-1.jpg 1320w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<iframe style=\"border-radius:12px\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/artist\/4aUaSf7noDsJP5Kcd966pT?utm_source=generator\" width=\"100%\" height=\"352\" frameBorder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\" allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" loading=\"lazy\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n<p><strong>Hello Uncle Kid, how are you?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I just went to Lidl to buy a cauliflower. I can feel autumn in my bones now. I dread this time of year. Anyway, I get to the checkout and apparently I\u2019ve hit my shopping goal for the month and have earned a free loaf. But when I pick it up from the bakery it turns out they\u2019ve shrunk them. It\u2019s basically an oversized roll. \u2018Shrinkflation\u2019 they call it. I\u2019m wondering if it is possible to get through a day these days without being conned or deceived somehow.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Congratulations on making the Fresh Faves with What A Wonderful World, how does it feel?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the first time I\u2019ve produced a cover and had trepidation about doing such a well known one. The last thing I wanted to do was butcher Louis Armstrong. One person on Reddit described it as \u2018nauseating\u2019. I\u2019m glad to see this is not the general consensus and really grateful to everyone who gave it their vote. It helped me to forget all about that negative comment. I literally don\u2019t care about it anymore.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What made you choose that song to cover?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I was invited to contribute a cover for the annual Specialized charity compilation. I was offered What a Wonderful World but initially declined as I thought it was too at odds with my usual style. I didn\u2019t think I could do it justice. But eventually I started to explore that juxtaposition, realising that Louis\u2019s joyful message is a bit alien to me, and that it also contains a hint of wistful regret. So I started to reimagine it from a place of detachment from all of life\u2019s wonder, as can be the experience of living with mental struggles.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Did you have another in mind?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m a big fan of Jackie Leven, and his album Fairy Tales for Hard Men has been a big influence on me. So I\u2019ve incorporated one of the tracks, Extremely Violent Man into my live set. I was playing at the weekend in a medieval church in rural Leicestershire and bats came out and darted round the ceiling during this song. I\u2019m pretty sure something was invoked. I might include it in a future release.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tell us about the video. You had some interesting instruments to hand. How did you come up with the concept?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Most of the instruments in the video are part of my live set. A friend of mine, Electric Alan, circuit-bends vintage electronic instruments and toys and has kindly donated some to me to make use of. The song features a circuit-bent Yamaha drum machine and a Touch and Tell children\u2019s educational toy. I used this to try to convey a sense of torment, as random intrusive voices and glitchy noises unexpectedly appear in the song and contradict the narrative. My friend, Neil of MonkeyRig Media, came up with the idea to film it in a darkened room so we pitched up in the dingy basement of local bohemian cafe, Sketchy Beats, and he did an expert job of bringing it all to life.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s just occurred to me, was it the song that the Reddit critic found nauseating? Or the video? Or both? The comment had zero context. So stupid.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You are an artist from Scotland. How did it all begin for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Before creating this project, I used to define myself as a guitarist and singer. I worked briefly with a friend and great musician, Michael Steele who one day thrust a mic and some lyrics at me and told me to do whatever comes out while he played guitar. I was a bit thrown by this, but it forced me to abandon all my preconceptions about singing. He later fired me. But he urged me to go at it alone, telling me that he saw me as a solo musician. I decided to put his theory to the test and a whole new style developed. It was like a blank canvas. I had no idea what was going to come out.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What did you listen to growing up?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I grew up in a spooky wee village with an annual folk festival. I\u2019m far from a folk musician but I was pretty enchanted by it. Seeing this otherwise silent backwater fill up with travellers and completely transform into a lively folk party for one weekend of the year. I think a bit of that folky sound has come out in my song, Lamplig. When I was at school I fell in love with Porno for Pyros. They\u2019ve got a sort of mystical sound which I\u2019m really drawn to. And on that note, I was at a friend\u2019s house in my teens and he played a compilation CD which came with a magazine he\u2019d bought. I think it was African-themed, and one track instantly grabbed us both. I hastily taped it but forgot to note the artist or song title, so listened to it for years without knowing. Anyway, I recently discovered it\u2019s a track called Plug Dub by Pops Mohamed Meets The London Sound Collective.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Your sound has been described as \u201cunsettling\u201d by our Tom, which is quite a compliment. What made you take this route?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It certainly is. Well I don\u2019t like to sugarcoat things. I set out to write something that feels earnest, or not at all. I don\u2019t want to make music just for the sake of it, I want to express something as truthfully as I can and hopefully find some catharsis. I suppose that sometimes this can make for uncomfortable listening. Some of my lyrics can be pretty candid or close to the bone.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You\u2019ve undertaken live performances, what\u2019s it been like taking your music onstage?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Pretty overwhelming. I\u2019m a bit of an introvert and not always the most comfortable at talking, so it\u2019s a bizarre experience to get up in front of a crowd of people and do spoken word. And given some of the raw lyrical content, I find myself wrestling with my emotions every time. I\u2019ve been taken aback by this experience. I was recently described as stoic. I\u2019m just terrified.<\/p>\n<p>Solving the riddle of how to perform these songs live took a lot of figuring out. I teamed up with my friend Martin, AKA The Amusements who\u2019s a wizard on the keys and expert knob twiddler. He\u2019s a great supportive presence. Between us we have an ever expanding array of gadgets, many of them unstable, which adds a fair tension to the performance. I\u2019m also grateful to guitarist Pete who was involved for the first few gigs as we got the thing off the ground.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Post-Covid, what have you learned about yourself in the last three years?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That the slower pace of life suited me better. I remember feeling anxiety when I saw the cars taking back to the roads and the pavements filling up with folk again. I hadn\u2019t noticed before that my mind seems to operate on a much slower frequency than the outside world. I experience a pretty constant state of overwhelm. It can make it hard to find the mental space to be creative.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Did you pick up any new skills?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I learnt Kung Fu. I took it up just before the pandemic, and when lockdown happened all of the other students quit. I continued over zoom as their sole student and earned my first belt. To this day it\u2019s still just me and the two black belt senseis. So as a yellow belt, I\u2019m officially the third best at Nam Pai Chuan in Scotland.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What are you listening to at the moment?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The upstairs neighbour using a circular saw. Hopefully he\u2019ll be finished soon because I plan to tune into <a href=\"http:\/\/www.exilefm.com\/\">Exile FM<\/a> for The Monday Night Ride Out. I\u2019ve discovered so many great artists through that show. Have you heard <a href=\"https:\/\/wednesdayband.bandcamp.com\/track\/bull-believer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Bull Believer by Wednesday<\/a>? It has one of the most startling vocals I\u2019ve ever heard. She lulls you into a false sense of security before descending into a full blown exorcism. I see she\u2019s playing in Glasgow soon. If she manages to recreate that live I\u2019ll be astounded.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What are you looking forward to doing next?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>My next gig is at an arts festival at Edinburgh\u2019s O2 Academy in November. In the meantime I\u2019m looking forward to getting back into song-writing. I need to get away from all the hustle and bustle. I\u2019m going to spend a week in Fife, house-sitting by myself. I plan to take only a notepad and toothbrush. I suppose it\u2019ll be a sort of self-imposed lockdown. If I don\u2019t descend into madness then hopefully some new material will emerge.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hello Uncle Kid, how are you? I just went to Lidl to buy a cauliflower. I can feel autumn in my bones now. I dread this time of year. Anyway, I get to the checkout and apparently I\u2019ve hit my shopping goal for the month and have earned a free loaf. But when I pick &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[229,52,172,247,132,30,142,182,212,73,150,186,183,162,126],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-composer","category-guitar","category-hip-hop","category-interview","category-lyricist","category-music","category-producer","category-rap","category-scotland","category-singer-songwriter","category-songwriter","category-spoken-word","category-synthesizers","category-uk","category-vocals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/platinummind.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/platinummind.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/platinummind.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/platinummind.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/platinummind.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5976"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/platinummind.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5979,"href":"https:\/\/platinummind.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5976\/revisions\/5979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/platinummind.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/platinummind.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/platinummind.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/platinummind.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}