It’s fair to say I’d been a fan of Adam Smith’s shambling indie pop band, the Hector Collectors, for some time. A perfect example of a live band that skirts the line between brilliance and it all falling apart. Oddly enough, the first mention of Adam in my diary of the time is that he and Lisa of Glasgow band My Legendary Girlfriend got a bunch of us invited to the Yummy Fur’s John McKeown’s wedding party after a Macrocosmica gig. I mean, if you had told me right now that this had happened, I’d have laughed you out of the room. Am I glad that I saved my LiveJournal before deleting my account, or what?! Anyway, Adam’s brilliant – as is his band.

Like Mateusz Franczak in Poland, there are artists in Scotland who were pivotal to the direction that Too Many Fireworks was to take over the 20-odd years we were releasing records. One of those was Graham Fucking Peel of Flying Matchstick Men. Andy Bonar introduced me to Peel as a possible keyboard player for our band, Troika – though that seems bananas in retrospect. I didn’t know Graham’s band at the time, but after our meeting in a busy Nice N Sleazy, I was excited to hear them. Peel talks a good game.

Dialogues

In September 2002, I had been sitting in a hotel garden in Manchester and decided that Too Many Fireworks would start a split 7″ singles club called Dialogues — more of that madness when I write about the first one. The second, however, Dialogue Two, was a serendipitous encounter of Flying Matchstick Men and the Hector Collectors; two chaotic bands meeting at the perfect time and place.

The Hector Collectors

The Hector Collectors, named after Glasgow slang for someone who gathers glass bottles for the deposit, opened the single on the A side with the fabulous Celebrity World War. Gavin Dunbar of Camera Obscura produced the track and also provided keyboards for the record. Speaking to Adam, it’s safe to say he feels Gav was the unsung hero of the record both for his expertise and his support. After we finished recording, echoing The Beatles’ producer George Martin, Gav quipped, Congratulations, gentlemen, you’ve just made your first No. 1 record.

When I started Too Many Fireworks, I think it would have been a stretch to imagine one of our first records opening with a wonderfully witty, Half Man Half Biscuit-esque depiction of an international conflict carried out by many, very turn-of-the-millennium celebrities. I mean… Danny from Hearsay, for goodness sake. When I asked what he was listening to around the recording of the single, his list was very suitably Adam, containing as it does The Cheerful Insanity Of Giles Giles and Fripp, Neutral Milk Hotel, and The United States of America, though as he says, not that they had much of any influence on this record whatsoever!

Flying Matchstick Men

Flying Matchstick Men took the flipside of the record with their song, Kids! Revolution! A raucous, sorta-anticapitalist, sorta-teenageriot blast with an almost soviet refrain and a lot of Heys! The song was produced by the Neqtunes – Joe Howe (Germlin) and Gavin Thomson (GRNR), the latter of whom would join the band on bass and production not long after collaborating with the band on their first album, also released on Too Many Fireworks. I remember the overwhelming excitement I felt the first time I listened to these songs back-to-back. My diary describes it best. Jesus. Christ! On release, we packaged the 7″ vinyl with a download code where listeners could find some exclusive remixes of Kids! Revolution! made by Gav and Joe.

Writing with Adam about that time, the time of release, something he said chimed with me more than I imagined it would. I asked what he misses most from that time, and he replied that he misses the open frontier/finiteness (paradox but it’s true) of Web 1.0 and that nascent excitement of the 02- 06-ish Glasgow music scene when everything seemed more exciting. It was truly a great time, particularly when Flying Matchstick Men appeared.

I was in awe of their rizz and their fearless stripe of eccentricity, says Adam. I don’t think either of these songs is our best, but theirs has much more presence and excitement, and the pairing made sense. One of Adam’s best gig memories of this time is seeing the Matchsticks, for the second time, at the 13th Note in January 2003. They opened with this loose, crazy version of The B-52s’ Love Shack. It was the definition of lightning in a bottle, youthful FUN.

Careless Talk

One thing Adam reminded me of, which I’m astonished I’d forgotten, was that Everett True reviewed the single in one of the only 12 issues of Careless Talk Costs Lives he ever published. Slampt kids at the indie disco was the line remembered, much praise in True’s book, I think. My diary, I’m glad to say, also reminds me that Everett True featured both the Hector Collectors and Flying Matchstick Men (and my own band, Troika from Dialogue One) on his Careless Talks radio show on the TotallyRadio website.

The artwork for the record was a crude photo of the inside of a rehearsal room, from yours-truly long before I had any idea of what I was doing. I believe I made it on a disposable camera, too. Much more impressive was the lyrics sheet for Celebrity World War that Adam drew and asked us to include with the record. I’d forgotten it was in there. I love it!

Peel never did join Troika on keyboards, but in a strange quirk of fate, Gav Thomson joined us a couple of years later when Iain, our bass player, left the band. Funny how things like that happen.

Dialogue Two was released on 7″ vinyl and digital download on March 19th, 2003, and we gave it the catalogue number 2mf003. You can listen to the single here

The post TOO MANY FIREWORKS. AN ORAL HISTORY, MOSTLY. 2MF003 appeared first on Neil Milton Photography.

Lifting it from the floor, time slowed, and I felt a figurative, if expensive, bullet graze my shoulder. The mangled plastic rewind mechanism pointed towards the long repair that lay ahead of us.

I had no immediate plan to buy a second Leica M body, though I was saving for one. The temporary loss of the M6, combined with the fortunate proximity to my birthday, provided a gossamer-thin layer of cover needed to justify the exciting purchase of my now precious Leica M3.

The History of the Leica M3

Launched in 1954, the Leica M3 sold over 226,000 units before it was discontinued and replaced by the M4 in 1967.

Despite its name, the M3 was the first Leica M series camera to be introduced following a redesign of Oskar Barnack’s popular screw-mount Leica cameras. Taking its letter designation from the word Messsucher – the German for Rangefinder – the Leica M3 was so named for the rangefinder focusing mechanism, and a choice of three sets of frame lines was viewed through its single bright viewfinder window.

Additional innovations further set the new Leica M3 apart from its predecessors. For convenience, the wind-on dial was replaced with a thumb lever advance, and the solid shell of the screw-mount models was replaced with a hinged back, which eased and quickened the changing of film.

The camera remained entirely mechanical, although technology permitted minor automatic and electronic action within the new design.

Convenience

The most convenient redesign, however, was the top plate. Unlike the Barnack models, the shutter speed could now be chosen from a single dial. All controls on the new M were found across the top plate and could be read at ease from above.

Building on this novel convenience, the operation was significantly improved. Across all areas of the model, from shutter release to film advance and film rewind, the camera is oh-so quiet.

Though in this review lenses will be set aside, as one would expect from a Leica, the optics of the Summicron 50mm f2, with which it shipped, are perfect. Replacing the M39 Screw Mount for swift and nimble lens replacement, the M3 has a bayonet system appropriately dubbed the M Mount.

That this revolutionary design has remained consistent, with few changes or additions, for almost 70 years, is a testament to the timeless excellence of the original Leica M.

Leica M3 Build Quality

To some extent, build quality is a subjective matter of opinion. One person’s robust, solid camera body is another’s leaden paperweight. For me, build quality is directly proportional to the camera’s life expectancy, and, as is obvious from my camera being only a few years younger than my parents, the Leica M3 lasts, partly due to its sturdy construction and precise operation.

Used every day, an M3 should last a decade without the need for cleaning, lubricating, and adjusting (CLA), and, if kept well, will still look just as good as it did new.

What makes the Leica M3 a tough, robust camera is that its metal body, specifically brass, is strong and resistant to corrosion. The top and bottom plates are brass-plated in chrome for a clean, bright, and distinctive sheen. The covering stretched around the camera is vulcanite, and though intended for grip, it has given the camera a now-classic aesthetic.

Light Enough For a Day on the Street

In comparison to most professional SLR cameras, the Leica M3 can’t be described as a heavy camera, however, it does have some heft to it. Place it in the hands of someone unsuspecting, and there will be a surprise at its weight.

Of course, were it too heavy, it would not have become the acclaimed and sought-after camera it did. It is light enough to carry all day and not get tired. Containing a roll of Kodak Tri-X, my M3 weighs 622g, and with the Summicron 50mm f2 lens attached, it is not much less than a kilogram, weighing 844g.

Light enough for a companion all day out on the street, and heavy enough that it will be missed if left behind, or worse.

The Leica M3, while in its 69th year, has not yet been bettered for simplicity or reliability. The internal workings of the camera are mechanical. With the exception of the gold sync contacts for flash bulbs and electronic flash, there are no electronics on board, and there is no battery required.

A conversation with an acquaintance at Leica in London described the shutter speed timing mechanism within the M3 as akin to a Swiss clock. Exacting pinpoint precision at all costs. It is a light-tight box with a timed shutter, and yet, it is so much more.

Let’s take a closer look.

The Top of the Leica M3

Like that of the Leica M4 that succeeded it, the chrome-plated brass top plate of the Leica M3 is iconic.

The beautiful, precise engraving of the Leica script sits above the Ernst Leitz Wetzlar imprint. Simple, unassuming, and yet elegant and timeless.

Though one may argue it is not as instantly recognisable as the famed red dot, with its top-plate branding, the Leica M3 is less likely to distract or catch a subject’s eye while shooting in the street.

To the right of the Leica script, placed just above the hot shoe, is engraved both the model and the serial number.

Shutter Dial and Shutter Release

Unlike the screw-mount cameras that came before, the Leica M3 combines both long and short shutter speeds onto the same dial for a single, unified, and quicker selection. The shutter speed dial is a robust, solid circular piece of metal that is difficult to nudge accidentally and would take Peter Gabriel’s titular sledgehammer to break.

The ridges cut into the dial mechanism both catch the dial, firm in each setting, and give haptic reassurance to the photographer with its ever-so-satisfying click into place.

There is a small, oblong channel cut into the top of the dial between the 1/2s and 1/4s settings. That this had some purpose was only made clear when I bought a Leica MR light meter, which attaches to the top of the camera.

From the bottom of the meter, a pin slides into the channel, and, as the shutter speed is selected on the meter’s control, the pin controls the dial on the camera.

A more modest Range

Though modern digital Leicas have a range of electronically-assisted shutter speeds from an hour through to 1/4000th of a second, the mechanical M3 has a more modest range from 1s to 1/1000s.

There is a Flash-sync setting set at 1/50th of a second, and, should you need a longer shutter speed than 1 second, there is a Bulb setting for manual control.

All speeds are marked in black against the chrome metal of the dial and, when not in darkness, can be seen with ease – even with eyesight as poor as mine.

From the shutter speed, one only needs a short 2 cm journey to the right to find the shutter release set within a ring that sits above the advance lever.

As with all but the limited flash function, the shutter release is mechanical and has no electronic support. There is no half-press for focus or to activate a light meter, only a simple, smooth, steady depression of the button to hear the pleasing ssnnk of the horizontal, cloth shutter curtain travel across the frame.

Film Winder and Counter

On the older Barnack models, when the photograph had been made, there was an arduous dial to turn and wind the film on. All manner of contortions were needed to quickly set the camera for another frame. Replacing this is a thumb-controlled advance lever.

In earlier models like mine, the advance used a double-stroke mechanism. The first to cock the shutter, and the second to advance the film.

In later models, this was replaced with a single-stroke action with both functions occurring across a single draw of the thumb.

As the film advances, look across to the left at the rewind knob. It’s comforting to see the film is advancing inside the camera by observing the small pair of dots that revolve as the lever is pushed.

Double-Stroke

Many Leica M3 users advocate a double-stroke lever; others a single-stroke. From all the information I could find, it seems to be a subjective preference. I have it on good authority, though, that if a double-stroke mechanism requires repair, Leica will instead replace it with a single-stroke advance, so if you like the DS, don’t break it.

Single or double stroke, the wind of an M3 advance is smooth, and, as it is made of solid metal rather than the plastic-tipped controls of later cameras, there’s little chance of breaking the lever.

As the film is wound on, the inexorable frame counter ticks forward. Found on the farthest right of the top of the camera, the counter is housed in a subtle dome of glass.

Though there are 44 frames marked on the counter, the mechanism stops turning at 40; two of the additional four are cosmetic and complete the circle back to 0.

Unlike earlier Leicas, the camera effects an automatic reset when the take-up spool is removed, flipping the counter back to -2, to allow for two wind-on shots before the counter returns to 0.

Rewind Knob

On the opposite flank of the top plate rests the rewind knob. If there is one criticism a modern photographer may levy at the Leica M3, it is that rewinding the film takes an interminable time – especially when compared to the speed of winding back an M6.

To rewind the film on an M3, one flips the lever on the front of the camera towards the letter R, lifts the knob out from the central advance indicator, and twists. Relentlessly. Twist until the knob resists and the film is pulled off the take-up spool.

Between 20 and 30 seconds can be spent twisting and turning the knob before even beginning to load a new roll.

While I’ve heard tales of a Leica-produced crank tool that can be fitted around the knob to make rewinding quicker, I’ve never seen one or known anyone to use one.

Leica M3 Rangefinder mechanism

The Leica M3 is, of course, a rangefinder camera, and, thus, focus is found via the rangefinder mechanism built into the body.

For the unfamiliar, to focus using a rangefinder, the photographer looks through a viewfinder in the middle of which is a second small, illuminated rectangle. As the focus ring is turned, the picture in the smaller rectangle moves left or right. The goal is to match that of the diminutive rectangle with the image in the larger window. As the lines superimpose, the focal plane has been found.

Earlier Barnack Leicas separated the viewfinder and the rangefinder. The photographer peered through one window to focus using the rangefinder system and then moved their eye to the window beside it to compose the frame.

On the Leica M3, the separated windows have been combined for the convenience of the photographer. It makes all the difference.

On the front of the camera can be seen the three rangefinder windows. When facing the camera, on the right, there is the unified viewfinder. To its left, there is the bright line illumination window. This gathers the ambient light to illuminate the frame lines within the viewfinder. Further to the left is the rangefinder window, which provides the image in the small, central rectangle used to focus.

Effective Base Length

The accuracy of the focusing system within a rangefinder is dependent on what is known as the Effective Base Length (EBL). The higher the EBL, the more accurate the focusing. The lower, the less accurate.

The EBL is calculated by multiplying the base length of the rangefinder by the magnification of the viewfinder. The base length is the distance between the viewfinder and the rangefinder window.

Leica M3s have the same base length as other Leica M series cameras; however, as the magnification of the viewfinder is higher, the effective base length is more accurate.

The Leica M3 has a viewfinder magnification of 0.91x, which is close to a 1:1 ratio of magnification. For comparison, the Leica M6 viewfinder has a magnification of 0.72x.

The base length of the M6 is 69.25mm x 0.72 magnification, which gives an EBL of 50mm. The base length of the M3 is 69.25mm x 0.91 magnification, which gives an EBL of 63mm.

While such things are marginal, the larger EBL on the Leica M3 makes the camera more reliable to focus, particularly when using longer lenses wide open, where every millimeter counts.

Though one can cheat closer in various inventive ways, the M3 is rated to focus from as close as one meter, all the way out to infinity. While the camera does have automatic parallax correction, it is wise to keep it in mind when shooting near the subject.

Frame lines

Setting the rangefinder mechanism aside, then, let’s look through the viewfinder itself and those bright, beautiful, welcoming frame lines.

One of the big attractions of a rangefinder camera, particularly the older Leicas, is the lack of distraction in the viewfinder. There are no flashing lights, nor levels, grids, or gauges. There is a single set of frame lines and the rangefinder rectangle. That’s it.

The frame lines available are limited. Newer Leicas have a selection of six. The M3 provides only three. The 50mm lines are always on, and either the 90mm or 135mm lines will appear if an appropriate lens is attached.

The frame lines can be previewed without changing the lens by using the lever on the front of the camera.

With such viewfinder magnification, there’s no latitude to provide frame lines for 35mm or wider focal lengths. Should one need these, an external viewfinder is required. Mind you, if an external viewfinder was good enough for Winogrand on his trusty M4, it’s good enough for any of us.

Leica M3’s Baseplate and Tripod Mount

Unlike the majority of film cameras, the Leica M3 opens with a hinged backplate that swings vertically. The backplate is held in place with a brass baseplate that attaches to the body via a small jut on the right-hand side and is locked by a circular latch on the bottom.

There is little to the bottom of the camera until the baseplate is removed, save for the tripod mount. On Leica M3s sold in America, the thread of the tripod mount is measured at 1/8″, while those sold in Europe have a 3/8″ thread.

However, the most confounding thing for new M photographers is that the mount is not centred, sitting instead on the right-hand side of the camera. This can look and feel odd when used, but photographers have been mounting their M3s on tripods for almost 70 years now with little to complain about. It only takes a little getting used to.

Loading the Leica M3

Once the baseplate is removed, the hinged back can be swung up to view the film path in front of the shutter curtain, and it is in the absence of the baseplate that the bottom of the camera becomes somewhat more illustrative.

On the left, there is the cavity for the film roll, and on the right, there is the removable take-up spool.

In comparison with modern analogue Leica M cameras, the M3 is more time-consuming to load. One needs to remove the take-up spool, find the small clip to slide the film underneath, and then load the roll and take-up spool into the camera, ensuring the film is seated correctly in the transport path and on the wind-on cogs.

Much easier than the Leica III series to be sure, but requires some concentration, particularly when loading in the dark or on the move.

With time comes practice and with practice comes ease – especially if using the Winogrand flip. When changing rolls on his Leica M4, hung around his neck, Garry Winogrand would flip the camera upside down, so the bottom was facing him as he looked down onto it, and the lens rested against his body, making removal of the rewound film and replacing it with a new roll a little easier.

Mind you, Winogrand would temporarily put the bottom plate in his shirt pocket. I take my cue from our dog, and mine ends up in my mouth.

On the Back of the Leica M3

In keeping with the sleek, minimal aesthetic of the Leica M3, the hinged backplate is home to only the ISO and film-type reminder, a small spring-loaded dial to be turned to indicate when using either a black and white, tungsten, or daylight film – and the corresponding ISO.

Above the backplate, set into the chrome-plated brass of the body are two small plugs – the rear flash sync terminals, two plugs I’ve never had cause nor facility to use. Both terminals require an outmoded, proprietary Leica-devised connection to fit, and while there is a combination of different adapters that will get it there, your flash also needs to have the PC connector at the other end.

For a flash with a sync speed of 1/50s, I’m not sure it’s worth the effort, but it’s there should it be necessary.

The terminal with the symbol of the bulb is for the old ignitable glass flash bulbs. The terminal with the lightning bolt symbol is for xenon electronic flashes, so any semi-modern flash you may want to use. The difference between them is timing. The former is triggered a fraction earlier than the shutter, as the old glass bulbs were slow to ignite.

A Lifetime Investment

Advertised by Leica as a lifetime investment in perfect photography, the Leica M3 became as famous as its photographers, who, in their number, included Cartier-Bresson, Capa, Frank, Erwitt, Winogrand, and far too many others to mention.

It is a camera prized for its precision engineering, robust build, and beautiful design. It is by far and away the most enjoyable film camera I have used, and I expect to use it for many years to come.

This slightly-edited article was originally published on Shoot It With Film on January 12th, 2024.

The post The Leica M3: A Comprehensive Guide appeared first on Neil Milton Photography.

Having spent an adulthood of anti-zionism and pro-Palestinian advocacy, and a couple of years watching a genocide committed by the far-right settler-colonialist government of Israel, from the point of view of a smartphone screen, I am sick. I am exhausted. I am profoundly sad. And I am angry. I am rageful. The words, From the river to the sea pass through my mind every few minutes, it seems.

From the River To the Sea

As I sit here warm, comfortable, and safe at home in Warsaw, I can’t begin to imagine myself in the place of the civilians in Gaza who have suffered this disgusting collective punishment. This genocide has wiped out whole bloodlines. Israeli forces have forcibly displaced people. Infants shot in the head. I can, however, pay tribute to the Palestinian journalists and citizen journalists who have shown the world the truth of what has been happening in Gaza. Many of those have been killed; in fact, [when I originally wrote this], the CPJ has announced this to be the deadliest time for journalists in modern warfare.

Since the inevitable mowing of the lawn began in Gaza on October 7th and the brutal genocide that came after, I have been following the Polish-Palestinian protest movement. From marches to the Polish parliament, demonstrations outside the American and Israeli embassies, and student encampments, to the visit of anti-Zionist Jewish speaker and author Gabor Maté and cultural events such as Palestine Solidarity Days, I have spent time with fellow pro-Palestinian supporters and activists, documenting as I go.

Free Palestine!

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Every few years I find myself answering the Proust Questionnaire to see how my answers change over time. The famed questionnaire itself came from a French parlour game and, though not devised by Marcel Proust, he certainly popularised it with his belief that in answering these questions a correspondent reveals their true nature. As I’ve done on previous blogs, Facebook, and LiveJournal before it, I’ve answered all 35 but have chosen, here, 15 to post.

What is your current state of mind?
We are hope despite the times

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Driving through Glencoe, with my partner Marta. Mogwai was on in the car. I think it was Helicon 1. Bliss.

What is your greatest fear?
That we’re not going to make it.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
The unrelenting impostor syndrome that is the devil on my shoulder when it rears its head.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?
An unearned sense of entitlement drives me bananas.

What do you most dislike about your appearance?
The aesthetic.

Which talent would you most like to have?
Simple arithmetic wouldn’t go amiss.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Getting this far.

What is your greatest regret?
The decade-long break from photography was probably a mistake.

Where would you most like to live?
I belong to Glasgow, dear old Glasgow town.

What is your most treasured possession?
A Kermit the Frog I’ve had since I was a baby.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
The genocide of the Palestinians. Free Palestine!

What is your most marked characteristic?
Despite my shyness, probably because of it, I talk. A lot. Often loudly. I imagine it’s annoying.

Who are your favourite writers?
Alasdair Gray, Iain Banks, and, recently, Brian K. Vaughan.

Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Rosencrantz or Guildenstern.

What are your favourite names?
First and middle.

The post The Proust Questionnaire appeared first on Neil Milton Photography.

Electroral Rage

In 2010, Britain’s centre and centre-left sent a clear message to Gordon Brown’s Labour by voting for Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats in their droves. That electorate certainly didn’t want David Cameron’s Conservatives, and the expectation was that Clegg would enter into a coalition with Labour, in the public’s eyes, setting the country on a moderate path. Clegg, of course, knifed his voters in the back and joined a coalition with the Conservatives, and he is partly responsible for everything that came after, Brexit included.

In the 5 years the Tories shared a coalition with the Lib-Dems, those forced by circumstance of ideologically driven cuts to services and welfare had to turn to food banks to feed their families, and in fact, in 2015, the year of the next general election, over 1 million families were being fed through the food-bank charities. Newspapers told stories of people dying after the government took away their disability benefits, leaving them unable to feed themselves or heat their homes. A disgrace.

On 7th May 2015, Scotland voted overwhelmingly for the welfare-protecting, migrant-welcoming, NHS-defending, Trident-abandoning Scottish National Party. The majority of the UK, however, voted for another 5 years of Conservative Party austerity – a sickener for Scots already heartbroken at 2014’s Independence referendum. With Clegg out of the way, Cameron, now with no guard rails (such as they were), announced plans for an in/out referendum on the European Union—and we know how that turned out.

For the next term, Chancellor George Osborne laid out plans for another £8 billion in welfare cuts, and the Tories clearly had no plans to curtail austerity, even while the richest got richer, and people in dire need of support and care were left without it.

How on earth does this relate to Too Many Fireworks, or this release?

At the time, I was playing guitar in the prog-post-rock band, The Frozen North. I had collected an embarrassing array of effects pedals, and in my Mogwai, Godspeed, MBV obsessions, I loved nothing more than spending some time in our rehearsal room alone just making noise.

The evening following the election, I stayed late after rehearsal and expressed my sheer frustration, disappointment, and anxiety with noise, feedback and effects while recording some of the improvising. From the 37-minute session, I cut the best 13 minutes, called it Shark, and released it as a single on the label to raise money for the food bank in my home town of Airdrie.

While of course attractive to only a very niche audience, I nevertheless felt strongly about doing something, anything, that I could do, and so Shark was part of that. In the end, we raised £143 from the single across its various releases and gave it to the food bank. Given the abstract noise of the track, I imagine some of that was donation.

Still, I’m quite proud of it. It feels like a different life, when I had 2 huge cases of pedals and some other bits and pieces, and a room in which to destroy my hearing. In the “liner notes” on the label’s website, the single credit read: rage, anger, disappointment, disillusionment, hope, optimism, belief and guitars: Neil Milton

Trussell continues to raise money for food banks in the United Kingdom.

Shark was released on digital download on May 15th, 2015, and we gave it the catalogue number 2mf019. You can listen to the single here

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Fair’s Fair

In the mid-2010s, while I played in The Frozen North, the Polish music industry held several fairs in and around Warsaw. The weekly listings supplement Co Jest Grane 24, distributed with the daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, organised the most famous event: a national music fair at the Palace of Culture and Science. Over time, some smaller independent music fairs began to spring up.

For a few years, Too Many Fireworks took out a stall at several of the fairs, including one of the more popular, held in the garden of the music bar, Eufemia. At the time, we had only a few physical releases remaining from the old days, and even fewer that Polish audiences would have recognised, so we used the opportunity less to sell records and more to introduce ourselves to the Polish market and build friendships — and boy, did we.

Mateusz

It was a beautiful, sunny August afternoon. A girl I was a little crazy about had visited our stall earlier, and it had subtly become clear she wasn’t into me at all. The stall was having a poor day, stuck – where we were – at the far end of the fair. I wanted to go home. One of the few visitors we had that afternoon was a quiet, bearded lad named Mateusz who had an album he wanted people to hear.

Mateusz Franczak was unknown to me at the time, which, given how much he’d been doing in music in Poland, was a little unforgivable. Still, this former saxophonist and talented improvisationalist, and maybe the kindest bloke in Polish music, had recorded his first solo album earlier that year in what he recently described to me as lonely nighttime recordings in the countryside, at a summer cottage overlooking a lake.

During our brief meeting at the fair, Mateusz handed me Long Story Short, a CD wrapped in a paper sleeve featuring a photograph of a zebra lit by flash against a beautiful sunset, and asked me to have a listen. I had recently parted ways with the first Polish band on Too Many Fireworks, a Lublin-based outfit, Plug&Play, and at the time, the only band making records for the label was my own, so I was open to new artists. Nevertheless, this chance meeting with Mateusz surprised me, and I had to shake myself out of the funk that my earlier romance-related disappointment had caused. I probably made some interested but, ultimately, non-commital noises about listening later with no real expectation that Mateusz would become a key fixture of Too Many Fireworks’ Polish adventure.

Long Story Short

Mateusz describes the album as ethereal and dreamy. I remember my first impression being how moving it was, soaked as it is in an ambient bath of reverb. I didn’t know it at the time, but retrospectively, Long Story Short was exactly the album I was looking for, for Too Many Fireworks. In Mateusz’s songs, there are shades of Bill Callahan, Will Oldham, and most importantly for me, David Pajo. Though there is no obvious melodic connection between Long Story Short and Papa M’s Live from a Shark Cage, Mateusz’s album opener, Lazing, put me in the same emotional room as I was when I first heard Drunken Spree.

Much later, I asked Mateusz how he recorded the album, and it was with an entirely minimalist set-up. He used only his favoured 1994 American Fender Stratocaster and a compact Roland GC-405 amplifier, which had previously only been used for practising at home, though it turned out to have a pretty interesting sound that worked for the record.

Present participles

The titles of the album are all one-word present participles. Some seem to be taken from lyrics, others from the mood of the song itself, and others still may be less literally connected to the music. As such, I wonder if the titles are related to the feelings of recording the record itself. When I asked Mateusz if there was something from the recording of the album that only he remembers, he told me there was an underlying sense of excitement and free-flowing improvisation. I do think this came through in my first listen.

Listening to the record now, I am struck by how beautiful it is in its darkness and the feeling of it being just out of reach. From Lazing‘s lilting melody to the squealing feedback on Moving, the record sways between delicate and fierce and it can get loud. In Crawling, there are strikes of distorted guitar that hit like a bell, among squalls of feedback that feel like a more consonant distant cousin of Gang of Four’s Love Like Anthrax.

Long Story Short was the first of several albums Mateusz would feature on for Too Many Fireworks. We released the record on CD and digital download on April 15th, 2016, and we gave it the catalogue number 2mf020. You can listen to the album here

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Bicentennial man

A fortuitous coincidence accompanied my move from Glasgow to Warsaw in 2010. Having then recently bought a piano, a set of strings samples, and Apple’s Logic Pro, I had been playing with modern-classical and ambient music. Following in the footsteps of Icelanders Jóhann Jóhannsson and Ólafur Arnalds, I began exploring life away from the guitar. At the same time, Poland celebrated the bicentenary of Fryderyk Chopin’s birth. With so much of Chopin’s music to enjoy, I became a little obsessed that year. I was a regular at the Warsaw Philharmonic, and from May through September, I spent every weekend in Łazienki park, where, under a large statue of the composer himself, concert pianists from around the world would perform Chopin’s music to a delighted audience every Sunday.

Over the following several years, I began taking piano lessons with a local teacher from the British School. I chose the British school to find my teacher, as I was able to then sit exams each year with the Associated Board of Royal Schools of Music. My journey ended in 2013 when, during a football match, I broke an elbow and only just scraped through my grade 4 six weeks later. In a weird twist of fate, I couldn’t play guitar for a while with my broken elbow, but my cast was set in such a way that I could easily strum my guitar. That broken bone would lead me back to delay and distortion pedals in a big way, but those are stories for the future.

Variations of Chopin

Before all of that, though, in the autumn of 2012, I invited several ambient, electronic, and modern-classical musicians to help me create the collection of contemporary interpretations of Chopin’s music that became 2mf013, Variations of Chopin, released on May 13th, 2013.

The album opens and closes with 24 Preludes op. 28: no. 7 in A major: Andantino. The first interpretation is my own straight performance, albeit soaked in reverb. Clem Leek’s version closes the record with a beautiful bath of piano, violin, and ambient washes of sound.

When I invited friends to be involved, I had no idea what the record would become. I certainly didn’t expect Miaoux Miaoux’s exhilarating, pumping electronic interpretation of 2 Nocturnes op. 55: no. 1 in F minor, nor deSelby’s beautiful classical guitar recording of Fryderyk Chopin’s 3 Nocturnes op. 9: no. 2 in E flat major. Ensemble Thing provided a superlative, jazzy performance of the Waltz in D flat major, Op. 64, No. 1, which I still can’t quite believe when I hear it today.

Other ambient interpretations filled out the record with music that tugged on the heartstrings, from Antonymes, Good Weather for an Airstrike, and Now Wakes the Sea, among others.

Other Notes

Variations of Chopin was the first physical release to come from Too Many Fireworks since the hiatus in 2006, and as such, we looked at ways to make it pop. Ekopaks replaced the jewel cases we used on earlier releases. To design the artwork, I asked Polish illustrator Justyna Kowalska to create her own interpretation of the composer. She chose to include the willow tree, something almost synonymous with Chopin, here in Poland.

I will come on to talk about Laeto from Dundee, Scotland, later in this series, however, at the time of this record, the band’s drummer Robbie Cooper was fighting a rare and aggressive form of cancer. To support Robbie, all profit from Variations of Chopin was donated to Robbie to help during that time. Robbie tragically died almost a year later on the 23rd April, and he is still very much missed by friends and colleagues. The record, such as it is, is still dedicated to him.

You can listen to Variations of Chopin here

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A Birth of sorts

On the 21st of January, 2002, a Glasgow post-punk band that had passed swiftly through the dark tunnels of indie pay-to-play hell to find itself in the city’s welcoming DIY scene, launched their debut e.p. with a show at the 13th Note Cafe/Bar in Glasgow. The band’s name was Troika. Its guitar player was a short fellow with a love of Fender guitars and post-rock music. He, for his sins, was me.

That evening was notable for several reasons, not least that someone mugged me shortly before I took the stage – though that’s a story for later. Primarily, though, the evening was important as the launch of Troika’s Missing Passport e.p. gave birth to a small organisation that was to take over my life for many years to come: my record label, too many fireworks.

anniversary

The 21st of January 2027 will see the 25th anniversary of the show, the e.p. and the label, which came to an end during the pandemic when I returned to the camera. The last, and most likely final, too many fireworks release was the Without You b/w You Are The Summer single by Pop-up Books.

With 32 catalogue numbers, one shared release, a club night, a film music event series, a short-lived TEDx clone for the DIY music industry, several collaborations and artist features, and one tattoo; too many fireworks had an exciting life funded almost exclusively by a succession of day jobs through the years.

Over the next 32 weeks, I’m going to share a catalogue number from the label, my memories, and I hope those of the artists that made it happen, whether from Scotland, England, Iceland, or Poland.

As I’m waiting for pictures, memories, and other bits and pieces from some of the artists, I decided to start with one of my own records from over the years, the 2018 e.p. Singing As You Leave.

Singing As You Leave e.p.

I wrote and demoed the title track of the record about two years earlier. David Cameron had resigned after his gamble to quell the Eurosceptic rebellions within the Tory party with an in/out referendum on the EU. As he finished his statement outside Downing Street, and still mic-ed up, he turned, made his way back to the iconic black door, and infamously sang a little ditty to himself before the microphones caught him saying, with some sense of washing one’s hands of something, right.

I had been listening to a lot of Superchunk, so I think a little bit of that crept in, in both the righteous anger and the arrangement. Still really enjoy listening to that guitar solo, but as I recorded it on a Vox AC30 in an apartment block in central Warsaw, I can’t imagine my neighbours loved it.

This wasn’t the earliest song written for the record, though, by a long way. I wrote Bridge Will Burn after a break-up around 2015, when I was playing in the Frozen North. This song appeared elsewhere later, but this version was recorded direct to tape in the band’s rehearsal room. Talking of the Frozen North, the band’s violinist, Aga Olek, played violin on Bird Sanctuary. I remember the only note I gave her was that it had to be scratchy.

Local Fan

My favourite song on the record is my earnest thank you to my dad. Growing up in Airdrie in the 80s, rather than Rangers or Celtic, my dad brought my brother and me up to support his first love, our local team, Airdrieonians. I’m a die-hard fan to this day. I wanted to write my dad Local Fan in the way David Scott from the Pearlfishers had written his dad, My Dad the Weatherfan. The song opens with one of my favourite childhood memories of supporting Airdrie, Stevie Gray’s superlative goal away to St. Johnstone at McDiarmid Park on a beautiful, sun-scorched day.

Not long before recording the 4 demoed songs, I’d bought a Rickenbacker 330, and while the Jaguar and Telecasters were the main guitars on this e.p., the Rick makes an appearance on all songs recorded at my place, even if found lower in the mix. Talking of the recording, this was the first record I used the JHS Colour Box with the EMI Neve chip, giving the overdriven sound of the Beatles’ Abbey Road desk.

The record came out on digital download, streaming, and on cassette tape on the 14th September 2018. It had the catalogue number 2mf029, and I straight-up nicked the Cooper font that the Beach Boys used for Pet Sounds. The cassette came bundled with a small button badge bearing the simple but direct message, Fuck Brexit.

You can listen to the Singing As You Leave e.p. here

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We Sink Ships

From, I would guess, 2008 to late 2010 Heidi and I took on that name as our identity for a mixed-media collaboration that would see us exhibit our photographs and those of others, produce a weekly radio show, collaborate with others to make a short film, and later for it to have its premiere at 2010’s International Arts Festival in Edinburgh. In an odd twist of fate, my turn to compose music for the collaboration would lead me away from photography and back to music for the following decade, though I did find my way back to my camera eventually.

In the late noughts, as social media was only becoming popular, and the internet was still in its sullen teenage phase, Heidi and I devised our plan to host an online gallery that would operate much like a physical gallery in that there would be an exhibition for some time, then it would come down and another would take its place. All the while, Heidi and I would be working on our own art to intersperse the guest exhibitions with ones of our own.

An Organic, Glacial Aesthetic

Our art was simple with an obvious influence of the music we were listening to at the time, a great deal of Scottish and Icelandic music. The art often took on an organic, glacial aesthetic. I made photographs with my Leica M8 and a body cap attached with a pinhole laser cut into it. Heidi used a Nikon DSLR and a selective focus gadget called a Lensbaby. We would base our exhibitions on a theme, and in the beginning, half of the photographs would come from me and the others from Heidi. It was later that we began experimenting with digital double exposures, overlaying my photo with Heidi’s or vice versa. After some time online, our debut two exhibitions, Talvi/Winter and Before You Wake were printed and displayed in the 13th Note cafe for our first physical gallery show.

As the project progressed, we invited friends, colleagues, and people we admired to exhibit their work on our little online space. We met with Glasgow’s online radio station, Radio Magnetic, and joined their roster. We recorded every week, sometimes inviting guests to DJ, other times choosing top 5 lists to trade back and forth. At the end of each month, I began a too many fireworks radio show which directly led to the return of the label from hiatus. It was through this radio show we first met and became friends with worriedaboutsatan, Erased Tapes’ Robert Raths, Ólafur Arnalds, Nils Frahm, and Codes in the Clouds. Our friendship with Codes in the Clouds would indirectly lead to my work with VLMV 6 or 7 years later.

We Sink Ships: Elements

As one decade turned into another, Heidi and I began what became our final project, Elements. For each of the classical medieval elements, Air, Earth, Fire, Water, and Aether, Heidi and I would create an exhibition. I would soundtrack each exhibition with what were my nascent attempts at modern classical music. And our friend Rhys Baker composed a poem to accompany each element. Later, a new acquaintance, Matty Ross, would weave our photographs with his own and with archive film footage creating an evocative film with the classical elements and technology at its core.

We Sink Ships is a project I am proud of and now just over 15 years on, I do feel it ended far too soon, though it has to be said, it did so as a result of my move to Poland and my drift towards a solo musical project. I do regret that we did not continue with the potential it may have had.

Below are some of my favourite pictures made by We Sink Ships, and you can see some of the other exhibitions we made and curated on the excellent retrospective website Heidi created on Cargo Collective.

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Stanley Kubrick

Unlike many of my pals at school, I wasn’t a fan of graphically violent movies. Gory horror movies were not my thing. Classic 80s slasher flicks were, obviously, right out. Nevertheless, I was obsessed with Stanley Kubrick. 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Dr. Strangelove led me, somewhat unwisely, to The Shining – a movie I love to this day. It was the adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s novel A Clockwork Orange that gave the 14-year-old me pause due to the controversial scenes of “ultra-violence” reported within.

Nevertheless, I borrowed a VHS from a friend, and flying below the radar of my parents, as a cossetted wee lad, I set out to watch the spree of juvenile delinquency of Alex and his gang of Droogs. So much of the film is iconic – from the oft-Halloween-worn costume of Alex, to the Nadsat slang that gave many a 90s band its name. All that said, I don’t remember being particularly shocked by what, already in 1995, seemed a little tame in comparison.

Revisiting the Korova

Rewatching in 2025, the depictions of rape and violence now seem almost quaint in comparison to grim torture-porn TV shows like, for instance, The Handmaid’s Tale. Though Malcolm McDowell’s simultaneously joyous and depraved, naive and calculating, depiction of Alex is a stand-out role across all of cinema.

I must give the superlative soundtrack a special mention. From a brutal and chilling use of Singin’ in the Rain, through a number of Deutsche Grammophon recordings, to the inimitable Wendy Carlos on her Moog synthesisers; it is spectacular from beginning to end.

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