The Whistlebinkies face a quandary when they return to artSpace@stmarks for their annual Fringe concert on Saturday 22 August.
The band, one of the longest established on the Scottish traditional music scene, recently released Scottish Circus, the DVD/CD of their collaboration with American composer John Cage.
It’s customary for musicians to play selections from their latest release in concerts but in this case, that presents a difficult choice, as the band’s flautist Eddie McGuire explains.
“Scottish Circus on the album runs to 34 minutes and as we only have an hour on the Fringe, that would mean more than half the concert being taken up by one piece of music.”
There is a shorter track on the album but since that is the Whistlebinkies’ take on John Cage’s infamous 4’ 33”, this would lead to an awkward silence.
“We performed 4’ 33” in 1984,” says McGuire. “It really is four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence. We even made the tea-time news on television with our Scottish traditional version, which involves pipes, fiddle, harp, concertina, flute and side drum being held rather than played. Some people might prefer that idea.”
When they filmed their Scottish traditional version of 4’ 33” outdoors in the Botanic Garden here in Edinburgh, some Scottish traditional weather arrived on cue and they had to seek shelter in Inverleith House.
“Scottish Circus features a lot of traditional Scottish melodies threaded through a suite and playing those tunes is what we feel at home doing and what our audience expects,” says McGuire. “So we’ll get round the ‘promoting our latest release’ problem by including some of the melodies that John Cage encouraged us to play.”
The band met Cage, who was already a fan of Irish traditional music, in 1984. Fascinated by the sound they created he suggested they work together and Scottish Circus was premiered in 1990. Thirty-six years on it was finally released last month by New York label Mode Records.
“It was quite an experience working with someone who was considered a bit of a maverick,” says McGuire. “We’ve worked with a range of people, including pop singer David Essex, violin master Yehudi Menuhin and the 1980s rock band Cutting Crew, and we’ve enjoyed all those experiences. But we’ll look forward to playing the traditional Scottish music that’s always been our preference when we play at St Marks on the 22nd.”
