My Blog: March 2017

OK so first of all, I'm proud to have provided the music for this powerful documentary, transmitted on BBC Scotland on 11th April:

And you can still order "Bonjour" - my album with Harry Pye - here.

So the Teenage Fanclub world tour bandwagon rolled on to San Francisco.

We stayed in a groovy hotel....

...encountered The Ghost Of The Tenderloin...

...and ate good, inexpensive Vietnamese food.

On the day of the show I grabbed a diverting wee hour in SFMOMA.

Our show at the Great American Music Hall was a tour highlight. Great, great audience. Nice to catch up with some old pals after the show.

Britta Phillips opened for our US west coast shows and was great.

Norman's back in Frisco (I know - nobody calls it Frisco. I'm a rebel).

Onwards to Portlandia, I mean Portland. Purty drive.

Driving north to Portland.

A post shared by Francis Macdonald (@francismacdonald) on Mar 22, 2017 at 7:30pm PDT

String Bikini.

"Unless your childhood sucked...'

I had a great visit to the Portland Museum Of Art.

Ask me anything about Rodin (- don't, actually).

I especially loved some of the American photography exhibits...

left-handed cellist...

I'm going to start wearing my tie like this.

I believe this work by Jeff Koons influenced the artwork for TFC's "Thirteen" album.

Orange Words In Neon

I enjoyed speaking to Scott McCaughey after our show and hearing about the Young Fresh Fellows' experience recording with Rufus Thomas. And Ivan from The Rosebuds who toured with TFC many moons ago hung out too, and recommended I visit the Morgan Library and Museum in NY (see below). I invited Camera Obscura's producer Tucker Martine to the show and he came along but we never got say hello. I would probably have bored him with my jabbering how his dad wrote my favourite Elvis song (you read that right).

If you fancy some tasty BBQ in Portland - I know where to go, btw.

Twas, onward to Seattle, hometown of our excellent guitar/keyboards stand-in Michael Lerner.

Hello, Seattle.

A post shared by Francis Macdonald (@francismacdonald) on Mar 24, 2017 at 3:30pm PDT

I forgot to put Frasier Crane on the guest list.

It was a lovely fresh day in the city. I ate a disappointing omelette and a nice coffee; a legendary burger and a tasty tamale.

Vancouver rocked.

We played the Rickshaw Theatre (an ex-Chinese kung film theatre, apparently) and I got some laundry done. AND I scored a tasty Katsu curry.

Thence to New York. Brooklyn to be more precise.

I suggested we repair to a characterful Italian restaurant of which I had fond memories from another visit, some years before, with Camera Obscura. Our waiter told us it was the oldest family-owned restaurant in New York. So there.

I defeated the spaghetti & meatballs once again. Go me.

Show was great. Lovely final audience for the final show of our tour.

Camera Obscura's old trumpeter Tim Cronin forgave me for my forgetting to get him guest tickets (hashtag 'oops').

The Night Of Joy is a groovy bar, btw. It does what it says on the tin.

Next day I got some huevos rancheros, a wee visit to Strand Books, Manhattan and then on to the luscious Morgan Library and Museum.