A moonlighting lecture theatre in Edinburgh’s university district, and the LA rapper , who’s worked with hip-hop hero KRS One among others, is serenading from The Charlatans about how he got with his girlfriend; something to do with chewing gum and fish. Welcome to the Edinburgh Fringe!
That coming-together occurs at a show called Making Love with David Magidoff, in which the titular US actor/comedian asks a celebrity guest about their love life, then gets his talented cast, rapper included, to mock it. The musical guests are intriguing bookings; he gets them to perform. On Tuesday it’s from Travis singing ‘Why Does it Always Rain on Me’and ‘Sing’, before recalling a brief school fling, then Friday it’s Burgess kicking off with ‘North Country Boy’ followed by that transatlantic cast taking the piss. He takes it well. And there are more unlikely guests to come.
This year’s enormous programme features the traditional mix of random music goodness. Like Salty Brine: How Strange it is (the Neutral Milk Hotel Show) in which Brine, a US cabaret artist known for his Living Record Collection shows, recreates Neutral Milk Hotel’s cult 1998 album ‘In the Aeroplane Over the Sea’ interspersed with personal reminiscences and the diary of Anne Frank. Which may sound slightly mad, but that album features several references to the latter, and those are the most affecting bits here. Brine weaves it all together with elan and you will come away singing that album’s title song all week. Which is no bad thing.
Our festival begins in a pub backroom with the catchily titled Sneaking Into Taylor Swift Cost Me $1989. Canadian YouTuber Matt Watson explains how he snuck into a bunch of seemingly high-security stadia, initially big sports events, but then the Era’s tour, despite the whole venue looking out for him. That $1989 is him redistributing the potential ticket price elsewhere – all will be revealed. It’s the deep-dive into turnstile security you never knew you needed.
Over at the more highbrow Traverse, is a sort of concept-gig about a young singer-songwriter who went into the woods to make an album (“it was good enough for Bon Iver,” ponders writer/narrator Malaika Kegode) then disappeared. That sparks a modern podcaster to investigate, and the ensuing drama is soundtracked live by Bristol folk-prog outfit in a trippy Nick Drakey way. Lovely stuff.
Sadly we can’t squeeze in The Singer also at the Traverse, written by former Radiohead/Blur support act Cora Bissett and scored by KT Tunstall. But we do visit the ominously-named Grand Lodge for the much more lo-fi , an admirable if slightly bizarre synth-pop musical by prolific Welsh songwriter and Huw Stephens favourite . Two notable guests here, video duetting: Arab Strap’s playing a hallucinatory football/life-coach – and the Mercury-nominated as Pierce’s love interest. It’s one the most splendidly Edinburgh Fringey things you’ll ever see.
Speaking of Moz, he appears heavily in an epic site-specific affair at an old metalworks in Leith, where 80s gig posters adorn the walls – Cocteau Twins, Jesus and Mary Chain, Kraftwerk. It’s a play about band-based friendships with a killer eighties soundtrack – Joy Division, Echo and the Bunnymen, New Order – and is largely based around a trip (both senses) to Manchester to see The Fall and The Smiths, the latter recreated by beaming actual footage onto the back wall. It works spectacularly well.
Over on the comedy stages, two DJ/comedians cross the streams. Adam Flood was once bassist for the briefly-promising band Bleached Whale, and today makes beats when not writing gags. In Life and Death of the Party he combines both – this is that rare Fringe show . Consistently propulsive that soundtrack is too, although the show itself lands a little oddly, as you can’t really hear people laughing, despite some solid punchlines. Apt targets too, from clubbing quirks to Fred Again’s posh dad.
In The History of Electronic Music, meanwhile, DJ turned comedian Vinney White explains exactly that, with the aid of a sampler pad, from Daphne Oram and Delia Derbyshire to the surprising history of Roland keyboards. Talking over those tunes does sometimes sound like a DJ on the funfair dodgems, he admits, and it all gets a bit silly in places, but that theme can’t go wrong really.
Also impressively soundscaping himself is Callum Patrick Hughes in Day of the Locust, a one-man version of the cult novel/movie, kicking off with Hughes sampling himself noodling a moody guitar riff which then weaves in and out throughout. Hugely atmospheric, it’s a tale of wildfire alarms and immigration raids, which all sounds worryingly familiar.
And finally, a visit to one of two record shops hosting backroom shows this year. At vinyl emporium Slow Progress, 28.06.1980 (or How A Fake Version of Deep Purple Brought Rock Music to Mexico) looks at fake bands who roamed the globe pre-internet, when nobody knew what anybody looked like. Heavy rockers Deep Purple had such a rich history of doppelgangers that music writer/comedian wrote a whole book about it, and here recalls an epic chapter, in which one cataclysmic gig changed the Mexican authorities’ attitude to rock music. Fascinating stuff.
That’s the Fringe for you. Seriously weird, but surprisingly informative too.