It's Lovely To Be Here - The Touring Diaries Of A Scottish Gent

• Posted: Sun 13 Mar 2011
• By: Kev

I'll level at this point, i've never been a massive fan of James Yorkston's music, I don't dislike him but i've just never made that connection to his stuff...so my expectations for this book of his tour diaries wasn't high.

But to say i've enjoyed reading this is a big understatement, his slightly contrary nature has not only provided some wonderfully funny, poignant and insightful moments in this book, but it also strikes a chord with my own personality.

So much so that by the time I'd finished page 265 of this book, I was thinking to myself that I should track down his music and give him a fair listen.

That's not the aim of the book of course...the beauty of the book in fact is that it doesn't really have an aim in clear sight, instead it's a journey around the various tours that James Yorkston has undertaken, the characters he's played with, for and stumbled over in the strangest stuation and of course a gritty insight into the lower levels of being a touring artist.

He doesn't gloss anything up, he doesn't try and make himself look good, he also doesn't fall into the trap of sounding like an ungrateful git who is doing something he loves and moaning about it, it's all just written with honesty and not a second thought about appealing to anyone else...which in turn makes it more appealing.

I genuinely hope that over the next few years he continues to write his diaries as well as more albums, i'll be reading them for definite if he does and he may just have gained a convert to his music on the back of it.