The latest podcast had writer, director, and man of the moment Ewan Morrison climbing the stairs to Scots Whay Hae! Towers; and what a night it was.
Ali ripped up his usual carefully researched notes as Ewan starts by talking about his latest book, the brilliant Tales From The Mall, but soon the conversation turns to the future of the novel, the myths of social networks, the problems with ‘free’, the working methods of Steve Albini, and the stigma of being a labelled a ‘thinker’. And, if you listen closely, you’ll also catch the end of their Mark Cousins impression competition.
You may already know Ewan from his novels Swung, Distance and Menage, but his current concerns find him out of the bedroom and into the wide world. Anyone interested in the state of modern culture and society will find plenty to interest them in the two’s conversation. You may not agree with everything that Ewan says, in fact he doesn’t expect you to. He likes nothing better than to spark debate, to get people thinking about how they live, how they consume, and just who the hell they think they are.
Once you’ve read Tales From the Mall (and I urge you to do so) and/or listened to this podcast, I hope you’ll find yourself asking questions that have never concerned you previously. That’s what the man does so well. He asks us to stop taking things for granted and ask who, why, and what the fuck? But it’s not all serious and cynical, as you can see from the picture above. Ewan Morrison is Scotland’s cultural provocateur du jour, and that makes him an excellent man to have around. But don’t take our word for it.
You can learn more about Mr Morrison by going to his own website ewanmorrison.com, or by watching his interesting collection of clips, both his own and other peoples, at his YouTube page.
As ever, you can subscribe to Scots Whay Hae! at iTunes or by RSS. The next edition will be next month, and if all goes according to plan it should be another belter. If this is your first visit you can click on the video in the sidebar to hear and see some of those who have joined Ali and Ian over the last year. Or you could go wild and just download the back catalogue. Go-on…you know you want to.