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David McGuinness

@davidmcguinness.bsky.social
159 followers 189 following 319 posts

amateur executant: usually too busy organising music to make any. linktr.ee/davidmcg

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Reposted by David McGuinness
Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
In short: Fuck that, and fuck them. iandunt.substack.com/p/some-dispa...
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
it's all gone Cory Wong
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
not sure about Lismore being a 'tiny' island as it's 9 miles long (Guardian subs, do better please) but this is a great story www.theguardian.com/science/2026...
theguardian.com
‘Hugely exciting’ finds on tiny Scottish island shed light on spread of Christianity
Community-funded archaeological excavations of ‘really important’ sixth-century monastery also rewrite story of Lismore
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
even if you’ve barely got a passing interest in Scottish lighthouses and/or Robert Louis Stevenson, this is a great listen www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
bbc.co.uk
Sunday Feature - Keepers of the Light - BBC Sounds
Robert Louis Stevenson, the lighthouse dynasty he left behind and the sea that shaped him.
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
haha, the sheer joy in your voice at the beginning is superb! this will be my lunchtime treat, can't wait
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
hearing the seated TV studio audience clap and cheer at the drops in this genuinely made me think of Mozart engineering his piano concertos to get audible reactions from his audience - they didn't just sit in silence then either youtu.be/38rvtcwhuw4?...
youtu.be
Angine de Poitrine: Zugzegk | The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
YouTube video by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
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Reposted by David McGuinness
Fiona McLees @mclees-fiona.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Here we are - an excellent surprise when turning the pages - on one of versos is a trompe l’oeil fly, rather nicely painted with shadow as if it has just settled on the page
Sketchbook page, mostly blank apart from a black mark which is a painting of a flyA close up of the fly painting, made in black and white watercolour
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
this is a good piece (the main photo features my workplace) but the Guardian has to describe the Black Isle as ‘remote’, 5 minutes’ drive from the city of Inverness. STOP IT! www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/se…
theguardian.com
‘Scots are the kindest people on earth!’ Meet the Americans moving to Scotland
Since Donald Trump’s re-election in 2024, there has been a 63% rise in Americans renting properties in Scotland. Politics is one reason – but there are many other surprising motivations …
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
I wanted to find out what's on this tape that I recorded in about 1978, but I could only find a 7.5/15ips Revox, so I've been listening simultaneously to four tracks of random stuff at double speed, two of which are playing backwards. It's like being haunted by your own hyperactive ghosts.
a battered tape box from the 1960s in front of a Revox B77 1/4" tape machine
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
fantastic - no surprise you couldn't fit the words in too youtu.be/hCIWyKey0BI?...
youtu.be
Ski Sunday!
YouTube video by TheJeremyLion
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
this is why in Glasgow we can't have nice things. fs.
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Introduce yourself with 10 acts you've seen live: Hespèrion XX Mike Oldfield John Zorn’s Masada Diamanda Galás Cardiacs Shirley Collins Steve Reich & Musicians Fred Frith JPP The Rutles
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
We've still got the Network DVDs, I dug them out yesterday! There's plenty of stuff that would be uncomfortable to broadcast now (a bit like Milligan's Q series from the same time), but the set-piece filmed sequences are still spectacular and really funny
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
i was really miffed that i had a gig the night the Jilted John 40th anniversary tour played Glasgow …
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilbo_(band)
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
I was furious when Sony stopped selling these with mic inputs: rather than having a brilliant pocket device you could use to make things, you could only be a passive consumer. So I took mine back to the shop and bought a cheap Sharp one instead. It still works!
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
great interview, Mark! and what a nice bloke.
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Reposted by David McGuinness
The Author, Séamas O'Reilly @seamas.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Not to be some wild-eyed innocent, but I think it should be slightly bigger news that The Lancet have crunched the numbers and found that Musk's USAID cuts will kill 14 million people. And that's just by 2030. That's 9,600 people a day, every day, until the next world cup rolls around.
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
yet another gem :)
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Logic has started sending me subliminal messages. (unlike Apple Music which repeatedly suggests 'Quit Music')
a screenshot of a Logic edit with piano and bassoon tracks above a blank green track where adjacent regions read 'this is' and 'good'. Ironically the 'good' portion is below an unusably bad edit.
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
hmm, six strings too few here
Ian Dahlberg’s transcription of All of a Sudden (It’s Too Late) by XTC and a guitar with only 6 strings
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
gorgeous
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Reposted by David McGuinness
Greg Jericho @grogsgamut.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
"“Project Panama is our effort to destructively scan all the books in the world,” an internal planning document said. “We don’t want it to be known that we are working on this.”" novaramedia.com/2026/07/29/a...
novaramedia.com
AI Firms Are Buying up Old Books, Then Scanning and Destroying Them
The world’s biggest AI companies are buying antiquarian books en masse so they can be scanned to train their large language models (LLMs) before being destroyed.
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
The New Goodies LP (1975) remains one of my favourite records - genuinely funny and musically astute parodies across several 1970s genres with the best session players, all written (and mostly performed) by Bill Oddie. Comedy records don’t usually stand up this well 50 years on.
a photo by Tony Russell (Getty Images) of The Goodies at Piccadilly Circus in 1975. Bill Oddie is wearing a ‘THE NEW GOODIES L.P.’ t-shirt
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
where my dad taught to me to swim (in my 20s, ahem) www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002zg1s?…
bbc.co.uk
Archive on 4 - The People's Pool - BBC Sounds
One Glasgow swimming pool reveals the story of public baths and wash houses in Britain.
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
It’s a great book, of its time but with some really insightful stuff: worth it for Chick Corea’s page alone. I can’t really justify $400 for the full set of George Martin scores when it comes out, but i have persuaded my university library to order it!
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
on our trip to the beach this evening (one hour each way) we encountered one instance of deliberate sustained dangerous driving and two road traffic accidents, one very serious. take it easy out there.
evening sun on the beach at Portencross, with Arran in the background
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
that page (and a bit of 'Walrus') appeared in George Martin's 'Making Music' book from c. 1982 - I remember being really pissed off when someone did a complete Beatles scores transcription book in the 2000s and they didn't even get close
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Reposted by David McGuinness
Per Ahlberg @perahlberg.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
The strangest thing happened today. We went to the uninhabited island of Lunga, west of Mull, to look at the puffins nesting there. I was just taking photos when I felt a thump as something landed quite heavily in my head. It was a puffin! It stayed for about a minute before flying off.
A man with his back to the camera, wearing a blue jacket and a grey woolen hat. A puffin is sitting on top of his head. On the left, an arm holding a mobile phone can be seen. In the background, a green slope and the sea beyond.In this photo the puffin is taking off.
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
BALL-et (UK) or ball-ET (US)? Differing stress of French loanwords is the sort of thing that occupies my brain when I should be doing something else, so fortunately these people have thought about it with more rigour doi.org/10.1017/S002...
doi.org
Stress in French loanwords in British and American English | Journal of Linguistics | Cambridge Core
Stress in French loanwords in British and American English - Volume 61 Issue 1
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
the irony of Burnham banging on about the North is that if you really think Manchester is the North of the UK, that’s about as London-centric as you can get. seen any maps recently?
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
sounds like fun. some pals were/are involved in EMAP which has done amazing things www.emaproject.eu
emaproject.eu
European Music Archaeology Project
Long before the Old Continent became known as Europe and before the presumed "history of music" began, musical instruments played a key role in creating a network of interconnections, cross-references...
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Reposted by David McGuinness
Tits McGee @scientits.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
‘Say yes and never do it’ Mel Brooks knew how to deal with the studios
You have some wonderful stories of basically getting away with stuff at the studios.

I’d learned one very simple trick: say yes. Simply say yes. Like Joseph E. Levine, on “The Producers,” said, “The curly-haired guy—he’s funny looking. Fire him.” He wanted me to fire Gene Wilder. And I said, “Yes, he’s gone. I’m firing him.” I never did. But he forgot. After the screening of “Blazing Saddles,” the head of Warner Bros. threw me into the manager’s office, gave me a legal pad and a pencil, and gave me maybe twenty notes. He would have changed “Blazing Saddles” from a daring, funny, crazy picture to a stultified, dull, dusty old Western. He said, “No farting.” I said, “It’s out.”That’s probably the most famous scene in the movie, the campfire scene.

I know. He said, “You can’t punch a horse.” I said, “You’ll never see it again.” I kept saying, “You’re absolutely right. It’s out!” Then, when he left, I crumpled up all his notes, and I tossed it in the wastepaper basket. And John Calley, who was running [production at] Warner Bros. at the time, said, “Good filing.” That was the end of it. You say yes, and you never do it.

That’s great advice for life.

It is. Don’t fight them. Don’t waste your time struggling with them and trying to make sense to them. They’ll never understand.
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
I have one of those in the attic somewhere, bought in Belgium in about 1986 - it’s huge!
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
as I was leaving Glasgow university chapel tonight I realised that I had been taking microphones into churches to record organ overdubs since 1988. Not always in as beautiful a place on a summer evening as this though
University of Glasgow memorial chapel from the quadrangle outsidewideangle view from the organ console looking past a laptop down into the chapel me and the navetwo AKG 414 B-ULS mics in sort-of ORTF configuration for recording some quiet bits on the organ without pedals (I used spaced omnis for everything else to get maximum bass)
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
delighted to hear Ivor Kallin doing his Singalonga Stockhausen thing 45'58 into this. It brought back happy memories of appearing on his Ambrosia Rasputin show on Resonance FM with Alasdair Roberts in 2013 www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
bbc.co.uk
Archive on 4 - Resonance FM: The Art of Listening - BBC Sounds
Comedian Stewart Lee tells the story of Resonance FM, the UK’s greatest radio art station.
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
delighted at Janet and her work getting more attention. we used to have the odd chat over the photocopier or washing-up at the university, and she’s fascinating, determined & hilarious thequietus.com/culture/art/dancing-…
thequietus.com
Dancing on Moonbeams: Artist Luke Fowler on Electronic Music Pioneer Janet Beat | The Quietus
Artist Luke Fowler speaks to Claire M. Holdsworth about his latest film, A Sensation Never Yet Known, a portrait of the electroacoustic composer and musician Janet Beat
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
if you have some tedious admin to accomplish, listening to this as you do it is a great way to brighten it up, and better than the usual 80s nostalgia www.youtube.com/watch?v=p38v...
youtube.com
Nurse With Wound - The Sylvie And Babs Hi-Fi Companion [Full Album]
YouTube video by Zaphyra
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
The Prospect Before Us is an absolute gem
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
that is wonderful. and makes just as much sense.
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
also, it is now 30 years since Lassie was blessed with the mane of a horse and the wings of a bee #Cardiacs youtu.be/6jFiZAxSHZY?...
youtu.be
Cardiacs - Insect Hoofs On Lassie (Fan Music Video)
YouTube video by siMatFilms
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
Finnish folk heroes Tallari have been going for 40 years now! I met them at the Swaledale Festival in 1986, and it's great to see that Arto Järvelä is still a teenager whenever he picks up his fiddle. youtu.be/xcLk4rJe544?...
youtu.be
Tallari - Polskatrallitus Tyrväältä @tallari6936
YouTube video by Martti Viitalähde
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Reposted by David McGuinness
Gareth Dennis @garethdennis.uk · 07/06/2026
Yes, @doctorow.pluralistic.net is a legend. This whole interview is perfect, on "AI".
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
I think you'll find it's 'countrymen' #mansplaining
a photo of the back of a red MINI COUNTRYMAN S parked on a street
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
someone who has never met an orchestral musician
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
I'll have an imaginary coffee tower with you here in the Glasgow rain!
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
complete with diamond-shaped stickers to put on your radio. but the weirdest bit of the whole enterprise was this, which I'm pretty sure actually got played on Radio 1 youtu.be/KbSMMNVOT0o?...
youtu.be
The King's Singers - Some Enchanted Wavelengths
YouTube video by John Worfolk
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
that's great, echoes of Alasdair Gray's famous Cowcaddens painting too
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
a wee reminder of what is possible in a kinder society
a toilet door sign in the Anglican cathedral, Vancouver in 2022: it reads - MEN’S WASHROOM with symbols for a toilet, a urinal, baby changing and disabled facilities, TRANS PEOPLE WELCOME, some Braille, and the branding: Christ Church Cathedral, Vancouver, BC - Open Doors, Open Hearts, Open Minds
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David McGuinness @davidmcguinness.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
thought it was Jeremy Beadle for a moment there
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