In the fall of 1998, Toby Webster invited me to come to Glasgow for a month. I stayed with his mother and used his bike to ride around town in the October rain, which is how I discovered what I thought to be a Northern Blues. On almost every street corner in Glasgow, there seems to be a bingo parlor with the sound of the bingo hostess voice broadcast to the street: ‘Blue Forty-five, Yellow Six, Green Eighteen, White Nine...’
I eventually asked the Bingo hostess Angela McCulloch to come to a studio and record Bingo Blues. Angela’s voice had exceptional clarity and an inherent beat she has developed on the job. A slice of life, this vinyl single depicts three minutes of her 20-hour work week, calling out colors and numbers. It also makes a raw sound for DJs to work with and has been offered as a gift to numerous people who make music this way.
Side two, Big Buck$ Solo, plays the sounds of the Big Buck$ slot machine, a Japanese-made, Vegas-style classic that randomly composes its pre-recorded sounds (disco, sirens, etc.) as long as it is fed money. This particular song is the sound of me losing £40 in five minutes.
Transmission gallery produced and distributed the record as a Christmas release in December 1998. Half of the edition (of 1,000) was ruined in their great basement flood in 2000. A compilation CD, with the original recording, as well as various interpretations of it by other artists, is in planning.
Listen to Bingo Blues HERE (6MB)
Bingo Blues is copyright free. Let me know if you have used it in any interesting way.
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