Glasgow’s Ali Herron (Rapture, Delusions of Grandeur and Wolf Music) has just dropped his excellent deep house and slo-mo ‘Reclaim Landscape’ EP, featuring four originals and two remixes from Clandestino. We asked him to talk us through his interests outside of music for this month’s Show & Tell.
Cars
I’ve always been into cars and working on them. My first car at 17 was a 1979 bright orange Mini which always had stuff needing to be fixed so I learnt a thing or two about how cars work and how to maintain them. Moving to Glasgow in my early 20s and embracing nightlife meant I kinda forgot about the pleasure of having a nice car until more recently. I’m remedying that these days with slowly providing TLC to my old BMW M3.
Greenock Morton Football Club
My dad was born on the street behind the Cappielow football ground, and instilled a strong passion for my local team Greenock Morton – growing up. These days the stadium is one of the few that hasn’t been updated to all-seater covered stands, and is essentially the same as it has been for the last 60 years or so (it first held Morton games in 1879!). There’s something about watching lower-level professional football there which harks back to a bygone era, and is something I love to do as much as I can.
Pizza
What’s not to love about pizza? Not being able to make a decent one at home surely. A couple of years ago I saw some guys on the (admittedly crappy) Channel 4 Sunday Brunch program, showing a different cooking method using a frying pan and grill to simulate the really high temperatures of proper pizza ovens. I don’t think I’ve had a pre-packed oven pizza since. The video link is for some sort of full kit but the secret is in the cooking method. Trust me, you won’t look back.
Old Motor Racing
As I said above I’ve always been into cars. I love watching old 80s/90s motor race broadcasts that someone has taped off VHS. I find the combination of amateurish production and amazing (or amazingly bad) soundtrack music very pleasing compared to a lot of current stuff which seems pretty bland in comparison.
Science
Going back to school days I was always interested in most facets of science, leaning towards the physics and engineering side of things. Now in a strange twist I actually like to drift off to sleep listening to someone talk about interesting topics – kinda like those Calm apps but instead of listening to a story I’m not invested in, it’s something strong enough to focus my mind and stop me thinking about lots of other things which seems to help me get to sleep quickly.
YouTube Tutorials
I’m pretty “handy” when it comes to fixing mechanical things, maintenance of machinery etc. (harking back to my engineering training many years ago). Basically anything which doesn’t require a specific trade skill I’m happy to have a go at, and these days you can pretty much guarantee someone will have made a YouTube tutorial on how to do what you’re about to try, which makes things a shed load easier. Also living on small-time DJ/producer wages doesn’t leave a load left over for ambitious projects needing loads of folk hired in! The last thing like this I did was lay a bathroom floor so that’s what the video is – you’re welcome.
Memes
What’s life without a laugh eh? I’m a big-time meme consumer, be it still images or Vine/Tiktok vids etc. My son and I share memes most days as he luckily has the same sense of humour as me (i.e. terrible). The Coldplay / tortoise one is a stone cold classic.
Reclaim Landscape is available to stream and buy via Bandcamp.