Unplugged | – |
Cover band | – |
Members | – |
Downloads |
Label / Release | Type | Year | |
---|---|---|---|
Self-released | |||
Harbour This Love | Single | 2013 |
A self-taught musician, he learnt at the knee of Edinburgh's best musicians how to play unamplified in noisy pubs for people who buy their music at Tesco.
In October 2013, Greek Street Band released its debut single on vinyl, thanks to a tax rebate from Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs.
"I should probably have paid off my credit card", MacKenzie explains.
Instead, he made the "financially masochistic" decision to record a 7" with some talented recruits – old friends, stalwarts of the local jazz scene – who gave the existing lyrical finesse and elegant melodies a muscular timbre beyond guitars and drums, with piano, flute, Hammond organ – and a stonking sax solo.
With musical nods to Tim Hardin and Nick Drake, he’s humbly but unashamedly taking a swing in the ballpark of his musical heroes.
"Greek Street Band is obviously a Springsteen pun, but it’s really about where the folk club Les Cousins used to be. Bert Jansch and John Martyn played there a lot – Roy Harper, Jackson C. Frank, Davy Graham, all those guys. Their music was really why I bothered to play and write songs.”
There was no launch party or press campaign for the Harbour This Love single, but its B-side, Victim of Timing, found its way on to BBC 6 Music, first via the BBC Introducing Mixtape, then Tom Robinson's Saturday night show.
Bloggers and internet radio stations noticed it too: Harbour This Love was one blog’s top 50 songs of 2013, and a Polish reviewer thought it 'subdued and romantic', akin to 'your favourite cup of tea under the blankets'.
"According to Google translate, anyway. I like to think they thought it was steamy and a little dangerous, but if they meant blissful and comforting I’d take that too.”
MacKenzie is now working on a new release for 2016, as well as his German grammar, and another letter to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs.