Fair play, there aren't many critics prepared to do what Tom has done, and put your own artistic effort out there, to be welcomed or shot down in flames as fate or fashion might decree. Well, I can't play a guitar or write a song, and I haven't got it in me to slag off completely somebody brave enough to do either in public. However I can tell you what I'm hearing, and what I'm hearing here is a bunch of songs that would sound just fine at a croft house ceilidh. As he finishes each song, you'd pass him the bottle with a twinkle in your eye, and feel pleased to have such a musical, witty and provocative fellow for a neighbour.
Immortalised on CD, though, neither the songs nor the performances sound too strong; "Learning To Hate The Beatles" is ostensibly the controversial number, and in 1968 it might have attracted attention. Nearly 40 years later it sounds like an old man's whinge and is not going to get anyone very excited. The best performance, undoubtedly, is "The Ballad Of Johnnie Notions", a tribute to a 19th century Shetland crofter, innovator and local hero. It's the most upbeat song in the collection, the guitar strings twanging with the force of the attack. Elsewhere, followers of Tom's eclectic mumblings on Radio Scotland won't be too surprised at the range of lyrical material - from a tribute to "Oor Wully", through love songs,
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to a paean for the humble whelk. The title track is the lament of a middle aged man - say about my age - who's seen the fashions of rock'n'roll come round once too often to get any joy out of the newest big thing. Well I can identify with that but then rock'n'roll was always for the kids. You have to get your thrills elsewhere as the decades roll on.
Defiantly, proudly, acoustic and home-made, the "Complete and Utter History..." is pretty much the antithesis of whatever shiny brash thing is topping the rock charts this week.
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