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When the band I’m in, The Felt Tips, used to have a difficult decision to make, such as the order of a setlist, we’d often jokingly reassure ourselves that it didn’t matter because “nobody cares anyway”. In truth, we knew that although we weren’t exactly U2 there were actually people who listened to us and… Read more: Song to Say Goodbye

The song I’m going to introduce for September is Freaky Finance. Last month I introduced Down at the Casino, and Freaky Finance is another song on Virtual Virgins with a money-related theme. It’s about online financial gurus who, if you’re not familiar with them, give advice and tips on how to play the system in… Read more: Freaky Finance

For August, I’ll introduce Down at the Casino, which is about gambling, unsurprisingly. My own experience of gambling is the few years I spent in Aberdeen working for one of the big bingo companies. I worked almost everywhere in the hall from the reception desk to being on the floor checking claims. It wasn’t a… Read more: Down at the Casino

July’s choice of song to introduce is Cinders. It’s the song from the album that goes back the furthest, as I came up with the initial idea in early 2020, just before Covid-19 and lockdown arrived. At that time I was starting to record my second Jaggy Nettles album of songs based on children’s fairy… Read more: Cinders

I wasn’t planning on sharing any new songs until I had a second album ready but, with the recent UK general election announcement, it seemed a good time to put out a song I had been working on – Please Don’t Vote Conservative. Watch the video I made for the song, or have a listen… Read more: Please Don’t Vote Conservative

June’s song to introduce is Snakes & Ladders. Like a lot of the album’s songs, it was written using Nashville strings on my acoustic guitar, and then I let rip on the arrangement with overdriven guitar, some bar-room style piano and an energy-adding synth part.   The song tells the story of an ambitious politician… Read more: Snakes & Ladders

I’ve chosen North Coast 500 as my song to introduce for May. In case you don’t know, the North Coast 500 is a popular campervan/driving route around the north of Scotland’s mainland. It’s an incredibly beautiful route, but there’s been some controversy around it due to the infrastructure being inadequate for the number of vehicles… Read more: North Coast 500

Each month, I’m posting something about a different song from Virtual Virgins. For April I’m going to introduce Bouley Bashers, the penultimate song on the album. This song’s already been getting a bit of radio play (especially from Jim Gellatly on Amazing Radio) so it seems like a good one to write about. Bouley Bashers… Read more: Bouley Bashers

Every month, I’m going to introduce a different song from the album, probably in the order of the tracklisting. The rationale is that I don’t see much need to release digital ‘singles’ (I don’t plan on releasing CDs or vinyl mainly due to the unnecessary plastic) but, at the same time, I’d like to give… Read more: Looking Through A Telescope Backwards

Given how easy it is to film and edit videos these days (not saying it’s easy to make a good one!) I thought I’d have a shot doing a video for Virtual Virgins, the title track from my debut album. Here it is on youtube.

Debut album released on 1st February 2024. Digital release only (for now). Will be available on most streaming platforms. All songs written, played and recorded by Pat’s Alternative Bus Tour. Mastered at Chem19 Recording Studios. Cover photograph by Katie Paterson.