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The band's fifth album, Beyond
the Clisham was recorded at the Valtos Outdoor Centre on the remote
west coast of the Isle of Lewis in April 1997. After the frantic efforts to recorded and release Beyond The Clisham, the band encountered an intrusion called ‘real life’. Work, offspring (All except Robin), getting Doctorates (Robin), getting Degrees (Jon), trying to find jobs (Robin), all conspiring to prevent the creative juices of the Dun Ringles from mingling together in the AGOFR blender. (bleagh!) Not content with superstardom with DunRingill, during a rare moment of boredom during this lull, Robin and Jon established the now famous 'Streetcar' , who went on to become one of Edinburgh’s top covers bands, filling venues not only in the capital, but in many other parts of Scotland too. Robin and Jon were too modest to do any Dun Ringles covers whilst in Streetcar, plus the intricacies of the Dun Ringles music would have proved too much for the rest of the band. In autumn 2001, on the advice of Deadollac, Wattie obtained the music software package Cubase and demonstrated its capabilities to Jason. Within days of seeing how versatile Cubase was, Jason decided to invest in new computer technology. A brand new PC was acquired and within days, inspired once again by the marvels of 21st century technology, the band were writing and recording new material. Over the winter of 2001, Jason and Wattie rattled off several new tunes, all recorded over in Grim Studios. Robin and Jon contributed material via the wonders of the internet and were also forced into recording stuff whilst up on holiday. |
Once again, the new songs concentrated on the subject matter of current local events ( wind farms); the bands past experiences (Grassy’s wedding); local mythology (wild giraffes roaming the Castle grounds); and a unique interpretation of Hebridean history (the great Glen Valtos steam train disaster). Around this time DunRingill
set up their first
web site. This was done through the MSN network
and
involved
no great IT skill whatsoever
- just
perfect for the band. The site comprised a
mishmash of trivia, old photos and general nonsense. Much the same
as this site really........... The evening following the recording of the Guireans CD also saw the inaugural ‘AGOFR Festive Season Drinking Festival’, which has survived for several years and is now a much anticipated annual event. Recording of the new album continued throughout 2002. In Easter 2002, the band were all assembled in Clydebank to attend Grassy the managers wedding. Streetcar performed at the reception, with Jason guesting on guitar on ‘Johnny B Goode’. The journey home from the wedding also provided the subject matter for a new song ‘Beyond a Joke’. In November that year, Jason and Wattie formed a mini band with Deadollac, called Sheep Purple, to record an EP of three songs about forbidden Sunday flights into the religious island stronghold. The songs were titled ‘Smoke on the Runway’, ‘Flight in Time’ and ‘Black Flight’. At Christmas time 2002, the Dun Ringles took part in the annual AGOFR tribute to dead rock stars, along with members of the Guireans. Several moving tributes were recorded to the recently dead Joe Strummer of the Clash, plus a belated tribute to the not so recently deceased Lynyrd Skynyrd. This album became known as ‘Bod Strummer Featuring the Dun Guireaneros Pronounced Roddy Huggan’ In February 2003 the Dun Ringles felt that they had collected enough new material to release a CD. The move to digital recording and the ready availability of CD burners made it easy for the Tape Record Corporation to set up cottage industry for churning out CD’s rather than the outmoded cassettes of yesteryear. After much debate, the band decided to call the CD Giraffic Park. The now legendary cover showing the band being pursued ‘up the Town Hall clock’ by an irate giraffe went on to become one of the bands best loved pieces of art and even became available |
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