Music and Vinyl: John Illsley

It's almost two years since I posted a track from Dire Straits' bassist John Illsley's first solo album, and now here's a track from his second album, Glass, released in 1988. With (slightly) more assured vocals from his first album, Glass's standout track for me is Papermen. Although written in pre-internet days about newsprint journalism, it's message is just as relevant today:

"don't you know we're sick and tired of reading this stuff

never seem to realise when enough is enough

manipulating history to suit your own desires

truth is burned and turned to ashes in the fire"

Illsley's Dire Straits' buddies Alan Clark and Guy Fletcher play keyboards.

For the video I thought a look "behind the scenes" might make it a little different. I normally only use one camera to film the shots, repeating the track(s) from different angles and then creating a multicam clip in Final Cut Pro X. This time my Lumix GX8 micro-four-thirds camera (with an Olympus 9-18 wide angle zoom) was joined at the same time by a GX7 (a camera I normally use for stills with an Olympus 60mm macro) sporting a 7Artisans 7.5mm full-frame fisheye ultra-wide-angle. Both cameras were controlled by a Panasonic Image App (one on my phone and the other on an iPad), so this time it was a one-take wonder ;o)