It’s February 16th, open mic night at The Liquid Ship pub in Glasgow’s Great Western Road. We happen to end up there accidentally after a busy day and listen to various hobby musicians – from middle-aged folk singers to bored-looking girls – while sipping our beers. The third slot on this night’s bill is the one of Lewis Morrison aka Luigi Strauss, a 21-year old Glaswegian student who hasn’t released any records so far. He takes his acoustic guitar and starts into a set that leaves us not only veritably impressed, but also makes us write down his name and contact afterwards (although we normally don’t go to open mic nights to find bands for our sessions). His songs, though, – fragile, unfinished singer/songwriter pieces with occasional wrong notes, but great melodies and a contagious, urgent and very strong emotionality – stick in our heads on the way home, where we then look into his myspace (sure, the recordings are not exactly top-notch…) and webcam home videos on youtube (same here) and decide to get in touch with Lewis for a session. So we meet up two days later at Glasgow Green just on the bank of River Clyde, where he plays „Ways Of The World“ and „She Will Give It All To You“, surrounded by all kinds of squeaking animals and some training oarsmen (see the Meursault session from Edinburgh for another agglomeration of animals and sports people on video; seems hardly avoidable in Scotland). „I’m glad you found me. How random.“, he then writes in our guestbook, before he goes off accompanied by a friend.

myspace.com/luigistrauss