”Starship Nicola is a collaborative effort involving Glasgow band Harry & The Hendersons and AJ Meadows… “freak folk”, that odd genre that gathered together some of the oddities from late 60’s and early 70’s folk rock and a sprinkling of psychedelic dust…” – Blabber’n’Smoke. June 3, 2016.
I met AJ in the Glasgow School of Art’s Mackintosh building, in what was to become my first-year studio, when he was finishing up his M.A. I remember trying to play it cool, and not let on how excited I was to be spoken to like an equal by someone clearly so much older, cooler and more accomplished than me. This has never changed over the years, from arranging our first gig together when he tripped over my curb-sketching-squat on Garnet Hill, to recording in Ireland, playing festivals in Scotland, and more recently when I was an artist in residence under his mentorship – AJ has always welcomed me into his home and treated me like an equal, and I have always looked up to him and his art, both having inspired me to work harder, bolder and more honestly.