Must we say goodbye to The Bowery?

Image by posteverything.co.uk

This week brought the apparent news that the people behind the Bowery, a key focal point of Edinburgh’s revitalised scene, are being told they can no longer use the venue. The above poster represents just one of the many great gigs I've been to there, and there's been very many others that I wasn't able to go to but would have loved to. The standard of gigs there has been incredible in the year they've been going. In fact, now I think of it, I even played a couple of songs there at the Song By Toad Christmas Party last year (ok apart from that).

Anyway, Toad seems to have managed to engage the people behind the decision in some kind of dialogue over at his blog, so head over there to keep abreast of developments (ok, I admit it, that was just an excuse to use the word "abreast"). It doesn't actually seem to be THE END as much as there are some changes afoot, as one of the gals behind the venue Jane Flett has said on Facebook:

"The landlords aren't taking over in some cynical money grabbing coup, don't worry! There are changes afoot in the building because this is what is needed to keep it alive and sustainable as an independent arts space, but hopefully The Bowery will remain involved and doing the boozy musicy things we do."

So that's good news then. I think... what they need is support though, and there's a 1st birthday bash happening this weekend with a great line up so why not head along if you've not been before.

Twenty Tracks

 Meantime, rather ironically, The Bowery have a new Ten Tracks compilation with a lot of great music for a single squid. They are totally into the same antifolk/New York vibe (if you hadn't guessed by the name) as I have been for quite some time, and which people like Withered Hand also strongly resonate with. In fact, his label SL Records have also got a Ten Tracks bundle.

So here's the link - but remember though to save a pound coin in your piggy bank for the I Hear a New World compilation coming soon, which also happens to include a lovely Withered Hand track, and many more besides.

Vote for Song, By Toad & Under The Radar

Both Song, By Toad and The Scotsman's Under The Radar, two blogs which I have mentioned many times around here, have been nominated for some kind of industry awards thingamajig arranged by an industry thingamajig known only as 'Record of The Day'.

So go and log in to the site to vote presumably you have to log in to stop Matthew Toad and the UtR crew sitting hitting refresh and voting themselves 100 million times ;) Anyway, their success is great for everyone who's involved in Scottish music so make sure you support them.

 Aside: There are a bunch of other categories too, including best music magazine etc – and I noted that The Skinny Magazine are strangely absent, even from the free magazine category, which seems a bit strange given the amount of music the mag covers, including some pretty high profile bands/artists. The Skinny are also totally ignored by The Scottish Magazine Awards, which again strikes me as strange. Any conspiracy theories?

Daniel Johnston - Is and Always Was

If you expected Daniel Johnston to be eternally lo-fi and perpetually at risk of unravelling musically, with records that are little more than snippets of a damaged soul captured on tape cassette in his mum's basement, then this album may come as a shock to you.

It's full band and full throttle, with Beck and Air producer Jason Falkner bringing Johnston's ideas closer to the way he always heard his songs in his own head (and any musician can tell you how wide the disparity can be between what you actually create and what you intended to create).  DJ himself is in brilliant voice and sounds like he's revelling in playing with the band. It took me quite a while to get used to the sheer professionalism of the album myself in fact, but I'm really loving it now because the more I listen to it, the more the whole feel of the album is utterly and completely uplifting.

Stand out tracks on the first few listens are the old school jam of Fake Records of Rock n Roll and canine tribute Queenie the Doggie (a song title and subject only someone as perma-innocent as Johnston seems to be could sing with a straight face), as well as the Sesame Street on crack cocaine keyboard riff of 'Without You' which is a bit musically trite but has grown on me.

Where he excels of course is as a unique songwriter, and at this stage he's pretty much a genre to himself. You either hate him, love him, or find the fetishisation of his mental health issues by some fans difficult to stomach. But it's difficult to deny the unblemished honesty of his lyrics and genuineness of his vocal delivery.

 Daniel Johnston - High Horse

 Buy it at Amazon

Daniel Johnston is playing Edinburgh tomorrow (Wednesday 4th November). Here's what I wrote about his Glasgow gig last year (warning: it all gets a bit emotional) and here are the photos:

Random Reading List - Tuesday 3rd November 2009

 

It's November. Howdahelldiddathappen?

I've been unwell and off work for several days which means I'm missing the Gothenburg Address play at the Electric Circus tonight. Whatdahelliswrongwidme?

I've managed to weakly click on the share button for a couple of things though, go see over at my google reader shared items or below if you are visiting the site. They include Shakira being amazing in the bedroom via Portiswasp, the above robot being grumpy and mildly annoying like me, fruit bat fellatio (I kid you not) and Just Another iPhone Blog, who I write for from time to time being featured on Lifehacker.

Shameless self-promotion: Here's my latest post for them: Newsy.com brings bite-size nuggets of news to the iPhone

Happy Hallowe'en!

Tumblr image viewer

I Hear a New Gramophone - an interview with Sean Michaels

This is an interview from November's issue of The Skinny Magazine which can also be found on their website here. It was loosely timed to coincide with the release of a wee bundle I've put together for www.tentracks.co.uk which will be available in late November - more info on that will be coming soon. The artwork was specially commissioned from Eleanor Meredith :)

To mark the 50th issue of The Skinny, music columnists Milo McLaughlin and Sean Michaels got on the blower (well, Skype) for a transatlantic chinwag about the Scottish music scene and how it's all changed since the magazine began in 2005.

The Easy Gramophone was a monthly column written by Sean Michaels which ran in The Skinny from 2006 to early 2008. As the title suggests it was intended as a companion to his hugely popular mp3 blog Said The Gramophone - deemed one of Time Magazine's 25 best blogs this year.

For each column Sean handpicked a selection of tracks he loved which were available free to download somewhere on the net. In line with The Skinny's eclectic, cutting-edge music coverage, these were songs from a dizzying array of styles, based on their quality rather than any fixed genre - and he was one of the first people in the UK to write about bands such as Arcade Fire, Grizzly Bear, Beirut and Final Fantasy. When Michaels returned to his home city of Montreal, he passed on the baton to me, and the column morphed into I Hear a New World, with an accompanying podcast of 'original and innovative songs from Scotland and beyond'. This included such cult heroes as Bonnie Prince Billy, Jeffrey Lewis, James Yorkston and Herman Dune as well as established and underground local acts such as Errors, eagleowl, King Creosote, The Pictish Trail, The Phantom Band, and The Japanese War Effort.

Now that he has the perspective of time and distance, I ask Sean how he feels about the Scottish music scene and how he sees his development since those formative issues of The Skinny. From where he's standing, the east coast has seen the biggest change. "The thing that I sorrowfully tell people when they ask about music in Scotland is that between the time I arrived to when I left, I didn't discover a single great Edinburgh band that I hadn't heard before I arrived. It gives me great pleasure and envy that after I left things have really come out of the woodwork, and it feels like it's reached some kind of velocity."

Despite his physical distance, Michaels continues to scour the web in search of great Scottish acts, having featured some of the new breed of Edinburgh artists such as Withered Hand and Meursault on his blog, even before many local commentators had caught on to their undoubted charms. However, whilst he believes that it's important to be supportive of Scottish artists, it can also be counterproductive to lavish blanket praise based on geography alone.

Some have suggested that this is at risk of happening with the recent explosion of predominantly positive coverage in the local blogosphere, but Sean is optimistic about the internal barometer of the genuine Scottish music fan. "Scots are great musicians, it's a great place for music, and they also don't put up with crap. In the case of bands like Uncle John & Whitelock people were responding to something that was very good, and that's the crucial element.”

The ethos Michaels has brought to both the Said the Gramophone blog and the Easy Gramophone column is perfectly simple - to celebrate the magical synchronicity that leads an artist or band to come up with that one, amazing, addictive, essential tune. "Your column led on from mine, where you're highlighting great songs. And that's what I've done with Said The Gramophone all this time - I think you can be enthusiastic much more honestly when you don't need to say 'this band is clearly the greatest band ever' or 'this album is a masterpiece'. Our small aspiration is to everyday give you three minutes that are wonderful."

With the prodigious Sufjan Stevens recently questioning what the point of a song actually is, I ask Michaels if he too ever gets tired of the hunt for the next hidden gem. "Sometimes you have to sit down at your computer, take off your ears, and knock them against the desk and ask 'how are you feeling today?'" Nothing hones that internal barometer better than a bit of perspective. "Sometimes you feel like hearing that hot new CD that came in the post or that new mp3 you downloaded from that cutting edge blog, and sometimes you're like, 'okay, time to throw on the Neil Young; time to throw on the Bach.' Reminding yourself and other people about great old songs is a really nice thing to do - I mean it's what we do with friends, right?”

Sean Michaels writes for The Guardian, blogs at www.saidthegramophone.com and is currently starting work on his second novel.

The I Hear a New World channel - featuring tracks from Withered Hand, Gummi Bako, Meursault and Ambulances - is launched on Ten Tracks in November - in the meantime check out the podcasts.

Some other stuff I've written for The Skinny recently:

• Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard @ Cabaret Voltaire, 31 Aug
• Retreat! @ Bristo Hall, 16 Aug
• Withered Hand - You're Not Alone
• Meursault - Nothing Broke EP

Blog Profile: 17 Seconds

It's been a bit quiet on the music reviewing front round here recently, I admit it. For a blogger who reliably sticks to music and does it very well, I thoroughly recommend Ed Jupp's 17 Seconds. He's doing a series of reviews of classic albums at the moment entitled 33 and 1/3 and I particularly enjoyed a post he wrote about the Queen Is Dead, which still stands as one of my favourite ever albums. And The Fall also get a mention later on in the series, which can never be a bad thing.

Like Matthew Toad who introduced me to 17 Seconds in the first place, Jupp also has a record label to whom he's signed Aberfeldy who you might know  - at times they are a bit too twee for me (because I'm a miserable, grumpy bastard) but I enjoyed their song Vegetarian Restaurant about one of the main veggie eateries in Edinburgh. He's recently signed one of their members up in their other guise as a solo artist: www.myspace.com/chrisbradleymusic

Aberfeldy - Vegetarian Restuarant

Also recently signed is an act that appears to be inspired by the likes of Erasure and other 80s synth pop bands - always a good thing surely? I especially like the cover of Galaxie 500's Tugboat which you can hear at: www.myspace.com/xliontamer

And as you can see from the poster on the right, there's a 17 Seconds night on at the 13th Note in Glasgow tomorrow night (Friday), also featuring The Dirty Cuts and Escape Act.

A Brief History of My Creative Efforts Part 4 - Fear and Loathing on the Job-hunting Trail

Read part 1, part 2, part 3

A Novel Idea

In my final year of college I also started writing lyrics and other random stuff in a bit of a creative outpouring, due perhaps to the fact that I'd kept my creativity bottled up for so long (or drowned it in a sea of booze might be more accurate) and increasing desperation about what was going to happen when the student safety net was pulled away from beneath my feet. I also made some attempt to record some music to go along with these lyrics,  though without any of the skill required for such an enterprise. Also my personal life was in a complete and utter mess at the time due to my own stupidity, but that's another story.

After full-time education ended, unemployment was inevitable. I had the same attitude as Morrissey towards work "I was looking for a job then I found a job, and heaven knows I'm miserable now.." However I suddenly found myself in a serious relationship so had a reason to make a bit of an effort.

 In the meantime I decided it would be a good time to write a novel. I spent my days wandering round second-hand bookshops and going to the library, and fixated on Hunter S Thompson. I would see his partner in crime Ralph Steadman's illustrations everywhere I went - perhaps taunting me about my own childlike drawing skills, though I took it as encouragement to continue on my quest to be a writer.

The novel was to be called the Three Drink Rule, about a borderline alcoholic ex-student who is talked into making a pledge to never have more than three alcoholic drinks - but when he inevitably gives in to temptation, bizarre things happen.. it never quite materialised, though I was to revisit it from time to time, and still think about trying to rewrite it now and again.

STRUGGLING TO PAY THE BILLS AND STAY CREATIVE

After about three months on the breadline I applied for a couple of retail jobs - one in a health food store and one in HMV's "flagship" music store on Princes St, which had been closed for refurbishment. I got turned down for the health food job and ended up wowing the manager of HMV with my enthusiasm for the Oasis album Definitely Maybe (yeah, I know..  I was young and naïve) though the way he ignored me once i was in the job suggested he later regretted the decision.

After I'd accepted the HMV job, the health food store manager came back and said the job was mine after all, if I wanted it - it was too late though. I wonder how different my life would have turned out if I'd been given that job first, given the people who I met at HMV were to lead to me joining my first band and continuing my heavy drinking habits..

 * Note: For more info on this and the various soul-sucking jobs that followed, my recording of the song Columbo & Coffee and my adventures as part of an unpopular comedy band, you'll have to read my in-depth tale about it called 'I Was a Swivel Chair' which I'll be republishing on this blog soon.

During the Edinburgh Festival that year I managed to get some 'work' writing for the Evening News. I covered a variety of comedy, theatre and music but I was also working full-time.

Just to give you an idea how old I am, this was in the days before everyone had a laptop and email and free broadband in cafes etc so I had to run up to the fringe office on the Royal Mile on my lunch to arrange tickets for the events, and then after the event I had to go home, write the review and then call it in so that it could be published the next day.

My friend Dougie's mum was one of the people at the Evening News who took these phone calls and transcribed the copy - I was quite embarrassed when I had to read her my review of 'Sexual Perversity in Chicago..'

 This ridiculous ritual soon led to burn-out, and worse, I wasn't getting paid for the pleasure, mainly due to my own deeply embedded reluctance to ask for money. Then I saw an opportunity to take part in a music video course with Roman "don't mention my dad" Coppola as part of the International Film Festival, and applied.

Coppola was a really nice and surprisingly humble bloke and had made quite a few music vids including helping Spike Jonze out on Fatboy Slim's Praise You and Mansun's Tax Loss video (see his Reel). He guided us through the process of making a music promo from idea to final product.

We had to pitch an idea to someone at Skint Records  - he didn't think much of mine, and we ended up going with another guy on the course's idea which was to have a guy in a pink panther suit walk backwards around Edinburgh. After it was filmed we reversed and sped up the footage so it looked like everyone else was going backwards and the panther was strolling about leisurely. It turned out not bad and was apparently shown on MTV and BBC2 - but I couldn't find it on the web when I looked.

So it was a great course, but had meant I gave up prematurely on being a full-time professional arts journalist. I did go back and write for the Evening News again a year later, and managed to get paid, but that fizzled out as I spent more and more time doing Swivel Chair stuff - including a string of "groundbreaking" music videos...

I don't think I realised what an opportunity I had at the time to get paid writing work, something which on the whole still eludes me now. Clearly there are limiting beliefs at work in this old gaseous brain of mine...

 Next: The Final Part. Probably.

Random Reading List - Tuesday 27th October 2009

Above picture by James Christopher via my Tumblr 

So, as promised, more random links. Was very chuffed this week to get a mention in this splendid article by Glasgow Podcart which also bigs up a bunch other blogs I enjoy, many of which I've mentioned here at some point. I think each of the blogs mentioned bring their own unique style and content to the table, and Halina who wrote the piece is a very passionate and generous soul who has been very supportive of me even when I've gone off on incredibly geeky and obscure tangents, so cheers Halina!

Random Links From Google Reader

Monday 25th October marks 'least productive' day of year
go.theregister.com

Geocities closes tomorrow. Last chance to save your rubbish old website
thenextweb.com

My Latest Novel, Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh – 24th October 2009
thesteinbergprinciple.wordpress.com

How To Get Past The Blank Page By Creating Urgency
problogger.net
Blogging for masochists

Ever wonder how much electricity it takes to run the Internet?
thenextweb.com

Spike Jonze Explains Why Kanye Pulled ‘Fairytale’ Video
therapup.uproxx.com

Historian slams 'absolutely crazy' UK time zone
go.theregister.com

How The iPhone Is Blowing Everyone Else Away (In Charts)
techcrunch.com

How to Write a Novel in 30 Days
writetodone.com

AppsFire Launches App Star Awards To Find The Next Great iPhone App
techcrunch.com

An Interview with Dan Pink
lateralaction.com

Random Links Direct From Twitter

This is all that remains of my first ever webshite, for my band Swivel Chair: index http://bit.ly/2Hu6bh #geocitiesgraveyard

RT @seaninsound: RIP John Peel who passed away 5years ago today. Here are a bunch of Peel playlists @spotify http://bit.ly/3d5QjU

Quality remix of Yeah Yeah Yeahs Heads Will Roll via @FridayMixtape http://bit.ly/3uMnr7

RT @mybitofsky: RT @eagleowlattack EP now sold out - the digital download version is now available from http://eagleowl.bandcamp.com/

RT @jonathanfields: RT @CaliLewis: Did you guys see this about the 27" iMac? http://bit.ly/4kskFv

The Public Have Voted - The Results Are In!

A massive thank you to everyone who voted in my poll yesterday and today. The replies were very interesting, and I will definitely be taking what you've said into account. 

Having said that, the results were so diverse that it suggests that people don't come here for only one topic - and I really appreciate the additional comments people added saying they like the variety of subject matter - so to some extent I guess I'll keep on experimenting, and talking about what interests me, in the hope it will interest you also. 

A majority of respondents wanted updates three times a week, closely followed by those demanding daily updates. But others said they preferred quality over quantity. I will be aiming for 2 -3 posts a week from now on, and maybe the odd extra shorter post like this one to keep the ball rolling.

One thing seems clear - people like the 'Products of a Gaseous Brain' title - a big surprise! However I was very disappointed in the poor showing for the iPhone. What is wrong with you people??

Check out the results below (click here to view page if you're reading this via RSS or email)

Help! What Do You Want From This Blog?

I'm a bit confused, in case you hadn't already noticed - and I need to know what you want from this blog, please fill out the below form (RSS and email subscribers can click here) and let me know what you'd like to see here, I will be forever grateful and hopefully you'll get some more info and content you're actually interested in! 

The Random Reading List - Tuesday 20th October 2009

Some links you may find interesting/useful/amusing from the last couple of weeks. From now on I'll be posting a weekly reading list every Tuesday. 

You'll be familiar with some of these if you follow my Twitter feed or Google Reader shared items as they're taken from a combination of stuff I've posted on both sites. 

Ps if you haven't tried Canabalt yet (pictured above) get over there and have a go - it's free to play online and the music is INCREDIBLE (turn it up loud). Oh, and the best version I could find of the Spike Jonze directed Kanye West short film "We Were Once a Fairytale" is embedded below too as the original posting on YouTube was removed. It's pretty damn bizarre.

Shared from Google Reader

Apple Bores Me, But We Fixed Our Mouse
thenextweb.com

Droid, the phone that finally lets me cancel my iPhone - here's why
digital.venturebeat.com

Debut: Spike Jonze's Short Film With Kanye West, 'We Were Once A Fairytale'
theplaylist.blogspot.com

Peenko vs Ambulances
peenko.blogspot.com

Jon Snow: ‘Being a good journalist takes your whole life’
rss.feedsportal.com

iPhone saves woman from bear
go.theregister.com

Blog Action Day: Will Climate Change Impact You?
entrepreneurs-journey.com

New App Tries to Fill the Need for a “Dislike” Button on Facebook
mashable.com

Sufjan Stevens: 'What is the point of a song?'
guardian.co.uk

How to run, meditate, and not get hurt
boingboing.net

Peenko Blog Is One Year Old Today
peenko.blogspot.com

Read 2008's Greatest Unproduced Screenplays For Free [Weekend Reading]

io9.com

Review: It's Not What You Think

guardian.co.uk

Interesting Guardian review of the first volume of Chris Evans' autobiography #fb

Ping: Free iPhone-to-iPhone Text Messaging

mashable.com

Spotify says it needs more time to make money
guardian.co.uk

Last night's TV
guardian.co.uk

How can we make paid content work?
guardian.co.uk

The Aliens: "Sunlamp Show" music video
boingboing.net

Doctor: Internet Addiction Could Become a Chronic Childhood Disease
mashable.com

Like iPhone games? Check out Canabalt. Just do it.
justanotheriphoneblog.com

Direct from Twitter

RT @cybraphon: I am feeling: BAFTA nominated.http://bit.ly/2MyGZz Just found out, very cool indeed

RT @emilychang: tweetie 2 tip: Always mid-stream? tap the top of your phone (where the time is) to jump to the top. (apparently this works for all apps - thanks @nonimage)

RT: @JustiPhoneBlog: What Does Your Home Screen Say About You? http://bit.ly/1WzMwn (my 2nd guest post for them!)

RT @1stand20: In-App Sales and iTablet: The Killer Combo to Save Publishing? http://bit.ly/3vxDMi Makes sense.

Oxjam Edinburgh - This Friday!

I've been going through an existential crisis as far as covering music is concerned due to the fact there's so many other people doing such a good job I'm kind of wondering where I fit in to things - so a HUGE apology to anyone who's been in touch recently and feels ignored, I swear I will get back to you soon once I get my head out of of my arse!

Anyway I couldn't ignore this event as its for such a good cause, and the organisers have done an amazing job in terms of the line-up they've put on and getting the word out about it. So below are some handy links where you can find out more:

Oxjam Edinburgh: Blog

Glasgow Podcart (for info about both Glasgow & Edinburgh events)

Off The Beaten Tracks

Under The Radar

Song, By Toad

Buy Tickets

Sexy New Scottish Blogs

Below is a wee introduction to a  few blogs I'm enjoying right now. They aren't necessarily new, but are fairly new to me so I reckon it's ok to call them new.

Only approximately 50% of them directly concern shagging, but a couple of them are pretty forthright in that regard so don't go looking if you're easily offended or easily aroused because you'll just have yourself to blame if you get all hot under the collar :)

Portis Wasp Says

A kaleidoscopic trawl through pop art & pop culture with pics of pretty people of all genders, plus a bunch of interviews with porn stars, photographers, bloggers & actors and a certain Halina Rifai of Glasgow Podcart fame revealing her masterplan to take over the Scottish music world! (disclaimer: Portis Wasp also appears to have strong connections to the rather marvellous Panda Su who appeared on one of the I Hear a New World podcasts)

Lewd Awakenings

Phoebe Henderson is the sex columnist for the Skinny, and her own blog collects all of her unabashed adventures in intercourse for those who are interested in such things. I know I am. But alas, I am merely a voyeur into her excitingly horny and ever-so-slightly filthy world.

Peenko

Peenko's blog is a year old today but I've only recently discovered it. Check it out for radio sessions by the best Scottish bands, and a wealth of other updates to give all rabid Scottish music fan a hard-on (well I had to shoehorn a sexual reference in there somehow). Email him now for your free badge! 

Everyone I Ever Kissed

Nine is a very cool person and editor of the Skinny's Deviance section and has also been putting out zines for ages but I'm ashamed to admit I've not bought one yet (will do soon though!) - anyway her 'Everyone I Ever Kissed' blog is another place for outrageous honesty about sexual encounters or at the very least some serious snogging and as such makes gripping reading. Whilst if I myself was to undertake such a project it would last less than a month even at my current slo-mo posting rate, somehow I think Nine is only just getting started..

Know of any blogs you think I should be reading and sharing with others in a future post? Let me know in the comments!

I Actually Don't Mind Being Thirty-Two (feat. Leith Tape Club & Overtime)

 

It's been a while since I've posted here, because I've been really busy at work, and with getting other shit sorted, which is pretty annoying as I've got loads of things to post - so hopefully the frequency will increase a bit in the next wee while. 

I turned 32 on Thursday, not the most momentous age, but evidence that time waits for no man, and that while I mess about trying to work out what I'm doing with my life, time is ticking on. Still, compared to how I felt when I turned 30, I felt pretty good this year.

Tantrum Man - I Hate Being 30

Night Out - Overtime & The Burgh

I didn't even celebrate my 30th birthday, so down in the dumps was I, but this year I had a brilliant laugh. The picture above is from a birthday card kindly made for my by my pals Sharon and Colin, who joined me and a bunch of others for 'Overtime' at the Electric Circus, expertly DJed by DJ B Burg (I believe) and my pal John-Paul Mason (who does a show on Leith FM every Sunday) with just the right mix of cheesy classics and er.. very fucking cheesy classics. And yes, I even danced to Simply fucking Red. Before that we went for a meal at Vittoria's with our friends Danny, Ruth, Laura and Alison and met a bunch of other people at Edinburgh's best karaoke dive bar, The Burgh for a feast of ridiculous karaoke and dancing and fun was had by all. 

Spotify Playlist inspired by the night:

Thirty Fuckin Two, where have the years gone?

Leith Tape Club - Men Diamler, Animal Magic Tricks & Ian McKelvie (The Colourful Band)

In order to try to retain some of my musical credibility (ok I've probably failed..) on my actual birthday Mel and I went to the Leith Tape Club (which is organised by Fence Collective member Little Pebble) to see Men Diamler and Animal Magic Tricks, in one of the most intimate settings ever seen for a live gig, in a wee room above the otherwise unassuming Iso Bar. Also playing was Ian McKelvie of the Colourful Band, who I've not seen before.

It's not every gig you go to where each latecomer is greeted personally by the performer in between songs, but when we arrived to an extremely hushed room, Ian said hello to us and others who arrived after. He went on to play a delicate set that had the select crowd of not much more than 30 people transfixed. Then, the beguiling Frances Laura Donnelly aka Animal Magic Tricks played a strange and wonderful set that was unfortunately plagued by a few technical problems, meaning that a song about the sex scene in Don’t Look Now came to an abrupt halt just as it was about to come to a dramatic (and no doubt satisfying) climax.

Men Diamler was trying out some new material too, having just written, in ridiculously prolific fashion, 35 tunes in the previous week - and some of it was dark and horrifying, and some of it was daft and dramatic - and the poor man seemed exhausted by the effort, but then as a peformer there's very few who put in as much effort as him as the below youtube video shows. So all in all, it was a bloody good birthday!

A Brief History of My Creative Efforts Part 3 - A Good Face for Radio?

In the previous installment I talked about what I got up to while I was at college (in between pub crawls). I had also managed to secure a decent bit of work experience with a radio production company called Unique. The course itself made no provision for this, but I was lucky enough to have a cousin who lived in London who could pull a few strings (though he also insisted on getting me paralytically drunk each evening in order to fully demonstrate the 'work hard play hard' mentality of the Big City media fraternity). 

 The company produced the Pepsi Chart Show which was networked out to 100+ local radio stations, as well as a number of BBC Radio programmes. The Pepsi Chart Show was presented by Dr Fox, a colourful character who later became a judge on Pop Idol, the precursor to X Factor (and also infamously appeared on a certain controversial episode of Brass Eye, with some dubious facts about crab genetics).

 I got some great experience sitting in on the Richard Allinson show on Radio BBC2, editing sound for a BBC World Service show (the old fashioned razorblade way, as digital editing was not yet widespread), and er.. filing demo CDs (the best of which I was allowed to keep - I came home with a bunch of Super Furry Animals singles). the only contact i had with Dr Fox though, was on one occasion when I forgot to lock the door on the toilet cubicle and he barged in on me.

From this taste of the real world of media work, I wasn't convinced that I could cope with moving to London and fighting for short-term contracted work, plus the likelihood of a lengthy commute each day to whichever suburb I could afford to rent a room. In retrospect it would probably have been preferable to the rubbish jobs i did end up doing for the last decade, but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

 Before I left I did have a chat with the boss of the company who was very friendly and helpful, and gave me a lot of good info for my planned dissertation topic on the possible future of the music charts and industry as a whole. He told me to get in touch anytime if I needed anything else. I figured this was a great contact for my future career, and that the dissertation, done well, might really put me on the map.

 When I returned to college however, I was told that my dissertation topic of choice was "not academic" enough for whoever decides on these type of things. I felt gutted, as I had no back-up plan in place. Finally, I decided on the topic of music fanzines. This was apparently academic enough, and actually a very interesting subject as it dealt with issues of fan empowerment and DIY culture which are close to my heart - but in terms of leading to a lucrative media career it seemed like a nail in the coffin.

As it turned out I was one of the first people to write an academic paper on the topic - and my tutor, who was incredibly helpful and supportive, suggested I might be able to get it published, and offered to help me with it. This would have been an amazing opportunity. But where was my head at the time, dear reader? Right up my own arse as it turned out. I, like many others, struggled to discipline myself to write that dissertation and left it to the very last minute. In the end, a couple of nights of jack daniels and coke fuelled typing got it done, and it wasn't utterly bad - but I never pursued the opportunity to take it any further. I have bolded that sentence, dear reader, because that, in a nutshell, as you might be beginning to work out, is the story of my life.

Next: The world of work = a world of pain (don't worry, just a couple more installments left!)

Unsung Heroes 1: The Male Nurse

 

I'm grateful to Digital Plamf for recommending The Male Nurse to me a while back (he thought there were some similarities between them and some of the stuff I recorded with Swivel Chair).

All I've heard is a few songs they recorded for John Peel,  'Back On The Pills', 'German Sleeps in My Bed' and 'The Vestibule Song'. I originally downloaded it from The Perfumed Garden where someone has made some shocking allegations about a gig in Edinburgh by the band in the comments - not for the fainthearted!)  Back On The Pills is now one of my favourite songs of all time, and I played it pretty much everyday for ages. I love the mention of arriving at Waverley Station in Edinburgh, and as for the "chorus", it can't get much better than this:

That boy is back on the pills again

Told his mum, it's for his cueing action

Told his mum, it's for his cueing action

He used to clean the tables, in Kirkcaldy snooker halls, he used to clean the tables

When I did my first ever 'I Hear a New World' radio show on Fresh Air, I made them the "Unsung Heroes" of the week, and Digital Plamf then took over the slot for most of the other shows I did with some brilliantly obscure Scottish bands. 

I was quite excited to see this article about them pop up on Diskant this week, due to the renewed relevance of their track "My Private Patrick Swayze". I can't find an mp3 of that but here is a YouTube video. And you can also download the aforementioned Peel session tracks. According to Last.fm they have a bunch of other tunes so if anyone has them please let me know!

 The Male Nurse - Back On The Pills The Male Nurse - The Vestibule Song The Male Nurse - GErman Sleeps in My Bed

Kanye disses my website!

http://kanyelicio.us/http://milomclaughlin.squarespace.com

Posted via email from milomclaughlin's posterous

Why I'm a Paytard

Last week I wrote a guest blog for Just Another iPhone Blog about the new Spotify app. There were a couple of comments, one of which recommended jailbreaking which apparently allows the app to run in the background, the lack of which is one of its major failings (Apple's not Spotify's fault). He says that otherwise the app is not worth paying for Spotify's premium service, which costs £10.

 

I fully understand people being in the position where they can't afford such niceties or aren't willing to pay for them. It's only in the last couple of years that I've had a bit of spare cash to enable me to do so. But I made a conscious decision a couple of years ago that I would stop illegally downloading and stop using cracked software. This coincided with my move over to using a macbook instead of my juddering, virus-riddled heap of a PC. I'm reluctant to jailbreak right now for the same reason - I prefer to know for certain that the thing is going to work right..

 

This may be over-cautious but I made this decision for another reason also: I want to get paid for being creative. Whether that be my writing, or some other outlet, I want, no - need to get into the position where I can support myself on my creative endeavours. And if I don't support others financially for providing me with an excellent service or product, whether it be a great album, an ebook or an iPhone app, then I can't expect to get money back in the future. This may seem a bit airy fairy but I do firmly believe that you get back what you put out.

 

Mac fanboys and girls are sometimes described as "Paytards" for being willing to shell out cash for programmes and apps that could be easily found for free on a PC. The opposite of a Paytard is of course a Freetard. The obvious argument against each position being:

• Paytards are stupid for paying a premium price for something they could easily get for free and for signing up to locked-in systems which purposefully restrict users freedoms (e.g. most Apple products!)

• Freetards are stupid for wasting a lot of valuable time messing around with illegal downloads and inferior products when they could just pay a reasonable price for a product which works well out of the box - and in the case of a locked-in system, works seamlessly as part of a larger whole.

Which one works for you depends on whether you have a lot of time or a lot of money. A lot of people have neither, and up until recently I was one of those. So I had to go for the freetard route but didn't have enough time to fully take advantage of it. Now I have more available cash than I have available time (not a lot more but enough to afford the odd luxury), so it makes sense for me to pay for products and services which provide added convenience to my life.

 

The irony of this is that the way I currently earn my money is not rewarding or satisfying as it doesn't involve any creativity. So I can have all the niceties I want, but until I change my working life to one that's satisfying, those things are never going to make me happy.

 

I guess I need to cut down on some of my spending and start saving so I can change jobs/careers, which may lead to a substantial pay cut for a while at least. Perhaps I will need to stop being such a paytard... (now what iPhone app shall I buy today....)

A brief history of my creative efforts Part 2

This is part 2 of the exclusive serialisation of my unwritten creative memoirs (it might make a bit more sense if you read part one)

FILM OPENINGS

After deciding that I didn't have the excessively extroverted character necessary for a career in the theatre, I decided that being behind the camera might work better.  I joined a video course in Derry before I left for Edinburgh which was good fun.  I contributed to a bootleg music video for REM's Stand and an overly extended skit about the advertising of washing up powder. Ironically I spent more time in front of the camera than operating it.

Then it was off to Edinburgh to do a Communications degree at Queen Margaret College (which has since been renamed as University).

HOW I ENDED UP AN EDINBURGH MAN

At school in Donegal I was exempt from attending the otherwise compulsory daily Irish Gaelic class due to being born in England. So was a bloke called Mike Deery, who had returned to the school after getting injured whilst on trial at Liverpool FC.

 This was a brilliant opportunity to catch up on homework for any classes later the same day, or more likely doss about in the corridor with the older, more experienced Deery who delighted in repeatedly giving me a dead arm.

 On one such occasion we were sitting about outside the careers office at school and I casually picked up a prospectus featuring an attractive girl with a video camera. This spoke directly to both of my frustrated teenage desires, sex and video cameras, which and sold me on the course instantly. I did very little further research, but a speculative trip to Edinburgh was enough to convince me to move (plus I noticed there were regular gigs by great bands, though they were mainly in Glasgow).  So, I moved here, aged 16 (I turned 17 a couple of weeks after I began my degree).

The Fall - Edinburgh Man

However the course was very vague and not very inspiring and although I just about managed to fulfil the first of my teenage desires in between pub crawls, it was year 2 or 3 before I got to pick up a video camera and by then I was a jaded borderline alcoholic.

 Myself and my flatmate did film a great wee video of the Prince of Pain, a masochistic cabaret artist who did unspeakable things to himself on stage, and shared a flat with a large dog and a dwarf called Powertool who lifted weights with his penis. They spoke eloquently and genuinely about their line of work and gave a real insight into their bizarre lives but unfortunately we neglected to plug in a mic so the sound left a lot to be desired.

Also the video tutor was mainly absent due to his involvement in some local TV project and I lacked the "focus and drive" to take advantage of the ageing equipment (computer editing was then a brand new thing - I think we got to see the tutor demonstrate it once). However I did inexplicably receive a good grade for the classic alien abduction short film 'Abduction Granton' with its spectacular special effects (actually it was rubbish as you can see below - some of the effects were added several years later but as they say, you can't polish a turd).

FILM EDITINGS

 In my third year of my four year degree I was overcome with desperation and fear at what might befall me once my student days were over. I turned back to writing in earnest and took on the role of film editor for the college magazine (as you can see above, a photo of a very skinny me under the Hollywood sign headed up my first column) and also did some music reviews and at least one interview with a short-lived indie band of the time called Jocasta who I roundly slated in the mag.

 The editor of the college magazine is now a political journalist for a major Scottish newspaper but I wouldn't want to mention his name here in case it embarrassed him.. Anyway, with dissertations and stuff coming up I had to pack it in after a few issues but it was good experience. Would it help me when I found myself unemployed after college though?

 Next: Desperate times, double measures..

Part 3 

Part 4

Spotify for iPhone is here - bring on the cheese!

I first sang the praises of Spotify back in January, and now at last, the eagerly awaited iPhone app has arrived. Okay so it doesn't work in the background, you have to be signed up to the premier which costs £10 a month.. it doesn't have half the music you want to listen to. This is no replacement for iTunes or your much-treasured music collection, but even so this is a revolutionary app and though I can ill afford another monthly subscription on top of my emusic account (of which I am now tempted to cancel), I had to sign up at least for one month to try it out.

Now I have access to a vast, easily searchable library wherever I have a connection to wi-fi or 3G, and if I can't get online, then I can access any of my playlists that I've already saved offline. Of course half the pleasure is listening to rubbish that you'd never buy in a million years, so here I present the 'Cheese Please' playlist for your delectation to celebrate this momentous er.. moment. (Warning: Not for those with an aversion to truly cheesy pop).

Cheese please (this link will only work if you are already signed up to Spotify - it's currently unavailable in the US)