Zinester
The year got off to a strong start off the back of my pledge in December to ‘get my shit together’ in 100 days with the release of my first ever fanzine, something I’ve been meaning to do for years.
The initial idea was to do a quarterly zine but that was a bit ambitious, and in the interests of transparency I have to admit I didn’t sell many copies, which is fair enough as it was pretty much a vanity publication (with a few guest articles by friends), and I kind of knew it lacked a coherent theme that would attract new people to buy it.
But I enjoyed making it and even the few that I sold gave me a buzz as it was nice seeing a couple of quid appearing in my paypal account from time to time. As it’s nearly a year old and it’s the festive season and everything, I thought I’d make the digital version available here to read/download for free.
Writing Elsewhere
This was the first full year I haven’t written for The Skinny Magazine, Apart from a Kraftwerk review published in Jan but written the Dec before.
However I was still keen to keep writing and it was a pleasure to feature on my favourite local music websites like Song, By Toad and Off The Beaten Tracks (also contributing handclaps to one of the videos they made with Meursault!)
I also wrote about the future of journalism in the digital era for journalism.co.uk and took part in a debate on whether ‘Print is Dead’ or not at St Andrew’s University (with some real experts on the subject!)
And even though I have absolutely no interest or aptitude for sport of any kind, I ended up writing a guide to world cup stadiums for The Scotsman. Go figure..
In a move that perhaps is of little interest to my regular readers here, I also branched out into writing about personal development and productivity, featuring on The Connection Revolution (as part of a writing competition) and Pick The Brain.
Technology
I’ve typecast myself as a geek in recent years, and 2010 saw an intermittent series of ‘Gaseous Brainstorms’ asking questions like ‘What’s the Future of Publishing’, ‘Who Will Win the Tech Wars’, ‘Is Blogging Just for Old Buggers’ and something along the lines of ‘Can I Afford to Buy an iPad’. Alas the answer to the latter was no, but nearer the end of the year I did succumb and buy a Kindle so that I could at least get an idea of what using an ebook reader was all about. You can see my daft little video review here, though I have to admit I’m still undecided as to the value of the Kindle now that I’ve had it a while my usage of it has reduced quite a bit.
My iPhone 3G died, and I recorded a moving eulogy for it which appeared on iSource.com with a demand for me to stop singing in public forever. Fair enough (more on that topic below). So I shelled out for the iPhone 4, and I have to admit it’s an amazing bit of kit and far superior to the 3G. Having a pocket, decent quality video recorder alone has made it a worthwhile purchase.
Finally also as part of the Brainstorms series, I added my penny’s worth to the vast swell of support for BBC6Music, which thankfully was successful for the time being, and even found myself appearing on Shaun Keaveny’s breakfast show (mainly because he found my first name and the fact that I share it with a number of pet dogs amusing).
SERVICE INTERRUPTION
Frustrated by some of the platform’s limitiations in terms of plug-ins and design, and wanting to provide as professional an image as possible, I transferred the whole blog over from squarespace to a self-hosted wordpress account.
I under-estimated the work involved though as it turned out as a lot of photos and other content disappeared from the archives in the process and I’ve never got round to going back through and add them back in.
It was a learning experience and I’m glad I now know how to do it, but it took a big chunk of my precious free time away from actually being able to concentrate on producing new content for the blog.
Life is what happens when you’re meant to be blogging
Life has a habit of getting in the way. What with putting my flat on the market, arranging my wedding for May 2011, and trying to get a new job, blogging suddenly found itself at the bottom of my list of priorities.
I also managed to run a 10k though I’ve done very little exercise since, and I was off the booze for 3 months. Not quite the full year I’d hoped for, but a nice break from hangovers anyway.
I started a new job and also did some moonlighting at a national newspaper which meant I was busier than ever. For a few months I barely blogged at all, apart from a few ‘holding’ posts to apologise for not blogging (always a bad sign!).
Creative Pursuits: Famous Drunk & The Devil’s Buttermilk
Together with my friend Iain I played live twice this year under the name Famous Drunk, once at the Terrifying Ordeal event (when we were also joined by another pal, Chris) and once at Lach’s Antihoot during the festival.
However given the above fairly justified criticism of my singing ability I’ve come to realise that unless I actually sat down and practiced/learnt the guitar, these traumatic experiences were never going to improve for either me or the audience, so making music is on an indefinite hiatus at the moment. In the meantime here’s an inexpertly played, recorded and mixed demo I did this year just in case you cared:
All The Things I Thought I’d Never Be by gaseousbrain
More enjoyable was the short horror spoof that Iain and I and a group of friends filmed for the Aberdour Festival’s ASBO awards called ‘The Devil’s Buttermilk’. We came second in the public vote to a schoolgirl, but walked away with the Best Directed Short award. And had a great laugh in the process. You can also hear the theme tune used in the video (by Iain Radcliffe) over at myspace (link below)
SOCIAL MELTDOWN
I have to admit I became a bit overwhelmed this year with all the things on my plate and one thing that definitely suffered was my social life, especially my involvement in the local music scene.
Homegame was great, and I went to a few really good gigs including the Charity Baw, Grizzly Bear & Beach House, Modest Mouse and The Meursault album launch.
But as my focus shifted to work, marriage, home reports, and a general sense of existential panic, I had to take a step back from the huge amount of activity in the Scottish music scene, though in the last few weeks I’ve managed to get out to several highly enjoyable gigs/Christmas parties which has made up for that somewhat ( a couple of which I recorded for the ‘Burgh Bootlegs series).
I had a period where even my Facebook and Twitter feeds were just too much to keep up with, and even missed a wedding reception because I didn’t notice I’d been invited through Facebook! Not to mention missing the first Away Game which I never want to hear about again, especially as nearly everyone I know on the East Coast went and said it was the best weekend EVER.
2011
So another fairly schizophrenic year both for me and for the blog. But then it is called ‘Products of a Gaseous Brain’.
However in January I’m launching a new blog called ‘The Clear-Minded Creative’. It’s all about creativity and getting your head clear about what you want to do with your life. I realise not everyone who reads this blog will be interested, but if you are please head over and subscribe to the newsletter!
I’m intending to move the Creative Types series over to the new blog, and there’s quite a few people who I asked to be involved in that series a while ago who will hopefully still agree to take part.
In the meantime I’ll more than likely still be posting here in the usual haphazard manner. I really appreciate everyone who’s stuck around during the last year despite this blog being all over the place.
This was an amazing night. Well done to Bart and the rest of eagleowl, our host Matthew Kelly as well as all the musicians that took part and everyone in the audience who contributed to it being so much fun!
p.s. apologies to Kate Bush who I didn’t get any decent footage of but she was fantastic.
p.p.s. The night before was the Song, By Toad Christmas Party which was also a superb night, with excellent performances by The Savings & Loan, Jesus H. Foxx, Yusuf Azak, Inspector Tapehead, Rob St. John & an incredible headline set by Meursault topping off an amazing year for them and the label. Unfortunately the Burgh Bootlegs cameraman was a little worse for wear so didn’t have much usable footage! Read The Scotsman’s 5 star review
Music is extremely important to me but for probably the first time it has been low on the list of priorities for much of this year. I’ve had a lot of other stuff going on.
Now I find myself at the end of the year and not having heard half as much of the year’s music as I’d like to, especially Scottish stuff. So instead I will succumb to the wisdom of the following crowd-sourced end of year lists (which I just happen to also have contributed to)
1. The Scottish BAMS
The second annual Scottish BAMS (blogs and music sites) awards was announced on Monday – it was an honour to be asked to contribute, even though I can hardly claim to be a proper music blogger these days and my tastes veer into pop and hip hop quite often as well as the alternative rock/indie/folk that this list mainly covers (which is obviously sacrilege).
But the bloggers/podcasters involved are a good bunch with a massive enthusiasm for music, and are incredibly supportive of the Scottish scene. Because of that it’s one of the few places you’ll see great Scottish music given a fair run against the better known alternative bands/artists, and I believe the high placings they’ve received here are well deserved.
Here’s the results:
1. The National – High Violet
2. Admiral Fallow – Boots Met My Face
3. Meursault – All Creatures Will Make Merry
4. Frightened Rabbit – The Winter of Mixed Drinks
5. Kid Canaveral – Shouting at Wildlife
6. The Phantom Band – The Wants
7. The Arcade Fire – The Suburbs
8. The Last Battle – Heart of the Land, Soul of the Sea
9. Broken Records – Let Me Come Home
10. Bronto Skylift – The White Crow
11. Beach House – Teen Dream
12. The Fire & I – Stampede Finale
13. Sufjan Stevens – Age Of Adz
14. Deerhunter – Halcyon Digest
15. Best Coast – Crazy For You
16. Mitchell Museum – The Peters Port Memorial Service
17. Teenage Fanclub – Shadows
18. The Scottish Enlightenment – St Thomas
19. Joanna Newsom – Have One On Me
20. jonsi – go do
21. RM Hubbert – First & Last
22. Errors – Come Down With Me
23. Laura Marling – I Speak Because I Can
24. Sleigh Bells – Treats
25. The Boy Who Trapped The Sun – Fireplace
26. Micah P Hinson and the Pioneer Saboteurs
27. Bruce Springsteen – The Promise
28. How To Swim – Retina (Or More Fun Than A Vat Of Love)
29. Gorillaz – Plastic Beach
30. Silver Columns – Yes and Dance
Thanks to Peenko for organising this and all the other blogs involved who are listed below:
Timothy London, Jock N Roll, The Daily Dose, Resound Scotland, The Steinberg Principle, Dauphin, Hercules Moments, Argos Barks, The Web Is Not A Cold Dead Place, The Tidal Wave of Indifference, Ed Rock, Off the Beaten Tracks, Found In Sound, Elba Sessions, Kowalskiy, Have Fun At Dinner, Ayetunes, Edinburgh Man,17 Seconds, Scots Whay Hae, Open Till Midnight, Products of a Gaseous Brain,The Spill, Last Years Girl, Is This Music, JockRock, Dear Scotland, Manic Pop Thrills, Favourite Son, Peenko, Jim Gellatly, My Portis Wasp Says, Never Make Friends, Detour, Jenny Soep, Net Sounds Unsigned, Listen Before You Buy, Song By Toad, The Daily Growl, Earz Mag, Glasgow Podcart, Rokbun, The Pop Cop, Pin Up Nights, Traffic Cone Music, Radar & Blueback Hotrod
Listen to the Scottish BAMS playlist by Ian from Have Fun at Dinner
2. Said The Gramophone’s Best Songs of 2010
I also made a modest contribution to Said The Gramophone’s best songs of 2010 list (only one of my five suggested songs – Spanish Sahara by Foals, was included but it’s better than none, and I like quite a few of the ones others chose as well).
This is my favourite music blog post of the year because you can download them all at once and listen to them at your leisure. Last year I listened to it while I was eating my Christmas dinner and it was great to hear Withered Hand and Meursault popping up. This year I don’t think any of my fave Scottish stuff made the cut, but it’s still an essential treasure trove of lovely tunes.
3. Song, By Toad Readers’ Top 5 Songs of 2010
Spanish Sahara pops up here again, as does the beautiful No Conjunction by eagleowl which thoroughly deserves its high placing (and featured on one of my few podcasts from this year). I can’t really argue with the other tunes either though I have other tunes which I prefer. And The National have never quite moved from ‘substantially satisfying’ to ‘awe-inspiring’ for me, a good band but a little over-rated in my opinion. Then again I’ve never seen them live and that might change my mind.
4. Scrawls and Bawls Festive Fifty - I’ve put my pennies worth in to this as well, which should be published soon. In the meantime Finbarr’s own top 20 albums list is well worth perusing.
THE REST.
Some other end of year lists worth checking out are listed below:
Peenko also has an excellent end of year list chosen by various Scottish musicians
Japanese War Effort’s favourite songs of the year (a mix)
The Year Is 2010, And These Are Some Songs: Mix by thejapanesewareffort
Ian Rankin’s Albums of the Year for The Spectator
Mr Douglas Anderson’s albums of the year
The Tidal Wave of Indifference albums of the year
Sorry if I missed yours – this post could potentially have been endless. But please add a link in the comments below if I have, or if there’s another good list I’ve missed. Or if you just want to tell me your own favourite albums or songs.
The sound on this is surprisingly good for a cameraphone but the visuals aren’t because I didn’t have a great view of the stage and my filming was a pretty half-arsed attempt. Think of it as ambient video..
Still, hopefully it gives you an idea of what a cracking night Gerry Loves Records put on at the Banshee Labyrinth in Edinburgh on Friday, despite some last minute line-up changes due to the weather.
Apologies also the audience members who are in shot. Due to the fact this was filmed entirely without permission and without any attempt at professionalism I’m calling it the Burgh Bootlegs #1. Like most of the new series I start on this blog, who knows if there actually will be a #2..
I thoroughly recommend you pop over to the Gerry Loves Records website to get hold of their latest release which is superb – it features the excellent song Tomlinson’s Rant by Wounded Knee that features in the video (which is about the death of Ian Tomlinson), and great tracks by the Japanese War Effort, Miaoux Miaoux and Fox Gut Daata.
Those who played on Friday were:
Neil Pennycook of Meursault | Yahweh | Debutant | Fox Gut Daata | Wounded Knee