Hi, my name is Lloyd and in the past two years I have somehow managed to blag myself into a position whereby folk actually believe that I know things about music.

I originally started the blog as I was fed up meeting up with friends and telling them about great music that they should be listening to.

So I started messing about with blogger to see how easy it was. I initially registered the name Peenko as it was a nickname that some of my mates from school call me, if I had thought that I would be where I am now, then I would have chosen a different name. The plan was that it would give my mates a platform to actually go and listen to some great music. Only my friend Jamie actually paid any attention, something which I will always be really thankful for.

If I am honest when I first started the site I was actually just posting up links for my mates to download albums. Yes, I know I was a very naughty boy, but those days are behind me now and I think/hope that I have done enough now to make up for it.

There was no game plan when I first stated up, there certainly wasn’t any plan for me to have such a strong focus on Scottish music. I have always been pretty passionate about artists coming out of my own backyard, but not to the extent that I am now. Initially I found myself doing what a lot of bloggers do and focusing on what you might deem to be ‘hipster bands’. My introduction to blogs came about after I came across American sites such as ‘You Ain’t No Picasso‘ and ‘I Guess I’m Floating‘. Who turned me onto a lot of great bands who at that time weren’t getting much exposure over here. It wasn’t until I started reading The Pop Cop that I even considered starting my own blog up. So in short this is all his fault.

As for those badges were pretty awesome weren’t they, they’re pretty well travelled. There’s a cracking wee pic of one of them in front of the Eiffel Tower!

I’ve disappointed a lot of people lately. It seems to have become a bit of a pattern.

Sorry for disappointing some of you by giving up writing my monthly column, music reviews and other things for The Skinny Magazine.

Sorry for disappointing promoters and artists by not coming along to your gig or promoting it on my blog.

Sorry for disappointing all the people who’ve sent me music by not reviewing your record or mp3.

Sorry to disappoint Jim Kerr’s PR company by not agreeing to interview Jim Kerr.

Sorry to disappoint my drinking buddies by not getting hammered and acting like a twat (I have been off the booze for almost 3 months).

Sorry to disappoint my readers by not writing more regularly on my blog.

Sorry to disappoint those who thought I was an ubergeek early adopter by not buying an iPad (yet).

Sorry to disappoint all 5 of you who were waiting on a second issue of the fanzine.

Sorry to disappoint users of Internet Explorer due to the weird glitch with this free WordPress theme that causes the line spacing to expand beyond all reason.

The thing is, for the first time in ages I’ve not felt disappointed in myself. I’ve been doing a lot of things that I’ve had to get done and it hasn’t left a lot of time for much else. An update will follow soon for those of you who have stuck around despite all of the above (I really appreciate it by the way) and a more regular blogging schedule will hopefully resume soon too.

Image: Why The Long Face by foxypar4

Photo by Dylan Matthews: of Meursault at the Roxy Art House Edinburgh

The second in this series of interviews is with Edinburgh-based photographer and blogger and now radio DJ, Dylan Matthews. Dylan’s photos have been published by an impressive list of publications including  BBC Online, The List, The Sunday Herald & The Skinny, and he is of course an integral part of the Song, By Toad team. His new radio show with Ali Millar started last week and runs for the next 3 weeks on Fresh Air.  Cheers for taking the time to answer these questions Dylan!

Hey Dylan. Your blog Blueback Hotrod is focused on your photography. How did you get started taking photos and where did the name come from? (Yes, this is a lazy and obvious and quite possibly inanely stupid question, which you are under no obligation to answer)

I’ve always enjoyed taking photos since I was little. My dad took us on a trip to Disneyworld in Florida when we were little kids and bought me a little Kodak Disc Camera. I remember him commenting that the photos I took on that holiday were quite good – all sort of nicely framed and composed and so on. I remember I was always trying to look for interesting angles and outlooks for pictures even at that point.

Since then I’ve always got a kick out of taking photos, I love travelling partly for that reason, and if you go to any party or gathering you’ll find me on the other side of the camera taking candid snaps! It’s great that the live music scene in Edinburgh seems to throw up lots of really good opportunities for photos.

The name of the site is the most boring thing you’ll ever hear, but you did ask! If you’ve seen the site you’ll know the header has a picture of a little red hot rod car. Well, that I took that photo in the car park of this truckstop off the highway driving through Northern Québec. When I saved the JPEG image into my holiday snaps folder, I called the file ‘hotrod.jpg’. Then, when mobile phones first developed screens that could display images, I decided I wanted the wallpaper image on my phone to be one of my own photos instead of the stock ones the phone came with, and I remembered that photo of the little red car. I cut out the car from the background of the car park and mounted the image on a plain white field, but when I uploaded it onto my phone you couldn’t see the menu commands on the display anymore, because they were in white text. So I changed the backround field colour to a nice pale blue so the writing would show up and christened the new file – you’ve guessed it – ‘bluebackhotrod.jpg’. For some reason that filename sprung to mind when I was trying to think of a name for the blog. Told you it was a boring story!

You also do a lot of different things for the Song By Toad blog/label, including appearing on Toadcasts, editing and writing for the ‘Sunday supplement’ section and the bulk of the filming for the excellent Toad sessions. Why? (sorry I couldn’t think of a better question for this either)

Standard response for any questions relating to Matthew and/or Song By Toad: “I was a bit drunk, [insert "Officer" / "Your Honour" / "Mum" here as appropriate]”

No, seriously, I do owe Matthew and the Song By Toad family a debt of gratitude for introducing me to some great people and giving me the chance to make my own little contribution to what goes on over at Toad Hall. The Toad Sessions in particular have been a real privilege to be involved in. We’ve had some great days hanging out with the various bands who’ve been through the sessions, we all usually end up having a few beers, a good chat and a bit of skylarking, and I’ve made some good friends off the back of that. But aside from that, to have been in the room during some of the performances we’ve had has been just incredible.

I remember during the Eagleowl session we were all just pottering about, setting the gear up and whetever, Malcolm was tuning up his violin, Clarissa was texting on her phone, Rob was petting the cat or something, and I think Bart was browsing through the books on the bookshelf, when suddenly Malcolm latched onto a more coherent riff and – as if by telepathy or something – the sound in the room just swelled and within a split-second the whole band had launched into Blanket. It was seriously – like – a jaw-dropping, breathtaking, hairs-on-the-back-of-the-neck moment. And the tapes weren’t even rolling. I was like “Whoa! Where did that come from?!”.

It was a similar thing with Mumford & Sons – I couldn’t help grinnning like an idiot during that little banjo-led interlude in the middle of Awake My Soul – which has been one of my favourite bits of music since I first heard it (on Song By Toad!) a couple of years ago. Just looking around the room watching them play that within a few feet away was just mindblowing. Sparrow & The Workshop was another standout, they made food for everyone, and Jill played this fantastic version of Dolly Parton’s Jolene. I keep coming back to Found’s stunning acoustic version of Mullokian, too. Ziggy’s twelve-string is blistering on that. (It’s quite funny if you listen to it – you can still download the MP3 off the website – check out Ziggy couting himself in then pausing, and than playing the song at a completely different tempo!)

Yeah – it’s really been an experience to have been involved in these. Long may they continue!

You’re now also doing your own radio show on Fresh Air and have already been praised by random strangers for your dulcet tones and ‘relaxed banter’ with your co-host Ali Millar. What can people expect from the show and how did you enjoy your first show last Saturday?

Last week was a great fun – but it was a bit of a disaster on the technology front! Hopefully we’ll get the hang of it soon. The idea of the show is to link it in with the live scene each week, which makes sense what with Ali doing her promotional stuff with A+E Promotions and me with the photos. Ali’s a cheeky little so-and-so, so there’ll be plenty more banter I imagine, and I’ll have to be gracious about the “dulcet tones” thing and take it as a compliment – not so sure myself!

Dylan & Milo: rather drunk & out of focus

You always seem to be in the right place at the right time (apart from in the above photo obviously)– just looking  at your photos from Homegame you were able to capture some great moments. Any tips for photographers wanting to get closer to the action e.g do you have a special technique to make musicians relax in your presence? (besides plying them with rum obviously or have I just answered the question for you)

I don’t know really. I suppose I’m quite lucky in that I often seem to be taking photos of mates, so maybe they relax a bit more because they know me. I think the trick to taking photos in a close-quarters situation is to just relax, chat to people and help everyone have a good time, then people won’t bother about you wandering around with the camera so much. Oddly though, I feel much more self conscious near the front of the stage during a gig, I keep telling myself that no-one in the room is looking at the photographers, but it doesn’t seem like it sometimes!

I believe you have a day job, do you find it a struggle getting all the other stuff done and being so sociable as well? Don’t you ever fancy a night in watching Taggart or something?

Yeah, I’ve got a very dull 9-5 IT job. I get very antsy sat at home in front of the TV unless there’s either something brilliant on (which isn’t often), or I’m worn out. But I do seem to spend plenty of evenings sitting at home.

In terms of bands/music you are obviously a big fan of the Scottish alt-folk scene is there anything in your record collection that might surprise people? You must have a few guilty secrets??

Oh god, there are plenty of guilty secrets. You certainly couldn’t put my iPod on shuffle and expect the good times to last long! I have to admit to being a bit of a sucker for 1980s power-rock. If I’m drunk and near the stereo, then it’s not usually long before things like Why Can’t This Be Love by Van Halen and Easy Lover by Philip Bailey and Phil Collins come on!

So thanks very much to Dylan for agreeing to be interviewed. I thoroughly recommend tuning into his and Ali’s show on Saturday at 12:30pm, it’s a nice mix of light-hearted repartee and chilled out tunes to start your Saturday in style.

Also worth reading is his recent post on being inadvertently off the sauce for the Song, By Toad Sunday Supplement- it’s nice to know I’m not the only one on the ginger beer at the moment!

Photo: Standing Around Waiting for a Gig by Alaskan Dude

Anyone subscribing to this blog by email or RSS has probably been inundated by a lot of old content over the last day or so – apologies, it’s because I’m transferring the blog from Squarespace to a self-hosted WordPress account.

This means that soon you will only be able to access the blog by the url http://gaseousbrain.com or http://www.gaseousbrain.com and not the old http://milomclaughlin.squarespace.com address.

It’s a bit of a learning experience so please forgive the occasional glitch as I get things sorted. I’m currently painstakingly re-categorising and re-tagging everything so it’s a bit clearer where it all is, and it’s a time-consuming job.

Apologies also for the lack of regular posts recently, I’ll be getting back to a regular schedule soon, honest.

The Kids: they’re laughing at us.

Compared to when I was growing up and a crappy Gameboy or impossible to tune in b&w portable telly were the heights of the technology accessible to the average teen, kids these days “don’t know they’re born” with their infuriatingly flippant use of PS3s, iPhones and what-would-until-recently-have-been-considered-witchcraft wireless broadband.

 Recently doing the rounds is a fascinating US study by The Pew Internet & American Life Project which “studies the social impact of the internet, focusing on topics including health, teens, and broadband”.

 It shows that kids are always online but instead of blogging they are on social networks such as myspace (come on, they’re too young to know better).

But does this herald the end for blogging, or is it just that they’re er.. kids, and  haven’t really got enough life/work experience to blog about yet? Plus they’re not in a boring full-time office job which is the time when grown-ups suddenly discover blogging and spend all day reading everyone else’s blogs and writing their own in a desperate attempt to distract themselves from the pointlessness of existence. Right?

Eventually the younger generation (x, y or z? I lose track) will get fed up of status updates and LOLCats and the like and get the sudden desire to sign up to a WordPress account and vomit out a lengthy essay about a minor indie band or technological development that interests only them for 3 of their mates to skim-read. I mean, why WOULDN’T you want to be a blogger?

They will realise that there is more to life than uglifying their myspace page with more useless flashing widgetry than a Dixons store in the run up to Christmas, and instead do the grown up, professional adult thing and sign up to a LinkedIn account that will forever lie eerily dormant like a cyberspace metaphor for their own stalled careers.

The kids aren’t using Twitter either. Some journalists seem to consider this as irrefutable proof that Twitter is uncool. I beg to disagree – surely it’s possible that us adults, though clearly cripplingly uncool in almost every way, with all that laughable experience, expertise and accrued knowledge, might actually know something that the kids don’t?

Yes that’s adults – that much ignored demographic, which the BBC’s iPhone department have conveniently categorised as:

Mobile First (aged 30-40), Social Animals (18-30), Mobile Lifestyle (25-40) and the Addicted (30-40).

Via The Register  (As The Reg point out, they didn’t mention what happens after 40 – presumably once over 40 people are too preoccupied with their impending death to have any interest in iPhone apps)

You see, these youngsters just haven’t realised the genius of Twitter yet. But they will. They will realise that they have wasted most of their life so far making inane X-Factor orientated chatter with their moronic friends, and instead sign up to Twitter where they can look at pictures of Demi Moore’s ass courtesy of her adopted son Ashton Kutcher or be the first to know that Jordan is auctioning off her collection of Peter Andre’s chesthair on Ebay.

So either you can read the report as:

• proof of a future where all adults will be perma-teenagers content with bullying, teasing and flirting with their peers on social networking sites from birth to infinity and beyond

• or you can see the differences as part of an overall pattern of people growing up and either settling for a cosily predictable Facebook account showing photos of their kids and weddings, or starting their own ineffectual digital megaphones through which they howl disaffected obscenities into the infinity of cyberspace (yes, a blog like this one).

And in the case of both, generally settling into life as a slavering, bedridden, and fundamentally uncool adult person.

Of course the internet is still in its infancy itself, barely old enough in the grand scheme of things to even have a bebo account. So all this is yet more pointless conjecture about what might or might not happen. Which let’s face it, is 90% of what blogging consists of. Maybe that’s why it’s going out of fashion.

Michael Caine: photographer unknown

Print newspapers, it seems, will soon be no more than a minority medium, and so owners of the big news brands are wondering just how they’re going to make money once their main outlet is via the internet – whether it’s accessed via a computer, a mobile device or one of the fancy new touchscreen thingys such as the Skiff or Apple’s new tablet which is expected to be announced next Wednesday (27 January).

Skiff Reader

 Clearly most of the big name news organisations will survive in some form or other, and will either monetize their websites through advertising (which clearly is a difficult business model to sustain) or, like the New York Times have decided, and Rupert Murdoch’s News International are reportedly planning, will charge a subscription fee for their content.

In the UK Murdoch’s plans will also be difficult to sustain whilst the BBC make so much news content available for free online, but he may well persuade David Cameron to do something about that once the Tories get into power (probably).

 Take Your iTablets

 Although some sectors of the publishing industry are hoping that Apple’s new device and others like it will give them a new multimedia platform which will enable them to charge a subscription for their content, it will need to be something special and not just a bigger shinier version of the current iPhone if it is to offer something extra than the current apps such as available from the Guardian, New York Times and Time Magazine.

Apple Tablet mock up

The Guardian’s iPhone App

 The one UK newspaper I read regularly is the Guardian (despite its shameful lack of Scottish news, but then I am heavily involved with Scottish news all day at work). I mainly read the sections that interest me, such as its excellent coverage of culture, media and technology, which in my opinion is only rivalled here in the UK by the BBC.  And  I read it entirely online, either by RSS or on their impressive new iPhone app.

 The app costs a couple of quid, but then you have access to the latest and most popular content from the Guardian, and the ability to save certain sections and content as favourites which you can then access offline.

 There are some limitations – the share function is currently limited to Facebook and email as opposed to the app from the New York Times which has multiple sharing options including Twitter, and there is currently no way to access comments or make a new comment. However these could hopefully be added as time goes on.

Guardian iPhone app promo video (with annoying voice-over)

 What Was That About Print Media Being Dead?

 It is in this climate that I’ve perhaps foolishly decided to put together a pilot issue of a Products of a Gaseous Brain fanzine, something I have been meaning to do for a long time. It will be available both as a downloadable pdf and a print version – watch this space for more details!

 Related Reading:

This article by Jonathan Fields is an interesting take on the latest developments, and continues the ongoing debate around ‘Free’ which Chris Anderson’s book recently sparked off. Whether you’re talking about newspapers, music, or any kind of creative endeavour, it’s a fascinating debate because no one really knows how things will develop yet.

Former Manchester Evening Times writer Ian Wylie, who was made redundant in October last year, has written a very thorough report from a recent conference called ‘New Ways To Make Journalism Pay’. It’s lengthy, but well worth a read if you have any interest in this topic. 

 However Martin Cloake argues over at The Media Blog that what we should be concentrating on is message rather than medium. 

 For a pretty comprehensive run down of news mobile apps see the Online Journalism Blog

And finally, a good overview of what’s likely from Apple’s new tablet from the Guardian (no, I’m not an employee, unfortunately!)

Whew! Quite an eventful year. I’m not going to try and provide an exhaustive summary of world events here, instead I thought it would be a good opportunity to give a brief rundown of my favourite posts of 2009 on this blog, whilst also including those events that were most important to me personally.

Whilst this is still a tiny blog in the larger scheme of things, it’s been exciting to gain readers each month and to have more people commenting, and I really appreciate every single person who subscribes or visits regularly, and who has emailed or commented or took part in my daft poll earlier on in the year – every single bit of feedback is appreciated. 

Also an apology to those whose gigs I didn’t make it to, or whose emails I haven’t yet replied to. I’m still finding it difficult to juggle a busy day job with this blogging lark, and deal with all my own bad habits, procrastination, laziness/bouts of depression/agorophobia and general disorganisation. I’m working on it, promise!

So Happy New Year folks, and I hope it’s the best yet.

I Hear a New World

Though the column and podcast went on an extended hiatus this year, I still managed to squeeze in an interview with Will Oldham aka Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, as well as with Sean Michaels of the ever-popular mp3 blog Said The Gramophone, and a couple of friends who contribute massively to the local music scene, Matthew from Song By Toad and Dave Kerr from The Skinny.

The podcasts also featured a bunch of great tunes from the likes of Grizzly Bear, Jeffrey Lewis, Camera Obscura, the Japanese War Effort, Ish Marquez and many more. You can still hear them all over on the podcasts page.

And don’t forget the  I Hear a New World Ten Tracks bundle is also available now for only £1!

 Travel/Personal

I fulfilled a lifetime ambition and went to New York where I played at the infamous Sidewalk Cafe antifolk open mic and also shocked myself and my long-suffering girlfriend by finally getting engaged: New York Travelogue

Technology

I bought an iPhone, and became a tiresome bore about it and my other favourite invention of the year, the new music streaming service Spotify:

The Gaseous Brain Guide to the iPhone (which was also featured on Just Another iPhone Blog’s best iPhone laughs of 2009)

Why I’m a Paytard

Why you need Spotify’s free music streaming service

Spotify for iPhone is here – bring on the cheese!

Gigs

I went to my first ever Fence Homegame festival, which was absolutely brilliant, and made a video about it: Fence Homegame 6 – Video Diary (some very selective personal highlights)

A few other gigs I enjoyed:

Found, Meursault & Panda Su @ Roxy Art House, Friday 4th December

The Cave Singers & Espers @ The Electric Circus, Edinburgh Nov 14th 2009

Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard @ Cabaret Voltaire, 31 Aug

Retreat! @ Bristo Hall, 16 Aug

Playing with the Past

A Weekend in Fife, featuring The Three Craws

Peaches @ Webster Hall, NYC

My friend Stu also contributed a couple of excellent gig reviews:

The Flaming Lips @ The Glasgow Academy, 15th November 2009

Review of Frightened Rabbit live in Edinburgh, 18th August 2009

Record reviews

As a recovering ex-music journalist just the thought of writing reviews and having to give them a star rating brings me out in a cold sweat, so this year saw a drop in my output when it comes to writing reviews.  But there were a few releases this year which had me relapsing due to their sheer quality: 

 King Creosote – Flick The V’s

Daniel Johnston – Is and Always Was

James Yorkston & The Big Eyes Family Players – Folk Songs

The Japanese War Effort – King of Poland

Withered Hand – You’re Not Alone

Meursault – Nothing Broke EP

Sleep The Winter – eagleowl

Found Can Move

Edinburgh band Found deserve their own category this year simply for having made the most danceable song of the year with Let Fidelity Break:

Video: Edinburgh band ‘Found’ provoke outbreak of crazy dancing

Found Play Let Fidelity Break to the Kids in Central Park

as well as wowing us all with their Cybraphon creation: Robot Love in Edinburgh – Cybraphon & ASIMO

Scrobbling Off:

I probably listened to cheesy pop music this year more than obscure indie (again, you can blame Spotify). Here’s where I ‘came out’:

Scrobbling Off: Where’s Your Favourite Place to Find Party Mixtapes?

The obligatory Wacko Jacko post-mortem blog post

Scottish Blogs

Finally, this year really did see an explosion in the number of Scottish music blogs and other music sites. It’s led to a great sense of community, culminating in the BAMS awards at the end of the year. I see this blog as a companion to all the others out there who also provide tons of great content, and recommend you check them out if you haven’t already.

Sexy New Scottish Blogs

I Hear a New World July 2009 – Recommended pod/vod/webcasts

Tis The Season of The Lists – Best Albums of 2009 and The Decade

The Internet & the Age of Information Overload

The same goes for the other blogs I’ve linked to on this site over the year which aren’t necessarily Scottish or about music.

I have to admit it, my internet addiction has shown no signs of abating in 2009. I started up a weekly web trawl of the best articles I found online, which then became the Random Reading List.

My attention was all over the place, including technology, music, eye candy (ahem) and just about everything else under the sun. If you’re looking for a whole library’s worth of interesting links, you can find them all here.

Phew! Here’s looking forward to 2010

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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

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 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)