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And… we’re back! With a new idea.

So, this month I am back to posting a new original track and a new adapted traditional track, after a couple of months of not being able to. But I’m going about it in a slightly different way.

One of the things that has proved a block to constantly posting new tracks for me was the logistics of preparing the album they would go on: getting a title, getting artwork, etc. And more than that, what the album’s general theme was, and whether each track would fit. Also, in order for a track to be ready for proper release, I need to ideally sit on it for 3 months, and come back to it and see how it sounds.

The new idea is simply to create an album on this site called Work In Progress, and to post new tracks there pretty much as soon as they’re finished. Continue reading →

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Okay, first recommendation of this month…

I have no idea when I first discovered Anna Akana. I think I’ve always been watching her YouTube videos, in much the same way that Mr Grady from The Shining has always been the caretaker of the Overlook hotel.

Actress, comedian, novelist, vlogger, musician, Mother of Cats, honest discussant of mental health problems. Daniel Radcliffe fan. Dreamer of sex dreams with people she doesn’t like. The videos are funny, insightful, compassionate and she’s definitely a talent to watch out for…

Current Favourite Thing:
I mean, it’s probably this…

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Don’t Forget To Be Awesome

There are internet cults. And there is ‘Nerdfighteria’.

On 1 January 2007 Hank and John Green, two brothers in their late 20s who weren’t particularly close, started a year-long project of posting video messages to each other on YouTube — a project that they called Brotherhood 2.0. During that time they didn’t text, or email, or use any other kind of messaging service: it was their only way of communicating with each other (other than in person). Perhaps more by accident than by design, when the end of the year came around they had 40,000 subscribers. And they announced that, although that project was going to come to an end, they were going to keep posting 4 minute videos for each other. And they have been doing it now for just over a decade. Continue reading →

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A song I happened upon on Spotify. I thought the title looked good, and started the track, and thought… okay… kind of generic opening… and then a kind of generic riff… and then… one of the finest examples of songwriting I’ve heard in a very long time.

Not everyone has the same tastes in songwriting, and the thing I’ve always responded most to is to be able to cram a huge amount of emotional information into as few words as possible. And this, like the best punk rock, just nails in such a simple way the heartbreak of wanting others to see you the way you see yourself, but knowing that instead they see something they find deeply troubling.

You can also find more about the context behind the song below:

Not for the faint of soul…

Current Favourite Thing:
“The ragged ends of your summer dress…”

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The comic 2000 AD was ubiquitous when I was a child. Its principle character was Judge Dredd, an almost ridiculously exaggerated version of the Hollywood action man that was so popular in the 1980s: muscular, militaristic, ultra-macho to the point of sadism, humourless (apart from the occasional sub-James Bond pun). I found him a deeply unlikeable character, and although I had friends who loved the comic I don’t remember reading one of this stories all the way through. Continue reading →