I am writing this week’s post from a dining room in Ealing, where I have come to visit my parents, and also to pretend to be a proper record label for a couple of days – courting publishers and getting European releases and tours sorted out and that sort of thing.  It’s kind of fun, and sort of weird in a sense.  It’s also strange explaining to my folks that this is actually what I do in my spare time, too.

Anyway, due to the incomparable glories of the internet age that should be no impediment to me shamelessly insisting that you do what I tell you this week, when it comes to entertainment.

Oh, and my friend Billy has written an article for The Line of Best Fit about the Scottish music scene.  In it he tells us what I tell every band we work with – that it’s all well and good to play comfortable venues back home surrounded by people who you already know like your music, but if you want to make any kind of breakthrough you’ve got to get out.

Of course, I have no objection to working with bands who don’t want to do this, but I always tell them that if that’s the case they’ll have to accept that this will make it very challenging indeed to make any kind of impact on a wider audience, but if they can accept that then so can I.

Wednesday 27th January 2010: Chew Lips, Boycotts & My Tiny Robots at Sneaky Pete’s.

Chew Lips are awfully fashionable and have haircuts and everything, but of course that doesn’t always have to mean that a band aren’t good.  In this case, I’ll confess to being a little ambivalent, but curious.  I was tipped off about the band a little over a year ago, but I didn’t end up writing about them because for all I kind of liked it, I wasn’t all that convinced.

They’ve gone from strength to strength however, and their album looks very upmarket, and frankly I’m curious to see what they’re up to these days and whether or not I might like them any better than I did before.  And it’s very good to see My Tiny Robots back playing again.

Friday 29th January 2010: Andrew Vincent, Sebastian Dangerfield, Andrea Marini at Sneaky Pete’s.

This one actually looks like being really good.  I don’t know much about Andrew Vincent, but his MySpace page sounds rather promising, and after months of prevaricating I finally put Sebastian Dangerfield on a podcast just this week.  So this is one of those ‘curious’ sorts of gigs – the bands sound good, but I know very little about them, and so this lineup sounds rather intriguing.

Saturday 30th/Sunday 31st January 2010: Hidden Door Festival at the Roxy.

Lots of very Toad-friendly bands (Foxxes, Broken Records, etc..) are peforming at this one, but it’s not going to be a gig per se.  Actually, I’ve not much idea what it’s going to be like, but the publicity material describes something like an multi-disciplinary art exhibition, with the stated goal of being “more party than gallery”, where visual artists, musicians and so on all interact and try and do something a bit different.  Sounds brilliant to me, frankly.

Sunday 31st January 2010: Sick Kids Sunday at the GRV.

Charities seem to put on some of the best gigs in this city, and Sick Kids Sunday is no exception.  Held at the GRV (who are thankfully, finally getting their pretty enough but practically useless website updated) this one has all sorts of good stuff in the lineup, from Meursault to James Yorkston and Adrian Crowley performing the songs of Daniel Johnston.

Evening, Toadlings.  There’s really very little on in Edinburgh this week that I would personally be up for, and the one gig I want to see is taking place when I am bastarding well out of town, on Thursday evening.  Marina & the Diamonds are playing Limbo at the Voodoo Rooms this week, but honestly I am not all that convinced I have to confess.  The only thing I really want to go to this week is the Jesus H. Foxx EP launch at the Bowery on Thursday night, but I’m in fucking London aren’t I, so I can’t bloody well go.

Actually, the reason I’m in London is rather interesting, now that I mention it.  Sony contacted a few of us UK music bloggers and invited us to meet with them to discuss the internet in general and how to interact with bloggers.   I am not sure if this was motivated by the fuss made over the Glasvegas DMCA fiasco, but I am hoping that they at least found that a sufficiently negative and unnecessary situation to be worth avoiding in future.

Now, quite how productive this meeting is likely to be is something which I have my doubts about.  Talking to bloggers is a little like herding cats; we are all amateurs and all have our own ideas about what we are both individually and collectively.  So beyond serving as an easy focus group for Sony, I am not sure quite what can be made of this little get together.  Mind you, just reading our blogs serves as a pretty enormous source of free information anyway, so I don’t know what else we can hope to add to things.  I’m interested though.  I don’t particularly want to be seen as some renegade, because I don’t see myself that way at all.  I actually think what I am doing is pretty much completely legit and fairly mainstream in terms of intentions and ambitions and so on, so anything we can do to stop people looking at music bloggers as some sort of guerilla criminal underclass bent on bringing down the system is good.  Frankly all I want is to be left in peace to do what the hell I want, with some sort of civillised system in place for resolving differences when we all inevitably tread on one another’s toes at some point.

Fat fucking chance, I know.

In any case, I will be interested to have the discussion.  I genuinely want to know what they have to say about things like the DMCA, the semi-legal nature of music blogs, their approach to teh internetz in general, stuff like that.  I’ll write all about it on the train back on Friday morning, so hopefully it will be an interesting enough meeting to make a good post out of.  I’m really not interested in point-scoring here, or in finding ammunition for the slagging off of Sony, but I think you know me well enough by now to know that I will make my points fairly stubbornly and am unlikely to be swayed by sleight of hand.  Should make for an interesting couple of hours anyway.

Oh, and did I mention Homegame?

Thursday 16th April 2009: Jesus H. Foxx & Art Fag at the Bowery.

The Jesus H. Foxx EP is something I am hugely excited about hearing in its entirety.  I’ve heard bits and pieces here and there, but I am holding off until I can slap the whole thing on, lie back with a gin, and turn it up nice and loud.  My instinct suggests that we may just have a band on the verge of a breakthrough year on our hands, and I hope I am right.  Art Fag, for those of you interested, is an experimental electronic project by a certain pair of miscreants called Neil Pennycook and Chris Bryant.  I wouldn’t miss it if I were you.
Jesus H. Foxx – Trying to Be Good

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Art Fag – Nakhla Dog

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Friday 17th April 2009: The Virgins & the Chew Lips at Cabaret Voltaire.

Despite being extremely fashionable, these slightly dancey, slightly punky, slightly sparky bands sound like they have some promise.  I nearly, nearly reviewed the Chew Lips material when it was sent through to me a few months ago – maybe almost a year actually – so I would be quite interested to go along to this.  Were I not at Homegame of course.
The Virgins – Fernando Pando

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Edit:

Saturday 18th April 2009: Findo Gask, Come On Gang & Dupec play Trampoline at the Wee Red Bar.

Apologies for missing this the first time, that was careless of me, but it should be a really good gig.  Findo Gask are a really excellent band, who I am really keen to see again, and who I am really keen to see release more music.  Their last couple of singles have been superb, and their, erm, experimental disco pop laments – could you call them that? – somehow hit absolutely home, as far as I am concerned.  Hit the nail right between the ears, so to speak.
Findo Gask – Va Va Va

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