That time of year again: before Stag & Dagger 2012

This week has become an annual fixture for me. It’s the week before Stag & Dagger, and that means my working days are spent exclusively soundtracked by the bands taking part in the festival as I attempt to pull together an idea of who I want to be watching. It’ll all change on the day, […]

Oh, Canada : in Stereo

Aw, look, I don’t really do gig reviews, but I can’t let last night’s Dan Mangan/Zeus show at Stereo pass without comment and, in the process, go on to admit that I may becoming obsessed about the music coming out of Canada at the moment. But first, some back story… A little under a year […]

Putting in good words

Wur band’s new ep has just had its first review. It’s from the wise and venerable music blogger, Bluesbunny, and very nice it is too. And buried in there near the end is a nice little comparison about the style of our lyrics, which pleases me no-end. I’ve been a lyric writer since my teens, […]

Songs out of Stuff competition!

If you’ve been following my band, Murnie, for a while (c’mon, we’re getting on for NINE years, you must have stumbled across…no? Oh well) you’ll know we have a longstanding thing (no, madam, titter ye not, etc) about making up songs out of stuff people send us. That’s right, Stuff. Bits and pieces, odds and […]

Smiles and Sunday Mouths

I’m wrote this, appropriately enough, on a Sunday morning in March. A stunning day and, once I was done, I went out for leisurely donner down Great Western Road. Which is exactly what Sundays are for. The reason for the post is to properly announce and celebrate the newest Murnie release: the sundaymouth ep. As we did […]

It’s Friday, so it must be…

Today seems to be a day to be talking about music, and that got me thinking about the fact I’ve not done a NAF entry for ages. It’s not that I’ve not been buying new music (on Fridays or any other days), just that I’ve had very time for those kinds of posts. Hopefully I’ll […]

Open mouth, prepare to speak

Really pleased to say that the new murnie ep is now available for pre-order over on Bandcamp. This one is called sundaymouth, it has four tracks and I’ll be posting in more detail about it over the weekend, but for now you can hop on over there if you like and pre-order the album by pledging anything […]

52 songs, 52 stories

Ace short story writer, Iain Rowan, has begun a new blog. Every week in 2012 he’s posting a song and a new story inspired by it. 52 songs, 52 stories. Simple but brilliant. Generally, if you like short stories, you should be checking out Iain’s work anyway. Yes, you should.

Tom and Holly, Story and Song

Over on her site, Holly Phillips is discussing influences on her writing. She has a few things to say on the subject, but the main focus of her thinking on this occasion is Tom Waits’s amazing ability to draw the strange out of the everyday and overlooked. In other words, he does what the magic realists […]

2012 Goals part 2 – The Creative Side

Okay, do you remember last year when I talked about my balls? Yes? No? Well, I’m using the new year to kind of stock take and push on from that position. I actually managed to tick a few things off the original list, but here’s what remains. The novel. For various reasons (mainly to do […]