This be the blog

There’s a well loved and much used phrase that goes “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone” sometimes with the addition of “the truth is you did know - you just never thought you’d lose it”. In a few weeks’ time I’ll be moving to university, and this is a phrase that’s been playing around my head; not in relation to myself, no, I’m well aware I’m leaving my friends, family, mostly reliable WiFi and 11" CRT TV with built in VHS player behind. It’s more about my parents. The title of this post relates to the “well done on your results/getting into uni” presents they gave me. For some reason my mum was possessed to get a free Kellogg’s spoon engraved with “Mentioned” on it which explains that as best as possible, but the picture of Bill Nighy is a little less obvious. Well, it’s a snap of him, copied and pasted from Google via Paint, in Love Actually as a rockstar. I’m doing a music journalism and broadcasting course, so, so far, so good. However, my rents stuck this on a car...

There's little-to-no money for the majority of people in music. No one has ever thought, "I need a way to get rich quick - I know, I'll start a band". Unless you're right at the consistently-chart topping, sickeningly-rich end, you've probably got yourself a day job. People go into music because they love it, and they love it enough to be worth the long hauls, the let's-record-this-quick-because-we-can-only-afford-three-days-in-the-studios, the empty gigs, the negative feedback, the bad eggs of the industry. At the best of times, budgets can be hard to stick to. At the worst of times they can be bloody impossible, and artists can be forced - note my use of forced  - to turn to their fans. I can't imagine any band would think, "we're short on cash, it's easiest for us to ask total strangers for their hard earned money, so that's what we'll do". Also, remember, whilst crowdfunding can be aimed at their fans, it's als...

This is essentially a continuation of the last post ( on the personal/private divide ), as I intended that one to make some brief points but the topic felt too deep to ignore. You don't have to read it to make sense of this post. I basically discussed how social media allows us to know the personalities behind the music we listen to. Whatever your opinion of him, even if it's sheer, bone crushing apathy (as it was for me for a while), almost every corner of the Western world has heard of Kanye West. I can't find a figure for how many people watched his performance headlining Glastonbury on Saturday night, but hundreds of thousands, or possibly a million odd, wouldn't surprise me. I watched it because I knew someone would ask my opinion of it. And people are talking about it, which is the ultimate goal - but we'll get to that later. Now we know more about our favourite musicians than snippets of live show ramblings, thanks in a CD insert, or the odd off-the-beat...

Due to a conversation that began as a discussion about Kanye and ended with my mother shouting "Biffy Clyro aren't real rock, they're soppy rock that tries to be harder than it is because they're Scottish", whilst praising Twin Atlantic yet not being able to tell the difference between them, I'm skipping the dialogue and getting straight into the post. This was intended to be my promised post on Kanye, but as this rant got out of hand that'll have to be postponed - before this one is shared on social media, the next one will be being written, never fear. Thanks to the wonderful power that is social media, we're now at a point where we can know every detail of our favourite musicians' lives, not just through what the interviewers and professional journalists tell us, but from what the guerrilla (is that a fair term? You know what I mean anyway) journalists, free lancers, opinion bloggers, Joe Blogs, and, of course, reading, stalking, and inte...

"Mum! You're needed to say funny things." "Shall I tell you about what you need to think when you want to kill a fly?" "No, I have topics. Let's talk about the word 'awesome'." "Well that's easy, that's me." "I saw a parrot on the allotment. It had a red head and wings." "Dad, are you sure that wasn't me?" "Its underside looked like a raptor." "Right. Mum. How would you describe 'awesome'?" "Me. There is no one more awesomer in the world than me." "You know the really worrying thing? She believes it." "Shouldn't everyone believe they're awesome?" "Yeah, but not all of us can be." "Is he taking my talking off me? It's not fair if he's taking my talking." Several months ago I watched a TED talk about the word awesome, and (well, like many TED talks) it really stuck with me. I'll try and embe...

"Mum! Come in here. I've got a load of blog posts and I want to start them all with quotes from us." "Hang on. I got confused and tried to work with the computer with a foot treadle." "There are two questions I get asked a lot. In relation to music, so not 'what colour is your hair really ?'. What do you think they are?" "Who's the most famous person you've met?" "No, questions by actual music people, not you and your mates." "Oh. Are you single?" "Music people, not teenagers with guitars." "Do you have an informed opinion on the Rolf Harris situation?" "A careers person might ask it." "Do you like sitting at a desk all day, or do you like being out and about?" "Nope, not what we're looking for." "Can we buy a good review from you?" "No, that's in a different article." "Are you done with the weights? And do you w...

"Mum! I'm starting a new blog. What should the URL be?" "Why are you starting a new blog? Will it be serious?" "Not really, but it'll be less taking the piss out of you." "Okay." "And what should the URL be?" "Well I quite liked 'This Be The Blog'." "That was the blog title, not the URL." "What was the URL?" "'deceptivelyoptimistic.tumblr.com'." "Oh." "What should my new URL be?" "I don't know. Can't you just keep the old blog?" "I'll call it a derivative of Elizabeth." "As in, you'll call it a derivative of Elizabeth, or you'll call it A Derivative Of Elizabeth?" "I'll call it A Derivative Of Elizabeth." "Why?" "Because that's what people call me." "They call you A Derivative Of Elizabeth?" "Someone did once, but no." "Then ...