Tuesday 13 January 2009

Spins & Needles: Whinging like fuckety...

Hello and Happy New Year! As you may, or may not, have noticed Spins & Needles has undergone a bit on an aesthetic upgrade since the arrival of 2009. This aint part of no new year's resolution I'd like to point out, I just thought I'd try and instil a bit of life back into my writing as well as this here site. It’s been a hectic and tumultuous six months that’s involved getting married, dealing with the UK Embassy, getting a new flat and trying to feed two mouths on the measly wage of a single Edinburgh financial sector job – so apologies for not updating as much as I did before, I've been a little tied up.

I’ve also been pondering exactly where I’m going with this writing milarkey. I once thought of it as a possible career; y’know, I’d be a kind of Lester Bangs of the Central Belt or something equally as ridiculous. But REAL music journalism is dead. Kaput. The blogosphere has seen to that. I quote from an interview I did last week with Ben Curtis of School Of Seven Bells: “Music journalists would write something and that was the definitive word but now any kid in any country can write to a blog and say whatever they want. And this is just some kid who hates his life... it’s such a delicate situation”. (full interview soon to come...)

Sadly, never has a truer word been said. It’s all blaggers who wanna find the next scene; vocabulary-bereft fucktards who’d gladly suck Billy Sloan’s cock to progress; and joy riding dirtbags all about the swag of free Big-boy band gig tickets but none about frequenting a scuzzy dive to dish out a few constructive sentences on some up coming local scamps. Man, I sound cynical. Fuck, lets face it: I AM cynical. But that’s what a new found sense of perspective brings. I’ve never done this for the money – which is pretty fucking fortunate – but sometimes, just sometimes, the lack of imbursement for all those hours stashed away in a stinking, airless cauldron of a room grates like the rubbing of a thistle to the scrotum.

So where now?

Well, that’s what I’ve been asking myself.Perhaps it’s time to branch out; move on to pastures new? A fucking degree in journalism wasn’t attained by effusing over some jumped up, ratfaced cunt attempting to master the intricacies of playing six different chords in succession. Admittedly, it wasn’t gained by reading Su’s trash mags either but, hey, a boy can have some vices, right? Anyway, this year Spins & Needles may take on a bit of a different guise. Sure, expect the usual plenitude of overly-verbose reviews and interviews but nestling in between these mainstays may be a scattering cultural observations, a shower of incoherent rants (as this one has so become) and, yes, a rainbow of witty asides.

Oh...and from now on there will be no more scoring. You want to know how I feel about an album? Read the words. Scoring was so 2008.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like that you have a label called 'moaning'. The redesign is cool too. Did you do the logo?

I feel your pain re the death of music hackery. But you've got to hope that the best writing rises to the top of the cesspit eh? Wishful thinking...

Anonymous said...

Erm, sorry about destroying your career path, mate. ;-)

That wasn't just a whinge, that was a towering whinge - well done! Remember talking about haw I sort of thought it would be nice to do some professional stuff later on if I got the chance? Well the closer I got to it all the worse it seemed, so I think you're right, independence is the way to go.

There may be no money in it, but without turning into a cunt, there was only a sliver of a possibility of their being money in it anyway. Better just make enjoying the whole thing the focus and hope that leads you somewhere good.

It probably won't, but at least you'll feel better about the journey.

Anonymous said...

Jesus Christ. 'Haw'? 'Their'? Have I turned into some sort of retard all of a sudden?

Anonymous said...

You have been a busy man Billy!

The thing is, we should be looking at blogging as a major opportunity, rather than as a bad thing. What Matthew's achieved is amazing but there's a lot of hard work involved obviously and the time to build an empire can be hard to come by when you've got other commitments.

But I agree that diversifying away from music might be the way to go, I've been thinking of that too, especially as I am off the booze and can't seem to drag myself to any gigs at the moment.

Anyway, hopefully catch up with you when Forgan's back in town!