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.
Once lost, momentum is often difficult to recover – a plight New York's School of Seven Bells are getting all too familiar with. While 2008 debut Alpinisms jetted the former three-piece into the stratosphere, its follow up, Disconnect From Desire, saw their status dip toward also-ran territory. Now a duo (sans Alejandra Deheza's identical twin, Claudia), album number three sees SVIIB once again struggling to regain the firm foothold of their initial offering.
