RIP Adam Watene 1977-2008
I haven’t quite forgotten about this blog, and updates will appear in due course. I would like to take this moment to pass on my sincere condolences to the family and friends of Adam Watene, who died aged 31 this morning.
Many who read this blog who don’t know me personally are unlikely to be familiar with the Cook Islander. Those who do know me will know that I am a passionate supporter of Rugby League, and Castleford Tigers in particular. Adam played for Castleford in 2005 and was most recently playing for local rivals Wakefield when he passed away unexpectedly during a gym session.
My thoughts, and those of the Rugby League community are with Adam’s family and friends at this horrible time.
Thanks.
We aren’t sleeping…
Well it is 1.30am in Britain and I can’t sleep. The reason for this could be related to a piece I wrote earlier today (yesterday) on the Bearded site about two big announcements in my life tomorrow (today).
The first announcement comes at 10am and is the confirmation of the 14 out of 19 teams playing in rugby league’s Super League for the next three years. I’m a Castleford fan born and bred and am quietly confident about our chances. It would be pretty disastrous for the club if we didn’t make it and after four years of hurt and uncertainty, the powers at the Rugby Football League can’t prolong the pain – can they?
The second announcement, which comes in at 11.30am, is this year’s Nationwide Mercury Prize nominations. I’m not really too fussed about them as I’m sure they will be a huge disappointment (especially with the hideous Lauren Laverne hosting the announcements).
But neither of these announcements stir me enough to really contribute to my insomnia (which had gone away for a few joyous weeks). What I attribute it to is the fact that I am, yet again, doing a cash flow forecast and refining Bearded’s (well, Fleeing from Pigeon’s) business plan.
It is the scourge of being an independently funded publication. Finance is key, and it is hard to attain without some sort of prostitution. I’ve talked in privately about the difficulties of funding (apparantly giving artists – both musical and visual – the chance to get their work known by tens of thousands of people isn’t actually worthy of merit), and told people of the horror stories I’ve heard and experienced of people receiving millions whilst other, arguably more worthy, causes have had pittances (and we are talking hundreds of pounds here) refused. I’m not going to get onto it, rest assured though that if you haven’t got funding in place yourself (which Bearded thankfully did for the first year), you’re going to have a hell of a task getting yourself off the ground.
Bearded is at a make or break stage. We have been publishing for a year come August and now have a clear, concise knowledge of the market and our readers and how to reach them and make the magazine sustainable (and profitable). All we need now is the finance to help the cash flow and allow us to expand. Hopefully positive announcements to be made shortly. Bearded is a hell of a publication with an absolutely bob on (morally) mission. Now, thanks to insomnia, we have the business plan to go with it.
Even if you reading this don’t have the money to invest in Bearded, you can help us by joining Beardaid – £2 a month for free records and mags… can’t be bad!
Mercury…
After The Klaxons took the Mercury Prize off the independent sector last year, can the indies claim back Britain’s most coveted (sic) music award? Bearded Editor Gareth Main takes us through the nominations he believes won’t have their deserving hands on the £20,000 cheque this time around (and those who probably do have a chance).
My latest blog on the Bearded site where I bang on about how rubbish the Mercury Music Prize has become in the past few years…
Beardaid Launches
Well it has all been quiet over the past week, primarily due to working on this:
From www.beardedmagazine.co.uk
Today Bearded can announce the launch of BEARDAID in an attempt to forge closer links between Bearded, its readers and the entire independent music industry.
Beardaid is designed to help people working in the independent music industry gain more prominent, nationwide media coverage in the UK and abroad.
For just 2 GBP per month, you can help generate increased coverage for the independent music sector and get records into the eyes of a public who would only hear about bands that had the multi-million pound machine of a major conglomerate behind them.
With Beardaid, artists who make records in their bedroom, people who run a record label from their dusty cellar, people who struggle to adapt to the changes in music distribution will be able to compete on a more even playing field. All they need to help that happen is 2 GBP per month.
But Beardaid is not just about the music industry, if you support Beardaid, you will get a whole host of freebies that you won’t be able to get elsewhere, including a free, exclusive record to download every month, free copies of Bearded delivered to your door, discounted and free gigs and a load of goodies whenever we have a good rummage or good idea. You’ll also be able to help personalise the benefits of Beardaid to you, by letting us know in our forum.
Organisations and other businesses can benefit further with group subscriptions, including discounted and free advertising in Bearded.
To join, visit www.beardaid.co.uk
Dust particles
Still in Denmark (blog posts here, here and here) and I’m finding that, as I pointlessly dust myself down (another dust storm coming soon, well not storm, just 100,000 people kicking up dry dirt) my mind isn’t wandering off into thinking about Fairtrade whips or publishing ideas anymore.
Perhaps it is being weary, perhaps it is being wary of just sounding stupid when I spend precious moments of keeping my sunburn in the shade writing nonchalantly about nonsense.
I have been reading a lot about people writing books on rock stars. Record Collector features editor and sometimes Bearded contributor Jason Draper is soon to have a book published on Prince, and Plan B scribe Stevie Chick has recently had a book on Sonic Youth commissioned.
It got me thinking on who would be the subject of my first great rock novel. I concluded that given my dedication to independent music and my love of obscure, unique and inspirational songs my subject matter would be John Dwyer (of Coachwhips, Thee Oh Sees, Pink & Brown… err… fame). I interviewed him a month ago when Thee Oh Sees played in London and he was a great character, amazing interviewee because he just told tale after tale. From a man who once attacked an audience member with his guitar during a Hospitals gig, I was more than surprised.
So if there are any publishers out there who want an awesome rock and roll story about one of music’s biggest but most ingenious self-proclaimed arsehole, give me a call.
Currently listening to ‘Boredom’ by The Buzzcocks (through a barn door)
Fairtrade whips
It isn’t often that I have sinister thoughts, or see things that may or may not be there. This morning, fresh from dehydration and a morning queue for milk, the stall where said queue protruded from had a large, hand drawn Fairtrade sign.
Now, Fairtrade, as I’m sure you know, deal with getting a better deal for third world farmers than Nescafe probably do but there is something sinister in this commonplace logo that I have never spotted before – that of someone being whipped.
For the uninitiated when it comes to magic eyes (I’m colour blind so cannot do those anyhow), my reading of the Fairtrade = torturous masters logo is in the black gap between green and blue segments. To me it looks like a body with one arm outstretched as if brandishing a whip. The whip is the right side outline of the blue section and the circle in the middle is the head. See it?
I guess it could mean one of two things. One that Fairtrade alleviates this sort of global conglomerate bullying or two, that hidden within Fairtrade’s increasing production and prominence in global supermarkets, some questionable labour practices are going on.
Ludicrous? Probably. But which one?
A bit of a tease
On 14 July, Bearded will be making a special announcement at this url: www.beardaid.co.uk.
Here is something to whet your appetite…
Remember, remember the 14th of July
In the meantime…
I’m blogging on Roskilde whilst out in the field, you can of course keep up-to-date via www.beardedmagazine.co.uk.
You can view the first post here.
On the rout to Denmark
I set of for Denmark on Saturday with the long tube journey through London to Heathrow. On the way I got what I would call subtlety attacked by an American woman who didn’t seem to realise that someone on crutches probably has a bad leg and continually kicking them isn’t a good idea.
What was worse was their vicious assault on the English language, but it got me thinking about the inconsistencies of phonetical speech (you can sense the excitement), especially when she said ‘router’ as “rout-errr” as in someone who does a lot of routing (whatever perverted connotation you want to put on that).
Obviously us who speak the language would say “route-r” but can you pronounce ‘r’? Should ‘router’ be spelt ‘routeer’? Obviously not, that would be pronounced “route-ear”. And this blog is stupid, sorry.
In the meantime, this is what I impersonate whenever I have too much beer in a Danish field:
Henley by-election – the good and the bad points
For the first post on the blog categorised ‘politics’, I’ll make it quick and easy to understand so that in this time of political nonchalance you can rapidly decipher what went on…
BAD: It happened because Boris Johnson is now mayor of London
GOOD: Labour (right wing party) got a good spanking
BAD: Conservative (equally right wing party) won by 10,000 votes
GOOD: The Lib Dems (left) and Greens (left) got 32% of the vote in second and third place
BAD: The BNP (Hitler right) convinced 1,243 people that they should be in power (beating labour into fifth place)
GOOD: The Monster Raving Loony Party made terrific gains coming seventh with a smaller gap in votes between them and Labour than Labour and the Green Party
BAD: All in all a sad day because Dave Cameron gets on TV again spinning his propaganda about being the right choice for the country and a determined leader when in fact he is a sucky dickwad.
GOOD: To illustrate the point, this result gives me the chance to put this video online:
