Thursday, August 31, 2006

And, for all those people addicted to Youtube...

here's a really interesting piece on the whole Lonelygirl15 saga......
It's been one of the most amazing sagas on youtube over the last few months, and it looks like the fun is just beginning :)
FYI, and if you've no idea what i'm on about: Lonelygirl15 on youtube.

So.....

Reading.
Well, same as ever, really. Enjoy the atmosphere, try not to get distracted by too many bands (!) and sit in that backstage area and get wasted.
Franz Ferdinand as headliners was a mistake, I think: at the end of the album cycle, with no new material, it all felt a little flat. Certainly there wasn't the same level of expectation as there was around Muse on Saturday. I managed to inveigle some DJ time in the VIP tent (partly as an insurance policy against rain) which meant hanging around with The Towers Of London; this was EXACTLY as Rock'n'Roll as you would expect :)
The interesting thing about Reading was the increasing level of corporate involvement: from swanky backstage tents, to targeted marketing, the entire thing seemed more money-orientated than ever before. It's no surprise: we live in an era when physical record sales are plummeting, it was always obvious that the live music market would therefore be squeezed even harder to extract every penny that was being lost to downloads, P2P, file-sharing...Or whatever the major companies were blaming this week. But there was a desperation, a blind rush for profit evident at this years festival that slightly depressed me.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Sunday....

out in the wilds of Kent....
A lunch of cheese-topped foccacia, stuffed with caramelised onion, some mousetrap cheddar and slices of chorizo, juicy sliced tomatoes and whatever half-bottles of wine are left in the fridge. Actually, that meant the remainder of a bottle of cider as well..
Then picked ripening apples from the straining boughs of fruit trees...plump damsons and sweet plums out of the grasp of the wasps...
And settled down to read the sunday supplements as sheep slept in the nextdoor field. The lanes leading home were wet with the ghosts of the showers that were sporadically firing off all over the county, never actually saw any rain, just drove through the puddles; and at one point through the clouds of vapour rising off the shining leaves.
This week? Vines/View tonight, First Friday and the Air Guitar Championships on Friday.

Monday, August 28, 2006

Friday, August 25, 2006

Life goes on....

My sincere apologies for not posting for a while, and also my thanks to those of you who were posting comments to say you're getting impatient for news; well I have some, 'tis not so good. Recent schedule changes at the station have seen me temporarily sidelined- i'm doing weekend stuff at the moment, as well as filling in for daytime vacancies, that sort of thing. Will it be permanent? Who knows? There's no way of knowing just yet. It's nothing to do with my performance, which is rather galling, but on the positive side, it frees me up to look at other things. There are some exciting things surrounding the Xfm website at the moment, so i've got myself deeply involved in that: can't tell you more yet, but I will when I can. Also got a few programme ideas in tentative pre-production with a media company and am DJing as ever (Jet gig this week, Reading festival today, First Friday next week, International Hi-Fi and the Rapture the week after)
But overall, I just kicked back for a fortnight and let it all sink in. That's where I've been. And you?
Anyway, it's Reading today, so expect photos, gossip and other bullshit early next week. I love you all, iain x