Author: Mike A

A few weeks ago, I set up a “portfolio blog” – as I believe these things must be called – as a place to dump my freelance writing. (You can find it here.) It’s something that I should have done a long time ago, when it first became apparent that commissioned “professional” writing and free-form personal blog posts just don’t sit well together – the theory being that by doing so, I could free up Troubled Diva for more of the stuff that I used to do here on a regular basis.

Well, that was the theory. But of course, the reality turned out to be somewhat trickier. Because – and I think you might be ahead of me here – I’ve become woefully out of practice at the whole free-form personal blogging caper, to the extent that opening up a “Create Post” window has come to feel like a task of almost insurmountable difficulty.

So I’ve set myself a challenge. During the month of September, I’m going to try and write at least one post a day on Troubled Diva. It’s going to feel weird – hell, it already does feel weird – and the fact that I’ve left my first blog post until the final hour of the first day of the month probably tells you all you need to know. But, bollocks to it. I want to know what free-form personal blogging feels like again. Maybe I’ll re-discover my blogging mojo – or maybe I’ll struggle and splutter my way to the end of the month, still wondering how on earth I used to bung content up here in such vast quantities during the first half of this decade.

So, wish me luck. And tomorrow, I’ll tell you all about The Plinthing Thing, OK?

I can’t remember the last time that I blushed fully crimson from head to toe, but this little Twitter exchange from last week certainly did the trick. Oh, I was hyper-ventilating like a giddy thing…

(And yes, that really is HIM. I checked.)

If you have Spotify installed (with all due apologies to overseas readers who don’t have the option), then you might enjoy this four-hour playlist, which I compiled “as live” over the weekend – i.e. by playing all the tracks in full, and only adding to the list one track in advance, like the proper DJ that I used to be. Designed specifically to be heard on a sticky, sultry summer evening, it starts very gently, hots up, calms down a bit, then hots up all over again. It’s totally retro, and precision-geared towards pure pleasure.

Click on the partial Spotify screengrab to activate the playlist. (There are a few more tracks above, and many more tracks below.)

And if you do already have Spotify installed, then might I urge you to cough up £9.99 a month for the premium version? Not only is it advert-free, but an ever-increasing number of tracks will now stream at 320k, which is double the bit rate of the free version. Worth every penny, I’d say.

My feature on Unicorn Kid – a 17-year old electronic dance musician from Leith who recently remixed “Did You See Me Coming” for Pet Shop Boys – is in today’s Guardian Film & Music supplement. You can read the feature here.

Here are some additional out-takes from the interview.

It’s a really good remix. It was the first time I heard you. I was listening to the Pet Shop Boys show on Radio 2, in the bath. And it came on, and I thought: oh, this is good. And then the next I heard of you was via Twitter, where Jake Shears was giving you a shout-out. Did he came to your London gig?

He actually missed it, but I went out for a drink with him afterwards with some other people and it was really cool. And also Peter Robinson [Popjustice], who has been really supportive. It was actually him who got me the Pet Shop Boys remix. He was the one who set it up.

Did you go into the studio, or did you do it all at home?

I did it all in my bedroom actually, during the Easter holidays. (Laughs)

Is that the first time that you worked with a vocal track?

I’d had goes at remixes, of my friends’ vocal tracks and stuff like that, just to mess around with what it would be like. It was the first time that I’d actually applied myself and thought: I actually have to finish this.

How long did it take?

The full two weeks of the holidays. Working every day in my room.

Did they just e-mail you the constituent parts?

It was on an FTP server, on the Internet. All I needed were the vocals, but they sent me every single part. So there were something like 30 or 40 WAV files that got sent to me. But I only touched five vocal parts.

So you didn’t even take a rhythm track from there?

No, no. I sped the whole thing up, as well. So it’s completely different.

So, this tour that you’ve been doing: have you had different reactions in different places?

Yeah, I tend not to like doing over 18s, because you realise it’s 14-to-19 that’s the demographic, or even younger. I like that, and I gear what I’m doing towards that. I like playing to those guys better than I like playing to the over 18s. I’ve played about four Club NME dates on the tour. Some of them were good and some of them were bad. Chelmsford was horrendous, it was really bad. It was empty, and nobody got it.

I think because when you’re playing a club night, everyone’s enjoying dancing to things that they know, and they’re all having a good time. Then someone weird like me comes on, and plays stuff that they don’t have a clue about, at such a faster pace. I didn’t get booed off the stage or anything, but nobody was really feeling it. But when I play 14+ gigs, people jump around and have a good time. I gauge the success of a show on how much the crowd seem to be enjoying it.

And you know that their senses haven’t been dulled by alcohol, so it’s all genuine. How much of the music do you create on stage?

The different parts of the songs are being triggered by pads on a MIDI controller. They’re being filtered or changed, or drums or bass are being taken in, or a chorus as a whole. There’s also synth parts being played over live.

I like to jump around and stuff like that, so there’s nothing much else more that I can do without kind of dampening [the effect]. It’s just me on stage, so I have to create a live energy. I couldn’t be doing any more without having to stand really, really still.

So you’re not picking out those incredibly fast melody lines with your fingers?

No, no way. My keyboard playing is poor. It’s done with a mouse. Essentially, you get almost like a piano down the side, and I kind of type it in. I think that’s how the melodies are so weird, because I’ve got free rein to click what I want.

But I’m happy with the legitimacy of my live show. If I wasn’t on stage, the songs would not be playing. If I pressed Go, it would be looping on the same bit, the same 30 seconds, for the next hour.

And you’ve got the freedom to change it around?

Definitely. Each live show is completely different to the next one. I might choose to go to one bit, one time, depending on if the crowd is enjoying it. If the crowd’s enjoying the chorus, then I can keep it on for another, or I can double it, or whatever.

You had a problem at one of the venues – they weren’t going to let you in because of your age?

That was Chelmsford. I got kicked out before we had even played the gig! We were sitting down on the sofa, and I was bored because I knew it wasn’t going to be a good one, and I was a bit moody because I was tired after London, and I’d just done Brighton. And the guy said, have you got any ID. And I said, I’m playing tonight, I don’t need any ID! And then he was like, get outside. Are you kidding?

That must have been your first “don’t you know who I am” moment.

I was like, are you honestly kicking me out? Because if you’re kicking me out, I’ll go. I’ll go home if you want me to. And then the manager came over and had a word with the bouncer. But obviously I would never not play the show, because a couple of guys did come down to see me who actually knew who I was. I wasn’t going to go away.

Even if there’s only two people in the room who have made the effort…

And they enjoyed it. They drove 40 minutes to come and see me. I also played Southampton, it was an over-18s one. And it was a girl’s birthday – I think she was 14 – and she and a bunch of her friends had come down for the gig. But it was an over 18s, so I had to turn them away at the door. It was heartbreaking, you know? And they’d driven about an hour and a half to come over, and it was about 9 o’clock at night. So I gave them all CDs and took pictures with them – but I felt really bad.

Well, at least they let you play. When Laura Marling was 16, she was barred from her own gig in Soho, so she ended up busking on the pavement outside.

I heard about that! Somebody used that as a comparison, saying you should have done that. But it would be difficult for me, I suppose!

You’d have to find a plug socket.

It would take about an hour to set up!

I loved your comment on Twitter. You were obviously replying to someone who was worried about going to the gig because they felt too old. And you said: just pretend you’re a journalist. That made me feel so much better about myself.

Older readers may remember that faintly hilarious photo-spread of our lovely cottage, which appeared in Period Living magazine a few years back. (“Will I be cooking lunch, or will I be cooking dinner?“) Well, now it’s the PDMG’s turn to bask in the limelight, courtesy of a sumptuous six-page feature (“Peak of perfection“) in the current edition of The English Garden magazine (available in your local newsagents for the next two or three weeks, hurry while stocks last).

This time round, the prose is a good deal less purple, and a good deal more factually accurate… until you get to “Mike And Kevin’s Tips For Tiny Gardens” at the end of the piece, that is. Pruning is crucial! Mulch the beds! Keep the edges immaculate! Oh, it’s pure Viz comic.

As for the photos – which were taken over two seasons, mostly at the crack of dawn – they couldn’t show our humble plot in a more flattering light. It doesn’t always look that good – but it’s nice to know that very occasionally, it does.

The photo set was completed by a portrait of the happy couple themselves, enjoying a relaxing (and empty) cup of tea in the spring sunshine. (We got us best Wedgewood Queensware out, as the occasion demanded.) It’s a pity that I’m squinting in the sunshine, but will you just LOOK at that healthy glow – achieved by our friend Shirl, who did a cracking job with the kitchen foil, just off camera. (K leaves NOTHING to chance.)

Just one minor quibble: did the magazine have to use the word “tiny” quite so often? We like to think we’re “deceptively sizeable”.

Stalkers please note: the PDMG will be open as part of our village’s Gardens Open Day on Sunday June 21st. And you’ll be most welcome.

I’ve got a piece in today’s Guardian Film and Music section, which charts the rise and fall of one of the UK’s finest independent record stores: Nottingham’s Selectadisc, which closes its doors for good at the end of this month.

Click here to read it online.

(And now you know why this year’s “Which Decade” has been running so slowly. This took time!)

INAPPROPRIATE FOR A 47-YEAR OLD:

(They may only be cartoon tits, but that doesn’t make their public display any less undignified. This is Troubled Diva, not Vauxhall.)

APPROPRIATE FOR A 47-YEAR OLD:

(There comes a time. Thanks to my official portrait artist for doodling a nice Ben Sherman over me manky old moobs. Besides, retaining a little mystery at this time of life is no bad thing. Let them speculate at the glories beneath!)

Oh, and apologies for the extended “Which Decade” service break. Conflicting priorities, dear hearts. We should be back on track by late evening.

Two years ago, I came up with the idea for Shaggy Blog Stories – a paperback collection of comic writing from British bloggers, in aid of Comic Relief.

One year ago, Sarah Peach published You’re Not The Only One – a blog-book collection of “intimate and personal stories”, in aid of War Child.

This year, and once again with Red Nose Day in mind, Linda Jones and Louise Bolotin have continued the tradition with the newly published TwitterTitters: “a tweetin’ hilarious collection of new comedy writing”. The difference this time round is that the project has been publicised and managed through Twitter, rather than through blogs.

Fear not, though – this isn’t some sort of loo-friendly collection of 140-character bon mots, but a proper book with proper writing from proper people (myself included, hem hem), who just happen to have Twitter streams. There’s a forward from comedy writer Nat Coombs (creator of Chelsey: OMG!), and a brand new piece by Dave Spikey, of Phoenix Nights/8 Out of 10 Cats fame.

I’m delighted that Linda, Louise and their team have picked up the baton on this one, and dead chuffed that my submission has made the final cut. All that remains is for me to urge you to buy a copy, from http://www.lulu.com/content/6281246.

There’s more about the project here, and also via @tweetree on Twitter.

Ah, the magic of a fresh snowfall! For a couple of hours last night, BBC Nottingham’s live webcam feed from the Old Market Square displayed a very special image…

(via Pete Ashton’s Tumblr, via @siwhitehouse’s Twitter)

Apart from a brief flirtation with the Independent in the early 1990s, the same newspaper has been gracing my breakfast table since student days. So it was something of a surreal experience to see my own name staring back at me this morning, from Page 4 of the Guardian’s weekly Film and Music supplement. And also a matter of some pride that – for once! – a deserving Nottingham act should be receiving recognition in a national newspaper.

(Yes, yes, we claim Late of the Pier as one of our own, but technically they’re from Castle Donington, over the border in leafy Leicestershire.)

You can read my article here. And if it whets your appetite, you can buy the album from here or here (where it has shot up by over 15,000 places in the sales rankings since the start of the week, leading me to draw some unexpected conclusions on the enduring power of the press).

You wouldn’t know it from this burnt-out husk of a blog, but I’ve been blogging like crazy for months and months. But it’s all been on the village website, and that’s a very different form of blogging – and in terms of writing style, you’d scarcely even know that it was me doing it. It takes many hours of every week, it involves a lot of behind the scenes work, and I absolutely LOVE doing it – because the site has made a genuine, tangible, positive difference to village life. Never underestimate the motivational power of second-homer’s guilt!

(Although in truth, the village stopped feeling like our second home a long time ago.)

There are six of us on the village blog team – three full-time administrators and three part-time contributors – and we work remarkably well together, pooling our different skills, perspectives and areas of interest. As a result – and I didn’t see this coming twelve months ago, when we were trialling the site – the blog is updated several times a day, every day, almost without fail. Since we launched in late March, we’ve only had one day with no new posts at all, and between us we’ve already racked up a whopping 1191 posts in nine months. And people still think nothing happens in small villages? I think these people might have us confused with (shudder!) the suburbs.

Over the past month, our stats have been spiking to a surreal degree, for reasons already mentioned. Over 20,000 page views in December for a village with around 500 on the electoral roll isn’t normal, and it’s unlikely ever to be repeated. Of course, we’re all as pleased as Punch – but as a seasoned veteran of the medium, this is not altogether unfamiliar territory, and I’m aware of the attendant hubristic dangers. For that reason, I’m looking forward to a general calming down in the new year, and to a restoration of business as usual. We can’t be on the telly every week!

Without a doubt, launching and maintaining the village blog has been this year’s biggest personal achievement. Away from that, it’s been a year of constant gig-going, with dozens of reviews in the Evening Post to match (none of which have been written 100% sober, thanks to that lovely 6am copy deadline). I’ve learned to surf the wave of anxiety that washes over me on every walk home, and to embrace it as an integral part of the process. Which is all to the good, because I’ve historically never been much good at managing fear.

The same holds true for the artist interviews, which are in some ways another exercise in terror management – but I’ve enjoyed honing the skill of extracting the maximum possible amount of information from my subjects, within the confines of a 15-20 minute phone conversation. OK, so Liza and Jennifer were f**k-ups, even if the finished pieces made for entertaining reading – but I had a good run this year, with personal favourites including Gary Numan, Phil Oakey, Boy George and Vince Clarke (from the Eighties Survivors wing), and Martha Wainwright, The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn and Elbow’s Mark Potter (from the Contemporary Artistes wing). Oh, and Martha Reeves, who was completely charming and adorable, and left me more posthumously star-struck than any other artist (I floated about in a happy swoon for the rest of the day).

And then there was the day job, which chugged along nicely this year, credit crunches notwithstanding. In geographic terms, I work on my own (albeit in a friendly office), and I spend much of my working day in close contact with people whom I’ve never met in person. It’s a curious existence – but as with the artist interviews, I quite enjoy presenting an edited version of myself, and managing the image which I portray. Interestingly, both exercises feed into each other in terms of confidence building, and dealing with the unfamiliar (again, two historically weak areas).

Nevertheless, and despite being busier than ever before (whatever happened to that quaint concept known as “free time”?), there have been periods when 2008 has felt curiously static – particularly when contrasted with the event-packed rollercoaster that was 2006, for example. Looking back on it all now, I think I’m beginning to grasp what this year was really all about: consolidation, concentration, application, and the steady building of new skills. And that’s not such a bad way to spend a year, is it?

A Happy New Year to all my readers!

Update: I’ve listed some additional highlights of 2008 in the comments.