Lifers, a documentary:

This summer I predominantly spent my time either filming behind a camera, or editing in front of a computer screen.  The reason for this was my MA Journalism postgraduate dissertation, and the final outcome was a twenty minute long documentary about the modern music industry, which I've decided to call Lifers.

I still cringe at the parts I feel are badly filmed or edited, but overall I'm fairly proud of how my first stab at documentary making turned out.  I was only brave enough to post it online yesterday, but I've already had lots of lovely comments and feedback from family, friends, colleagues and those who appeared in the film.  Matthew from Song, By Toad even wrote about Lifers on his blog today (you can read the post here) which makes me feel a teeny bit famous!

The documentary features Three Blind Wolves, Dan Willson of Withered Hand fame, Neil Pennycook (Supermoon/Meursault) and Tony Taylor (formerly X-Lion Tamer), as well as my industry experts (Nick Mitchell, Nicola Meighan and Matthew Young).  If you're a fan of the Scottish indie music scene, or just music in general, you will hopefully find the topic interesting - maybe even enough to watch the whole thing!

There is a fairly amusing (at least to me) 'making of' documentary still to come, which I'm in the process of editing right now, but in the mean time I hope you enjoy Lifers, if you can spare the time to give it a watch.  Rather than get all mushy about it again, I'll leave you with a heartfelt message from my past self, posted last night on my Facebook:

Where did all the November go?

I don't usually agree that bloggers should have to explain absences to their readers.  Sometimes life gets in the way, and sometimes we bloggers just need a break and some privacy.  Still, since my reasons for not writing a blog post for nearly three weeks in November are quite interesting and exciting (for me, at least) I thought I'd let you lot in on what I was up to for most of last month.

1. I wrote and recorded a mock weekly podcast for a uni assignment.  If you're curious about what I sound like, or if you just need a good laugh, you can listen to it here.

Source: here

2. Then Craig decided to have a birthday, so we went for a nice dinner at Field on West Nicolson Street, and then threw him a birthday party.  My extremely talented friend, Emily, made an unbelievable cake, fit for a birthday boy and a Breakfast King.

3. I headed along to Oliver Bonas Edinburgh's Christmas event with Lianne and Gillian to have a first look at their new Christmas lines (and, of course, drink some prosecco and eat a mince pie or two!).

4. I got to see one of my newest favourite bands (posing as a different band, obviously) play live at the Glasgow Barrowlands: The Reflektors (AKA Arcade Fire).  It was a surreal and amazing night!

5. The next night, I went back to Glasgow to see my beloved Frightened Rabbit play the O2 Academy.  I stood at the back like an old lady, and complained about my sore back a lot, but they were brilliant, as always.

6. Somewhere in between those two gigs, I stayed up until 2am writing a review of the Reflektors gig, and had it published online.  You can have a look here.

Source: here

7. Whilst researching another uni assignment, I carried out my very first face to face interview (with Daniel from the band Very Well).  It was scary, of course, but also surprisingly enjoyable!

8. In a strange but wonderful series of events, I also got to interview one of my top favourite Edinburgh musicians, Dan Willson from Withered Hand about his upcoming album.  He was so lovely, and gave me loads of information to use!  I turned the interview into a news piece for uni, which you can read here.

Source: here

9. I perfectly demonstrated my ability to turn into a massive stress head when I had two deadlines due for the same day.  Sorry, Craig!

10. Craig, my sister and I took a much needed mini holiday to Bristol to stay with some of the coolest people I know - our oldest childhood friends.  We had a great weekend seeing the sights and relaxing, and our hosts totally spoiled us!

11. I made my first visit to Scottish Parliament since a high school trip, and sat in on an Education and Culture Committee meeting.  I felt like a total fraud being there, but it was actually quite a lively and interesting meeting to sit in on.  I wrote an article about what went on (for uni again!) which you can see here.

Source: here

12. And, finally, I went to an awesome house gig, hosted by  Song, by Toad and played by American singer songwriter, Charles Latham.  House gigs are always a little bizarre, but they are also a lot of fun, and this one was no exception.  And if you haven't heard of Charles before, you should check him out!  He's talented, funny and cynical - my favourite combo.

Music Like A Vitamin review:

Back in October, I went to a gig at the HMV Picturehouse (put on by The Fruit Tree Foundation) called Music Like A Vitamin, and got to write a guest blog about the event.  I had a lot of fun playing journalist, and saw some amazing music, including a set by one of my favourite musicians, Withered Hand.  After a little bit of a wait, my review is finally up!  You can read it here, if you're curious, and I'm going to post a couple of photos below that I took on the night.

Sparrow and the Workshop

Jill O'Sullivan and Rod Jones

The Birthday Suit

Withered Hand

Dan Willson and Marie Collins

Fatherson

It was such a lovely night, organised to promote such a great cause.  I hope you all find time to have a read of my review (and the review written by the other guest blogger there that night, Tom Wheeler), and maybe I'll see you some of you at Music Like A Vitamin next year!

The Edinburgh Pestival 2012:

I'm usually a bit cynical about the Edinburgh Festival and Fringe, although I've never figured out exactly why.  It might stem from working in a shop in the centre of Edinburgh over the last few summers.  The anger that rose up inside me when my two minute walk from the train station became a fifteen minute assault course because of all the tourist traffic on Princes Street is indescribable.  Every year I say I'll spend at least a whole day seeing what I can see at the Festival, and every year I fail miserably.  Even this year I haven't dedicated a whole day to Festival madness, but I have caught a few special shows that I very much enjoyed, and I thought I could share with you.

witheredhand.com

To kick off the Festival season, Craig, our friend Ruaridh and I saw Withered Hand play at the Queen's Hall on Saturday the 4th of August.  Although the three of us have seen Withered Hand (also known as Dan Willson) play several times before, both on his own and with a full band, this was probably his biggest gig yet that I've attended, and it made me happy that so many people showed up to support him.  If you've never heard Withered Hand before, I would highly recommend it.  I'm struggling to compare his music to anything else, but if you like clever lyrics, acoustic guitars and folky leanings (like me) then you should give his music a listen.  It's all good, but I'd always recommend you to start with No Cigarettes, Cornflake and Religious Songs, and then see where the mood takes you from there.  On this occasion, Withered Hand was supported by Darren Hayman and Ballboy (Gordon McIntyre), and the whole show was compered by Josie Long, who you may remember as the ditzy guidance counsellor in Skins.  It turns out she is also a rather funny stand up comedian, and she made the 'waiting around between bands with your feet starting to hurt' bit far more enjoyable.  Needless to say, Withered Hand (an his fantastic band) were incredible, and we all sang along to our heart's content.

rhysdarby.com

On a very rainy Monday night (the 6th of August) a group of us went along the Pleasance Baby Grand to see Rhys Darby's one man stand up show.  He's most famous for his role as Murray in comedy TV show Flight of the Conchords, and there are nods to that throughout his show, but it turns out that Rhys isn't much like Murray at all.  I was surprised by how animated and physical his performance was, and he was extremely funny, laidback and likeable on stage.  There was no picking on the audience - something that makes me very uncomfortable at comedy shows.  He actually accepted a gift (a tinfoil robot) from one member of the audience at the beginning of the performance and posted a photo of it on Twitter later, which I thought was very sweet.  I won't spoil any of the jokes for you, but Rhys Darby's dancing is a wonder to behold, and worth the ticket money alone.  His show is called This Way to Spaceship, and it runs until the 27th of August, so go and see it for yourself if you get the chance!  I highly recommend it.

Smile-N Productions

The final show that Craig and I attended is quite close to my heart.  On Friday the 10th, we went down to Stockbridge Parish Church to see 'I Got It: An Actor's Tale', a musical written by 18 year old Marc MacKinnon, who was in 2nd year at my old high school when I was in my final year there.  I was so impressed when I heard that Marc had not only written an entire musical by himself, but was also going to direct and appear in performances of it on the Fringe.  I was excited to go along and support him, and I really enjoyed 'I Got It'.  Unfortunately, the show only had a short three performance run, but all three shows were very well attended and Marc has received some excellent feedback.  I'll include a link to a detailed review of the show here, in case you're curious about the plot.  Personally, I was blown away by how great the whole cast were, and still can't believe that an 18 year old wrote the entire script and score himself!  I would definitely say that Marc was one to watch!  You can like his production company's Facebook page and get updates about any shows that they might be putting on in the future here: Smile-N Productions.

Although I've nothing else planned or booked for the Fringe, I'm still oddly proud of myself for seeing a small but varied selection of shows this year.  Have you visited Edinburgh for the Festival this year?  If so, what did you see, and do you have any recommendations for shows that are still running?  I'd love some suggestions!  I would advise you all to definitely go and see Rhys Darby if you can, he was excellent!