Jade Bird - I Get No Joy

I really like Jade Bird; she's the kind of songwriter who knows her Janis Joplin from her Stevie Nicks, which can only be a good thing. She came up through BBC Introducing a couple of years ago and has toured solidly for years. Last years '17' was one of my favourite songs of 2019 and, like '17', 'I Get No Joy' featured on Jade's self titled debut album.

She's still learning, and still writing and playing, so I have great hopes for her in the future and am eagerly awaiting album number two whenever she's ready.

Half Waif - Keep It Out (Official Video)

'Keep it out' is the standout track from Half Waif's 2018 album Lavender, a brooding, almost Laura Nyro esque tour de force of songwriting which repays repeated listening.

Since 2018, Nandi Rose (aka Half Waif) has shifted slightly in terms of both image and sound, and her sound is now more electronic than guitar and piano led. Forthcoming album The Caretaker features layered electronica landscapes suggesting an evolution in sound that promises good things.

Harkin - Nothing the Night Can't Change

On the back of yesterday's post, it felt only right to post about Harkin, who was the support act on some of Sleater-Kinney's recent UK tour dates (the rest were filled by the excellent Big Joanie). A touring member of Sleater-Kinney, Katie Harkin cut her teeth as a teenage singer/songwriter in Leeds band Sky Larkin, and there's a fantastic interview with her in Ablaze! 11, if you can get hold of it.

As Harkin she's been performing live for a couple of years now, but the releases have been slow to emerge. Until now that is.

While recent single 'Nothing The Night Can't Change' is more synthy than previous offerings, it has the same tightness, the same impeccable, catchy riff driven guitar pop sound as her previous work has. When she played it in Manchester, it was the song that got her the most interest and attention from the crowd, which isn't a surprise given how dramatically catchy it is. I think a Harkin album or EP might be in the offing, and she's certainly continuing to tour, post S.K, so well worth keeping an eye out.

Sleater-Kinney - The Center Won't Hold (Official Lyric Video)

I've written about Sleater-Kinney a couple of times over the past few months. Now is an interesting time to write about them because 2019's The Center Won't Hold album seems to have split people a bit. Produced by Annie Clark (aka St Vincent), it shows a slight change of direction for the band, which hasn't sat well with all the fans but which seems to have gone down fantastically well with critics. Janet Weiss' decision to leave the band shortly after the album's release hasn't helped with these conflicted feelings, with some fans treating it as vindication for their own doubts about the album.

Whatever your feelings about the album, Sleater-Kinney's recent UK tour was well attended and the band were received well by their loyal fanbase.

I've written a little bit about Sleater-Kinney fans recently in Sticks'N'Strings (you can subscribe here if you like) and I also reviewed the Manchester date of the Center Won't Hold tour for Louder Than War. Sleater-Kinney fans are incredibly loyal and, in previous years, extremely excitable to the point of being quite shove-y in the crowd. The first time I saw the band live was at Manchester Roadhouse, where I got shoved over the stage by a surge forward from the crowd. The second time, again at the Roadhouse, the venue let too many people in and we had to leave and miss the show after one of the girls I was with came very close to passing out from the heat.

A trip to see the band in 2005 on The Woods tour saw a subdued Sleater-Kinney playing at the Academy 2 on Oxford Road, supported by the Pipettes. It wasn't long after that that the band announced they would be taking a sabbatical. Having since read Carrie Brownstein's memoir, Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl, it's easy to see now why this happened, but I don't think any of the band expected that sabbatical to go on so long.

In a way, it was the smartest move they ever made.

If they hadn't gone on sabbatical I think they would have burned out and split up, but also, they wouldn't have received the recognition and respect that they now have. Their continued presence would instead have ensured that they continued to be taken for granted by fans and by critics. In retreating, they ensured that they would be missed. And because they were (so, so very) missed, it ensured that their return in 2015 was met with the attention and anticipation they deserved. They were always a good band, but in 2015 people began to realise just how great they are.

The 2020 tour cemented this reputation for greatness for me, and I'm glad about that.

Balancing my work and my cheque book

This isn't my desk. I do write at the kitchen table though.

When I went full time freelance in 2018, it was with pretty low expectations.

I wasn't expecting to be able to earn a living solely from freelancing, which is just as well because I totally haven't. I jumped into it with a very basic plan, one that relied on other sources of income such as transcription (don't even bother if you only own a Mac...), proofreading (even more of a non starter...), surveys (pay peanuts) and temping (by far and away the most lucrative option).

While I was pursuing these various adventures, I continued pitching publications. All the freelance journalism guides I've read say it takes at least 12 months to start to make any headway with commissions, and this definitely proved to be the case.

What was interesting was what I was getting commissioned to write. That is, I wasn't getting offered money to write music journalism. Despite music journalism being my most obvious area of experience, the one area I have a proven track record in.

It still amazes me that people were more willing to take a chance on me when it came to writing about, say, Brexit food stockpiling and veg box schemes, the ethics of the personal essay, buses, buses again, and Manchester's plans for the Metrolink than anything music related. I'm incredibly grateful to the editors who trusted me with those pieces, it's opened up a whole other area of specialism for me, and it's stretched me in a way that I needed. But the lack of paid music commissions really niggles away at me sometimes.

Back in November I attended the annual music journalism panel discussion at Louder Than Words and came away with more questions than answers. I was intrigued by the ways in which debates around music journalism, and getting work, had shifted over the past year or so away from 'Don't write for free' to 'Sometimes, you have to write for free'. It seemed like what had been a massive bone of contention had gradually been accepted as a fact of life: Music journalism doesn't pay.

There have been a number of commentary pieces on the state of the industry over the past couple of years, but none of them have been written with aspiring music journalists in mind, which seemed a missed opportunity given that the panel at Louder Than Words has demonstrated, year after year, the need for some solid advice.

Happily, the excellent Jem Collins at Journo Resources agreed that this was a piece worth commissioning, and gave me the thumbs up to proceed.

If anything surprised me, it was the number of people I contacted for interview who didn't respond. Oh, and the lack of reaction when the piece was published. But mainly the number of people who didn't respond. I understand that many writers and editors are drowning in their inboxes, and I sympathise, but I'd written a piece about the ethics of personal essays for Journo Resources a couple of months before and - again, despite it not obviously being my area - the response rate was well above 90%. In the case of my music journalism piece, there was a response rate of 7 out of 30 people or organisations contacted. And only five of those resulted in interviews: The other two were an apologetic email from a writer friend, because it had got lost in her junk folder, and a 'We will not be putting anyone forward for interview' from a large publication who shall remain nameless.

In both cases, I tried to take lessons from the work. In the case of the personal essays piece, I felt well advised ahead of publishing my Florence + The Punk Women piece on Medium, and in the case of the music journalism piece I elected to act on the advice of the writers and editors I'd interviewed in terms of trying to find new publications to write for.

We will see how this pays off, or if it does, but no matter how it pans out, I really enjoyed writing about the current state of music journalism. The people who did speak to me were interesting, obliging, friendly and helpful and gave me, and my readers, lots of helpful advice.

It will be interesting to see what happens next with music journalism as an area of the industry. And what the next discussion at Louder Than Words 2020 will bring.

Image of man at kitchen table by Chris Spiegl on Unsplash

Women saving the world?

A retrospective of Ivor Cutler's work is due to be released on Chemikal Underground this month. Titled Return To Y'Hup, it will be released on 24th January and features re-imagined Cutler songs by Citizen Bravo, Raymond MacDonald and friends. A taster single, 'Women of the world' has been released, featuring the vocal talents of Tracyanne Campbell.

I wasn't familiar with this particular Cutler track, and it's fair to say that the Citizen Bravo/Raymond MacDonald/Tracyanne Campbell version is probably very different, but I really love it. It's got a straightforward simplicity to it, both musically and in terms of the message.

It reminded me of a particularly hopeful song by Helen McCookerybook, also called 'Women of the world', and that in turn got me thinking about the mid eighties post punk opus that is Martha and the Muffins 'Women around the world at work'.

McCookerybook's 'Women of the world' feels almost like a re-affirmation of Cutler's message in that it is also a call to arms. But it also feels like a series of observations on female solidarity and a c-change in society.

It was this latter aspect that got me thinking again about the Martha and the Muffins track because 'Women around the world at work' isn't a call to arms at all, it's an observational take on the long view of women's history. It's a roll call of women getting on with things: Mundane things, brave things, ordinary things... while copping a lot of shit along the way. It's the kind of song that is political by its very existence, rather than because it is explicitly a protest song. Its message is oblique rather than explicit.

Each of these three songs could be regarded as feminist, and as a protest song, but taken as a trio they are also a reminder that there are many ways to express this.

Florence + The Punk Women, or, How I Stumbled Into The World Of The Personal Essay

Back in November, I wrote a piece for Journo Resources about the ethical dilemmas involved with writing and commissioning personal essays. 

The idea was to provide a guide to writers and editors, to talk to those in the know and to discuss how such essays can be commissioned, written and edited responsibly.

What I didn't mention at the time was that I was also dipping a very cautious toe into the personal essay oevre.

I'll be honest here: I don't really do personal essays. That is, I like reading them (especially the more quirky end of the market as exemplified by the Secret Lives section of Narratively) but I don't write them. For one thing, they're a lot harder than you'd think to do well, and secondly, I prefer telling other people's stories to telling my own.

That's not to say I don't do any personal writing - clearly I do. There's this blog, plus my newsletter to a certain extent. I also wrote highly personal fanzines for years as a teenager. Some of which feature in fanzine related books and were, for a bit, in the British Library. Which is horribly like having your teenage diaries archived and then made available to the public. I mean, my fanzine (Aggamengmong Moggie) always was available to the public, it just didn't feel as available as it did after it had been in books and the British Library.

As such, the personal essay that I have just published over on Medium was written slightly reluctantly. It stems from a surreal but personally inspiring moment that happened to me at British Summer Time festival in Hyde Park back in July.

Some of you who also attended British Summer Time might have wondered at the time why I didn't review the festival, to which I would say three things:

1) I was a victim of the arbitrary wristband policy at this years event and, as such, had a crap view of Florence + The Machine during their headline set

2) The part of the festival I wanted to write about wasn't that part of it

3) If you do still want a Florence review of the set that night, all I can really say is that they played a blinder, I just couldn't see very much of it. I did meet some lovely people in the crowd though, while trying to negotiate a semi decent spot for myself. About halfway through the set I finished up by the entrance to the pit (where the people without wristbands couldn't go) along with a load of other people, who had turned that area of grass into an impromptu dance floor while also getting a good view of one of the big screens, so it wasn't all bad.

Publishing the essay on Medium does feel uncomfortably like standing on a hilltop in my pants, screaming. Which is something I try to avoid doing. But what I wanted to say about this particular moment at the time was so important to me and so hard to say simply and briefly to the people I wanted to say it to that, in the end, a personal essay was the only way to do it.

I'm not sure how best to sum up what I'm trying to say but, in the simplest sense, one of the things I'm trying to do is explain the punk side of my life to the Florence + The Machine side of my life, the set of people who read me for the punk stuff to the set of people who read me for the Florence + The Machine stuff. So that they might understand and appreciate each other, and how they have become intertwined with each other.

I hope I've succeeded.

Photo of multi coloured roses by Denise Chan on Unsplash