The archive

It was something like six years between my first two Belle and Sebastian shows, and on the cold bus ride to Bristol tonight I calculated it was something like four years since I'd last seen them. Across the numerous performances in between my first…

What if you threw a party, but no-one came? Sadly this became an all too real experience for the promoter of tonight's gig at the Fleece. I should have suspected there was going to be a low turn-out when I appeared at the door a few minutes before…

Even in my youth I don't think I managed to go to four gigs in a row. This thought dawned on me today, as I lingered over a coffee and felt like I was properly on holiday for the first time in years! However, if there has been one aim this week…

I'd been to Paisley once before...I'd decided to fly up to Glasgow on a whim, and soon realised that the associated hanging around and the time wasted at the airport quickly made my much loved train journey a very sensible option.

Its become apparent that age and aging will be the recurring theme of this visit to Glasgow. Turning up the day after my birthday, in the midst of a month which is always turbulent, means that it was never going to be far from the agenda.

It's been a long day - and Birmingham seems like another country now. Quite a bit has happened since then in fact. I got up early, and disappeared into the bowels of New Street while it was still dark.

Its almost four years since I was in The Thekla - that time it was for Arab Strap's farewell tour. Tonight was different. It was about something beginning afresh. A lot has changed in four years too, and after a perplexing day at the office and a…

Since my efforts to regularly blog about the music which is capturing my imagination has run into real life - and found work, and unusually a number of other creative exploits blocking the way - I've decided to try to capture more sporadic thoughts.

Its probably around twenty years since I tried to write about music in any sensible way. Scary numbers indeed, and even scarier to think how simple it all seemed then. I had a belief and a passion in what I was listening to which in some ways I…