DIARY OF A CITY GUARD – PART 8 A series of irreverent tales from my experience as a Tolkien-nerd working as an extra on the...

DIARY OF A CITY GUARD – PART 7 A series of irreverent tales from my experience as a Tolkien-nerd working as an extra on the...

DIARY OF A CITY GUARD – PART 6 A series of irreverent tales from my experience as a Tolkien-nerd working as an extra on the...

DIARY OF A CITY GUARD – PART 5 A series of irreverent tales from my experience as a Tolkien-nerd working as an extra on the...

DIARY OF A CITY GUARD – PART 4 A series of irreverent tales from my experience as a Tolkien-nerd working as an extra on the...

DIARY OF A CITY GUARD – PART 3 A series of irreverent tales from my experience as a Tolkien-nerd working as an extra on the...

DIARY OF A CITY GUARD – PART 2 A series of irreverent tales from my experience as a Tolkien-nerd working as an extra on the...

DIARY OF A CITY GUARD – PART 1 A series of irreverent tales from my experience as a Tolkien-nerd working as an extra on the...

I recently finished reading Paul Laird’s book, The Birth and Impact of Britpop. It’s a wonderfully engaging memoir – a very personal love letter to...

It’s been a while since I released any music. One of my old bands, active between 2001-2015, had released all sorts of stuff in a...

Video clips for unsigned bands are difficult projects. A complete lack of money is of course the major stumbling block, so when the offer came...

Booking gigs is a bloody nightmare, and a hugely time-consuming business. Of course, from a fairly young age you’re aware of the concept of managers...

Readers of Part 3 will recall that we left off with me spending an hour or so entering all the addresses, dimensions, weights etc for...

Well, I’ve got the books, sorted the packaging, so let’s head off to the post office… My initial distribution run is going to be 20...

More reflections on the process of self-publishing that I’ve been through this year… Well I got the test pressing of my printed book, and very...

I’ve been reflecting on the process of self-publishing that I’ve been through this year, and this was where I was at a few months back!Well,...

Well, I can’t quite believe it, but The Road to Nowhere is finally out as both print and ebook! It’s taken a while to sort...

Delighted to have received a test print of the book! I suppose I better proof-read it again before ordering a whole bunch of them. Here’s...

Writing and rewriting and then rewriting again, followed by numerous more rewrites and some more rewriting has taken a while, but The Road to Nowhere...

Thanks to an unlikely chain of events involving a Kiwi, a drug dealer, a reservoir, Paris, a wedding, a deportation, a grass, and a serve...

Sometimes a gig is simply cursed, and absolutely nothing you can do will make it better, or indeed remove the searing burn of it from...

One lesson you will learn repeatedly early on in your career is that there are always better bands than you, and it’s no fun when...

An intrinsic part of rock’n’roll is the humble set list – that is, the list of songs that each band member has onstage, so that...

Selling your band’s merchandise is vitally important. And an average gig can soon be made to feel like a great one if you manage to...

One of my bands desperately needed a new bass player – we’d fired one guy, Mark, essentially for being a miserable bastard that couldn’t take...

Social media for bands meant one thing and one thing only at first – MYSPACE. It was new, fun and practically useful, despite one glaring...

Finding a new member is a real minefield. If you’re lucky, you already know someone you can ask, perhaps from another band. Poaching feels pretty...

Photoshoots are fun. Sort of. Dressing up in your finest, going out to a good location and then posing like a bit of twat is...

Most of us have started off rehearsing in the same sort of space – a parent’s lounge room or garage being the beginners eternal go-to...

There’s a very good chance your first band will be you and some close friends. There are few more exciting things to do as a...