My latest musings on music and writing
Spilling some fresh Honeyblood
I got another opportunity to see Honeyblood play when they supported Best Coast last week in Camden. I couldn’t resist taking a few photos and jumping around to a kicking 30 minute set that included two new songs – the pounding Love Is A Disease and the powerhouse of Babes Never Die, which feels like a grrrl’s anthem (“You can watch my fire burn bright, ’cause babes never die”).
The full set list was:
Choker
Anywhere But Here
Bud
Super Rat
Love Is A Disease
All Dragged Up
Babes Never Die
Killer Bangs
It seems like they’ve spent the rest of the week and the bank holiday weekend blasting around the country and, unsurprisingly, consistently pleasing the crowds. Read this great review of them at Dot To Dot by Stella Cooper.
My bank holiday weekend ended with the return of my record player, which had inconveniently died just after I purchased my Record Store day haul. It’s all fixed now and, to my relief and rejoicing, I was finally able to spin the No Big Deal / The Black Cloud 7″:
Vote now for the SAY Award
Talking of Honeyblood
, voting is now open for the SAY (Scottish Album of the Year) Award. I think you can all guess which album gets my vote! Yes, it is going to be Honeyblood because their debut has really stuck with me ever since I heard it and I’m unashamed to say I’ve fallen for this band. However, it has been a tricky decision because there are some other big favourites of mine in the running: Belle & Sebastian; Withered Hand; Idlewild; The Twilight Sad. All of these could have got my vote, but I’m going with the album that has been on constant rotation since I first heard it.
The public vote is open until midnight tonight so you need to move quickly to make sure your favourite album gets on the shortlist.
New Admiral Fallow album hopefully reaps big rewards
Tiny Rewards, the new album from Glaswegian band Admiral Fallow, blends indie, folk and pop to produce layers of soaring melodies and is beautifully crafted. If you like the latest Idlewild album, I think you’ll like this too.
There is a stream of Tiny Rewards, along with a track by track breakdown by Admiral Fallow’s Louis Abbott, on the Music Feeds website and you can listen to Evangeline below.
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Setting the scene
I really like this article by David Nicholls, author of novels including One Day, on Google v old-fashioned legwork – how to research a novel. In it he questions whether an author needs to ‘know’ the place their novel is set, or whether they even need to visit it at all with the invention of Google Maps and other tools for researching locations.
It made me laugh when he recalls a location excursion of his as “probably little more than an exercise in procrastination”. I have been guilty of this. When on holiday in South Africa a few years ago I took the opportunity to visit Fish Hoek, a coastal town outside Cape Town, where I had decided to set the beginning of my first novel. The first chapter of my book would feature a shark attack in a holiday location in South Africa and, having done my research, I knew that an attack involving a local swimmer had taken place there a few years before my visit.
As Nicholls did, I took a few dull photos and made some notes and felt like I was a ‘real author’ doing credible research.
Fish Hoek, South Africa
So, did that novel get written? No, of course it didn’t. I planned it meticulously, read lots of writing books and over-thought the story before I really got into act of writing it and eventually gave up. All the planning, including the hours of research on Fish Hoek, was procrastination for me. I have since written two first drafts, thanks to the kick up the backside that is National Novel Writing Month, and although they both need a ton of work I know they aren’t going to disappear. They are in existence. Both were planned to some degree, but not enough to stem the creative juices before they properly started to flow.
And did I know the locations? For the first novel, I did some research on Google on a village in Devon that I had never visited and set it there. The second was set in Glasgow, a city I love and have been to many times.
My feeling is that, as writers, we need to get less hung up on being factually correct and just get that first draft written. There’s nothing to stop you getting your setting straight in your first edit, is there?