I was a bit disappointed with
myself for my lack of achievement this year, and have made plans to pull my
finger out in 2014 and get on with things. It wasn’t until I read through my
diary that I pieced together what I had done work-wise and when you see it all
written down I must admit that I haven’t done too badly.
January started off quite
well, I had agreed before Christmas 2012 to start doing a podcast for The Maze,
the music venue in Nottingham. I recorded seven of these before it fizzled out.
What I thought was my big achievement to kick off January was the release of my
third book First Draft. It is a collection of
reviews I wrote for The Nottingham Evening
Post (as I still call it) before I edited them down to newspaper
size. The paper refused to promote it as they said that it appeared to be a criticism
of the paper, which wasn’t my intention at all. The book was released on Kindle
with an audio book accompaniment on January 8th. What I hadn’t
counted on, (nobody counted on this happening), was David Bowie releasing his
first new single in ten years. This of course set the world alight with excitement
and I quite obviously didn’t get a look in. David Bowie certainly came back
with a bang this year, and he hasn’t done my career any harm while he’s been
about it, I just wish he knew about my contribution to his ‘canon’. I was lucky
enough to get invited to the press launch of the David Bowie Is exhibition at
the V&A in March, (seems like a long time ago), and we liked it so much
that we returned a few months later as paying customers.
On the subject of David Bowie,
it was announced in February that I was to take over the Moonage
Daydream podcast; in 2013 I have only managed thanks to time
constraints to record four editions of this, with the hope that I can make it a
more regular thing in 2014. The film about the exhibition was reviewed by my
good self for Leftlion, my first time writing
for them (on the website, they still haven’t let me in the print edition), and
to put the tin hat on my Bowie involvement for this year, I made a return to
DJ-ing in November with my night ‘Bowie’, which returns at the end of January.
Talking of comebacks, I
overcame my stage fright to compere Prefontaine’s biggest gig at Jongleurs club
in May with a range of jokes and insults. I also played host at the Rosie May
charity gig and Our Big Gig in the Arboretum in July.
I haven’t done as much
newspaper writing this year, not enough to contemplate a follow up to First Draft, although I did manage to write six live reviews
for The Post, the preview of Our Big Gig
(although I didn’t recognise it as my work after they had edited the life out
of it), an article about Prefontaine (which was chopped to bits for The Post and printed in full size in Metro), and the article
I am most proud of; my piece on depression that was published in June. With The Post not exactly begging me to write for them, I submitted
five reviews to NottinghamLIVE instead, including
a review of Harleighblu’s album which she said was her favourite.
In February I released series
two of Steve’s LP Box, and series three came
out over November and December, although I didn’t have time to record this year’s
Christmas special. The Christmas specials will in fact be the only new episodes
of LP Box that get released from now on, as
I made the decision to stop doing that particular series to concentrate on
other podcast/radio areas.
Although I failed in my quest
to bring Christmas back to Nottingham by getting The Old General statue dressed
up as Santa, I did score a massive victory for Nottingham’s heritage by
bringing attention to the scandal that rocked Goose Fair last year, and
bringing an end to what has become locally known as ‘mushy pea-gate’. I am
still wondering why my key to the city ceremony hasn’t been organised yet for
that alone.
In March I released two albums
of music taken from the live sessions on my radio shows, sooner or later I will
start asking for permissions to release volume two of The Sunday
Alternative Sessions, and maybe do something commercial with the
live sessions I recorded for The Sound of Nottingham UK.
Apart from all that, and the
365 blogs that I have churned out this year (although I don’t count the blog as
work, even though the Kindle version does bring in a small trickle of change),
I have a new Christmas audio book out this year, A Christmas
Dinner by Charles Dickens.
Sadly I have had a small
handful of failures too; I recorded a pilot for a NottinghamLIVE television
programme that came to nothing, although in January I took over (with Darren)
the presenting duty from Bainy and Andy and relaunched the old Notts Live show.
I think we’ll call that one a draw, the swings equalling the roundabouts. The
item I pitched for the local current affairs programme on BBC1 (in the Midlands) East Midlands Today was turned down, but
I do intend with going ahead and doing it as an investigative documentary next
year. I also trailed an audio book of my blog through January and February,
which was available to download as a pay-what-you-like, but I found that it was
taking too much time and abandoned that.
My biggest success has of
course been on the medium I am best known for, and most comfortable doing. I was
flattered to be asked back to Trent Towers (not an actual tower) to present NottinghamLIVE, and of course The Sunday Alternative
returned. My American show is also doing well; in the later part of the year I
began hosting live sessions for exclusive USA play and will continue as soon as
I find a new studio to work with.
If you combine the three radio
shows plus a three hour edition of Castle Rock
that I presented in Lee’s place, it works out that I have presented 250 hours
of radio this year, which isn’t bad I suppose.
I want to work harder next
year though. I’m never satisfied.
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