I can’t remember what I was looking for, but I ended up having a look through the box of abandoned ideas, random notes and drawings today. Whatever it was I was looking for was forgotten about when I came across some hand written scripts for the first couple of episodes of The Shoebox Collection, a proposed podcast series that I intended to record as a look back at the demo and promo CDs I have received over the years. After writing half a series I realised that this would have very limited appeal (this coming from the guy with a photo blog dedicated to Skittles on a plate) so drew a line under it and moved on to other projects. That might sound like I am caving in and chasing mass appeal, but there’s a difference between doing things that I like and hoping others do and making something simply out of self indulgence. I am aware that there is a pretty fine line, especially when it comes to some of my radio work (my Sherwood Radio show was sometimes a test of endurance), but I usually find an audience so either I’m doing something right or I’m doing something right or I’m doing something wrong and appealing to a lot of wrong minded people.

It was a funny coincidence (not ‘funny ha-ha’, I am aware of this before anyone thinks it needs pointing out) that I happened to find these scripts as earlier on I had tidied up those CDs into bigger boxes, so even if I decided to do the series after all I would need to think of a new name for it. The shoeboxes were looking a bit tatty so I put them into some boxes I have been using for all of my office filing. Every week or so I manage to rescue a box from the court offices that contained reams of A4 printer paper so they are the perfect size for putting various things in during the ongoing tidying up of my office (the only thing they are no good for is music magazines and my collection of Christmas Radio Times) and they stack up against the wall. One day I will sort these CDs into alphabetical order but for now at least they are neatly stored, a job that took a while due to my reading of notes and single sheet press releases. The fact that (I’m sure I’ve mentioned this already but let us recap) a lot of the bands only have a MySpace address and a fair few have Hotmail or AOL email addresses makes them seem as if they should be in a museum.

I haven’t listened to some of these for several years and probably only actually listened to them once or twice before making a decision. Most of these CDs hark back to the Sherwood Radio show when I was told initially that I had to have physical copies of each song I played for copyright reasons. It also helped because Sherwood Radio was unmanned (or indeed unwomanned) for the most part so there was never anyone around to load MP3s into the system for me. The CDs dried up when I joined Trent Sound as the opposite rule applied and everything had to be played through the same system in order to keep sound levels correct, although I did occasionally have to play a CD or even use Soundcloud.

Although I remember the names of the artists in my collection, I am still curious to know what happened to a lot of them. Some of them are still going; Jake Morley, Hadfis Huld and Calling All Astronauts are three names that I have ‘I played them before BBC 6Music’ bragging rights on and are still making music. Other bands such as Redtrack have split up and then there are names that showed promise but fizzled out. I am going to make the effort to sit and listen to these artists when I have the time to just sit and listen – too often we use music as background noise but nothing beats the feeling of listening to music for music’s sake.

Listen to The Sunday Alternative Saturday Bonus Podcast here.

Listen to this week's edition of The Sunday Alternative here.

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February housekeeping

I rely on donations via the PayPal button to enable me to provide free online content. This year there are plans afoot for more podcasts plus documentaries, comedy sketches, short films and other content that will be available free of charge.

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steveEoliver@gmail.com
@SteveOliver76

Photo from Daily Telegraph

I have said before about how I was falling back on the excuse that my radio commitments were holding me back from other projects, as at one point I was doing five hours of live radio a week and recording an hour for American radio so I had little time to do much else. I am fairly confident that I can fulfill my list of projects for this year, and I have already written my list for 2015, so if all goes to plan I should be very busy. With this in mind I am annoyed with myself for coming up with two new radio ideas that I am in the process of pitching. Sometimes I wonder if I have two conflicting personalities fighting against each other to attempt to stress me out to the point where my head explodes. Just when I start to feel in control of my career something comes along that I really want to do. Both these personalities have called a truce regarding my workload, because I have made the decision to bin the proposed podcast series The Shoebox Collection, a newsletter will be published at some point explaining why.

Although I don’t want to give away too much at this stage, I have at least one strong pitch for a radio show providing I can find a station willing to take a chance and allow me the creative control I am accustomed to. This is a show that I will, if it goes ahead, present on my own. My other idea is a show that will work better with a co-presenter. I have someone in mind for this, but I am aware of how busy this person is and I would like to experiment with having a co-presenter who can make it to every show. Not that I didn’t enjoy working with any of the people that I did The Sunday Alternative with, but it was frustrating when people couldn’t make it for whatever reason, sometimes letting me know with minutes to go before the show went to air.

Tomorrow I am going away until Friday and won’t get anything productive done, and Saturday will mostly be taking up with recording the podcast because I won’t have time on Sunday morning as I will be attending the Hockley Hustle and I’ll be out of the house for a good twelve hours. This puts a fair amount of pressure on my Saturday as I was hoping for a relaxing day at home (I am planning on watching Rock Around The Clock followed by Guys and Dolls on telly) to gear myself up for Sunday, but the only other option would be to not record the podcast this week and I don’t want to get into that habit now that it is doing so well. If I am in that position I will do my best to record in advance and upload it to the site with an advance date so that it appears on the day. All I then have to do is tweet and Facebook the link on the day. Listening figures continue to rise, and it is especially nice to see that the older podcasts are still being listened to considering it focuses on new music and therefore it quickly becomes dated.

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Listen to The Sunday Alternative here

All donations received via the PayPal button above will be used to fund creative projects such as podcasts, short films, documentaries, comedy sketches and a whole lot more. You are under no obligation of course, but thanks in advance if you do drop something in the pot.

I know I’m fickle but I have changed my mind once again and IMHO will deal not only with new music (albums, EPs, singles) but also with books and possibly gigs too, definitely the first unedited drafts of newspaper reviews. This puts a bit of pressure on the daily blog so I will have to start living a more interesting day-to-day life. Today I received an email to let me know that an advance copy of the next volume of Danny Baker’s autobiography is in the post which I’m looking forward to reading and I have a review of The Chuckle Brothers book to publish too. One book I am keen to read and might review is Great Myths of the Brain by Christian Jarrett PHD, a book that investigates matters of depression and anxiety. I have asked for a copy of it on this occasion because aside from it being a subject I should read more about, I am quoted in it. I found out about this by accident as I was trying to find an online version of the article about depression I wrote for The Nottingham Evening Post (as I still call it) to send to someone, and rather than try and navigate my way around the Post’s messy website with its pop-up adverts and random noise I just Googled ‘Steve Oliver depression’ (possible band name) and found several references to the article including a link to this book. It wasn’t because I was randomly Googling myself because I don’t do that, honestly.

My work schedule is still piling up and the pressure is increasing all the time. I have taken Friday and Monday as ‘holiday’ from Crown Court in order to catch up with audio book recording and finishing off The Shoebox Collection. I’m hoping that I can power through my list with minimum amount of fuss. My tasks are to finish recording Nathan McKenzie, Bowie Day and the Dickens Christmas audio books, write two episodes and record all four Shoebox podcasts, record this week’s Sunday Alternative, write and publish two reviews, publish a book review, make some changes to my blog site, and blast my way through a ridiculously full email inbox. Already Mandi has organised a delivery for Friday and someone to come and collect one of our televisions “as you’ll be in”. Next time I book time off to work from home I am not going to tell her about it, she leaves the house before I do so she need never know.

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My daily blog can be delivered straight to your Kindle for 99p a month (link)

Listen to The Sunday Alternative here

All donations received via the PayPal button above will be used to fund creative projects such as podcasts, short films, documentaries, comedy sketches and a whole lot more. You are under no obligation of course, but thanks in advance if you do drop something in the pot.

Yesterday morning I recorded The Sunday Alternative but after last week’s impressive listening figures I held back from uploading it until I returned home from lunch at my dad’s. Although a little slower on the uptake than last week at the same time, by the time I had sent a load of emails and taken Jack for a walk I was equal to last Sunday’s numbers which was pleasing news. It makes working on a Sunday all the more worthwhile and means that it is worth continuing with. My plan for a series of filmed sessions has been given a glimmer of hope so I might have some news on that before long.

Today has been spent researching and writing the third and fourth editions of Shoebox Collection ready for recording, and recording another couple of chapters of the Nathan McKenzie audio book. At some point I want to get under the bonnet of this blog and reorganise things a little; some of the pages need updating and I have stayed with the current layout for quite some time. As a member of the old MySpace school I really should be be changing the appearance of this site at least once a week.

My blog post about Page 3 and breasts came and went with no reaction aside from a couple of Facebook comments and ‘likes’ despite my expecting some feedback from both the for and against camps. There was one response that I received that hadn’t actually occurred to me but made a good point regarding the painting I used as the blog illustration. When I was a youngster I found it odd that the women in these paintings never had pubic hair, maybe they weren’t allowed to be so graphic back then, or maybe the artists found such a thing too difficult to paint. My email correspondent pointed out that the artists were somewhat ahead of their time and these days that painting is an accurate picture of a woman in this era of shaving and waxing. Therefore the painting is normal and a picture of a woman with hair ‘there’ (or indeed seeing it in real life) would be the oddity. Leonardo Da Vinci painted helicopters, they could all see into the future.

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My daily blog can be delivered straight to your Kindle for 99p a month (link)

Listen to The Sunday Alternative here

All donations received via the PayPal button above will be used to fund creative projects such as podcasts, short films, documentaries, comedy sketches and a whole lot more. You are under no obligation of course, but thanks in advance if you do drop something in the pot.

Due to my increasingly ridiculous workload, (once I have finished the audio book I have two episodes of The Shoebox Collection to write before recording all four), I haven’t been gigging as much as I should. I very much doubt that the other supporters of the Nottingham music scene have caught up with me though. Last night I finally got round to seeing one of Nottingham’s most talented singers, Lisa DeVille performing at the Golden Fleece. She was meant to be on with two other acts, but the event on Facebook kept changing to accommodate a stream of cancellations and eventually it was just Lisa and Dom Stockbridge. I’d never seen him either and his name rang a bell with me although I couldn’t recognise him. Chances are I’ve seen him somewhere but his name doesn’t pop up in my blog. Another singer was supposed to be on the bill but apparently flounced off when she realised that free drinks weren’t provided, I can’t remember her name and with that attitude I doubt I’ll need to. A venue should at least be able to stretch to at least a couple of freebies for performers but you shouldn’t go in demanding it or you’ll end up with a reputation for being an arse.

Dom did a good set and seemed popular with the small but well behaved crowd (I was amazed at how little talking was going on while the acts were playing, at last that rudeness is disappearing). He has an amazing blues voice and although he is another guy/guitar act, he does at least have something more than just being another Bugg-alike.

I have worked with Lisa before, (she recorded a session for The Sound of Nottingham UK last year) and I saw her singing at the opening party for ROFL Audio last summer (as mentioned in the blog I just linked to) but I hadn’t seen her doing a proper gig before last night. Armed with just a guitar, and ukulele for one song, she put in one of the most captivating performances I have seen for a long time. It amazes me that people like her are still playing in pubs, not that I doubt she enjoys it but she should be filling theatres with her operatic voice. Taking it all in her stride, she looked surprised to be called back for an encore after which it was over too soon.

We had, (with Gary and a couple I had just met, although I have apparently met the very nice woman before) one of my favourite conversations after her set; how the Nottingham music scene is populated by idiots and showoffs ‘supported’ by broadcasters who don’t go to gigs unless it’s to goal-hang at a big name show. Lisa is appearing again next week in a different surrounding (an acoustic gig at The Maze in which sofas are brought in and the performers stand ‘in the round’) and I am already looking forward to it.

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My daily blog can be delivered straight to your Kindle for 99p a month (link)

Listen to The Sunday Alternative here

All donations received via the PayPal button above will be used to fund creative projects such as podcasts, short films, documentaries, comedy sketches and a whole lot more. You are under no obligation of course, but thanks in advance if you do drop something in the pot.

True to form I followed a successful day of writing with a day of totally ignoring the fact that I have a job to do. I also managed not to bother writing the final two editions of The Shoebox Collection. Anyone who works in the creative industry will agree with me that a day of laziness does you the world of good. As good as it feels at the time, I also feel annoyed with myself for wasting a day of work that could have allowed me to move a bit closer to completing at least one of the tasks on my to-do list. This Saturday will be another work day (self employed people don’t get time-and-a-half for working at the weekend but please don’t feel sorry for me) to try and get caught up. I’ll record The Sunday Alternative on Saturday too, so the stress levels are not going to subside at any moment soon.

Thinking about it, I was being way too optimistic in thinking that I could compartmentalise my work into blocks of one or two weeks. These things take time and I should have been more realistic in setting myself targets. I think even the shorter jobs such as podcasts need two weeks to do it properly and I certainly can’t write a film in a fortnight when I have jobs from the weeks before still hanging over me. The main slog at the moment is the Nathan McKenzie audio book which is proving to be an exhausting task that I will be glad to see the back of (in a work sense I mean). Once I have completed Nathan and the Charles Dickens books I will be giving the whole audio book business a wide berth for a while. The chances are that I’ll reassess my work list and extend some deadlines pushing some jobs over until next year.

My night of procrastination (apart from writing my blog which doesn’t really count as work) involved tidying up my office and moving a few audio recordings onto CD. I haven’t done this for a while which is a shame as I still have quite a way to go with this. There are quite a few things that I don’t have the original copy of as they were stored on my old laptop which died and took with it a lot of victims. Luckily I uploaded everything to Mixcloud so any missing editions of The Sunday Alternative among other things can be recorded using the programme I use to record the podcasts and audio books, so all is not totally lost. In January 2013 I did a short lived podcast for The Maze, and I have no record of it. Now they’re on CD and added to my audio archive.

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My daily blog can be delivered straight to your Kindle for 99p a month (link)

Listen to The Sunday Alternative here

All donations received via the PayPal button above will be used to fund creative projects such as podcasts, short films, documentaries, comedy sketches and a whole lot more. You are under no obligation of course, but thanks in advance if you do drop something in the pot.

It is at this time of year that prompted by the blogs and tweets from comedians, I start to feel a longing to put on a show at the Edinburgh Festival. What I’d do when I get there I don’t really know as I couldn’t comfortably do an hour of stand up, and sketch/character comedy is a little hit and miss thing to watch on stage. My character Ronnie ‘Chubby’ Corbett was a clever idea (though I say so myself) but only worked in small doses because it was essentially one joke; Ronnie Corbett style monologue (complete with my Corbett impression) followed by a sweary punchline delivered in a shouty North-East accent. The only other idea for a live comedy show is a set dedicated to ruining old joke, as I have explored before.

Another edition of The Shoebox Collection is now written, and I have made a little progress on The Woolworths Related Documentary (working title) so a good day at work was had. I now only have two more editions of Shoebox to write before I am due to record them, and then they will gather dust until next year when the series actually comes out. I’ve taken a short break from the Nathan McKenzie audio book as it was starting to take its toll. Audio book recording is probably the most difficult job of all* as it leaves no room for error, you have to be word perfect and not sound like you’re reading. Neither Nathan nor Shoebox should even be featuring in my work list as they should be finished by now, but I am slowly getting caught up.

*To clarify I meant that audio book recording is the most difficult job of all of the different jobs I do. It is harder than writing, radio, or reviewing a gig; I certainly did not mean that it is more difficult than saving lives or putting out fires.

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My daily blog can be delivered straight to your Kindle for 99p a month (link)

Listen to The Sunday Alternative here

All donations received via the PayPal button above will be used to fund creative projects such as podcasts, short films, documentaries, comedy sketches and a whole lot more. You are under no obligation of course, but thanks in advance if you do drop something in the pot.

Although I am way behind with work at the moment I have at least finished writing one episode of The Shoebox Collection, with only three more to go as I have decided to do four episodes for the first series and see how it goes down. Whether or not I do any more depends on time as I have loads to do and time seems to keep getting away from me. I had a small panic today when I realised that my work list for the rest of the year doesn’t include the recording of Bowie Day, something that has to be done this side of Christmas. I’m sure it’ll get done at some point.

The Woolworths Related Documentary (working title) is going a bit too slowly for my liking but I do have two weeks to put a final draft together. This is frustrating as I came up with the idea so long ago that the whole thing should be falling into place automatically, but I am holding out for a miracle. Given the Christmas theme I have a rather tight deadline for this particular project, unless of course I hold off releasing it until Christmas 2015. This is a donations driven film so please click the yellow button above this blog and the finished product will be available for free online. I’m thinking for next year of doing a publicity tour of former Woolworths stores to sell copies of the film on DVD, I’d need help but it could be fun. If the stores themselves won’t grant permission to set up a stall inside then we’ll do it outdoors on the pavement, sell the DVDs and have your picture taken with the puppets for a small fee that would go into the same creative pot that the PayPal money goes into. Obviously because of my pledge to give content away the film will be available on YouTube but I think I can justify selling DVDs if I add extra features. I’d put the money back into funding other projects so everyone wins. If I do this next year I have time (as much time as I ever have) to organise publicity on local radio and such like.

At some point I have a one-off radio based comedy pilot to write and record with Craig and Gary, hopefully during the school holidays as once Gary goes back to being a teacher it could be weeks before I see him as he is really busy.

During one of our regular Facebook chats, Gary suggested a format for a sitcom based on a subject I am rather fond of. Within twenty minutes we had come up with a basic synopsis. As I wrote down the ideas and plans to put on file I groaned internally at the thought of another task joining my to-do list. However it is something that I would like to attempt as we have come up with a ‘sit’ that has never been covered before and hopefully some good ‘com’ will follow?

I might have to hold off retiring to become a Punch and Judy man at forty, perhaps I’ll wait until I’m forty-one.

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My daily blog can be delivered straight to your Kindle for 99p a month (link)

Listen to The Sunday Alternative here

All donations received via the PayPal button above will be used to fund creative projects such as podcasts, short films, documentaries, comedy sketches and a whole lot more. You are under no obligation of course, but thanks in advance if you do drop something in the pot.

I had a sudden surge of activity today and recorded four chapters of Whatever Happened To Nathan McKenzie? without any fuss. I had tried cheating and recording some of the shorter chapters out of sequence but soon thought better of it as the story is confusing enough as it is.

I’ve worked out which six artists I will be covering for The Shoebox Collection, one of which will be a rather short one as I can’t find any Internet presence for them beyond a Facebook page with a last status update posted in 2011. Maybe they’re all in other bands so a little further investigation is required. I have sent text messages to the two mobile numbers on the CD, but I don’t hold out much hope for an answer as the discs are from 2010 and it is very unusual for someone to have the same mobile number for that long.

The Woolworths Related Documentary (working title) has had some shape knocked into it, and I’ve put The Record Store Day Video (working title) on ice in order to prioritise. My job list for the next two weeks is to get the final draft finished and organise how many actors I will need and locations to film in. without wanting to give too much away (although if you’ve been reading the blog since back when it was published on MySpace you will have some idea of what I’m talking about) it will give me a chance to work with puppets, something I have wanted to do since I was a child watching The Muppet Show and Sesame Street. I was being semi-serious yesterday about being a Punch and Judy man; it was one of the things I wanted to do when I was a child. I also wanted to be a radio presenter, a journalist and a writer and those came true so the omens are good.

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My daily blog can be delivered straight to your Kindle for 99p a month (link)

Listen to The Sunday Alternative here

All donations received via the PayPal button above will be used to fund creative projects such as podcasts, short films, documentaries, comedy sketches and a whole lot more. You are under no obligation of course, but thanks in advance if you do drop something in the pot.

I had another meet up yesterday with Oliver Smith, he of Oliver Smith Productions, about filming schedules for this year. The main priority remains The Sunday Alternative Sessions (as the video series will now be called) which has a filming date fixed for Saturday August 9^th, so I should be concerned about the lack of a venue. There’s also The Record Store Day Video (although it’s only a working title it is starting to grow on me) which we might get filmed this year, and a comedy project that I finally look like getting made having written the first draft in 2008. That project will hopefully be seen by the public at Christmas, and is a spoof documentary. It needs to be a Christmas release as it concerns Woolworths, and it would be nice to treat everyone to a trip down festive memory lane in the despicable absence of the traditional Christmas adverts thanks to Shop Direct’s lack of respect for the Woolworths name. Over coffee I mentioned a few other plans for next year, one of which is quite an ambitious project that I have wanted to make for a number of years. There’s another music related idea to be filmed in London next summer/autumn so my aim to get through my to-do list before I turn forty is looking a bit more realistic.

Regarding turning forty, I will be thirty eight next month so I have almost exactly two years in which to work my arse off before I can retire and become a Punch and Judy man and see out the rest of my life by the sea doing performances on the beach. That’s the way to do it you know!

Work wise I am still behind with everything but trying to remain positive by recording a few chapters of Whatever Happened to Nathan McKenzie every day alongside writing The Shoebox Collection (new title). I should be in a state of blind panic by now but I am somehow remaining calm and unaffected by the increasing workload.

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If you’ve enjoyed reading this, please consider showing your appreciation by way of a donation using the PayPal button above this blog. Every penny will be used to create free online content. There are currently plans for a comedy sketch series, an online cookery and music show, a video version of The Sunday Alternative and plenty more including documentaries, short films and podcasts.

Listen to The Sunday Alternative here.