A (sort of) love letter to live music and community

December - goodness. Many of you will know that I work in a bookstore, and can probably imagine just how busy and stressful that is right now. Carrying stacks of books (and everything else) from section to section, fielding queries, recommending books. It is at once the best and worst time to work in a bookstore. Helping people to choose gifts can be kind of magical, but retail definitely presents you with the worst of people - sadly not even bookshops are immune to that.

As ever, music is a big salvation, and beyond my headphones and the blog inbox, it has been a delight to find time to escape to a bunch of gigs over the past couple of months. A quick scan of my gig list tells me I’ve been to fourteen shows so far this year, in various forms… including an album launch on a nature reserve, in-stores at Rough Trade and Banquet Records, and even a night at the British Library. Varied and always brilliant. For the majority of those I was on the guestlist/given tickets by the artists and their teams. Getting invited along to shows was always one of the best blog perks, and I feel really lucky to still get asked, despite blogging a little less frequently.

Aren’t gigs great?

I’ve been going through some stuff lately… I’ve talked a little about this online, but the long and short is that I’ve come to realise that I might be autistic. I’m in the very early stages of looking into getting an assessment. The more I read about autism, about it in general, about other people’s experiences, the more I feel that I am coming to understand myself better, how my brain works, and how I form (or more accurately, struggle to form) connections with others. I've  come to realise that it probably isn't "normal" that I've always just felt a bit odd, a bit of an outsider, quiet, and that there might be a reason that I sometimes struggle to communicate, to make connections that others seem to do so easily.

Music, though, has always been one of the few ways that I could connect with others. With artists, their teams, with fans who share my love of a particular artist. The blog you’re on now is in a way the centre of a community of sorts that I have formed around myself, rooted in a love of music and of the people making music.

I love live music but gigs aren’t always the easiest experience - they can be loud and overwhelming. I look around at groups of people from my spot in the corner, where I'm probably alone reading a book in between sets. But gigs can be, and often are, pure magic. Transcendent. A couple of shows I’ve been to recently were exactly that - Johnny Flynn and Rob Macfarlane at Rough Trade East and Bear’s Den at Union Chapel.

Johnny and Rob’s show was one of a couple of album launch in-stores for The Moon Also Rises and it was stunning. Far from the scripted, rehearsed and polished world of the Lost In the Cedar Wood show I went to at The Globe last year (and wrote about here) this was endearingly chaotic. A bunch of friends having fun and reliving the experiences of recording the album together through conversation and song. Even for a relatively small and short in-store like this, Johnny roped in three vocalists who sang on the record to perform with him, which was breathtaking.

Rob came on stage to chat with Johnny for a short while about the process of making the record (at Cosmo Sheldrake’s studio, with a bunch of their pals) and he mentioned something which really resonated with me - about Johnny creating community around his music. A record like this and a performance like that doesn’t come around by accident… Johnny has forged a close community of creatives around him over the years, and it comes across so beautifully in the recordings and the performance. In fact, Johnny talked about this being his favourite way to make music on a recent radio interview. 

I wanted to write about this, and about how great the show and album were, but work (and life) got in the way, and I haven’t found the time.  Then I went to see Bear’s Den at Union Chapel and I felt the exact same sensation that was so tangible while watching Johnny, and I wanted to write about that show - and the two posts have merged themselves, to become this stream of thoughts you're stumbling across now.

The magic of the Den playing four nights in such a special venue is no accident, nor are the gorgeously talented musicians joining them on stage (brass AND strings… aaaaagh.) They’ve helped to create this through Kev's label Communion and through their music, through years of touring, of making connections. They’ve surrounded themselves with so many brilliant artists and to see them seemingly still so humbled to work alongside them all is genuinely beautiful as an audience member.

I'm rambling... but I guess this is all to say that I sometimes struggle to find exactly where I fit in, to find my 'tribe' as it were. I often feel that I’m on the outside looking in, admiring these musical communities and not feeling like I could ever be part of them. Through the blog, and through gigs like these two, I feel like I’m able to dip my toes in, to venture into these communities, even if just for a night, and that is magic enough for me. (Though I would also very much like to be a fly on the wall for a recording session at Cosmo's place...)

Now: onto the next gig!

A season of Stornoway

As I sit and start to write this, it’s 24 hours since I was watching Stornoway play for the fifth time this year, at Nottingham’s Rescue Rooms. Weather permitting, I’m tempted to go and see them again this week. (Spoiler: I went, of course I did.) I’ve not been to many gigs since covid, for various reasons, and at the moment it feels that there aren’t many bands that could keep getting me out of the house. Stornoway, however, are so very special to me and I have had the best time following them around over the past few months. It’s been a genuinely really inspiring ride, and I feel motivated to write a little self-indulgent ramble, so here goes.

This has been a generally shitty year for me, and like it so often does, music helps. In recent years, I’ve found a deeper love for nature and wildlife, especially birds. For a while, it felt that I’d replaced loud, busy, crowded gigs for open green spaces, swapped music for birdsong. It doesn’t have to be either or, though. Like a couple of other artists I love (hello Cosmo Sheldrake and Johnny Flynn) Stornoway bring together these joint loves in a truly beautiful way. A love of nature, a passion for environmentalism and brilliant music - an irresistible combination. Getting to see Stornoway perform a few times recently has been a real highlight of a miserable year. One of the gigs was even at a wetland centre: the absolute dream.

Now let’s rewind. I can’t claim to have been around from the start (their gorgeous debut album came out in 2010) - in fact, I stumbled across the band a little by accident, meeting bassist Oli at a Sofar Sounds show in Oxford in 2014. I’d only been living in Oxford for a couple of months, and while I’d been to a few gigs, joining the Sofar crew was the best introduction to the local scene that I could’ve had. I had been an admirer of the Sofar videos on Youtube for a while at this point, and was really excited to get the opportunity to volunteer as a photographer for the Oxford shows.

I had a camera and plenty of enthusiasm, but not much experience of taking photos at gigs, and I was certainly learning ‘on the job’, but I loved my time at Sofar - I met so many cool people (volunteers, gig-goers and artists alike) and got to attend gigs and take photos in some interesting places, many of which I’d likely never have visited otherwise. The first of these shows was at the Worcester College Common Room. Classic Oxford. Oli set up the Oxford branch of Sofar, so we met at the show, and I remember finding him on Facebook afterwards, and noticing that he was in a band, a band which seemed to have a lot of likes… I quickly realised that they were basically Oxford music royalty and started to listen.

The first time that I got the opportunity to see Stornoway perform was on Record Store Day at Truck Store on Oxford’s famous Cowley Road, in the release week of their album Bonxie. An origami bird (I still have it in the CD case) guaranteed me entry as I’d bought the album beforehand, but I was late as I’d headed into town after an early morning RSD shopping. It was so so busy (perhaps I’d underestimated how much Oxford loved them) that I literally had to squeeze in to the doorway and couldn’t see a thing as there was a wall between me and the stage. I might not have seen much, but it sounded glorious.

A few days later, I took a train to Reading with a flatmate to see them play a ‘proper’ gig at Sub89. There was birdsong playing in the venue between sets, which at the time I would probably have thought was a bit quirky, but would now appreciate as a superb artistic choice. More birdsong, always. I remember being completely transfixed by the ‘unplucked’ Josephine and watching my recording of it over and over afterwards.

They played a few acoustic shows later in the year, promoting their new Bonxie Unplucked EP, on which sits their now classic (thanks to the Co-op) The Only Way Is Up cover. Oli got me a photo pass for the Oxford show, and I felt like the coolest person wandering around the church with my camera. I remember avoiding an essay or something similarly important to go to the gig - but it was definitely worth it. They played a beautiful show (and Charlie Cunningham supported!) and I was happy with my photos, and I was certainly starting to really fall for the band.

Stornoway performing at on the Bonxie Unplucked tour

At the start of 2016, I was doing a placement module on the English Literature side of my degree, and the opportunity to work with Oli and Tom (a member of the extended Storno live band) came up. Probably a fairly tenuous link to English Literature when most of my fellow students were working at publishing houses and newspapers, but my lecturer seemed fine with it, and suddenly I was entering the world of live music promotion. As part of the placement I put on my first ever gig, and people actually came to it! The placement went well and I worked with them as community manager for a while (both at university and after graduating), avoiding some of the responsbilities of my degree while working the door for multiple gigs a week across Oxford and often going to other shows in between. 

Later that year, just before the public announcement, Oli emailed me one morning to let me know that Stornoway would soon “be no more”. Compared to some, I hadn’t been around as a fan for long, but I loved the band and was sad for my friends, as I knew how much they loved playing together. It wasn’t meant to be a hiatus or a break, they were all moving on to other projects, to other lines of work, to other countries. The finality of it made it tough news, but a farewell tour was on the horizon, which promised to be a celebration of the band.

The farewell tour happened in March 2017 and was a complete triumph - it seemed that they really were bowing out at the top of their game, with adoring fans left begging for more. Better than fading into the background, surely. I saw them play in London (and got the tea towel) and a couple of days later in Oxford at the final date of the tour. I got to hang around for most of the day (at Oxford’s New Theatre, no less) as we were promoting the show: I watched the soundcheck, had a wander backstage, watched the show, watched as fans said their hellos and goodbyes at the merch stand, and went to the after party with the best of the best of Oxford’s music scene. I never really made tons of friends at university, but the local scene was really welcoming, and Stornoway were always an integral part of it. At the end of the party, I shared a taxi with Oli & Rob’s parents as my halls of residence were close to their house. I remember sitting in the kitchen until the light switched off automatically and just having a cry that something so special was over. Stor-no-more.

I was still working with Oli and Tom at the time, and I’ve kept in touch with them beyond, and knew that the band still occasionally played together at private events, but I had no inkling that a reunion might be on the cards. Last year brought a couple of festival appearances that I couldn’t get to, and it felt a little bittersweet to know that they were playing but that I couldn’t see them. The shows were a sort of extension of the farewell tour, promoting the live album that they’d released from the Oxford show. (Aside: if you have this CD, my photo of the soundcheck is behind the CD in the case!) 

Little did we know that they’d actually been recording a new album at this point, in sheds around the country (where the best albums are made, of course) and that they’d soon be back. Properly. Who could’ve dared to hope for such a scenario?!

The band getting back together and announcing a new album was the best news to kick off Spring this year. I missed out on tickets to their comeback London gig (big sad) but soon the gig and festival announcements started to come thick and fast. I was reunited, physically and musically, with Stornoway at Cambridge Folk Festival in July. It was magnificent. I wrote about it here. The band were so so great, the crowd loved it, and I got to meet one of my favourite authors before their set. Truly the stuff of dreams.

Reuniting with Stornoway at Cambridge Folk Festival

It’s been a bit of a whirlwind few weeks since then around the album release - the band invited me along to see an intimate album launch celebration at WWT’s London Wetland Centre in Barnes in September. It was definitely one of the coolest places I’ve seen a gig, as the band performed with the backdrop of the wetland behind them. Getting to birdwatch while listening to one of my favourite bands was a fairly magical experience. Parakeets were determined to feature on every song, and I saw a jay fly past at one point during the set. Lapwings out on the water too, I think!

Stornoway performing at WWT London Wetland Centre

They brought out Yijia and Fyfe Dangerfield to sing the songs they’d collaborated with them on, and were interviewed about the record afterwards by another collaborator (and all round musical/environmental hero) Sam Lee. I stuck around after the main event, and got to go out into the reeds and watch Brian and Fyfe performing Anwen a couple more times for the video below. Easier said than done, as we were directly under the shared flightpath of airplanes and birds, and while the video looks gloriously sunny, the sky was the deepest grey behind us, and the heavens opened just after this video. After helping to load the van back up (transferrable skills from working in a bookstore and carrying big ol’ piles of books all day every day) I caught a lift with the band back to Hammersmith, and felt pretty sure this wasn’t the last I’d be seeing them…

Of course I couldn’t resist going to see them at Rough Trade East a couple of days later for an instore performance - a very different setting (let’s just say that I’ll take a nature reserve over the rubbish lined streets of Brick Lane any day) but they were ever so brilliant. Before I knew it, I was going to a last minute show at Banquet Records a week or two later, on the day of the album being released. It’s a bit of a trek down to Kingston but so worth it to see them play in such an intimate setting, and to celebrate album launch day with Brian and Jon. 

A few weeks (and many many listens of the album) later I took my dad along to see them (well, he drove me) at Nottingham’s Rescue Rooms. This is where I first saw The Hoosiers back in May 2011 (my first gig in a proper music venue) and it now holds even more special memories for me. Yijia opened the show with a mesmerising set and then it was time for Storno… A full band, a mind-boggling array of instruments (including: a saw, multiple trowels, a bucket of Welsh gravel, a melodica…), a setlist travelling through each of their albums, Low Island’s Felix playing an absolute blinder on drums, unplugged tracks. It had all the ingredients to be one of my favourite ever gigs (it was) and then they went and played one of my favourite songs, dedicated to me. Fairly sure I cried.

I discovered their track Boom Went The Bittern last year through a live video on Youtube from several years ago. There’s a chance I’ve heard it live before, but it has become a bit of a soundtrack of my walks in the past year or so. I’ve been slyly nudging the band to play it since Folk Fest, and on Sunday, they conceded to my badgering - it was one of the best moments of a gig ever for me, no lie.

If I was sensible, that should probably have been it, but I adored the Nottingham gig so much that I had to try and get along to another show. On Wednesday, I took two trains there and back to Cambridge, straight after a busy shift at work, and rounded off my little season of Stornoway with another beautiful show. Complete with a little bit of crowdsurfing from Oli and one of my favourite gig photos ever.

Oli crowd-surfing during Zorbing in Cambridge

So that’s that! It’s been an absolute treat to get to see Stornoway over the past few weeks - in various venues, with different line-ups, different songs. Following them around has given me a little of that gig-going confidence back, and I squeezed in a few other shows in between theirs, with a few in my calendar that I’m hoping to get to before the year is out - looking at you Johnny Flynn, BE GOOD, Chartreuse, Bear’s Den…

At each Stornoway gig I've been to by myself lately, I've connected with people in the queue or at the barrier. They've had a little of the magic of those Sofar gigs, providing the opportunity to chat to like-minded folk who are into nature and music. Stornoway fans are a lovely bunch. The band, it goes without saying, are wonderful humans too. They're touring again in February (you should go) and I'm hoping to make it to a show or two then. 

For now: I love you, Stornoway. I am so so glad that you're back, and I'm certainly not the only one. The world, my world, is better for having Stornoway in it. 

Stornoway tour dates here. 

Listen to and get your copy of Dig The Mountain! here.

Follow Stornoway - Facebook | Twitter | Instagram.

rambling about the future of CMAT (hi!)

It’s been a while since I did a rambly post like this, but I wasn’t sure how to squish my thoughts into a thread of tweets… basically the tl;dr is that I think that music blogging feels a little bit broken, but I’m refreshing my approach to it, and feeling positive.

Right now, I’m barely posting anything to the blog itself… I describe myself as a music blogger, but I’m basically a glorified email reader/inbox sorter at the moment.

Between days at work, time I give to volunteering online, and time spent doing other things I love (watching birds would get all of my time if it could) there isn’t always much time left for the blog. The time I have for it is usually spent trying my best to keep the unread number on my inbox close to zero.

The end of the week and the arrival of New Music Friday sees me tackling the inbox, trying to get through as much as I can so that when I update my playlists, I’ve listened to as many submissions as possible. So that everything gets a fair shot. As the number of weekly emails grows, playlist updates are pushed back to Sunday, Monday… by which point the torrent of emails has kickstarted for another week.

Sounds fun, right? I got into this to write about and share music that I love, and I do it for no monetary reward, simply for the love of the music. Which begs the question - why should I spend hours upon hours just dealing with an inbox and never actually sharing very much of that music that I do enjoy?

I’ve been part-time at work for a while, but the opportunity to go back to full-time just came up. It leaves me less free time, and I’d wondered about the sustainability of the blog. Will I have the time to keep it up… should I? Is it worth it?

I don’t want to lose CMAT, I’ve worked hard on it for over a decade if we go right back to the inception of the original Tumblr account. Made friends through it, met some of my favourite artists through it, discovered SO much brilliant music through it, and got into a fair few gigs through it. I love the little community I’ve fostered here. I love when people compliment my writing - this isn’t like many other music blogs, it’s often infrequent, a bit rambly, a little bit fangirl-y at times. It’s basically me, in a music blog.

If I want CMAT to carry on, something certainly needs to change. I guess I’m writing this sort of to formulate my own thoughts as much as anything (though I’d also be interested to hear from fellow bloggers/journos if my experience rings familiar with yours).

I want to try and be far less precious with the inbox - to dip in and out, taking from it the things that stand out, but not having to listen to every single thing. There just aren’t enough hours in the day. Think #NoMowMay but for a blog inbox. If I let it go a little wild, the gems in there will stand out. I might reply a bit less but… I don’t reply that much as it is (again - there are only so many hours in the day, sorry!)

In spending less time trying to aim for perfection, for a perfectly tidy inbox, I am hoping that I’ll have more time for the important stuff. More posts! The hope is that I can use the limited time I have for the blog in a far more productive way, move on from being a part-time email reader and actually be a blogger. Engage with the tracks that I enjoy beyond a playlist, actually write about some of them!

There is SO so so much music coming out all of the time. It’s relentless. I sense that PRs are struggling on the other side too - struggling to find space for their artists when there is just so much competition. People are often so lovely about the blog, my work on it/my writing but the priorities have been in a weird place for a while now. I’m using this opportunity to re-focus and hopefully improve things for myself and the blog, and to breathe some new life into it.

If you’ve got this far in this little self-aggrandising ramble, thank you. If I didn’t think that there were at least a few people who appreciated my writing, my email-reading, my twitter/insta fangirling, I’d probably have stopped this a while ago. Whether you’re a diehard CMAT fan (do those exist?) or you’re new here, I think you’re great, and I hope that I can introduce you to a new favourite. 

Come and say hi on Twitter / Instagram (I can't promise I'll reply but I'll love you all the same!) 

end of year ramble (bye 2021!)

So 2021 is coming to a close… simultaneously far too quickly and not soon enough, if I’m honest. It’s been a tough one, but we’re almost there, hey? Mostly with the help (for me, at least) of a lot of brilliant music - new and old. At the start of 2021 I did an ‘end-of-year reflections’ post and felt inclined to do the same now. Much like last year, this page and the community of friends I’ve forged around it on social media have offered solace to me this year.

In the post back in Jan I wrote this (and love & still feel it wholeheartedly, so I’m reproducing it here) - 

This blog has been a glorious escape for me this year. I really love this site. And I love the community of people that I've managed to grow around it. Things have escalated a bit this year. I've been forced into having more time for it, and while I couldn't get to shows and interact with fans and artists in person, I feel like I've connected with more people through the blog than ever before. Running the blog at some points this year has felt like a full time job in itself. I feel privileged to have an audience of sorts, though. As we pass into the new year, I feel inspired and determined to keep up with the blog, to keep it growing, and to find new and exciting opportunities within the industry.

When I’m not rambling about music for fun, I work in a bookstore, and I’m writing this in the midst of the last shopping week before Christmas. I started this post a couple of weeks ago, but time feels a little blurry at the moment, as it has for much of the past two years. As such, my AOTY list is a work in progress too… I’ve been listening back to albums I’ve enjoyed this year to try and figure out my favourites. No spoilers there, but it’s been a pretty joyous year for new music. 

A new record from The Vaccines, a gorgeous collaborative album from Johnny Flynn & Robert Macfarlane, that stunning Arlo Parks record from the very start of the year, the return of LUMP & the debut record from my pals Low Island. Growing obsessions with the likes of Melin Melyn, Banji, Francis of Delirium & Bess Atwell… I could go on, and I do… if you want to know what I’m listening to, the blog is of course as great a place to start as any. Or tweet me! I’m always desperate to share new discoveries.

I’ve been listening a lot (Spotify tells me *almost* as much as last year, which I spent most of at home on furlough) but have been posting a little less this year. Losing my nan a few months ago was the catalyst for a little break from writing, and while I expected to return to the site as “normal” after a few weeks, that hasn’t been the case. Five posts a week has turned into two or three most weeks…

A little of the magic was lost for a while this year. I didn’t want to force myself back into the rhythm of how things were (this is all meant to be for fun after all…) but I’m sad that I lost a lot of the momentum that I had last year when things really seemed to be growing. Despite that, and my tendency to be a blogger who doesn’t blog all that much, people have stuck by the site, and continued to interact with my posts, and with my rambles on social media. I genuinely believe that coping with my loss was made less difficult through talking to people who I’m friends with because of this blogging lark, and that meant more than I can articulate here. The internet proves itself yet again to be a wild and beautiful place - this corner of it, at least.

Another thing that has brought me a lot of solace this year is nature. I’ve always been curious about the nature around me, but that love has found new depths this year… particularly when it comes to birds. Time that might have usually been spent indoors replying to emails or procrastinating over a blog post has been spent birdwatching, wandering nature reserves, taking photos and gardening. While right now I feel quite exhausted from the onslaught of working in retail at Christmas, I also feel energised… excited to continue to work out the balance of enjoying time outdoors (and time spent staring through my kitchen window at the drama breaking out on the bird feeders) and working on the blog, getting back to more regular posting. This is after all a hobby, and there’s room in my life for more than one - and I feel so much happier for it. Birds are truly the best.

Despite my posting less and being less active online, while things have slowed down a little, the blog has still managed to grow this year. More submissions, more followers - the Instagram following has doubled to over a thousand, which is completely wild and impossible to wrap my head around. It’s lovely to know that there are people out there who are interested in what I’m doing here, on whatever level.

One of this year’s highlights, by far, is that I only went and improved on my total of two gigs in 2020 (Bear’s Den and The Hoosiers, squeezed in *just* before all of this) with a grand total of THREE this year. With nothing much happening locally to me, back in October I made my grand return to a gig, 19 months, give or take, since the previous one. In a completely spontaneous turn of events we ventured to Nottingham and saw my most listened to artist of the year, The Staves, in the midst of their UK tour.

In November, I saw the White Tail Falls album launch show (for an album which was released in the first half of 2020, and a gig which had been rescheduled 3 times) in London’s St Pancras Old Church. A beautiful evening seeing my favourite album of 2020 brought to life on the stage. With the gig bug threatening to return, I hopped on a train for another last minute (for me) gig a week later: Bess Atwell in Cambridge. With things getting progressively worse at the moment in terms of case numbers and restrictions, if that was to be my last gig for a while, again, I’m glad it was such a special one.

Another cause for less frequent posting might have been the very exciting months that I spent interning for Chalk Press Agency. They’re truly one of my favourite music companies with a dream roster, so despite all the chaos of the year, getting to work with them for a few months was a joy. I’m crossing my fingers to get started in another music role once Christmas is out of the way…

So, what am I looking forward to in 2022? Musically, more gigs, I hope. Crossing my fingers that the world holds itself together just enough to not cancel the Johnny Flynn & Robert Macfarlane shows at The Globe Theatre in February. Please! On the site, more posts? Maybe. But if not, that’s cool too. More interviews as those seem to have taken a break this year too, but they’re always fun to pull together. And a whole lot of brilliant upcoming music… a new album from my favourite band (you know who it is), new MICHELLE, new gang of youths, the debut from Wet Leg. It’s all happening, and I’m here for it.

Whatever happens I plan to continue to ramble, here and on Twitter, about my favourite artists and my favourite music. That’s what I’m here for. Happy reading, listening, and scrolling. It’s a joy to have your company.

Merry Christmas, pals. X

p.s. Albums of the year post incoming just as soon as I figure out what my albums of the year are, and write it. Worth the wait. Maybe. Probably not.

six years of songs (and things)

I'm a bit late to my own party writing this on Friday afternoon, but it felt like the blog was owed a little celebratory post to mark a milestone. 

The lil site that you find yourself on right now turns six today!!! 

Firstly - it's bewildering that it's been a year since I was rambling (far more than I will here - don't worry*) about the site's five year birthday. About my hopes to have organised a gig to celebrate it and announcing a little Youtube project that I had set up with some of my favourite artists playing tracks from their homes just for the blog. 

The stars aligned a little, and sent me videos from Sam Beeton and Irwin Sparkes (as White Tail Falls). Artists I've loved since before the blog existed, and who both inspired its creation in a way. Forever indebted to their inspiring artistry and general loveliness to myself and to the blog.

As a quick aside - I haven't shared anything new there in a while but do have monthly playlists (here's May) of my favourite music videos and performances, and if any artists fancy recording something for it then I would certainly be up for sharing more sessions so get in touch!! 

I have to say that the past year has probably been the best year yet for the blog. Follower counts and page views can be a little distracting but I do love me a statistic, and they've jumped so much in the past year. Twitter followers doubled, Instagram tripled (!) and I'm pretty sure the site itself saw the most views ever for the year. I've had a bunch of time at home from work on furlough over the past year, and it's been lovely to see the extra time that I was able to put into the site reflected in those ways.

More than a year without gigs has been strange - so much of my barely existent social life is usually going to gigs, catching up with pals I've made at previous gigs and through music over the internet. It's been really odd not to see my favourite artists and my favourite people and yet, in certain way, I've never felt quite so connected to the scene...

The number of fellow music fans, bloggers, PR folk, artists, labels and the like who I've interacted with over the past year, mostly through the blog, has been lovely. The blog is so much cooler than me, so I only hope that you're not too disappointed when you meet real life Megan at a gig somewhere along the line. 

I've been back at work for a few weeks now and finding time to keep on top of the blog can be a bit of a struggle. Growth on the site means that submissions have risen and my inbox is teeming with exciting new music. Everybody wants a slice of the CMAT pie. It can be a little overwhelming at times and yet, here I still am. Mostly it's a huge honour to have any kind of audience to share my music-based rambles with. 

Thanks so much for sticking around. Thanks for sharing my posts, for telling me that you enjoyed a post, and particularly the content I was sharing in it. There's no joy like knowing I've successfully spread the word of a release I have a lot of love for. That's what I'm here for.

If you forgot to get the blog a birthday cake, apologies accepted via Ko-fi donations. Joke. But the link is here if you did ever want to support the behind the scenes goings on of the site...

Here's to another year of music based rambles. Maybe even a gig.

Thanks for being the best!!!!

(*OK I lied and rambled a lot again. Oops.)

end of year reflections (hello 2021!)

Happy New Year, folks! I had intended to write and share this as a sort of 'end of year' reflection for the blog, but time ran away before I finished it... so it's a little late, but time is relative, right? I find myself furloughed (again) and with a lot of extra time on my hands, so I wanted to write a post celebrating some of the not-so-bad points of 2020. 

This blog has been a glorious escape for me this year. I'm not sure how I'd have filled all of the extra time at home without it! I love the artists that I feature here and my heart has been breaking for those who are struggling because of the mess that the past year has brought. Before indulging in some self-praise (forgive me) let me encourage you, if you're able, to support your favourite artists. Grab something from their merch stores, download their album via Bandcamp (Bandcamp Fridays are sticking around for the first half of 2021!) and stream their music to your heart's content. Go go go!

Now for some slightly self-indulgent reflections, mind-boggling stats and the like… 

In Feburary 2019, I lost my job when our HMV store closed. I wrote about it here. I had a lot of spare time thrust upon me and yet, it felt strange not to use that time to apply for new jobs and I struggled to be productive when it came to the blog. It's always been a hobby, a not-particularly-lucrative side-hustle that takes up the majority of my spare time. When all of your time is suddenly spared, it's hard to know how to use it... 

At a similar time in 2020, offering up an unwanted dose of déjà vu, I was put on furlough for the first time as the bookstore I work in closed for three weeks. Well... almost. Three months later, having barely left the house except to walk around our local nature reserve, I felt incredibly anxious about returning to the shop, and felt something akin to grief about the idea of leaving the blog behind. While the situation was far from ideal, I had known that my job was waiting for me once it was safe to return, and I've been able to spend some guilt-free time working on the site exclusively. It's always existed alongside jobs or my degree, so to have so much time for it was sort of inspiring.

At the time, I wrote on the blog - 

“With retail stores looking set to reopen in a few days in England, it looks as if all the extra time I’ve had for the blog will soon reduce dramatically [...] I’ve never had so much time for the blog and it’s been a genuinely lovely thing to see the blog grow more in the last month than it has in years. In a time where connection is so precious, the blog and the people who support it have come to mean even more than before.” 

I returned to work for a few months, fitting in the blog on days off and in the evenings, as I always have, then got placed back onto furlough in November. Through a period of about five weeks I went from annual leave, to furlough, to two weeks of isolation with a positive test in our house. We stayed put, and the blog, and music more generally, wrapped me in its warm embrace once more. I spent as much time as I could over those few weeks (well... not so much in the mornings) working on it. Particularly when we were isolating, it felt great to have something productive to do. Or to berate myself for not doing. 

In May, the blog celebrated an anniversary. While I originally started writing under the name coolmusicandthings on Tumblr back in 2012, the first real commitment to blogging came when I got myself the URL and moved everything onto the site you're on today, in May 2015. Five years! Five years of spending so much of my time writing posts promoting the artists and music that I love, new and old, with genuinely heartfelt personal recommendations. I wrote about this more at the time here but it felt wild to reach this anniversary. The blog is like a diary of my personal musical discovery. I scroll through it occasionally and years later I'm still a little like... wait, I wrote all this?! From a young age I wanted to write (I think fiction back in primary school, and later some kind of local journalism) and I've created a place to do just that. If people read it or not is sort of secondary.... yet, they do. 

You do. I think. I hope? Well, that, or the stats are lying to me. With all of those spare hours on my hands, the blog has been more active on social media and things have grown far more than in previous years. It recently hit 200,000 all-time page views, and had just short of double the views in 2020 than in 2019. For me that's huge. After the recent isolation, Twitter analytics (I love stats!) showed that profile visits were up around 700% vs the previous 28 days. It's gratifying to know that time put into the blog reflects back as growth, and I feel invigorated to achieve even more growth this year. Recent milestones online included 600 Facebook likes, 550 Instagram followers and 650 Twitter followers. The insta following doubled in the last year?! For a while, these accounts were just full of friends and family that I'd invited/begged to follow them, and it seems more and more that actual strangers are here for the ride too now. Hello!

More followers means more submissions, and there seem to be a LOT of people wanting a slice of the action now, and it's constantly growing. Weekly submissions almost doubled this year, from around 120 when I checked at the start of the year and around 210 recently. Considering that the blog is just me and that I (usually) have a full time job and aim to post about 5 times a week, 200 weekly submissions is kind of crazy. 

For the 'anniversary' I'd started to make big plans (in my head, mostly) - I was hoping to organise some kind of charity gig, with a line-up of a few of my favourite artists, in one of my favourite venues. Luckily, nothing was planned so nothing had to be cancelled, but I hope that I'm able to organise something along those lines in the future. Club nights, anybody? I still wanted to recognise the anniversary and asked a bunch of my favourite artists and friends of the blog if they might want to record a little session for a new Youtube channel I was thinking of setting up for the blog. To my utter amazement, many obliged. A few videos never materialised but I had no desire to put pressure on anybody while so much was going on in the world. I ended up sharing 6 magnificent videos from a bunch of talented souls. 

A month later, one of my genuine favourite human beings, Sam Beeton, sent in a video. He was one of the first people that I saw playing live; in fact, the opening act at the first gig that I'd actively chosen to go to and travelled out of my city for, and I haven't seen him play since late 2013. He didn't just send in a video, but he'd created an entire short film, with a new track (his first 'release' in years) performed within it. Take the blog away and I am essentially just a fangirl at heart, trying to support artists whose music brings me joy. This was a highlight of the year. Tears were indeed shed. 

Another of the artists to send in a video (no short film... but he's forgiven) is White Tail Falls (AKA The Hoosiers' frontman Irwin Sparkes). It would be remiss not to ramble (I do little else) about Irwin in a round-up of my musical year. At the start of 2020 (before... stuff) he asked if I would like to premiere the video for his solo track Disintegrate. A billion times yes! In June, we did an interview which (no bias at all) is probably my favourite on the blog, ever. The detail and honesty with which he approached it blew me away. Irwin has always been really supportive of the blog, and this year, with the release of his debut solo record, felt like the pinnacle of that. I've spent much of the year falling in love with Age of Entitlement, so much so that I recently named it my album of the year. 

I also shared interviews with Hailaker and Pêtr Aleksänder back in May, and most recently, with Novo Amor. I love sharing them but have never braved anything but an email interview (sending a bunch of questions, receiving answers, and posting them.) Maybe 2021 will bring with it a little bit of courage to jump on a phone call (or... Zoom?) with some artists? I certainly want to share some more interviews this year, they're always some of my favourite features. 

I've been re-furloughed as of a few days before Christmas. It's a strange time. I have a baby niece who I haven't been able to meet yet because of the restrictions. We've had a kitchen installation drag out over almost a year and have had the contents of our kitchen scattered in boxes across the house (and no wallpaper, flooring, or, most recently, ceiling, in there.) I didn't feel particularly festive this year and it's been a weird couple of weeks. Being furloughed three times and our store having been closed so long, knowing how treacherous a time it is for all retailers at the moment (unless you're Bezos, obviously) isn't a particularly cheering feeling. And yet, with the blog, I feel a sense of... calm? 

I really love this site. And I love the community of people that I've managed to grow around it. Things have escalated a bit this year. I've been forced into having more time for it, and while I couldn't get to shows and interact with fans and artists in person, I feel like I've connected with more people through the blog than ever before. Running the blog at some points this year has felt like a full time job in itself (entirely pressure that I load onto myself) yet it's really just quite a demanding hobby. I feel privileged to have an audience of sorts, though. As we pass into the new year, I feel inspired and determined to keep up with the blog, to keep it growing, and to find new and exciting opportunities within the industry. Helping out with PR, on social media, with data entry, writing for other sites, maybe? At the moment, everything depends on spare time around my job but with furlough, who knows... 

Here's to a year of brilliant music, of reaching more milestones, more rambling, more interviews, of wearing-a-god-damn-mask, of vaccines, of The Vaccines (!) and of new opportunities. We got this. 

R&L... where are all the women?

So…. that Reading and Leeds line-up announcement. You’ve all seen it by now, I’ll presume. After having to cancel their 2020 festival, they’re planning to be back, bigger than ever, in 2021. Two main stages. Double the headliners. Six headline slots, unprecedented. You guessed it: all of them filled by men. Joy.

Let’s just say that it isn’t surprising in the least. In fact, I’d be shocked if R&L had come out with a truly diverse line-up. But the best kind of shocked. Breaking news: women exist AND they make good music, sometimes. It seems a difficult concept for some to grasp. There are people defending the organisers for celebrating this line-up as if it is somehow groundbreaking… are they serious? Currently, it feels as if R&L are more likely to announce that a bunch of aliens are headlining their festival, or to put on a TV talent show to find the next (male) headliners, than they are to acknowledge that women make music.

the 2021 R&L line up sans men, courtesy of @lucy_mccourt on Twitter

Scrolling through past line-ups, the problem is strikingly clear. A whole six years ago, the last female-identifying act in the headline slot, with Hayley Williams fronting Paramore. Even then, it was a co-headline slot (only the second time this had happened in the festival’s history) alongside Queens of the Stone Age (who, it’s worth mentioning, are one of the six to just be announced). Including the upcoming line-up, and this year’s cancelled efforts, there have been 27 headliners since Paramore. All of them male. How can anybody truly justify that? Rewind further and you find the sublime Arcade Fire, fronted by husband and wife Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, headlining in 2010. Before then, you’d need to delve into the 90s to find any more women in the top slots. You get the picture (and it is chocked full of men.) 

I’ve never been to Reading or Leeds festivals, but as a woman writing about music and live shows on the internet, I feel as qualified as anybody to have a say on this matter. I’m curious about the organisers of the festival, those responsible for this line-up and those that have come before it. The headliners themselves, their management and booking agents. How is it that nobody involved at any stage in curating this line-up has raised a problem with the fact that it is all men, once again? And if they have, why is nobody doing anything? 

To be clear: I know that this isn’t just an issue with Reading & Leeds. All-male gig line-ups, concert series without a single female headliner to be seen, these are far too familiar scenarios across the industry. Given years to address the issue, and still seemingly ignoring it, you can’t help but presume that the likes of R&L simply don’t care. While discussing this post with a friend, she raised the point that it just doesn’t give the impression that women are welcome. How would that make you feel when attending the festival? Similarly, I can’t help but think of young artists growing up with dreams of making it in the industry. From the start, it’s made absolutely clear to them that no matter how good they are, no matter their chart positions, album sales, the tours they do, their number of fans - they’re unlikely to ever get the opportunity to headline R&L. Why? Because they’re not men. In 2020, this is frankly absurd. 

Since the announcement, I’ve tried to stick to the likeminded people on my timeline who realise that there is most definitely a problem with it. It seems that on the whole, people are affronted, and rightly so. It’s easy to stray into comment sections however, and to become bewildered by some of the people defending the line-up. As if these things even need saying, let’s attempt to debunk some of their ridiculous arguments… 

A few people are intent on yelling about ticket sales. True, after the festival was cancelled this year due to the virus, they’ll need to ensure that they maximise ticket sales next year to ensure the longevity of the festival. Personally, I’m not sure that all but telling women they aren’t welcome is the best way of going about that. The notion that a female headliner wouldn’t attract as many ticket sales is silly - gender in itself is not a selling point. With six headliners, it hardly seems that having just one of those (not enough, but it would be a start) be a female headliner would make so much of a difference. With five Grammys, an album which topped the charts in the UK and was the best-performing album of last year in the US, I think that Billie Eilish, for one, could probably pull quite the crowd. Lana Del Rey? Lorde? Taylor Swift?  Dua Lipa? “But it’s a rock festival!!!!” I hear from the folks of Twitter - perhaps, traditionally, the festival has leant towards rock, alternative, indie and punk, but try telling that to next year’s headliners Stormzy and Disclosure, or further down the line-up, Lewis Capaldi. This post from self-proclaimed ‘festival enthusiast’ Vic on Instagram, which is doing the rounds at the moment, shows how a R&L poster might look, filled with exciting female artists. Big and small. 

“But, there aren’t any headline-worthy female acts!!!” May I refer you to the above? This opinion shows blatant ignorance. There are plenty. There is a LOT of brilliant music being made by women, across many genres, in many countries, and many of those would deliver a superb headline slot. 

"But…. there ARE women on the line-up!” Ah, correct. You’ve got me there. Case closed. They’re nestled right at the bottom, looking like they’ve been booked as an after thought? Some women to put onto the small stages to keep everybody happy? Job done. (Not.) 

In an abrupt change to the booking/scheduling… to me! Hey - it’s my blog, I’ll talk about me if I want to. For years, I’ve listened to far more music by male artists than not. Without any particular intentions. As a kid, I was into pop music - boy bands, the charts. My tastes changed as I grew older and started to get more interested in music in general, discovering bands like Muse and Biffy Clyro, who I still love today. At school, I started to listen to alternative, indie and folk music via recommendations from friends, and began to find a lot of new music by watching MTV Rocks on TV as much as I could. Much like R&L, two of the only bands I can remember from the channel in those days which weren’t all male, are Paramore and Arcade Fire. 

It wasn’t really something that I questioned at the time, or felt that I had to do anything about. I was just starting to be passionate about music and what did it matter who was making it? Most of my favourite artists at the time were male, but that was just how it was. I wasn’t really aware of the fact that I just wasn’t being introduced to much music being made by women. 

I first started this blog on Tumblr in late 2012, as a way of writing about new work from my favourite musicians. Before the days of receiving submissions via email, that meant that I was covering the artists I already knew and loved. So: men, mostly. Still, I didn’t question it. When I thought about it, I felt that it just reflected the genres that I listened to, there just were fewer women making music in them. Nothing that I could affect. 

When I started to pay attention to people (rightly) questioning the gender split across festival line-ups and the posters with male artists taken off of them (leaving a few tiny artist names) started to surface, I began to be a bit more conscious of what I was putting out on the blog. The more I thought about it, and the bigger the blog seemed to be getting (actual people seemed to be reading it, not just friends I’d dragged along for the ride) I realised that it wasn’t enough for me to just tell myself that this was an issue in the wider industry, that there just weren’t as many women making music in the genres that I listened to. There are: if you have to work a little harder to find them, then it’ll be all the more rewarding when you do. In 2018 and 2019, my favourite records were by Rae Morris and Maggie Rogers. I fell entirely in love with both records and in a way, it was refreshing - the first time that I’d felt quite so much admiration for records that weren’t made by men. 

Behind the scenes, as it were, I’ve been trying to address the gender balance on the blog and in the playlists that I curate for it for the past couple of years. I want to deliver varied and diverse content to the online following that I am very proud to have built up. It has always been my intention to write about music that I love, and it just so happens that a lot more of that is by women now. The blog is all the better for it. In all honesty, it feels like I have spent more time worrying about the gender split on my relatively tiny blog than the organisers of these huge events have in recent years. 

A rough count of my posts from this year so far shows them to be at about 45% about music from female soloists, bands fronted by women, and bands with female members. Compared to 38% (give or take) in 2019, and 23% in 2018. On the main yearly playlist, it’s just a little behind at about 40% for 2020 so far - compared to 34% in 2019 and 24% in 2018. I’m really proud of these figures, the improvement and the efforts I’ve taken to get there. Looking at research by Vick Bain in her report Counting the Music Industry, these percentages are, in a way, above average. In a study of over 300 music publishers and record labels in the UK, her research revealed that “just over 14% of writers currently signed to publishers and just under 20% of acts signed to labels are female […] indicative of widespread discrimination against women in the music industry.” I’m striving towards a 50/50 split. It may be a little harder work, as a majority of the music I am sent in press releases is by male artists, but there is SO much wonderful music being created by women, if you just take the time to find it.

So, to draw this to a close… I think that it is basically idiocy for those involved in the R&L line-up, and others like it, to go ahead with this in 2021. Are the women on those teams being overpowered by their male counterparts, do they simply not care, or do they not exist? It’s clear that everybody has a role to play in improving the situation. As music fans, taking your ticket buying power to those festivals which are striving for a better balance is key. 

The PRS ‘Keychange’ initiative, for instance, is a campaign encouraging festivals to have a 50/50 gender split among their performers by 2022, which more than 150 events worldwide pledged to do. Founder Vanessa Reed said in 2019 that “people are feeling frustrated by festival lineups being male-dominated. Until Keychange there was no big debate about this or positive action.” She posited that the next step was to look more deeply at the industry, saying “there are still so many male promoters and bookers and established networks that have traditionally booked more men than women. All those things mean it’s harder to instigate change. But I have been inspired by the fact that lots of younger men in the music industry are as keen as women are for programmes to be more balanced. So I hope to some degree it’s about generational change.” 

Well, here’s to change. And not a moment too soon! And while these might not all be quite ready to headline a festival as big as Reading & Leeds, here are some of my favourite female artists (and bands with female members) who I’ll continue to give a platform to, as best I can: MarthaGunn, Lucy Rose, Dizzy, Liz Lawrence, Arlo Parks, Siv Jakobsen, The Big Moon, Dream Wife, Marika Hackman, Superorganism, Sophie Jamieson, Lucy Leave, Hailaker, Gia Margaret, Lianne La Havas, Fenne Lily, Billie Marten, The Staves, Winnie Raeder, Annabel Allum, Brooke Bentham… I could go on, and on, and on.

cool music and... why I won't 'review' your track

I’ve been feeling a little inspired by the post I wrote recently about the origins and history of the blog for it’s anniversary. I’ve felt for a while as if I wanted to explore some wider topics in longer, rambling posts (apologies in advance for that) to create some more range in the things I write about. Sort of essay-esque, exploratory pieces on whatever topics spring to mind. Perhaps these are the ‘things’ that the blog’s name so mysteriously nods towards? Here goes for a mildly coherent ramble, anyway. 

I’ve never really explicitly talked about this here because it’s never felt like it particularly needed saying (and still doesn’t, I just had time on my hands and started writing) but as a rule, I try to avoid describing my posts as reviews. In my head, at least. Something about the term has always made me feel a little uneasy. I think that initially, as I didn’t have any musical qualifications or talents to speak of (though I have been trying to learn some ukulele and guitar in lockdown so… watch this space) I thought that I couldn’t refer to what I was writing as a review. In a sense, what right did I have to be reviewing something? Nobody had hired me to do that, I’d just set myself up a website and started to write. Who actually cared? Now though, it feels more that I simply don’t want to 'review'. Referring to a post as a recommendation or write-up sits better with me, personally. It feels positive, and for a blog which was born out of wanting to share the love I had for my favourite artists, that seems a perfect fit. 

While arranging a session video for the Youtube channel I set up recently, I was discussing the blog with Irwin Sparkes of White Tail Falls, whose record was released recently and is an instant album of the year for me - ‘write-up’ to follow, fingers crossed, and there's an interview a couple of posts ago here. Being a generally lovely human being who has always been supportive of the blog, he said some kind things about the site, and that what he loved about it was how positive it was, how I was “spreading the word on stuff that brings you joy.” It’s something that I’ve been aiming towards for the site from the start, and it means the world to have somebody else identify it. Irwin encouraged me to post some of the thoughts that I’d shared with him (so you’ve got him to thank for this ramble, though it was a lot shorter at the time) which basically concluded with the idea that the blog is a kind of online diary of the music that I love, which I let people read. 

I’m the blog’s biggest fan. I’ve been doing this for five years and I’ve surprised myself to have stuck at anything for that long. In ‘normal’ life I work full time and use the majority of my spare time to write posts, update my playlist, listen to submissions and tweet nonsense to my favourite bands. If I didn’t enjoy it, and didn’t love what I was writing about, it probably wouldn’t have lasted this long. 

A few years back when I was living and studying in Oxford and consuming just about as much live music as I possibly could while still getting a degree, I attended a music industry panel as part of Independent Venue Week. There was a really interesting discussion between people from various areas of the music industry. A music journalist, who has been running a local music magazine for longer than I’ve been alive (he knows his stuff) made a point which really registered and stayed with me. He suggested that it was important for a publication to share both positive and negative reviews to maintain credibility. 

As I’d not long moved the blog onto the new site to 'make a proper go of it' and was still finding my feet with it, I took what he was saying as gospel and thought about it a lot. Could people not trust my blog because I only ever wrote positive things? Did the fact that I was only ever nice invalidate the nice things that I was saying? Retrospectively, it’s a peculiar thing to worry about, especially when the blog was so tiny. Even now, my blog is fairly removed from the likes of his magazine and, well, it isn’t the NME. I doubt anybody else has ever sat looking at the site wishing I’d slate something and stop being so full of love and admiration. The ‘secret’ is that I can’t post about everything, and the things that I don’t enjoy don’t get to be featured… simple. Which isn't to say that if I don’t write about something, I dislike it. There’s only so much time and so many posts to go around. Less posts equals more love going into each post. It’s a balance I’m still figuring out. 

Over time, as I’ve developed the blog and figured out the sort of direction that I want to take it in, I’ve explored the idea more. For bigger publications, it makes sense that readers have expectations. You want to know what your favourite larger publications think about a new release. With multiple writers and constant new releases, there are bound to be quite a range of opinions shared. Art is subjective. Even so - and increasingly so - some negative reviews I’ve read lately have started to sit a little uncomfortably with me. For those writers, it is work and they have to say something, but it can sometimes become too personal. In an age of increased mental health awareness, sometimes it feels like they can go a little too far. 

The conclusion I’ve drawn over the years is that if you were to sneak a look at the never-ending list of post ideas in my spreadsheet, and the submissions I’ve tagged as ‘to write about’ in my inbox, you’d quickly realise that I haven’t physically got the time to write about everything I love. It’s partly why I don’t write so many album write-up posts, because they need far more time and attention to do them justice. One of the best things about the blog being entirely written by one person is that everything you read here is a snapshot into my mind, or a page of the diary. There doesn’t seem much point in me wasting my own time, and yours, by telling you about things that I don’t like. Instead, I’ll continue pouring all the love I can muster into the things that I do enjoy. 

With retail stores looking set to reopen in a few days in England, it looks as if all the extra time I’ve had for the blog will soon reduce dramatically. I won’t get too much into the huge reservations I have about returning to work at the moment, but will say that the prospect of blogging less does make me sad. While at the start of lockdown I was struggling to find any time (despite having an abundance of it) to write posts, when I threw myself into creating some kind of celebration of the blog’s birthday, it sparked something. I’ve never had so much time for the blog and it’s been a genuinely lovely thing to see the blog grow more in the last month than it has in years. In a time where connection is so precious, the blog and the people who support it have come to mean even more than before. 

In short: I love this blog, and this blog is fuelled by love. But I probably won't 'review' your track. I may say some lovely things about it, though. 

(Ramble complete.)

Five years of cool music and things...

Five years!

This little blog of mine has existed for five years today. I'd hoped to arrange a gig or something to come together to celebrate but the world had other ideas. A birthday in lockdown wasn't quite what I had in mind for the blog but I'm trying to make the best of it. If you don't have time to read this whole post (more rambling from me... surely not?!) the short version is that if you've read anything that I've written over the years, or listened to any of my recommendations, you're great and you've got my endless gratitude. I've honestly surprised myself sticking at it for this long, I sort of fell into blogging accidentally and I still don't entirely believe that all of the page views aren't somehow spambots.

So if you're a real person and you really read the blog: thanks!

If you're a spambot, welcome, and thanks: you make my view count look great!

(Skip to the end for an exciting thing...!)

I should probably first explain... if you're reading this and you glance across to the post archive, you might notice that there are posts dating back to late 2012.

The blog is kind of like royalty with two birthdays. Back then, a very basic version of the site you're on today existed over on Tumblr. I had a personal Tumblr account (for sharing Doctor Who and Sherlock content, mostly) and made a page where I could share music that I enjoyed. I'd realised I was getting a kick out of recommending music to my school friends, and was spending a lot of time online - it made sense to combine the two! I think the URL on Tumblr cycled through some song lyrics and something like 'just good tunes' before I settled on coolmusicandthings. I'm not sure if somebody suggested it, of if I (very unimaginatively) came up with it. And I'm not entirely sure what the 'things' are, still. I've often thought about rebranding and renaming the blog over the years but every time I do, I've found that I can't bring myself to. Most music blog names don't make complete sense, right? And I'd started to build an identity and community around the name and it didn't feel worth the hassle of changing it.

With my Tumblr page, I'm pretty sure that I felt like I was the absolute zenith of music news. In reality, I was just sharing new music videos and sessions from the artists that I loved and there was very little writing involved. The music did the talking. But I'd started something, and started myself along the path of becoming... less a music reviewer, more a professional music fan. And sometime fangirl.

Towards the end of my first year at university in Oxford, just a few weeks after the inimitable Noah and the Whale had announced that they were parting ways, I took myself to see a show in Camden headlined by Matt Owens and the Delusional Vanity Project, Matt being the bassist of NATW. It was essentially a club night, their set was quite late and it was really rowdy, and I was out of my depth. Having only ever seen NATW playing a support set in an arena I was suddenly a few metres from three members of the band, as Tom Hobden and Michael Petulla, the band's violinist and drummer, were part of Matt's band. Being quite a relaxed show I found the opportunity to introduce myself to the guys outside. Getting a little caught up in the moment, I casually informed Matt that I had a music blog and he handed me a copy of his solo album to review.

In the film adaptation of the history of the blog, this is the point where time would stop and the narrator points out that this was the precise moment that kickstarted me into turning the blog into the site that it is today. I remember very vividly deciding that if people might be interested in my writing, I should make a go of it. So the next day in my flat in Oxford, I started plotting a relaunch of the blog. Maybe I was in it for the free CDs.

I spent a few days setting up my account on Blogger, which I'd used a little in the past for school projects, designed a layout and purchased a URL so that I might seem a little bit professional. I decided to copy across all of my existing posts (about 100) from Tumblr and backdated them all (hence the posts going back to 2012 on this site). The older posts aren't great, but they were part of the story, where it had all started, and it was a little less daunting then starting entirely from scratch.

Once the site was ready, I headed to my Facebook page on 7th May 2015 and announced... 

EXCITING NEWS! I've decided to relaunch my music blog 'cool music and things' over on blogger (bought a domain and everything).

I originally set up the blog a couple of years ago as I found myself constantly recommending music to everyone I know and it allowed me to do this on a bigger scale. I've moved across most of the old posts, and will be trying to update it regularly with recommendations, reviews and the like.  

I really want to make something of this, to grow my audience and mostly to share the music that I love with as many people as I can.

After that first gig, I saw Matt and the other NATW guys at a few small-ish shows for various projects they were working on. They were always super welcoming, letting me hang out with them as I was usually at the shows alone. I probably didn't realise at the time that the blog had essentially been my way in, a foot in the door to hanging out with some of my favourite musicians as if that was something I was completely used to. (It happens more and more and is still crazy.) To have those guys be early 'fans' of the blog and encouraging me to write more was an honour and made me feel like it was something that I should carry on with. They were proper music people, after all.

It took about ten months to reach the first real milestone on the site. Ten thousand page views. I remember that completely blowing my mind. It's such a big number?! A few months later, the page reached twenty thousand. Things were growing. As I write this post, the view count is gradually trickling towards one hundred and fifty thousand. I've come to realise that statistics are probably skewed quite a bit, I'll probably never understand how, but either that or I'm particularly famous in the Middle East. It's still a really big number though, so I'm taking the win.

I set up social media accounts so that I could share the posts once I'd written them, and started to forge a little community around the site. Again, I try not to worry too much about followers and likes (to be honest - most of the likes on the Facebook page are friends who have probably forgotten me begging them to like it in the early days) but it's lovely to have a little patch of the internet where I can talk to likeminded people and ramble about how great music is.

I made an email address for the blog early on so that people could submit music for me to write about. Currently, I get somewhere around 120 submissions a week. I listen to everything (albeit sometimes not for very long) and it's a genuinely a privilege to hear so much new music. Even if it is massively overwhelming most of the time. With just me writing posts and only a handful of posts each week, the majority of submissions don't make it onto the blog - so you've got to conclude that those that do have made it through some tough competition. I've made some really exciting discoveries in that inbox - BE GOOD and Fil Bo Riva are examples of a couple of artists I first found through press releases and completely adore now. The blog remains as much a discovery tool for myself as anything.

It's essentially all an elaborate attempt for me to find new music to listen to, and I've been lucky to have been sent lots of exciting streams over the years of unreleased albums. Sneak previews of albums from Bombay Bicycle Club, Public Service Broadcasting, Jack Savoretti, Geowulf, Benedict Benjamin and lots more. The best perks. Big imposter syndrome kicks in when I get to listen to those. Without doubt, one of the most exciting albums to find its way into my inbox was last February, when the new Bear's Den record arrived around two months before it was due to be released. Usually, an album will sit in my inbox and I'll procrastinate listening and reviewing, but this was different.

The band are a huge favourite of mine, and the album arrived into my inbox when I was going through a difficult time. If you know me personally or followed the blog then, you'll probably know that around that time, I lost a job I loved when the HMV store I worked at closed suddenly. It was a really crap time, suddenly losing the day-to-day companionship of my colleagues and wanting desperately to help them. It felt like a period of grief. I was fighting to get the decision overturned, suddenly finding myself as some kind of spokesperson for my colleagues as I spoke to local news outlets. Music helped, as it so often does. I wasn't writing much on the blog at the time as all my energy was going into applying for jobs and campaigning, but the new Bear's Den album arrived and I listened a lot, and it helped. As much as I wanted to thank the band for that, it was also testament to one of my favourite (shhh!) PR agencies, Stay Loose. Knowing what had happened, Ellie offered me guest list to any of their upcoming shows, knowing how much I loved escaping to gigs.

I don't think I'd ever anticipated making friends through the blog when I first started rambling on Tumblr, but I really have, between all the PR people, artists, labels and fellow music fans. The blog is far cooler than I am and that helps.

Another of the perks of running the blog is getting offered tickets to some pretty cool shows and festivals in exchange for a post rambling about them. The idea of being on the guest list for a show at  the actual Royal Albert Hall a couple of years back (Nick Mulvey - dreamy) is a little bewildering. Getting asked "which publication are you with?" at Citadel Festival last year and having to offer up the name of my little 'publication' will forever go down as a highlight of blogging.

Alright. I've probably rambled far more than enough! Essentially, I consider this blog to be my little corner of the internet where I can attempt to put my English degree to good use and spread the word, and a lot of love, for my favourite artists.

With so many submissions, I've been asked about other people writing for the blog at times - one of my favourite things is when PR emails refer to "the team" or an artist replies to a social media post with "thanks guys!" I like the idea that this seems such a well oiled machine that it must be a group of people. While it would probably help get more content out, I selfishly want to keep hold of the blog. With every bit of content being written by me, I've got the freedom to make everything personal. Posts will usually reference where I discovered the artists or a gig that I've seen them at. I like to think that its a kind of USP, a bit of personality shining through the writing. The blog essentially reads as a stream of consciousness thread about my favourite music. It's basically my diary.

Aaaaaand. Thing incoming! Before all of this, as I mentioned above, I'd started dreaming up a gig to celebrate the blog's birthday. I'd pretty much already been to the gig in my head... some of my favourite artists in one of my favourite venues, raising money for charity. Obviously those plans were scuppered but I'm still hopeful that after all of this is over I might get to organise something. CMAT club nights, anybody... watch this space? But for now! If you're on Youtube, you probably want to subscribe to this channel. 

It's still a slight work in progress as most of this is new to me, but I decided that I still wanted to do something to celebrate the blog's anniversary and to bring together some of the artists that I love - and blog about - most. A few of my favourite musicians kindly agreed to help (all wildly overwhelming if I'm honest) and over the next week or two (or more, like I said - work in progress) I'll be uploading exclusive content to the channel, mostly in the form of home recordings. I'll be uploading the first video later today - it's superb and I'm really excited to share it with you!

In exchange for the videos, it would mean the world if I could draw your attention and your support to the #SaveOurVenues campaign from the Music Venue Trust. Without sufficient support, hundreds of grassroots venues in the UK, many of which already faced pressures before the pandemic, face the risk of never re-opening. The MVT has set up a nationwide campaign offering support to these venues. Look to your local venues (MVT has a handy map on their site) and offer them a helping hand if you can.

Personally, I'm pinning all the love and support I can muster (and asking for you to do the same, if you can) onto Omeara. Opening in 2016, it's a reasonably new venue, part of a lovely community in London Bridge with adjoining eateries and a gallery area adjacent to the gig space. It's quickly become one of my favourite places to see live music, a really gorgeous room which is intimate without feeling too small. It's hosted debut London shows from the likes of Maggie Rogers, Dermot Kennedy and Sam Fender.

Founder Ben Lovett (keyboardist of Mumford & Sons and co-founder of the Communion Music label - which I sometimes feel like this blog is essentially a fan blog for as I adore so much of their output) says on their fundraising page:

Your donations will be used to help us take care of people. For us, people are everything - it's people on the stage singing their hearts out, it's people in the pit singing back to them, it's people at the door keeping you safe and it's people behind the bar keeping you refreshed. We are grateful for the support from the government but the current schemes are contributive rather than wholesale in their support and we are burning through cash reserves at an alarming rate. 

Depending on when we can reopen, currently slated as June, and whether we can prevent the closure of our venue, everything above the amount we need will be donated to the Music Venue Trust GMV Crisis Fund to protect other venues just like ours, right across the country. There will be no surplus or profit retained by Omeara and we believe in supporting all venues as much as we possibly can. It's more people looking after people hoping to give people an amazing experience again one day. 

We all thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the support.

You can support OMEARA here and it'll mean the world to me if you do. Consider it your birthday gift to the blog.

Check out the Music Venue Trust site here to view their main fundraiser and find a venue local to you - I'd love it if you let me know on Twitter if you donate to a venue!

Well: here's to 5 more years of blogging!!

Thanks a million for all the support. Means the world.

Meg x

Signing off from HMV Peterborough 246.

Hi. Meg here. If you don’t already follow me or this blog online - all you really need to know is I’m a big music fan and generally a bit of a nerd. As such, HMV has been my favourite store for as long as I can remember. I discovered and explored a lot of my current musical loves through it.

Last week was simultaneously one of the best and worst weeks of my life. 

I lost my job on Tuesday. 

First, the good: I absolutely adore live music and on Wednesday evening I somehow managed to see Mumford & Sons play an acoustic set to 150 people in a pub in North London. It was last minute and an incredibly well timed piece of live music therapy. A couple of days later, Friday brought what I’m sure will be one of my gigs of the year in the shape of The Vaccines at The Roundhouse. Both nights were brilliant.

The bad: these incredible gigs have been massively overshadowed by some of the worst news I’ve had to hear in recent years. 

I’ve worked for my local HMV store in Peterborough since September 2017, during which time I’ve met some of the most wonderful, knowledgeable and crazy colleagues. We’re like a little family and I love them. I have loved this company - particularly my local store - and admired its staff for many years and getting the job was genuinely a bit of a dream come true. I’d been applying to other stores in the area for a few weeks after graduating and was making very little progress when suddenly HMV were hiring - commence frantic application writing! The interview with my soon to be manager turned from a scheduled fifteen minutes to us losing track of time and discussing our favourite musicians and actors for an hour and I could already tell I would love it there if the rest of the staff were this lovely. And they were. 

The past year and a half have been great. I love my job. The people I work with are wonderful. I’ve never been particularly confident or outgoing but my time at HMV has really helped with that. I’ve found that it’s easy to build a rapport with customers when they’re passionate about something. Even if it’s not something I’m a fan of personally I love seeing customers react to finding products that relate to something they love and expressing their fandom. Most recently there have been lots and lots of BTS fans in our shop! 

I bought my first 12” album (Modern Vampires Of The City by Vampire Weekend) from the store back in 2013 when the vinyl section was about an eighth of the size it is now. I fondly remember dragging friends into the store to browse through all of the vinyl every time I was in town. I’ve been looking after the vinyl department for several months now and genuinely love seeing customers browse it, hunting for their favourite bands or for something new to listen to. Granted, Spotify has its bonuses, but it doesn’t give you the same impact of a 12” album sleeve and the buzz a great album cover can give you in the physical form. There’s something very special about vinyl and it felt great to be in some way on the forefront of its revival, seeing a really wide range of customers collecting it. I love that department.

A couple of days after Christmas, the company announced they were calling in the administrators for the second time in six years. I heard the news through messages from friends and family. What followed was a stressful and uncertain month for us all. My colleagues and I mostly received immense support from our loyal customers, but also had to shield almost constant questions from customers hoping for a closing down sale, and the anger of customers who weren’t pleased about our amended returns policy and other matters that were entirely out of our hands. All this while we were worrying about the security of our jobs. 

I’ve spent a month telling customers that as far as I knew at the time, the store wasn’t closing down and that we were hopeful it would be saved. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel like I’d almost let them down. 

Last Tuesday I awoke to the news that the company had been bought out by Doug Putman, a Canadian businessman and self-professed vinyl nerd who runs Canada’s Sunrise Records. Amazing news. I was quickly told that not all stores were part of the deal. My colleagues were informed, via a conference call at 9am, that our store hadn’t been saved and was to close immediately. That was it. Suddenly 14 of us were jobless, the store was closed and we couldn’t even tell those customers who are in the store every single day. The regulars. 

It was my day off and time suddenly got a bit blurred (and has stayed that way since… I don’t think I’m alone in losing track of what day or time it is several times this week.) A couple of hours had passed as I sat scrolling through Twitter, chatting to colleagues and trying and failing to register what had just happened. I broke the news to a couple of friends that they’d lost their job. And I cried, a lot. Have I said that I really love my job?! I took a bus into town - everything seemed strangely normal. The news hadn’t broke locally that our store was closing yet. I headed to the store to rescue the belongings from my locker (you can take my job - but not my TARDIS mug.) We were asked to leave the store, and shoppers stared as we emerged from the shutters. It was incredibly surreal. My colleagues and I headed to the pub to gather our thoughts. It felt like somebody had died. The hours flew by, and after saying an emotional goodbye I headed home, and cried the whole way. What was I supposed to do now? 

I hadn’t intended to be at the store for the long term - I have dreams of finding my way into the music industry and perhaps this is my opportunity to get out there, but…. have I said I really love my job?! I live at home and thankfully, losing my job doesn’t put me in too terrible a financial position, I can take my time to find something new. But I’m lucky. I have colleagues who live in their own place and have rent or mortgages to find the money for, children to provide for - and I can not comprehend how much stress they must be feeling. Some of my colleagues have been working for the company for almost as long as I’ve been alive - I cannot for a second comprehend how it must feel to have that taken away from you suddenly, and to all of a sudden need to consider the prospect of a job interview for the first time in two decades. None of my colleagues deserve this. They’re wonderful people and I hate that this is happening to us. 

It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster week. A trip to the centre on Friday and seeing our wonderful shop - with the stock still in it - submerged in darkness with the shutters down was a bit hard to bear. Sitting down to update my CV on Thursday essentially started and ended with me adding an end date to my employment with HMV. Genuinely heartbreaking. I’ve been in touch with my colleagues, hearing how they can’t sleep or eat, how this is affecting their families. It hurts to know how they’re all feeling and to feel so helpless. 

It’s taken me a few days to gather my thoughts, but I really wanted to share something here about the situation and my wonderful colleagues at HMV 246. I genuinely believe that the closure of our store is a great loss for the city - I recently saw an article about Peterborough vying for the title of ‘City of Culture’ in 2020. For me, particularly having spent a few years living and studying in the beautiful city of Oxford - I consider music as a hugely important part of culture, and what good is a city with no record store in its centre? 

All hope may not entirely be lost… an article was published in The Guardian a couple of days ago, including quotes from the new owner of HMV. It stated that he was “in talks with landlords on the rest of the 27 outlets which closed down earlier this week” and was “relishing the fight to save all the stores”. The historic (and original) Fopp store in Glasgow’s West End was re-opened on Saturday after members of the public and bands such as Mogwai created an online campaign to show their love for the store. I can’t pretend to understand exactly why our store closed but I do understand that word of mouth, and social media buzz can clearly make all the difference - and spreading the love for our wonderful store can surely do no harm at this point! 

We’ve set up a group on Facebook here to spread the word and show the love there is for the store locally. We’re also tweeting with the hashtag #SaveHMVPeterborough & have already had support from the likes of Neil Gaiman (!!), The Hoosiers, 88 Films, Transgressive Records, Gengahr & Cassidy Little. Any help you can give would mean the world.

Been a bit of a rubbish week with my HMV store closing, BUT one of the closed stores has re-opened today so there's a bit of hope... we have a Facebook group going to show how much love there is for our store: please join! #SaveHMVPeterborough https://t.co/qiAGNZCVTH pic.twitter.com/XgvPwcIkPq

— SUPERMegAN (@meg_seekings) February 9, 2019

If you have time to get in touch with Sunrise Records & HMV via email too that would be incredible. 

customerservice@sunriserecords.com

store.service@hmv.co.uk

Signing off from HMV Peterborough 246.