Happy, occasionally clappy and double bassy, Glasgow based Kitty The Lion have a sweet sounding acoustic folky sound… I recommend checking out “Fuzzy Felt” (my favourite track on their MySpace).
Detour Launch night 2 from Detour Scotland on Vimeo.
February 8, 2010
February 1, 2010
Band Of The Week – Broken Records
Broken Records make beautiful songs like If Eilert Loevborg Wrote a Song, it Would Sound Like This and the trumpety anthem If The News Makes You Sad, Don’t Watch It. That’s all you need to know. Go check them out!
January 26, 2010
Band Of The Week – OK Go
We already knew that OK Go made kickass videos (remember the treadmills?) and they can cover other people’s songs pretty well (as shown when they covered Electric Light Orchrestra’s Don’t Bring Me Down) – well now they’ve bettered themselves by doing an alternative version of track 2 from their new album (Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky) featuring a marching band. So cool! OK Go – This Too Shall Pass.
January 20, 2010
Band Of The Week – Brother Louis Collective
Brother Louis Collective rock in their own special way – sometimes they play slow enough so that you can hear every lyric and quiet enough so all the parts can be heard… but sometimes they just rock out. I really like these guys and I can’t wait to hear what they all do this year.
January 12, 2010
Band Of The Week – Kid Adrift
Kid Adrift – Oxytocin
Although this song is about watching someone you love having a brain haemorrhage it’s still very much worth listening to. Check out Kid Adrift on MySpace.
January 7, 2010
Band Of The Week – The Seventeenth Century
The Seventeenth Century have been described as “A Hebridian take on The Beach Boys” by tThe Daily Record and “…a band that writes illustrious music whilst their admirable naivety shines through” by The Scotsman. Definitely one to watch for 2010! Check out “Roses In The Park” their MySpace for more info.
December 17, 2009
2009 Round-up – The Best Music From 2009
Seems like an age since I last wrote a blog post – it’s been a busy year! I thought that it was about time for me to round up the music that I’ve been listening to in 2009, the final year of the Aughts. Maybe my resolution for next year should be to blog more!
So, without further ado, here is my list of the top music from 2009:
- Frightened Rabbit – even though “The Midnight Organ Fight” was a 2008 album it hasn’t left my headphones all year. I can’t wait for “The Winter Of Mixed Drinks” to come out next year. The gig in the Queens Hall was one of the most memorable gigs. Ever.
- Them Crooked Vultures – It would have been almost impossible for these guys not to have written a fantastic album but the real surprise for me was just how fun seeing them live was. I’m really looking forward to seeing if these guys take this further.
- Mumford & Sons – I’m a bit gutted that I didn’t hear about this band sooner but Mumford & Sons sound sooooo sweet! Really worth a listen. Check them out now. Go. Stop reading this post. Go now!
- Jónsi & Alex – Sigur Rós are one of my all time favourite bands and “Riceboy Sleeps”, the album from Jónsi’s side project, is well worth a listen.
- We Were Promised Jetpacks – “Quiet Little Voices” is sure to be a song that I’ll be putting on playlists for years to come. Great début album.
- She & Him – another 2010 album to watch out for is “Volume Two”, the creatively named follow up to last year’s “Volume One”. Chilled out and quirky it’s sure to be a hit.
- Scarlett Johansson and Pete Yorn - Not to be outdone by Zooey Deschanel as an actress that’s also in a band, Scarlette Johansson’s album is really chilled and is surprisingly listenable.
- Weezer – the year started off listening to “Weezer” (June 2008) and flowed seamlessly into “Raditude” (which came out in November). Great to see 2 great albums come out in such quick succession.
- Biffy Clyro – “The Captain”, the first single from the album of the same, is so very good.
- The Twilight Sad – Although I can’t listen to too much Twilight Sad in one “Forget the Night Ahead” is a brilliant album, worthy of being on any of 2009’s top ten lists.
Top 5 TV shows:
- True Blood – Best moment: the music
- Q.I. – Best moment: Alan Davies
- James May’s Toy Stories – Best moment: the joy on everyone’s faces as they revealed the life-size Airfix
- Top Gear – Best moment: Caravan Blimp
- Derren Brown – Best moment: the fact that he was the gorilla
Top 6 Films:
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – Best moment: the fact that with each film the story gets darker and darker
- Zombieland – Best moment: the cameo!
- Star Trek – Best moment: the fact that the film actually delivered what most people wanted
- Watchmen – Best moment: the filming
- District 9 – Best moment: his transformation
- Inglourious Basterds – Best Worst moment: hearing a girl in the cinema say “Is that a true story? Is that how World War 2 really ended?”
Top 8 gigs:
- FRIGHTENED RABBIT!!!! – Best moment: hearing the entire audience sing every word along to an unplugged acoustic guitar
- Death Cab For Cutie – Best moment: the encore
- Them Crooked Vultures – Best moment: a one hour fifty minute gig from an album that lasts just over an hour
- Jonathan Coulton – Best moment: A Talk With George was amazing but Birdhouse in your soul kicked ass
- Tourists in the Warzone – Best moment: hearing just how good they were
- Kiltreiser – Best moment: the banter
- Come On Gang – Best moment: hearing the slickness
- Queens Of The Stone Age – Best moment: the noise
May 20, 2009
Adding a ribbon to your site
You may have spotted ribbons on the top right (or even, horror of horrors, on the top left) of some webpages. The trend started with charity ads but now loads of sites use them to link out to related content. Well the fabulous peeps at Quick Ribbon will make (and host) yours for you for free. Check out mine on the homepage (I’ve taken advantage of it to link out to my Twitter feed since I’m starting to use Twitter more and more these days).
Have fun making your own.
May 8, 2009
How To Market Your Startup – SEO On A Tight Budget
A year and a bit ago I attended BarCamp in Edinburgh. At the time I put together a short presentation (which I ended up not presenting due to personal time constraints) but a year on I thought I’d share my thoughts on how to market a product/service on a tight budget and with as little effort as possible.
When it comes to setting up and promoting a new site the key is working Search Engine Optimisation principles into your site from the start.
- URL choice: with most startups the URL is an essential part of the name choice. For SEO I recommend doing a bit of Googling – don’t choose a name that about a million other companies share with you (if you can possibly help it). Hosting sites will tell you if domain names are available in bulk (so don’t spend ages going to a URL then changing the TLD (end bit) from .com to .co.uk to .org etc). Some of the domain name generators can be surprisingly good. Try to find something that sums up your product and is memorable.
- Once you’ve bought your domain it’s time to put something up there. This is the point where lots of new sites often fail – do not put up a page saying coming soon or site under development. Instead you should put some real content – even if it’s just your initial sketch or an extract of a bit of code. You should start telling people about your product right from the start – there won’t be any hype if people don’t have anything to talk about! Google take a while to index sites so putting some keyword/brand name rich content up early on will help cement your site’s position in search engines.
- Even if you only have a small amount of content and haven’t got much time or money you can still upload a free blogging platform with a basic template. People will happily look at your content even if it’s on a plain/boring looking site if you’ve got something interesting to say/show.
- Don’t forget the basics – you really want people to be able to contact you. A contact form isn’t hard to put together but it’s surprising how many sites don’t even have an email address on them!
- Word of mouth is a key part in promoting a new enterprise but it doesn’t have to be hard work (especially not if you’ve got something interesting on your hands). If you’re already on a social network then start by letting your friends and colleagues know about what you’re up to and move on from that and drop a polite email to sites that you think might be interested in featuring you: check out Technorati’s list of popular blogs if you need some help finding blogs in your desired market. If you put effort into slides, publicity, interviews or content make sure you blog about it and if another site is nice enough to write about you then link to their article and give some thanks for their love!
If you have any other comments about SEO on a budget or marketing a startup I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
May 4, 2009
Bookmarklets Worth Checking Out
With the inception of websites providing services it’s become increasingly often that you’re on one site and want to do something to it’s content using the service of another site. The good news is that Bookmarklets can help you do this.
But how do Bookmarklets work?
Drag a Bookmarklet to your bookmarks bar and it will create a handy button to press when you’re in need. Click it and a little bit of JavaScript will work some magic. Try one of these bad boys out…
Google Translation
Drag your language to the tool bar and press it whenever you need to translate a webpage.
Share in Reader
Instead of blogging about a blog you can just share it with your Google Reader friends.
Bookmark it
Bookmark sites straight into your Google Bookmarks without having to install the Google Toolbar.
Make webpages more readable
Press the magic button and create text only versions of webpages.
Subscribe in Google Reader
Don’t spend ages looking for the RSS button.
Shorten that URL
Create short URLs for Twitter and the like.
For more info check out the Bookmarklets website.