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Nice piece by Bob Lefsetz on the whole Spotify thing: The truth is, if you’re a superstar, there’s still plenty of money in music. And superstars are the future, because no one’s got time for any less. Just like there’s one iTunes Store, one Amazon and one Google, we don’t need a plethora of me-too… [more]
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An excellent piece by Eamonn Forde in The Guardian: if you can’t make money from streaming, how can you make money from music? The answer: get played a lot on Radio 2 or play a private gig for someone rich. [more]
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Radio Scotland’s been giving this quite a lot of airplay recently, and quite right too: it’s lovely. [more]
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I’ve mentioned a few times that the iPhone 5 is much quieter than the iPhone 4/4S on some headphones, such as my Atomic Floyd Superdarts, and I suggested using the Denon Audio app to boost the volume. It’s better, but it isn’t perfect: if you’re trying to address a lack of low-end thump, as I… [more]
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JasonW informs me that Coffin Dodgers is actually being pirated (as opposed to being listed on sites that don’t actually have it). It’s here if you’re interested, although the download links try to get you to sign up for things you don’t need and install things you don’t want. The book is also available legally… [more]
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Unscrupulous app developers are in the news again today, with parents suffering “bill shock” when the kids buy expensive in-game items without the parents’ permission. There’s a setting in iOS that makes such things possible even if you don’t share your password with your kids, and it’s a good idea to change it. It’s in… [more]
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This is just lovely. One of AMOK’s stand-out tracks stripped down to a single voice and piano. (From ITV’s Jonathan Ross show, May 2013) [more]
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A fun wee thing I did for Techradar: ten digital-age dodos. [more]
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Paul Carr of NSFWCorp on the problem with some paywalls: Porous paywalls for journalism make as much sense as a coffee shop giving free lattes to anyone who comes in just twice a week but then charging fifty dollars a cup on the third visit. That’s a hell of a loyalty scheme, and a great… [more]
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Me on Techradar, writing about real world retailers’ troubles. In recent months we’ve seen lots of big names go belly up, citing too-high rates, rents and parking charges, as well as Amazon’s tax avoidance and dodgy downloads. There’s no doubt that it’s tough out there, and of course every retail job loss is a tragedy… [more]
Read me in books
My debut memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was a Scotsman book of the year and Damian Barr’s Literary Salon book of the week, and it was shortlisted for the 2023 British Book Awards book of the year in the Discover category.
My latest book, Small Town Joy, is a celebration of queer influences on and queer artists in Scots music and is out now.
I’m also a contributor to the excellent anthology Fierce Salvage, which is also out now.
