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Jon Bon Jovi reckons Steve Jobs has killed the music business. Sometimes I love my job. By a happy coincidence, I reckon Jon Bon Jovi represents everything that’s wrong with the music business. I think there’s a reason why Bon Jovi albums don’t sell like they used to. It’s because they’re rubbish. And thanks to… [more]
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The latest iOS update enables you to turn your iPhone into a wi-fi hotspot, sharing your 3G connection with other devices – and even though iPhone data plans are capped, you still need to pay extra to use the feature. Why could that be? I think I know the answer. There are only two possible explanations.… [more]
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The nice people at .net magazine have a spanking new website, and one of my pieces is on it: “What are words worth”, where I… well, you saw the headline. In the age of social media and user-generated content, suggesting that your name on someone else’s website is “exposure†is like suggesting membership of the… [more]
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I’ve decided to compete with Rihanna in the international pop market, so for the last few weeks I’ve been building a rival in my shed. It’s not going too well, to be honest. I don’t know what the problem is. I mean, I’ve got the specs exactly right: there are bones, and guts, and teeth,… [more]
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A superb post by Famous Monster in a thread about self-publishing: One of these days I will get around to writing just the absolute most loathsome right-wing Clancy-esque military scifi I can possibly muster. I mean somewhere between John Norman and John Ringo and maybe Terry Goodkind. Like all about a guy who is the best… [more]
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I bought an Apple TV in an attempt to free my huge home video library from its Mac-shaped prison: I can’t be bothered unplugging everything and moving the Mac downstairs when I want to watch a clip of Baby Bigmouth, and life’s too short to burn your own DVDs. It’s been in daily use since… [more]
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Apple’s unveiled some new MacBook Pros, and the big news is Thunderbolt, also known as Light Peak. It’s very clever, and could enable some very interesting things: The new Macs look like iPads with keyboards. They’re clearly the latest iteration of Apple’s current design language, but what if they’re more than that? What if the… [more]
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In the early 2000s, when internet piracy was killing the recorded music business, some record companies had an idea. “Let’s keep doing what we’re doing,” they suggested. “But let’s do it with slightly better sound quality and a much bigger price tag”. Enter DVD Audio and Super Audio CD. They offered better sound quality than CD,… [more]
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Not a surprise, I know, but the graphs in this article are still eye-opening. Short version: the recorded music business makes its money from albums; people don’t buy albums any more. [more]
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Long-time readers will know of my borderline-obsessive love of Irish band The 4 of Us, so I’m quite delighted to see that the solo album from their singer, Brendan Murphy, has made its way to iTunes. If you like low-key, late-night acoustic songs, it’s definitely worth your time. More details and previews here. [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.
