Itchy and irritated by things

Top 10's of the year.

2010-12-16T06:50:00.000-08:00

I've read countless other people's top 10 lists of the year, so I'm going to try and peice mine togther. Simple categories at least without much thought.

Bands /Artists (who aren't Bruce Springsteen)
1. Chris T-T and the Hoodrats
2. Adam Boucher & The Dead Set
3. Carnivores
4. Gaslight Anthem
5. Jim Lockey & The Solemn Sun
6. Ben Marwood
7. The Indelicates
8. The Saw Doctors
9. ONSIND
10. Roscoe Vacant and the Gantin' Screiches

Albums / EPs
1. Dissatisfactions - ONSIND
2. American Slang - Gaslight Anthem
3. Songs for Swinging Lovers - The Indelicates
4. Love is not rescue - Chris T-T
5. The Promise - Bruce Springsteen
6. When I grow old - Mark McCabe
7. Andrew Jackson Jihad/Mischief Brew split
8. Atlases - Jim Lockey & the Solemn Sun
9. Love it to life - Jesse Malin
10. Real Ghosts Caught on Tape - Fake Problems

Songs
1. Words Fail Me - Chris T-T
2. I used to be eloquent - Mark McCabe
3. Heterosexuality is a construct - ONSIND
4. Boxer - Gaslight Anthem
5. I still believe - Frank Turner
6. Ain't Good Enough for You - Bruce Springsteen
7. Green lights and gasoline - Al Baker
8. Five go mad on mescaline - Carnivores
9. Aargh I'm a Numpty - Adam Boucher
10. Fight Dirty - Mischief Brew/Guignol

In truth I haven't been to that many gigs this year, and played only half the amount I did in 2009 and 2008, so I'm going to cut to a top 5 for each.

Gigs (attended)
1. Lexapalooza, The Flowerpot, London
2. Frank Turner - Picture House, Edinburgh
3. John Gomm + Esperi, Soul night club, Dundee
4. Gaslight Anthem - O2 academy Glasgow (shit sound, but better performance than Edinburgh)
5. The Lawrence Arms - Cathouse

Gigs (played)
1. 13th Note with Gecko
2. 13th Note with Chris T-T
3. Full Throttle Festival
4. Bar Libertine with Hugh Reed
5. Adam Boucher tour in Newcastle with ONSIND

Outnumbered

2010-09-14T13:58:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since I last updated this blog. Apologies if you noticed. Last entry was about the old cassette deck I bought for a tenner and subsequently used to record a new EP.Most of those who listened to it seemed to like it. I think. Seemed like there was more interest in the process than the product from a few people.

I received a wee message the other day from someone saying that it looked like "music is going well for you". I wouldn't say that was the case, and I'm a bit worried if that's the impression that's been given out by me. In truth, over the last few weeks there hasn't been a day gone by that I haven't thought about giving it up. And then I snap out of that and remember that I've got a couple of really good gigs coming up (one with Evan Greer, and one with Sarazin Blake, and one with Ben Marwood), so I guess they'll be my continuing swan song or something.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed many things about what I've managed to 'achieve' over the last four years with it all. I'd be silly to disregard some of the memories, but then also silly to think it's ever been more than it was.

And of course, I do miss my band.

Aside from all this, I've had a bit of a cold recently, and some nasty eczema flare ups. I was going to put up pictures, but I'm sure that anyone I've seen recently will have already seen the full horror.

I also spent a bit of time with work in Germany at a meeting in to how patterns and structures emerge in nature. Put simply, how come an organism can come from one cell with one dna sequence, and go on to have many different cell and tissue types in different shapes etc. We didn't find an answer, but it was very interesting.The food and drink was also good.

I'm back in Germany on Sunday for two weeks, this time to Heidelberg for a course on Image analysis and Modelling. Quite looking forward to that, and also to see Heidelberg, and again for the food and beer.

Retrofitted

2010-07-31T11:36:00.000-07:00

I've been writing quite a bit recently, various new songs and bits of songs. Normally I'd get them demo'd right away and move on, but I've not had access to any recording gear for a couple of weeks because my drummer has borrowed it all. On a whim I decided to get a tape deck this weekend in order to roughly record some of them. In my head, I wanted a wee thing that would sit next to me with an internel mic and a record button. Nothing fancy.

So, I took a wee trip to the second hand electrical and furniture shop that's just down from my flat and enquired if they had anything. The guy looked a bit puzzled to start with, but then he had a flash of remembrance on his face and said to wait a moment while he popped down to their basement. A couple minutes later he returned with this bulky, wood finished cassette deck, with the key words "L MIC" and "R MIC" emblazoned next to various sliders and knobs.

"I can give you this for a tenner, plus a months guarantee if you want", so of course I took it. I still at that moment had no idea if it would actually turn on, let alone record things! The plug is an old two-pronged thing.

I took it home and found an adapter for it, an old karaoke mic I had lying about and some even older cassettes. It makes quite a noise when turned on, some kind of fan running underneath or something. I'm quite tempted to open it up to see how it works. Anyways, I sat down with the guitar and ran through all the songs for the album I'm planning on recording with the band.

Like the wind (first DEMO) by davehughesmusic

It gives everything a really warm sound, much nicer than the old four track I used to have. Alas, it doesn't have the overdubbing features of that though, but I'm thinking that will help me use it to just get ideas down. Tomorrow I plan on going to town to get another microphone so that I can record in stereo, yes folks, Dolby Noise Reduction and Stereo!

Help Save The Youth of Cumnock and Doon Valley by davehughesmusic
(Roscoe Vacant cover that I've been playign quite a lot recently).

You can publish papers on pushing buttons

2010-07-09T03:07:00.000-07:00

Just a short blog post today. Yesterday I was working in my lab, devising an experiment in order to gain a deeper understanding of a process that is taught to undergraduate biologists. I'm not a biologist by trade, however my career path has meant that this physicist-then-biomedical-engineer is now working in a molecular biology lab. Therefore I am not content with just following protocols blindly, especially where they are simple. I'd rather know what each constituent component does, the effect of higher concentrations of this or that etc. You know, science stuff.

In the middle of setting up the experiment, I was interrupted by my boss who asked what I was doing. I explained my method and why I wanted to do it. "It's a waste of time, the experiment is simple, just do it this way" was the succinct reply.

Yes, it's a simple experiment. Yes, he's probably carried out many lab demonstrations with undergraduates in to it, and Yes, perhaps it would be a waste of time for him to do it. However, I should be allowed a bit of learning space in this laboratory to get to grips with such techniques.

Which brings me to the reason of this blog post. From working in this laboratory, one thing I have noticed is the reliance of the researchers on following protocols blindly. Yes, they can tell me what they are doing, but the more important question of 'Why' is harder to come by. There have been many talks that I have been to where such a question arises, and the panicked researcher looks at their PI (Principal Investigator) for the reason to why they have been asked to carry out steps 1, 2, 3 etc.

In the heat of my frustration, I posted on twitter and facebook:

"This isn't science, this is pushing buttons in the order the boss wants us to. And no one ever published a paper on pushing buttons"

To which I received many links to papers on pushing buttons, mainly from human computer interface journals. I should have thought more about my 140 character rant before posting. Yes, you can publish a paper on pushing a button. However, you shouldn't publish the same paper over and over again without adding a little of your own thoughts as to why you are pushing that button, and what the effects of pushing that button is on your system.

Once this is understood you can move on from being a technician to being a researcher, and perhaps the moans and whines of not being able to publish will subside.

A short blog post? I lied.

From Dundee to Failford (and back)

2010-06-28T14:35:00.000-07:00

Continuing the weekend of gigs, I had been booked to play at a Scottish Cancer Support charity gig. They were holding a sponsored River Side walk that led to the Failford Inn, where to celebrate finishing, there was live music.Failford is not the easiest place to get to, my trip involved a megabus from Dundee to Glasgow, then a train from Glasgow to Ayr, and finally a local bus service to Failford. Total trip time of around 4 hours, not including waiting around for people and busses.

The Megabus portion of the trip was without incident, well, after witnessing a Granny kick an extremely hungover young chap. I won't go in to this here, as the story works better in the telling than the reading.I met up with Rachael, who was to be singing with me at the gig, and Adam who was coming along for the ride, in Glasgow Central Station. Rachael brightened up my day immensely by bringing along door-stop sandwiches for the trip.

We made it to the Inn (don't worry, there was room) just after 5pm while Shambles Miller was in the middle of his set. People seemed to like what we was doing, but with the stage being really high up and outside, I'm not sure if he felt that.The act that was supposed to be playing between Shambles and myself didn't show up, but rather than rushing up to do my set, I figured I'd still go on at the billed time. Meant that if who ever the guy was showed up, he can play for what ever time he has left before I have to start. Also meant I could have a couple pints of the local IPA, which was very nice.

Rachael and I kicked off our set around 7.45 with The Sinner and The Saints, followed by a quip about valleys and shallow gene pools. I think this made for a good start. We played a good number of songs, including a solo segment of newer stuff in the middle. It all went without issue till after this segment.

God then decided he wasn't enjoying it that much and so it started to rain. This meant that most of the families who were sitting out in the beer garden packed up and went inside. This also meant that I could perhaps play the request that the sound man (Rubis, who had seen me play a few times in Kilmarnock) had asked for. This being Frank Turner's Thatcher Fucked the Kids. Halfway through the first verse I realised that I didn't no the chords anymore, and so ditched it in favour of Chris T-T's Huntsman.

It was at this point that the landlord decided to come out to collect glasses. More specifically he appeared during the first c-word line, which gave rise to a heated discussion between him and the promoter Jim. A message was passed on to me that the swearing wasn't welcome, and so the next few songs were a bit tamer (Tacitus and Dancing Two-step). We then finished with I Want Something and retreated to the river side with more beer to watch Junkman's Choir, who were sublime.

The three of us then decided to call it a night (Evening? - ed) and try and get the bus back to Ayr to get the train to Glasgow to swallow the cat that ate the fly etc. We just missed the second last bus by a couple of minutes and therefore had to wait by the roadside for an hour for the next one. Luckily we were still able to get the last train from Ayr, and I was tucked up in my bed in my Paisley flat by half twelve. The next morning was a bit of a struggle as I had to get up around ten to six to get in to Glasgow to get my bus to Dundee for work.

And so ended a whole lot of fun, travelling and seeing friends old and new. That's basically what playing music is about for me, so mission accomplished.

From Dundee to Newport

2010-06-27T02:43:00.000-07:00

Rather than clogging up the Dave Hughes Music (TM) website with a diary of every gig I do, I've decided to write them up in this blog. I'm taking inspiration from Chris T-T here, who has his main website news feed and also Blognostic (and now the awesome Songnostic) as more personal blogs. Hope you enjoy, I'll try and make it as interesting as possible.

Yesterday I went and took the massive 10 minute coach trip from Dundee to play in Newport. This was the first gig I've done in the East Coast of Scotland since I moved up here, and in front of a totally new audience. An old friend of mine, Dominic Venditozzi, puts on these completely unplugged gigs in a wee cafe in the town. I met up with him a couple months back to talk about places to play up in Dundee, and he invited me along to play a few songs.

Newport is a lovely wee town, the type of town you can walk from one end to the other in 10 minutes. It has quite a few hotels which double as the local pub, a really good smelling fish and chip shop and a co-op. Perfect for the settled the life. I found myself looking in the estate agent's window and saw a 3 bedroom cottage with "outer shed/workshop" for around £135,000. This is now my goal for the next year.

Anyways, I got to the cafe and found a large-ish crowd standing outside the locked doors, a few kids carrying guitar cases and adults with boxes of wine. This was very helpful in giving me an idea of what type of show this was going to be. Around half seven, Dom showed up and opened the doors, put down a masking tape sqaure to mark the stage and the gig got underway.

Around 4 acts played before me with everyone doing 2 songs each (except for the main headline act, Sarah Collosu who was booked for 30 minutes). Nervousness set in as most if not all the other acts played a softly softly style of acoustic music, much associated with the new-folk scene that's going around at the moment. I rattled through my mind trying to work out which songs of mine I could play that would fit the night.

Eventually I had the revelation of "fuck it", and just played songs that are representative of what I do, namely The sinner and the saints and "I want something". I don't know how well they went down, people clapped, and there was a softly softly sing a long at the end of I want something. Later on I was asked up again, and played "never took the time" by way of apology.

Time was getting on so, in the absence of having a car now, I had to go and find the bus stop for the coach back to Dundee. So I said my good byes, gave apologies to Sarah who's set I was going to miss and left. A 15 minute wait in the cool night air was only made longer by the Midges. I got back to my flat around quarter past midnight, had some leftover cake and went to bed pretty content.

Today I am getting the bus from Dundee to Glasgow, then the train to Ayr followed by a local bus service to Failford in the South Ayrshire valley for tonights gig. I can't wait.

Look what you started

2010-06-24T01:19:00.001-07:00

Currently on the bus from Glasgow to Dundee after a fun excursion to see one of the best bands on the planet: The Gaslight Anthem. This was also the first trip I've made since getting rid of the car, which has it's good points and bad points. Good in that there was no stress of where to park, can i have a drink, or what will the traffic be like? Bad in that we had to get up super early in order to get our return coach so i can get to work, didn't have a useful car boot to leave bags in, and of course the stuffy environment of the mega bus.

We got to the gig just after the second support band, Twin Atlantic had started. I've been lucky that i've never had the chance to see them before, as they did absolutely nothing for me. The sound was generic Kerrang friendly unit shifter, had no personality at all, and then made bitchy comments to the audience. Very poor.

Didn't have to wait long for the Gaslight Anthem to come on stage. I saw them a couple years ago at the Garage and was really looking forward to this gig. This excitement was extinguished with the opening of American Slang due to the most horrific mix I have heard in a long time at a gig. The rack tom was far far to loud against the rest of the mix, there was a certain note that the bassist kept playing which lept out over absolutely everything, and there was no guitars. This continued through High Lonesom, which is one of my favourite songs from the last album.

Perhaps through a combination of moving to a more central position, or the soundman pulling back on the suck channel, things started to get better. The band rattled through a selection of songs from the Newest album and the superior 59 sound. Only one track, Blue Jeans and White T-shirts, from pre-59 sound was played in the main set. Great Expectations was a highlight, as was Boxer which is, along with The Queen of Lower Chelsea perhaps the strongest tracks on the new one. Closing the main set with a cover of Baba O'Reilly, the band then retreated backstage for the typical gap before the now standard encore.

The encore was the best part of the show. Where other bands come out and play a popular album track and then close with their hit single, Gaslight took a curve ball and put together a six song punch of older material. For me this was like they were taking a leaf out of Springsteen's how-to-write-a-setlist book. We got Wooderson, the rarely played We're Getting a Divorce, You Keep the Diner, Here's looking at you, kid, and closing with The Backseat. This is how you raise a gig to an almighty finish.

At the end of the gig it was great to step out in to the Glasgow drizzle to cool down as we walked back to the train station. The usual debates arose over what they should have played, or where things should have been, but the general consensus was that it was a very good gig.

I'll be making a sign for Woody next time though.

Setlist Link: http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-gaslight-anthem/2010/o2-academy-glasgow-glasgow-scotland-5bd41334.html

Fairwell my four wheeled friend

2010-06-19T05:52:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a very eventful day. A good day of data analysis means that I have perhaps unearthed something very interesting, and potentially publishable. Although, in the true spirit of science, it manifests itself as a small shift in a graph and not the explosion of light and sound that may happen in a blockbuster movie.

The other thing that happened yesterday was the disappearance of my car. Don't worry, it's not been stolen. Lisa and I decided that it would be a good idea, environmentally and financially, to get rid of the car and so the haulage company came along and took it away. I've been thinking about doing this for the past 6 months, and so I pulled my finger out and did it.

I've had a car since I passed my test at the age of 17, which, come September will be a decade of being an automobile user. I have many great memories attached to driving, from the many long drives I've done for gigs and tours, to driving away from my wedding with can's tied to the bumper and foam spelling out Just Married across the back window.

I'm sure I'll get used to taking the bus and train again, and walking the short distances that I used to endanger the planet by driving. And, of course, there will the extra cash at the end of the month which means we might actually be able to start saving.

A wee history of the car's I've owned:

Nissan Sunny: The best car I've ever owned. A G-Reg, sky blue, 5 door saloon 1.4 litre machine. I got this car after I passed my test so that I could drive to university. I'll admit it wasn't the prettiest car ever designed, but it always started (until that fateful day), had lots of space inside for passengers, drums, guitars, amps and more. This was the car that I had when I decided that being in a band doesn't mean you have to just play your own town, city or country, and so we (Dan, Puggs, and Myself) set off on a wee tour of northern England.The following week the exhaust came detached from the engine, at the engine, somewhere under the River Clyde causing a massive noise echoing through the tunnel and a maximum speed of 5mph. It was made in to a metallic cube the following day.

Rover Metro Kensington: While the Nissan Sunny was the best car I've ever owned, this one is perhaps the worst. It was tiny, 1litre engine, 3 doors and had less power than a hamster farting. I could quite easily get the car up to speed in towns, perhaps even to 50mph on a nice slope. However, motorways were a terrifying proposition with many an angry lorry driver being stuck behind this vibrating, floored 65mph monster. This car came to an end when I had parked it outside my flat in Govan. The immobiliser (!) failed, meaning I couldn't start the car, so while it was sitting on the pavement until I could afford to get it fixed, my local friendly neighbour hood Young Team came along and smashed every window and stole the front panel for the CD player. I found it with my CD collection scattered around the road, and a Policeman writing a report. It was towed away to be made in to a metallic cube later that night.

Peugeot 206 : This was the first car I bought new. I had just started my Phd, and decided that I wanted a car again, so signed up for a finance agreement. I've always said that this is the reason the recession happened. Anyone who would give someone like me credit to buy a new car shouldn't be in charge to giving out credit. I had this car when I first started seeing Lisa, and so I have good memories about long drives to Dundee to visit her in the early days. This was also the first car I had that didn't end up as a metallic cube, as far as I know. The terms of the financial agreement meant that I could trade it in for a brand new car after 2 years (see recession comment above), and that's what i did.

Peugeot 207: This is the car we just got rid off. It was all right, nothing remarkable really, 5 door, 1.6 litre engine and good CD player. This, along with the Sunny, is the car I have the most memories attached to. I clocked up around 30,000 miles in two years with this car from driving around the country to play gigs and visit people. Although, one of the best memories attached to it is encapsulated in this video

Ah well, I'll get another car one day.

That was it.

2010-06-16T13:32:00.001-07:00

The viva was even more stressful than I could ever have imagined. The day started around 9pm the night before as I couldn't sleep at all. No amount of counting sheep, hot milk or relaxation could knock me out.

Anyways, I took the train in to Glasgow and had a latte in a cafe in order to try and relax, and also to go over my opening statement again. After this I took a walk up to the university and waited to be called in.

After a wee while the covener came out and collected me and so it began. Four hours of questioning and defense later I was back in the foyer waiting on their descision. Unfortunately by this time it was lunch time, and where I was sitting meant a steady flow of old colleagues passing by. Each mentioning that they hadn't seen me in a wee while, and asking how my viva went.

The truth at this point thoughb was that I didn't have a clue. The external examiner had done a very thorough job of going through my thesis, checking equations, figures, references and general science. This meant that while I had concentrated on knowning my own contribution, I had to be on my toes when it came to other peoples as well. Unfortunately in places I fell down, and in one instance had to admit that I just did not know the answer. This was one of the times through the viva that I felt that the examiner was just going to put down his pen and say "i think we'll just stop here".

After 40 stressful minutes I was called back in and made aware of their recommendations. This is when I was told that, yes, there is still a wee bit work to be done and a few corrections to be done, my thesis is good. And that was it.

Dr. Dave.

A nice relaxing next few days I think while I get used to not having the viva hanging over my head. Yeah, I still have some stuff to do, but everything thats been suggested is stuff that I've considered in the past, but just not expanded and put in the thesis.

And at least the dinner and drinks after the ordeal were good, with much laughter had.

Thesis, thesisnot, thesisit?

2010-06-13T12:04:00.001-07:00

I'm currently sitting in my flat in Paisley, with a pile of papers, lab books, annotated drafts of my thesis, and an empty coffee cup. Tomorrow is D+1 day for my Doctorate. On Tuesday I shall make my way to Strathclyde University in order to sit down and defend my thesis as part of the oral examnination, or viva as they call it.

I'm pretty terrified over it as I have no way of gagueing how it will go. The examiners have only my thesis, and a few of the papers and proceedings i've published in order to assess my work. Which is fine except for the fact that I am not a good writer. Even taking a fresh look at my thesis I can see mistakes in tense, grammar and spelling. Can you fail a thesis for repeated mistakes with "in to"?

Then theres the issues of scientific content. I really wish I could find a way of knowing which parts they are going to quiz me on. Will it be the dental disease chapter (as they are engineers, and this is potentially an unknown for them) or will it be the lengthy maths of the miniature optics simulations (where OpenOffice excelled itself in the utter-bastard stakes by renumbering the equations wrongly during pdf export). Perhaps a lack of error bars in one little graph will take up three hours of discussion on specitivities and sensitivities?

All in all, I feel like I have a fight on my hands. I really wish that the feelings of confidence i get where I look at my thesis and think, yeah, i've done enough, would last more than an hour.

I used to think that my driving test would be the scariest, and most stressful exam I'd ever sit, but it doesn't even come close to this.

Hold on to your lover cause your hearts bound to die

2010-01-28T14:05:00.000-08:00

In a bid to try and get more use out of this blog, I've decided to try and not force myself to write about myself every bloody day. So, instead, I was thinking I want to write about songs I love and try and work out why I do. I find that I get very fixated with songs, to the extent that I can listen to a current obsession on repeat for hours to hear everything in the song.

The first song I've picked is one of these songs. Around two years ago, my brother sent me an email with a link to the video below, saying that the woman's voice is one of the most unique you'll ever hear, coupled with lyrics that seem to be ripped from a hole deep down in the heart of a small town.

I was intrigued, so I pressed play and had a listen. At first the vocal tone grated on me, but as the opening lines weaved around, I was frozen and didn't want to click pause.

"And you know the sun's setting fast, and just like they say nothing good ever lasts. Well, go on, kiss it good bye, but hold on to your lover cause your hearts bound die"

From here the song tells a tale of a woman spending her life in suburban town somewhere in the America (although it could be anywhere, even Scotland), only to watch the connection and longing to the town fade away. In the end she decides that she has to leave, although with some degree of reluctance.

Now comes the personal part. This song means a lot to me because of the link it has between me and my brother. This was one of the first songs that, in 'adultlife', he and I found a mutual admiration for. Both of us were both living away from our home town at the time, and with the content of the song dealing with the fading away of what makes a town a place you can call home, it barged its way in to my life.

I've always been interested in what can make a place feel like home, whether or not it's the peoples, the buildings, the memories, or even just as another song says "wherever I lay my hat". There are many places in my hometown that I have fond memories of, but revisiting the places fill me with dread. The bricks and mortar may be the same, the same people may be there, but it can never live up to the nostalgia. On the other hand though perhaps that was all there was in the first place?

Our Town by Iris Dement doesn't provide definite answers, but it does paint the perfect picture of the final days before you leave.

The weary world is waiting for ambition to be played

2010-01-26T15:20:00.000-08:00

The last few weeks have been full ahead levels of stress. From a pipe bursting in my home at Paisley, to work stresses and not one but two asthma attacks. The second one earning me a nice wee trip in an ambulance. I don't care how old I am, it's still pretty fun (the piped oxygen plus Ventolin to my mask may have contributed to my nice feelings).

I'm doing better now, on some heavy steroids to try and make my lungs a bit stronger and generally taking it easy. I've got quite a few coding projects at work that need finished, so I can sit in my office and do that rather than running about the lab trying to commit mass genocide on populations of Dictyostelium.

I'm feeling a bit blank when it comes to music at the moment. There are many bands and artists that I love with all my heart, and have good memories attached to their songs, but at the moment I find that anything I put on to listen to doesn't grab my attention like it used to. Except for Phil Ochs and Pinhead Gunpower, they are sticking with me at the moment.

So, I'm looking for suggestions of new music that you think that I would like. If you know me, this shouldn't be too hard (my sister sent me a cool song called A Girl Named Go the other day, and that was right up my street, the rest of the artist's catalogue, not so much).

Anticipation is building for to the release of Love is Not Rescue by Chris T-T, possibly the album I'm most looking forward to this year (alongside the imminent Darkness Box Set by Springsteen, new Gaslight Anthem album, and Caustic Lake).

Gigs and Clubs Schemers

2009-12-15T05:37:00.000-08:00

Today is PRS day for many musicians, i.e. the hard grafted royalty payment for the songs that they have written and played live finally comes through for the previous three months. As an unsigned artist yet to play the big venues of the country (the Barrowlands, Carling Academys etc), this usually means that for every 30 minute slot in a venue deemed a pub or a club by the PRS you will earn roughly a fiver.

How this works is that after you have played a minimum of 10 'gigs' (I'll get on to that in a minute), you submit a spreadsheet containing these 10 venues you played in and a 'standard setlist'. PRS then collate all this information and then send out the cash a few months later. Easy, simple, and fair. Or is it?

The 'standard setlist' is the part that really pisses me off. I have a great irritation for those bands that I'll pay money to go and see who have a stale, static setlist (say Green Day 1995-2004), and as a result I always push for any gig that I play to have an interesting and dynamic set list. Thus, if you saw me in June at The 13th Note (30 minute stage time), the show would be completely different to August at The Vale (1hr 15 minute stage time). Not in the eyes of the PRS it wouldn't.

For all the PRS know I could have registered. say 8 songs (content, lyrics, music, existence not important) listed them alphabetically and then submitted a list of the venues I played in and happily received my fiver per gig.

What about when I put in a spur of the moment cover of Chris T-T's The Huntsman, or Springsteen's No Surrender? PRS would love to show that they care about collecting the royalties for each performance of each members works, however, due to the 'standard setlist' the gigs and clubs scheme doesn't have scope for this. Extend this idea to where someone played one of my songs at their gigs (say El Bastardos or Roscoe Vacant, or after just a lawsuit about Peter, Jimmy Richards), would I get what I was due as a songwriter?

This isn't to mention the fact that the PRS don't seem to have any fact checking on the list of venues that is submitted to this scheme. I could, with my list of 8 songs, go through the local gig guide, find out venues that have gigs running (or open mic nights, hell that's where original work can be performed), sit in my underpants and compile spreadsheet upon spreadsheet of 10 gigs that I hypothetically played.

A few months later, a fiver would come in for each of these and I could do my Christmas shopping. I guess, if I did it well enough, I could probably give up my job and have the life of a struggling musician, with the PRS paying the bills (step further, I could possibly get the council to pay for this as I wouldn't have a real job anymore).

You may have read this and thought, well Dave, why are you complaining? If it is how you say it is, then the PRS are giving out free money and you'd be a fool to reject it.

The main thing that pisses me off with this system is that, yes the PRS are giving out free money to those who claim to have written music, but without the validation checks, it devalues the idea of being a songwriter. This isn't me saying that to be a songwriter you need to make money out of it. I'm coming from the same lines as the arguments about TV music competitions and the like. It creates a devalued and simplified notion of what it is to be an artist who writes music, plays proper shows, travels the country and puts in hard work.

Is this all worth a fiver?

A challenge!

2009-11-26T13:02:00.000-08:00

My wife just said that the problem with my blog is that I called it Itchy and Irritated, and thus can't write about happy things. I see this as a challenge.

Work has been pretty damn good recently, I've been working on a cell tracking algorithm for tracing the movements of cells under stimulus. It seems to be working pretty well, which is strange since the code below it is very simple. My boss says we may even get a paper out of it, which would be ace as I've only been in the job three months.

Outside of work, life has been enjoyable. This weekend was spent traveling around the UK being paid to play music, to people who were actually listening and singing along. An upshot of the mini-tour is that I may have a split record (on a cassette format) coming out early next year on a proper record label. That would be pretty sweet, but I can't say much more at the moment.

This weekend has a busy schedule ahead. My mother is visiting tomorrow, which is the first family member we'll have had visit us in Dundee. Then, on Saturday I'm playing with the band at The Vale in Glasgow, which we're also recording for a live CD. Sunday will contain a flying visit to Greenock for lunch with the parentals, and then home to Dundee.

Although, do you know what's been irritating me this week? The fact that I've noticed how much FUCKING LOUDER the adverts on E4 are compared to the program I'm watching. That is fucking annoying.

Damn, almost made it. Now, a new episode of Scrubs is on, and that in itself is fucking irritating.

Tacitus

2009-11-16T12:11:00.000-08:00

This weekend was a whole bunch of fun. Friday night was band practice where we learnt a new song called Tacitus, the idea in my head was for it to sound like Warning era Green Day, and I'm pretty sure we've nailed that. I can't wait to play it at next few shows as I think it is a face rocker.

Saturday night included a short night out with some old friends before heading home with a tight chest but I survived. Found a dirt cheap taxi company that got us from Glasgow to Paisley for only £11 which was awesome! Sunday was a day of rest, mainly tidying the house for the valuer to visit on Friday and then a trip to see my mum before driving back up to Dundee.

This coming weekend includes a gig in Cardiff that I had booked a few months ago. The idea was to tour the few days before hand in order to break up the journey. The gig itself is with a singer songwriter called Ben Marwood who is very very good (and currently being championed by Frank Turner), so I'm trying my best to not have to cancel it due to funds. A gig on Friday is currently proving to be elusive, but hopefully things will work out in the end.

Hopefully the hypothetical tour with Adam Boucher in March will be much easier to book. I think we'll be calling in quite a few favours from bands I've put on before.

Punching kittens

2009-11-10T12:56:00.000-08:00

Apologies for not posting yesterday, I'm sure you'll survive though. The weekend was pretty fun all round. Saturday night contained a party at my bosses house, which was the first social engagement of my new job. It was pretty nerve wracking on the build up, but in the end it turned out just fine. Had a few drinks, amazing seafood (including oysters which I fucking love). Sunday involved a trip to Greenock and Glasgow to visit parents and then play a gig in the evening.

Roscoe Vacant was playing as well which is always fun to see. There were also a few folk who turned up to see me play which is always nice, even more so when it's a pretty impromptu gig with very little time to promote properly.

Anyways, I'm not going to have a full scale rant as I'm in a pretty good mood today. Instead, here's the first (probably of many) list of things that are too easy to rant about.

Local bands singing in American Accents - You're from Barrhead/Castlemilk/etc for fucks sake
Homeopathy - The feeling you get when you are standing in a room of people is just that, feelings, it's not fucking energy. You keep your diluted to buggery herbs, I'll keep my "unimaginative" but empirical facts and proof.
The Sun newspaper, doesn't need that much more to be said. She's mourning, and as a result nothing will ever be enough, but you already know that and as a result are milking it for more sales of you're shite-wipe-rag.
Bad pop-music
Early morning starts

May I suggest you become Fanatical?

2009-11-05T15:06:00.000-08:00

Tonight I had planned on unleashing the mother of all rants. Aimed squarely at the barrage of "Fan Requests" on Facebook for bands coming my way recently. On an aside, my wife had said that producing such a rant may look hypocritical as I had just recently sent out a number of similar invites to people from the Dave Hughes Music Facebook page (TM).

However, in my defense, I did not merely do a 'select all' send invitation. Oh no, I had a logic diagram! Well, I didn't at the time, I made the image up purely for tonights festivities.

Basically, I went through the list of my friends and colleagues on Facebook and made a rough assessment of if they had shown any kind of positive interest in my music, and then sent them a request. The net result being a targeted audience to the page that they may not have otherwise found. Thus, friends and workmates who have came to see the band a couple of times have the option to mark themselves as 'fan's, those who haven't, or negatively discuss the band and I, are none the wiser and move on with their lives. Conscience cleared.

I hate the whole "You're a friend of mine, therefore you must be a fan of my musical output". Umm, no. I've got plenty of friends who make the most god-awful noise. And of course, there's plenty of people I would consider as friends who can't stand what I do when I hit the record button or get on stage.

The main problem is that too many bands and artists it seems use Facebook in a totally un-targeted fashion. Take for example the events function of Facebook. Is there really any point to creating an Event item for a gig, then inviting absolutely everyone regardless of geography? Do you really think that BBC radio journalist from London is going to make their way up to a pub in Glasgow for a gig on a Tuesday? Probably even less so that school teacher from the Midlands.

The net result of such Select All actions is that you have around ten times the number of folk marked as Declined as are attending, which when advertising the event does not look that enticing. Not too mention the effect of when you finally are putting on an event in London, but said radio Journalist is so used to automatically clicking Decline to any events from your email address.

While I am being very negative on Facebook's ease at which it allows bands to interact with those marked as showing an interest, I think that a well known cliche should be remembered. To paraphrase, "while you can reach so many people with the click of a mouse button, should you?".

Have I just opened myself up for more scrutiny any time my activity feed on facebook contains the words "Dave Hughes has just became a fan of...."?

Recording while on the move

2009-11-04T14:06:00.000-08:00

The other day I upgraded my netbook from my trusty EEE 701 to a nice shiny Samsung NC10. One gripe I had when buying was the lack of being able to buy netbooks running Linux any more. Apparently too many people had returned their netbooks when they realised that they were to moronic to embrace the change that Linux brings.

Anyways, I took it home, stripped it of anything Microsoft manufactured and installed Ubuntu Karmic Koala. It's fucking awesome. One thing I noticed while waiting on Karmic to download was how little functionality a clean install of Windows actually has, beyond writing a simple RTF document, playing minesweeper and browsing the net in an unprotected fashion.

Today however I realised how cool my setup was when I decided to try and install Ardour on the machine with a view to having a portable system that I can record demo's on. Ardour is a fully featured Pro-tools like multitrack hardware recording studio, it's what I record everything on with my main PC. After a simple "sudo apt-get install ardour", I clicked it's icon, and this is what I got:

A full featured portable music studio! Hell yes.I tested it out by recording a simple demo of a new song I've been working on, and the quality is great. Input comes from my Novation X-station connected via USB, with a condenser microphone and DI for the guitar. This will come in very useful when on tour and I want to do small demo's, or just mix some older stuff at quiet times.

Apologies if you were expecting a rant.

Sales pitch

2009-11-03T13:50:00.000-08:00

Today was pretty exciting at work. Well, as I'll explain in a minute, the morning wasn't, but the afternoon was pretty cool. Without going in to much detail, but the device that I've been employed to work on at the university showed its first signs of working today. I recorded lots of videos of the cells doing cool stuff under the influence of the device. Not bad for only two months in the new job.

Why was the morning not exciting? Well, I had to go to a course about a piece of software called LabView in the morning. Anyone who has worked closely with me over the last, oh, I don't know, perhaps 8 years now will know that when I want a computer to do something, LabView is second from the bottom only to a fucking hammer and nails in my choice to achieve my goal.

For those who haven't had to experience Labview in all it's glory, it's a graphical programming language. You create programs, namely scientific data capture and analysis programs by dragging and dropping Virtual Instruments from a tool box on to your canvas so as to build up a picture of your house with your pet cat outside that you can show to your supervisor so they can see what a clever five year old you really are.

The people who were hosting the class were very much sales persons, with the main 'tutor' getting right on my nerves for a couple of reason. Reason number one, he introduced himself as an engineer who had never really been a fan of computer programming and so Labview was perfect for him since he had no experience of using "C-basic or whatever". Direct Quote. Heya, I've only ever drank coca-cola so I'm going to tell you exactly why i'ts the best drink out there.

The second reason he irritated me was that he continuously made reference to the fact that in "C-basic" if you were to miss out a semi-colon, you would have to spend hours looking through your code to find the error. Where as with Labview, this doesn't happen since Labview shows you exactly where your mistakes are. Erm, sorry, but anyone who's using a programming language as part of their job would more than likely be using an editor with syntax highlighting, that after compilation would, going by the compiler errors, highlight the offending line of code. Perhaps even give a line number.

Labview on the other hand doesn't even have a zoom out feature so that when your pretty picture, I mean code, gets so large you can't trace what the hell it's actually doing. I asked the presenter why the new version still doesn't have a zoom out feature, to which the answer was "we usually just recommend people buy a bigger monitor".

I could go on all night about this, but I won't. I haven't even mentioned the boasting of "multithreading", which was just a rebranding of the "multi-tasking" introduced in every operating system the POSIX standard. You did not invent it, you merely made use of the fork functions available on your target platform. I could do that in C, and the program wouldn't need to be restarted every time I want to open a word processor on the same fucking computer.

Thank you, and good night.

I'm not needy, I'm determined

2009-11-02T10:53:00.000-08:00

Today was rather uneventful, woke up early, dropped the wife off at the bus station and then went to work. Played around with some dictyostelium cells and electricity, then came home. The makings of a great day.

I sorted out my drummer conundrum in that we have a new drummer now, and the old one is happy to stand in any time the new can't make it. If that makes sense? I think it will work out for the best for everyone involved, and we've got our first full band practice in a couple weeks.

The new drummer, Woody, fell in my lap which was nice. For some reason I seem to have garnered a reputation for asking anyone I find who plays an instrument in to playing in the band, to the point in which people I would consider friends warn others about speaking about their musical abilities in front of me.

This couldn't really be further from the truth. The band I am playing with came together after I placed a post up on a popular internet forum looking for a bassist, which was replied to by one person (this person became the bassist). I had a mate who was learning mandolin and expressed and interest in playing some folk music with me, I said we'd give it a go and before I knew it he was my mandolin player.

The singers came about in much the same way, an interest was expressed in my stuff and I thought I've got nothing to lose. My original drummer has played with me for over 6 years, starting after my first band lost a drummer. And finally, my guitarist is someone I've known for around 3 years now through playing music and this is the first time we've actually done stuff together.

Hardly me poaching people at the first mention of their musical capabilities. In fact, even when I had the instrument I am most desperate to have (violin), that came about after the violinist and I met at a few punk rock gigs, and then through some very coy statements about her playing violin did I get the hint. Well, in fact, I didn't get the hint, she had to explicitly tell me she was intentionally being coy so as to not look desperate.

This isn't to mention my sister who plays euphonium, the friend of my wife who played cello at my wedding (her present to us), and many more wonderful people I know who play music but have never been approached to play in my band.

And anyways, at seven members, band practices are difficult enough to organise!

Rainy Sunday

2009-11-01T05:50:00.000-08:00

Decided to try and write something here every day, otherwise I'd lose interest very quickly and this would end up the same way as the Live Journal account I opened about a year ago.

The weather is utterly horrible today, chucking it down with grey skies and freezing winds. The wife needs to go to ASDA to get passport photographs taken, but since we've both got a bit of a cold, procrastination is the topic of the day. Well, it's my topic, she's doing her best to convince me that the weather isn't going to get any better and we might as well go and get drenched now rather than later.

The week ahead isn't looking too busy, the boss is away till Thursday so I've been left a list of things that I should try before then. On Saturday we're having a work function at his house since a member of the lab is leaving after around 8 years of working there, that should be fun. I'm also going to try and get a journal club up and running since I've always wanted to be part of one.

Music wise, there's nothing really going on. I'm still weighing up the pro's and con's of changing drummers on a more permanent basis. While one is the more natural drummer with a more open calendar to do gigs, the other is the old friend who can keep a beat, and I enjoy him being part of the band. It's not a trivial matter.

I'm currently trying to finish a new song called Tacitus which I expect to be ready for our show at the end of November. This show is going to be properly recorded for some kind of live release. Ah fuck it, I just fell in to the mode of "local rockstar" that I fucking hate. It's not a fucking "release", it'll be either a CD that I burn in my own bedroom under the banner of a record label that I created, or it will be packaged as a ZIP file for download on the website. Either way people will get to hear it if they choose to, but it won't be "released".

However, I identify myself as a DIY musician (a well known music website once described me as DIYtastic), so perhaps its just the word "release" that I take humbridge to? I prefer "put out", as in to put out a new EP. Release has the connotations to me of keeping the music secret to only an inner circle of managers, A&R, laywers under lock and key until, the, very, last, minute, when, it's, ready, to, burst, andthenallofasuddeneveryonewillrunoutandbuyacopyinahypedupohmygawdthisiswin type way.

So, aye, we'll be recording the gig and it will be put out there in some fashion.

Intro, verse, chorus.

2009-10-31T13:17:00.000-07:00

I've decided to start up a proper blog thing to use for my thoughts. I currently have a wordpress blog over at my website, but it acts as more of a news feed over there. It's not really suited for rants, reviews or general stuff I want to say.

Anyways, for those who don't know who I am, which I make the safe assumption is the majority, I am Dave. I work at the University of Dundee as a Research Assistant, working in the Cell Biology Department. I have a Physics degree, and hopefully, soon I'll be examined for my thesis in Engineering. I also play punk rock political folk music around the country under the name Dave Hughes (see what I did there). I play this solo and also with a band, which I love very much. I'm married and currently stay in Dundee, but travel to Glasgow every other week for gigs and band practices.

Politically, I identify with the left, but not so left as that I am coming full circle. I think that's a dangerous place to be. My ideal world would have a socialist form of government, built on the principles of respect for each other, and helping those who aren't as able as the rest.

I am a massive Springsteen, Clash, and Mischief Brew fan. I love Steinbeck books, and my favourite films do not have the word "Movie" in the title.

I did have something to write about this evening, but I'll leave it till next time I log in and have more thoughts to put to it.