It's always nice to get a namecheck outside of your circle of regular influence. Over at The Mark - the gargantuan Canadian online news site - Victor Barac took note of my somewhat heartfelt Nickelback album review at The Void. It would have passed me by if half a dozen people hadn't sent me the link, so thanks everybody - that got the day off to a good start. More than it simply being cool, the article itself says an awful lot about the state of music these days - and that is that there are too many people working in influential places that haven't a clue what music really means to people. I haven't looked but I'm guessing that most of the reviews haven't been favourable but that's OK. Music fans are not dumb beasts and - as one myself - you can usually tell within the first few words when a piece is little less than a hatchet job because the writer doesn't like a band. I think I shall scrabble around in the grey matter further and build an article around it in the next few days. Yeah... why not. Work continues on Roll Away The Stone and Monster Magnet 2 for a post-Christmas release. Both are going well and I'm getting a much better handle on where the stories are going. I even had half an idea that the characters could maybe randomly appear in each others books, but right now that's a little complex for me with a head full of creatures and odd plot lines. Right now though, I am going to put the finishing touches to Black Dye, White Noise (the audio promo material should be back soon) and write something for Almost Human that was in my head when I woke up.
TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2011
As is traditional at this time of the year - here's my pick of the music released in 2011. A couple of them even surprised me... 1. SIXX AM - THIS IS GONNA HURT
Even though this came out in the summer, it's been a solid part of the year, getting multiple plays a week in the car. A fine, fine example of how to make a rock album that means something to people. Genius.
2. NICKELBACK - HERE & NOW
I don't need to say anything. Stick it in the slot, rock out with your fist in the air, smile… you know the drill by now.
3. CHRIS CORNELL - SONGBOOK
As I have said elsewhere, I knew this was going to be pretty special. In fact, the only reason it's not occupying the top slot is that it's not so great for driving to. In reality, probably the best album of the year… just not the favourite.
4, KELLY CLARKSON - STRONGER
I expected great things and got them. Knock her if you wish, but this is one solid slab of great songs from beginning to end.
5. BEGGARS & THIEVES - WE ARE THE BROKENHEARTED
A surprise, totally under the radar entry. This is one that you'll have to hunt for and if you didn't know it was coming, you stood little chance of ever hearing it. That said, if you remember the glory days or are in the mood for some intelligent rock that doesn't suck, hunt it down.
6. BLACKSTONE CHERRY - BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA
Blackstone Cherry just get better and better with each release - to the point that if they continue with this pattern of bettering their previous album, the songwriting coming out of this camp over the next few years will be looked back on with quite some reverence.
7. JANE'S ADDICTION - THE GREAT ESCAPE ARTIST
The chickens come home to roost in an album that would be just at home and relevant in their early days. Nice to see the old dogs can cut it. Even better to see that Jane's Addiction still have the ability to hold it together when it really counts and in this climate, that means right about now.
8. ELECTRIC BOYS - AND THEM BOYS DONE SWANG
Sure. I'm more than a little pleased to see Conny Bloom back in the saddle with this. He could have kicked back and released some junk, but regardless of the year, this is a full-on authentic Electric Boys album that can hold its own in today's market… if it only had half a chance.
9. TOMMY STINSON - ONE MAN MUTINY
Authentic, one man army, close to the bone rock n roll. The only real rock n roll album to be released this year. Write some songs, record them quickly and get back out on the road. Brilliant.
10. LENNY KRAVITZ - BLACK AND WHITE AMERICA
Lenny does his thing a little more comprehensively than usual here - the last couple of albums have faded out a little around the halfway mark but Black & White America has got a great set of legs on it.
THE LIGHT IN THE TUNNEL
I forgot that this time of the year normally unveils some music that I might actually want to listen to - in the forthcoming week there's Nickelback's Here and Now, Chris Cornell's Songbook and The Great Escape Artist from Jane's Addiction. I'm hoping they'll all be worth talking about still in a few more weeks but you never know.
I put the finishing touches to The Monster Magnet late last night. I need to step back from it for a day or so and then it will be sent out into the world to see what people make of it. Right now, it's been mailed to a couple of "safe places" for proofing (always important when you're publishing something yourself). Most of me is excited and as with all things I do, a small part of me is ready to defend itself. Anyway, when all that is done, it will need formatting for the kindle which always takes longer than I remember. If only everything were as simple as Apple's ibook format - basically a properly formatted pdf file where things stay where you want them to be.
Maybe in a few years, when nobody is afraid of the competition, the playing field will level out and pdf will once again be what it was supposed to be in the first place - a standard format that is accepted across all platforms. Sometime between now and the end of the month, I'm actually going to sit down for a few hours and try and figure out which bookstores are worth spending the time and effort on. They can't all be essential - especially when the most likely way people will find them on the "shelves" is by word of mouth or passing by here anyway. I'm not sure that the lessons of all indie publishers apply in a flat rate to all indie authors. I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens.
Once that's all polished off properly - which has to be by the weekend - I have a week in which to push Black Dye, White Noise to the endgame. Late next week, I'm due to go into the studio to do an audio special for it. An hour of me playing some music from each of the artists in the book and talking about it sounds like great fun. That little promo will then be loaded here for all to listen to via some sexy third party like soundcloud and I might also give it a poke with a stick and format it as a podcast.
What have we learned from all of this? That everything takes a really long time if you're going to do it properly, but that's OK. I would rather it took as long as it takes than have it reading and looking like amateur hour - there are plenty of examples of them out in the world.