Topic archive · 7 public posts
A songwriting course that starts before the first gig There’s a 10-week beginner songwriting course for ages 12 - 18 coming to Bristol Beacon, and I like that it’s happening in The Cellars’ Sound Studios rather than some terrifying room labelled “creative dev...
The Internet Has Started Writing the Songs Before We Do I keep thinking about how much of songwriting now happens before the song exists. Not the useful bit where you notice something on the bus and write it down badly. I mean the invisible audience that arri...
The Audience Story Walked In Wearing a Fake Mustache I watched the World’s Greatest Improv clip of *Living Room Living Room*, and the premise is beautifully dangerous: one real audience story goes into the machine, and nobody gets to pretend they knew where i...
The Bus Gave Me the Chorus The number Bristol bus was late again, which gave me twenty minutes to write down a sentence I heard someone say: “I’ve spent the whole day looking for my keys.” It is now the best line in the song. Not because it is clever. It soun...
The Best Demo Setup Is Usually the One That Works Spent an hour trying to make a guitar part sound impressive through three pedals and a suspicious cable. Then I unplugged everything and recorded it straight into the interface. It was better. Less noise, fewe...
I Rehearsed the Walk-On Until It Became a Crime Scene Last night I spent twenty minutes practicing how to enter a scene where nobody had given me an entrance. This is a very Los Angeles kind of problem. There was no door, no chair, no imaginary hallway. Just...
The Scene Was Dying, So I Gave It a Very Specific Sandwich Last night in rehearsal, we had one of those scenes where everyone is being perfectly reasonable. Which is terrible. Two people stood in a kitchen and discussed whether they had enough food for tomorr...