Archives For my creative efforts

A (Not So) Brief History of My Creative Efforts – Recap

February 25, 2010

Seeing as I’ve not had a chance to properly research a ‘Gaseous Brainstorm’ post this week, and am off to Aberdeen for a stag weekend tomorrow morning (weather and liver permitting) I thought I’d delve back into the archives.

Those of you who’ve been reading a while and have particularly good memories might remember I started this series about my (mostly ill-fated) creative efforts but never got round to finishing it.

So far I’ve covered up to around 1999, so there’s a decade still to cover. I couldn’t quite keep it as brief as I’d hoped though, and I’d already written a lengthy series that covered around 1999 to 2004 called ‘I Was a Swivel Chair’ which covers a fair few misspent years in shit jobs, behaving like an utter twat and trying to get a comedy band off the ground (and failing spectacularly). Given that it doesn’t particularly paint me in the best light I was reluctant to revisit it. However I’ve decided to put it up here for a short time so anyone who cares can have a read before it is deleted from the internet forever!

Anyway here’s what’s come so far, and what is still to come, as a reminder or for anyone who wasn’t around at the time.

A Brief History of My Creative Efforts – Part 1
 September 3, 2009
So what is all this “Gaseous Brain” nonsense all about? What does it actually mean? Good question….
A brief history of my creative efforts Part 2
  September 11, 2009
FILM OPENINGS After deciding that I didn’t have the excessively extroverted character necessary for a career in the theatre, I decided that being behind the camera m …
A Brief History of My Creative Efforts Part 3 – A Good Face for Radio?
  September 24, 2009
 I had also managed to secure a decent bit of work experience with a radio production company called Unique. The course itself made no provision for this, but I was lucky enough to have a cousi …
A Brief History of My Creative Efforts Part 4 – Fear and Loathing on the Job-hunting Trail
 October 28, 2009
 A Novel Idea In my final year of college I also started writing lyrics and other random stuff in a bit of a creative outpouring, due perhaps to the fact that I’d kept my creativity bottled up for so long (or drowned it in a sea of booze might be more accurate) and incre …

Next: I Was a Swivel Chair

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A Brief History of My Creative Efforts Part 4 – Fear and Loathing on the Job-hunting Trail

October 28, 2009

Read part 1, part 2, part 3

A Novel Idea

In my final year of college I also started writing lyrics and other random stuff in a bit of a creative outpouring, due perhaps to the fact that I’d kept my creativity bottled up for so long (or drowned it in a sea of booze might be more accurate) and increasing desperation about what was going to happen when the student safety net was pulled away from beneath my feet. I also made some attempt to record some music to go along with these lyrics,  though without any of the skill required for such an enterprise. Also my personal life was in a complete and utter mess at the time due to my own stupidity, but that’s another story.

After full-time education ended, unemployment was inevitable. I had the same attitude as Morrissey towards work “I was looking for a job then I found a job, and heaven knows I’m miserable now..” However I suddenly found myself in a serious relationship so had a reason to make a bit of an effort.

 In the meantime I decided it would be a good time to write a novel. I spent my days wandering round second-hand bookshops and going to the library, and fixated on Hunter S Thompson. I would see his partner in crime Ralph Steadman’s illustrations everywhere I went – perhaps taunting me about my own childlike drawing skills, though I took it as encouragement to continue on my quest to be a writer.

The novel was to be called the Three Drink Rule, about a borderline alcoholic ex-student who is talked into making a pledge to never have more than three alcoholic drinks – but when he inevitably gives in to temptation, bizarre things happen.. it never quite materialised, though I was to revisit it from time to time, and still think about trying to rewrite it now and again.

STRUGGLING TO PAY THE BILLS AND STAY CREATIVE

After about three months on the breadline I applied for a couple of retail jobs – one in a health food store and one in HMV’s “flagship” music store on Princes St, which had been closed for refurbishment. I got turned down for the health food job and ended up wowing the manager of HMV with my enthusiasm for the Oasis album Definitely Maybe (yeah, I know..  I was young and naïve) though the way he ignored me once i was in the job suggested he later regretted the decision.

After I’d accepted the HMV job, the health food store manager came back and said the job was mine after all, if I wanted it – it was too late though. I wonder how different my life would have turned out if I’d been given that job first, given the people who I met at HMV were to lead to me joining my first band and continuing my heavy drinking habits..

 * Note: For more info on this and the various soul-sucking jobs that followed, my recording of the song Columbo & Coffee and my adventures as part of an unpopular comedy band, you’ll have to read my in-depth tale about it called ‘I Was a Swivel Chair’ which I’ll be republishing on this blog soon.

During the Edinburgh Festival that year I managed to get some ‘work’ writing for the Evening News. I covered a variety of comedy, theatre and music but I was also working full-time.

Just to give you an idea how old I am, this was in the days before everyone had a laptop and email and free broadband in cafes etc so I had to run up to the fringe office on the Royal Mile on my lunch to arrange tickets for the events, and then after the event I had to go home, write the review and then call it in so that it could be published the next day.

My friend Dougie’s mum was one of the people at the Evening News who took these phone calls and transcribed the copy – I was quite embarrassed when I had to read her my review of ‘Sexual Perversity in Chicago..’

 This ridiculous ritual soon led to burn-out, and worse, I wasn’t getting paid for the pleasure, mainly due to my own deeply embedded reluctance to ask for money. Then I saw an opportunity to take part in a music video course with Roman “don’t mention my dad” Coppola as part of the International Film Festival, and applied.

Coppola was a really nice and surprisingly humble bloke and had made quite a few music vids including helping Spike Jonze out on Fatboy Slim’s Praise You and Mansun’s Tax Loss video (see his Reel). He guided us through the process of making a music promo from idea to final product.

We had to pitch an idea to someone at Skint Records  - he didn’t think much of mine, and we ended up going with another guy on the course’s idea which was to have a guy in a pink panther suit walk backwards around Edinburgh. After it was filmed we reversed and sped up the footage so it looked like everyone else was going backwards and the panther was strolling about leisurely. It turned out not bad and was apparently shown on MTV and BBC2 – but I couldn’t find it on the web when I looked.

So it was a great course, but had meant I gave up prematurely on being a full-time professional arts journalist. I did go back and write for the Evening News again a year later, and managed to get paid, but that fizzled out as I spent more and more time doing Swivel Chair stuff – including a string of “groundbreaking” music videos…

I don’t think I realised what an opportunity I had at the time to get paid writing work, something which on the whole still eludes me now. Clearly there are limiting beliefs at work in this old gaseous brain of mine…

 Next: The Final Part. Probably.

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A Brief History of My Creative Efforts Part 3 – A Good Face for Radio?

September 24, 2009

In the previous installment I talked about what I got up to while I was at college (in between pub crawls). I had also managed to secure a decent bit of work experience with a radio production company called Unique. The course itself made no provision for this, but I was lucky enough to have a cousin who lived in London who could pull a few strings (though he also insisted on getting me paralytically drunk each evening in order to fully demonstrate the ‘work hard play hard’ mentality of the Big City media fraternity). 

 The company produced the Pepsi Chart Show which was networked out to 100+ local radio stations, as well as a number of BBC Radio programmes. The Pepsi Chart Show was presented by Dr Fox, a colourful character who later became a judge on Pop Idol, the precursor to X Factor (and also infamously appeared on a certain controversial episode of Brass Eye, with some dubious facts about crab genetics).

 I got some great experience sitting in on the Richard Allinson show on Radio BBC2, editing sound for a BBC World Service show (the old fashioned razorblade way, as digital editing was not yet widespread), and er.. filing demo CDs (the best of which I was allowed to keep – I came home with a bunch of Super Furry Animals singles). the only contact i had with Dr Fox though, was on one occasion when I forgot to lock the door on the toilet cubicle and he barged in on me.

From this taste of the real world of media work, I wasn’t convinced that I could cope with moving to London and fighting for short-term contracted work, plus the likelihood of a lengthy commute each day to whichever suburb I could afford to rent a room. In retrospect it would probably have been preferable to the rubbish jobs i did end up doing for the last decade, but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

 Before I left I did have a chat with the boss of the company who was very friendly and helpful, and gave me a lot of good info for my planned dissertation topic on the possible future of the music charts and industry as a whole. He told me to get in touch anytime if I needed anything else. I figured this was a great contact for my future career, and that the dissertation, done well, might really put me on the map.

 When I returned to college however, I was told that my dissertation topic of choice was “not academic” enough for whoever decides on these type of things. I felt gutted, as I had no back-up plan in place. Finally, I decided on the topic of music fanzines. This was apparently academic enough, and actually a very interesting subject as it dealt with issues of fan empowerment and DIY culture which are close to my heart – but in terms of leading to a lucrative media career it seemed like a nail in the coffin.

As it turned out I was one of the first people to write an academic paper on the topic – and my tutor, who was incredibly helpful and supportive, suggested I might be able to get it published, and offered to help me with it. This would have been an amazing opportunity. But where was my head at the time, dear reader? Right up my own arse as it turned out. I, like many others, struggled to discipline myself to write that dissertation and left it to the very last minute. In the end, a couple of nights of jack daniels and coke fuelled typing got it done, and it wasn’t utterly bad – but I never pursued the opportunity to take it any further. I have bolded that sentence, dear reader, because that, in a nutshell, as you might be beginning to work out, is the story of my life.

Next: The world of work = a world of pain (don’t worry, just a couple more installments left!)

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A brief history of my creative efforts Part 2

September 11, 2009

 

 

This is part 2 of the exclusive serialisation of my unwritten creative memoirs (it might make a bit more sense if you read part one)

FILM OPENINGS

After deciding that I didn’t have the excessively extroverted character necessary for a career in the theatre, I decided that being behind the camera might work better.  I joined a video course in Derry before I left for Edinburgh which was good fun.  I contributed to a bootleg music video for REM’s Stand and an overly extended skit about the advertising of washing up powder. Ironically I spent more time in front of the camera than operating it.

 

Then it was off to Edinburgh to do a Communications degree at Queen Margaret College (which has since been renamed as University).

 

HOW I ENDED UP AN EDINBURGH MAN

 

At school in Donegal I was exempt from attending the otherwise compulsory daily Irish Gaelic class due to being born in England. So was a bloke called Mike Deery, who had returned to the school after getting injured whilst on trial at Liverpool FC.

 This was a brilliant opportunity to catch up on homework for any classes later the same day, or more likely doss about in the corridor with the older, more experienced Deery who delighted in repeatedly giving me a dead arm.

 On one such occasion we were sitting about outside the careers office at school and I casually picked up a prospectus featuring an attractive girl with a video camera. This spoke directly to both of my frustrated teenage desires, sex and video cameras, which and sold me on the course instantly. I did very little further research, but a speculative trip to Edinburgh was enough to convince me to move (plus I noticed there were regular gigs by great bands, though they were mainly in Glasgow).  So, I moved here, aged 16 (I turned 17 a couple of weeks after I began my degree).

The Fall – Edinburgh Man

However the course was very vague and not very inspiring and although I just about managed to fulfil the first of my teenage desires in between pub crawls, it was year 2 or 3 before I got to pick up a video camera and by then I was a jaded borderline alcoholic.

 Myself and my flatmate did film a great wee video of the Prince of Pain, a masochistic cabaret artist who did unspeakable things to himself on stage, and shared a flat with a large dog and a dwarf called Powertool who lifted weights with his penis. They spoke eloquently and genuinely about their line of work and gave a real insight into their bizarre lives but unfortunately we neglected to plug in a mic so the sound left a lot to be desired.

Also the video tutor was mainly absent due to his involvement in some local TV project and I lacked the “focus and drive” to take advantage of the ageing equipment (computer editing was then a brand new thing – I think we got to see the tutor demonstrate it once). However I did inexplicably receive a good grade for the classic alien abduction short film ‘Abduction Granton’ with its spectacular special effects (actually it was rubbish as you can see below – some of the effects were added several years later but as they say, you can’t polish a turd).

 

FILM EDITINGS

 In my third year of my four year degree I was overcome with desperation and fear at what might befall me once my student days were over. I turned back to writing in earnest and took on the role of film editor for the college magazine (as you can see above, a photo of a very skinny me under the Hollywood sign headed up my first column) and also did some music reviews and at least one interview with a short-lived indie band of the time called Jocasta who I roundly slated in the mag.

 The editor of the college magazine is now a political journalist for a major Scottish newspaper but I wouldn’t want to mention his name here in case it embarrassed him.. Anyway, with dissertations and stuff coming up I had to pack it in after a few issues but it was good experience. Would it help me when I found myself unemployed after college though?

 Next: Desperate times, double measures..

Part 3 

Part 4

 

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A Brief History of My Creative Efforts – Part 1

September 3, 2009

So what is all this “Gaseous Brain” nonsense all about? What does it actually mean? Good question, and the lack of a clear answer reflects my own confusion over what it is I’m trying to achieve, both here on this blog and in life in general.

To be honest, if I could come up with a better name I would change it immediately but original names are hard to come by.  I suppose in hindsight the name reflects a creative mind that is overflowing with ideas and desires and unable to settle on a direct route through life. Or just simply, full of a load of old nonsense.

 Now I’ve read that clarity of purpose is the essential ingredient of success. But for years I have struggled to find this clarity (and therefore success). Ok, I know the general ballpark where my strengths lie – creativity, particularly writing.  In fact I’ve always been very creative but never seem to have mastered a particular skill enough or been focused enough on one area to make a real go of it. And my interests are very wide – music is probably my main love but there are plenty of other things that I get excited about such as books, films and technology. 

 What follows is a very brief history of my creative efforts. Maybe by the end of writing this I’ll have a clearer idea of what I should do next. And maybe you’ll have a better idea of where I’m coming from. I’ve been inspired by lastyear’sgirl who has been doing some retrospective blogging recently so over the next wee while I will also be revisiting some of the writing and other stuff I’ve produced over the years – just for the record you understand.

I have never been a very confident a person but I did show a knack for writing quite early on. My mum being an English teacher no doubt helped as she taught me to read and write before I started school, and my Primary school teacher Irene Bliss was massively encouraging about my creative writing and I still credit her for giving me enough confidence that I felt I could to go back to writing later on after having given up. She would have me read my stories out to the class and let me skip out on P.E. which I was rubbish at so I could do creative stuff.

COMICAL

 I was a fanatical fan of The Beano as a child living in Coventry, inspiring me to make my own comics and sell them to my neighbours (I included my neighbour’s cats as some of the main characters to encourage them to purchase). I was also obsessed with pigs for some reason and had a fondness for the comic Oink. But by the time I got to about 12 I started realising my drawing skills weren’t up to scratch and after a rejection letter from Acne (the kid’s version of Viz) describing me as “utterly mad” I gave up on the goal of being a professional comic strip artist. I also produced a photo story called ‘Dare Bear’ featuring one of my soft toys dressed in superhero garb battling various star wars vehicles which was a substantial hit within family circles but failed to set the publishing world alight. Around this time I also made my first attempts at recorded sound by forming The Eejits with my cousin Lucy, though the results are unlistenable to anyone but the most masochistic.

LUVVIES

At school I had a terrible English teacher more concerned with punishing non-conformity and minor grammar and spelling mistakes than encouraging talent, so I naturally looked elsewhere for support. I won an award for ‘most promising newcomer’ as part of a Donegal-wide acting competition when playing the part of the convict in the Bishop’s Candlesticks, which I believe was an extract from Les Miserables. This led to very enthusiastic encouragement from my drama teacher, who even loudly proclaimed my talent to the director of a visiting production of As You Like It starring Sylvestor McCoy. 

 To advance my fledgling theatre career he suggested I perform a mime of myself shaving in the mirror (I wasn’t yet old enough to actually shave) as part of another acting competition at Derry’s Guildhall. I was marked poorly by the judges though I do remember one of them remarked I was “very brave” – which I read between the lines as ‘what were you thinking?’

 Following that I was involved in an excruciatingly embarrassing attempt at street drama as part of Derry Youth Theatre, which included running down the city’s Shipquay Street banging drums and yelling in order to attact people to a small square. Once there we performed a mainly silent piece that centred around two tribes on either side of a wall. However the wall was an unstable structure made mostly out of bits of wood and fabric and half way through the performance it was blown down. I had purposely neglected to publicise the event in the hope no-one I knew would ever find out, but to my horror, on the other side of  the wall I could see my piano/keyboard teacher watching proceedings with amusement -  no doubt payback for all the times I had turned up without having practiced since the last lesson.

 These further forays into theatre did not focus on my strengths of performing dialogue/character acting, and I lost the will to continue. I have gone to an acting class since in which I received encouragement from Ewen Bremner aka Spud in Trainspotting for my improvisational skills, but again I found the warming up exercises rather unpleasant due to an overabundance of ‘pretend you’re a tree’ like exercises and as I was doing my radio show at the time it was an excuse to drop out. Anyway I’m pretty introverted so I don’t know if I would ever have fit into the often brash and super-confident acting world.

Next: Moving to Edinburgh and experiments in film and music

Part 2 

Part 3 

Part 4

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