Another Form of Relief

Just a quick post to address exactly what’s going on with this place. If you visit with any regularity you’ll have noticed that posts have dried up recently. This is down to a couple of reasons. One that I can’t do much about and one that I can.

First off, for the past 18 months, my father has been pretty ill, resulting in him being constantly in and out of hospital. This most recent incident began in November of last year and is still ongoing. This makes it pretty difficult for me to arrange much beyond working, visiting hospitals and sleeping. This has cut quite significantly into the time I have to not only write here, lessened my ability to get to gigs and also finding and listening to new music in the first place.

The second is rather more mundane in that I’d become somewhat bored with the process in general. Pretty much the whole thing fell into a routine formula of pick a song, write a little about it and post with no variation in that format. There was a time when that seemed like the most efficient way to post, but the end result is lazy, both in content and writing.

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been kicking around various ideas to get us going again here. A few new features, and most importantly, not dragging out three paragraphs about a song I kind of like that can be achieved in one. Hopefully this’ll be more pleasant to read, and better for me to write. How much time I’m going to get to write though I have no idea. So no bullshit about posting everyday or anything similar. Posts when I’ve got time to post, and something worth posting about.

Let’s see where we end up.

This is the first thing that I have posted on this blog for the best part of six months. There are a great many reasons for this, but I have no desire to go over them here. Suffice to say, more important things have kept me away, sadly leaving my own little spot of the music blogoplanet neglected.

Starting in the next few days though, that will change. As we approach the third anniversary or this place, the music will once again begin flowing. Assuming I can find enough at least. I am horrendously out of touch at this particular moment, having hardly listened to any new music in quite some time. I am to rectify that as we go though, and hopefully fill in the gaps of the last few months.

While my inbox is still overflowing with promo emails from whatever band Pitchfork is banging on again this week, I do struggle to find the motivation to read them all. So if you, kind reader, would like to suggest anything (even your own band!), leave a comment or email me. All of which is a very lazy way to find out exactly what I’ve missed.

Still, new content will be coming either way, and hopefully without any further interruption in the near future.

Random notes:
i. New design is still being worked on, so don’t worry if something isn’t quite right.
ii. Full posts are now available through RSS, thus rendering any new design irrelevant.

I am heading off to the Reading Festival over the weekend, so updates are currently on hold.

I will return, hopefully with news, maybe with pictures, on Monday.

So here I am on New Years Eve writing on my blog where I haven’t posted anything for the past month. There has to be something sort of wrong about that.

No matter though, as we’re heading into the new year with a hopefully revitalised blog. Anyone who visits occasionally will have realised that I’ve been slack with this thing lately. This has been brought on by a number of things. Most of them are out of the way now though, so we should be getting back to normal. I’ve got a brand new layout a bunch of ideas in my head for how I want to take things over the year, and we’ll have to see how many of them actually stick.

So tomorrow we’ll start with the first part of my top 44 songs from 2007. There’s no real reason why it’s 44 anymore than there was a reason for it being 49 last year. After that, I’ll hopefully settle into a format that I have kicking around that will allow for regular updates without draining me too much. Either way, there will be more content than there has been recently, so let’s see where we go from here.

It occurs to me that I never got around to covering any other Great British Hopes beyond Johnny Foreigner. The series would have also included 4 or 5 Magicians, Sky Larkin and Kotki Dwa. Go check them out and take in their awesomeness.

The Another Form of Relief supercomputer is currently experiencing some technical difficulties.

We’ll be back shortly.

Yes, I’ve been gone for several weeks again. Among the list of lame excuses this time around:

- My continuing recovery from an ear infection.
- My computer only playing music out of one speaker, which makes listening to music a bit more challenging.
- The death and subsequent replacement of my car, followed by multiple return trips to the dealer to sort out random niggles.
- Going to the Great Escape festival in Brighton, where I spectacularly managed to see no more than a handful of bands.

I’m also incredibly lazy, and these things have unfortunately had to take priority. Tomorrow though, normal service will resume. For real this time, with posts every day and everything. Of course I’m sure it’ll last only a few days before I fall off the wagon again, but boy is there going to be some good stuff before I do.

Without getting all self-satisified, I’d also like to point out that from tomorrow, this blog will be going 100% legal in the music that I post. It’s been pretty close to that for a while now, only posting commercial tracks occasionally, but I’m finally going to take the plunge into legality and see how it works out. This will probably mean more obscure bands and songs at times, unless of course the major labels get on board with this free music thing. I’ll also probably end up cheating by including things like Youtube video content instead too, like this lovely new video from Kate Nash below:

It’s called Foundations and it’s probably only being released on vinyl or something, but who cares? It’s catchy as hell, and most importantly, it’s not Caroline’s a Fucking Victim. And if a lovely, lovely person would like to send me an mp3 of it (you can ignore this now – thanks to everyone that hooked me up!), I’d be their bestest friend forever.

In the meantime, go and check out some cool new kids on the indie bloggering scene like Fucking Dance and Hi-Fi Heart. Both are writing about great music in an entertaining way, so go and say hello or something.

I’m not dead.

But I do have something of an ongoing ear infection. My enthusiasm for music is somewhat dulled when I can only hear properly out of one ear.

It’s getting better though, and so posts will be returning soon. Just give me a few more days.

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And if you’re anywhere near London, you might to want to keep June 18 avaiable. I’m just saying..

Yesterday marked the start of Another Form of Relief’s second year. This crept up on me so quickly that I didn’t give the whole thing a great deal of thought until the day had already passed. Sometimes it feels like only a few weeks ago that I started all this, other times like I have been doing it for years. If you’ll allow me to ramble, I’m going to write for a little bit about this blog and how it has affected me over the past twelve months.

The idea to start this blog first came toward the end of January of last year. I’d gone through a not particularly fun break-up earlier in the month, and the structure of my job changed significantly, both of which left me with a fair bit of extra free time on my hands. It was also in the weeks leading up to this time that I’d first discovered music blogs, and I started tossing around the idea in my head. The first time I actually voiced my intent was in an email to a friend on January 23, when I wrote

I’m thinking about starting up at mp3 blog. I don’t know if you’ve noticed the appearence of these, but they seem to be popping up all over the place over the past few months. Not sure what I can add by doing one myself, but it’s something I’d like to try. Not really sure what’s involved logistically just yet (mostly the storage and legal issues), but there seem to be a large number and they aren’t going to jail, so I’m going to look into the idea.

It turns out that most if it was surprisingly simple to setup, and on February 26, Another Form of Relief launched with a rather low-key post on The Young Republic. Over the next few weeks, I tweaked the design a little, and made various changes in how I formatted the posts. “Buy it now” links quickly disappeared, the original design didn’t make it past the first six months and I found myself writing in increasing detail about the bands I featured. I’ve also been through the “to have ads or not have ads” debate more times than I care to remember, each time seeing them disappear and then reappear on the site.

I think I hit my stride a few months in, and by the summer I was updating pretty much daily. By this time I seemed to have attracted the attention of various promo companies and bands. I’d start getting songs regularly sent to me by email, both from promo companies and bands. The songs sent by bands themselves were invariably better than the promo company ones. Suddenly I was being offered free CDs, which led to me opening a PO Box out of paranoia of giving out my address to all these potentially scary bands. They arrived rarely at the start, but one year on, I have a mountain of CDs on my desk that I haven’t even listened to yet. Offers of guest list places for gigs began to arrive, although these were usually turned down on the grounds that London is kind of a bitch to drive to unless I’m already in love with your band.

I don’t know when I realised that blogging was hindering my ability to listen to music, but it’s become increasingly noticable in the last few months. The constant chase of the “next big thing” or even just a good new band to write about means I end up neglecting those that I already like. I can’t even tell you the last time that I listened to an album in it’s entirity, nor can I remember when I last spent more than 30 seconds judging a new song. Both of those things are certainly not a good thing for either music or me as a listener, but that’s the reality. I don’t have time to give everything new several listens when there is always a pile of stuff I haven’t heard even once yet. The result of this is that my music taste has ended up skewing toward the upbeat and catchy, or anything that has a hook to quickly grab me. The idea of the a song that grows on me is increasingly becoming a thing of the past.

That doesn’t mean I’m unhappy about what I do here though. I’ve never taken to a “project” as much as I have this one, even if some bad comes with it. On the most part, I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. I’ve found and written about music that I never would have considered listening to in the past. I’ve met a bunch of great people, from other bloggers to musicians to just readers, and for that I am grateful. Then there are the “perks”. I won’t deny that I’ve made a little money through the ads I’ve run on this site, but that probably hasn’t been enough to cover even the hosting bills completely. The “swag” is also fun – there’s nothing quite like getting a handcrafted demo CD in my box. The thing that leaves me most smug is probably when I see my blog pop up in other places though. I was overjoyed when another blog first linked to me. It was a lot of fun when bands started including things I’d written on their websites. Every now and then the blog or something I’d posted would turn up in more mainstream places, like the Best Week Ever blog, The Toronto Star, or my personal favourite, The Guardian.

As I move into the second year of this blog, I’d like to think that I’ve hit my stride somewhat. There are some things I would like to improve though. I’m trying to write more regularly again, but a number of other factors keep getting in my way. This is why I’ve started writing posts in a format that let me include a bunch of things at once. It’s the only way I can even come close to keeping up with everything I want to tell you about. I want to try and do some more “interviews”, as the ones I did back in the summer were a lot of fun to do. It’s just a matter of choosing some bands and making that initial contact. There will also be more Another Form of Relief promoted shows (next one this thursday! – come down and say hi!) and a number of other fun things.

If you’ve made it through all of this, I commend you. I probably wouldn’t even have even bothered reading all this myself. I really just wanted a small history of this blog and some of my thought processes that go into it. There’s a lot of stuff I haven’t touched upon that I probably should have, but I guess I’ll save that for the two year celebration.

Okay, so I’m at panic stations about all this now, particularly the fear that nobody will turn up. If you’re within a reasonable distance of Tunbridge Wells (it’s in Kent), please come along to this. You’ll get a fantastic night of great new music brought to you by this very blog. I’ll even guarantee that it will rock. Hard. Full details below our lovely poster.

MP3 It Hugs Back – Miss Being Young
MP3 It Hugs Back – Wear You Down

MP3 4 Or 5 Magicians – Forever On The Edge
MP3 4 Or 5 Magicians – Tour De Force

MP3 Beeches – Sin Nombre
MP3 Beeches – Make Your Own Luck

Next wednesday Another Form of Relief will be holding it’s first ever promoted gig at the Tunbridge Wells Forum. I may be a tad biased and all, but it’s fantastic line-up includes music from It Hugs Back, 4 or 5 Magicians, Beeches and The Rox. All great bands with incredibly bright futures who will be playing for your auditory pleasure in exchange for a mere five of your English pounds.

Full details are available on our Live Events page.