Funny how things go. There I was, primed to make a commitment to property, and in the course of a few hours at Heathrow waiting for Louise to be unfucked by immigration, I decided to head off in a completely different direction: to the land of typhoons, earthquakes and cockroaches the size of your fist.

This time, I lasted a whole 18 months in Camden which is probably some kind of record. And a great time it was too. It was a time of lots of gigs and amazing life changes for me and having something I never thought I’d have again.

So, I’m off to Taipei for at least 4 months, although I could well be back on business or even tour managing again. I will continue to work of course, my awesome team doing their amazing stuff too.

Exciting times!

After a burst of enthusiasm when I got back to Camden from Amsterdam, I’d been finding recently my enthusiam for the glamour of music photography was on the wane. I’m afraid the champagne lifestyle and the groupies just wasn’t doing it for my any more and if I saw the inside of one more plush, red-velvet VIP area ever again, I’d scream. Also, the brilliantly lit stages were like an LSD trip in their creativity.

Sadly, all of the above is a lie.

Despite my rule of only shooting musicians I like, and assembling a wonderful collective of like-minded snappers I realised recently that I really couldn’t care any more. Watching Simon work far harder than I have and still not get anywhere and especially his lament about not getting paid just added to the ennui.

So, I’ll shoot a few more gigs in October, tour manage the Chthonic UK tour in the first week of November then focus on my fine art work.

So with that in mind, I’ve put up ALL the 1* or better photos from this year in high-resolution (good enough for a 6×4 at least). The following sets out the terms:

The following sets are all high-resolution 1600-1200 images free for personal use. Bands are free to use them on the web with credit. Commercial use is subject to negotiation, but really, I don’t bite. I retain copyright on all images so don’t be naughty.

So there you go. Round about 750 images from 40-mumble performances for your viewing pleasure. There are some good ones in there too. 2008 to follow.

I’m shifting my photographic focus somewhat, starting back at Central St. Martins, working on refining my style, hell, working out what my style is, and building a portfolio. Trouble is, I like taking photos of lots of things: people, travel stuff, musicians, london by day and night, sunsets and so on. Jean-Loup Sieff is my hero, along with early Liebowitz, Newton, Tillmans and the lovely Cecil Beaton so people are definitely a focus. But! That’s me setting the scene. I’m wondering what gaps I have in my lens armoury. Oh, I’m seriously considering acquiring a film SLR too, probably a Nikon F4 or similar, which I’d like to also use my lenses on. So, here are the lenses I have:

Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 – slightly crocked in the auto-focus department but still a great lens
Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 – a great, cheap lens
Nikkor 80-200 f/2.8 – brilliant fast zoom and portrait lens
Tokina 17-50 f/2.8 – my walkabout lens, cheap, plastic, but has survived the pit well
Tamron 55-200 f/4-5.6 – walkabout zoom lens, cheap but good for the price

So in that lot, am I missing anything? There’s a couple of 35mm and 85mm primes that look interesting.

I don’t mind “legacy” lenses as long as they’re either auto-focus or the focus detection works.

Anyone?

I’ve been peripherally involved in music business stuff since the mid-nineties when I started running a fan site for a certain classic rock band. In that time, I’ve watched the music business bleed itself to death through completely not understanding what was happening in the world with free access to information and their preciously generated content.

Whilst the long tail has potentially become stronger in the last few years with savvy bands being able to employ the likes of the dread Myspace and more recently the much more useful Facebook to reach out to and engage fans, the 20% who are used to taking the 80% of the revenue are suffering.

Good.

Anyhow, that isn’t the point of this post.

I’m doing some work for the BBC which involves interfacing with assorted music retailers and attempting to give them the license-payer’s business in buying the BBC’s most excellent recorded music content. What has been boggling me today has been the wide range of clue across the various providers/vendors of aforementioned musical goodness. Some examples:

• A certain large high-street music retailer has no public API. We have a spec for the format we receive but the chances of that happening in a timely manner? Remote.
• Same for Play.com, The BBC Shop (oops!), Napster and eMusic. Hmmm.
• iTunes – you’d have thunk that someone so well embedded with people with loads of money and no sense would enable the web rabble to link and make money, wouldn’t you? Fat chance. The best they can do is a “deep-link making gizmo” and an affiliate scheme with “apple-designed” stuff. Thanks guys. WE want to give YOU the business.
• Amazon – they have an API and it’s been around forever. I’m actually struggling to find documentation on their Web Services site: they’re all about the cloud these days. Still, the perl modules still work and that’s all that matters.
• Spotify – have a C client library that only runs on a specific linux. WTF? What are you people smoking?
• 7Digital have a GREAT API. Much more data than we need and some of the data we can use to enrich our database. Nice work guys.
• Musicbrainz, while not being a vendor as such, are über geeks and definitely get the API thing and are an essential part of what we’re doing so that’s useful at least.

If I’ve missed some better options with these suppliers, I’m open to suggestions of course. Still, I’m amazed that in this day and age, so many whose livelihood is going to depend on reaching out to the internet have their heads buried so deeply in the sand.

I’m sure I’ll ramble more on this as I delve deeper.

Hm, this was supposed to be daily, but what with one thing and another, updating been a little less frequent. Still, we’ve been knocking things off the list pretty well, so all is not lost.

Day 6 – Primrose Hill

It was almost a rest day, but we took a small perambulation in the evening through the delightful Primrose Hill[18] village, bought some cheap rosé in Nicolas and some chocolate in the poshest little mini-market in the world. We then strolled up to the top of the hill to take in the twighlit view of London with the key lights of the City shining out: tower 42, check, London Eye, check, crappy tower blocks in Mornington Crescent, check.

Day 7 – Wellcome Collection

Definitely a quiet day. We wandered down to my doctor, then to the Wellcome[19] Collection (open late on Thursdays!) to see the medical waxworks exhibition on display which certainly gave context to the history of medicine and grossed Louise out nicely. We then got rained in at the Founder’s Arms on the South Bank at the London Perlmongers meet.

Day 8 – And so to Bath

We got to Paddington a little early, so we took the opportunity to knock another one off the list: we nipped out the back to see Little Venice[20]. Cute. Will definitely take a boat from Camden to Paddington at some point.

First order of business on arrival in Bath was FOOD. This used to be my home town so I know which tourist holes to avoid. We went to the wonderfully gnarly and twee Old Green Tree for the quintessential English dish, co-opted by the pub trade, the Ploughman’s lunch[21]. It was pretty good overall with huge chunks of bread, plenty of salad and of course nice mature Cheddar and Stilton cheeses. Oh, and nice foamy ale of course. The house ale was light and hoppy, perfect for a summer’s day.

That left tackling two of Bath’s many tourist attractions: the Roman Baths[22] and the Royal Crescent. The Baths are great to visit and give a sense how how far we’ve come in a couple of thousand years and yet in many ways we’re the same people. The Royal Crescent just is. Oh, and on the way back in to town we popped in to the Georgian Garden. Pretty.

Day 8 – Photographers Gallery

I had some business to do today while she checked out Muji[23] and Uni Qlo. Then we went to the Photographer’s Gallery[24] which today mostly had exhibitions which didn’t piss me off for once. Result. Nice bookshop too.

Day 4 was a Sunday, so we headed East. First up with the kitschness that is Spitalfields market[15]. I’ll claim two connections to this: first, when it was a fruit and veg market, my dad used to use it sometimes when he didn’t use Covent Garden. Second, I used to work in Spital square back when this area was “the badlands”. A few food wagons used to ply their tasty goodness at lunchtime, and of course the legendary Bubba charred up some meaty comestibles. These days, it’s all been done up and is as safe and sterile as any other market like the previously visited Borough. We had a quick beer in the legendary Meson de los Barriles and sauntered over to grab one of the super tasty rotis. Oh yes, lovely fresh veggies and the occasional fruit and a lovely warm roti. Awesomeness.

We then moved on the the slightly edgier top end of Brick Lane[16], through the yard past yet more food stalls and ducked in to Rough Trade to see what’s happening in the world of music. A quick peruse round the Upmarket to see if the great Taiwanese illustrator tpcat was on her stall. Sadly, she was at a book fair in Euston. Still her friends had some of her stuff for sale. After that, we cut back through onto Commercial Street and ducked into the amazingly camp Commercial Tavern to rest our legs and sup a lovely hoppy blonde summer ale.

Day 5, we did Camden Market[17]. For me, it’s all a bit local and “meh”, but Louise enjoyed it. We had dim sum at Teachi first, which has always been excellent and good value. Then a wander up the back streets avoiding the plague of the first stretch of Camden High Street, we entered the lock and immediately hit up Yumchaa on the balcony for some lovely tasty tea, coffee and chocolate brownie. Refreshed, we hit the market stalls, working our way up to the Proud Gallery to look at the nice pretty music pictures. Many are not as good as mine, but I’m just waiting for one of my bands to make it big! Still, nice to see some of our gnarly old stars in their younger days.

Day 6 is a rest day. We’ll probably venture out to get some new strings for my guitar.

Day 7 is booked to Bath. Expect tourist pics.

Louise pulled out of her “flu-like symptoms” well enough to start complaining about hunger. Well, after CL’s theraputic soup noodle at lunch. She demanded fish and chips, so we got the bus (did I mention I messed up the tubes to Borough Market yesterday?) to Baker Street and strolled past Marylebone to the Seashell for some great fish and chips[13]. Amusingly, my friend CL who is unafraid of stinky tofu was defeated by the mushy peas. Wuss. We also got to witness another great British institution which wasn’t on the list: a fight![14] OK, it was handbags but still. A short fat old guy took on a 6′ fit bloke and unsurprisingly got lightly chopped to the ground in one punch and that was that.

So, a day I thought would be a rest day, took in two more London things. Now, what for tomorrow…?

Tourist Stuff in London

This is an updated version of this list. Thanks to everyone for the comments and suggestions! I also remembered a few more things. In two days we’ve knocked quite a few things off the list. Taking day 3 off to rest though!

Museums

• Tate modern – great building, meh exhibitions
• Tate Britain – good exhibitions
• Hayward – free at the moment I believe
• Victoria and Albert – will miss the next big Friday late, but still good to visit
• National gallery – lovely art, great buildings, great commentary
• National portrait gallery – hopefully something photography that won’t piss me off
• British library – yes, apparently there IS stuff to see
• Royal Academy – anything free and decent? Worth it if we’re near Fortnum and Mason
• British Museum – cool stiff we stole
• Photographers gallery – 50/50 chance of pissing me off
• Canary wharf (museum) – can double up with Greenwich
• Museum of London at the Barbican
• Wellcombe Collection – love this and great café!
• Geffrye Museum – good when doing the Hoxditch badlands

Historic Buildings

• Hampton Court Palace – she likes Henry VIII
• St Pauls – great building, great view from the top
• St Martin in the Fields – nice café in the crypt
• Westminster Abbey – never done it. Would be nice
• Buck House – actually neither of us care about this
• Royal Albert Hall

Theatre Stuff

• Avenue Q – yeah yeah. it’s cheap and funny
• Globe Theatre – bit of culture
• ICA – I’m a member and they show cool films
• IMAX – not especially London, but I want to see Harry Potter
• The Proms! – They’re on now!

Shopping!

• Forbidden Planet – laugh at the nerds
• Japan Centre – good books, good food
• Hamleys – just because
• Harrods – same
• Carnaby St – not what it was, but Austin Powers

Markets

• Camden Market
• Spitalfields
• Brick lane
• Portobello road
• Covent garden
• Chinatown
• Borough Market
• Marylebone high street
• Greenwich – market and park. And the college buildings

Other Random Stuff

• London zoo
• Smithfield
• Tourist bus
• River bus/tour
• Primrose hill – view London, nice pubs in the village
• Tower of London/London bridge – at least look at the outside
• Cinema Wednesdays – I got her an Orange SIM. Would be rude not to
• Regent’s Park – my back garden, so rude not to.
• St. James’s Park – close to the ICA and other tourist stuff
• Hampstead Heath – handy by bus from Camden
• Kew Gardens – used to do these as a kid when they we 6d and so see the pagoda

Food!

• Pie and mash eels
• City fullers- PIE!
• Teachi – good, cheap dim sum
• Leongs – Taiwanese food in case she gets desperate for home cooking
• Crown and goose – my local. Foamy ale
• Somers Town coffee house – nice pub in an odd place
• Fish and chips
• Brick lane curry – people have a big downwer on this. I have one cheap caff style place I love, but otherwise, I agree: meh. For food in the area, definitely the Lahore Kebab
• Drummond street curry – mmmm…dosa

Other Towns

• Brighton – English seaside
• Bath – My old home town
• Windsor – The Castle!
• Cambridge – not my thing and packed with tourists

50 Things to do in London

This came out of these doodlings on the train to London airport. This is my account of how many of those things we achieve.

Day 1

I hadn’t decided to blog our tourist exploits at this point so I only had my iPhone camera with me and only got one snap. Still, walking from Camden through Regent’s Park[1] down the Avenue, stopping for overpriced but good ice cream was lovely. Little did we expect, that by the time we got to the bottom and were heading across towards Marylebone High Street, we would get caught in a monsoon. Not a tropical one mind, just a nasty, cold very wet one. We made it to Marylebone church[2] where we had a lovely hot chocolate to warm up. Then back home to change into dry clothes.

Our second attempt out involved getting the 88 down to Picadilly Circus, eyeballing Eros[3], wandering through Chinatown[4], checking out the rice bowl mural, across Leicester Square[5], pointing out the sites of the film perimeres and into the National Gallery[6] to check out some Turners. From there, we crossed over into Covent Garden[7] through the churchyard, only scoping it out and watching the tail end of one performer in the plaza. Then home and tasty food.

Day 2

Day 2 started slowly as I had a meeting in the morning, but we made it in time to hit Marina’s in Borough Market[9] for a bacon butty. We perused half the market twice, don’t ask, stopping to look at the various veggie and cheesy goodies on offer. A swift pint later and we headed onwards to wander the South Bank[10].

We ducked into the Globe[11] to pick up some leaflets and we’ll definitely be back to get some culture. We had an ice cream at Gabriel’s Wharf[12] and perused the art, trinkets and clothes. Finally, we walked across the bridge to Embankment tube and headed home.

Final event of the evening was a gig at the Camden Barfly[8], to see Shake who came highly recommended. They did indeed rock mightily. Sadly, I missed the finale where the singer got taken to hospital covered in blood. Ho hum!

Tourist Stuff in London

Anyone who knows me appreciates I’ve been in a bit of a whirlwind in the last couple of weeks. I went from going to Taiwan to cover some metal, to suddenly acquiring a new girlfriend (who was formerly in said band) and who turned up in a planned way on my doorstep last night intending to stay a month.

As I was trundling towards T3 on the Picadilly line the night before last, I started sketching out things we could do in London. Before long I had more that 50 things I regarded as essential, many of which I hadn’t done before. So there’s the list I came up with. We’ve already knocked off Covent Garden, the National Gallery and Chinatown.

Museums

• Tate modern – great building, meh exhibitions
• Tate Britain – good exhibitions
• Hayward – free at the moment I believe
• Victoria and Albert – will miss the next big Friday late, but still good to visit
• National gallery – lovely art, great buildings, great commentary
• National portrait gallery – hopefully something photography that won’t piss me off
• British library – anything worth seeing for non-members?
• Royal Academy – anything free and decent? Worth it if we’re near Fortnum and Mason
• British Museum – cool stiff we stole
• Photographers gallery – 50/50 chance of pissing me off
• Canary wharf (museum) – can double up with Greenwich

Historic Buildings

• Hampton Court Palace – she likes Henry VIII
• St Pauls – great building, great view from the top
• St Martin in the Fields – nice café in the crypt
• Westminster Abbey – never done it. Would be nice
• Buck House – actually neither of us care about this

Theatre Stuff

• Avenue Q – yeah yeah. it’s cheap and funny
• Globe Theatre – bit of culture
• ICA – I’m a member and they show cool films
• IMAX – not especially London, but I want to see Harry Potter

Shopping!

• Forbidden Planet – laugh at the nerds
• Japan Centre – good books, good food
• Hamleys – just because
• Harrods – same
• Carnaby St – not what it was, but Austin Powers

Markets

• Camden Market
• Spitalfields
• Brick lane
• Portobello road
• Covent garden
• Chinatown
• Borough Market
• Marylebone high street
• Greenwich

Other Random Stuff

• London zoo
• Smithfield
• Tourist bus
• River bus/tour
• Primrose hill – view London, nice pubs in the village
• Tower of London/London bridge – at least look at the outside
• Cinema Wednesdays – I got her an Orange SIM. Would be rude not to

Food!

• Pie and mash eels
• City fullers- PIE!
• Teachi – good, cheap dim sum
• Leongs – Taiwanese food in case she gets desperate for home cooking
• Crown and goose – my local. Foamy ale
• Somers Town coffee house – nice pub in an odd place
• Fish and chips
• Brick lane curry
• Drummond street curry – mmmm…dosa

Other Towns

• Brighton – English seaside
• Bath – My old home town
• Windsor – The Castle!