December McGrail

NOW PLAYING: Hours Outside in the Snow by Modern Baseball

It’s almost halfway through January, and I haven’t even given you my December debrief yet. So here’s how it goes:

This month I have been enjoying:

• Mince pies
• Cheese
• Biscuits
• Chocolate
• Doing fuck all
• Films

I have not, however, been enjoying:

• Thinking about future
• Early darkness (seasonal depression)

Sorry not sorry! I also worked a tricky Tesco job this winter which I’ll tell you about later. But whatever the weather, I had music playing 24/7, so let’s get into that.

Music discoveries

Bonus Music Discover – Music Librarying

I tried an iPod for music listening. It’s fun, but it’s all nostalgia. We need technology that serves purpose, and going back in time actually just strips us of all the useful things about technology that were invented later. So if you wanna go down the iPod route, that’s really cool. Instead, I use:

• An apple computer with Music (previously iTunes)
• TuneFusion, good software for mac and windows
• My phone
• foobar2000, a great mobile music player.

I was tired of using spotify, and apple music for that matter. It’s partly because of how Daniel Ek invested bare money into war drones, but if I’m honest, it’s really about how shite and noisy the platforms are. Daily mix this, ‘coffee shop mix’ that, I’m tired of that fucking bollocks.

And, no, I don’t ‘use’ Bandcamp instead. I hold Bandcamp against the same standards as Spotify and other streaming platforms which is that its brand does not belong in the music.

To be clear, I do use Bandcamp. I use it to buy some music from artists when I can afford it. I then download that music and put it in my libraryyyyy. Where do I get the rest? Well, CDs of course! Your parents have loads of CDs with music that people still want to listen to today. Where do I get the rest? well… it’s a some kind of free downloads peer to peer or something or other… I don’t know much about that. Completely legal though!

Because for me, December has been all about a new cosy hobby of music librarying! It’s fun, it’s not in protest, it’s simply a fun and connective endeavor.

And so I use TuneFusion to sync this to foobar2000 on my phone. The interface is great, there’s just me and my tunes.

Best part is, the music that is downloaded to my phone is just in a folder. So I can use another app to listen to it if I want! Frick, I can even use the files app. WTF?

Try it. Music Librarying. Ask yourself: would you rather have the world’s music library? Or your very own?

Thumb-twiddlers:

Tea and coffee at spoons

Me and a few friends have started to enjoy a new movement in hanging out culture. We call it tea and coffee at spoons. It’s because, get this, we go to a wetherspoon and get a tea and coffee refill. If you get there before 11, they probably still have the machine on so you can get like 5 coffees in for £1.30. It’s stealing. Best part is, too, we get to be warm and chill and talk about music.

Get an office

Here’s what I’ve gotten myself into for January. I’ve got a small office to try some creative things. Might carry on the Cheek magazine, make some cool videos, whatever. I’m trying a creative studio and seeing what it can give me.

Tesco

I said I would talk about my Tesco job as well. For the christmas month, I was a picker. That means walking round the shop at 6:00 in the morning and blooping items into a respective crate. Good crack.

For the last week, I had 4 days in a row all starting at 4:00 AM. It broke me. Not really though, I actually found being awake in the early hours thrilling.

Objectives for January:

Think about the future at least a little bit. Doesn’t have to be your whole life, just the next year. Peace out.