Google +

Yes, I know, yet another social network to be a part of, let get out of control and then abandon, but bear with me because this one appears to work and might actualy be worth joining.

Think of it as the best bits of Twitter and Facebook combined with a clean interface, just as intuitive and having the all those useful Google tools already there. I'm really impressed with the Documents feature, I'm given 1GB of storage and the upload speed is really fast. This means I can work on music and upload it to a folder for others to access far easier. Next step, integrate the calender.  It's still at testing stage, but so far appears to be working fine.

If you're there and want to find me I'm HERE

Been a while..

Yep, been a while since I posted anything, been really busy sorting things for The Whitby Goth Weekend and then afterwards planning for the next one.

It was quiet but "just like the old days". It's all I heard on the Sunday. Not just from a couple of people, but dozens, everyone that I spoke to after Saturday night had that recurring message to pass on to the WGW team. In the 'old days' a couple of thousand people would head to the town, most heading to the Spa Pavillion (main venue) in the evening or just chill out having spent the day shopping or just wandering around the town (and pubs) being able to be themselves for a few days. No invasion of people for the weekend 'dressed up' for the weekend, and no army of pervy old blokes snapping away at any female in a corset or short skirt. So we lost the  'day trippers' and were left only with those there for a music festival, and it was great.

Without doubt it was a turning point for WGW, with so many people saying that it felt like it used to, when people were there for the bands and music and just having fun, and I think they're right. I can't remember a previous weekend for a long while like this one, even the ones that sold out, the atmosphere in town and in particular in the venues was fantastic.The Spa DJ's did a great job of keeping people there dancing after the bands finished each night

We can only build on this now and get the numbers back for the people that just come to stare and take photo's, or dress up and wander around not even knowing that there's a music festival on. We don't need them, thats been obvious from this weekend, but the town needs their money, and for that reason alone I look forward to them being there. I can do without the being stopped for photos every few yards, and the TV crews with their clueless interviewers..

Now we start planning for November, and hopefully more of the same.

Between then and now though I have a few interesting things coming up...

May 7th, London - Salome en Noir - click the link and check it out, its a night of goth/industrial DJ's, silent movies and tribal fusion bellydance, Not to be missed

May 29th - Gotham X11 -at the )2 academy, Islington. Bands include Specimen, Gene Loves Jezebel and I'll be DJing this as well as the aftershow party at Synthetic Culture (at the Egg Club) with Cavey Nik.

After this of course it's WGT where I'm Djing the most important gig I've even been booked for, When We Were Young, working alongside Yggdrasil (Graveyard Sessions, PT) and Kevin Bigo (Deaf Blind Dumb/Rip It Up, DE) on June 11th. This is the equivalent of playing Wembley for me, a highpoint that will seriously take some beating.

There's more to come after this, but for now this is what I'm concentrating on.

Hope to see some of you there!

New radio shows!

Yep, after a two month gap or so where the three stations broadcasting my shows have had to air repeats to to me having a dead PC I'm finally happy to announce that new show is in the can and will be aired from February 2nd.

I'll be going monthly from now on, or at least at first, as things have changed a lot while I've been off air and I've got a lot busier than I normally am so can't devote the time on a weekly basis. This may change but for now that's the plan at the moment.

I've also got myself a nice shiny new mic that I'm currently getting used to, so bear with me if I sound a bit odd! For the record I'm now using a Blue Snowball USB mic and can highly recommend them.

The Return of InsanitoriuM

When we first planned this night booking the week before Christmas seemed like a great idea, everyone is in party mood and you can't go wrong can you? Well, seems Mother Nature had other ideas and dumped six inches of snow across the south east in the space of about two hours. Bitch.

Still, we've never cancelled a night and weren't about to start now, especially with it also being Evil Stu's birthday. I have to start by thanking everyone that made the effort to get there, you restored my faith in the scene. A few special mentions though have to go to the following..

Devilish Presley:
Massive thanks to them for fighting the elements to give it 110% in front of a small crowd, mere thanks are not enough and if anyone was ever in any doubt about how hard this band work then last night should prove it.

The Last Cry:
They left home (near Brighton) around midday and had to fight to even get to where their gear was stored, having done that they drove for hours to get within 8 miles of the venue only to sit in traffic going nowhere for about two hours, before finally being told by the police to turn round and go home as no traffic was getting into Colchester. At this point I still don't know if they made it.

The couple from Pontefract:
Sorry, I didn't catch your names. but thank you so much for making the effort to get there, driving for hours before abandoning your car to walk the last few miles was crazy but a great example of the level of determination some people have in this scene. Next time we meet I owe you a drink. A big one.

The Twist:It was good to be back, a shame that it wasn't with a lot more people, but the new people are great, and they deserve more support and we'll run more events there next year. I really hope they manage to make it work as its a great venue... if it wasn't we wouldnt have waited 6 six years to get back in there again!'

So, the night... My journey of around a mile started with trying to get into my car as the doors had frozen shut, took about five minutes to get in through one door Forcing the others open from the inside. It then took 15 minutes to drive the 50 yards to my house, where I loaded the gear in. Then all I had to do was drive up the hill... The journey of about a quarter mile took half an hour, I got stuck twice, the first time pushed on my way by a couple of blokes from a car going in the opposite direction that stopped, and then the second time I had to get out and dig the ice from the road around the tyres to get enough traction to move. Got to the venue eventually after a little over an hour. From there on in everything went really well though, and to the 26 people that turned up, I salute you, so good to see that the InsanitoriuM Synchronised Drinking Team aren't put off by a bit of bad weather.

You'll find the playlist on my website. 

25 years..

Well, with Whitby out the way for another few months and having worked the two weekends following it DJing at the GMM Grand Charity Ball in Manchester and then last night at the March Violets aftershow party (for their first London show in 25 years!) I'm looking forward to this...

It will have been over two and half years since we last ran InsanitoriuM, and the three of us have not worked together since. It'll be good to get together to play all those tracks that made the club so popular, before we each went our seperate ways. Add to that two great bands that played for us in the past and it should be a really fun night.

After this I'll be DJing on New Years Eve at the Elixir Bar in Camden again and I have a really busy 2011 planned, all the info for that is listed on the 'Incoming' section of my website - http://www.martinoldgoth.co.uk - There are still a few dates waiting to be to confirmed so the list will grow once I get permission to announce them. I'm aiming to make my 25th year of DJing a good one..  I started in November 1985.

No rest for the wicked.

So? Whats going on?

Been a while since I've posted anything here so I figured it's about time I did. Over the past couple of months I've lined up a load of DJ work which is coming up soon, and all of it is pretty exciting.

Firstly on Halloween its Nostalgia, the twice yearly club night I run at the Whitby Goth Weekend, and a night I'm really proud of in so many ways, mainly as its a night I've always wanted to run, a 'proper' old style goth night brought up to date, and one that a lot of people didn't think would work, but has actually turned out to be highlight of the weekend for a lot of people. I have to really thank everyone that goes to it for making it what it is, since everyone understands the basic idea behind it, no industrial, no EBM, no metal, and no songs that are played to death in other goth clubs. A simple premise, but sadly one not picked up in very many places. Looking forward to working with Rachel again, this time joined by Cruel Britannia and Katy Kitten.

The weekend after this (Nov 6th) I'm in Manchester, for the GMM charity ball, (Gothic Meet up Manchester) spinning between Rhombus and Luxury Stranger live sets and perfomances from burlesque artists, alongside DJ Lucretious. This is the first time I'd have worked in Manchester and I'm really looking forward to it.

The following weekend (Nov 13th) sees me in London for the March Violets first show there for 25 years, where I'll be DJing the aftershow party at Slimelight, not my favourite club by a long way, but hopefully we can make it a bit darker for a few hours! Its a real honour for me to be chosen for this, having already done anniversary shows for Specimen and Alien Sex Fiend is great to be chosen by yet another of the 'big names'.

I get a bit of a break after this which will give me me time to promote a very special night, a one off return of InsanitoriuM. For ten years we were the biggest and longest running goth/alternative club in East Anglia but a succession of bad luck (thieving venue owners and equipment theft amongst it) meant we called it a day on the tenth anniversary, in April 2008. We'll be doing this back at the Ollie Twist on December 18th with live appearances from Devilish Presley and The Last Cry, to remind people of the fun we had, and the way clubbing used to be.

So, all in all, what's been going on, and more importantly what's going to be going on, is quite a lot. Hope to see some of you at one or more of these shows.

Anniversary musings

Today is the third anniversary of the death of Sophie Lancaster, the young goth girl that was brutally attacked and who died of her injuries later in hospital. Ever since that sad day I've done what I can to help raise funds and bring attention to the charity set up in her memory, The Sophie Lancaster Foundation. 

On this day of all days I'm feeling more than a little let down by the 'dark alternative' scene that rallied behind  this cause three years ago and helped me raise a huge sum of money for a memorial bench in Whitby, home of the bi-annual goth weekend. A while ago, well, May 22nd, World Goth Day to be precise, I launched am album to raise funds for the charity . It featured 15 tracks from some of the scenes biggest names, including some unreleased material and a couple of tracks that had been written for the campaign. It sold for a mere $12.00 (that's £8.00 for the Brits in the country where Sophie was kicked to death for being a goth, if you live in London that's not much more than the price of two pints).

So far it's sold a little over 150 copies worldwide. Now I know I shouldn't complain, as its all money for a  good cause, but I would have liked to have seen it sell a lot more if I'm honest. In the three months since it's  launch I've worked hard to spread the word and get people to buy it. Eight months of work went into it's release and a lot of artists went out of their way to help. By far the biggest audience to have been told about it was the 19,000 odd members of the World Goth Day facebook group, so you'd have thought there would have been a few sales there, but no. Lots of nice comments, but no actual cash. 

And this set me thinking...  

If this is what its like for bands these days then no wonder the scene is suffering, how is anyone supposed to make a living let alone recoup their losses? It's had some great reviews, and to be fair the magazines and DJs worldwide have got behind me on this project from day one, but the general CD buying public have largely ignored everyones efforts.

I had planned to start looking into doing a second volume, featuring newer bands for next year, and would  have started in a month or so now I know how long it takes, but I'm not sure whether to bother. There's a lot  of work involved and I'm sure there are better ways of raising money than trying to offer people a truly  amazing collection of songs for next to nothing, that they all think is a great idea, but won't spend the  money on. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not giving up with fundraising, I'll still be doing what I can for the charity, but I'll be thinking of something  else next time. I'll be spamming it heavily at this Octobers Whitby Gothic Weekend of course, I like to think that there may be some more sales after that, and if you're one of the people that haven't seen this album yet them head to http://www.stayindie.com/hope and check it out. Buy if it you have some spare cash, your money will be going to a great cause, or at the very least help me point it out to a few people.

Thanks