I did a loserish thing…

…I googled myself!

I’m always googling artists so when I googled the person I’m interviewing today my gigbeth blog came up! So I googled myself and this site is on the bottom of the first page…If you look at the second there’s also Gigbeth and CIB. I feel recognised! ok…so it’s not anyone writing about me, but it means people can find my work…and my facebook!

ugh still feel ill….

Frank.

Hot and Cold

I have felt absolutely rotten for the past couple of days.

Tomorrow I have an important interview so I hope I’ll feel a bit more on form! My house has no hot water or heating at the moment so when I am cold I am really cold. I’ve shaken so hard today my leg went pop! (Ouch!) Right now I’m all hot and all over the place but hopefully it will calm soon.

Burnfm.com has been going well so far. I’m going to have a meeting with my mainstream team now they’ve experienced being on air and have a feel for radio. This will hopefully lead to correlation within shows, with linking features, competitions etc.. I want to get it settled into routine before my essays/practical exams kick in so I can focus on work and not worry!

I really want to make a video for Gigbeth’s Sugarhill Gang Competiton but right now don’t feel so great, perhaps I’ll hip hop out in my pj’s!

Nature Boy, Open Mics, Burning hot and Laura Marling

I wrote a song with my friend Fuzz on sunday. I was teaching her to play Ukulele and as she learnt four chords I wrote a song using them and a story about a boy she exploited for the sake of art! Well not exploited exactly…but the picture she used him for got her artwork displayed in the Ikon gallery so clearly it was a love story worth singing about! I’ve done a simple keyboard version as you can see on the second video below. When I’m concentrating on playing my instruments my accent descends into Kate Nash territory however, apologies in advance.

I played this song at an open mic night yesterday with my boyfriend Chris. We also played Disappointed in Me and I performed ‘You Don’t Like Love’ on the guitar (it was originally on the uke) and we finished with Chris’ song Optimist which I sang backing vocals on. This is him playing the song in his room. When I first met him at an open mic I performed before him and as I sat on the stool I said “Well you’re all a bit optimistic aren’t you?” which made him decide to play it in his set, saying “Someone mentioned the name of this song earlier so I thought I’d play it!
I was hooked, so here it is… (at the top of the blog.)

Burnfm.com is now up and running! We’re in the first week of broadcast so not pushing too much marketing wise at the moment but listeners would of course be welcomed with open arms! I’m currently on air from 10-12 on monday mornings and during the same time slot on wednesdays. We’ve found a tech supremo who is going to develop our website, hoorah! Tonight I’ve got a meeting for Rhubarb. It’s important that I sort out my position within the community radio station as Burnfm+Uni is quite time consuming!

Finally I sorted out questions for my Culture Deluxe interview with Laura Marling. Unfortunately it’s an email interview which, despite saving on long transcribing, is hard to get right as I can’t pursue a subject or develop an answer. However, it’s been my dream to interview Laura for a while now so I’m still rather happy!

Frank.

BBC Webisode

check out the latest episode with clips from the set here.

An impromptue performance

I love having Chris stay with me as it means I can make him play my songs…plus he sounds better at guitar and it means I sound better at singing! You can see more of my music type stuff on my youtube.

On the set of IZM

So we managed to shoot a segment for IZM this saturday which was fun but exhausting! Having to get up at 6am and being on set before 8am was tiring, especially as we were filming for over 12 hours! I managed to get home for midnight though! Check out the bbc web mini series here.

Frank.

YAY

i have been cast as Abbey in internet zombie movie for definite. Whoohoo!

I have a busy day today. 2 and a half hours of practical followed by interviews with Clare Edwards of Gigbeth and Lyle Bignon of the Birmingham Town Hall. Luckily my boyfriend is coming down to chauffeur me round!

Frank.

Radio rankings

So burnfm did not recieve any nominations for this year’s SRA awards.

Looking at the list the front runners seem to be URN (nottingham) and Smoke (westminister?)

Part of the reason for this is money.

Last year we had to go off air after three weeks because we hadn’t the money for air conditioning.

I think one of the reasons our studio is small and ill equipped in comparison to other stations is due to our lack of radio course at the uni. Smoke fm is run by students who study radio and Nottingham is probably the same. Leeds has it’s own paid sabbatical station manager.

Of course part of it is down to dedication and, speaking for myself here, I am SO dedicated to Burnfm.com. I’ve spent the summer working at myspace radio, bbc radio and 4talent to get experience to help further this year. I really want to get Burn off the ground and up there with the best.

The thing is, the SRA should consider the size of stations. On it’s list of members it says the members for each station (which are wrong for Burn) and the transmission data. If they are so concerned with these details then they should be considered when selecting nominees. A station with say, 500 members has a larger talent pool/time for broadcast than one with less than a hundred. Each of those members will pay subscription fees which pump money into the station. Students are more likely to pay if the station already looks good/has benefitted from members’/student union money.

Some uni’s also are more willing to accomodate their stations. At the moment I’m not sure where Burn stands so my current plan is to try and improve relations with the uni and see where it goes…

Photos and Abbey…

I’ve decided to change my profile pic to something more fun. As you can see i’ve had a bit of dutch courage and a whale of a time! Wanted something Birmingham/current rather than Kent/old.

For the time being I’ve had to change my blogger name to Abbey. This is because I’ve set up a viral blog, ‘Abbey on Art’ to coincide with the filming/promo for Internet Zombie Movie. Hat Trick Television, who are making mini webisodes have asked for permission to show my blog in their webisodes and/or possibly in the half hour long documentary that is going to be made for BBC Three. (Oh my goodness!) It looks like I’ll be playing Abbey in the film which will be incredible. I’ll be filming from the weekend of the 18th and the following weekend. (Which leaves minimum time for editors…gulp.)

In radio land my poor station manager is ill so I helped lead today’s committee meeting. We’re looking at promotion, training and schedules. The schedule will hopefully be finished by sunday. I’m worried about Rhubarb as I don’t think that realistically, I have time to commit to it. I’ll try and settle in and see what happens but I know I need to focus first and foremost on Burnfm.com (and my degree which I’m beginning to enjoy again.)

Frank.

Currently I am in love with…

Aqueous Cream BP – if you’ve ever seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding, it is the Windex of my world at the moment. Also a mighty fine bargain!

Chris Walker – Actually forces me to sing. And is taking me to see Forced Entertainment at the Warwick Arts Centre with their new show Spectacular. And bought me a locket.

Subkicks – Just confirmed for Gigbeth. Addicted within one listen. They sound hot.

Culture Deluxe – Site I now review for. Just got Los Campesinos’ new album to review and am off to review Ladyhawke, Electrilickers, Deluka and Deaf Oh Eff tonight at 444 Club from 8pm at the Rainbow, Digbeth.

444 Club – Just awesome.

Fuzz – As I am nicking her computer right now.

Frank.