The Return of The Son of Shameless Self Promotion: Happy 200th Newsletter

Friday is music day. Check out Shopping Karts! And a bonus playlist. Happy 200th Newsletter To Me!

By my count, this is the 200th newsletter I’ve sent out as Sounds Good!

Before I started my Substack adventure I had major runs on the board as a blogger. I did nearly a decade at Stuff.co.nz pumping out a new music-related topic every day, until they decided that blogs were dead and that they didn’t like what I did; didn’t need it.

Intriguingly, and apparently only ever coincidentally, this happened, this email “firing”, the day I wrote about The Time Robbie Williams Tweeted A Picture of My Son (for the Spinoff).

For the last six years I’ve been furiously banging out words about music for my own site. Off The Tracks. A venture I started in late 2012 – geez, nearly 10 years ago. And before all of that, and before the Stuff blog (which started in late 2007!) I was contributing to newspapers, magazines and various sites at a blistering pace. So, in fact, I had been hoofing out music-related content for nearly 20 years.

I describe myself now as a 75% retired music writer.

On my Off The Tracks site I’m more likely to write about old music that I’m newly loving, rather than any new release. If I do review something it’s usually ambient, a movie soundtrack, or some modern classical or jazz – sometimes it’s a new shiny pop or rock thing that has been covered elsewhere as well. But that’s now the rarity. And I’m way more likely to share a film review or a poem or story, or to rewrite and reshape an old blog for that site. Just to keep my hand in. I’m also less likely to hit something out of the keyboard every single day.

So I look forward to my days on the Substack – my days here (three times a week) where I share the load between TV and movies (Monday), books and writing (Wednesday) and something to do with music (Friday).

I’m learning to love music again – which might sound funny, since I’ve clearly had this deep love of it that has driven me to producing content across two decades in direct response to it, inspired by it, informed by it, reacting to it, admitting to disappointment or heartbreak because of clichés – and of course not without sharing plenty of my own clichés in that writing-up process. That’s, erm, par for the course…the way the cookie crumbles…

Some things will never change. That’s just the way it is.

So, first up, today, I want to say a huge thank you to anyone that’s reading – you have therefore been here for some of this journey. Across 200 newsletters.

I love getting up early or staying up late and pondering a topic or idea, putting together a playlist (on Fridays) and sending this out – whatever it ends up being…

I love changing between the daily topics and themes, genres if you like. In some ways it was easier when I had music as the central topic five days a week. In some ways I never knew – then nor now – how I kept that up for quite so long.

Music is always there for me. And I listen to it now perhaps more than I ever have (usually I have earbuds in listening to something to send me to sleep). But I feel the need to comment on it far less than used to be the case. The internet is a noisy place, a nosy place, and some days I’m just trying to get my rest. And being another voice clogging up the information super highway won’t always produce your proudest moments.

But I’m still listening. Still discovering. And I’m learning to love going to gigs again – these days as not only a paying punter (usually) but as someone that just leaves the gig there, takes home nothing but memories. I will sometimes review shows, because old habits die hard and very slowly, but I also just walk out of things like last night’s Chelsea Wolfe gig happy to have seen something that I really loved. That was the case earlier in the week too, seeing Lucy Dacus. This weekend we head to Featherston for the Booktown festival. Only to participate as an audience member this year, no readings or shows for me. And so no need to give it a ‘plug’.

This is its own form of relief.

I’m good at just owning the content I make or the shows I’m involved with and seeing a part of it as being to mention it and hope it moves people to participate. But I’m a lot happier when I don’t need to do that.

A big part of this revelation of course was removing myself from Facebook I guess (and that was a big part of the motivation to do that). People still write and mention that they miss the music page, the community, the clips and things I shared. And it’s nice that people care. And I might miss them. But I do not miss the medium. You fill your boots with Facebook still if you want to. But my life is better for not slipping that in my shoe. I walk so freely now.

But one thing I wanted to share with you today:

A brand new album by someone that I think is a very special talent indeed. Well, I have to. He’s my son!

Yes. Darling Oscar, 10 years old, has made his first album. He did so with the help of my good friend Sam. Best Man at our wedding, one of my oldest pals, principal songwriter and lead singer for the band I’m in, Dirty Spoons. And now also one of Oscar’s besties. As Katy puts it, “you two have a shared best friend, it’s sweet!”

Oscar and Sam are the duo, Shopping Karts. And they have made their comedy rap/rock album, ‘Til The Wheels Fall Off and ‘released’ it on YouTube.

Oscar’s songs feature him singing and rapping. He also recites some of the lyrics Sam wrote. They collaborated on a few ideas, but for the most part Oscar has created his songs. And Sam has created a few that slot in there as supporting pillars.

We are proud as punch of Oscar. Following his passion. Working things out for himself – he wrote, recorded, and arranged his tracks from home, on an iPad, he cut it all together and uploaded to YouTube. That world is at the fingertips of a ten-year-old in a way it never could have been before.

When I was ten, I was thrilled to go to a movie without my parents. That felt like the boat had been pushed all the way out!

So please enjoy Shopping Karts. Like and subscribe. As the kids say today.

They are already hard at work on their next album. And Oscar has made a video for the first single. It features – and is about – another star in our little world, Bowie The Dog.

So, from me to you, thank you for supporting Sounds Good! in whatever way you have and for however long across the 18-month journey to 200 posts. I can’t promise 200 more. But I can think about how that time could just as easily roll around since there’s forever something to write about and always so much to try to love.

Happy weekend to you all. And your regular playlist (vol. 68) is of course right here.