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Huw L. Hopkins

“The life and times of a music hack and a Master of journalism*”

April 8, 2012 New Getting re-jiggy with it

To raise the profile of this site before a relaunch coming soon I’ve decided to re-work it and add regular features that’s worth reading so you’re not just reading about my life. Makes sense I think since I’m a music journalist and if you’re visiting the site you’re probably interested in my musical opinion and not about my daily life (although if you are interested in this for some reason see the My Music Week section below).

Headliners

It’s been sad to hear about the death of Jim Marshall and Barney McKenna two important people in two very different worlds of music. Marshall, being the propagator of the amplifier of the same name, changed the sounds of rock music very specifically to what he felt it should sound like and McKenna is the reason Irish music has ever been in the mainstream. His work as the final remaining member of the original Dubliners will be recognised forever. Rest in Peace.

 

Peel Inspired

Check out The Four Owls. Found Much Too Much a few weeks back but glad to put them in my first week’s Peel Inspired section. The group are British rap with LA inspired beats. Their fad is wearing owl masks but don’t underestimate them because of this, each rapper has great delivery and original content. Keep your eyes wide open and heads turning in all directions to hear these guys.

The Archive

I went to see the Hunger Games this week and during the trailers I saw an advert for American Pie: Movie no. #86. It’s a reunion with the original cast and I immediately began feeling nostalgic so whipped out some Blink 182. Enema of the State was released before the group arguably peaked on Take off your pants and jacket and the eponymous album a few years later featuring ‘Feeling This’. Enema still had the rawness of a band finding their sound with recently added drummer Travis Barker and having fun in the meantime. It’s a great album.

 

My Music Week

After a couple of week’s work experience, of which you can read about at A Journalist’s Look at the Media, I’m back in to normal life with some new additions to my blog as you can see above.

A bit of news is that sometime soon you will be visiting a new site. www.huwlhopkins.com is going to be re-launched, no date as of yet but it will feature downloadable CV’s and a number of varied portfolios.

I kicked off my return to AltSounds with a new version of Musweek and my work experience of writing serious news nibs for a local newspaper has already started paying off I’ve noticed as each headline I wrote seemed tighter and less wishy-washy than usual. I’ll be sorting out a Perfect 4/4 pretty soon and reviewing music again this week.

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February 25, 2012 To live, you must see it live

For a few weeks I have been lucky enough to see a few acts live including The Floating Palace, consisting of KT Tunstall, John Paul Jones and many other roots artists from around the world, this was then posted on the Coventry Telegraph website. Tonight I have just got back from a great gig hosted at the Warwick Arts Centre featuring Fiona Cox, Stylusboy and Chris Tye, without doubt a review will be coming soon. Chris and Steve of Stylusboy were kind enough to give me a copy of their latest releases for free so I’ll try to review those in the next few days.

Since my last post I have been reporting on the news around the music globe, of which there has been a ridiculous amount over the past few weeks during this award ceremony season and with the death of Whitney Houston to add to it. I also tried out a new interview process over Twitter with Barricades Rise.

I interviewed a global music folk veteran in Lisa Fitzgibbon that I have produced two pieces of work from. The first is actually for my course and the second one is yet to be uploaded on to AltSounds but I will link that from the list on the right in the next few days, so check back shortly.

Another interview I did a while ago has just had the answers come through, but they’ve been edited, constructed and put together in a nice little feature for AltSounds. Read the Sassparilla Q’n'A here.

The book launch I attended a few weeks ago was rather a success and I reported it for Wannabe Hacks, who have been producing some great articles recently.

Review-wise I’ve managed about 4 reviews, although it feels like so many more. Two of them have been controversial and I seemed to have upset some of their fans but Thomas White and Joyce the Librarian weren’t so bad.

In other news my friend Lloyd Wheeler is creating a new layout to the blog so when that arrives we’ll have a bit of a re-launch and I can upload things like portfolios and post more regular updates. Until then, watch some more live shows, they’re fun.

February 7, 2012 What are you doing this week?

Two weeks. Almost two weeks since my last post. Unacceptable.

Getting back in to the swing of things in university has led to set backs in output and regular updating but, here I am, back, with a vengeance.

In the pipeline I currently have two stories for another university magazine I’m working on; one being about Vaclav Havel, the late, former Czech President and how the country is going to survive without him, as this is the first time it has ever had to do so. I am also looking to speak to to Moonshe, a global music group.

Tonight however I will be going to a book launch for The Phone Hacking Saga: Journalism on Trial at the London campus for Coventry University, which will be a debate in journalism ethics among other things.

For AltSounds I have had quite a bit go up since last posting.

Many of the reviews have been returns of big or at least interesting artists like Van Halen, De La Soul and Leonard Cohen.

On the flip side I have taken a look at some new artists and debut records like The Holiday Crowd, Luk Follin, Casiokids and Remember the Hurricanes.

As there have been two weeks since the last posting of this update I have had two Musweek’s go to press which I spoke about some losses in the music industry and MDNA’s comeback.

I have also had an interview with one of AltPR’s biggest acts Johan Reinhold who needs to be checked out and the second installment of Perfect 4/4 has been published as well.

On top of the previously mentioned up and coming events I will be attending a gig this weekend of The Floating Palace that features KT Tunstall and John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin.

January 18, 2012 Semester – out

The final assignment for my course this semester has been handed in so I finally get to lift my head out of the books for a few days and put the headphones on, start going to gigs again and do some real music journalism. Once the previous semester’s work has all been marked I will be packaging up a downloadable portfolio from this website that should include some radio package work as well. I have recently redone my CV and it looks great but I will hold off on uploading it just yet and do it altogether.

In the meantime you can take a look at some of the work I’ve done in the past 10 days here.

Due to a logjam in the system I have had two new episodes of a weekly feature go up within two days of each other. Not to worry, but you can find Musweek 1 and 2 both on AltSounds at the moment. It is intended to be a weekly news round-up of the major stories that circle the industry.

I have managed to squeeze in a few reviews, one being of an international flavour, Rodrigo Y Gabriela. I spoke to my lecturer who does a ‘World Music’ show at BBC Oxford and told him I’d reviewed the new album. Apparently he’s not a fan of Rodrigo as he doesn’t treat Gabriela very well, but he seemed to come off quite well in a previous interview he’d done with AltSounds.

My acoustic folky appetite was fulfilled last week as well with Dana Falconberry, who is as cool in her music as she is in name. I was pleasantly surprised by General Fiasco, who I have never had too much time for in the past but their new single ‘Don’t You Ever’ isn’t as bad as their usual stuff. Mr Fogg was less impressive.

Kevin Hearn mightily impressed me with his jazz techno fusion pop. A really different album to music he used to play with Barenaked Ladies, and a different album to something you normally hear.

The Private Eye editor looked like he had a lot of fun yesterday

Aside from music I managed to catch Ian Hislop on Democracy Live at the Leveson Inquiry, which was very entertaining. It was like a DVD extras section of Have I Got News For You, with absolute privelege. Brilliant. Especially when recommending that Lord Justice Leveson brings in previous and current Prime Ministers about lying in a made bed with the Murdoch clan.

Some terrible news about the luxury ferry that hit rocks. Fortunately the majority survived but I dread to think how scary that will have been for the passengers, you have to spare a thought for those who didn’t make it.

I took some time out to meet Jeremy Vine, or at least shake his hand and watch his radio show go out. I am in the process of bugging him to help me with next month’s Perfect 4/4, it doesn’t look to positive at the moment. I also had to re-post an interesting rant that my mother found, don’t worry it won’t be a regular occurrence, but this was interesting and funny.

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January 8, 2012 2012 here we come.

All the New Years Resolutions have been broken, all the top 10 things to watch out for in 2012 have been written, in comes the misery. The joy and laughter of the expensive and emotionally draining Christmas period is over, new years was a waste of money and now we have to go back to work with our only solace being that at least we don’t have to think about it again for another 300 days or so.

In the meantime I’ve been staying chipper by completing my own 2012 rubbish, which in fact was a collaborative discussion between three other music industry ‘experts‘. It turned out rather well, I worked with Jade Grant, Josh Andrews and the often wonderful but always fantastic Ffion Davies.

I also slipped a review in of Goddass who seem rather pleasant.

I have begun recruiting for an online newspaper that I plan on building throughout the year and have thrown in my name to the AltSounds Editor ring as they might need one down the line, we will see what happens with that in the near future.

I have one review to complete, and Stylusboy has asked me to write him a website biography so I am behind admittedly due to to university panicking and depressing me all at the same time. As this is the case I simply must get back to revising.

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January 4, 2012 All Quiet on the Western Front

Christmas was a crazy as it always is, always has been and always will be, probably for each and every one of us. While I struggled to get much work done, I certainly stayed on top of the news over the period. The major headlines taking place within hours of one another. Kim Jong-Il and Vaclav Havel both dead. Two important leaders in their countries (North Korea and Czech Republic) but for two very different reasons. Kim is the modern face of communism whereas Havel was the first democratic President in the post-communist, newly formed country of Central Europe.

I’ve been writing for AltSounds mainly as I have also been studying hard, and working on coursework, so what I have been able to get done is not too much, but has been fun writing.

The previous feature I made out of the Stylusboy interview went up a few weeks back but here is the entire transcription of the interview.

That second Advent Calender feature I put together got uploaded. This one was about this summer’s festival season. I managed to in touch with the organiser of a smaller festival – The Tenby Blues Festival – and also added a video that in fact features my Dad. Crazy world.

I have also put together two reviews, which I didn’t think to highly of. The music of Inego and Dead Social Club seems outdated and I can’t see it going anywhere. Anywho the write-ups are there, it is of course your own decision whether you like them or not.

2012 sees a new year. I’m putting together a feature about that, more to come this week. There will surely be plenty of features in the future about the Olympics and the Queen’s jubilee. For now though I have 4 hand-in dates in the next two weeks so I must flee.

Come back later in the week for more soon. Back on Regular Grewich Mean Time.

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December 19, 2011 Getting the good name of Huw L. Hopkins out there

In the run up to Christmas, life has taken up a full-time slot.

At the end of the week you feel like you’ve done nothing, yet you’ve been busy all week. Christmas presents need to be bought, university work has to be finalised, your day job seems to take a back seat.

I have been busy however. Writing, re-writing, editing and doing a bit of writing.

The Guardian online this week have been looking at the career of Kanye West. They have asked readers to write a review, so I gladly obliged, and made sure that I promote the site also, this seemed to lead to a spike in viewers, so those who are new to reading – welcome. The Guardian also tweeted writers to pitch an idea to one of their staff members about what they would write about if they had a music blog. I’m just waiting for the call to come through.

A Classic Education album review got uploaded and I can safely say I am the proud winner of a pair Ministry of Sound of headphones in the Intern competition. There is rumour that they might start doing it every month, a fantastic idea that I think will incense the unpaid contributors on AltSounds.

The Award Win - some headphones

Also on AltSounds, I did aim to start up a new feature called Dear Diary but the moderators have ended up calling both pieces something different. This has led to one being seen as a ‘rant’ about X Factor and the other being a review of the TV programme An Audience with Beyonce. I also put together a feature about the future of music with the artist Stylusboy. I converted our interview into a little article, but I will likely post the transcript of the interview up at a later date.

I have also done my first AltSounds advent calender, a second one will come later this week.

The chapter I submitted to ‘The Phone Hacking Scandal: Journalism at the Crossroads’ needed to be edited slightly as I’m sure my fellow journalists will have heard the crazy news regarding the Guardian erroneously reporting the Milly Dowler phone hacking, according to the Met police. This is crazy, as this revelation made the Murdoch’s shut down the News of the World. It will undoubtedly cause some problems for Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger.

 

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December 11, 2011 Work it a little bit

This past Friday I handed in my first major essay in university and I struggled to do anything but this all week. Once its been marked I will post it up for you guys to check it out.

The Roxanne de Bastion interview I spoke of last week has gone up and I will be writing up the Stylusboy interview in to a feature this week.

At the moment a big political issue in the Midlands is the HS2 proposal and this past week I found a band who are campaigning against it. They have written a song and I reviewed it here.

I also reviewed Lanu who formerly played with The Bamboos, he’s re-released a few tracks from his album and they’re not bad. This was part of an intern-competition Altsounds are running. Each intern had to review an EP and an album for the chance to win some headphones. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. As part of this the album I reviewed was A Classic Education which I didn’t think too highly of, but its in the moderation queue as I speak so will give you the link next week.

I’m going to be working a lot more on some journalistic pieces this week including a few radio pieces. This will hopefully all go toward putting together a portfolio which I’m hoping to have done after Christmas.

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December 3, 2011 A Published Writer

I mentioned last week that I may be writing a chapter for a book. I can reveal that I have submitted my chapter for The Phone Hacking Scandal; Journalism at the Crossroads and it is currently being edited by John Mair and Richard Keeble. Hopefully there will be no problems and the book will be released in February with the name Huw L. Hopkins as a contributor. Exciting stuff.

My week has been journalism heavy. On Wednesday I was covering the National Union strikes in Birmingham with my photographer Taksaya. We got some great results and  I’ve got some great clips for a radio package.

A protester; shocked, or angry, or simply just pulling a jib

Thursday was busy as I attended an invite-only breakfast with the one and only Jon Snow of Channel 4 News fame. Jon (that’s right we’re on first name terms now) is an incredibly funny gentleman who had a lot to say on phone hacking and the Euro crisis in his Coventry Conversation. Richard Peppiatt also spoke at the Coventry Conversation. Peppiatt recently gave evidence at the Leveson Inquiry and became infamous for quitting the Daily Star earlier this year due to the underhand journalism that took place there. He is now campaigning for better journalism practice and writing for the Guardian. Really interesting bloke.

I have posted reams of news for AltSounds but have only managed to post two reviews of the highly recommended Stylusboy and the up-and-coming rapper Anthem. I have completed two interviews though with someone I mentioned in my last post Roxanne de Bastion and with Stylusboy. They will both get posted this week.

That is all for now, but come back next week for more exciting writing!

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November 26, 2011 Back in the game

After my near meltdown last week and my laptop’s complete meltdown, some very kind people who work with my girlfriend all the files at a cost of a box of chocolates, and maybe a few beers.

I have everything, and due to this having, I have been able to write like crazy.

Reviewing music has filled up a bit of my time this week. A number of great artists have made the process quite enjoyable; like Rod Clemmons, Peter Kernel and Roxanne de Bastion in particular, other artists have tried to make the process not so enjoyable, but Hoodlums and Anthem can’t all be winners. I have also posted a bunch of news and might be lined up for a few artist interviews in the next few weeks.

I paid a visit to Sky News studios, which was by far one of the most high-tech, highly developed studios I’ve seen (it should be as it cost over £30 million to build).

The epicentre of Sky News

From the Coventry Conversations I met and interviewed Kevin Marsh. He is a former BBC Editor for Radio 4′s Today programme. He was brilliant and I’ve contacted Hold the Front Page for this story to be published there. I’ll let you know next week if they decided to go ahead with it.

I have been asked by John Mair to write an article in his forthcoming books, whether he’ll use either of them is yet to be seen but this could be a good opportunity to get my name out there and published a little bit. I’ll keep you posted on this as well.

That’s all for now, I do have a course to run and lots of hand-in dates to adhere to so must get studying.

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