Why I'm doing this

Very late in February this year I bought a camera, which was ostensibly for a college project. Except I thought I'd try filming gigs, too - and I got hooked. I worked with bands for a lot of years in the past, so maybe I'm not very good at just watching - I did try, but still had the urge to automatically scribble down setlists, and if I've been at a great gig, or a gig that's had great moments, I want to relive it. Filming is the best way of doing this, and even though I'm doing it from the crowd, and sometimes things get a little manic and it's impossible to keep my camera straight, I just keep at it. At the point at which I'm writing this, I'm now a veteran of a little over three weeks, so don't expect too many miracles.

Things that really annoy me: people using sensitive acoustic moments as a fabulous opportunity to have loud conversations about absolute tedious rubbish, and thinking that whatever they are waffling on about is far more fascinating and valid than the music that everybody else has paid to see. Unfortunately if I'm holding a camera I can't turn round and make scary faces at them very easily, which is a shame as I'm actually quite good at that.

I like a lot of different sorts of music - oh, everyone says that I guess, but here's a random selection of bands and musicians that have heavily soundtracked my life at various times: Rancid, Miles Davis, Social Distortion, Crisis, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Doors, Operation Ivy, Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holliday, Stampin' Ground, Sick of it All, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, Babyshambles, Television, The Clash, The Damned, The Wildhearts, Augustus Pablo, Bob Marley, Dr Alimantado, Dillinger, Agnostic Front, Rattlesnake Annie, AFI - and I've left hundreds out here. See?