mostly on a music tip

all change...

This year continues to be a year of what feels like big changes, though I'm sure in years to come will just look like tiny bumps. Last week I stopped working with Marissa Nadler, who I've managed since the summer of 2005. It felt strange, leaving as the promo work on her new album just began, but that was probably one of the reasons it was time to go. Despite shedding work this year I still have too many other things on which absorb me and which I love doing. You can't do everything can you.

In the past month Carl Morris, with whom I've run My Kung Fu since its inception in 2004, stepped away from the label. Since the break up of our office back in May he's been rethinking his work plans, and it took him some time to come to the conclusion that music wasn't the road he wanted to go down. I tihnk, for us both, the break up of our old work threw everything in the air, and weird though that was, it has proved a wonderful opportunity to reconsider absolutely everything. I have felt like people must do when they've taken a year-long sabbatical travelling - that anything is possible; that nothing is fixed. It's invigorating. Workwise, right now, I'm having the time of my life.

Little Boots (and her tenori-on )

I was up at In The City last week, a music industry conference/live music event which takes place in Manchester. ITC doesn't have the punch it used to have - not that I've even been going there that long - and I find that disappointing because the quality of the speakers at the panels was impressive. Andrew Loog Oldham hosted some of the key note speeches. Seymour Stein, Geoff Travis and Alan McGee all spoke. And Jarvis Cocker's lecture on lyrics was as fun as it was informative, topped by a few surprise acoustic solo performances from him to make it even more special.

At some point ITC became THE place to see unsigned bands, usually accompanied by an A&R scrum. Even a few years ago I remember A&R running after The Fratellis, Longcut, The Automatic, The Wombats and Captain. This year it felt like that wasn't happening - which is quite possible now that myspace has made the a&r job far far easier and made ITC's Unsigned programme pretty irrelevant. I think a change of tack on their live programming, and more shouting about how good their day panels are, would do them and the UK music industry good.

Of the live acts playing around ITC my highlight was Little Boots. I felt like i was watching Kylie play in a pub. Little Boots (known to family folks as Victoria), used to sing in Dead Disco but has recently gone solo. She's brilliant. A pop queen with an indie edge and a rawness that will tick the boxes of a really wide audience and will switch lots of people on to just how good pop music can be.

Even better, she plays a Tenori-On, a fabulous gadget which is becoming more affordable and which will become a must-have for some bands over the coming year. It's funky as fuck, and does the job with delivering beats too - check Victoria programming hers then singing along to Ready For The Floor on her myspace page, then tell me you don't want one...  http://www.myspace.com/littlebootsmusic