Oliver Carter takes questions from the floor

One of the things that happens when you go more fully into research mode is that you end up going to a lot of research meetings and research presentations.

And one of the upsides of the area of Media and Cultural Research is that you tend to get presentations about interesting and diverse things. Today I learned about fan-created DVDs of Italian cult crime cinema – and about the historical context and conventions of gay porn.

Any questions?

I’m now officially allowed to be your PhD supervisor.

I did a three-day training course run by the university on Friday last week, Tuesday and Wednesday this week – and having come out the other side of that, we’re all systems go.

What’s your theoretical framework?

My first two doctoral students turn up in September, and it looks like the vast majority of my teaching from here on out is going to be post-graduate stuff. After a decade of teaching mostly undergrads, this is going to be an interesting change – though, that said, I have taught Masters programmes in the past… and there are certain topics I will still inevitably be called upon to lecture in for the BA students.

To answer the obvious next question – no, I don’t have a PhD myself. And while it might seem absurd that someone without a doctoral degree might supervise a doctoral programme, it’s just how it works. To be fair, I was teaching a Bachelor’s degree before I had one of those myself.

But I’m seriously considering applying for what’s known as a PhD by publication. Essentially, they weigh up all the stuff you’ve published on a single topic, look at the weight and impact of that in its context, and then make a call as to whether that’s equivalent in a meaningful way to a PhD by dissertation.

Not sure what does and doesn’t qualify in terms of my own output, but the fact that I’ve pretty much stuck to a single topic over the past 5 years certainly works in my favour.

The internal exam board was earlier today (I didn’t go, but it happened all the same), so with the exception of the external exam board and the inevitable resubmissions, that’s the academic year all tucked away and wound up.

I’m kind of exhausted, so I’m pretending Friday is part of the weekend, and sitting in the back garden with a cold drink for most of the day. I’ll have the laptop with me, of course.

As it happens, I have a lot of writing to do.

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Link: PhD at BCU

I’ve had a bit of a cold over the weekend, and so of course everyone is claiming that I have swine flu. It’s possible, I guess – but it’s far more likely to be man flu.

Swine flu, of course, has already claimed as many victims as Bird flu, the Millennium Bug and the Titanic film combined – all equally and preposterously overhyped pandemics.

But I can’t talk at all today – my throat is sore, so I’m taking it easy. Missing the scheduled conference at that ‘other’ Birmingham University; staying at home and writing things instead.

Book appointments
I have a fair bit to carry on with. Most important (or, rather, most urgent) is the undergraduate textbook ‘Understanding the Music Industries’ that I’m co-writing with some friends of mine at Southampton Solent University.

It’s designed to be a general introduction to studying the music industries, and while I have my bit all mapped out, it’s taking rather longer than anticipated to come up with the actual words.

The deadline for my opening chapter went whizzing past on Friday, so with an allowance for a long weekend, today is probably the day I should get that in. However, the deadline date itself was completely arbitrary and was only offered when I actually requested one. Last minute panic always gets me working at my best, and even artificially created milestones help.

But if you’ve ever been involved with an academic textbook before – or indeed, any kind of book project – you’ll know that deadlines are a fluid concept at best. The most recent one I had anything to do with was a model of efficiency, and that went on for about a year or so longer than anticipated.

It’s called Media Studies: Texts, Production and Context, and should be coming out this month. I just did a few bits and pieces, mostly on the online stuff, and anywhere I could shoehorn McLuhan into the conversation.

The real work was done by Paul Long and Tim Wall, and the Interactive Cultures team who stitched it all together.

So, today is all about the writing. I tend to do 45 minutes on, and 15 minutes off – working with a timer. Seems the best way to get things done. That said, it’s taken me till lunchtime to get going.

Meanwhile, I’m sipping lemon drinks and eating plenty of apple sauce.

I’ve spent the past couple of days showing Saskia and Piet from Veronica Holdings around Birmingham, and introducing them to some of the more interesting music industry people around town.

We’re going to be doing a project together, which involves music, students, mixing, DJs, gadgets and a trans-European party. My job, while they were here, was to make sure they saw some of the nicer bits of Birmingham, make sure we got all of the work done that we needed to do, and try and make them feel as welcome as we do when we come to Amsterdam.

Some of my friends were skeptical: “Once you’ve shown them everything that’s great about Birmingham, what are you going to do in the afternoon?” – but actually – we did okay.

Highlights:

The public space at the BBC in the Mailbox is pretty cool. I didn’t realise that if you walked around to the side of the drama studio in the upstairs bit, there’s a ‘Be On TV’ activity, where you can read the news or the weather, they’ll film it and you can email the video to your friends online. That’s more fun than it probably sounds.

The Heralded As The New Black installation by Ryan Gander at the Ikon Gallery is really pretty cool. That’s worth a look – and you should engage the people standing around wearing white in conversation. They’re phenomenally interesting about the whole thing.

Naturally we had to do the Bull… and check out the local architecture…

We did the Custard Factory and the Jewellery Quarter, Brindley Place and the canals… and a night out at the Hare and Hounds featuring the jazz/funk/soul DJ stylings of ‘Dubber vs. The Professor‘ was an added bonus.

The Professor on the decks – and the laptop

But the real highlight, of course, was the array of great people that they got to meet along the way – Bobbie, of course — as well as record producer Ian Wallman, DJ Cro, Oli from Jibbering, Oliver Carter, Robin from Friendly Fire, Stef Lewandowski, Mark from Iron Man Records, Jez Collins, Sam Coley, Dave Harte, a couple of students from BCU, and several others that we encountered along the way.

We got a whole lot of work done, made some unexpected connections and serendipitous connections, and they were pretty much dazzled by a bewildering array of smart, talented — and above all, friendly people from Birmingham.

It actually made me really proud to live here. Go us.

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Lowlights:
Actually – just one.

Man, the staff on reception at the Burlington were surly. Everything’s a hassle for them, and they speak in pre-programmed scripts that they don’t deviate from even if they’ve already had the answers to their next questions provided for them.

They’d sell you a £6(!) one-hour internet token but couldn’t get the wireless network to go… and they were generally not having any fun and didn’t see why anybody else should have a good time.

The lobby (and apparently the rooms) were about five degrees warmer than was actually comfortable, and poor Piet was treated to the sound of a party till 3am – which is obviously not actually the hotel’s doing – but you’d think that some sound insulation might be appropriate.

Avoid.

It’s not so much a question of ‘what should I write about?’ as it is ‘where should I start?’. It’s been a week of change and activity this week. Some stuff I’m not even allowed to talk about yet, so you can imagine how significant those changes could be. What I can tell you is that a group of us, led by Professor Tim Wall in the Media Department, have heard official word that we’ve been successful in our bid for an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Knowledge Transfer Fellowship.

The project is the single biggest one that the AHRC has awarded (close to half a million pounds), it is the largest research grant of any kind in the faculty, and it makes Tim the only person in the country with two simultaneous AHRC funded projects – the other being a research project with the BBC about radio audiences online. I’m involved in both.

For us in the world of academia, this is considered Very Big News.

The Fellowship project will buy out half of my time for two years, starting with in February, to work with local music businesses and organisations, look at what they do, and help them develop new and innovative ideas that will help them make more money.

The idea is that it’s a knowledge exchange. They get new ideas from people like me who have nothing better to do than sit around and read, think about new technological developments and figure out what it all means. In return, we get first hand experience of what is commonly thought of as ‘the real world’ so we can get a feel for how these ideas might work in actual practice, rather than just in the realms of theory.

Not sure how it’s all going to shake out, but between the handful of us, we’re going to be working with about 20 different organisations, from community radio stations to punk labels, promotions companies to online music retailers.

In other news:
Teaching started this week – a whole new intake of fresh-faced students. I’m teaching Radio Documentaries (2nd year practical), Music Online (2nd year practical), Music Industries Skills (1st year practical) and The Music Business (2nd year theory). I’m also supervising a handful of third year dissertation students. So far so good…

I went to a place called Great Malvern this week, to give a talk about online music marketing for the Musicians Union. I wish I’d taken my camera. It was a really gorgeous town.

My record label is taking its first few wobbly steps towards being an actual real thing. I’m “in talks” with a number of artists. That number, currently, is 3. I’m not even sure that ‘label’ is the right word for it, but I can’t really think of a better way to talk about what I’ll be doing. Essentially, it’s about applying the kinds of things I talk about on New Music Strategies to a number of artists that I’m really enthusiastic about.

And I’m not even going to be signing artists, as much as I’ll be licensing releases. But record label is an easy way to think about it. It’s all baby steps at this point. Chances are you won’t see any real proof of activity till next year.

I had a really good evening with my friend Clutch from the band (x) is greater than (y) the other night. He’s a fellow whisky enthusiast, and we discovered recently that a local pub I seldom go into, The Prince of Wales (or, since the W fell off, ‘The Prince of Ales’), has a very good selection of single malts… some we hadn’t encountered before.

There’s a Glenfiddich 12 year-old ‘Toasted Oak’ which was quite drinkable, and made a really nice change. Neither of us had even heard of it, and so we made it our business to become acquainted. We finished with a Lagavulin 16, which is pretty much my desert island whisky.

Jake’s away in Germany this week, so Bobbie and I have had the place to ourselves. It’s been nice, but I think I’m ready for him to come home now. It’s his job to do the dishes.