We were in Croatia last week, celebrating my mother-in-law’s 80th birthday. Eight Zero. That’s her on the right. Her partner Milan is on the left. The photo was taken at the party, and not – as it might appear – several decades ago. Happy birthday, Olga!
Jake and a couple of his friends, Dan and Jack are working on recording an EP in “the studio” (my office). Today they set up a Ustream video of part of the recording process, and while I was disappointed to have missed it live, I was glad that it had been recorded.
Jack’s the one singing. You see Dan a little bit in the corner of the screen sometimes. Jake doesn’t appear on camera. He’s the one pushing the buttons, but you get to hear him talk so that’s something.
This sounds like a real departure from Jake’s usual stuff, and from the things that Dan and Jake do together as well. Much more song-orientated. That’s Jack’s thing.
Every recording studio needs the acoustic properties of an ironing board in the room, don’t you think?
You don’t have to spy on your kids anymore. They do it for you.
For the past week or so, I’ve been enjoying having Jake back home after his five months living in Mumbai. We’ve been hanging out together, watching some movies, listening to music, making websites and just catching up and telling stories.
He had an amazing time – running a stage at a music festival, writing for an online independent music magazine, interviewing his music heroes, going to gigs and generally being a music industry worker. Lots of challenges and lots of new experiences. India will tend to do that for you.
A month from now, he’ll be on his way to Brazil for three months. More music festivals, a film festival, working in a recording studio, touring bands and learning lots more about the music business from the grassroots.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been encouraging Jake to update his website. He’s been so busy in India that he hasn’t really had time to blog, but he has his own domain (jakedubber.com) and web space, so we had a chat about what would be a useful thing to put there.
What he’s ended up with is ideal (have a look) – but in particular, I think it’s a really good model for my students to consider following. It’s more informal than a CV, but acts as a really good calling card and easily-updated professional link to send people.
A photo, a short bio, some links to where you can be found online (for Jake that’s Twitter, Soundcloud, Bandcamp and Flickr – rather than Facebook, Tumblr, YouTube and so on – but you should amend as appropriate) and some direct links to some work that you’ve done. Simple.
His one uses a template called Coming Soon by Templatic – a simple, one-page, easy to edit basis for this kind of thing, but there are others you can consider.
It just struck me as something that a lot of my students should be thinking about if they’re planning to shop themselves around for internships, job placements and so on.
I thought I’d try out the brand new Soundcloud HTML-5 widget on one of Jake’s new tunes. Soundcloud is a tool that’s been invaluable to him as an independent electronic musician just starting out, and he’s had to upgrade a couple of levels (from Free to Lite to Solo) to accommodate his fairly prolific output.
I really like what they’ve done with the new player, and how the artwork displays. Listen loud.
Jake has just released the fourth of his series of albums from 2011. That’s it there. Have a listen.
It’s a bit of a landmark, because it marks the end of a major project for him. The idea was that he would just collect together everything that he’d finished at the end of every three-month period, compile it in a pleasing order, and put it up for free download (or pay, if you prefer) on Bandcamp.
His intention was simply to get better at making electronic music. He calls it ‘growing up in public’. It works.
I'm the Director of MTF Labs, a Senior Researcher at the Industry Commons Foundation, advisor to ArtEO and founder of New Music Strategies.
I'm an author of books about technology, culture, music and radio. I'm also an award-winning broadcaster and filmmaker, a public speaker and lecturer, record producer and festival director. I am closely following developments in emerging technologies and the cultures and ethics surrounding them, and my projects typically focus on issues of justice, inclusion, and sustainability.
Most of my work involves surrounding myself with incredibly smart and talented people who would have no other reason to ever be in the same room as each other. That's when amazing things happen.
I tend to talk a lot about music (often jazz-adjacent and particularly on vinyl, but also playlists and mixtapes). I'm enthusiastic about food and cooking, the intersection of art and science, new technologies, vintage technologies, education, social progress, silence, innovation, narrative, data commons, culture, sound art and the spoken word. This blog will continue to reflect those diverse and shifting enthusiasms. I may also digress.
I'm from Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland in Aotearoa New Zealand, I have Scottish ancestry, I've spent a decade in the south of Birmingham UK, and another in a forest in the north of Sweden.
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