It’s a pretty sad fact of life that I’m slowly becoming consumed by my 9-5 job. I get SMSs after hours until 6.30 pm. I wake up and think of things carers need to know before 8 am, so I send them messages. People harrass me after hours. And me, I’m only a temp.

Sucks to see everything else slipping away… books, collaborative project, podcasts, publicity, even my dancing this week! I’ve missed two classes and don’t know wtf I’m doing.

But that’s ok. I’ve noticed it, so I can stop the landslide. Hopefully it means I’ll be able to be more active here… with, and on behalf of my bands. Fingers crossed.

Past posts you might dig:

1. Welcome to 2011. Time for a recap!

Yes it’s true. Working full time and trying to freelance doesn’t work.

I’ve been freaking out a bit lately because my tenuous balancing act – of keeping freelancing projects going, of working full-time, of maintaining a happy and lovely personal life – has totally fallen over. The reason? It’s impossible (for me) to freelance as an editor when I work full time.

And it’s not even that it’s difficult. I get up early, I work until five, I get home at 5.30-ish (which is pretty good). Once you cook (or shop and cook), and eat, it’s after 7. And let’s face it, you’re exhausted by 3 pm anyway. I’m in bed before 10 pm these days. And those precious three hours I have spare are dedicated to relaxing my brain and body, hanging out with my gorgeous fiancee, and doing housework. Then, if you get sick like I have this year (a week and a half totally fucked, most recently, which has left me with no leave at all, so there are no holidays on the cards until next year), it’s even less possible.

Tell me, where do I fit in freelance work? On the weekends? The two precious days I have to myself, to actually have a life with aforementioned fiancee, go to open house inspections, catch up with friends, catch up on reading, movies, music? The two days I have to recuperate from the absolute exhaustion of the week? Not likely.

The other freelancing I do – PR work for Another Hell, writing for this here blog, writing reviews etc – that’s enjoyable. They are activities I do because they’re hobbies, not because I get paid and have other people screaming at me when I don’t do things on time. Even though the PR work will likely get to that point; here’s hoping, anyway. But I don’t have time for my other hobbies: sewing, crafting, writing screenplays and stories, playing music. That’s just all kind of dead in the water.

The thing I am facing now is a rush job on edits, which I have to do by next weekend (bye bye weeknights and most of next weekend). I’ll have to do them for absolutely no return because they’ve taken me so long. Then I have to tell this client, whose project is so nearly finished, that this is it, this is the last thing I am doing for her at this intensity. I have to explain to her that it’s not working, that I’m not going to have the time. I might have to ask her does she want a recommendation on another editor. And that will most likely make her cry. This project has been in the making for nearly two years; the end of it is pretty close. And I’m just… done.

Also, there’s another major project on the horizon. A doctoral thesis edit. I also have a book to read and provide feedback on, for someone else.

Sigh. It never ends. I want my life back, please. It’s been over five years since I had a normal life. Perhaps I should beg to go back to four days per week at work… but that won’t happen in a pink fit. And I need the money.

Fingers crossed I can get my mojo back over the next two months. If I can’t do it, I might just explode.

Past posts you might dig:

1. This dancing life

Now at this location.

If you can’t be arsed going to have a look, here’s a screenshot:

The ever-brilliant Starfishie, Kay Smoljak and her lovely designer helped me with what it looks like and how it functions. I’m so grateful. And so excited. Thanks guys, you rule.

Now just to make it a success!

Past posts you might dig:

1. New business in the offing
2. Being in business for yourself is scary
3. Small business, late nights, big goals, and passion

Yeah it’s been a while since I did any really solid, income-generating work for myself. Since “the divorce” I’ve been busy working on a business restructure and thinking of new things… and I’m almost ready to launch it. With a new website and a new design – not to mention a new focus – I’m hoping that Self Employment Take Two will be more successful.

Whereas before I was the prime mover in a business that tried to be all things to all people (How To Fail in Business Rule #1), with projects that cost more than they earned (How To Fail in Business Rule #2), this new incarnation will take just one part of that business and focus on that aspect pretty much entirely. What is it? Doesn’t sound glamorous, but I must admit I love it: copywriting (with some editing thrown in).

I got really down on myself for not being able to make a success of Self Employment Take One. As with anything like that, it seems only logical to take it personally. With everything else going on in my life, it seemed that running a business as well was just too much, at the wrong time. I nearly ditched everything: all the clients, all the publications. I nearly sold the business, come to that – not that I would’ve got much for it. Thanks to solid advice from my dad, my accountant, my best friend and other mates besides, I didn’t do that.

Instead, I restructured it so I can function as a sole trader, and just let the Brascoe business “fade away”. In fact, that business doesn’t exist anymore, except for its web presence, and even that is going to die very soon as well.

This week I had the (good?) fortune to be working in a job with absolutely nothing to do, so I was able to set up a new website, fill it with text, start the blog rolling on it, and have moves to get the design cranking. It’s nearly finished. It’s killing me (as new projects are wont to do) that I can’t give you the link yet! But I will. Soon.

So – with all of this in front of me, clients on the books and meetings set next week with potential new clients, I’m starting to become excited again about working for myself.

Fingers crossed I can get Self Employment Take Two to work. If it does work, then I won’t have to go through all of the struggle of feeling like a failure – work-wise – ever again, and it might be the last time I have to face this enormous leap. Wish me luck!

Past posts you might dig:

1. Did you know? Publishing runs on a broken business model
2. Being in business for yourself is scary
3. Small business, late nights, big goals, and passion

Unlike many metalheads, I got into metal quite late. Most people I know were listening to metal in some form from when they were quite young, whether that was Motorhead or Iron Maiden, or KISS – and kinda grew up with it. Not me! While I liked metal (when I heard it, being in a relatively musically impoverished situation in a rural Australian town), I never got into it until I was 15 or so. And also unlike most people I know, my “gateway band” was Pungent Stench.

Yep, I dived in right at the fucking brutal, deep end – and never went back. When I was young, most of my friends’ older brothers were metalheads – and even though I was intensely curious, and loved what I heard them play loudly through closed doors, I never was able to hang out with them and immerse myself. Call it a combination of friends into pop or alt rock, politics, and just the plain old weirdness of going “hey, I’m gonna go hang out with your 17-year-old bro for a while cos that music is ace…”.

The result of all of this is that later in life I had to work my way back through the classics, and I find myself discovering bands old and new nearly every day – usually by being introduced through someone else. So, I went from death metal back through to the roots of metal, discovering and rediscovering connections, genres, bands, labels, and (for want of a better word) “personnel”.

But that’s not to say that I haven’t been dealing with the music industry in some way for a long time. I recall that in something like 1994 (I was 14), I stage managed a Regurgitator show before they were very big. That’s one of the massive benefits of being part of music-oriented youth groups like The Push, with which I was involved for something like three or four years. The opportunities you get are absolutely incredible.

Back to the story, eh?

Perhaps it’s a result of my lateness to the genre, and relying on people to furnish me with information and the opportunity to hear bands for so long, that I find myself with an insatiable desire to get more of it. More, more, more, more, more. I could (and do!) listen to metal geeks go on about bands, releases, productions, and genres, for hours and days on end and I never get bored. It fascinates me. I could never be described as a metal geek, as much as I hope one day to be as knowledgeable about it as even half of the people I know.

Metal is so big, it has so many subgenres and tweaks and varieties. For me it’s kind of like standing at the base of a mountain that grows every hour and wondering how much of it you’ll get to explore before your life runs out. Because you know that the mountain will just keep growing, that you’ll never get to explore every nook and cranny to the extent you want to.

Which is perhaps a slightly odd position for the editor of a metal magazine to be in: at once enormously innocent and ignorant, and yet sponge-like and immersed in it constantly. Very occasionally one sits down and goes “wow, is this really where I ought to be? Surely I don’t know enough….”. Of course, you never can. Because the real point is feeling the metal.

Any metalhead will tell you that you don’t find metal: it finds you. It gets under your skin, eats through your flesh, and runs through your veins. You don’t discover metal when you’re young and then grow out of it. You can’t grow out of it, because it becomes part of you, and in some ways becomes the reason for your existence, or at least it helps you continue to exist.

Once it’s in your blood, that’s it: you give yourself over to it in entirety. Of course, everybody has diverse taste – I still like, and listen to, a huge variety of music, from Shostakovich to Hektic. However, not everybody really feels metal with such a sincere intensity that, for me, seeing someone stuck to one genre of metal is very much like just being a poseur. (Yes, I have my favourite subgenres like anyone else, but it’s not like I listen to them exclusively.)

It’s impossible to describe what I mean by ‘feeling the metal’. But I guess the closest I’d get is that you have metal releases that move you to tears – literally – either because it’s so good, or so powerful, or so moving, or so beautifully constructed, or so perfectly reflects your life; then there are tracks that force you to sit and do absolutely nothing else but listen to them, to the exclusion of even thought; there are tracks that make you sing, that make you thrust your fist in the air, that you want to fuck to, or smash things to, or run around and be a total nutcase to. Metal is like life: it throws everything at you, sometimes all at once.

Manowar (yes, I’m a fan, sue me) put it reasonably well. I’m sure others have too, but right now I’m listening to their album Louder than Hell, so it’s easy for me to plonk it in:

We are the true believers

It’s our turn to show the world

In the fire of heavy metal we were burned

It’s more than our religion, it’s the only way to live…

Once you feel the metal so deeply, there is no backing out. You can feel other music deeply, too – many people describe the effects of classical music giving them goosebumps or whatever – but I’d argue that it’s not to the same depth, to the same extent.

It’s a massive journey… one that never ends til the day you die. At least, in my case, that’s true. And perhaps that’s why I do what I do: because the passion for it will never end. The day it does is the day I will cease to exist.

Past posts you might dig:

1. The story of my journey into metal music journalism

I’m always loathe to write these sorts of things, but lately I figure why the fuck not. There are some cool things coming up this year, and it’s sometimes nice to share them.

So, what am I up to – in the short-term for 2010 at least? Here’s what:

• Re-focusing my business.
  For the past couple of years Brascoe has kind of cruised along without any real direction. Well, not no direction, but we’ve kind of tried to be everything to everybody, and it’s the first lesson in fail in business to do that. Given that I’m so one-eyed about critique, I’m thinking that one of the best things to do is to simply narrow everything right back to the niche. My goal is to produce great works of insightful critical writing, such as critical essays and works about criticism; to support the work of critics of all kinds locally and internationally.  BUT I want to do them as ebooks primarily, rather than in print (or rather, ebooks before print copies are produced). I want to be able to share the love and the information as far as possible, and ebooks seem to be the best way of doing that.

  The adjunct services that we provide at Brascoe, like self-publishing, editing and – increasingly – copywriting, will continue, but I’m even thinking of shaving these down to what we’re really fucking good at: editing and copywriting.

• Celebrating Metal as Fuck‘s first birthday this coming March.
  We’re gonna throw a party for the magazine’s birthday, and develop some nice little things to go along with it; I’m already talking to peeps about venues and dates, possible good funs. I’m also thinking right now of a limited edition MaF Annual, in print, hand-numbered, of the best works produced by the team in 2010 – from photographs to features and reviews. If nothing else, I want a copy for myself… and with the mag’s birthday coming up, we may as well do it eh? Plus the merch is on the way and lots of other exciting things besides.
• Participating in the 2010 Format Festival.
  Format is a DIY/artist festival that happens in Adelaide every year; it’s similar to This Is Not Art, which is held in Newcastle (NSW). In 2010, we’ll be present at the zine fair if I get my shit together, and I’ve been asked (and have accepted) to take part in a skillshare workshop (probably focused on online publishing) and sit on a panel (probably a panel on critique) during the books & writing program the day prior to the zine fair. I feel really very honoured and excited to be able to take part so actively this year, especially given I missed the November submissions deadline! Wow!
• Writing for a new street rag.
  Late in 2009 I was headhunted to write a metal column for a proposed new street rag that is planned to hit the Melbourne streets this year. Not only is it a metal column, it’s the Metal as Fuck column, or something similar. But, it will be about Australian metal, with gigs and etc focused on the Melbourne scene. So, I’m looking for news from Aussie bands!! Hit me up if you want to find out the best ways of getting your material to me.
• Working with Hard Rock Radio Live.
  Also late last year I got into talks with DJ WrathChild at Hard Rock Radio Live, the brain and entrepreneur behind the entire operation. As you may (or may not) know, HRRL is one of the foremost internet radio stations – I think it’s actually in the top five globally! So, if everything goes well, I’ll be hosting a metal show on HRRL this year: keep your fingers crossed for me. Additionally, I’m good friends with a band manager and publicist in Greece, DJ Painkiller, and it looks like I might be guesting on his show from time to time as well. That would be too awesome.
• Producing Music Journalism 101 course as an ebook.
  As you’d know from my previous posts, I’m going to be producing my course – for which I’ve had great feedback from its readers – as an ebook, free to those who want a copy, under a Creative Commons license. It’s given me great pleasure to write, and to hear back from those who read it and get something out of it, so sharing the information freely will be the cream and cherries on the cake for me. I’ll be blogging updates about this, too.

And so on. There’s other stuff going on, but it’s probably not that relevant here because it’s all to do with my personal life. And it’s not anywhere near as exciting as all the above.

But suffice it to say that big changes are afoot in all sectors in 2010, and from the way the year has kicked off, things are looking positive for me all round.

How about you? What are you up to this year, so far?

Past posts you might dig:

1. And so we hit 2010