If you know me...

...then you'll know that i'm very close to family and that, simply put, I love and respect my folks very much. However, this doesn't mean that from time to time that I'm not allowed to 'take the mick', so to speak, out of my father; as at every given opportunity I'm 100% positive that he'd do that exact same thing to me. I think my personality and sense of humour grew strong out of being able to keep up with my dads' array fo practical jokes and little tricks but over the years I'd like to have think I've got my own back in several ways - not at least by springing his surprise party onto him under the guise of a night out at the 'fitba club' in Peterhead.

So world, I'd like to bring to your attention a little email I received from father dearest this afternoon; Sorry dad.

"Abody fine, mobile phone ended up in the sewars in Edinburgh though!!

Went to toilet (yes, you have guessed), fell out my pocket and flushed right down toilet. I am awaiting a new one. Some rat is making calls to friends in New York for all you know.

Dadxxxx"

Brilliant!!!

Needless to say take heed in my below illustration.

Well...

I'll freely admit to not being overly educated in politics, whether that be within the UK or the rest of the world but over the last 6 months I've became embroiled in the anticipation, anxiousness and potentially life changing events that have surrounded the campaign to become the 44th president.

In my naive and under informed eyes, I've looked upon the race with hope and with an overwhelming feeling that as well as being the obvious Republican v. Democrat and McCain v. Obama competition, I cant get over the sense that it's also become tradition v. ambition and even more simply-put Old v. New debate.

When I was younger I was fortunate to be part of a family with relatives living in New York, to have a girlfriend living in San Francisco and also even more so, to be able to go to Florida several times before my 14th birthday, and I guess it was as a consequence of this that i became subconsciously obsessed with American culture; from film to music to language and to the overwhelming feeling that in America their really were no boundaries to what you could achieve, who you could be and to how you expressed your thoughts and feelings.

But over these past 8 years, as I've made the transition from child to adult and as I've looked on from afar, I couldn't help but feel disappointed; Disappointed, let down and moreover almost disgusted by a group of American citizens who couldn't seem to see past their own noses and they became the antithiesis of the America that instilled so much hope and creativity into my early teens.

For me last night not only once again made me feel proud for America, filled with hope and emotion at 5.30AM this morning that has continued through the day, but it has also for me signalled a change of guard, and not just a change of government in the White House. It seems like politics has finally caught up with the times that our generation has brought to the world; this only emphasised by Obamas' campaign usage of Twitter, Flickr, Myspace, Youtube and Facebook to run alongside his obvious understanding for the change in policy driven by a change to a modernistic and vastly more intelligent/popular viewpoint that the youth (under 50's) can actively relate too.

Two years ago almost to the day I was in New York City and boarded a bus where chance would have it that I sat next to a girl who went to New School in Greenwich. For 4 hours she explained to me her viewpoint on US politics and the George W. era, and that how there had been rumblings that a man named Barack Obama was going to run for power and that in her mind he was about the only man in politics in the US that could save their nation from meltdown and bring it forward, and as a result bring the world forward. And that she thought that he would become the first African-American president. Well now he's there; thank you America, let's hope these next 77 days fly by.

jb x

Barack Obama will be the 44th President of the United States...

...What a brilliant day. I'm completely buzzing about this!

Now I Don't Know Much About Politics..

...But I'm trying to learn more and more every day at the moment as it's starting to fascinate me. I just thought I'd share a couple of videos with you guys to have a look at as i found them pretty enlightening yet disturbing.

Here's Actor Matt Damon on Sarah Palin, the Republic Vice-Presidential candidate.



And here's Palin on Foreign Policy, it's pretty scary stuff when you actually consider what she's saying and how potentially close she would be to actually being president.



I mean; The leader of the freeworld? Seriously?

This made me laugh too.



Needless to say, I'm all for Obama.

Quick quick quick quick quick

Decided to play around with layouts and that, make this a little more attractive to the eye. I'm gonna start adding some photos and videos and such to brighten things up as I learn myself html and find out what I can actually do with this thing, which i'm sure has endless possibilities. I found this today which I liked; It's a start but a funny enough one I think. Now, back to the chilli I've probably just burnt...

It's been ages I know...

Okay, so one hasn't done so well on the updates as of late; but that's okay as I'm back and off we go...

In the last 5 weeks (Is it really that long...?) I've been in Prague, done in the city in Manchester, watched my bands do nice supports in Nottingham and spent a weekend in Brighton, or Bright Town, as i think it's a great place..

Edgar Prais played in the city, it's a festival/industry showcase in manchester that runs from Sunday to Tuesday in manchester and happens annually. The band played The Aftershow night at Moho Live ran by danny McNamara of Embrace fame and did a good job. The room was full of the usual array of industry from press to a+r folks and the general concensus was that the band were amazing, which is the usual junk they say. However, Radio 1 DJ Huw Stephens came down and loved the band and as a result played them on radio 1 that week on his show; so it's nice to have a foot in the door there now.

Flood of Red have been on tour with Enter Shikari - playing a set of 80% new songs we were a bit worried as to how the band would go down but it was a blast - myspace has been averaging out at 4000+ plays a day and the boys have been playing to over 2000 people a night which sets us up nicely to move forward.

Astro Firs have been out with The Automatic, and as their little babies (see aspiring rock stars) it was their first tour - so a good one to get them wet behind the ears. Although, with the state of the business and the continous mess labels are making of campaigns, a band that have sold over 250'000 records and had 4 top 20 singles, for some reason, are selling less than 200 tickets per show apart from London, which was sold out at 800.

I went to nottingham and as my luck enduced, Astro's and Flood were playing 15 minutes apart in adjacent venues, so I just about managed to watch both bands.

I also work alongside fellow manager type, Malcolm McKenzie, on Flood of Red and with one of his bands, Sylosis, i act as his partner in the background, just bouncing ideas off each other and such. So, we went to Prague for Sylosis. Sylosis are proper metal, and they're going to very well in that world.

Malcolm and I work very well together as he's an old fart and I'm a young upstart apparantly. Therefore, he plays golf with Headhoncho's at promoters and labels, and i'm down with all the kids that act as tastemakers in the rock world. For any oldschool rockers - he also used to manage Thunder and ran MTV in mainland Europe.

Prague was beautiful, although being there for about 30 hours didn't give us too much time to explore. I did get to see where the final scene from that Vin Diesel movie Triple X was filmed, so that was relatively exciting.

One thing I noticed, and became more apparant to me after watching Dave Goremans' 'Unchained' on tv the other night (which I'll go more into in a sec), is just how capitalism and corporatism effects us in everyday life. For instance, the difference in a pint of beer (not that I had many, honest mam) between the surburbs of the city and the town centre was £3.50; which is utterly ridiculous. Same with Coffee, Sandwiches and general meals. Oh how the cash cow moo's.

The Dave Goreman programme was a brilliant watch. Goreman is a comic/documentarian (Is that a word?) who sets off over America with the goal in mind to be able to do so without staying in/eating in/filling his car up with fuel in any major chain outlet, and it just highlights how much the world is becoming dominated by a few huge corporations. I found it quite depressing really, that in several cities he went to, they had no distinguishing features i.e. You could have been anywhere. It was so cultureless with no real sense of identification or being. This is the world we live in.

Some of my memories of being really young revolve around Peterhead and the town centre. Going to The Fisherman's mission on a Saturday morning for a pie and beans, or getting a pancake and a cup of coke in the Copper Kettle. How long till these places become defunct and you have a choice of Subway, McDonald's, Starbucks or Burger King - with the only alternatives being higher priced restaurants? The most disturbing thing is that these companies will willingly (bad grammar, I know) operate at a loss, because they are so cash rich that the opportunity of total brand marketing makes the loss worthwhile - which obviously gives them the advantageover independant family run local business. And the food's rubbish.

I also had my laptop die the other day, but now I have a new one - minus some key files I'm hoping to retrieve asap. I've also joined the gym and am attending regularily, as well as, now playing football in a Sunday league down here. Played one game for Aberdeen, and scored in a 4-1 victory over Exeter. Would've had a hat trick but I need to learn my strike partner to pass.

Also, I have a new cousin courtesy of Kev and Joanna. Congrats, and welcome to the Bruce Clan little Abbie. Hopefully I'll get a chance to get up the road soon and hang out. Whilst I'm in this mode - Michael, get yerself back in the starting 11 - Dad, nice one on London Marathon; Now book your hotel cause you're nae sleeping on my couch and Alistair/Cathy/Thomas - I promise I'll be over next year.

That's about it for now, won't be so long until the next update.

JA x

Recent Endevours

So it's like 22:10 and I find myself still in the office. Not that I'm complaining, in some sadistic manner I kinda like it this way as unlike the normal work schedule, I get up around 9 (ten-ish..) and then have breakfast, shower, brush my teeth and reply to early morning/overseas emails on the blackberry before heading to edgware rd tube station and jumping on the tube to get to work nr moorgate. It isn't too much of trek, only about 25 minutes door to door and it's been wonderful for my reading ethics.

So yeah, I work/banter with other manager between around 12-6 then everyone else leaves and that's when I start the real work. I find that if you email later at night then you get responses early in the morning before everyone really digs into their day's work.

Highlights of this week including Sone Aluko, laughing at Chelsea losing out on Robinho, American Gangster, an American folk artist called AA Bondy and my Cullen Skink. Yep, that is right. I made Cullen Skink - and I'll tell you what; My very culinary intelligent flatmates stated that it might have been the best soup they ever tasted (and I don't even think they were lying!). Take that Subway! One will now endevour to cook for himself as much as possible.

This weekend I'll probably fire on with some work and watch a bunch of movies, I'll probably end up heading to the Rob Roy (Scottish/Dons supporters pub) to watch the Scotland game and then hopefully (I'm unsure of times..), they'll show the Andy Murray v. Nadal match. If not, BBC 606 it will be.

I'll tell you what though, I'm glad there isn't a transfer window every week, I was up nearly all night glued to the Berbatov saga.

Recently read books have all been business/work related I'm afraid. Here goes...

• The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell
• The Future of Music; Manifesto for the digital music revolution
• The Rules of Management - Richard Templar
• How to Start an Independant Record Label
• The Music Managers Bible

The Future of Music was an especially enlightening and interesting read. It basically maps out how they (David Kusek and Gerd Leonhard) see things panning out over the next 3 years in the music business. It's quite coincidental, but these guys work as prinicipals at Berkelee School of Music in Boston, probably the main music college and the States and they actually lecture Kelly, an ex girlfriend of mines (See previous post - aspiring rock star/transatlantic blah blah blah), and I'm actually quite jealous as those dudes are switched on.

They basically say that they see music become an entity that surrounds you like say Water/Electricity/Phones/Internet and that although you will have the option to still buy CD's, you'll be able to access music wirelessly and digitally through any medium that is connected to the internet i.e. pay £10 a month and your phone/itunes/ipod/especially built hifi systems will have access to a database of millions of artists/songs/albums that you can stream, and then for a little more, for the sake of argument say £2; you can buy the record.

Personally, I think it's about right, although for this to happen there has to be a major change in copyright law and also a big standown from major labels. It'll happen though, because majors are losing money hand over fist and nobody's buying CD's anymore. Happy days I think.

I also think that Radio 1 and music publications will continue to become more and more irrelevant as people continue to become empowered by web sites such as myspace and the thousands of music blogs out there. Already, some independantly written music blogs are getting more hits in a day than people buy the NME in a week. I think it's brilliant because although technologically music will be more advanced as ever, it's just an up to date version of tape swapping or making mixtapes and the band's that will become the most successful are the ones that ultimately write the best songs and connect with the people to the most personal level. Gone are the days of HUGE marketing budgets and back handers to radio stations dictating what people buy and like.

Anyways, hope that makes sense; I think I actually wrote that more for myself than anyone else - hope it wasn't too boring.

Looks like the family are heading down in October which will be great times. Heading to Cornwall for Astro Firs next weekend, then going to Prague of all places for a show on 2nd October; My first overseas 'business' trip since Seatronics days (and not a bilge/haul in site!)

If you have a minute, take a look at Kris from Edgar Prais doing an acoustic number for online TV

Take Care,

JA x

London...

So, it's 5 months since I moved.

I've learned...

Peterhead/Aberdeen aren't boring - they're cultural, clean, sociable and the folks are polite - the air is wonderful and fresh.

Everything in the UK music industry is generally dictated from London. Unless, things are done properly, people get behind something and the industry becomes wise to it, and they quickly realise that consumer is king.

The music industry lacks common sense

Marylebone is an near perfect as one could have hoped for in terms of London living location. Dead centre and easy to get everywhere.

Scots are massively well-respected as nice people and hard workers.

London is a sub-culture, disconnected from the rest of the UK, and an expensive one at that.

More people in London, come from out of London than London.

I can build a career and a name for myself quicker here than anywhere else in the world. Financially too, fingers crossed.

Everyone in London gets Hay fever or Dust allergies. It's generally minging.

It's good to have faith in people, but in the music business more people don't do what they say they will than those that follow through on promises.

The record industry is dead. The music industry will grow bigger than ever. They're entirely different beasts.

I'm happy, I've done the right thing but I miss home as well, it'd be unnatural not too...

Awake is the new sleep..

Good Evening folks,

I thought that maybe I should start a little blog for anyone interested and also I guess for myself as a sort of way to express my thoughts and keep people up to date with exactly what it is that I'm up to. I'm planning on keeping tabs of my movements and developments for what I have going on, as well as, randomly posting bits and bobs about things I see that take my interest. Whether that be a Jimmy Calderwood rant, a book I've recently read, a film that I've seen, a band that's blown me away or a simple observation (which will usually be on the state of the 'record' industry at the moment).

If you happen to stumble across this, please feel free to share with anyone you want to, I ain't got nothing to hide or anything too controversial to say, so it's all good. Also, over there on the left you'll see a couple of links to blogs; check them out - it's family, innit.

You'll probably also find that I'll switch from proper English, to a bit of Doric and sometimes I'll just go into brain speak; If I just letting it flow a bit.

Here's my basics...

I'm James Alexander Bruce, 24, born of Stephen and Roselyn Bruce; Academy Place, Peterhead. Attended Clerkhill Primary School and then Peterhead Academy (Bright, Intelligent boy, not reaching potential, excels in chatting, likeable though, likes to be centre of attention...). I left school at the end of 5th year in one quick supersonic blast. Somehow, I ended up as an Electronics service engineer in Aberdeen, and then a student (well, in theory...). At around this time, my dormant love for music erupted and it sort of took over - relationships ended (young and in love/aspiring rock star/the Atlantic ='d disaster), tours came a-plenty, University didn't really work out for me and I found myself stacking shelves in Safeway; Not exactly what one had planned.

From there on out, everything (the last 4 years...) kinda took me by surprise and I've been caught up in a bit of a whirlwind ever since. Somewhere along the line I started working in Moshulu music venue in Aberdeen as a barman, doing odd musical types jobs on the side. Booking the odd band, running the odd gig and putting up posters etc..At some point, long-term friend Ross Morrison left his post as Promotions Manager and yours truly got offered the job. I like to feel like I ran with the opportunity and now I'm glad to say that I'm working in London as a partner in my own business - SuperVision Scotland LLP. We're part of the SuperVision Management Group and collectively we look after bands like Kaiser Chiefs, Franz Ferdinand, The Cribs, Late of the Pier, Crystal Castles etc...

It's been a funny old time, but with family support and a bit of the old Bruce determination, it seems like I've landed up where I wanted to be; working in music in the place that it all happens. Good times, onwards and upwards one hopes...