whenisbirths.bsky.social
Author/editor/carer, S Wales, probably autistic:
Books: Don’t Stop the Music, OUT NOW in paperback. Into the Groove, out Oct 2025.
Textcast archive: https://firstlastanything.co.uk/about/
Email for work: [email protected]
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(Still think classical is integral to musical education, don't get me wrong, but mixing up periods and genres is all good.)
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We risk doing the same with pop music now.
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I shall! Thank you, Hannah!
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So many waves of pop of the past, while great, excluded so many different people. I worry slightly about how anyone without money and connections gets in these days, but you certainly see a great diversity of figures otherwise now.
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I have been wrestling for a long time with this conundrum so I will give this a go - and when I get some spare time, will work on switching over with all the online projects.
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Oh that’s interesting! This might be just the ticket, I’ve been looking at Tidal, might do a trial of that.
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(To be clear: still buy music, still buy CDs, still listen via many different platforms, but it’s hard to know where to place oneself professionally, as it were. Of course, Spotify knows this…)
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I had only just reuploaded all the FLA material to focus on Bluesky (rather than Twitter) as the central way of advertising the textcast. It is getting so hard to know where your potential audience is.
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Especially with FLA, I wanted to use a streaming service that was commonly used. The tricky bit now is to decide which one of these alternatives is ‘most commonly used’.
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You introduced me to so much good stuff via this conversation - thank you again for participating!
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Aaaaand this one (paywall removed):
open.substack.com/pub/sabinast...
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It appears to be. Was released on Friday.
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He's written most of the songs too, by the look of it.
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I don't want to be presumptuous but who is that for?
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Still, there aren't many laughs around this afternoon, so cheers.
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I'm tired, Kris, truly I am.
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The ethical tangle of platforms and the various but consistent awfulness of the people who own them.
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Growing the beard when you're barely twenty is the key, I think.
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Tom Harwood also being treated with far too much civility these days, I find.
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Most of that first series is, I think, a direct reaction to the first Gulf War, and there's no way it could have gone out while the war was on.
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Although the first thing that came to mind was Peter Porter's THIS IS MY WAR from On the Hour, and it soon becomes clear he's sitting in a comfy studio with a tape of sound effects... which breaks down. #BuggerBuggerSoddingSoundEffects
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Obviously these documentaries are for people with too much money to buy a third house to use for a fortnight every summer.
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If they like pop music, fine, but that's in their own time.
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Martin Dunn. Piers Morgan. Dominic Mohan. The current Sun editor, Victoria Newton. They all started on Bizarre.
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It's very telling that tabloid news editors nearly all started out on the showbiz gossip page.
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Failing that, take them all to the local tip.
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And that prime ministers would stop answering and tackle the stuff that matters.
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For ep 16, the finale of #FirstLastAnything series 1, in Sept 2022, author and musician Jonathan Coe (@jonathancoe.bsky.social) talked to me about his love for prog, French classical music, and why music can reach a place beyond language. firstlastanything.co.uk/2025/05/20/f...
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Oh god no, exactly. It’s like televangelists.
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(Not to say those with beliefs don’t take responsibility too disclaimer)
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I think being an atheist is about taking responsibility for one’s actions but in their case they think *they’re* God. In that way, they don’t believe.