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There is an absence in St Andrews; there was a time when the mega-corporations fulfilled our musical needs. Fopp came and went, as did Unknown Pleasures, and in their wake St Andrews is faced with a void.

Buying music has always been what I've done in my downtime, whenever the worldly burdens have taken their toll I would walk into Fopp and visit my old friends. 

Spotify, Amazon, Youtube and Play.com along with a whole plethora of musical options available online is great, but there is a distinct lack of arbitrariness. That ability to go into a music shop and pick up the album of a band you've never heard of, buy it, then regret it solidly until next time. God I've missed that.

So I've found a strategy for coping with this new found absence, a couple of times a week I make a round of the charity shops and auction houses, and buy up their available vinyl. My somewhat eclectic collection stands at everything from the Floyd's "Wish you were here" via Johnny Cash Live at Folsom, a few Springsteen tours to original pressings of The Beatles "Srg. Pepper".

The Vinyl sale that frequents the Union is ok, the variety is phenomenal, but with prices sailing past the £50 mark it will never amass any grand scale popularity.

My old man possesses the equivalent of the Holy Grail of vinyl collections, and on my occasional journeys home I slowly but surely take more and more back here with me. Although the more desirable and reputable pressings (including all the original single pressings of The beatles) seemed to have been sold off early to supplement a much needed toupee fund, there is still an impressive variety.

Vinyl is obviously not as accessible as CD's; there is no way to convert them onto a computer or MP3 player along with the fact that very few people own vinyl players, but they are nevertheless unbelievably cool. I recently picked up some classic Rolling stones, Hendrix and Skynyrd at the auction house along with a vinyl player, all of which hardly broke into double figures.

Live music in St Andrews, although mildly deformed, is not dead just yet. The possibility of the last ever Starfields can be recovered by the birth of "Music is love", a promising collection of musicians breaking from the traditional open mic format to stage weekly mini-gigs, with the performers and set lists being confirmed days before the event. The black sheep were on hiatus from the lizards Sunday nights and relocated to One Golf Place midweek briefly before disappearing altogether.

The Scottish Festival brought an eclectic collection of funk-folk, With the bands trying to supplement a lack of enthusiasm with talent, which struggled against the wave of feedback that emanated with every note. I ended up walking out of the headlining act half way though the set, a combination of a harp and bagpipes, in the complete absence of lyrics was enough to disperse the middle-to-retired aged crowd.

Open mic's at the Union (every other Sunday night, v2) have always been hit and miss, as with most open mics there are some amazing displays of talent, supplemented with your mediocre-at-best drunk thinking their Dylan.

We're ever approaching the stage when the only form of music expression is the karaoke nights at the Rule and Vic, a punishment I wouldn't wish upon anyone.  
 
 
 
There is an idea that writing music reviews is easy, you simply sit in front of your laptop listening to great music and writing about how influential they have the potential to be. I wish it were that easy. Firstly you also have to wade, knee deep, through a slurry of terrible music before anyone gives you a chance to review something substantial. I think I was reasonably lucky in this respect, it only took me 5 reviews before I was given something that wasn’t terrible.  Secondly, if you’re writing for a magazine, there are deadlines and huge standards of writing that need to be met, it’s not writing for yourself, you’re aiming for popular appeal, what the majority of people will enjoy and writing what they want to read. It takes a long time and power before you can give an honest opinion and tell everyone the truth, that is in large what I’ve been trying to do with my Tribe reviews. Bands will be mentioned primarily on ability, occasionally on a quirk or unusual aspect of the band, and from time to time there will be a band so utterly horrific that it will be posted as a warning for all those contemplating buying it. This summer started with me writing for a small time website in the dead of night, after working all day in a Cambridge Laboratory buried deep underground. The research amounted to nothing publishable, but my music articles got me noticed by a magazine that asked me to review the Cambridge Folk Festival. Having missed my slot to interview The Zutons by 10 minutes and not discovering anything particularly great from the rest of the artist’s campsites, I ended up writing couple of mediocre reviews for some mediocre bands. Following the Folk Festival, I branched into Jazz and Blues, writing for a small jazz based website, then back to indie rock from almost 5 decades ago. By the end of the summer, I was writing for Shindig Magazine. All reviews come down to taste, and its true that you can’t please everyone, and you end up unintentionally making a lot of people annoyed. My taste is different from yours. There’s a good chance some of you wont like the music I recommend you. And there’s not much I can do about that...