Music Class

My music nightclass semester finished last night with a panel discussion that featured some notable figures from the Glasgow music scene.

It was later on in the pub though when we got treated to stories about Andrew Loog Oldham, Grand Royal, Bis, the inner workings of the NME and Alan McGee making some poor choices in video directors.

All in all it was an entertaining 12 weeks that opened my eyes to various aspects of the music business and numerous different ways of looking at the industry. The essays and exams are another thing entirely.

Punk and Metal

As part of my nightclass on Popular Music I've been writing an essay on subcultures in music. This has led me to watch some interesting documentaries such as The Punk Years, Metal: A Headbanger's Journey and The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years.

From that last film comes this piece of video below. WASP's Chris Holmes floats in his pool, drunk out of his head, as his mother watches. It's horrifying yet compelling to watch.

Night Class Two

The second night class that I've started is a 6-month creative writing class. It's a bit of a contrast to the music class I began on Tuesday. For a start there's only 15 registered and only 11 turned up for the first night. While in the music class I was one of the oldest, here I'm one of the youngest.

I think I know what to expect from this class. Write short stories and stuff most weeks, get feedback from them from lecturer and fellow student. There's also some analysis of short stories and novels.

So far it looks like it'll be worthwhile and good fun.

Night Class

I started a night class last night at Glasgow Uni. I’m doing Popular Music: An Introduction. I wasn’t really sure what it involved having read the blurb in the handbook, but the first lecture indicates to me that it’s a more heavyweight subject than I was probably anticipating.

Running for 12 weeks it features a wide range of subjects including censorship and freedom of musical expression, gender and sexuality and musicians and the musical career. There’s also a 2,000-word essay that needs to be done within the month as well as a written exam in January of next year.

Over the weeks we’re promised a guest lecturer from the music industry as well as a discussion with music industry panel. The class seems to be pretty popular as there were 30 people in a class that should only have 25 people signed up to it.

The class seems mainly to be made up of full-time students. There’s probably only one other person there older than me. Though I could be wrong. I’m also one of the few people in the class who doesn’t play a musical instrument. There were such a sea of hands that went up on that question that I may in fact be the only person in the class who doesn’t play a musical instrument. One of the few people in the class I spoke with was a guy who used to transcribe the NME into Japanese.

Among the things we did in class was try to work out the lyrics to Louie Louie. Matt, the lecturer, pointed out that the song was once investigated by the FBI.

It’s not the only night class I’m taking. More tomorrow.