We’re exactly six months into 2021 now, exactly half a year, and I’m a little bit embarrassed to acknowledge that I’ve only posted three entries to this blog so far this year. In contrast, by this time last year, I’d posted 25 times, so I’m certainly not keeping the blog as up to date as I was in 2020. Admittedly, I spent half of 2020 locked inside, with an inordinate amount of free time, so perhaps I shouldn’t be too hard on myself. And as I will presently explain, I have had a lot on this year. So this post will simply serve as a bit of an update, to exhibit all that I’ve been doing in the past six months, as well as what I’m currently working on.
As I expressed in my final blog post of 2020, 2021 was the start of a new step in my career, taking on the role of Learning Support Coordinator at BIMM Bristol. So along with being six months into the year, this week also marks six months in the new job. It’s been a brilliant experience, and I genuinely love the work that I’ve been doing. I’ve had some fantastic experiences, and I’m eagerly anticipating the next six months and beyond.
Elsewhere on that same post, I discussed the transition of conferences to the online format, and suggested that I would make an extra effort to attend more of these, as well as hopefully getting the chance to attend some more in-person events. Whilst we’ve yet to encounter the return of such physical events, I’m happy to say that I have managed to maintain more of a presence at the online replacement events. One which I will mention was particularly unique for me – presenting a TEDx talk, which is a first. It was an interesting experience for me to present my research in more of a public-facing and accessible manner; the subsequent video can be seen below. And at this weekend just gone, I delivered a paper at the international Documenting Jazz conference, hosted by the University of Edinburgh, entitled: ‘Electro Swing in Europe: Hopping the Atlantic to Become a Dance Music Phenomenon’
I’ve also been very busy writing this year, and have had two publications out so far over the course of 2021. The first of these was for the latest issue of the Journal of Popular Music Education, with a chapter called ‘Focus Wales: A Showcase Festival of Music Performance and Education’. And not long after this came the release of the book The Evolution of Electronic Dance Music, featuring a chapter of mine entitled ‘Second-hand Stardom: Connotations of Sampling for Electro Swing’. Whilst any publication is exciting, I especially love getting featured in a book, and subsequently receiving an actual physical copy of the thing with your own words in print.
And there are plenty more publications still to come. I have an upcoming chapter about the Swingamajig festival and the Rainbow Venues in Birmingham, in an upcoming collection about lost venues. I’m collaborating with the brilliant Dr Ashley Morgan on a paper about the Running Punks. And I have another exciting project in the pipeline which I don’t want to reveal too much about yet. But most thrilling of all, I have recently had my contract through for my first ever book of my own! Publishing with Routledge, I am converting my PhD thesis into a full monograph, and aim to have it out by next summer. This is by far the most exciting of all the projects I’m currently working on, and although it’s going to take an outrageous amount of hard work, I can’t wait to release it to the world.
So things are moving along very nicely in 2021 – the only downside being that I’ve consequently neglected this blog. I’d like to say that I hope this will change in the second half of the year, but I know in all likelihood that this is almost certainly not the case. But I will still try to post as often as I can. There are several key releases coming up this year that I fully intend to review, and I’ll post here and there whenever I can. Ultimately, this post is simply to say: I’m still here! Yes, I have a lot on – but that is undoubtedly a good thing.
