It is so long since I last blogged, so I thought this seemed a good time to set a new year’s resolution to upload a post at least once a week. So – here goes – a brief synopsis of what I have been up to last year (as far as I can remember).

Due to the amount of work I have had to do on the edited collection on Frank Zappa (More later) – I made a decision to not present at as many conferences this year. I did however do a couple. The first was in Liege in March – on ‘Loops in Popular Music’ – a really interesting international discussion at the local university. I presented the paper with my colleague – Dr Ben Challis – and after the proceedings of the conference were processed we were asked to update our work for a book chapter. The book is in the French language, and at the moment is being edited – more of this in a later post.

This was followed by a conference at Edinburgh University, which was organised by Prof. Simon Frith and focused on live music – part of a 3 year project funded by AHRC.. This gave me the chance to discuss the research I had recently completed into the live music industry in Wales, and was a great opportunity to listen to loads of industry professionals and academics discuss their research. An overview of the papers can be found here for those that are interested.  The research into the Live Music Industry in Wales also led to a talk at the Institute of Welsh Affairs (which was really well attended), an interview with the Minature Music Press, a talk at the Hay Festival and a couple of radio interviews.

September of last year also witnessed the launch of the European Social Funded Foundation Degree in Music Industry Entrepreneurship I had been working on for a number of years. The idea for this started a couple of years ago with a paper that was published in the Journal for Applied Research in Higher Education, and I hope this course can act as a sort of template of the ways in which the music industry can work with Higher Education.

The Zappa Book has been progressing nicely and is due to be handed into the publishers at the end of March 2012. Although not conferences, I was lucky enough to do a couple of talks at the University of Valencia and Cardiff University this year on some of the thinking behind the book. Although I am really pleased with how the book is shaping up, one of the book’s key contributors David Sanjek sadly passed away just prior to Christmas. He had handed his chapter in just a couple of weeks before and had worked so hard on it. His death came as such a shock to everyone and I have decided to dedicate the book to Dave – he will be sorely missed.

I have also had a couple of other publications released this year on Zappa, but rather than go into specific details – anyone who is interested can get details here.

Finally, thanks to Spotify, I have managed to listen to so much music this year. In no particular order – the best music of the year includes:

The Civil Wars – Barton Hollow

PJ Harvey – Let England Shake

James Blake – Enough Thunder

White Denim – D

Beady Belle – Cewbeagappic

Bon Iver – Bon Iver

Nigel Price Organ Trio – Heads & Tales

Amon Tobin – ISAM

Kate Bush – 50 Words for Snow

Radiohead – The King Of Limbs

Laura Marling – A Creature I Don’t Know

Radiohead – TKOL RMX 1234567

Happy new year.