Music Think Tank

Depending on whether you choose to believe it or not, according to many people this is the most exciting time in the history of the entire world for independent musicians like me. It’s Punk Rock with iPods for a Download Generation that deserves a Positive Brand Experience and as such it’s all there for the taking, depending on what you chose to define ‘it’ as.

Given that we’re a talented band that writes great songs and have full control over everything we do, ‘it’ could be anything we chose it to be. Since we’re also lazy and entirely unambitious, the ‘it’ bar doesn’t even need to be set all that high. With a degree of effort and organisation, I could be running the operation of a reasonably successful country/folk band using only the interweb and my brain.

Except I’m not likely to, not really, and I’ve come to realise that this is largely my fault.

I have plenty of time to market this band, plenty of time to network with tastemakers and seek new fans and plenty of time to promote, promote, promote. Lack of time is not the issue here. Unlike a lot of people, I’m lucky enough to be able to earn a few bob and still have a lot of time on my hands.

In fact, I have plenty of time for anything I chose to set my mind to but, unfortunately, and in a nutshell, I’m very easily distracted by the one thing that’s meant to make things easier: The Internet distracts the bejesus out of me.

I’m told the first step towards resolving a problem is to recognize that there is a problem, so the good news for me is that the above admission means I’m already well on my way to a full recovery. The next step is to a take a look at the problem – to let the dog see the rabbit – and to give some thought as to what can be done.

This list, then, represents the crack–cocaine of the internet as far as I’m concerned. These are the websites and interweb doohickeys that are ruining things for me. If I can just stop wasting my time on them, who knows where we’ll be in a year from now.

…and I will stop.

I will stop, I really will…

1: Stick Cricket

Quite unlike cricket itself, this is a mind-numbingly simple game. The objective is to chase down the total set by your opponent. There are only four shots at your disposal, two of which are largely defensive, and each is operated by hitting a single cursor key at the correct moment. Score too slowly and the required run rate goes through the roof, score too quickly and the spinners come on to bamboozle you. I have lost entire days to this game.

See also: Playing Golf

5: Messageboards

Not strictly a link you can follow and ruin your own life with, but I’m assuming there is a messageboard out there that caters for one or more of your interests. I’m a member of a handful of boards and I have friendships with people whom I’ve never even met as a result. I get free stuff sent to me, good and bad advice and a lot of laughs from some very funny and clever people. Many hours and days have been lost to messageboards.

See also: Links posted by people on messageboards, which I then follow…

6: Blue Square

I’ve never been much of a gambler. In fact, gambling is one of the few very stupid things I don’t do to excess. However, I do like a punt on the football. Each Saturday, and sometimes during the week, I’ll attempt to predict the results of around 15 games and Blue Square allows me to construct a ludicrously complex accumulator bet with my pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey predictions. Should one of these bets ever come in I will, at a stroke, turn £1 into around half a million pounds of tax-free cash which I could then spend on rubbish. I’m yet to win a bet…

See also: Daydreaming about winning the lottery.

7: Google

This is a double-edged sword. One the one hand Google offers a suite of absolutely essential tools and I can’t imagine operating without Gmail, Analytics, Reader etc. One the other hand, I’m essentially an absolute tool and can spend hours ‘housekeeping’ and ‘organising’ my Google universe – which is the online equivalent of cleaning the fridge instead of doing that thing you’re meant to be doing.

See also: Tidying up things in facebook, myspace etc etc

8: Reading about Football

I manage to spend hours regularly reading about football on When Saturday Comes, the UK broadsheets (in particular The Guardian and The Telegraph), Aston Villa fan sites, BBC football and quite a few others as well. I can’t stop myself and I even check them all daily during the summer, when there’s no football actually being played, when the sites are full of people gossiping, rumour mongering and constructing blatant and elaborate fibs regarding player transfers in a gigantic act of collective denial that there is no football.

See also: Watching Football, Talking about Football, Talking about Watching Football…..

9: You Tube

This has happened to you, too, I’ll bet. Someone sends a link to a YouTube video which I then watch. As the video comes to an end I’ll spot another video in the little sidebar thingy and click on it. As I’m watching that video my brain will make a connection with the video and a memory, and I’ll search You Tube based on that. This search leads me to another video and the whole sorry cycle continues until it gets dark outside.

See also: Actual TV - during the daytime The Jeremy Kyle Show and Sky Sports News are particularly dangerous drugs.

10: The Hype Machine

If I was kidding myself I could justify this one as ‘research’, but I’m actually finding this all very therapeutic so let’s put the cards on the table. I use the Hype Machine to listen to songs, read about songs and find yet more places online that will allow me to listen to songs and read about songs. I fill days and weeks with listening and reading and reading and listening.

See also: Playing vinyl records, Reading music magazines on the bog

BONUS LINK - The Lifetime Achievement ‘Wasting My Time’ Award: Limmy’s Xylophone

I know it’s stupid, childish and wrong but I don’t think I’ll ever get bored of this.