Happy New Stuff Happening!

I got all distracted by (if we’re being honest) too many social media sites when I was posting about all of this before the New Year, and so I forgot to put some things up here, which is meant to be my website or something.

So here we go, some stuff that I’m late on sharing here, as well as some new stuff I’m working on that I will eventually be needing some help with if anyone reading this was one of those people who helps with stuff.

That Christmas EP of mine sold way better than I could have anticipated, so thanks again if you bought it. All of the money (£112.15 – just over $180 dollars at the time) went to The Project For Awesome. Just so you can get an exciting insight into what my computer screen looked like after I made the donation, here’s what my screen looked like:

I sent this email out to everyone to let them know about it all. Financial transparency is the new rock and roll.

The last update I received said they are still collating the votes to decide which charities will end up being supported, but it’s all for charity, right?

While the EP was available for download it spent a little bit of time swimming about quite high in the download charts on Bandcamp, even sitting next to Sufjan Stevens’ Christmas Album for a while in the “Folk” chart (which is the genre I’ve decided that the music I seem to make probably belongs to. If only for convenience). Which I was just characteristically humble about in this tweet below that isn’t in any way smug or irritating if that’s what you were thinking.

No big deal. Sitting on the best-selling page for folky-music stuff on Bandcamp next to Sufjan Stevens. All for #P4A bandcamp.com/discover?g=fol…

—
Ardie Collins (@ardiecoll) December 18, 2012

Since there was a deadline for getting the money to the charity, I had to turn off downloads so that I didn’t end up with money that I wouldn’t be able to give to them. For now, if you’re partially insane and want to listen to Christmas music this July, you can still stream the thing for free on my Bandcamp. Maybe I’ll be making it a downloadable thing next year for a couple of weeks again. We’ll see. Or, if you know how computers work and stuff, you’ll probably be able to figure out a way to get it for free. I’ll leave that up to you, mate.

NEXT. I’ve got some gigs coming up. Which is a sentence that terrifies me. But I do. First up, my 2013 International Tour will be beginning and ending on a particular Sunday evening in a small venue in Graz, Austria. I’m supporting my friend Christina‘s band, Scotch & Butter (or one of her bands, she’s in roughly 5, We Were Bears, for instance, is another one she is in with Tom and Gi) who make lovely music which you can hear here or below.

The gig is on the 3rd of February, details to be confirmed, but it’ll be in Graz. If that’s a feasibly accessible location for anyone reading this – come along! Incidentally, Christina and I covered a Slow Club song during that Ardvent thing I did in December which you can hear here if you’d like.

She also co-vocaled on a track from the Christmas EP, which is here, yes?

I’m also playing a gig in Cardiff on the 30th of March. I’ll be supporting Lux Lisbon when they arrive here as part of their UK tour. Chailo Sim will also be playing, and perhaps even other acts but that’s all to be confirmed. It’s going to be in Buffalo Bar. Again, full details to be confirmed. I’m sure I’ll mention it on Twitter or Facebook or Tumblr. In fact, I guarantee it. Have a listen to Lux Lisbon and Chailo Sim below, please. If you’re a BBC 6 Music listener you may already have heard them being all excellent on there.

ALMOST BUT NOT QUITE FINALLY, I’m working on a project right now to try and bring together some tracks I want to record as an album with some short fiction I’ve been working on to create a sort of pairing between the lyrics and fiction into a confusing thing that doesn’t really have a proper name. And as part of that, I’d really like to have some artwork to go with each pairing. I’m not really a visually artistic person, but it’d be great to work with some people who are. There are some people I’ll be contacting when I’m a bit further along the process and when I have more of an idea of what exactly I want from people, but this is just a heads up, and if this vague description sounds like it might be something you’re interested in, then feel free to send me an email: ardiecollins@gmail.com

ACTUALLY FINALLY, I wrote some New Year’s resolutions over here, but I thought I’d post them here to act as a further reminder to myself that I made them and that I’ve been failing at some of them already which is no good, man.

Dear 2013 self,

1) Any time you get stuck in the update loop, go and read instead.
2) Start a physical ‘scrap file’ for ideas. Look at it next year.
3) Sunday is writing day. Current writing projects are: Book 2, Tiny Stories, Point 4.
4) Finish weird album/fiction/collab thing.
5) Collabs, Collabs and Collabs.

Yours,

2012 self.

Congratulations if you’re still here. I’m off.

This blog post is the copyright of no one because no one is that silly.