News

“When our time comes, when our time comes I will know, I will know” Whipping Boy And so it is time. Last Friday I bumped into Martin from the Filthy Tongues and he handed me CDs of their new album. I was particularly interested to see the finished CD as I’d been responsible for Martin […]

I totally get artists concentrating on their superfans though it does sometimes feel like fans are being taken advantage of and potential new fans are being ignored but I think there is a far bigger issue than that. I’ve yet to see any convincing strategy for new artists to build up the kind of fan […]

There is a common misconception that vinyl just naturally gives a “warmer” sound. Of course in reality if you use a digital master it will sound no better than a CD. More importantly an awful song on vinyl will still be dreadful. A great song will be great on any format. A vinyl sleeve is […]

The Wedding Present are just the latest band to sell to their fans via PledgeMusic with an album “Going, Going …” not due out for another six months. Founder Benji Rogers’ original plan to help small bands raise funds is long gone and well established bands taking this route is now the norm as it […]

After some soul searching I decided that I would register the shop for this year’s Record Store Day. It may now be nothing like the event we envisaged when we had that first Record Store Day in 2008 with no product at all, just in-stores and a few special offers, but that doesn’t mean Avalanche […]

One thing that has changed is that when music is new to somebody they only buy the music they love. Whether new music or simply new to the customer it doesn’t matter so for instance if I recommend The Twilight Sad to somebody who has never heard of them out of 5 people one may […]

For a variety of reasons I’ve had to look through old Avalanche blogs recently and was amazed to find my self reading over them not knowing what was coming next ! It often seems a long time ago now. People still refer to the blog a lot, even old posts and I can now sort […]

A planning application for the King’s Stables Road site has now been lodged and it can be viewed here https://citydev-portal.edinburgh.gov.uk/idoxpa-web/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=NZD15EEWKVI00 Not too much more can be said that hasn’t been said already in previous blogs. Edinburgh Council clearly understood what was needed here both in  supporting the arts and improving footfall in the area and […]

One of the unfortunate consequences of the ongoing saga of whether the Old Royal High School will be diminished by the hotel wings being added and if a music school would be a better choice is that an important part of the equation has been forgotten. Yes adding the hotel will take the school off […]

Since being persuaded to help with the proposed arts complex for King’s Stables Road I’ve come to understand gradually the world of developers and Edinburgh Council together with the arts community and general public’s response to development with or without an arts leaning. It is something that to be honest had passed me by previously […]