Music wasn’t a career I had planned. It was more of a hobby that started to elbow its way into my life more and more until I quit doing proper jobs.

In my late teens I hitch-hiked to France with a guitar and a notion of artistic and romantic revelations. I met a homeless alcoholic outside the Pompidou Centre and for a 50/50 split he would go round with a hat whilst I played and sung. He threw me onto packed Metro carriages with no option but to start playing Simon & Garfunkel songs in front of bored commuters, whilst he danced up and down the carriage collecting centimes.

A few years later I hitch-hiked across America. Again this sounds romantic, but as most Americans will tell you it’s really very stupid and dangerous, which is why nobody does it anymore. When me and my travelling companion got to L.A. we got jobs as rickshaw drivers picking up and driving tourists and drunk students around the Hollywood area. The rickshaws were all pedal-power and there’s a lot of hills in Hollywood.

A brief mention for the romantic summer I spent working in a fish factory in Hull.

I worked in bookshops for years, first in Leicester, then in Glasgow. I liked working in bookshops, but like most booksellers I preferred it when there weren’t many customers. I often made compilations to play in the shop, and then got really sick of the music I had put together as no-one ever got round to changing the tape. A similar thing happens in theatre projects – you hear the same bit of music so many times during rehearsals that you never want to hear it again. In Glasgow I was a children’s book specialist which I enjoyed. It was a really big dynamic department and I’d occasionally be required to dress in an enormous character costume.

For a short time in Glasgow I was a flower delivery driver. I drove a pink van. Some of the stuff was dull corporate locations that wanted expensive displays in big vases, and some of it was more personal and special. Weddings and funerals too. Every once in a while if the person wasn’t at home I’d ask the neighbour to look after the flowers – the look on their faces when I told them they weren’t the intended recipient… Once I delivered them to someone on Kirsty Wark’s street. She saw me and shouted “Are they for me?” and I had to shout “No” back. I never got to appear on Newsnight Review.

After deciding to try and make a go of music, I searched for interesting people to send CDs to. One of them was filmmaker Matt Hulse, who got in touch and we’ve been friends ever since. In a way this was my first job in the creative industries. He used some of my music for a short film he was working on – and then that led to another filmmaker Zam Salim getting in touch, and so on… I’ve worked with them both a lot over the years. My band The One Ensemble made the music for Matt’s extraordinary film Dummy Jim.

Tectonics Glasgow takes place from 1-3 May 2015 at City Halls, Glasgow. Tickets are available from www.bbc.co.uk/bbcsso and on 0141 353 8000. For more about Tectonics on Central Station, go here. Daniel Padden’s Glass Hundreds has been specially written for the Old Fruitmarket and is performed as part of the Closing Concert at 9pm on Sunday 3 May.

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We’ve asked professionals in creative industries what jobs they have had in the past to get their foot through the door (or at least pay the rent). For more in the “My First 5 Jobs” series look here.

Glasgow based broadcaster, voice-over artist, musician, records producer and performer, John Cavanagh explains his eclectic and varied working life.

I represent perhaps a rather odd inclusion for this feature, as I’ve never had a succession of jobs that could be described as a “career path”: I’ve never aspired to such a concept in the past or now. However, I’ll begin with the first work I was paid for and this involved a very unkempt garden. When I was thirteen, our next door neighbours wanted their grossly overgrown little wilderness restored to a state whereby they could reasonably persuade someone else that it was a good idea to move into their house. At the outset, I don’t think they felt I’d last more than an afternoon, but I kept hacking away, imagining I was creating paths through uncharted jungle with a machete, à la films starring Cornel Wilde! There were many small antique & junk shops in Glasgow at the time and the money I made from gardening took me to those in search of old mechanical music machines.

As a young person interested in early sound recordings and the machines to play them on, I met lots of fascinating characters who were involved in – or orbited around – the antique trade. Some of these people spotted an aptitude in me that went beyond my personal interest in sound and I was encouraged to become involved in the trading too. My dad gave me sufficient funds to pay rent on a space for 6 weeks, saying that even if I didn’t make a penny, the experience would be worth the money he’d supplied. In the end, I ran a small antique shop for over 11 years. The latter end of this time overlapped quite a bit with what would become a huge part of my life and the discovery of a realm where I felt I fitted in and could get paid for doing work I loved!

A latent interest in radio fired up to the point where I wanted to learn how programmes were made. At the time, the fact that I’d been able to edit tape since I was nine years old was helpful in getting involved in a BBC Radio Scotland show making short features. An interview with Roy Harper marks my first professional radio engagement. What happened thereafter could be counted as several jobs: I have been, variously, a presenter of music and/or speech programmes across much of the BBC, including all five U.K. networks (presenting heavy rock music on Radio One and opera on Radio Three being just a part of all this), World service/Radio International etc. I have also been a radio newsreader/continuity announcer at Radio Scotland (along with presenting many music shows there), a television continuity announcer, the voice of the Classified Football Results on TV & radio for 14 seasons (I don’t like football, so I was impartial in that role!), narrator of documentaries etc, etc. It’s worth mentioning here that the first music show I presented was at Radio Clyde, not the BBC, and there it was that I had my only formal interview for anything I’ve ever done. This was conducted by Clyde’s highly respected DJ Mike Riddoch and head of programmes Alex Dickson. At the start of the interview, Alex asked me a question and I began to answer “Well, I think…” and before I got another syllable out, he’d thrown open the door to the production office and bellowed “THIS ONE’S DANGEROUS… SAYS HE THINKS”! Mike and Alex asked someone who knew me if he thought I should be given a show. They found me highly interesting, but eccentric, I heard later. I took that as a compliment!

The next development I would cite as a separate job from broadcast work was when I got into the world of the commercial voice-over. My first of those was for a Sony Records TV commercial highlighting a compilation album called The Sound of the Suburbs: “Gathered together for the first time: 18 punk classics!” There I was in a Soho studio called Silk Sound, sat on a pale grey leather sofa waiting my first ever v/o booking when in walked Tom Baker. I say “walked”, but Baker made a spectacular sweeping entrance and, gliding up to the receptionists, he boomed “Good morning DAHLINGS” and I thought – gasp – “That’s Doctor Who… what am I doing here”?!

At this point it’s very confusing to consider what I should include next in a chronology. Although hosting live events, public discussions and so on is something I do now, the root of this role lies in presenting outside broadcasts for radio, some of those at venues like Wembley Stadium and Castle Donnington. Making music and producing records is another strand of my life which goes back to discovering I could be a performer as well as a consumer of music, both as part of the duo Electroscope and solo under the name Phosphene. However, I think that, in the elision of employments, I was paid for writing something before those things happened, so reference that here. I’m especially pleased that my little book on the early days of Syd Barret, Pink Floyd and the emergent ’60s counterculture in London is still doing well after nearly ten years in print, particularly because it has made it into Italian and Spanish translations and I’m told a Korean edition should be happening too… all part of the adventure and I guess that’s really what I’ve always been looking for: an adventure, rather than a career. I like to keep an open mind and who knows what will happen next? Much more fun, I think, than trying to drive my life along any set line based on where some convention suggests I ought to be in a certain number of years!

More: Website

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We’ve asked professionals in creative industries what jobs they have had in the past to get their foot through the door (or at least pay the rent). For more in the “My First 5 Jobs” series look here.

Speravi In Te – for a cappella choir (New London Singers) by Scottish composer, Chris Hutchings who is also a singer, conductor and accompanist.

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Grotta Zine is a brand new art-zine, a 36-page bi-weekly magazine featuring exciting artists from Iceland. Grotta is edited, published and produced by Frosti Gnarr Studio, a newly formed creative design-studio at Grótta, Iceland. Grotta Zine is as said published twice a month, each time featuring only one artist and his offerings to the issue. Emphasis is put on interdisciplinary artists that we at the studio feel need to be seen. This handmade art zine is photocopied at our studio, with the cover sheet hand sprayed for a unique artist signature. Only 500 copies will be made of each issue.

Frosti Gnarr Studio Staff

The first artist featured was Sigurður Angantýsson Hólm, an introverted artist obsessed with the combination of symbolism and nature. Before the release Sigurður spent three weeks in the studio library, drawing his brains out, choosing and developing the artwork for his issue. This is something we implemented from the start, having the artist over at the studio for at least a week to work and develop some kind of ideology, style or concept. The profit of each issue is shared fairly to everyone involved.

Artist Sigurður Angantýsson Hólm

Inside Grotta Zine Issue 1

The second artist we chose to feature is Hellcat, a photographer that documents the dark sides of the Reykjavík nightlife. Extremely graphic at times, these moments tell a story, not only of the subject but also of the photographer. Famed for the sincerity of his images, Hellcat shoots with analog film cameras from the corners of nightclubs, afterparties and other generally shady circumstances. Issue #2 of Grotta Zine glimpses into Hellcats darkroom and his life right now.

Grotta Zine Issue 2

Frosti Gnarr Studio is the brainchild of Frosti Gnarr, a graphic/editorial designer that recently made his return to Iceland after a few years study in the Netherlands, where he got his MA in Editorial Design at the HKU in Utrecht. Previously he got his BA from the Iceland Academy of the Arts.

Inside Grotta Zine Issue 2

In the beginning, the studio bought a copier. That’s it. They found an excellent 15 year old Konica-Minolta, about 70 km away in the next town to Reykjavík. A few days later, Grotta Zine was born, and they were already making tests to see how they could play around with this printing technique. It really sparked a great interest in this medium.

In the next months Grotta have lined up collaborations with a lot of great artists from different fields such as photographers, painters, musicians and filmmakers to create versatile and unique issues of Grotta.

Find out more about Grotta Zine:
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Find out more about Frosti Gnarr Studio:
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Find more zines we’ve featured here.

Vitaliy Rybakin is a musician, composer, guitarist, sound engineer, philosopher & artist based in Samara, Russia.

Vitaliy’s collection of work on SoundCloud is diverse – from fantasy to House – but at the same time each piece stands up on it’s own. We’ve selected just one for your enjoyment today, but click here to hear more.

There are only 5 days left – get yourself featured in our 50×50 promotion and in the running for cash prizes. Find out how here.

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I’m going to get to my first five jobs in a minute, but would like to explain that my job title ‘urban crofter’ is due to the fact that I currently do around 5 jobs (paid and unpaid). My main employment is producing films for the company I run with my husband, as well as freelancing for others. However I am also: co-founder of a drug law reform charity ‘TDPF Scotland’ that campaigns for the regulation and control of all drugs, in a band, a volunteer for the architectural charity Skirmishes, a founder member of the Garnethill Woman’s Institute, and I blog about creative life in the east end of Glasgow. Oh, and I have 2 wee kids that are around most of the time too.

So I am very lucky to be able to lead this varied and interesting life, but how did it end up like this?

My first five jobs:

1) Fiddle player in ceilidh bands: From the age of 13 I spent my weekends in pubs and village halls earning good money while my friends hung out at youth club. This financially sustained me right through university too. The experience of mixing with interesting folk from an early age really helped set me up for lots of the things I’ve gone on to do since.

2) Work experience at Wark Clements Production Company
In my 3rd year at university Alan Clements (Mr Kirsty Wark) came to speak at my history department and I decided that TV production sounded interesting. I’ve never been a big TV watcher, and now (shhhhh) we don’t even have a TV, but I do love the detailed research, hitting deadlines, working with people, story telling etc involved in production. I never did work for them afterwards, but it was a great start to my CV.

3) My second job in television was as a presenter at Grampian TV. I am VERY thankful that there is no evidence of this on youtube or similar. Despite my outgoing personality, I was the worst presenter ever, but it was a great training ground: low budgets meant we had to research, write scripts, direct and present, and I went on to get loads of interesting freelance work over the next few years. AND I met my lovely husband in Aberdeen – what more could I ask for from a job?

4) Having my children / getting older. OK, not a job exactly, but key to how I live my life now. Having the girls forced me to get off the treadmill and find a new way of making things work so as to allow me to spend time with them, but also keep myself connected, fulfilled and earning a living. And getting older….. now that I’m in my 30s I just feel more sorted, confident, sure of my strengths and less worried in general than I was in my 20s. This allows me to try things / suggest things and just go for it.

5) The influence of those around me. So again, this isn’t a job but in a sense it’s much more important to what I’m doing than listing the various jobs I’ve done in the past. I think getting out there and mixing with people is the best way to keep motivated and inspired, and to find out what you really want to be doing. Glasgow is an amazing city for creative and interesting happenings and people so it’s really easy. Bruce Newlands (of Kraft Architecture) and all the other talented people involved with Skirmishes; and of course all the lovely ladies who come to the Garnethill Women’s Institute are just two examples of inspiring and uplifting activities in our fair city.

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We’ve asked professionals in creative industries what jobs they have had in the past to get their foot through the door (or at least pay the rent). For more in the “My First 5 Jobs” series look here.

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I do not know what to write. I am sitting here staring at the screen, running sentences in my head, and turning my music on and off. Earlier I went foraging for food (in hopes of sparking some magical words), but ended up getting distracted by Arrested Development for 20 minutes. This happens just about every time I sit down to do anything. I’ll probably go play the guitar between this paragraph and the next.

Of course this is a familiar situation. Often referred to as “writer’s block”, the concept of an inspiration rut is unfortunately very familiar to every creative in any field. Sometimes ideas just don’t show up to work. Given this, we all develop strategies to combat such a scenario. Not all are foolproof, but it’s safe to say that most creative people have some battle plan for dealing with the dreaded “blank page”.

Knowing this I decided to ask some of today’s most exciting artists and creators what they do when the ideas aren’t flowing. I left the question fairly open ended and asked, What do you do to inspire your creativity when you find yourself in a rut? As expected, I was presented with an array of strategies, ranging from listening to Boards of Canada in a forest alone, to cooking up a storm (recipe provided) and waiting for the mind to clear.

What follows are 25 strategies from these creatives to spark your inspiration; hopefully you’ll find something helpful in there…

Read full article here

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Why not share in the comments below how you overcome your creative block.