Archive for May, 2012

Twitter made a ‘#Belieber’ out of me!

Sunday, May 20th, 2012

I’m going to start this blog with a disclaimer. I have never (knowingly) heard any of Justin Bieber’s music and up until yesterday I had never been on his Twitter page.

Anyhow, I was having my usual Saturday root about on Twitter, looking for football stories, seeing what is ‘trending’ and of course, coarsely attempting to punt (give away) my music to the masses via t’interweb (naturally)! Usually, Mr Bieber is trending in the US and worldwide, you can see that on the ‘trending’ list next to all the other pertinent info and useless gossip of the day!

So, I decided I was going to come up with a brilliantly ‘funny and clever’ idea of tweeting something along the lines of ‘…Would everyone stop mentioning @JustinBieber as he is always bloody trending on my bloody Twitter feed………….AH, DOH…’!

Now, I thought this might be quite amusing (in my own little sad way), albeit, probably too long for your standard Tweet (answers on a e-postcard) and quite likely to cause me to be the subject of serious online abuse from the more fervent of his ‘Beliebers’. I have no idea, how I know this term (Beliebers) and unfortunately I can’t use my 6 week old daughter as an excuse either.
Actually, light dawns on Doonie Point…….. we give a little bit of light hearted abuse to the wife’s young cousin Cameron, who is in the incredibly fortuitous position of being an 18 year old Justin Bieber ‘lookylike’, so much so, he was actually mobbed on a school trip to Peru by the locals who thought he was that very song and dance man!!! Cash those chips in son, cash those chips in!

Anyway, I decided to go and look at his page and see what his ‘digits’ are and more importantly to see if this guy actually ‘tweets’ his own crap or if it’s all corporate pish being fed to the wee lassies around the globe.

So, I’m pleasantly surprised to see that young Beaver actually does tweet and he supports the Lakers, good man, so do I……………..I then clock the amount of people that follow him or the amount of ‘followers’ he has! IN THE NAME OF WORLD DOMINATION!!! This guy has nearly 22 Million people follow him on Twitter, read again, yes……22 MILLION. Infact, at the time of looking he had 21,984,452 people actually following and hundreds of thousand of re-tweets to his various ‘Go Lakers’ and various other blah, blah, blah tweets!!

Let’s put this into perspective. If Justin Beiber’s Twitter followers were actually a Country, they’d be the 52nd most populated Country in the world between Australia and Syria, I can’t help wonder if there might be some kind of significance to these Countries, however allow me to soldier on. Oor wee Justin has 0.53% of the World’s population at his very mercy with one mere tweet……….‘…hey guys I love you, buy my new single…’, BOOM, 0.53% of the Worlds population have been instantly spoken to in the space of a few seconds and a few pressed buttons on his gold plated iPhone!

As a relatively newcomer to the ways of the tweet and as a shit kicking, grass roots, 35 year old folk singer who is happily married with one beautiful child, naturally, I have a fairly paltry looking 202 followers. So, if we compare my ‘digits’ in the same way we compared Bieber Vs The World, I am competing with………. The Isle of Jura, which is described as ‘one of Scotland’s last wildernesses’. A little over 200 people are outnumbered by 5000 deer on this stunning wee Scottish island.
Now, this, I wouldn’t change for the world………. not one bit, but maybe, just maybe…….. if Justin were to tweet “…Hey guys, check out my new Skatch Homie fae Stoney. Colon Klyne’s new dope cut, Stonehaven Radio Station and Me, drops today man, buy it here, most amazing song I’ve ever heard about Aberdeen Football Club, the way he rhymes Park with Billy Stark is frikkin siiiick dude…” …………………………………………………..STOP!

Naturally, you’re probably thinking that Justin would have run out of space by now, and yes, he quite probably would have run out of characters if he was indeed wielding your standard twitter account, but no no no, not my main man Beiber, he’ll have one of these wee extended tweet things so he can actually tweet the whole bloody message including lyrics, where to buy it, my website, my ‘digits’ and possibly an obligatory showbiz apology for quite clearly getting my name wrong, citing either exhaustion or non inhalation as the reason, he better give his homie Snoop a call!

Upon refreshing his page; which took all of about 30 seconds, due to my current location being on a boat (working for the man), where we have a slower than Dave ‘Donkey’ McPherson running in a vat of treacle Internet service (sat link), it became apparent that another 200 twitterer’s had succumbed to Young Beiber’s prose like charms, which infact doesn’t sound like a lot. However, he accumulated more new followers in 30 seconds than I have in 35 years, quite bloody impressive I’d say!

So, how about you help an acoustic guitar wielding, Guinness slurpin’, occasional house husbandry superstar, Father and twittering novice to at least surpass the population of the beautiful Isle O’ Jura??

www.twitter.com/ColinClyne

Timberline Guitar’s

Thursday, May 10th, 2012

I am proud to be sponsored by Timberline guitars (San Diego company). I’ve been playing my T75Ac Timberline guitar now for over 2 Years and I really do love it. It’s great for strumming and finger picking. It is a very comfortable guitar to play. It’s my main guitar!!!

http://www.timberlineguitars.com/Pages/artists.htm

Interview for San Diego Acoustic E-zine

Tuesday, May 8th, 2012

The good folk’s at San Diego Acoustic (.com) did an interview / feature segment on yours truly. Thanks to Ken Lehnig and David Dodds (not the ex Aberdeen Footballer). Click below to see the full interview!

http://sandiegoacoustic.com/2012/colin-clyne-stories-in-the-melodies

Historical Press / Stories

Saturday, May 5th, 2012

Mearns Leader – Stonehaven, Scotland:

‘…NEW HORIZONS FOR BUDDING SINGER IN US…‘ – Published on Friday 9 March 2007

‘…MUSICIAN RELISHES FESTIVAL OPPORTUNITY …’ – Published on Friday 20 July 2007

‘…AWARDS MAY GO UP IN SMOKE …’ – Published on Friday 26 October 2007

‘…Local musician Colin nominated for award…’ – Published on Thursday 28 July 2011

‘…Award winner on home turf …’ – Published on Friday 19 August 2011

‘…Colin Clyne up for award …’ – Published on Wednesday 18 July 2012

‘…Clyne scoops award for second year running…’ – Published on Wednesday 15 August 2012

The Courier, Dundee, Scotland

‘…Packed line-up for Montrose Music Festival…’ – Published on 27 May 2010

Ayr Advertiser, Ayr, Scotland, UK

‘…Colins comeback…’ – Posted September 20, 2013

Inverness Courier, Inverness, Scotland, UK

‘…Scottish-songwriter Colin Clyne brings it all back home with Doricana…’ – Posted October 24, 2013

San Diego Troubadour, San Diego, CA, US

‘…Colin Clyne Has His Feet in Two Worlds…’ – Posted August 2011

San Diego Reader, San Diego, CA, US

‘…A Scotsman at Sea…’ – Posted Dec. 21, 2006

‘…Colin Clyne Wrapping Up Tour with Homecoming Gig Saturday May 14…’ – Posted May 12, 2011

‘…Locals Unite for Celtic Crossroads Debut June 25…’ – Posted June 15, 2011

‘…Colin Clyne going Down to the Wood for CD release…’ – Posted November 23, 2012

San Diego Union Tribune, San Diego, CA, US

‘…Surprises, upsets at San Diego Music Awards…’ – Posted August 14, 2012

Hogmany Festival in Stonehaven, Scotland!

Thursday, May 3rd, 2012

I can confirm that today I was booked to perform at this year’s new ‘Open air at the square’ format at the Stonehaven Hogmany celebrations!!

This link from the Scotland TV website tells you a wee bit more about it. I’ll have more info later in the year on my Tour section.

http://local.stv.tv/stonehaven/news/97792-plans-announced-for-biggest-outdoor-hogmanay-party-north-of-capital/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Doricanite’s, Industry types and Nappy’s filled wi’ shite!?

Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012

Fit like Doricanite’s? Are my blog titles getting worse or what? 😉

It’s been a wee while since I’ve ‘blogged up’ and a LOT has happened since then!!! Looking back, it appears I say that with every blog. ‘They’ (industry types) tell me I must blog more, but truthfully I usually can’t be arsed. Let’s be honest, who wants to read my ramblings and shite anyway!? You do? really? Wow!

Musically, I continue to creep onwards and upwards to Global super stardom and I’m pretty sure if I make it to 200 years old I’ll have this music thingymajiggy cracked by then!

Seriously though, there has been a lot of great things happening in the UK and the US with regards to my music since I won that wee bronze looking San Diego Music Award for Best Acoustic Act last year (did I mention I won that? Thanks again to everyone that voted, I love you as much as I love pickled onion Monster munch).

So, where were we? Ah, yes. I’ve got a few TV show things in the pipeline, Jim Gellatly (‘the voice of new music in Scotland) has given my song ‘Stonehaven radio Station and Me’ the wee kick up the arse it (me) needed (and he’s a Dundee FC fan, who would have thought) and I finally got the video for it launched, my mailing lists and various other social media outlets continue to bloom and ‘Doricana’ continues to get into new hands and under new coffee mugs every week (I jest of course).

It’s funny but as an indie artist, it takes years to ‘properly’ promote an album, not that I truly know how to promote an album but I’m learning with each one! However, I don’t think I’ll ever stop promoting this album as I believe it deserves to be in many hands and in many CD players…………apologies for that wee burst of confidence, I’ve just had a wee skinny latte!!

Talking of which, I’ve lost approximately half a stone (7lbs)………………without any exercise (well the occasional walk). How did I do this I hear you ask? Simply by not being in the pub / club every night singing songs and drinking Guinness (and shifting my rehearsal space from the Ken Club to Hindsight studios). I know, it seems like a strange thing to not be doing when you are a touring artist but I have been having some ‘time off’ from the touring recently and have been spending time at home due to the fact I became a FATHER on the 31st of March 2012 to a lovely wee lassie called Catherine!!! She is just amazing and is my world!!! Both her and Mummy are doing splendidly!!

Naturally, I’ve been singing all the nursery rhymes to her and she loves it (naturally). However, I must disclose that I had a cunning plan all along for her to love my singing by constantly singing to my wife’s belly when she was pregnant. My cunning plan featured my wife lying down, closing her eyes, relaxing and thinking happy thoughts and then O’l Booby Dylan here would begin to finger pick and croon ‘Twinkle Twinkle’, ‘Old MacDonald’ and various other well know wee ditty’s to my child ‘in utero’. Unbelievably it works! Literally one verse of each and that wee bugger is out cold, I actually feel a wee bit guilty as she never really stood a chance with my brain washing ways!!!

So, myself and the family are heading home to Scotland in June / July time for some time in the Motherland. There will be news on gigs there soon (keep checking back). Also, I have a few Southern Californian gigs lined up over the next few months too (check my tour page). Release wise, I’m hoping to have a live CD out in the next few months. I have a bunch of tracks ready to go, I just need some time and a studio and we’ll probably bang out a wee 8 song CD of live tracks from last year’s Sacramento Highland Games (complete with annoying bloody bagpipe droning in the background between songs……seriously)! Hopefully we will have a trailer for the Doricana tour DVD out by Autumn (more on this at a later date)! Oh did I mention that I have approx. 30 new songs for a new album?? So, if there are any potential investors or rich fans that fancy being an ‘Executive Producer’ on an international record, then hit me up! 🙂

As always, thank you so much for all the love and support I continue to receive from family, friends and fans!