It’s just the same old crap over and over. Are the band the same without Mick, Derek, Mel? Are they even Simple Minds with only Jim and Charlie left? They’re a mockery now. Play Butlins. They’re not Simple Minds any more. YA DA FUCKING YA!
Is it any wonder I am steering clear of the fan pages these days? I know we don’t all have to agree – be equally – we don’t have to keep expressing the same “opinion” all the bloody time, either!
I’m just tired of it. Really tired of it. So I’ll just stay here in my own little space. I cannot to arsed to argue a point or converse with anyone on the fane pages any more. It’s just so full of BS these days.
It was never the reason I started this blog. Not to gain followers. It was never about that. If nobody read it, I would STILL be posting here. If it never had “an audience” it would still be going.
It has always been about self-expression and showing my passion and love for this band.
It didn’t even start seriously! It started on Tumblr – which is a very image and gif rich social media platform hybrid. It’s much more a visual based thing. Just a big excuse to share lots of gorgeous images and gifs of Jim (and the rest of the band). A big excuse to ogle. (Oh, how I like an ogle.) For a time I even had a secondary Tumblr page solely dedicated to Jim’s left ear! Lol. This is how frivolous and silly it all started out as!
If I had wanted followers, I’d have stayed on Tumblr. In my short time on there I gained about 300 followers and it would have kept growing exponentially as that’s what most social media platforms are about. Equally, if I wanted my blog to have followers, I’d be sharing posts and going on about it here, there and everywhere. Endlessly sharing links and posting stuff to Simple Minds groups on Facebook and retweeting links to Twitter users, etc, etc. Basically spammed people to death with my blog.
Blogs are different to other aspects of social media. Yes, they can have that element to them as well but the overriding reason someone creates a blog isn’t really about gaining a fanbase or followers, as such.
Tumblr did have its limitations. It’s very much its own community there. And it wasn’t really the place for more serious contemplation or expression. I felt anyway. I felt as if I was outgrowing Tumblr. I wanted something more. I didn’t want to completely come away from the fun stuff. The ogling of Jim and the silly things that went on at Tumblr, but the move away from Tumblr was a great reason to start to bring in a more serious slant to stuff.
It took time. Time for the love of the band to really develop into something that I felt I could try to articulate and express more.
Over time I have introduced several “themes” to the blog. Not completely leaving the fun side behind at Tumblr, I coined “Kerrsday Thursday” for the blog. A weekly ogling session of all things Jim. I had written pieces titled “Why I Love…” in which I would try and go in depth and explain why I loved a particular Simple Minds song and therefore why it was in its place in my Top 50 Simple Minds songs. Nearly five years down the road, and I STILL haven’t finished all 50.
The weekend whiriiGIG was coined in which I would share a live performance from YouTube that I enjoyed. Mainly bootleg gigs. Before it was the “weekend whirliGIG” it had been on the blog as a TARDIS dream gig wish. A gig that I would wish I had been able to go to but…due to age, distance, non fandom, it didn’t take place for me.
And it eventually came a space to share band news and things and a place for me to feel free to comment and talk about those things.
A place for my art too. The digital fan art being a huge aspect of that…but also painting and drawing that I would do – not necessarily of the band, either.
The joy of gigs and seeing them live. And then just….expanding on that and started to give reviews of other gigs I started to go to. In the past three years in particular, I have been to see more live music and more gigs than I had ever done in the previous near 30 years (as of then) of my adult life.
And this year – my 50th year – was going to be the most gig rich year yet! Until Covid-19 had other plans. My calendar of events had just started. I had been to a Poliça gig to see my guys, Warm Digits, as their support. A gig wish was fulfilled by seeing Bryan Ferry at the SEC Armadillo the week prior to flying over to Copenhagen to see what was meant to be the first of THIRTEEN Simple Minds shows for this year. And there were so many other gigs lined up besides! More Warm Digits gigs, as they have just released a new album. Then there was meant to be King Creosote on the day we were due back from Copenhagen. And beyond that…John Grant, Jimmy Webb, Crowded House, The Stranglers. One of the Warm Digits bills had them at the Stag and Dagger in Edinburgh and I was looking forward to getting to see other bands on the bill there. Perth band Parliamo, in particular.
I had started to conduct the odd interview as well. I had interviews with Simple Minds original lighting technician, Jaine Henderson, former band manager, Bruce Findlay and just recently an interview with Warm Digits’ Steve Jefferis.
I have been trying to make something of it. Not just have it be a Jim Kerr ogle-fest or a sycophantic endless declaration of love and admiration for him. It always runs the risk of falling back to that.
But, hey! I am human after all. I have feelings, thoughts, concerns, worries, hang ups. And at the end of the day MY blog is MY outlet for things. I really try not to drag it down with too much personal stuff. But if it happens…I shouldn’t really feel the need to apologise for that. At the end of it – it IS a personal blog. It isn’t in any way monetised. It doesn’t exist to make money! It doesn’t exist to gain followers.
But, you know what? It DOES have followers. A small number of them. But the fact it has any at all astounds me. And at times, it embarrasses the fuck out of me! A lot of the time, in fact.
And I have regular readers too. And then new comments coming in too. And I have had wonderful acknowledgements from people I admire and hold in esteem and these things feel very unworthy.
So, to all of you who visit and/or leave a comment, to Scott, (and to the other Scott as well that I know visits too) and to recent visitors leaving comments, Catrine and Gavin. To Stuart as well. And to the new followers who’ve subscribed, thank you.
To Gordon Machray of Simple Minds International on Facebook, to Simon Cornwell – who runs the sublime Dream Giver Redux – the absolute Simple Minds online bible, to Paolo Viani – who runs Simple Minds Historical on Facebook, and to Ronnie Gurr of Hanging Around Books. For all your nods of acknowledgement, I am humbled and thankful and feel it very undeserved.
Not always. Not often at all, really. It just brings home to me the years missed.
And…Jim felt like the glue that bonded the fanbase together. We talk with each other THROUGH him, so to speak. I miss that part of the interactivity soo much! That he was the catalyst.
I see little point in SMOG otherwise. It’s just another SM group, and I’m in enough of those already and don’t feel much of a part of things as is.
Sorry…I’m just having a “woe is me” moan/whingefest.
I know I’ve said it before…I keep saying it! (Something Jim said about Lou Reed and amplifiers springs to mind!) But…I MISS THE INTERACTIVITY! I miss Jim.
Looking back on my blog last November, it is just full of FB posts from Jim and me just responding to what he was talking about and it is all still just so lovely.
Yes, they were touring at the time but that makes it even MORE amazing to me…that he takes the time to write those posts and interact when on the road.
Earlier in the year, he started to elude to the fact that maybe he’d take a step back from the social media side of things. And I wasn’t the only one who seemed genuinely crestfallen by his supposition.
Supposition of his stepping back now feels like it is pretty much fully manifest. The recent founding of the Simple Minds Official Group the most obvious display of that.
I feel now that he was probably “letting us down gently”. All that talk about thinking it may appear he likes the sound of his own voice, etc (a post he wrote called My Lips Are Sealed). The undercurrent now seems, “I think I may just spend a little too much time with the fans and doing this ‘interaction’ lark.”
But it is what ALWAYS made being a Simple Minds fan that much more special. And I know I say that time and again, but it’s true!
And it has always been such a special part of the fanbase. All the stories long-time fans have. They make me envious because they sound like magical times and halcyon days.
And I suppose I had my time in the sun too. All those amazing things. The art being shared and feeling like Jim was doting on me. Lol. I’m not ashamed to say that it sssoooooo went to my head (and heart!). Me, in spite of myself, starting to believe that there was some kind of…symbiosis/mutual appreciation thing going on there. I love him – he loves me. Lol. Oh, how I wished!
But so much more beyond that giddy fangirlyness. There was wonderful and “serious” repartee that we had. Well, I felt anyway.
But over the past nine months it has slowed down further and further. And I have to stress here that I KNOW and understand he had more pressing priorities taking precedence. I don’t want this to sound like a whinge-fest. I’m trying not to have it come across that way!
I just…miss him. I miss the things he’d talk about. Just…any topic. Whatever piqued his interest that morning. Something he’d read in the news…on the Guardian website, or … talk of a Minds anniversary of some sort. Seeing a gig himself. Or going to a movie. Reading a book. Music. Just…heroes of his and things.
And the silly things from way back too. The silly pun games and things.
And I didn’t expect him to respond to ME all the time. And he’d reply to others too and it was always good to see.
The year is winding down again and it’ll soon be Christmas. And things naturally would go quiet on SMO over the Christmas period and into the New Year for a few weeks. And … well, the end of February seems a long way off. But it isn’t that long I know. It’ll soon be here.
And hey! I have a house to move into and probably a trip to Oz to sort out and then…maybe it’ll all kick in again?
Maybe he’ll start posting a bit more regularly again and interacting with us sad, pathetic fans again? We’ll see in about 120 days time, I guess…
Oh, but I am still missing the “cherry on top” – the reply comments. I miss that element. It feels like a positive reinforcement when it happens. When it stops or doesn’t happen for a while I tend to think “Oh, he’s as sick of me as everyone else is! Lol.” And then I tend to take it personally, because I am a needy, clingy idiot. (Just being an honest, gov)
This springs to mind…
Though perhaps this is more appropriate?
Pondering on the idea of what kind of person I am….lips wise? You know…bizarrely – my lips have only ever been the only part of my body of I have been…”proud” of? If I can phrase it that way. The only part of my body I thought was any good, anyway. Do I overuse them? I guess, maybe. I dunno. I’m probably a self-centred blow hard. I’m sure I come across as loving the sound of my own voice!
A negative result of me wanting to express positivity and enthusiasm, no doubt. Bore people fucking shitless. Lol. The thing is…I feel much more expressive with the written word. Face to face, I tend to clam up.
The last time I was out in Oz and at a family gathering at my sister’s house…after a while she said to me, “God, you’re so quiet! Why aren’t you talking?” I was kind of taken aback that it seemed strange to her that I was so quiet. Was I really that much of a gobby kid? Perhaps I was at home.
My response to her? “I dunno. It’s just how I am. I’m just happy being here and just being with you guys.” And that really was it. I didn’t have much to say. Nothing really to input or discuss and was just happy to be with my family. It had been a long time at that point. Some eight years since my previous trip home.
Anyway…there we go. Time to shut up! I wouldn’t have mentioned any of this talking to anybody face to face.
What type of person am I? One who tries to have a positive outlook (but with recurring bouts of mental illness, it’s not always easy) and tries to have a positive effect on those around her. I just try to be the best I can be…and I probably do woefully at it.
But, I am who I am…warts and all. My foibles are many, but I hope I am a good person…even if I send everyone crazy.
