Top 5: 2013 Albums of the Year

Five great albums could easily have been ten. Some of my favourite new albums from 2013:

5. Heart Attack by Man Overboard

Possibly out of place on this otherwise indie-pop list, the third studio album from defenders of pop punk is more than an enjoyable walk down memory lane, their brand of pop-punk/emo is an energetic combination of everything and everyone I ever loved in my late teens but somehow fresh and new and exciting at the same time. Heart Attack demonstrates the sounds of a band who have toured non-stop and matured exponentially as they went.

4. Say Hi To The Band by Stagecoach

The first and, sadly, last album from the indie poppers. Their usual spiky, raucous sound toned down on several wonderful tracks imbued with real melancholy. The standout track for me has to be "A New Hand" and the kind chaps even outdid themselves by allowing me to use the song in my now aborted feature film directorial debut.

3. No Blues by Los Campesinos!

A rather lovely surprise, this fifth album from my favourite Welsh indie popsters is a triumphant return to form after the almost unlistenable self indulgent misery of Hello Sadness. I'd all but given up on them but No Blues is filled with fabulousness and more than its fair share of sporting metaphors. LC4LYF!

2. Love Makes Monsters by My First Tooth

Beautiful. Just beautiful. AND incredibly lovely people. AND have the distinction of playing one of the most memorable gigs of my life during 2013. The horny old goat dude on a Camden sound desk tried his hardest to ruin the sound for the five of us present but My First Tooth rode through it and made flying to England worthwhile.

1. Balancing by The October Game

The album I listened the most this year is an incredible collection of pop songs performed by some of the most talented musicians I've had the pleasure to spend time with. Drifting from pop to post-rock with catchy choruses, eccentric lyrics, heartfelt sentiment and atmospheric nods towards folklore this is an album of different ideas and styles, almost like a greatest hits compilation rather than an album led by one definite concept. Yes, I admit a little bias BUT that doesn't change the fact that I have happily listened to this on repeat for 14 hours.

Blahblahblah making movies (or not)

You may have noticed that I've been away. You may recall I was taking a trip to England to make a no budget feature film. Now I'm back and I've got almost nothing to show for it.

Making a no budget feature film is a giant headache and relies on a lot of people doing a lot of work for next to no money or in most cases nothing except the experience and the pleasure of your company. In that kind of scenario you need to expect things to go wrong, or at least not as smoothly as you would like, especially in an industry that is as notoriously fraught with logistical nightmares and giant egos as film making.

I'm ready to accept that ultimately the failure of Good Times to get in to production is my own, as head of the production the buck stops with me but there's only so much one person can deal with and only so many times that person can be let down by broken promises before things reach tipping point.

During pre-production of Good Times I met some really great people who were willing to do anything they could to help my creative vision come to fruition but sadly they were few and far between and when it comes to outlining what caused my film to not get made they don't really factor in to the story, but just so you know, it wasn't all bad.

The majority of my experiences were bad, friends from film school who showed enthusiasm for the project, for finally getting out in to the world and making something that they trained for instead of sitting on the dole or in a call centre, were the first to let me down, from something "small" like not doing something they said they would do right through to taking back an offer of accommodation and leaving me homeless.

After that we move on to so-called industry professionals, and I'm talking about crew and actors here, people who didn't have the decency to return phone calls, text messages, emails or, you know, that other thing that people do when they can't make it to a meeting or simply changed their mind about a project, phone me and tell me so that I knew where I stood.

But most disappointing, from my point of view, was the equipment hire company who I was actually paying the majority of the budget to doing exactly the same thing. I can't see how a business can function with such bad service. Maybe this is just the way of the world and at 30 I'm old fashioned but to me this kind of behaviour is unacceptable in any walk of life.

So yes, no film to share, no trailer, no behind the scenes footage, nothing fun or exciting at all.

The trip wasn't a complete bust, I have one small video to share with the few of you who might care; I had the distinct pleasure of living with two members of the band The October Game whilst in England during the time they were preparing to release their third album, Balancing, and produced a promo video for them. Shot behind the scenes of the music video shoot for their first single We Built This Wall To Destroy It. I'm actually a big fan of the album and if you feel like checking it out you can find it on iTunes and direct from the label Scylla Records, something I highly recommend you do.