Living Without TV
For the past six months, we’ve lived without television, at least in the conventional sense. There are two TVs in the house, but neither is connected to a TV service, either free-to-air, or cable. You can’t just turn the TV and watch “something” or “channel surf.” Why Have A TV? It’s a pretty bold countercultural [...]
A Better Music Scene In Singapore?
Tomorrow I’ll be attending a music industry forum here in Singapore. It’s exactly the kind of thing I swore I wouldn’t be doing this year. I’m going out of respect for the organisers, the speakers and because I actually believe it could be the start of something good for the local music scene. But, with [...]
Dalí, Subversive Humour And Learning To Be An Artist
My favourite film of 2011 was Midnight in Paris. Among the many memorable scenes there is a wonderful moment when Owen Wilson’s lead character meets Salvador Dalí, played by Adrien Brody. Of course, the real life Dalí was every bit as over the top and amusing to behold as Brody’s portrayal suggests. Yesterday I stumbled [...]
7 Kinds Of People You Need In Your Creative Universe
Sustaining yourself in a creative endeavour, be it photography, music, design, writing or any other art, requires relationships. You can’t do it alone. People won’t just “discover” your work and you’ll struggle to bounce back from the inevitable setbacks and disappointments. Moreover you’ll need folks that can help you stay true to your goals, focussed [...]
Can You Hustle?
Last week I was having one of those really cool meetings that make this whole “creative” work thing worthwhile. Great location, with a cool person I respect, talking about a project I’d love to be part of. Then I was hit with the kind of question that can be (well, for me at least) really [...]
Your Creative Mix
A few months back I mentioned Corwin Hiebert in a blogpost about Generous Marketing. I’m a fan of Corwin’s work and was excited to see him releasing a
Conferences, Workshops or…
I’m normally pretty ruthless when it comes to attending events. I’ll pencil a lot of things in, then skip them if I can. It’s great to hear industry figures speak and networking is important. But, there is a global industry built around conferences and public speaking. Sometimes this industry is the path to great ideas [...]
Generous Marketing
A few weeks back I was stopped in my tracks by something Corwin Heibert said in an interview with Faded and Blurred (you can hear the full interview here). “What would happen if our marketing strategy started with being really generous? We just want to contribute to other people and things we care about, things [...]
Eleven Things I Can Do Without In 2011
Here’s a list of eleven things I can do without in 2011 Luxury Don’t get me wrong, I like good food, nice clothes and having a comfortable place to live. But luxury, as a way for brands to differentiate themselves, is a tired idea. In fact, anything that uses exclusivity or costliness as it’s main [...]
iPhone4 Launch In Hong Kong
The 30th of July marks the launch of the iPhone4 in Hong Kong. I just took a quick stroll among the huge crowds in the IFC Mall, here in Central Hong Kong, who are patiently lined up to get their hands on Apple’s latest mobile phone. It was a quite extraordinary sight, with the throngs [...]
Adelaide Central Market
Like every major Australian city, Adelaide has a good selection of cafes and restaurants. In fact, locals will argue that given their size, the city punches above its weight in terms of great places to eat (and accolades for their best eateries). I can certainly remember one glorious meal, at the Bridgewater Mill, in 1998, [...]
Passports And Nation-Branding
There is probably no trend that speaks more clearly to the pervasiveness of consumerist thinking than the penchant for countries and cities to try and brand themselves. Take, for example, sites like FutureBrand and NationBranding, which describe countries in the language of marketing and highlight the ways that countries are trying to “brand” and “position” [...]
Who Can Start The Music?
Hong Kong has no shortage of elaborate opening parties. Not a week goes by, in fact, often not a day goes by without an invite to some kind of opening, for a store, or gallery or whatever. To be honest, these events seldom attract me. They can keep their free drinks and stale canapes, their [...]
Card Business
This last week I started handing out a new set of cards to a select few people. These are for my personal sound and music business. Everything is still in “soft launch” mode (even the card design is provisional). In a week or so I’ll make a bigger announcement with more details. In a way [...]
Final Thoughts ON HKAF 2010
Another Hong Kong Arts Festival has come to a close. This year I’ve enjoyed some great performances. You can read some reviews here, Nina Simone Remembered Café de los Maestros David Murray’s Black Saint Quartet Dutch National Ballet On The Waterfront Ojos De Brujo The Tempest Apart from the performances themselves, a few things caught [...]
The Future Of Food Blogging – Part One
“…Reviews in newspapers and elsewhere had often been looked upon suspiciously by the dining public, seen more as a reflection of a publication’s advertising aspirations than a straightforward analysis of a restaurant’s virtures.” That quote, from Robert Sietsema’s recent piece on food blogging in the Columbia Journalism Review was written about the state of mid [...]
Whose Music Industry Is It Anyway?
Jason Parker is a Jazz trumpeter and has a great blog called One Working Musician. Yesterday he posted Grammys: That’s Not MY Music Industry, which in many ways resonated with my feelings about this high profile US awards show. Jason writes, “…they might call that the Music Industry, but that has nothing to do with [...]
The iPad Thing
Not surprisingly Apple’s latest product offering, the iPad has attracted a lot of attention. Some harsh and critical, some dizzyingly hyperbolic and congratulatory. I’m caught somewhere in the middle. The iPad, in its current configuration, is not revolutionary. Much like the iMac, iPod and iPhone when they were released, the iPad is a beautifully formed [...]
Music: Free, Shared, Gift, Or Something Else?
The past two weeks have been “business” weeks. My “desk” has been more of a office space than a mixing or recording space. I’m not talking about the dreams and vision stuff (although that does need some tweaking), but more mundane and everyday things. I’ve been working on budgets, business plans, logo ideas, publishing, invoicing, [...]
Clearing the Reader – Recent Blogposts That Caught My Eye
Today I’m in the midst of unpacking and setting up for the first week of the new year. Part of that involves going through emails and unread blogposts sitting in my RSS reader. Of course, I don’t get around to reading all of the 1200 or so unread contributions sitting there. But, here are a [...]
What Monocole Got Right And Wrong About Twitter
Monocle is my favourite magazine. It constantly feeds my interest in travel, politics, culture and design. I love that Monocle is unapologetically committed to urban living and cosmopolitanism. Moreover, I’m a big fan of the the way they have retained their brand identity online, through the website and their podcasts (Monocle and The Monocle Weekly). [...]
On Charging (Or Not) For Creativity
In response to my last post, on photography, Toni raised a point concerning charging for creative work. How and when to charge to for services has been both my obsession and frustration this year. It’s something that most creative people I know contend with and it’s an acute struggle when the creative task in question [...]
Enrico Rava Quintet and Henderson/Berlin/Chambers Live In Hong Kong
Of all the shows on offer in this year’s Hong Kong International Jazz festival, the one that immediately caught my eye was the double bill of Enrico Rava’s new Quintet and the Henderson, Berlin and Chambers supergroup at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre. Enrico Rava is a superstar of European Jazz, perhaps Italy’s best known [...]
Twitterland And The Blogosphere
Blogging is not dead and Twitter is not the revolution that will change the world. Now that we have that out of the way, let’s compare the two platforms. People who never really understood blogging typically describe it as “online journaling,” as if blogs were nothing more than a form of public diary. That blogs [...]
Fernando Gros is a musician, photographer & writer based in Singapore. Born in Santiago de Chile, Fernando grew up in Sydney and has also lived in London, Delhi and Hong Kong.