This post was last updated on 3 January 2010. I try to keep it up to date. It doesn’t always work. ~ L.
I established this blog as a means of keeping track of my music journalism work. While I have a portfolio over at FasterLouder, and at Metal as Fuck not all of it is counted there. At FL it also appears in places like my FasterLouder Metal Group forum – which happened because FL stopped publishing metal content earlier in 2008. It is also starting to appear elsewhere, like my Grave interview, which also appeared in New Zealand’s Groove Guide. Other work that I do, such as for a proposed new street mag that is gonna hit Melbourne in 2010, will also be archived here.
This blog/portfolio is a new iteration of my original WordPress blog (which was here). That blog gradually took over the one I have at MySpace, and the one at Blogspot – because the Blogspot version didn’t do it for me and this is easier and quicker to maintain than MySpace.
So, you are reading this page because you want to know who I am, eh? Well, let’s see. There’s not much here: a bit about me, my music journalism, and my mates.
Please bear with this page: it’s quite long. But it’s only because I can’t figure out a way of getting the anchors to work 🙂 Any suggestions, people?
Why Biodagar?
There is an Icelandic movie titled Biodagar, which translates as Movie Days. It had a profound impact on me when I watched it, and it’s a film I always go back to. That’s quite literally the entire story. It’s a really moving flick, the title is awesome… and that’s about it! LOL
Basic info: me, a bit of history, my publishing ventures
Female, very bright, turning 30 in 2010. Tertiary educated (to PhD level, though I never completed it). Workaholic. Apparently inspiring (so people tell me – but it’s weird for me when they tell me that).
Although I’m a metal music journo, I’m a writer first and last. Well, in my mind I am, in practice it’s not quite like that any more. I’ve had my fiction published in various anthologies, such as over at Spiny Babbler in Nepal, and closer to home with Vignette Press. Prior to that I’d also been published in two UniSA anthologies – so four books all up. Not bad! My goal, though, is to work more concentratedly as a critic because I love it so much: of both books and music.
I’ve done a lot of things in my life. I’ve been a vegan hippie in NSW; a cube-farm robot; a nutcase. I’ve gotten so drunk I was actively sick for six hours. I’ve read an obscene number of books and can’t remember them all, and wish now that I’d logged them all. I have a huuuuuge amount of music in my music library and only about fifty CDs, most of which aren’t mine, and I wish it were the other way around.
One thing I’ve come to realise is that when you own your own business (I own one, which is technically two in terms of workload: this one and this one), it’s real freedom because you know it all comes down to you. Responsibility and freedom are, I’m starting to think, almost inseparable.
My life is driven by the notion of “why sit and whinge when you can do something about it?” and “it’s a great idea. Pursue it. Pursue it now! Make your own opportunities or your life will be fucked!” This is why Tao appeals to me. Simple philosophy – big impact.
Totally passionate about metal! \m/
I am a huge metalhead, am never happier than when listening to something unutterably brutal or obscene – and am lucky enough that I get to indulge my passion for metal by writing for Metal as Fuck! Never much one for metalcore, I am in my element among blasting, extreme metal with deep growly vocals. Subgenres I dig include thrash, grind, gore, black, symphonic black, folk metal, death, electronica/metal, black death… well, nearly everything except numetal. I can still write a fair review of subgenres I dislike though: it’s just more of a challenge!
In what turned out to be a mixed blessing – the whole story doesn’t need to be told here – I’m now the editor of Metal as Fuck, as well as a journalist, as well as a partner in the house that publishes it. Formerly edited by Kelli Wright of Kelli Wright Publicity, who has gone on to bigger things, the zine is growing incredibly quickly. By the end of 2009 we had in excess of 300,000 hits a month, 1000 fans on Facebook and just under 3000 followers on Twitter. We also have contributors scattered worldwide: Australia, USA, Canada, Philippines, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Norway, UK. And we only launched in March 2009. I’m proud to say that the majority of that work is mine, thanks to my ability to build the network, before we even had a product, via twitter, myspace and facebook.
I’m not going to die without leaving my significant mark on the world – so there is only ever one place to go: onwards, forwards, upwards. World domination sounds great (it’s a lot of work), but I’m gonna get there.
This year (2010) will hopefully see MaF expand, my core business provide solid income, the generation of a MaF radio show online, me guesting on a mate’s radio show on HRRL, me writing a regular column for a new street mag, plus an increase in my fiction output. Fingers crossed!
1 thought on “About the author”