Hello and welcome to the final blog post of 2013. Having just updated you on everything Haulix-related last Friday, we thought we’d skip the pleasantries of reflection on months long past and instead forge ahead with another new interview for you to enjoy. If you have any questions about the content of this blog, or if you would like to learn more about the services we offer, please email james@haulix.com and share your thoughts. We can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.
Since 2006, The Blue Walrus has been a thriving online hub for passionate music fans worldwide who wanted to discover the latest and greatest sounds. It’s the brainchild of editor Tim Dickinson, who also happens to run the news/culture magazine The Descrier, and in today’s piece we learn how he grew the site from a small UK music portal to an influential international success.
It’s hard to describe the type of music featured on The Blue Walrus, but the term ‘diverse’ comes to mind. There seems to be no barrier to entry as far as genre is concerned, and in my opinion it’s that constant state of open-mindedness towards new ideas of all varieties that has positioned Dickinson and his team as some of the brightest minds in blogging today.
If you would like to learn more about Tim Dickinson, we highly recommend you bookmark and frequent The Blue Walrus. Additional questions and comments can be left at the end of this post.
H: Let’s start with the basics. What is your name, job title, and the name of the publication(s) you write for:
T: Hi! I’m Tim Dickinson, editor of UK music blog The Blue Walrus and news/culture magazine The Descrier.
H: Everyone comes to a life in music their own way. When you think of your earliest memories with music, what comes to mind?
T: It’s a little difficult to think of the first time, but I do remember long car rides to France with my parents when I was little listening to a mixture of Paul Simon and led Zeppelin – which certainly had an impact on my tastes. I also trained as a jazz drummer throughout school, so there are a fair amount of blues and jazz influences in there.
H: Can you recall the first album you purchased with your own money? Is it still a part of your musical collection?
T: After getting through various “Now…” compilations on tape, the first album and CD I bought was Blur – Blur back in 1997.
H: From what I’ve read you first got into blogging back in 2006. What motivated to begin writing about music online?
T: I’ve always been somewhat of a web geek, having run a website about music production whilst in school, and when blogs started appearing in the early 2000s I thought it would be a good way to share my passion for new music and making mixtapes with people outside of my group of friends.
H: The name of your site is quite peculiar. What can you tell us about its origin story?
T: It’s not much of an “origin story”, but more a running joke about skipping class and lazily spending days on the beaches near Edinburgh, basking in the sunshine like a walrus.
H: So you launch in 2006. What was the content on TBW like at the time, and how has it evolved into what the site offers now?
T: I would hope my writing has improved and I think I’ve found my voice over the years, but the content was in a similar vein back then too – music from new bands just starting to make a name for themselves. Jamie T and The Noisettes were two of the earliest acts I wrote about if I remember rightly.
H: When you launched did you have any plans to bring on additional contributors? If not, when did you realize the time was right to take that step, and how did you proceed to find new team members?
T: When it started out it was just a way for me to share my mixtapes and talk to the world about the bands and artists that I was excited about – I had no grandiose ideas for anything more than that to be honest. We’ve had a rotating roster of other contributors for the last four or five years, but all of them have just asked to write for us – I’ve never really gone looking.
H: What size is your team now?
T: It changes every few months, but at the moment the team is myself, Jacinta, and Francisco
H: How would you describe the ideal Blue Walrus team member?
T: They need to have a passion for discovering new music, go to a lot of gigs, and be open to almost anything as long as it sounds good.
H: As your the site has evolved so has your role. What has been the biggest challenge transitioning from sole write to editor been?
T: I still do a fair amount of writing on the site, but the other authors are free to cover what they want, when they want – I just tend to clean-up their articles a little and change some styling. It’s not a huge change.
H: What is the current goal or The Blue Walrus, and how has that mission changed over time (if at all)?
T: The mission, as it always has been, is give smaller bands and acts a platform to get their music heard, and to give an alternative source of new music for fans outside of traditional media.
H: When it comes to discovering new music to feature on your site, where do you turn?
T: We are sent a huge amount of music these days in the post and via email, but a large number of the acts we feature tend to come as tips from friends, supporting bands we see at gigs, as well as spending time scouring SoundCloud and Bandcamp.
H: What advice would you offer musicians hoping to one day make an appearance on your site?
T: I wrote an article about this last year, and things haven’t changed much – essentially bands should take time to think whether their sound is the sort of thing we look for, and if so keep the blurb short and sweet with links to stream/download their tracks.
H: When reviewing music, which distribution services do you prefer?
T: I’m happy to receive promos on vinyl, CD, as a link to a zip-file of mp3s, or streams on Soundcloud or Bandcamp. As long as I can hear the music without jumping through umpteen hoops I’m pretty platform agnostic.
H: I’ve noticed a few advertisements on The Blue Walrus. Do you have any plans to further monetize your efforts in the future?
T: The ads pay for hosting and a few beers each month, but that’s about it. I do it because I love finding out about new artists – money isn’t really a motivator.
H: When it comes to marketing your brand and the content found on your site, which methods have you found work most effectively? Worst?
T: I don’t really go in for marketing the site – it is a pet project that I love, and we get a decent amount of traffic, but I’d prefer to spend my time looking for new bands than trying to sell the site to people.
H: What is your ultimate career goal?
T: I’m committed to making The Descrier a viable alternative to traditional newspapers for finding the stories behind the headlines. We launched it as a bootstrapped startup last summer and it’s gone from strength to strength, breaking frontpage news around the globe, but we have a long way to go. On the music-related front, the site works with some of the best music blogs in the UK for the music section, so I hope to make people more aware of the role of music blogs in discovering new music.
H: If you could change one thing about the music industry, what would it be?
T: I’d make it more transparent, so people know where their money is going. The deals with streaming services like Spotify leave a lot to be desired for artists, but the actual details of the deals are not released, so no-one outside of a few executives know the real revenue breakdowns.
H: Okay, I think that just about covers everything. Do you have any additional thoughts you’d like to share with our readers before I let you go?
T: I think that about covers it – thanks for the interview! Just a quick note to say that if you are looking for some names to watch for 2014, then alongside the BBC Sound of 2014 list, there is the alternative Blog Sound of 2014 list which is also excellent – and made up of some fantastic blogs.
