Hi there Blaggers. We’ve decided, with the launch of the new site and all, that we should be more transparent about what exactly it is we’re getting up to. So to keep you in the know, we’ll be writing regular blogs of what’s occurring in the murky back rooms of BlagSound.com. As I write this, we’re gearing up for a chilled out Christmas, followed by a slew of gigs in London and Glasgow, packed-full of some of the best live acts to be seen in 2011.

BlagSound was born out of an idea that music could be given away freely without having a detrimental affect on the artists who made it. It seems quite fitting that our tireless search for a live incarnation of BlagSound has lead us to taking a heavy involvement in the bookings for Death Disco at London’s Notting Hill Arts Club, a weekly cavalcade of new music that was recently cut free of the shackles of paid entry, creating an truly free music environment.

The reality is, however, that I’ve spent the past few days toiling away with PHP code for the new look BlagSound.com (which I hope you all enjoy). The old site and it’s plastic toy-like design was testament to how quickly the initial idea came to fruition. We found ourselves with a pile of content and no place to put it so a rapid design was necessary. Now, with Blag moving into a new year and a new era, we felt it was time to overhaul the site to make it look more fitting. It would have been done far sooner were it not for the fact that I’ve spent the past weeks wrangling with journalism essays for uni. Journalism is a lot less fun when you’re writing about things you couldn’t give a toss about.

So after a shit-ton of coding and spending the afternoon traipsing around the Christmas carnage that is Westfields shopping centre, the thought of firing a few emails off to booking agents with Spotify on full blast (my flatmates have all buggered off home for Christmas) seems like a holiday. Rifling through the now colossal spreadsheet of potential acts we’ve put together, I’m getting excited at the prospect of what’s in store for the new year.

For the Londoners among you, we’re teaming up with the best of the new-wave of London coffee shops to put together The Coffee Revolution, a free one-off event at the Arts Club on January 2nd. It’s a bank holiday and surely any hangover from New Year’s Eve should have subsided. Then, exactly one month later, on February 2nd we’ll be opening the doors on the first night of our partnership with Danny Watson’s Death2Disco (these events are FREE entry, as is The Coffee Revolution on January 2nd).

For those north of the border, Ross has been working on a monthly BlagSound Live! event at Nice n Sleazy’s in Glasgow which will also launch in February. I’d like to thank all of you for being a part of the BlagSound story so far and hope you stay tuned to the exciting things we’re cooking up for 2011. It’s going to be one hell of a year.

Happy Christmas folks!