Press Releases: It'll probably be a while before I get 'round to providing even a generic press release, let alone anything more useful, but in the meantime, press & media content-authors should feel more than free to copy/adapt any of the basic information available from either the frontpage or the about section — use of any other material from the website is subject to the usual global copyright restrictions. If in doubt about anything, just drop me a line. :-)
* Page sub-title with posthumous winks to Brendan Behan and Malcom McLaren, high impresarios of public notoriety et popularis fama.
Note on Honest Poverty: I'm more than happy to provide free content to the press and media for publicity purposes (of course). However, as a freelancer (read: "mostly unemployed"), I just can't afford to give face, voice, print, consultancy or any other kind of dishonest labour in proverbial "Expert" mode without negotiating at least some nominal fee in advance and in writing (cheques of at least two-figure sums payable to: "Steve Sweeney-Turner"). Bottom-line is that if you get paid for sitting on yer bum in front of a microphone or camera with me, then so do I...
Previous Form: My past crimes as a shameless media-hoor include working with local, national and international press, radio, TV, etc., providing content (mostly in interview or panel situations) on a wide range of Scottish, Celtic and other subjects (particularly popular music), and occasionally even stuff like stone circles, dodgey druids & UFOs. Specific UK organisations have included BBC Breakfast News & GMTV, to Q Magazine & The Times, through Channel 4 Radio & BBC Radio Leeds. International organisations have included various press and radio folks from Canada, Australia and India, not least as a result of the occasional tag-line over at Reuters.
My usual style is informal but (I hope) informed, whether I'm required to politely-prattle in the Baroque fiction known as "The Queen's English" or just merrily blether away in my own colloquial Lothian Scots (which is, ironically, a far more authentic form of auld englisc). I'm known for having strong views, but subscribe to no established party dogma, not even those of the parties to which I subscribe politically — for example, "some of my best friends are Unionists"... LOL!!!
Did he Really say That?: It's probably also worth mentioning that, because my own alleged "career" started in music journalism (not least for The Musical Times),* I reckon I understand the journalistic mind-set fairly well. So be warned that I don't take too kindly to having my words mangled by un-informed paraphrase, summary or splice. What a lot of non-musical journo's seem to assume is that their general audience doesn't include folks with specialist knowledge or interests — in fact, it almost always does, and I'm only ever happy making a fool of myself in front of them if it was actually me who was the fool in the first place.† But mis-quote me badly, and I guarantee you'll be hearing from me. ;-)
* Probably my best tabloid "Gonzo" work was indeed actually for the traditionally-august Musical Times, one highlight of which was a satirical left-wing & pro-feminist review of Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Glyndebourne Opera House that I ran with the Sun-inspired headline, "Dirty Don in Pecker Palaver" — on publication of which, I was summarily banned from Glyndebourne for life by its rather humourless Thatcherite director of the day (which my editor thought was just as hilarious as I did). An equitable result for all concerned, then.
† Most classic foot-in-mouth outbreak — Northern English TV interview when The Spice Girls broke up to go their separate ways, during which I gave Robbie Williams (ex-Take That) as a perfect example of a miserably-failed solo career, only one week before his first solo album's totally-stellar breakthrough in the UK charts (thankfully, only a couple of my music-students saw it). I still have it on video — a cherished artefact, and one that helps keep my ego (approximately) in its place.
So, if you reckon you can work with all of these jippy conditions 'n' provisos, feel free to:
Get your people to call my people
(well, just me, actually)...