Canadian reggae-funk, new band name, and the Angelshakes

This semester is easily shaping up to be the busiest period of my life so far. I'm a teaching assistant at Stirling University for a class in Film and Music, I'm a lecturer at Glasgow University for an introductory class to Popular Music Studies, and I'm trying to write up my PhD thesis. Sheesh! It never rains but it pours. Fortunately, these are all things that I want to be doing, and I feel like my life is on a busy, but ultimately fulfilling track. A few other neat things are happening as well:

I recently wrote an article on Toronto reggae, funk, and soul for The Dominion. You can read the article here.

I used to have a Glasgow band called The Lost Marbles, but we discovered that when people googled for us all they got were totally unrelated American wedding bands using the same name. So we have officially changed our name and logo to what you see above, which we like, if only because when you google it we're the only band that comes up. We've been playing a good run of shows at Glasgow venues like the 13th Note, the Barfly, and Nice and Sleazy's. We've also got a myspace page with free MP3s.

Finally, my kid brother has also recently made his debut on the myspace scene. His name is Pat Brennan, and he's got a great musical project called The Angelshakes. You can check out his fine music here.