The music business continues to become more fractionated and specialized. My housemate John, a soundman, came home recently having just done sound for a 'Punk Cabaret Skater Girl' band. Great. People like myself are now able to operate, successfully (though arguably a little too leanly most of the time) on an independent level, and music fans have an overwhelmingly large and constantly expanding menu to browse. Off-the-wall is becoming more accepted, which seems like positive progress on the surface, but personally I miss how 'cult' bands used to be regarded as sinister and strange by people 'outside'. How you'd discover a band through word of mouth or tattered xeroxed flyers on a telephone pole downtown and have to seek them out in dark seedy corners. And when you'd found them you felt like you'd discovered some secret, possibly forbidden world.

Everything rotates around Myspace. It's cool in many ways and empowering, at least in theory, to 'new aspiring artists'. I say in theory because most of us know it doesn't work on it's own, you still have to be out there approaching things from multiple angles and finding people to work with and people to play to. I read a recent article in Wired magazine by David Byrne decrying the old major label industry road-to-success paradigm (once again) as a thing of the past, pointing towards Radiohead's pay-as-you-wish download album success as an example of power being in the little artists hands again. But though I have a great deal of respect for both these artists and appreciate that they are doing successful things by themselves using the web and independent means, they were already hugely well established successful artists in the public eye, largely because of that major record industry of yesterday.

Loads of shows in 2007. I finally played Hamburg, and did two rounds of Ireland, (one with the wonderful Duke Special who continues to be a kind of a patron saint as well as a great friend) but was actually on the road slightly less constantly than I have been the past couple of years. Didn't feel like it though. I fell off tables and stages more times this year doing shows than ever before in a one year period. This doesn't bode so well for my odds at stability looking into the future. I suffered some bruises and cuts but no serious long-term injuries. I saved those for working on instruments in the laboratory, where I managed, this spring, to nearly chop off the end of my finger with a knife whilst working on (mechanical instrument) Mary Poppins. Spent the better part of two weeks on the road with my forefinger encased in super glue.

I met one of my heroes, David Lynch, who shares a common interest in cool shoes.

I moved from one London flat to another, setting up a new instrument-building laboratory and recording studio in an even smaller and more expensive space than I had back in New York. I must be insane. Spent a lot of time working on Mary Poppins, started building a series of Mini Spinsters, and a new secret machine that's really gonna push the envelope in '08.

The Wowtown annual Moon Jump Contest, which I was covering for the Wowtown News, didn't quite end at the end of the year, following the unfortunate death of Herbert the Snail who was sadly disqualified. R.I.P. Herbert. R.I.P. also to Evel Knievel, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Ike Turner,
Oscar Peterson, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer and Maila Nurmi (Vampira).

My 2007 album 'Why Dogs Howl at the Moon' did the typical indie release dance: loads of great reviews, but still selling less copies than Take That or Girls Aloud, go figure. The photographer that shot the cover for that album, Scott Irvine, also shot the cover for an album by The Horrors, 'Strange House', which I was so prepared to dismiss as yet another tired regurgitation of THINGS ALREADY DONE, just wanting to hate it, but wound up loving it and play it more often than anything else new I heard this year. Best live gig of the year by far was ORCHESTRE DU PAIN in Krefeld, Germany. Absolutely mind-blowing, funny, inspiring and surreal, both musically and visually.

My predictions for 2008: You Tube is gonna take over, and we'll see more polka dots. People won't stop killing each other but I hope they slow down a bit with it.

www.thomastruax.com

Watch Thomas Truax performing 'Why Dogs Howl At The Moon' at Maps' Second Birthday Party