Very happy to have joined the Wattpad community!
I look forward to sharing some exclusive content from my upcoming novel there over the summer, but in the meantime, I have added some excerpts from Vinyl Tiger which can be accessed by following the link below.

I spent two years in Kyoto.

After returning to university and earning my degree in Art History [specializing in Japanese art] I was over the moon when just a couple of years later a job offer in Kyoto landed in my lap.

Kyoto, with its proximity to nature (and to Osaka) was a dream like place for me to live in. It's the thousand year capital of Japan - and today remains the heart of Japan, rich in history and culture... perfect for a Nipponphile like me.

I lived there with my pretty fabulous partner of the time, and together we used Kyoto as the spring point to get to know Japan better. But after every trip out of the old capital, I was always more than happy to get home again.

My time in Kyoto, though not without its challenges, was just one of those wonderful times when you meet awesome people who will play a part in your life for years to come. It's a time that I still look back on fondly.
A visit to Kyoto should be on everyone's to do list. There are lots of guides out there that cover the usual suspects, but you might want to try this one for recent foodie stuff, and this one for a completely different perspective.

Japan figures pretty prominently throughout Vinyl Tiger.

It has long been a major market for Western pop stars, and traditionally has been seen as a lucrative market for pop and rock music. Japan of course has its own domestic record industry, whose rules function quite differently to those elsewhere (even in Asia).
In Vinyl Tiger, Alekzandr forges enduring professional and personal relationships with a number of characters, the most important being that with Musashi, a classical composer turned songwriter/producer. It is with Musashi that Alekzandr achieves acclaim and with whom he must navigate a friendship with a completely different etiquette to that which he is used to and capable of.

Many of the Japanese scenes in the book take place in Tokyo and Osaka, but eventually, the shift in the tone of the book also shifts towards Kyoto. Recent tragic events in Japan have also been referenced in the book, hopefully with the utmost of respect.

YOU'VE undoubtedly had more important things to think about, but, can I just tell you that over the last two decades, Stockholm has been consistently bringing it when it comes to pop music.
The Swedes have good pop in their DNA. I mean, hello, ABBA.
And they've also produced a lot of cutting edge pop stars in recent years, of whom I absolutely love Robyn.
But if you're a pop music lover, you need to know that Stockholm is to pop what Milan is to fashion and what Seoul is to electronic goods.
If you could imagine an industrial city where instead of churning out cars or refrigerators they instead churn out pop music, then it would probably look like Stockholm.
So, if you want a hit record, you'd best hop on a plane and head to the northern capital, that way, the odds will be in your favour. If you need a reminder, this article from a couple of years back sums things up pretty nicely.

Sweden's influence in pop began to come to everybody's attention in the nineties, and, naturally, as Alekzandr is a pop star, he eventually hops on the Swedish bandwagon (not long after hopping on an actual Swede).
Stockholm becomes Alekzandr's new base in the mid nineties after years spent in New York and London. Stockholm provides its challenges for someone who had become accustomed to living in the world's metropolises, but it also set the scene for a profound change in his personal life. The kind of change that a sea change can coerce and that would often be unthinkable in a big city.

I visited Stockholm way back in the nineties and I enjoyed it. Even back then I could already sense that there was more to the city than the picture postcard old town. You might not think it, but Stockholm has an edge to it as well, even if it might not be able to compete with cities twice its size.

But it has never really needed to: it knows who it is and is quite comfortable being one of Northern Europe's most important cities thank you very much.

Practically everything you need to know about Stockholm and Swedish life has helpfully been put together in this rad hipster guide.

I'M a Melbourne boy.
The Vinyl Tiger is also a Melbourne boy.
We're both Melbourne boys who have probably spent more of their adult lives away from Melbourne than in Melbourne. But Alekzandr wears way more eyeliner than I ever have.

Alekzandr is an Aussie, in part because by the eighties it became more plausible that you could achieve pop success even if you weren't British or American. But one of the ideas that I was interested in pursuing in writing the book was the experience of being a constant outsider.

You can assimilate almost anywhere you find yourself, but to some extent, there is a feeling inside for many of us ex-pats that we're in a borrowed place. A place that is all well and fine to live in, to make a life in and to enjoy, but one that will probably never belong to us in the way that we belong to our hometowns.
Returning to Melbourne is usually the vehicle with which Alekzandr has to address what is going on with his life elsewhere. It's hard to encapsulate your life to the people in your life if you only get to see them once or twice a year. And the editing process can put undue emphasis on some things and not enough on others.

Melbourne is a place that I hold very dear. I make sure I visit every year and I'm working towards spending more and more of my year there because it's a city that has a lot going for it [in addition to housing my dear life long friends].
Melbourne, is for all its hipster pretensions, a bohemian city at heart. It's an indie city on a big scale, and, one where residents highly value the mix of culture, food, sport and nightlife that it offers. It regularly polls well in all those most livable city indexes so I won't bang on about it anymore than I have. But, if you want some recommendations, check out this groovy map that will keep your inner hipster, sorry, bohemian, happy.

Has any city ever captured the imagination the way New York has?
It's the stuff of dreams these days. Gotham. The Empire State.

Culturally, it has seen its good and bad days. Some say that its in the middle of yet another renaissance after a few years in which other North American cities eclipsed it in influence.

Moving into the eighties, New York (like the States) was in recession. And yet, collectively we look back those times as being a hey day of sorts.
It's not like we go around saying Oh I miss the days of the depression or wasn't that recession fun? Economic circumstances rarely bring out those kinds of reactions. But, those circumstances contributed to what would become a phenomenal shift in popular culture, which for the most part, took place in New York.
It was there that low art and high art merged and created the popular culture that we know and love today. It's when and where street culture became more than that. In a way it was a modern renaissance which forced us to rethink what art and expression was capable of.
There's a fantastic article about the nostalgia attached to that time via the New York Times which I recommend you read.

Being a major on/off player in popular culture, it's a no brainer that New York figures prominently in Vinyl Tiger. After getting his start in London, Alekzandr takes a leap and ends up in Brooklyn. From there, a decade long love affair between the singer and the city ensues, until the winds of change in the early nineties change the playing field again.

But it's that anything was possible mentality that powers Alekzandr's first years and successes in the eighties.

LONDON always loomed large in my imagination.
It was the first place I moved to: I dropped out of uni and after traveling around Europe for a few months, I settled into London life.
I still have fond memories of my time there.

I lived in West London and used to work in Covent Garden so I really got to enjoy inner London life.

When you're a young expat, the world is your oyster and it goes without saying that if you keep an open mind, you'll meet and forge friendships with people from all parts of the world and walks of life.

At the time drum n bass was the in thing in London and the Britpop wars had come and gone. Time was kinder to Blur than it was to Oasis, but they both offered up the soundtrack of British life at the time.

London looms large throughout Vinyl Tiger: in the late seventies during the [post] punk revolution when Alekzandr begins recording and performing: in the early nineties when he retreats to London life after a tough run in the States: and again in the early 2000s when he retreats from life in Europe there.

If you're visiting London for the first (or millionth) time, I have to recommend two of my favourite places. The first is the V & A museum which always has brilliant exhibitions on offer. The other is the Barbican Centre which has really come into its own over the years: it's the perfect place for a spot of lunch, a spot of culture or for your insatiable need for brutalist architecture.

IN writing Vinyl Tiger I wanted to put my travel experiences to good use.
My idea was to write a story about an eighties pop artist whose own life required him to pick up and move from time to time.
In a way, pop music has reflected this: in the seventies and eighties London and New York were the centres of the pop world, but as the markets became more and more global, places like Stockholm, Latin America and Asia became just as important to global pop culture.
Pop music is a lot more democratic these days, thanks to the crumbling record industry and the power of the internet. This means you're more likely to be exposed to music from a wider range of countries simply by listening to playlists: the hurdles once created by distribution and the industry itself can be overcome with a few simple clicks today, which is great for artists and music  lovers alike.

As a nineteen year old, the first foreign country I visited was India. I went alone, with a backpack, some travelers cheques (!) and a Lonely Planet guide. I spent a month there, traveling around the north and east of the country. I met life long friends along the way, and did a lot of growing up in a short time. Seeing so much abject suffering at a young age in combination with a different way of life and so much beauty forces you to stretch yourself and your thinking.
In Vinyl Tiger, Alekzandr's first adventures take place in India. He's challenged on all kinds of levels [much to the shock of some readers of the first chapter], but it's where he gets his wits together and learns how to be street smart. It's also a place whose music bears a huge influence on his future sound.

As an art student and budding Buddhist at the time, I was on a total cultural bender. I made sure to visit Varanasi and New Delhi, but the one place that really blew me away was Khajuraho.
If you're planning to visit India, make sure you include it in your itinerary: India has a lot to offer, but temples have never been so educational as they are in Khajuraho. You can get more information about Khajuraho and its UNESCO listed temples over at this spiffy site. Not for the feint hearted. :p

In addition to the complete novel, Vinyl Tiger is also available at Amazon in three volumes:

• Volume 1: the 80s
• Volume 2: the 90s 
• Volume 3: the 00s.

As a means of saying thank you for your interest in Vinyl Tiger, you can download a copy of Vinyl Tiger: Vol.1 the 80s for your Kindle free here.

Feel free to share the link around, but note that the reproduction of this work elsewhere is forbidden without the express, written permission of the author.