FAQs

Q. Who are you?

A. I’m Martin Austwick. I’m a musician and songwriter, and also a quantum physicist, but that’s not important right now. You can find out more in my biography.

Q. What is The Sound of The Ladies?

A. Just lil’ old me.

Q. It’s just you?

A. Yep. On the recordings, I play all those instruments. Live, it’s just me on my own, with a guitar. At the moment.

Q. Are you Martin the Sound Man from The Answer Me This! Podcast?

A. Yes and no. We share many things in common, such as a DPhil in Physics and a love of microphones. But I have less of a tendency to say really offensive things in public.

Q. Have I seen you onstage with The Monroe Transfer?

A. That was probably Nick. But I did play guitar in The Monroe Transfer. Sadly, I left the band at the end of October 2008.

Q. Haven’t I seen you playing guitar at [The Book Club/The School for Gifted Children/The Latitude Festival/The Sunday Night Adventure Club] behind [Robin Ince/Asher Trelevyn/Josie Long/Martin White/Ben Moor/Bridget Christie/Pappy's Fun Club/Gavin Osborn]?

A. I do hope so. Some of those only ever happened once.

Q. Why do you ask people to download and copy your songs?

A. Because I want to be like Alex from the Arctic Monkeys?

Q. Really?

A. No.

The reasons are multifold. Philosophically - I would rather someone listen to my music for free than they don’t listen to it at all. Practically - I pay for bandwidth, so I would rather you copied it for a friend… you see where I’m going… Generally - I want you to hear the music. If a few people buy it, it will pay for this website and everyone can continue to enjoy it. Please do buy if you can afford to, and think it’s worth it, and want to support me creating more music - and if none or only some of those apply, enjoy the free stuff…

Q. Do you have CDs, vinyl, etc?

A. Vinyl - no. It’s expensive and I wouldn’t sell enough. CDs - yes. But… CDs are crappy and bad for the environment and you’ll just copy it to your iBox and then lose it under the bed. If you really want one, I will make you one up and post it to you, just email me.

Q. Don’t computers use energy?

A. Sure. I’m with this web hosting company which runs entirely off my own smugness. Thank you Matt Groenig.

Q. Is that it?

A. No, I’ll add more questions. It just depends on how frequently you ask them.