Mini Bio: James Hendicott graduated from family-focused, low-key travel blogger to Seoul Government Tourism Writer and official advisor to Lonely Planet over the course of a whirlwind few months in late 2007 and early 2008. Having established himself firmly through the Korean journalism scene, he relocated to Dublin, and branched out into his second major love: music. These days James is a regular contributor to successful Irish music magazines AU Magazine and State Magazine, as well as an in house writer at mammoth travel community TravBuddy. He’s also written on music for Museyon’s Music Worldwide Guidebook and a host of high-profile online publications, interviewing the likes of Manic Street Preachers, Bloc Party, Basement Jaxx, Two Door Cinema Club and My Chemical Romance along the way. His recent travel contributions have included a stint with ASEAN Tourism, a series of popular pieces on travel in North Korea and India, and some experimental articles on lifestyle travel and travel through social media. This year, he hopes to travel to The Congo and write on the musical background of cult indie-rock band Vampire Weekend, as well as take a sidelong, literary glance at Iceland’s spectacular landscapes. When he’s not writing, you’ll probably find James attending three figures worth of live performances every year, or making the most of Ireland’s countryside on his mountain bike.
The journey so far, year by year:
2010: 201o turned out to have a strong musical bent. Having forged a strong connection with Belfast’s Alternative Ulster from the off, I soon found myself on the cover, having interviewed national stars Two Door Cinema Club for a Christmas feature. I contributed a feature – and sometimes several features – to every issue throughout the year, and also found myself face to face with musical headline makers like Manic Street Preachers, Sigur Ros and Adam Green on their behalf.
Things at State Magazine also went from strength to strength, with countless festivals, live reviews, album reviews and interviews with Neil Hannon’s Duckworth Lewis Method, The View, LostProphets, Zero 7 and We Are Scientists coming my way. Of course,
Having worked with Travbuddy.com as a content producer at the end of 2009, I was offered the position of in-house blogger, and quickly established a popular travel blog on the sight, adding ample new traffic and encouraging debate amongst the 1.6 million member community. The blog continues to grow consistently.
Whilst working together with successful editors over a longer period has become the inevitably focus of a long-term freelancer, other projects along the way have included developing if sporadic associations with Findacourse.com, Goldenplec.com, Museyon Guidebooks popular blog accompanying their musical musing and SouthKorea.co.uk.
I’ve also continued to hold a number of positions in South Korea, both as contributor to and Senior Editor of urban culture publication Eloquence Magazine and in contributions on expat living and the life of Koreans abroad on behalf of the Korea Herald. Romar Traveler also re-featured my ‘four seasons’ as the homepage to their website for an entire month, emphasizing the highly seasonal nature of the country and the extravagant array of travel that comes with it.
With such consistent work, and calls for work coming in almost as quickly as they can be written, 2010 was a bumper year for me.
Travel Highlights: Writing-focused trips to explore the boisterous music scene in Glasgow, Scotland, and the infamous romance of French capital Paris. A developing interest in Ireland’s countryside, from the mountains of Wicklow National Park to tiny highlights like Cong in County Mayo have also stoked my appreciation of ‘travel at home’.
Musical Highlights: Festivals, festival, festivals. Six of them to be precise, including the organic vibe of the brilliant (yet tiny) Knockanstockan in rural Ireland. I also hit the two big ones – Oxegen and Electric Picnic – and saw memorable live sets in Dublin from the likes of Foals, Interpol, Dan Le Sac and nearly 300 other artists over the course of the year.
Writing Highlights: A major cover story with AU Magazine, as well as some fantastic interview highlights, including rock legends Manic Street Preachers and my childhood heroes Less Than Jake. Establishing the TravBuddy blog, appearing on national radio in Ireland several times to talk about music, and the playful aside of the Phone Box Experiment all kept things buzzing along, too.
2009: Up until early 2009, I’d been splitting my time half and half between freelance writing and teaching English as a foreign language. As much as I loved the teaching, the writing success was quickly turning it into a full time job. It was time to become a fully fledged freelancer. With my State career still ticking along nicely (including interviews with the likes of Zero 7, Von Bondies, Frank Turner, Girls and Anti Pop Consortium), I was picked up as a Dublin guide for high profile publisher Museyon Guidebooks New York, producing 15 pages of their latest book, entitled ‘Music and Travel: Touring the World Through Sites and Sounds’, released in September. In it I explore the complex world of Celtic Punk, its changing relationship with the island of Ireland, and how it eventually wound its way back into Dublin’s bar scene via London and (!) L.A., as well as becoming a regular contributor to their music blog.
Another major travel assignment came from ASEAN Tourism, writing hotel and conference venue overviews on locations in Seoul and Shanghai. ASEAN represent ten Asian countries working collaboratively, and my work is being distributed multinationally as part of a promotional magazine, as well as in brochure form.
Numerous articles were still making their way out into the world in South Korea, and a call from the Korea Herald lead to two newspaper pieces discussing music, and looking into the lives of Koreans living in the UK and Ireland. Eloquence Magazine, meanwhile, had awarded me a regular rant column entitled ‘Vomit’, allowing me an unrefined monthly spiel on issues like the OJ Simpson trial, and the Vatican’s attitude to contraception. Travel features, interviews (including beatboxer Beardyman and Japanese rockers Survive) and culutural commentary – particularly on odd goings on in North Korea – squeezed in alongside them.
I also discovered the world of web content writing, signing contracts to produce 10s of thousands of words with colossal community travel based website TravBuddy.com, mobile ringtone sales site Xingtones.com and Irish educational site FindACourse.ie.
My relationships with Romar Traveler, PureGrainAudio.com, BakPak Europe and K9 Magazine continued too, incorporating seasonal articles on South Korea, discussion of Dublin’s best travel sites and an overview of how the recession impacted on dog homes, amongst many others. New interests included the musical side of trendy, Chicago-based Pith Magazine and telling Europe why they probably shouldn’t travel in a group of three, through hostel mag Backpacker Europe.
Travel Highlights: Climbing to 5,500 meters in the Nepalese Himalayas, and taking photos in my underwear in the clouds; horse riding round the peaks in Mussoorie (India); a return to the UK festival scene; wallowing in Kathmandu’s extraordinary nightlife; strolling round Cong (West Ireland), possibly the most peaceful village in the world; walking 27 miles in one day to catch the last bus out of Langtang National Park (Nepal).
Musical Highlights: Radiohead bringing the house down at Reading Festival, and Crystal Castles giving them a run for their money; the lilting, lyricless sounds of my Nepalese mountain guide; trance parties on the roof of Kathmandu’s vivacious nightspots.
Writing Highlights: Going full time as a freelancer; writing a large section of a Museyon music guide book, and seeing it on the shelf for the first time; writing countless travel articles for TravBuddy and getting an incurable case of itchy feet.
2008: The expat music thing was wonderful. It was well produced, slick, and made me something of a minor local celebrity, but my desire to write was becoming compulsive. I needed something more. Fortunately, the Seoul Government was on hand to provide it, and my position at Rokon won me a place as an events reviewer on the official website, VisitSeoul.net. Events reviewer later became pamphlet writer, and I also produced a 40 page dossier on all the great Seoul sites the Lonely Planet had missed last time out. The dossier in turn led to meetings with Seoul City Lonely Planet writer Martin Robinson, who later allowed me to contribute numerous venues and insights to the entertainment section of the guide. On the government tourism side, my remit extended to include art, sport and other city events on top of the music, as well as recruiting other English language writers.
Rokon’s editor, meanwhile, had merged his magazine with Bling, a national Korean language urban culture magazine that distributed half a million copies around the country. My introductory profile described me as a genius (a tad embarrassing), and I had the honor of producing the first ever English-language article, a face-to-face interview with Drum and Bass act Pendulum, one of my favorite bands of all time. The Bling team later took over Eloquence Magazine, which I’ve continued to contribute to ever since.
Late in the year I returned to Ireland with my soon-to-be fiancé, and something of a writing rebuilding exercise had to be undertaken. Despite staying heavily involved with the Korean Mags, I needed a local output. The transition took place relatively smoothly, after I was snapped up by Irish indie music mainstays State Magazine, as an all round music writer, and produced late-in-the-year interviews with the like of A Certain Ratio and up and coming instrumentalists And So I Watch You From Afar. PureGrainAudio, a Canadian music website, came on board too, immediately appointing me as a Senior Music Writer off the back of an article on the Seoul music scene, while I produced numerous assorted articles for publications like BakPak Europe Travel Guides (assorted travel articles), K9 Magazine, (exploring the changing attitudes of Koreans to dogs), Jagermeister (music content for their Korean web blog), Romar Traveler (assorted articles on North and South Korea) and AroundSeoul.net (On the Korean bar scene).
Travel Highlights: Hopping over the border into North Korea, twice, and marveling at the mud-streaked hills; getting engaged; freezing amongst the rustic beauty of Kaunas, Lithuania; discovering the offshore island of Ulluengdo – a Hawaii-esque Korean paradise – and setting foot on the disputed territory of Dokdo; visiting Taipei and Tokyo, each just for the weekend; my first proper Irish Guinness, and the carnage in a bottle that is Buckfast.
Musical Highlights: Meeting Pendulum, and standing at the back of the stage while they performed, before heading out in to Seoul to slurp JD together; Travis, Hard Fi, Feeder and the Chemical Brothers all coming to Korea.
Writing Highlights: Blast off! From expat music writer to Lonely Planet contributor and government tourism advisor all in a few months; interviewing Pendulum; being described as a ‘genius’ in my Bling Magazine introductory profile didn’t do my ego any harm, either…
2007: By 2007 I was far from bored of travel as a concept, but I certainly wanted more. The same went for writing, and along came the perfect solution: move to South Korea, and join an expat music magazine. So I did. I started as a teacher by day, Rokon Magazine album reviewer by night, but within three months found myself as lead feature writer, interviewing major international acts on a regular basis. It was a real ‘in the deep end’ experience, with its ups (interviews with My Chemical Romance and The Brand New Heavies), its sky highs (my first cover story, then another one the next month) and even the odd down (my most controversial article to date, urging 50 Cent not to come to South Korea and reinforce negative social stereotypes with his music. I maintain that I had a point!).
Travel Highlights: The lovable but alien side to South Korea; meeting my fiancé mid-meditation in a Zen Buddhist Temple, and the incredible romance that followed; getting lost in rural China without a word of Chinese, and staying in a village carved out of the rocks; discovering Cheonan, a Korean city that doubles as a spacey outdoor art museum; learning to love fermented cabbage; Daejeon Beach mud festival, and spending two days painted a mucky shade of brown.
Musical Highlights: Getting in the thick of the Korean music scene, and discovering wonderful bands like Galaxy Express and Crying Nut. Introducing the Brand New Heavies to Korean drinking culture after watching them rock a Seoul nightclub opening, and Muse sending Pentaport Music Festival into uncontrollable raptures.
Writing Highlight: My first cover story, a swift rise to the top (well, in expat magazine terms!), and being ‘let loose with the big guns’ for my first hands on interview experiences.
2006: When I landed in Delhi in summer 2006, someone suggested keeping a blog. I can’t even remember who it was, but my travel blog quickly became a fixation, a creative outlet that pushed me to travel harder. It was English, but not as I knew it, and recounting every new experience became bordering on compulsive. I grew through it, wanting and needing to do ever more thrilling things that I could narrate to my friends back home. It’s still going strong now, and has even persuaded one of my best friends to quit his well-paid job in finance and head off teaching in Asia instead. I just hope he doesn’t regret it…
Travel Highlights: Trekking to the source of the Ganges; sleeping on a local’s floor and cruising around the backstreets in Mumbai together; crashing with a fisherman’s family for the Ganesh festival in Goa; exploring the yellow-stone temples and banana-leaf restaurants of Hampi (still my favorite corner of India).
Musical Highlights: Buddhist monks humming rounds of mantras in the Dalai Lama’s (new) hometown, and the Foo Fighters tearing up Isle of Wight, alongside a newly-huge and hugely lively Maximo Park.
Writing Highlight: A long, descriptive spiel to friends back home, no doubt describing the wonders of the Indian Himalayas, the unsuccessful wait for the Dalai Lama or just why I couldn’t resist swimming in the septic Ganges at Varanasi.
Way Back When: I hated writing at school. I went to the same school as a certain William Golding, and English lessons consisted of examining Lord of the Flies in painstaking detail, with the occasional Shakespearean aside. If you’d asked my English teachers which member of their class was least likely to become a writer, they’d probably have laughed, thought for about a tenth of a second and pointed emphatically at me. I dropped English first chance I had. I went on to the University of Warwick (UK), where I completed an undergraduate degree followed by a Masters degree in Chemistry. The fusion of Buckminster Fullerene into chemically active drug capsules, since you asked. Then, the summer after completing my Masters, I headed for India. And suddenly everything was different…
Travel Highlights: Volunteering at an animal rescue center in Thailand, where I slept three meters from a crocodile pit, then danced all night at the Ko Phan Ngan full moon party and visited ‘Cambodia’s table mountain’. Epic.
Musical Highlight: Festivals, festivals, festivals. 10 of them over three years, to be precise. My first ever Glastonbury in 2002 is my favorite to this day, though that astonishing Muse headline slot in 2005 still makes it into my DVD player every so often.
Writing Highlight: Not doing any. I’d have considered that a highlight back then!
