Sunshine 18 October, 2008
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One of the ways to get me really excited is to tell me that Copeland are releasing a new album. I honestly think Copeland are ridiculously underrated; they’re one of the few groups who can actually deliver a sonic landscape that you can explore at will. My sanity has been saved on more than one occasion by popping on some Copeland and just having a lie down! 
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Copyright stifles creativity by making it blinkin’ impossible to know when you’re infringing 20 September, 2008
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Last night (well, tonight – I haven’t got to bed yet!) was the first rehearsal for this year’s Christmas Concert for our Stake Choir. While there I heard about an extremely bizarre anecdote. Last year, we performed ‘O Holy Night’. The version we have music for only as the first 2 verses for some reason. During rehearsals the director decided that after the second chorus, we’d repeat the first to finish. So that’s what we did in the concerts. After one of them, a former director of the choir (incidentally the previous Stake President) was approached by a gentleman who asked who had given us permission to change the song. The man (who is supposedly in the music business) then claimed that by repeating the chorus we had rearranged the piece and thus infringed copyright. The sum result of this conversation is that the choir director now refuses to do the same this year in order to not cause trouble.
All of which I find quite incredible. My question is: whose copyright is being infringed and how? (more…)
Must….control….urge……to destroy!! 8 February, 2008
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One of my dad’s childhood friends, along with her husband, has come to visit from Dubai and is staying at my house for the next few days. They’ve been here a total of 3 hours, and I already want to kill the husband.
Dad’s been rabbitting on about how he plays guitar so we’ll enjoy playing together. I knew full well that’ll never happen. We’d play very different styles and not really appreciate each other’s (it turns out he’s into country/rockabilly – no surprises, but that’s fine, it’s his life). But then he started lecturing me on note theory and double-stopping (this is after being told that I learned classical instruments as a child and therefore actually know something about music). I put up with that though, for the sake of international relations. The icing on the cake though was the following exchange:
Him: So play me a full song.
My dad: <Chuckles> He doesn’t know any! [I'm not entirely sure what that was for, but anyway]
Me: <frantically thinking of something to play> erm…erm…okay
The first thing that popped into my head was Stone by Unbelievable Truth, cause it’s nice and simple, but I realise it’s not the most attention-grabbing song ever. That does not excuse what happens next however. I’ve barely started (about 10-15 seconds in), when all of a sudden he asks my dad about the how the heating is controlled, and then they both get up and examine the thermostat!
THE THERMOSTAT!!!
They don’t even want to alter it or anything. Just to explain how it works….
I knew there was a reason I didn’t like performing….
When bad things happen to good albums 5 February, 2007
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Last week I got hold of a few albums, namely the new albums from Muse and Hundred Reasons as well as an oldie from Daft Punk (Homework).
I haven’t listened fully through Homework yet, but I have the other two and the first thing that struck is me how bad the recordings sound, and there’s really no excuse for it.
The Muse album is recorded too hot throughout and leaves clipping all over the place. At times it’s quite annoying. The Hundred Reasons album on the other hand is over-compressed, just like a Generic American Corporate Rock(TM) band would do.
Highly disappointing. Somebody needs a good kicking!
After that I decided to have a listen to my old Ride CDs (the original releases rather than the reissues), and I’ve already noticed that the old Nowhere release sounds much better than the new one. I can’t tell much of a difference with the others though.
Merry Christmas! 25 December, 2006
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It’s Christmas Day.
It’s some ridiculous time in the morning, Santa’s been and gone.
Except he hasn’t because I’m not done wrapping, or tidying up, or preparing the emails dad wants to send when he gets back from work with certain family members singing.
Anyway, as I was getting the files ready for ‘publication’ I had a listen to a song I recorded at my brother’s house many moons ago (September 2003 to be precise), and written at some point in the first half of that year while I was at Uni. It was a struggle to write it and it’s been a struggle to write anything else since!
Anyway, I can never really make up my mind as to whether I actually like it or not. There’s some good bits but then there’s the fact that my voice sounds like some bad Will Young impersonator with a cold in the morning. Or something like that.
But yeah, have a listen. Incidentally, I perform guitar and vocals. Drums and Bass were programmed by my brother.
Angst, Radio 4 style 19 April, 2006
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Last night I picked up my brother from his flat as he didn’t have his keys with him (long story) and hence was locked out. As I pulled up I had Radio 1 on (The Lock Up if you’re interested) and hence some cheesy American punk-pop was on. For some reason I decided to announce it as he got in: (more…)
Pandora’s box 25 March, 2006
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My brother has introduced me to the delights of www.pandora.com. This is essentially DIY internet radio, but not DIY, sort of…..
Anyway, give it a go.
The greatest cover in the world….ever! 11 March, 2006
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Well, I think it would be if it ever happened.
Imagine this if you will…..”I say a little prayer for you” performed by…..The Proclaimers! (For those who don’t know, they sound like this) How incredible would that be?!!
Of course it could just be that Magic FM (the current radio station of choice at work) has finally pushed my sanity over the brink….just maybe….
A little treat (if you like this sort of thing) 21 February, 2006
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Just in case you don’t know, my favourite band in the whole wide world are called Ride (more on them here and here). I recently became aware of a couple of their videos being put on YouTube (sort of like flickr, but for video). This one is for the first song of their’s that I ever heard, and this was the follow-up single (although I don’t know why they thought the video was a good idea!).
Ahh…the memories!
Birthday Presents face off 6 February, 2006
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Among my brithday presents (I’m 27! Eek!) I got two albums. Young for Eternity by The Subways and A Certain Trigger by Maximo Park. Of the two, I much prefer the latter. That’s not to say that Young for Eternity is a bad album. It just came across to me as a two-trick pony – Rock and acoustic ballad. Very well done tricks (and definitely fun to jump around to), but limited all the same.
A Certain Trigger on the other hand is far more adventurous, and even if sometimes it doesn’t quite work, it definitely gets an A* for effort. It flits between styles repeatedly and to good effect (one minute pop, one minute indie, next moment almost ska?!) and the songwriting is intelligent without being pretentious. A Certain Winner.
And on that awful pun I must depart!
