Music and Stuff

Recording time

2008-08-08T20:43:00.002+01:00

Dear oh dear, why have I never got time for the things I love?? Because I don't make time!! I'm off work tuesday and wednesday next week, so I'm going to MAKE time to get some stuff recorded before then, and spend my days off elegently mixing the sessions. I've come a long way in a short time in terms of learning how to mix well, but there's no evidence at all of that on my music. I'm also going to re-mix/re-record some older songs when I "find" the time.

Anyone heard the new Verve song? "Love is Pain". What a song! It's a one you hate when you hear, but through XFM forcing it onto me every morning it's grown on me. I can't figure exactly what the backing vocal bit is. It's really processed, possibly a small audio sample that's been modulated?? Who knows.

Also, I saw the Verve live (on TV) at some festival this summer. Richard Ashcroft did not seem to be in the best state, Bittersweet Symphony was not what it should have been :-(

Nine Inch Nails

2008-08-05T20:31:00.002+01:00

Well, I haven't made my mind up on NIN. I was put off by the name for a long while, and I don't know why. Anyway, they (or rather he; Trent Reznor) have a great mix of metal and electronic music, but without fitting into any category. HMV and Zavvi put it in the metal section, and most fans I think would describe it as industrial metal, with electronic undertones.

Whatever.

I got introduced by a housemate who loves them. The tracks that I like, I love, but on "With Teeth", the album I bought recently, the album has it's weak moments. The Hand That Feeds has made itself to my ringtone for now, and Everyday is Exactly the Same (which was recently used on Wanted, with James Mcavoy and Angelina Jolie) expresses very well the mundaine nature of Daily 40 hrs a week life that everyone has experienced, even those like me who are students and have only worked full-time weeks on a temporary basis. Do You Know What You Are comes across as OTT aggressive and screamy, but by the third lesson becomes the type of anthem you used to love when you were 16 and very angry with teachers/friends/life.

This one won't go in the "worth a listen" list, simply because it's too well known, but I assure you it's worth a few listens through if you haven't dabbled in Nine Inch Nails already.

Jenny Wilson

2008-08-03T18:28:00.003+01:00

You know The Knife? Dance music duo (real dance music, well composed by people who enjoy it), anyway, I was on their record label website (I think it's their own label) and I stumbled across Jenny Wilson a while ago. She hasn't done anything for a couple of years by the looks of things so I'm waiting in anticipation of something new from her. Imagine acoustic music, only played with an electric guitar, complimented by digital synthesisers. Nothing techno or electro, just good electronic backing. This one's going in the "worth a listen" list.

The Arctic Monkeys have just come on XFM, why haven't I bought on of their CDs yet??

Back in black (and white)

2008-08-03T17:50:00.003+01:00

Actually, it's full colour, but that does't make for a good title...

I've just been given a Nikon D50 by my Dad so I'v been learning how real photography works. This photo's got a low aperture value, which is why it's got that pin pointed focus on the pickups/hands, and the rest is blurred around it. Unfortunately it's perhaps too dark, I've got lots of experimenting to do before I can take good snap shots. More to come...

Free Thermis

2008-03-09T15:18:00.002Z

I do love freebies, and I've been after one of thee for a while. I used to by some lunch and a coffee every day at uni, but that £3 a day really does mount up, so I started taking sandwiches. But of course... I couldn't possible go without my coffee, so even though 75p a day was better than £3, I still had to take it one step further and bring my own coffee. So I walked into the SU, and what were they giving away? Yes, that's right, a thermis... with every copy of the Telegraph. So, not only do I save my 75p a day, but also managed to get myself a thermis for 30p! The only problem is, I had to be seen buying a copy of the telegraph (which my Dad rather un-affectionately but accurately labels; "the Torygraph), and let me tell you people that's not an image I want, it's one step away from being a Daily Mail reader!! Since I took that picture I've mad an attempt at removing the telegraph logo, which seems to wipe of without much fight under a bit of hot water.

As for the music this week, I'm working on a new piece which is a little Sigur Rós-ish, but slightly less ambient. I sampled the rain for this one which adds quite a nice dynamic to it. It's jumped about a bit from style to style since it's conception and I'm not sure where it's going to end up, though I'm fairly confident the vocals are going to play a bigger role in this one than they normally do.

Photos With Distance

2008-03-06T19:46:00.006Z

I don't quite know what it is about pictures with distance, I just love them, I've set this one as my desktop background. I love scenes with greenery aswell, the only thing missing from this is water. This was a shot I took while I was visiting a Roman fort somewhere around the Scottish borders (can't remember exactly where). It was actually taken about 4 years ago, the reason I'm digging them up is because there's nothing much happening here at the minute. I'm working hard with uni and that's all about I've got time for.

I've been thinking recently about my future travelling plans (I'm sure we all have/had them), and I'm going to get a large atlas poster, mark everywhere I've been on it, and have a photo for each place. I think this would certainly be one of the photos for "home".

Earth loops

2008-02-26T16:32:00.003Z

Ok, this is getting silly now. My laptop won't record anything from Marshall without a horrible AC hum. There's no problem if I unplug the laptop, but the thing only has about 40 mins of battery life in it. I don't want to remove the earth loop because I value my life, and the thing that's even more annoying, what happens when I get a PC and don't have the option to unplug it?!

Anyone know how to fix it?

It's all about the stereo!!

2008-02-23T14:05:00.005Z

I've fixed a long-lived and most horrific problem in my life. Basically when I record electric guitar the hardware adds it's own crackly distortion, which made recording guitar virtualy impossible. So far I've been limited to recording things very quietly, but now my problems are over!! It turns out I have to record it as a stereo source using the stereo inputs because if I use the mono input, or just the L channel of the stereo input (as I have been doing) the socket gets overloaded. As Stewie Griffin would say; "Victory is mine!".

A friend of mine dragged me a long to see Reel Big Fish last week, it was awful, but I'll blog about that later today or tomorrow

The porcelain telephone to God

2008-02-13T11:38:00.000Z

don't ever play drinking games

5.1 overkill!!

2008-02-12T18:04:00.000Z

I've just out on my "Rust Never Sleeps" dvd for the first time since I've had 5.1 surround sound. Essentially for concerts all they do is duplicate the sound, add an echo to it, and spit it out of the back 2 speakers. You know, as if you're in the crowd and the sound's reverberating behind you. Well I must ask you good people, what's the point?! I love surround sound on films and would be very sad to go back to not having it, but all of my concert dvds (and there's alot of them) will be played in old fashioned stereo.

As a side note though, I forgot how damn good that music is. I've gone through a spell over the past year or so when I haven't listened to Neil Young much at all, I guess I'm coming back to it now. It's just reminded me of an age-old debate... "Who invented grunge", and the first time I heard Neil Young I new the answer to that.

More to come...

2008-02-11T11:25:00.000Z

I've been busy and blog-less the past week or so. I've been at a family gather (my wee nephews dedication to be exact) this weekend so I've been away from home. I need to devote some time to uni this week, and I need to plan in some time for creating music. I hate having to time-table in the things I love, but it's come to that! Never the less I'll be blogging all the way!

I've been having words with a poet recently, I've asked permission to steal his words for some music, though I prefer to consider it a joint collaboration:-) I'll blog about this later once I've organised the ins and outs with him.

Cloverfield

2008-02-04T16:01:00.000Z

Average, very average. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it, but the monster was just a godzilla/dinosaur/sea monster type creature which wasn't exciting at all. The way it shot all from one persons home camcorder made it intersting, but that was about all it really had to offer. Some of the character relationships were quite interesting, definitely some good strong acting. My advice, if you get the ticket for free (as I did), it's worth 82 minutes of your time. But if not; it's not worth £5 of your money.

Yipsan Bicycles

2008-02-01T19:09:00.000Z

Renold Yip is a bike maker. I stumbled across his blog purely by chance when I was clicking on the "next blog" button, and found some interesting things. He said he'll be displaying some of his working electronically as a slideshow and will be using "It Starts With Steel for it. It's a piece I composed some time in summer last year. Apparently he works with steel, so the music seems rather apt!

New Song "Stand Your Ground"

2008-01-31T18:48:00.000Z

There's a new track on the myspace. This one's very heavily electronic; the only 'real' layers are the vocals and bass guitar. It opens with a marimba, and then a second one kicks in adding a certain depth. I was quite proud of the trumpet sound in this one.

It's funny, I've realised that old tracks seem to be a good way to go; I make a song that I like, then ruin it half way through creation and ditch it, but then when I come back to it a month later with fresh I can pick out what went wrong with it and fix. Was as simple as changing the bass and strategically removing the kick drum in this one. Hope you all like it

"Take Hold"

2008-01-30T14:43:00.000Z

Last night I put a new song on the myspace. It's a new, more layered version of an a song I put on there about a month ago. The old one's still on there too, haven't decided which one I like more yet, but I'm sliding towards the old one. It's charm seemed to come frmo the fact that it was a quick, raw song; it took me 2 hours from starting writing it to finishing the recording. Now that I've spent a few days on it, it's perhaps lost it's edge

"Wasn't it better in..."

2008-01-28T20:03:00.000Z

I woke up to The Arrow (a classic rock station on DAB for those who don't know it) this morning. First thing; I never realised how good "Hotel California" really is, just a song I always thought was OK but remained fairly indifferent from. But secondly, and most importantly, you do realise when you listen to alot of the old stuff that there was some real crap out there. Everyone loves to romanticise it, saying "wasn't the music scene much better in the 60s/70s/80s...", and "music's not the same these days". Now I may be wrong, as someome born in the late 80s I've got no real comparison, but I know there's awful music out there now, and I know there's amazing out there now. Nothing changes, in 20 years time someone'll put on the classic rock tracks and say "wasn't in better in 90s/00s when the Red Hot Chili Peppers ruled the airwaves". I vow to never tell my children "music's not the same nowadays", because it just won't be true.

Charlie Wilson's War

2008-01-28T19:55:00.000Z

Went to see said film a few hours ago. I know the whole political, isn't-the-US-government-evil thing has been done to death, which may be the reason why no-one wants to see it (my, a friend and one other person in the screen), but this was a really good watch! The film follows Charlie Wilson's political battle to persuade the government to give support to the Middle East to defeat the Soviet Union. I don't really know a whole lot about the true story, so I couldn't comment on realism, though one thing that did streak me was the fact that Charlie Wilson was not portrayed as a hero, instead; the congressman looking for good favour, concerned with women and whisky. An excellent performance from Tom Hanks, with Julia Roberts playing a role that could have been better developed, but she certainly did well with what she had, you almost wouldn't believe it's her.

Strangers

2008-01-26T12:27:00.000Z

The other day I had the strangest conversation with the nicest ex-convict you could ever meet. I was walking down the street to meet a friend (I think it was the night I went to Matt and Phreds), and he walked along with saying he'd just got out of prison which was "no-ones fault but his own" as he described. Hearing an accent on me he assumed I was a working class lad born without the old silver spoon, and we discussed the importance of education, both academic and labour. Of course, he finished up asking me for £1, why else did he start a conversation with a random person on the street. Lets just say I took more from the situation then he did.

No bass yet

2008-01-24T14:13:00.000Z

So I didn't end up getting the new bass yet, so my music remains very high-end heavy, for the next fw days at least. I got up at 12:00pm and still have lots to do so there's no time for shopping today.

I'm still not sure what I'm buying yet; I've found that when you're buying a cheap copy there are general 3 types; the P bass, the J bass and the Musicman. I'll have a twiddle on all three and see what the score is. Anyone want to share their expertise on the world of bas with me? Any advice welcome! :-)

Stuart McCallum

2008-01-23T13:43:00.000Z

So it turns out "Jazz/Funk" was a terrible description by the Manchester metro paper. I don't even know what to call it. Outstanding. We'll call it outstanding. Stuart McCallum, who apparently plays guitar for The Cinematic Orchestra played like nothing I've seen before. Using digital effects, beautifully bullied by harmonics, feedback and just plain tapping the guitar. The drumming by Mykey Wilson was also pretty damn mind boggling, so far as to steal the show for one or two tracks, though when someone commented Stuart simply said "it's the simplest part of the music and so it's the easiest bit to connect with", though it was in very good humour and in no way rude. The bass player furthered my desire to get a bass guitar, which I'll do in the near future I hope. As for Joe McCallum, er synth/laptop filled the whole thing out beautifully; it's good to hear something like that because it reminds you how endless electronic music is, and forces me to drive on far beyond my capabilities... I'll learn. (Sorry about the low-res. picture, took it on my 2 mega-pixel camera phone)

Laura Marling

2008-01-22T17:55:00.000Z

(Maybe this should be titled; "The First PROPER Blog", but it's not) I've got to tell you good people who haven't heard this young lady ; you need to get that sorted. She's got this wonderful simplistic sound; very raw but... elegant I guess is the word. Mostly just her with an acoustic, but some excellent accompanying bits and pieces. I saw her in Matt and Phred's a couple of months ago; you know somethings going somewhere good when it sounds even better live than on CD! I'm back to Matt and Phred's tonight for some guitar-based Jazz/funk stuff... I'll report on that tomorrow.

The First Blog

2008-01-22T02:51:00.000Z

So this is the first blog of many; most of which will be about music but I'll ramble about much else aswell, I'm quite the film fanatic and also have an unusual knowledge of climate change, so who knows where cyber space will take us...