Thursday, October 28, 2004
Halloween Gimp
Well, well, well - 3 holes in the ground. Last night at the Fez was much more of a Hallowe'en experience than I had been anticipating, what with some scary looking types wandering around, girls dressed up in costumes and the dread-filled horror of having to turn up to work after a night on bottles of Castlemaine XXXX… I, as ever, thought it would be appropriate to turn up about half-way through proceedings (I was wrong again!) and managed to wander into the main room just after British Beef had started playing.
With a name like that, they should be an entourage of strippers, a wrestling tag-team, the UK's representative at the UN complaints committee or a brand/flavour of soup. What they definitely should NOT be is a three chord punk band. Not with that name, anyway. British 182 or Beef Charlotte (Beef Shalottes? Sounds tasty, eh?) would be better. To give them their due, they had all the brash confidence of a band who had been signed by Sony and were probably going to be force-fed down the ears and eyes of every grumpy, hoody-wearing teenager from Newcastle to Newquay. They made jokes about "pot", swore occasionally and wore t-shirts that made them look like they knew what they were doing (although how you can wear Ramones and Metallica tees and STILL produce the aural equivalent of dysentry I will never know. Sony probably hired a camp Italian stylist to polish their image).
The crowd called out for "Year 3000" in between songs, which almost provoked a reaction from the band (besides making even more bad noise), but Busted would have been popular, teacher's pet, apple-polishing do-gooders at school, and British Beef would have been the disenfranchised, surly and disgruntled mob sitting at the back of the class trying to stencil band logos onto their pencil cases.
Ah, at least they had a few solo's in their tunes. They weren't very good, but they were played pretty well.
Then, after they had slunk off to consider a career as professional band-wagon chasers, the stage was clear for Reading's top light-entertainers Three Litre to take charge and try and salvage what was left of the crowd after British Beef had sent them scattering elsewhere. The black arm bands on display were for John Peel, as we soon found out. Graham announced that in honour of his passing his merry band of troubadours expected everyone in attendance to cough up and pay their respects by observing a one-minute's noise (very apt, and hugely respected by the crowd). Cue crashing, thrashing, screaming and wailing from the Litre while the crowd whistled, yelled, clapped and shouted their final condolences to John Peel (RIP). You know deep in your heart of hearts that up in heaven there are countless souls who may now get the chance to have their music played on Elysium FM. Meanwhile, back on earth, we'll have to start forgetting about the radio as an opportunity to hear new and worthwhile music. Peely was an epoch unto himself.
Mike said that Three Litre weren't playing new tunes, but I hadn’t heard much of their opening material, and I thought it was really good. As usual the banter and stage presence was top-drawer, but for me it was an ear-opener to hear Graham singing (and he'll probably deny this strenuously) sincere songs from the heart. I thought they were new songs, and I thought they were really good - wish I could remember the titles (or even some lyrics), but suffice to say that although the Litre do "comedy" pub rock about as well as it can be done, they remain a hugely underrated band by being associated with the genre. They're tight as a gnat's chuff, even for a three-piece, Pete and Darren both dispense their duties - on bass and drums respectively - to an impressive degree, and they can play a soft ballad as effectively as they can rock out around a big riff. I think it's safe to say that they have a firm hold on the affections of the local scene in these parts, and last night they played a stormer, even if British Beef had chased off the crowd in large chunks.
Well, that's what I thought, anyway.
With a name like that, they should be an entourage of strippers, a wrestling tag-team, the UK's representative at the UN complaints committee or a brand/flavour of soup. What they definitely should NOT be is a three chord punk band. Not with that name, anyway. British 182 or Beef Charlotte (Beef Shalottes? Sounds tasty, eh?) would be better. To give them their due, they had all the brash confidence of a band who had been signed by Sony and were probably going to be force-fed down the ears and eyes of every grumpy, hoody-wearing teenager from Newcastle to Newquay. They made jokes about "pot", swore occasionally and wore t-shirts that made them look like they knew what they were doing (although how you can wear Ramones and Metallica tees and STILL produce the aural equivalent of dysentry I will never know. Sony probably hired a camp Italian stylist to polish their image).
The crowd called out for "Year 3000" in between songs, which almost provoked a reaction from the band (besides making even more bad noise), but Busted would have been popular, teacher's pet, apple-polishing do-gooders at school, and British Beef would have been the disenfranchised, surly and disgruntled mob sitting at the back of the class trying to stencil band logos onto their pencil cases.
Ah, at least they had a few solo's in their tunes. They weren't very good, but they were played pretty well.
Then, after they had slunk off to consider a career as professional band-wagon chasers, the stage was clear for Reading's top light-entertainers Three Litre to take charge and try and salvage what was left of the crowd after British Beef had sent them scattering elsewhere. The black arm bands on display were for John Peel, as we soon found out. Graham announced that in honour of his passing his merry band of troubadours expected everyone in attendance to cough up and pay their respects by observing a one-minute's noise (very apt, and hugely respected by the crowd). Cue crashing, thrashing, screaming and wailing from the Litre while the crowd whistled, yelled, clapped and shouted their final condolences to John Peel (RIP). You know deep in your heart of hearts that up in heaven there are countless souls who may now get the chance to have their music played on Elysium FM. Meanwhile, back on earth, we'll have to start forgetting about the radio as an opportunity to hear new and worthwhile music. Peely was an epoch unto himself.
Mike said that Three Litre weren't playing new tunes, but I hadn’t heard much of their opening material, and I thought it was really good. As usual the banter and stage presence was top-drawer, but for me it was an ear-opener to hear Graham singing (and he'll probably deny this strenuously) sincere songs from the heart. I thought they were new songs, and I thought they were really good - wish I could remember the titles (or even some lyrics), but suffice to say that although the Litre do "comedy" pub rock about as well as it can be done, they remain a hugely underrated band by being associated with the genre. They're tight as a gnat's chuff, even for a three-piece, Pete and Darren both dispense their duties - on bass and drums respectively - to an impressive degree, and they can play a soft ballad as effectively as they can rock out around a big riff. I think it's safe to say that they have a firm hold on the affections of the local scene in these parts, and last night they played a stormer, even if British Beef had chased off the crowd in large chunks.
Well, that's what I thought, anyway.
Site updates...
People (including me) have been having a lot of problems viewing the comments pages with non IE browsers. This might be down to the blogger template we were initially using not having comments included and me adding them in. Anyway, the site might change colours or go up and down, and reformat a few times in the next few days. Hopefully it'll fix the problem.
British Beef
Mmmmmm... beef. Can't beat a bit of lovely pink bleeding steak. Or a burger, or mince in a bolognese or something. Lovely meaty, juicy, beefy beef! I often wonder when I wake up with a hangover, like I did this morning, whether it's really the onset of CJD caused by all the cheap crap but oh so tasty beef I've consumed over the years.
I also sometimes think back to the line in Beverly Hills Cop where Rosewood tells Taggart that the average American male has 5 pounds of undigested raw meat in his bowel or something. It makes me think I should go and get one of those colonic irrigation things to get all that nasty crap pumped out of my system. Is that a more effective way to lose weight than dieting?
I learnt something very valuable from Graham from Three Litre last night - You can't polish a turd in normal circumstances, but you can if you freeze it. So I could freeze the pumped out part digested contents of my inner bowel and spend hours polishing it, and the entire exercise would still be more musically relevant and interesting than British Beef.
I also sometimes think back to the line in Beverly Hills Cop where Rosewood tells Taggart that the average American male has 5 pounds of undigested raw meat in his bowel or something. It makes me think I should go and get one of those colonic irrigation things to get all that nasty crap pumped out of my system. Is that a more effective way to lose weight than dieting?
I learnt something very valuable from Graham from Three Litre last night - You can't polish a turd in normal circumstances, but you can if you freeze it. So I could freeze the pumped out part digested contents of my inner bowel and spend hours polishing it, and the entire exercise would still be more musically relevant and interesting than British Beef.
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Link - as promised
Here's the link to the new Müf website, not much there at the moment but it'll get better as time goes on.
http://www.muf.me.uk
(For some reason Blogger wouldn't let me publish yesterday, hence this being a day late.)
http://www.muf.me.uk
(For some reason Blogger wouldn't let me publish yesterday, hence this being a day late.)
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Finally!
Today I have got off my arse and bought (rented?) myself some proper webspace!
I am such a sad individual that this is bringing me great joy. I can have loads of domains, subdomains, I've got pop3 accounts coming out of my arse (er, not literally). I don't really know why I never got round to it before. The main reasons for doing it now were these:
I would have had to do this long ago if the kindly owner of Loudmedicine hadn't been hosting the Sonic Undermind sites for the entirety of their previous existence!
In the end I went for the £4.99 a month deal from 1 and 1 because I know a few people who are already using them. There are plenty of other similar accounts around though, if you are looking for something shop around.
I am such a sad individual that this is bringing me great joy. I can have loads of domains, subdomains, I've got pop3 accounts coming out of my arse (er, not literally). I don't really know why I never got round to it before. The main reasons for doing it now were these:
- I was starting to knock up a temporary Müf website and figured that if I was buying the domain I might as well sign up for the webspace. I can put the Pete and the Pirates site on there if I do that one, and many, many other wonderful things.
- Moving house (regular blog readers will know about this) and therefore isps and things is very annoying. Especially with regards to e-mails and stuff. Getting my own domains, webspace, pop3 mail accounts etc. means that I can transfer everything without relying on being with the same ISP.
I would have had to do this long ago if the kindly owner of Loudmedicine hadn't been hosting the Sonic Undermind sites for the entirety of their previous existence!
In the end I went for the £4.99 a month deal from 1 and 1 because I know a few people who are already using them. There are plenty of other similar accounts around though, if you are looking for something shop around.
Monday, October 25, 2004
Big tings a Gwan!
Ah, the joy of Monday. Top weekend, quite tired today though;
Fri - played a fantastic gig with Red Antennae at Lark in the Park (www.larkinthepark.com) in Islington. Our first outing without Tim on drums, as he's left to go to uni - we were a bit worried as the last time we played with the laptop providing the beats it sounded awful, really weak and lame and 2-dimensional and rubbish! However, the boffins at Gibson Enterprises brought some new software into the Ant Farm which have fattened, sweetened, re-en-juicenated and generally beefed up the laptop tracks, and we sounded great on Friday ("20% more hip-hop" was one of various opinions expressed), and had a great time playing. The headline band was one that I had gigged with before in Yankee 99er, their bassist was a cool guy (he said some very nice stuff about me, so I'm bound to like him, innit!) and apparently the guitarist they had playing with them was ther original guitarist from Yes (played on theior first two albums?) he certainly looked the part. He was playing an Ibanez JEM model with the hand-grip and everything. We had to leave after their first song though so I didn't really get to check him out that much. Cool experimental drum and bass prog-metal/funk/groove tunes, possibly more suited to a club/DJ night than a live music night, but all good stuff nonetheless.
Saturday, had an awesome rehearsal with Müf - new tunes just seem to be falling out of us at the moment, always a good sign! Need to re-think my lyrics and vocals though as I started out wanting to be all serious then thought that it should be more comedy, then changed my mind again - I just need to sing something I like singing, basically. The lyrics will come, but I need to make sure I can sing and play my guitar part at the same time.
Sat night saw All Wrapped Up playing at the Bier Kellar in Bracknell, not a bad night all round, apart from the promoter making my life difficult by paying us by cheque.. my fave part of playing at the Bier Kellar is using the swimming pool/sauna/jacuzzi in the gym after we've soundchecked, we have the place to ourselves pretty much, and it's wicked - great to chill out and relax before showtime. New songs went down well, crowd was predominantly hen-nights and people were dancing, singing, having a good time. Sound was pants, but that's the Bier Kellar for you.
Sunday saw me head off to London to see Goldie-Lookin' Chain at the Astoria - they were brilliant, not just a gimmicky Chav band, a proper old-school hip-hop experience. Fantastic banter, great tunes, PHAT sound and quality lyrics. Bit of a late one for a Sunday, but well worth it.
And the mighty Toon army beat Man C in a seven goal thriller, should help get us the team spirit and collective belief that we'll need to get back into Europe. Been too much bad press out of St. James' recently, but from what I can tell/hear, Mr. Souness will see us right. Our defence still needs some shoring up though, hope we can get that guy from Celtic.
Hope you all had a good weekend,
AK
Fri - played a fantastic gig with Red Antennae at Lark in the Park (www.larkinthepark.com) in Islington. Our first outing without Tim on drums, as he's left to go to uni - we were a bit worried as the last time we played with the laptop providing the beats it sounded awful, really weak and lame and 2-dimensional and rubbish! However, the boffins at Gibson Enterprises brought some new software into the Ant Farm which have fattened, sweetened, re-en-juicenated and generally beefed up the laptop tracks, and we sounded great on Friday ("20% more hip-hop" was one of various opinions expressed), and had a great time playing. The headline band was one that I had gigged with before in Yankee 99er, their bassist was a cool guy (he said some very nice stuff about me, so I'm bound to like him, innit!) and apparently the guitarist they had playing with them was ther original guitarist from Yes (played on theior first two albums?) he certainly looked the part. He was playing an Ibanez JEM model with the hand-grip and everything. We had to leave after their first song though so I didn't really get to check him out that much. Cool experimental drum and bass prog-metal/funk/groove tunes, possibly more suited to a club/DJ night than a live music night, but all good stuff nonetheless.
Saturday, had an awesome rehearsal with Müf - new tunes just seem to be falling out of us at the moment, always a good sign! Need to re-think my lyrics and vocals though as I started out wanting to be all serious then thought that it should be more comedy, then changed my mind again - I just need to sing something I like singing, basically. The lyrics will come, but I need to make sure I can sing and play my guitar part at the same time.
Sat night saw All Wrapped Up playing at the Bier Kellar in Bracknell, not a bad night all round, apart from the promoter making my life difficult by paying us by cheque.. my fave part of playing at the Bier Kellar is using the swimming pool/sauna/jacuzzi in the gym after we've soundchecked, we have the place to ourselves pretty much, and it's wicked - great to chill out and relax before showtime. New songs went down well, crowd was predominantly hen-nights and people were dancing, singing, having a good time. Sound was pants, but that's the Bier Kellar for you.
Sunday saw me head off to London to see Goldie-Lookin' Chain at the Astoria - they were brilliant, not just a gimmicky Chav band, a proper old-school hip-hop experience. Fantastic banter, great tunes, PHAT sound and quality lyrics. Bit of a late one for a Sunday, but well worth it.
And the mighty Toon army beat Man C in a seven goal thriller, should help get us the team spirit and collective belief that we'll need to get back into Europe. Been too much bad press out of St. James' recently, but from what I can tell/hear, Mr. Souness will see us right. Our defence still needs some shoring up though, hope we can get that guy from Celtic.
Hope you all had a good weekend,
AK
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
I haven't really got anything to say...
I just noticed that it was coming up to a week since the last post again so thought I should post something.
It's been an odd few weeks, with moving house and things I've been a bit out of the local music scene. I think the last gig I went to was Yumi Yumi, We Start Fires, All You Miss and Wet Dog at the Face bar. This week things are getting back to normal and I'm going to three. Rebus in London on Wednesday, and Rebus again at the Sugar Rush night. God knows why I'm going to see Rebus twice in a week, I'll be totally scarved out. Hopefully Alex will be wearing his Mickey Pearce hat.
Thursday it's Three Litre, Ben Marwood and Phil from Euclid at the Nocturne acoustic night in Wokingham. Three of my favourite acoustic acts on one night!
Oh yeah, band is going very well. We have a name, a song nearly finished, a song half finished and a couple of ideas for other songs. Weekly rehearsals are great, never had that with a band before. It makes for such fast progress. We've only had 2 2 hour rehearsals! I suppose I should start work on a website.
Right, that's enough for now. You can get back to discussing snooker.
It's been an odd few weeks, with moving house and things I've been a bit out of the local music scene. I think the last gig I went to was Yumi Yumi, We Start Fires, All You Miss and Wet Dog at the Face bar. This week things are getting back to normal and I'm going to three. Rebus in London on Wednesday, and Rebus again at the Sugar Rush night. God knows why I'm going to see Rebus twice in a week, I'll be totally scarved out. Hopefully Alex will be wearing his Mickey Pearce hat.
Thursday it's Three Litre, Ben Marwood and Phil from Euclid at the Nocturne acoustic night in Wokingham. Three of my favourite acoustic acts on one night!
Oh yeah, band is going very well. We have a name, a song nearly finished, a song half finished and a couple of ideas for other songs. Weekly rehearsals are great, never had that with a band before. It makes for such fast progress. We've only had 2 2 hour rehearsals! I suppose I should start work on a website.
Right, that's enough for now. You can get back to discussing snooker.
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Foul.. and a miss!
Can't believe you didn't mention the following snooker players:
1. Bill "10 pints please, landlord" Werbenik
2. Kirk "No idea where my career earnings went to, honest!" Stevens
3. Cliff Thorburn. They called him "the grinder", which is more useful than picking it apart with your fingers.
Not happy with the blatant sexual overtones of your analogy about the band, Mike. I've told you before, I'm not that kind of guy. If I wanted to join a band to partake in all manner of indecent and covert sexual activities, I would have joined Red Antennae or Yankee 99er. This band just happens to be my Platonic metal band - we're enquiring after the true nature of "rock", the Socratic "Form" of rock and I'm currently drafting an "analogy of the cavern" which I hope will illustrate how much we rock in relation to early Beatles' performances. It's proving tricky though, we may have to pay girls to come to our gigs an dscream at us. Well, OK - so we'll only have to pay them to come to our gigs - and stay. That should be enough.
Possible lyrics to our first love song:
Oooh.. baby. Yeah yeah yeah, yeah-yeah baby.
Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaby.
Wanna get closer to you.
Oooooooooooooooooooooooooo-oooooh, baby.
They're not finished yet. A work in progress if you will.
Thought of a good essay question the other day, thought I'd share it with everyone:
"The art of throwing a metallic disc via a series of controlled rotations within a defined launching area: discus."
1. Bill "10 pints please, landlord" Werbenik
2. Kirk "No idea where my career earnings went to, honest!" Stevens
3. Cliff Thorburn. They called him "the grinder", which is more useful than picking it apart with your fingers.
Not happy with the blatant sexual overtones of your analogy about the band, Mike. I've told you before, I'm not that kind of guy. If I wanted to join a band to partake in all manner of indecent and covert sexual activities, I would have joined Red Antennae or Yankee 99er. This band just happens to be my Platonic metal band - we're enquiring after the true nature of "rock", the Socratic "Form" of rock and I'm currently drafting an "analogy of the cavern" which I hope will illustrate how much we rock in relation to early Beatles' performances. It's proving tricky though, we may have to pay girls to come to our gigs an dscream at us. Well, OK - so we'll only have to pay them to come to our gigs - and stay. That should be enough.
Possible lyrics to our first love song:
Oooh.. baby. Yeah yeah yeah, yeah-yeah baby.
Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaby.
Wanna get closer to you.
Oooooooooooooooooooooooooo-oooooh, baby.
They're not finished yet. A work in progress if you will.
Thought of a good essay question the other day, thought I'd share it with everyone:
"The art of throwing a metallic disc via a series of controlled rotations within a defined launching area: discus."
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
New Band Nirvana
The first rehearsal with the full line-up of the new band was last night, it was a great success! It was all very comfortable and natural, everyone seemed to be on a similar wavelength and it's all sounding very good. It's great to be back in a band again!
As for Nirvana I see in the comments Graham said that no-one would remember them if Kurt hadn't shot himself? Well, I would still remember them. Nevermind came out when I was 15 and had such a huge impact on me, and so many other people my age... ok, we were young and naive at the time but it doesn't stop Nirvana being a perfect expression of all the emotional shit you feel as a teenager. Probably why kids are still buying the albums today. If they weren't good it the music just wouldn't have that longevity.
As for Andy's suggestion that Oasis should get in because Nirvana only made one good album, I would say it was the other way around. All the Nirvana albums are excellent and Definitely Maybe was Oasis only good album, although a few of the songs on the second one were good too. Anyway, we'll ask Robbie what he thinks when he makes his acceptance speech. What a stupid argument, I can't believe I posted all that. Back to the important stuff:
Snooker Player all time top 10:
10. Mark Williams
9. Fred Davis
8. John Pullman
7. Jimmy White
6. Alex Higgins
5. Ronnie O'Sullivan
4. Ray Reardon
3. Steve Davis
2. Stephen Hendry
1. Joe Davis
Now that's controversial. ;)
As for Nirvana I see in the comments Graham said that no-one would remember them if Kurt hadn't shot himself? Well, I would still remember them. Nevermind came out when I was 15 and had such a huge impact on me, and so many other people my age... ok, we were young and naive at the time but it doesn't stop Nirvana being a perfect expression of all the emotional shit you feel as a teenager. Probably why kids are still buying the albums today. If they weren't good it the music just wouldn't have that longevity.
As for Andy's suggestion that Oasis should get in because Nirvana only made one good album, I would say it was the other way around. All the Nirvana albums are excellent and Definitely Maybe was Oasis only good album, although a few of the songs on the second one were good too. Anyway, we'll ask Robbie what he thinks when he makes his acceptance speech. What a stupid argument, I can't believe I posted all that. Back to the important stuff:
Snooker Player all time top 10:
10. Mark Williams
9. Fred Davis
8. John Pullman
7. Jimmy White
6. Alex Higgins
5. Ronnie O'Sullivan
4. Ray Reardon
3. Steve Davis
2. Stephen Hendry
1. Joe Davis
Now that's controversial. ;)
Monday, October 11, 2004
Channel 4 Music Hall of Fame
Last night, slightly knackered after playing football for the first time in a month, I had a choice; Watch Ronnie O'Sullivan win the snooker or watch the latest in Channel 4's "Top Ten" style shows. I chose mostly to watch the hall of fame and the snooker in the ad beaks.
So, what's it all about? There is, apparently, a UK Music Hall of Fame being created. This year a panel (probably of experts) has choosen 5 inductees, Madonna, Elvis Presley, U2, Bob Marley and The Beatles. The public (that's us!) get to add one act from each of the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s to join them. Last night we got a 2 hour show on the 10 nominees for the 90s. It was a decent show which did highlight 10 of the most important acts (to the UK) of the 90s. It's quite bizarre that the public get to choose whether Nirvana or the Spice Girls go in, I can't quite work out what happens next year. Do the losing 9 acts get nominated again with one new act? Personally I'd want several of the acts from this set of nominees in eventually. The nominees were Blur, Oasis, Missy Elliot, Nirvana, Radiohead, Robbie Williams, The Spice Girls, Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Prodigy. There were decent arguments for all of them. Personally of those Nirvana were the biggest influence on me, and I think on music for the decade but I'd want to put Blur, Radiohead and Dr Dre in too. Robbie Williams and the Spice Girls had a huge impact on the world of pop and made a huge amount of money in record sales but I can't really see either of them having a lasting influence on music. For me the Hall of Fame should be for acts that people remember and listen to tens of years later. In that way it's actually easier to pick older acts, people know the Beatles and Bob Marley deserve to be in there but will people be listening to the Prodigy in 40 years?
Anyway, after all the decades have been shown to the public there will apparently be a big show to announce the inaugral members with bands playing and things. I really hope the public choose one of Blur, Nirvana, Radiohead and Dr Dre but I have the feeling that Robbie Williams will win it purely because his current popularity is so high rather than any kind of lasting impact he's had. Let's hope the voting public prove me wrong.
So, what's it all about? There is, apparently, a UK Music Hall of Fame being created. This year a panel (probably of experts) has choosen 5 inductees, Madonna, Elvis Presley, U2, Bob Marley and The Beatles. The public (that's us!) get to add one act from each of the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s to join them. Last night we got a 2 hour show on the 10 nominees for the 90s. It was a decent show which did highlight 10 of the most important acts (to the UK) of the 90s. It's quite bizarre that the public get to choose whether Nirvana or the Spice Girls go in, I can't quite work out what happens next year. Do the losing 9 acts get nominated again with one new act? Personally I'd want several of the acts from this set of nominees in eventually. The nominees were Blur, Oasis, Missy Elliot, Nirvana, Radiohead, Robbie Williams, The Spice Girls, Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Prodigy. There were decent arguments for all of them. Personally of those Nirvana were the biggest influence on me, and I think on music for the decade but I'd want to put Blur, Radiohead and Dr Dre in too. Robbie Williams and the Spice Girls had a huge impact on the world of pop and made a huge amount of money in record sales but I can't really see either of them having a lasting influence on music. For me the Hall of Fame should be for acts that people remember and listen to tens of years later. In that way it's actually easier to pick older acts, people know the Beatles and Bob Marley deserve to be in there but will people be listening to the Prodigy in 40 years?
Anyway, after all the decades have been shown to the public there will apparently be a big show to announce the inaugral members with bands playing and things. I really hope the public choose one of Blur, Nirvana, Radiohead and Dr Dre but I have the feeling that Robbie Williams will win it purely because his current popularity is so high rather than any kind of lasting impact he's had. Let's hope the voting public prove me wrong.
Thursday, October 07, 2004
World Domination Campaign Part 1: Jammin'
AK came over to my place yesterday, the mission was to try and get one or two song ideas that we could take into our full band jam next Monday. If forming a band is like a relationship we are currently in the "Oooh, I think she likes me, does this count as a date? Should I try and kiss her?" stage. We have a long way to go before we get to the stage we want to be at, namely performing nightly sex shows on stages in smokey Amsterdam bars. Er... maybe that's not the way that analogy should have gone. How about; We have a long way to go before we get to the stage we want to be at, namely married with lots of happy song babies. That's crap too. I wish I'd never started this stupid analogy.
The main problem yesterday (which we overcame) was that we were playing one electric guitar and one acoustic between us. There's such a different feel to playing on an electric to an acoustic that it totally changes the way you play and write. Well, I find that anyway, and AK seemed to agree. You can write rock riffs on an acoustic but they sound and feel totally different when you transfer them across. Ok, the notes and rhythm are the same but the vibe is totally different.
Anyway we did get a few ideas down for the rhythm section to massively improve on Monday. No doubt you'll be hearing some of it at some point.
The main problem yesterday (which we overcame) was that we were playing one electric guitar and one acoustic between us. There's such a different feel to playing on an electric to an acoustic that it totally changes the way you play and write. Well, I find that anyway, and AK seemed to agree. You can write rock riffs on an acoustic but they sound and feel totally different when you transfer them across. Ok, the notes and rhythm are the same but the vibe is totally different.
Anyway we did get a few ideas down for the rhythm section to massively improve on Monday. No doubt you'll be hearing some of it at some point.
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
Hello
Aha! Yes! I forgot about the blog.
I have a cold coming on, is that blog-worthy? I have a new guitar, a lovely Godin which was purchased from Guitar Heaven in Wallingford after they very kindly let me try out nearly every guitar in the shop to "find" the tone and feel I was looking for. It's a beauty, Rosewood neck.. mmm! Is that blog worthy?
Nope?
Ah well, nevermind.
I have a cold coming on, is that blog-worthy? I have a new guitar, a lovely Godin which was purchased from Guitar Heaven in Wallingford after they very kindly let me try out nearly every guitar in the shop to "find" the tone and feel I was looking for. It's a beauty, Rosewood neck.. mmm! Is that blog worthy?
Nope?
Ah well, nevermind.
Monday, October 04, 2004
Back from the dead!
I think that was probably the record amount of time with no-one posting on this blog. Whoops! I do have an excuse though, I've been moving house. I still haven't got any internet access at home.
So, you may remember a while back that I mentioned something about a new band, the plan was that we'd start rehearsing in October and we've booked our first rehearsal for next monday. (Mental note, phone drummer and tell him about it...) I'm really looking forward to it. AK has provided me with some of his song title ideas and I'm thinking this is going to be a hell of a lot of fun. So far there have been no stylistic clashes over tedious musical terminology issues which is nice, by which I mean what we call our style of music (not that we have one yet) not whether a phrase should be notated as adagio rather than largo.
I fear there may be band name discussions looming in the future though. I think I tend to overthink band names. Should just pick something quickly. Once people get to hear the band if they like it they'll like the name. At first Sonic Undermind was pretty hated as a name (it is rubbish) but people got used to it and the band and it was all ok.
Anyway, will try and post more often.
So, you may remember a while back that I mentioned something about a new band, the plan was that we'd start rehearsing in October and we've booked our first rehearsal for next monday. (Mental note, phone drummer and tell him about it...) I'm really looking forward to it. AK has provided me with some of his song title ideas and I'm thinking this is going to be a hell of a lot of fun. So far there have been no stylistic clashes over tedious musical terminology issues which is nice, by which I mean what we call our style of music (not that we have one yet) not whether a phrase should be notated as adagio rather than largo.
I fear there may be band name discussions looming in the future though. I think I tend to overthink band names. Should just pick something quickly. Once people get to hear the band if they like it they'll like the name. At first Sonic Undermind was pretty hated as a name (it is rubbish) but people got used to it and the band and it was all ok.
Anyway, will try and post more often.
