Thursday, August 03, 2006
I've found a new thing to play with online.It's kinda hard to describe, partly coz I haven't completely got my head around what it can do yet.
Last.fm is kind of a radio station social network thing. Imagine a webcam community, or social network like myspace, but crossed with yahoo launchcast radio type stations, and hooked into members winamp or media players.
It's all integrated, and a little complex, but quite fascinating.
Weekly Chart... or something.
Labels: music
Steve 2:35 PM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, August 28, 2005
Other stuff going on....I've quit smoking (again). It's been 4 days now, and I haven't killed anyone... yet.
Been shown the local area by Andrea over the past few days and weeks. Yesterday was Chesterfield, which I absolutely loved. Week before last was Mansfield (Paul, you have my sympathy ;) ). This week coming will be Sheffield, and maybe Lincoln too.
Oh yeah, last week, the day before I moved in proper, we went to this 80s revival concert thing at Clumber Park. Tony Hadley and Whatshisface from ABC were headlining, but I was really there for Howard Jones. Okay, so he's looking old, and his career was washed up around 20 years ago, but damn, it was good hearing all those songs again.
Labels: music, quitting smoking
Steve 3:40 PM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
HAH! and WOOHOO!!! Albeit via a very circuitous route.Having recieved no helpful response from yahoo/launch, I joined a launchcast usergroup and left a message asking if anyone else was having a similar problem, as quite a few seemed to be having issues resulting from the unannounced launch updates.
So the forum moderator didn't approve my message, but did email me back saying my station did exist, as he could see and listen to it... and suggested that maybe I was not logged in properly.
I thought "what a load of hogwash", as I'm always logged in... never log out, but went back for another look. Still logged in... still no channel... bollox.
However, just on the offchance, I logged out and logged back in again.... success!!! There it was.
It would seem that the yahoo and launch servers are not quite as tightly linked together as they might be. I must've been logged in on the yahoo servers, but not the launch ones. It shouldn't happen, but clearly it did.
Anyway... I'm now a happy chappy again.
It's quite hard to explain just how upsetting it was to think I'd lost my station. Thing is... my taste in music is quite unusual, and there is absolutely no other place I can go, tv or radio station I can tune into, and be able to hear the music I love, or new music that I've never heard before, but very likely will like.
Without my station, my music collecting, be it on CD or mp3 would simply stop, as I wouldn't know what was good and what wasn't.
For someone who's life pretty much revolves around music... that would be a disaster.
So anyway... that's me sorted and happy again. Better get myself into gear and go get the last of the stuff I need for christmas.
Labels: launchcast, music
Steve 11:13 AM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
ARGH!!!!Fucking assholes.
I got a reply from yahoo/launchcast after I emialed them querying what was happening to my station, and they gave a canned reply telling me to alter my browser settings. Needless to say, this had no effect whatsoever... and now I can't even access the station on yahoo messenger either.
Looks like the bloody halfwits have completely deleted it.
To say I'm furious is something of an understatement.
Labels: annoyed, launchcast, music
Steve 9:11 PM [+] (0) comments
Grrr.
There I was saying Lanchcast had sorted itself out, and now it says my station doesn't exist.
I can still access it from yahoo messenger, but when I go to the website, it gives me the 'create a new station' page... even though I'm logged in.
They better sort that out pronto, or I shall be sending a very stroppy email. After a couple of years fine tuning it, I'm not impressed.
They can't have lost all the settings, or I wouldn't be able to access it from messenger... but damnit. What a fuckup!
Labels: annoyed, launchcast, music
Steve 9:44 AM [+] (0) comments
That was a better day.
I started off seriously grouchy, but by the evening had gotten stuck into a new project which I'm finding highly amusing, and has the potential to raise a few luaghs.
Oh yeah... I was right about Launchcast. It's started accepting my new song ratings again, and has a whole load of new music that wasn't on there before, so I've had it playing pretty much non-stop while I've been awake.
Labels: launchcast, music
Steve 7:37 AM [+] (0) comments
Monday, December 20, 2004
Launchcast seems to be having an odd couple of days.It's refusing to register or record the ratings that I apply to songs, the search facility is down, and about 1000 of my previous song ratings appear to have gone awol.
On the plus side, they appear to have some new material. It just played a song by Siouxsie And The Banshees. I rated them around 2 years ago, but they never got played... as if Launch had the rights, but didn't have the material.
I can only guess that Launch are updating their system, adding new songs, and deleting old stuff. That might account for my missing ratings, if those are tunes that have been removed.
If that's what's happening, it can only be a good thing, as I'm always looking for new tunes to add to my collection, and it's been quite a while since I heard anything where I though "Wow... I gotta get that!"
Labels: launchcast, music
Steve 7:45 AM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, December 16, 2004
I'm totally loving ripping my old LP collection... found some awesome tunes that I'd completely forgotten about.But y'know... there's a big downside to ripping vinyl. It takes bloody ages. Apart from the time it takes to play through the albums to find the tracks you want, you then have to play the entire tracks, in realtime, while you rip them... unlike CDs, where you just select the track and hey presto, 30 seconds later you have an mp3.
I've been at it literally all night, and only accumulated 40 tunes so far.
Still... it's well worth the effort. Some of these tunes are very rare... never been re-released on CD, and you wouldn't have a hope in hell of finding them on Limewire or whatever.
Labels: music
Steve 9:10 AM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
The audio hardware routing on this pc is an absolute bitch, it has to be said.Shared input and output channels just aren't very clever, if you ask me.
It's all very well if you wanna watch dvd movies with surround sound, but when you wanna plug in a stereo sound source other than a mic, it becomes a total nightmare, with all kinds of feedback problems, or software simply refusing to take a feed from the auxilliary inputs.
I discovered what a pain in the arse it is today, coz I picked up a cheap little record deck, with the intention of ripping all the best tracks from my old vinyl collection onto mp3.
For a while it looked like I wasn't gonna be able to do it, and this would've been a disaster, as I bought this pc specifically with the intention of using it to record my own music.
Eventually I managed to get Cubase to accept an input from the stereo line-in at the back, so all is not lost, but it makes something of a mockery of all the other fancy inputs scattered around the thing.
Labels: annoyed, computers, music
Steve 1:11 PM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, November 25, 2004
Jesus.I just discovered an unexpected side effect to this mp3 lark.
You know how certain songs, or even whole albums can trigger old memories, transport you vack to another time and place, to people and situations... how some songs can have you in floods the moment you hear the very first bar?
Well... I thought I knew all the songs and albums that do that to me, so I'm usually prepared. I was wrong.
While going through my CDs for ripping purposes, I came across Seamonsters by The Wedding Present. I havent listened to it since 1992... not as a concious decision... it just got overlooked.
So I played it just now for the first time in 12 years and oh fuck... what a hammer blow.
Andy Cal, (more)Ron, Squidgy Paul, Trish, Whacky Jacky, and... damnit... what was her name with the boat?
These were the best friends I ever had... never been able to replace them, and never felt as at home with any group of people since. We used to go gigging, everywhere, several times a week. Didn't matter if it was some local crappy band, or the latest thing in London... we were there. And the parties... oh my.
All are lost to me now. If rumours are correct, at least 2 are dead (drugs and insanity were rather a common thing for us all back then), the rest have either gone to god knows where, or grown up, got married, had kids and settled down.
Its funny what music can do to you.
Labels: music
Steve 6:32 AM [+] (0) comments
Oh god that's better... 10 hours of really solid sleep, and boy did I need it.
I pretty much ran myself into the ground over the past couple of days, to the point where I was feeling quite ill.
My sleep pattern being what it is, I often reach the point where my body clock can't decide if I should be asleep in the daytime, or at night, so I wind up sleeping through most of both... but this time around it couldn't make up its mind again, and refused to sleep at all.
Still stuck between day and night mode... crashing out in the middle of the afternoon and waking up around 1am, but it's cool, coz I'm still awake at the times I need to be to get things done.
Oh yeah... I'm absolutely loving this MP3 player thing. It's almost like having my launchcast radio station in my pocket. All my absolute favourite tunes, non-stop... never repeating the same tune... no having to get up and change a disk or turn over a tape, and battery life so long that I just don't have to worry about it. The only time it ran low was during heavy hard drive usage while I was transferring tunes onto it, and that was easilly fixed by just plugging it into the charger while I worked.
Just another hundred or so CDs to rip and transfer now... then I'll probably pay a trip to the library and see what good music I can borrow.
The one thing having this widget has brought home to me is how much good music I used to have, but don't any more... or just can't access coz I don't have a record deck. Once upon a time I had a massive tape collection, hundreds of albums that I don't have on CD, so I know there's *lots* of songs that I love but don't have available to rip.... and I can't remember the titles to download them.
I abandoned the tape collection when I left an old gf a few years ago... it was just too much to take with me, coz I had limited transportation facilities available to me, and I figured I didn't listen to tapes any more since getting a CD player. (yeah... it was that long ago)
Yeash... am I ever rambling.
Steve 2:05 AM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
Yesterday turned out to be quite interesting.I went into town, just to pay in a cheque and do a spot of window shopping. So I was stood in the 02 shop and after chatting with a sales assistant for a bit decided bugger it... I'd buy an XDAII. All was fine right up till the point she needed proof of signature. They don't accept the card I use, and I didn't have any of the other things they'd have accepted. Talk about stupid. For the sake of some dumb beurocratic red tape, I couldn't buy my widget, 02 lost out on a regular income from the data tarrif, and the shop lost out on the sale of a not altogether cheap piece of kit. Idiots.
In a rather poor mood, I wandered off to a games shop and picked up a copy of Half Life 2. (Bitch to install, but it looks great. Haven't spent much time on it yet.)
Anyway... that would've been it, but I figured I'd do my usual lap of the shopping centre before going home, and in doing so I walked past...er... into a gadget shop.
Oops.
For the past couple of weeks I've been looking at this Rio 5gig MP3 player... and walked away every single time. So I was stood in the gadget shop and looking over the MP3 players in there... some that I'd not seen before elsewhere... when this sales assistant who really knew his stuff approached me and proceeded to explain in great deal the finer points of various of the MP3 players. Now this was very refreshing, coz in Dixons, you're lucky if the assistants even know their own name, much less any technical details about the stuff they're trying to sell (though it actually seems they aren't trying to sell anything at all, they're that disinterested in serving the customers).
Anyway... after about 15 mins of listening to the guy, being given demos of each one, I looked at the guy, chuckled and said "Right... I need to go to the bank. I'll be back in 5 mins."
5 mins later I was £200 poorer and in possession of a very nice Creative Zen Touch 20gig MP3 player. I struggle getting my head around the fact that this tiny little thing has the same storage capacity as my laptop, but there it is.
So most of last night and this morning has been spent transferring most of my MP3 collection onto the thing, and then working my way through ripping much of my CD collection. It's heavy going and my eyes are killing me now... but boy is it worth it. Nearly 2 gigs, and 426 tunes done so far. The idea of having *all* my fave tunes to hand wherever I go is very appealing.
Labels: annoyed, gadgets, games, music, phones
Steve 11:48 AM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Ahh... that made me smile.I was trawling through limewire (a p2p file sharing thing, for those who don't know) and found several of my tunes being shared on there.
For a band trying to make money by selling their stuff, that'd be bad news, but as a musician who just wants to get his stuff heard by as many people as possible, I'm quite chuffed.
Steve 6:51 AM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, November 14, 2004
Ignore my last post... the gallery is back.Seems it was just a coinsidence that I recieved an email stating "we are no longer offering the old service" at the same time as the gallery server had some downtime.
I only glanced at the email and just assumed it was spam... but then when the gallery went awol I put 2 and 2 together and made 5.
At this moment I'm working on building up a large compilation of 80s tunes. Tisn't the first time I've done this, but the last collection was lost when I had to format my laptop.
This collection's rather less pop and somewhat more goth though... or at least, a bit 'out there'.
Labels: music
Steve 10:45 PM [+] (0) comments
Friday, October 08, 2004
I feel music a-brewing.Among those of you who've actually heard my music (and none of you have heard *all* of it), I know quite a few have been eager to hear new material, so here's the score as it stands, and what I have in mind.
Actually, no... let me go right back to where it all started, and then you'll understand exactly what it is I plan to do.
Way back in 1986, when I still lived in my parents house, I bought an electric guitar... just coz I thought it'd be cool to have one, and figured it couldn't be *that* hard to learn how to play. Truth is, it was just one of those days when I had money burning a hole in my pocket, I was bored, figured electric guitars were cool... so what the heck.
Needless to say, I soon discovered guitars were actually bloody difficult to play, and for the best part of 2 years, I didn't touch the thing.
Then in late '87 I left home and took up lodgings in Milton Keynes before moving into my first flat. In that time I found myself with a circle of frineds who were into the local music scene. We went to all the local gigs, saw lots of bands, many of who'm were utterly crap... and decided if they can be that crap and go up on stage and do that... why don't we?
And so was formed 'The Non-Existant Puppies'. A disaster of a bedroom band with an ever changing lineup, some of who'm actually had instruments, and some who could 'almost' play them... a bit (kind of).
Over a period of a year or so we never played live... never actually got out of my bedroom in fact, but what we did manage to do was record some *very* badly produced 'songs' onto tape.
And yes.... I still retain the only (known) copy of those tapes. If anyone else has copies stashed away somewhere (I seem to recall doing edited hilights for Trish and Jackie), they're either very sad, or just haven't cleared all the junk out of their loft in around 15 years.
So anyway, as all bad bedroom bands do, the Non-Existant Puppies disbanded, mainly coz I realised I was the only one putting in any money or effort, and was still the only one who'd learned how to play more than one note.
I eventually bought a 4 track portastudio, a cheap and crappy keyboard, and between '89 and '93, working under the 'performing' name of Overjoy recorded a large number of tunes. Many of these are now lost, but I do still have the edited hilights on a tape that was provisionally named Silver. It's a rough and ready collection of tunes and you can hear my lack of skill, but some of those tunes have a real charm to them, and are almost quite good in their own way.
Then in around '93.. maybe '94, I don't remember, I started making a completely new style of music, entirely electronic alternative stuff using Octamed, and later Octamed Sound Studio on the Amiga computer. Going by th name of Cold Steel Brainstorm, I put together a mini album called Huh?, burned it to CD, and managed to sell around 15 copies to work friends and colleagues. How many of those copies still exist I couldn't tell you. Again, these tunes are quite primitive in terms of production values, but a couple of them have an energy that really is quite surprising, and show signs of things to come. If anything, they show my liking for quirky music that doesn't conform to any specific genre and a willingness to experiment.
Next, somewhere around '97ish I picked up a 2nd hand Roland MC 303, and took another step towards producing half decent music. Over the period between '97 and 2000, I completed a CD album which has been on sale online via peoplesound.com for some time, with mp3s available for download from my two main websites.
Since then, I've only produced 3 other tunes, 2 of which were available for a very limitied period via this blog, and one which has never been completed beyond a mono mp3 copy which two or three people beyond myself have heard. Technical issues, a lack of enthusiasm for the equipment I've been using when I know I could do so much more with the right gear, and generally being distracted by other things have kept me form producing anything else.
This brings us to today then.
So... I'm in the position where I could dig out my mixer and Roland, hook them up to Steinberg Cubase on the PC and produce some pretty impressive music... but no. It's not enough.
I figure when I start work on my next project, I intend to go all out and do something ground breaking (well, groundbreaking in terms of music I can make anyway). So the plan is to get my guitar sorted out (it needs a little work), get a decent guitar effects unit, brush up on my chords and stuff, get a decent mic... and *then* start recording.
We're looking at a month or two.
More than this though... I intend to *pay* (shock horror) for decent webhosting, dig out all my old tapes and CDs and make every half listenable tune I ever did (and some which arent... Non-Existant Puppies cover of Band Aid's Do They Know It's Christmas, anyone?) available for download on mp3... or at least as many as I can fit in the storage space abailable to me on the web server.
Including the brand new tracks, as and when I record them.
I know there are a few people who say I'm nuts to make all of my tunes available for free, but in the time I've had that one CD for sale via peoplesound, only *one* copy has ever been sold. So sod it... if I want people to hear my stuff... like, all of it, then I'm just gonna have to make it all available for free. If I add advertising via google adsense, I may just be able to break even with regard to server costs.
Labels: music
Steve 11:31 PM [+] (0) comments
Friday, June 25, 2004
There's only one thing to say about the football result yesterday.... shoot the referee... he's a moron. That was stupidity bordering on criminal.Anyway, enough of that.
I've been trawling through various peer to peer systems for 80s music, and dug up some real gems. Thing is... finding the tunes isn't hard, but remembering them is proving really tough.
I mean, everyone remembers the big hits by the likes of Dexys Midnight Runners, Duran Duran, Tears For Fears etc, and the one hit wonders like Paul Hardcastle, but it's the obscure stuff I'm after.
Like... who remembers Shiny Shiny by Haysi Fantayzee?
Labels: music
Steve 6:16 PM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, April 18, 2004
Ahhh... loud music... how I've missed it.Since moving the laptop into the living room I've spent very little time in the bedroom, (except for when I sleep) and that's where the stereo is.
Sure I play music in here, but just mp3s and online radio stations on the laptop, and the speakers hooked up to it, while better than the built in ones, really don't have much oomph.
So when I went for my bath a little while ago I decided 'sod it', stuck a Crystal Method compilation in the stereo and cranked it right up... to hell with the neighbours.
It's amazing what outragous volume can do for your frame of mind :-)
Labels: music
Steve 7:43 PM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
How funky is that?I got an email requesting permission to use one of my tunes in an educational video. I think it's a school project of some kind, so no big deal in itself, but just knowing it's been used at all makes me a happy chappy.
Update: Okay... it's a bit more than just a school project. The video has recently won the B.P.A. (whatever that is) educational video state finals, and my tune will be used as the backing soundtrack when it goes to the national finals.
I'm gonna try and get a bit more information about this so I can include it on the page where my tunes are kept, as it's good publicity, and they've offered to send me a copy of the video. I probably won't be able to view it, as UK and US video standards are different, but we'll see. I dunno if it's vhs, dvd or what yet.
Labels: music
Steve 1:55 AM [+] (0) comments
Friday, February 13, 2004
Why you should listen to Benway Radio on Yahoo LaunchCastThe easiest way to explain it is simply to list the bands that are featured on the playlist. Take a look at this little lot and figure it out for yourself.
Belly, David Bowie, Cranes, The Crystal Method, The Cure, The Damned, The Fall, Front Line Assembly, Jane's Addiction, Japan, Joy Division, Leftfield, Love and Rockets, Massive Attack, Nine Inch Nails, Gary Numan, Mary Margaret O'Hara, Portishead, Radiohead, Recoil, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Sisters of Mercy, Talk Talk, This Mortal Coil, Throwing Muses, Lo Fidelity Allstars, Tubeway Army, Tori Amos, The B-52s, Big Country, Kate Bush, Cat Power, The Chemical Brothers, The Creatures, Dead Can Dance, Depeche Mode, Fuzzbox, Peter Gabriel, Kristin Hersh, Mick Karn, Led Zeppelin, Loop, Love Spirals Downwards, Madonna, Alanis Morissette, Orbital, The Sugarcubes, The Sundays, David Sylvian, U2, Underworld, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, A Flock Of Seagulls, Bauhaus, The Cranberries, Everything But The Girl, Front 242, Cyndi Lauper, Nitzer Ebb, The Pixies, The Police, Simple Minds, Skinny Puppy, Spiritualized, The Stone Roses, Fatboy Slim, Grooverider, Nelly Furtado, Autechre, Black Tape For A Blue Girl, Nick Cave and the Badseeds, Sheryl Crow, Curve, The Cult, Ani DiFranco, Gallon Drunk, The KLF, The Mamas and The Papas, Marilyn Manson, Moby, Motorhead, Nirvana, Sinead O'Connor, The Prodigy, Michelle Shocked, Swans, The Thompson Twins, Tones On Tail, The Velvet Underground, John Foxx, The White Stripes, Adam and the Ants, Cocteau Twins, Dirty Three, The Doors, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Lynyrd Skynyrd, R.E.M., Spacemen 3, Tears For Fears, VAST, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, Evanescence, Air, Heidi Berry, Butthole Surfers, Can, The Cramps, Devo, Brian Eno, Faith No More, Finitribe, Future Sound Of London, Gang Of Four, Genesis, Lisa Gerrard, Grandaddy, Hooverphonic, Husker Du, Howard Jones, Juno Reactor, Praga Khan, Killing Joke, KMFDM, Low, Lycia, Mazzy Star, Men At Work, Ministry, Peter Murphy, My Bloody Valentine, Oasis, Pink Floyd, Iggy Pop, Porno For Pyros, Queen, Lou Reed, Ride, Slowdive, Sonic Youth, Spandau Ballet, Strange Cargo, Tangerine Dream, Timelords, Ultravox, Vanessa Williams, Niel Young, Boards Of Canada, Godspeed Your Black Emporor, Death Cab For Cutie, Peace Orchestra, Anthony Pappa, Ladytron, Coldplay, Zero 7, Sigur Ros, Aerogramme, Fischerspooner, Damien Rice, AC/DC, Bjork, The Breaders, Dead Or Alive, Duran Duran, Eels, Human League, Natalie Merchant, New Order, Stina Nordenstam, Prince, Public Image Ltd, Sugar, Talking Heads, Tanya Donelly, Lunatic Calm, Rob Zombie, Paul Oakenfold, Eminem, Susumu Yokota, Trance All Stars, ABC, The American Analog Set, Laurie Anderson, Aphex Twin, Big Black, The Birthday Party, Black Sabbath, Blondie, Bomb The Bass, Boss Hog, Bowery Electric, R.L.Burnside, John Cale, Captain Beefheart, Clannad, Coal Chamber, Phil Collins, Concrete Blonde, Daft Punk, Death In Vegas, Delerium, DJ Krush, Elastica, Eurythmics, Faithless, Fields Of The Nephilim, Filter, Fugazi, Hole, Human Mesh Dance, Billy Idol, James, Janis Joplin, Keoki, Kruder and Dorfmeister, Laika, Leather Strip, Annie Lennox, Suede, Lords Of Acid, MC 5, Meat Loaf, Kylie Minogue, Morcheeba, Bob Mould, Mudhoney, My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, Opal, Orchestral Manoeuvers In The Dark, Outkast, Auqustus Pablo, Placebo, Robert Plant, Primal Scream, Project Pitchfork, Rage Against The Machine, Rapeman, Razed In Black, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Roots, Shellac, Shonen Knife, Soundgarden, John Spencer Blues Explosion, Stabbing Westward, Sublime, Suddenly Tammy!, Switchblade Symphony, Tarnation, The Telescopes, Temple Of The Dog, The Orb, Tool, Tortoise, Type O Negative, Weezer, White Zombie, Dar Williams, 13th Floor Elevators, Adam Ant, Olive, Wumpscut, Cirrus, Thievery Corporation, Cold, Buena Vista Social Club, Cursive, DJ Icey, Jude, Funker Vogt, Elf Power, Pammstein, Limp Bizkit, The Cruxshadows, Mono, Apoptygma Berzerk, Covenant, London After Midnight, U.N.K.L.E., At The Drive-In, Deep Dish, Paul Van Dyke, Pedro The Lion, The Beta Band, Sasha, Dido, VNV Nation, Lacuna Coil, Waldeck, Sasha and Digiweed, Groove Armada, Pink, Zenith, MDFMK, A Perfect Circle, The Gunga Din, Le Tigre, The Faint, Thursday, Goldfrapp, Doves, Dzihan and Kamien, Felix Da Housecat, Further Seems Forever, And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Gorillaz, The Shins, Lovage, Kosheen, Clinic, Miss Kittin, Norah Jones, Racermason, David Visan, Dirty Vegas, The Vines, Division Of Laura Lee, T.A.T.U., The Sountrack Of Our Lives, Audioslave, Alexandra Slate, The Raveonettes, The Sonics, Flunk, The Postal Service, The Mars Volta, Abba, Cake, PJ Harvey, Prototype 909, Roxy Music, The Shamen, Tin Machine, Vangelis, World Domination Enterprises, Amon Tobin, Reflection Theory, Marc Bolan, Dire Straits, Gravity Kills, Isaac Hayes, Jimi Hendrix, Lush, Modest Mouse, The Monkees, Henry Rollons, Veruca Salt, Superstar DJ Keoki, Orgy, Loreena McKennitt.....
with more being added all the time.
Check it out HERE. If you have a popup killer, you'll need to disable it for this to work, as the station tuner appears in a popup.
Labels: launchcast, music
Steve 7:51 PM [+] (0) comments
Monday, February 09, 2004
One more week.That's probably all it's gonna take before I can get the piece of equipment I need to start recording some new music.
I already have 3 semi-completed tunes waiting to be recorded and have overdubs added, which I'll probably just release straight onto my website.
Next comes the new project... something I've had bubbling away inside me for years. I'm gonna need a bit more equipment for that and can hopefully recruit a few other people to collaborate on vocals and whatever.
Labels: music
Steve 11:40 AM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, December 25, 2003
Jules Holland is without a doubt a complete tosser, so it's very rare that I sit and watch his music show 'Later' on tv.Last night however I was flicking through the channels and paused on his usually irritating show just to see what the next band was like. Ooooooooooooooooooooh Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!
Or rather... Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
Talk about blown away. There's nothing new about the music Yeah Yeah Yeahs are making, but you have to go back to 1976-78 to find it. It's loud, it's raw, it's fun and it's shockingly sexy for something so aggressive. And that girl singing... I'm in love. Okay.. lust... but y'know. Gimme.
Oh yeah, merry christmas or something.
Labels: music
Steve 2:13 PM [+] (0) comments
Monday, December 08, 2003
I'm hooked on a piece of music.An aussie girl in the chatroom I frequent messaged me pretty much out of the blue and told me I had to download this tune... some band I'd never heard of before. I dunno if they ever get played in the uk, but they're entirely new to me.
So anyway, My Happiness by Powderfinger... I just can't stop playing it. It's the first piece of music I've heard in a long time that consistantly makes me smile every time I hear it... and after the past couple of weeks, it feels really good to smile again.
Nice one Waitress^^, you might be a pushy little wench, but you have great taste in music ;-)
Labels: music
Steve 10:57 AM [+] (0) comments
Saturday, December 06, 2003
One of the things that's been troubling me is the loss of artistic motivation and inspiration.Musically, I haven't produced anything for over a year and a half, partly due to a frustration with my equipment. While I've been able to create the bare basics of a tune, since my Amiga died, I've been unable to add overdubs, vocal samples and all the little sounds and effects needed to complete a tune. Even when that machine was working, it was seriously limiting, both in terms of flexibility and audio quality.
So... something has changed. I've got a copy of Steinberg Cubase SX 2 and what an absolute revelation it is. Truly liberating.
The problem I have now is a minor technical detail, and not too expensive... though it does demonstrate the poor state of my finances.
The only audio input on my laptop is a mono mic socket... completely useless for recording complex pre-sequenced music tracks. Now while I can work around this for a time while teaching myself the software, it's highly inconvenient, and the only solution is to buy an external usb soundcard. Not an expensive piece of equipment by any means, but a demonstration of the state of my finances, as I'm going to have to go and do some agency work to afford one... and I will buy one.
For the first time in ages my creative ambition is fired up... I fully intend to create a masterpiece of an album, one as good as I imagine my tunes to sound in my head before I hit the limitations of my equipment... and this time I intend to push it to the record companies.
Labels: music
Steve 9:55 PM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, November 19, 2003
What a laid back and enjoyable week it's turning out to be.So far it's mostly consisted of playing silly buggers in the #england undernet chatroom, where I've had a right old laugh... and playing some Crystal Method albums I recently burned to CD at full blast.
Pretty uneventful by most normal people's standards, but I'm loving it.
Lets hope the rest of the week is as much fun.
Steve 11:42 AM [+] (0) comments
Monday, September 08, 2003
I never cease to be impressed with the people who leak and distribute unreleased movies and music.I dunno how they do it, but I'm rather glad they do.
So today I had the pleasure of hearing the new David Bowie album, Reality. It's been described as the best of the trilogy Hours/Heathen/Reality, though personally, I think whoever decided that is an idiot.
It's not bad, but nowhere near the awesome creation that is Heathen, and to be honest, probably isn't even as good as hours. Still, I'll buy it when it's released, some time around the 15th, 17th or something, if only because I buy all of his stuff.
Labels: music
Steve 6:50 PM [+] (0) comments
Friday, September 05, 2003
Nostalgia's a curious thing.I was just listening to Radio Benway (linked over on the left) and the title track of Disintegration by The Cure came on. I dunno... there's a lot of retro stuff on my station, but any tune from that album takes me back to what was a very special time for me.
It was around July 1989, maybe August, I don't remember... hot weather. A sunday afternoon, myself and a small group of friends were down by the river in Stony Stratford recovering from what had been a very drunken party. We had my portable stereo with us, drinking coke, cherry 7up, or anything else we could find that didn't contain alcohol, listening to Disintegration.
The melancholy of the tunes seemed rather fitting. There we were, a group of young lads, 18, 19, 20 or whatever, getting our heads together after what had been a great party, lots of beer, lots of young women, much fun.... and there we all were next day... all very single and not too thrilled about it.
So why do I consider that to be a special time? Sounds like we were a bunch of losers.
Truth is, it's that very innosence that I enjoy remembering. I know now for a fact that several of those girls had fancied the pants off of several of us, but being innnocent, mostly quite inexperienced, and far too polite (or shy) none of us had made a move that certainly would have had a favourable result. The potential was there to not only have a lot of fun, but also to do a lot of damage... and even though more through ineptitude than design, we didn't do that damage.
I look back on it now as the time we really started becoming the people we are, laying the foundations, and though I'm a very different person now to who I was then, I still remember it like it was yesterday.... and can't help smiling.
So we were a group of freaks, losers, drop-outs, and complete basket cases, but what we never were, and still aren't, is assholes.
Funny what a song can remind you of.
Labels: music
Steve 11:01 PM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, June 22, 2003
Last night among other things I had a bit of an mp3 downloadfest. Lots of tunes I haven't heard in years, or been able to find in the shops... and one particular tune that has me in stitches.Back in the late 80s, an eastern european band called Laibach caught my attention doing industrial techno cover versions of the most unlikely songs you could imagine. So... here I sit listening to the most ridiculous tongue in cheek communist powerhouse version of Jesus Christ Superstar. Classic stuff :-)
Labels: music
Steve 2:58 PM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, May 04, 2003
I'm not what you'd call a huge Madonna fan by any means, though I do have a lot of respect for her career achievements, her more recent music being very impressive.So last night she was interviewed on tv by Jonothan Ross, and it was very enlightening. Here she was, a huge megastar, and quite obviously VERY nervous. I dunno... I just found that rather surprising. With a reputation for being a very strong woman, and probably quite hard to deal with... here she was showing that she's human, and answering some very personal questions in an honest and open manner. No attitude, no diva like bullshit, no giving it 'the big I am'.
Yup... very impressed.
I tend to view her as a bit of a female Bowie... forever changing tack, and while never being truly groundbreaking, they both have this knack of taking an existing genre and doing something really special with it. The question is, how long can she keep going? Bowie's in his mid 50s and still releasing great material. Could Madonna get away with it at that age? Should be interesting.
Labels: music
Steve 5:12 PM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, April 16, 2003
Finally, the bathroom's finished. A guy came round yesterday and replaced the panels trashed by the last guy, and came back this morning to fit new skirting boards.Time to plug Radio Benway again.
I've been doing a lot of fine tuning over the past month or so, and it's become a very tightly focussed station, and something you really should listen to if your taste in music is remotely on the alternative side.
Yahoo Launchcast have this rating/ranking system that I'm making use of to the absolute max. The more songs/albums/artists that you rate, the higher your Lanchcast ranking... the higher your ranking, the better chance you have of becoming a featured station. So far, I've rated about 4500 items, and need only 500 more to reach the second from top rank of 'Addict', then I'll need to rate another 5000 to reach the top rank of 'Master'.
Being the kinda guy I am, I won't rest untill I've done that. The idea of not having a ranking of Master is quite horrifying to me.
Labels: launchcast, music
Steve 12:49 PM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, April 03, 2003
In my long and not so illustrious 'career' as a musician I've never really been tempted to do cover versions of other people's material (except an abortive attemp at Kylie Minogues 'I Should be So Lucky'). However, at this moment I'm sorely tempted to cover Big Black's Kerosene. If you've never heard of Big Black, let me just say that they were absolutely mental. Ultra powerful drum machine, bass, thrashy feedback guitar and vocals devoid of any emotion beyond blind aggresion. I heard a story that at one of their last gigs, circa '85, they replaced the bass drum sound with a sample of an 88mm howitzer. Can't get much more aggresive than that huh?So anyway, to do this cover, I'd have to... uh... 'sing'. Gulp. That'd be amusing.
Don't hold your breath and certainly don't expect it to be released on any future CD, but you never know, an mp3 might just appear on this blog for a limited time.
God help you all.
Labels: music
Steve 6:42 PM [+] (0) comments
Whilst bimbling around the web looking for nothing in particular, I stumbled across the Sisters Of Mercy homepage.
This is one of my very fave bands, and I have to admit, I love their website. Why? Not because of any fancy design work, useful news or information, interactivity or any of the usual reasons. As a site in it's own right, it sucks. I love it because it sucks, they know it sucks, and don't give a damn.
Andrew Eldritch (for when I say 'they', I mean 'he') is someone who's overstated level of tongue in cheek arrogance I've always admired, and it truly shines through on this site. Indeed, I'd almost go as far as to say Eldritch is god, except for the fact that I've already taken that post.
Labels: music
Steve 4:45 PM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, January 02, 2003
OMG!!!!Call me sad, but I have tears in my eyes here... I'm so thrilled. I just found a couple of VERY long lost tapes. It's music I recorded waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back before I could even play an instrument, circa 1988, right through to an original master tape of the last stuff I did on guitar and keyboard before moving over to computers and midi circa 1992. I thought this stuff was lost forever.
I'm playing it now, just to remind myself how good/awful it all was. The later stuff's quite raw and simple but has a real charm to it, you can hear the ideas coming through, how I'd use my lack of skill to my advantage and make something really original. The earliest stuff... hehehe... it's unbelievably terrible, no-one but me would enjoy it. Time to fire up the CD burner and make sure I never lose this stuff again, then bung it all onto an mp3 comilation CD, everything I've ever done (at least the stuff I still have) right from the very beginning, to the stuff that I previewed on here last summer. A very exclusive few people can expect copies of this in the post whether they want it or not.
Ugh... wtf is this track? Still playing the tape, but this one's not on the tape I've been playing for the past 10 years. Freaky. Must be the last guitar piece I ever did, and hehehehe... oh my, there's a sample I ripped off from a game on the megadrive back then.
Labels: music
Steve 10:05 PM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, December 19, 2002
Game Of The Week won't be up till friday, like anyone cares that much, but just so you know, it's probably gonna be Galaxian. No time to do it just now is all.I'm sat here waiting for my hair to dry before catching a train over to see Brigitte, and listening to the 80's Alternative feed onRadio@Netscape. I love this station... no, I LOVE it.
Okay, so they just played The Smiths who rather suck like a dead walruss, but now they're playing The Cure's The Snakepit from Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, earlier they played Victoria by The Fall, and Cities In Dust by Siouxsie. What more could a 30something alternative type person ask for? Love and Rockets? The Damned? Bauhaus? Very early Ultravox? Pixies? Throwing Muses? U2 circa War? Yup, they played those too. I'm in heaven. Now if they'll just stop playing the ultra annoying, stupidly catchy They Might Be Giants, it'd be pretty much perfect.
Oooooooooohhhhh..... okay, NOW it's perfect. They're playing For Phoebe Still A Baby, from Blue Bell Knoll, by Cocteau Twins. Liz Frazer has the voice of an angel, whatever it is she's singing. Heaven, I tell you... heaven.
*Sits back and drifts away*
Argh! I'm never gonna get out at this rate. Joy Division. Yay!!!
Okay, I'm going now. No, really... I am.
"Takes a second to say goodbye, say goodbye, say bye bye... " lalalala.
God help me. Make it stop. I need to go out, damnit!
Labels: music
Steve 3:03 PM [+] (0) comments
Monday, October 21, 2002
I like sundays.We've taken to staying at Brigitte's place on sundays, which is very relaxing, as there not being a hundred and one things to do, we tend to just veg out or play silly games. The game this week was Jenga... kind of like Kerplunk, but with little wooden blocks.
The idea is to take the blocks from the bottom of the tower and replace them at the top without toppling the whole thing. I dunno... maybe the game's really common, but I'd never seen it before, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Silly games rather appeal to me lately.
Like last week, I ventured into Northampton again this morning, and went into that record shop again. I seem to be on a real musical nostalgia trip lately, as this time I picked up Shine On by The House Of Love, The Colour Of Spring by Talk Talk, and Genesis by Genesis. All albums I haven't heard in years, but have fond memories of. They remind me of the people and places from the times I had them on vinyl, way back when. What I really need to get my hands on is some Siousxie and the Banshees. Next week, maybe.
Steve 11:58 AM [+] (0) comments
Monday, October 14, 2002
I have a feeling of disorientation this morning.Waking up in a small village miles from my home on a monday morning, then walking round a town (Northampton) other than the one I live in, before the shops are open, and where for reasons I can't quite put my finger on, the people look and act subtley different... it just feels odd.
I went into MacD's for breakfast while waiting for the shops to open... bacon and egg McMuffin, hash brown, and coffee... yummy. Next, off to Spinadisc, possibly the best record shop on the planet, where I picked up copies of Phantasmagoria by The Damned, Exorcising Ghosts by Japan, and Some Great Reward by Depeche Mode... all for £20, a price unimaginable in my local music shops. Up the road a way I found a great little shop that sells t-shirts by old 80s punk and goth bands... perfect, except it was closed. I'll have to go check that one out again some time soon.
Back down to the train station by 10am, and home by 11, to be greeted by my waiting cat, wailing at me for abandoning him for a whole day. Poor moggy. He's happy now though. I just put the wooly jumper I've been wearing on the bed, and he's nuzzling and pawing at it to his heart's content.
Oh yes, while at Brigitte's last night, we played a subtle variation of Scrabble... Wank Word Scrabble. Basicly exactly the same rules as normal scrabble, but with a 4x word bonus for obscene words. Much fun :-)
Steve 11:48 AM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, August 22, 2002
How very odd.You know how sometimes your memory attaches certain images to particular pieces of music? You play a song, and it can give you a brief flashback... something that happened maybe years ago.
Well, I've been laying here just dozing, listening to Pop by U2, with it on repeat. 3 times now, track 11 - 'Please' has come on, and at a praticualr point in the song, a fragmented geometric shape has appeared in my head, for the very briefest of moments. The first time I thought nothing of it, as I have images of all kinds of crap floating about in my head all the time. The second time, I thought "that seemed a bit familiar", the third time, I realised this tune was triggering a memory of something, though I still have no idea what. I can't actually describe the shape, as the exact memory of it's gone, the moment it disappears from my head. The nearest I can get to it is something like this (..--| --|-- | ) It's like... a cross between morse code and metal railings. WFT is that all about?
Steve 6:20 PM [+] (0) comments
Monday, August 12, 2002
Still sat here listening to spinner... it's been hooked up non-stop since I installed it.It's turning out to be very useful, as over the past couple of years I've become totally out of touch with contemporary music, be it alternative stuff or whatever. It'd kind of reached a point where I knew what bands I liked, and just stuck to those, never getting into anything new, 'cuase I simply never heard anything good. Radio in the uk is limited to say the least, as apart from John Peel who plays some very varied and unusual stuff on weeknight evenings, everything's totally mainstream, and that's not my thing at all.
It's quite funny, listening to spinner. Having it on constantly in the background, I keep getting up from whatever I'm doing to look at the screen and see who's playing a tune whenever I hear something I like. Just to prove my point about being out of touch, I havn't heard of half of them... like... who the hell is Collective Soul? They're playing a song called Where The River Flows. Never heard of them, but it's a cool song.
Labels: music
Steve 4:39 PM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, August 11, 2002
The streaming radio website and software Spinner is moving and being renamedRadio@Netscape I haven't actually tried the new software yet, but assuming it works much the same as Spinner, (and they say it does) it should be pretty good. What IS cool though, is the station preview thing. This is basicly a cut down java version of the player, which requires nothing more than a real audio plugin and makes all the radio channels accessable not just to windows users, but linux and mac too.
So, I've been sat for the past 3 hours vegging out and listening to some great music. The gothic and industrial stations rather suck, which is a pity, though more to do with the nature of those genres... too many copycat bands with zero talent, but the trance channel is awesome. Better yet though, 80s Alternative.... *drifts away to Candyman by Siousxie and the Banshees*
Labels: music
Steve 1:50 PM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, August 07, 2002
Yesterday was fun. Went to see MIB 2 with a friend, and found it funny, though not quite as funny as I'd expected. Probably more down to me being tired than any deficiency in the film.We then cam back here and went surfing various webcam sites. If webcams are your thing, this one is great fun. It's based on some New Jersey beach, wich is no bad thing, but better yet, you can pan, tilt, and zoom the cam around from your browser. The zoom function is pretty impressive, as we found we were able to zoom in REALLY close, enough to see the pattern on the bikini of a woman 50 odd yards away. *evil grin*
Speaking of webcams... regular readers may remember that a couple of months ago, I reported that AOL were switching to google as their default search tool. They've now done it, and with great results for some of my pages. Searching there for 'webcam communities' now brings up various of my web pages in the top 4 slots, better than even google itself, which only puts two of mine at the top. Quite a result :-)
Speaking of search engines (this is getting very train of thought)... google has finally indexed this blog, and the weird search results are coming in again, so expect to see a little window down there on the left listing the weirdest, some time soon.
Steve 11:22 AM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, July 09, 2002
Still reading Vitals by Greg Bear. Chilling... very very chilling. If you have any interest in consparacy theories, I highly recommend this book. I wouldn't say I put too much weight behind such things myself, but with a healthy dose of ingrained paranoia, I'm finding it quite gripping.Started listening to a compilation of Gary Numan albums on mp3 cd sent to me by a friend some time back. His earlier works are deffinately superior to his more recent output. He seemed to lose the plot somewhat after working with Bill Sharpe and embracing midi over analogue synths. Thoroughly enjoying hearing Dance and I Assasin again.
I find it amusing that Numan's most recent album totally rips off Nine Inch Nails, when in the beginning, NIN was pretty much copying Numan. Having said that, they're both derivative of Bowie's earlier works. Neither would exist were it not for Low, but then you could say that of a lot of bands.
There's something about sitting here with my head burried in a good book, listening to old music... it gets the creative juices flowing. Nothing specific as such, but I feel the rumblings of something in there. I guess it's good brain execise, kickstarts the lower levels of my subconcious. It's hard to say if I'll actually do anything though. The musical urge rather stalled when I got stuck on a tune I was making a month or so back, and I haven't written anything in ages. I need some kind of life to relate to before I can write... human interaction outide of the net, and there's precious little of that in my life at the moment. I do keep dabbling with photoshop though, mostly just tinkering with photographs, or creating striking images from what were originally grainy low res webcam images. It's fun and satisfying, but not really inspired work.
Steve 4:02 PM [+] (0) comments
Friday, July 05, 2002
What a great day.What an incredibly long day too. Haven't actually been to bed yet, but after the long sleep yesterday, that's no big surprise.
The hunt for the last couple of Bowie CD's and the odd tune is nearly over. Picked up Tonight and Never Let Me Down, a compilation with some other stuff I wanted, ordered Tin Machine... and then came the fun part...
Little Drummer Boy. The Bowie/Bing Crosby duet. I knew this song was on no Bowie album, being familiar with all of them, compilations included, so found myself scouring Bing Crosby sections of all the record stores and local library to no avail. Finally, while flicking through the easy listening compliations in HMV the girl who worked in the stock room obviously figured I was looking for something a little out of my usual area of listening... I mean... do I look like a Bing Crosby fan? She wandered up to me and asked if I was looking for something specific. I told her what I was after, and she smiled... "I saw that just the other day. Can't remember exactly what it was on.. some christmas compilation, let me have a look for you." This was the best response I'd had all day, as everywhere else I'd asked, they just loked at me like some kind of freak. So, after a few mins spent rummaging through a couple of racks, she concluded it wasn't on the shop floor, and called to one of her colleagues "Hey John, what happened to that box of christmas compilations?" The look on his face was a picture and what he was thinking was obvious "wtf does someone want with a christmas cd in july?" Anyway, he dug it out and we proceeded to rummage through the cds.
Hah! There it was... on tape. Damnit. She checked the computer to see if they had the same album on cd, and it said they did, but after hunting through the stockroom, and all through various places downstairs, it couldn't be found, but at least now we knew the album existed, and I was able to order it.
I have to say, I don't know what this girl's name is, I don't even think she normally has much contact with customers on the shop floor, but she was an absolute marvel, spending around half an hour hunting for this cd, just because I wanted this one track. It was a totally enjoyable half hour, and she seemed to find it as amusing and bizarre a search as I did, and didn't stop grinning and chuckling, chatting away as we serched.
To top the afternoon off, I wandered into another store and picked up the complete BBC tv series of Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy on dvd. I only ever caught a couple of episodes of this on tv when I was a kid, so this was a real treat. Awesome :-)
Labels: music
Steve 6:35 PM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, July 03, 2002
The Bowie collection continues to grow. While in town I picked up Space Oddity and Pinups. Not two of his best albums by any stretch of the imagination, but they have tracks I need to complete my mp3 compilation. Next I went to the library and borrowed Bowie's Beeb Sessions, 'cause the bonus disk contains versions of This Is Not America and Absolute Beginners... not the easiest songs to find these days. So, what do I need now? Tonight (pretty crappy), Never Let Me Down (in which he lets us all down, as it's utter shit), and Tin Machine (ummm). Oh... and Little Drummer Boy. Dunno where I'll find that... probably gonna have to download it from somewhere.Labels: music
Steve 6:51 PM [+] (0) comments
Friday, June 28, 2002
Today started with a bleary, sleep deprived Benway cycling into town with the intention of doing all the things he was supposed to do there yesterday. Haha, yeah right.I was so addled, I did the job centre thing, and then decided screw the bills and bank, they could wait till Monday… or Tuesday… or...
Wandering round aimlessly, I by chance stumbled into my favourite music/video store, and then stumbled back out 15 minutes later with a copy of A.I. on DVD and David Bowie’s new album Heathen in a limited edition double CD pack.
So tell us what they’re like, I hear you ask. (Actually, I don’t, but I’m gonna tell you anyway… so there.)
A.I. rocks.
There. Wanna know more? No? Tough… I’m gonna tell you anyway…hehe.
The acting is excellent all round. Haley Joel Osment is without a doubt the best child actor I’ve ever seen, utterly stomping all over other puke/cringe inducing, too cute to live child actors I could mention, while Jude Law never ceases to impress with every new movie he makes.
The visuals are utterly stunning. It really has reached a point now where movies can do anything and convincingly too. The quality off effects over the past couple of years seem to have made a massive leap, to the point where if you can imagine a thing, they can put it on the screen and make you believe it. Can you see the strings? Heck no.
A number of reviews I read/saw about this film suggested it had something of an identity crisis, with the dark edgy feel of Stanley Kubrick’s original material struggling to make it’s presence felt through Spielberg’s cutesy treatment. I’m not convinced by this argument, as to me the whole thing seemed to hang together very well as a whole, with only the ending feeling tacked on. Maybe I’m just a miserable git and don’t like happy endings though, cynic that I am.
Bowie’s Heathen album… interesting.
After Outside and Earthling, both utterly awesome albums, he seemed to drop the ball a little with Hours, it seeming somewhat uninspired. Heathen then, comes as a pleasant return to form.
It’s an odd album though, not at all easy to pin down and know where it’s coming from… with an edgy feeling, reminiscent of his East German trilogy Low/Heroes/Lodger, but with elements of his earlier, almost cabaret style heard in Diamond Dogs and even Ziggy Stardust. The production values though are bang up to date. Definitely odd. I like it. Of course, anything odd is good in my book.
I’m not actually sure if I’ve heard the whole album yet though, as I was so tired that after watching A.I., I kept drifting in and out of sleep while the album played on repeat for a few hours.
Something I’ve noticed about the music he’s released over the past few years… he doesn’t make songs you can sing along to anymore. This isn’t a criticism as such, but I’m sure it must affect his record sales, there having been no tracks like Ashes To Ashes, Modern Love, etc that you’d find yourself humming on the way to wherever. I wonder if this is to do with what must surely be a reduced vocal range, ‘cause lets face it, at 50 something, his voice is starting to sound just a little strained. Not a criticism, just an observation. He still rocks, and as a musician, will always be my hero.
Steve 8:33 PM [+] (0) comments
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