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1 November 2008
I can believe it’s been almost two months since my last post to this blog. And yet you’re still reading it. I guess I should’ve really posted this last night so that I didn’t have yet another month on my blog without any posts. Oh well.
Anyway, here’s what was keeping me so busy in October that I couldn’t find the time to post. And I’m actually going to try and keep it short for once:
The Mighty Boosh – Monday 6th October 2008
Saw these live at Sheffield City Hall. We had excellent front row seats thanks to Chris going to buy tickets early on the morning they were released. I didn’t watch series one or two of their TV series show when it was on BBC Three. I remember watching about five minutes, thinking it was a bit mental, and then turning over to watch something else. After seeing them do a bit of live stuff on TV another time, Suzy bought me the DVD box set of series one and two and from then on I was hooked. Series three was really good, so I was looking forward to finally seeing them live. Although this was obviously an expensive production, it still had that raw home-made-fancy-dress-costume feel to it like the Mighty Boosh TV series had. I enjoyed it.
Michael McIntyre – Wednesday 8th October 2008
Saw him live at Sheffield Lyceum. We had cheap seats up on the balcony thanks to Chris not going to buy tickets early on the morning they were released. I’ve always thought he was funny on BBC Two’s Mock the Week but wasn’t sure what he’d be like doing stand-up. I was pleasantly surprised that he was actually really funny and did a lot of those jokes where he’d keep coming back to them later. I enjoyed it.
Vampire Weekend – Wednesday 22nd October 2008
Saw these live at Carling Academy Sheffield. We were standing for this gig thanks to nobody called Chris going to buy the tickets. Despite having not heard all the album, I thought they were really good. I’ve downloaded it now and actually think they might have been better live than recorded. Nevertheless... I enjoyed it.
Apart from all that, Suzy and I have also been to a few wedding fairs, we’ve been busy decorating our new house, we went to try out the fixed price lunch menu at Loch Fyne (really good food for just £11 per person) and I’ve been reviewing yet another book for O’Reilly.
So there you have it. A very busy but enjoyable October.
Labels: music, personal, theatre, tv
1 June 2008
We went to see a few more bands in May. Here’s who we saw and what I thought about them...
The Wombats – Thursday 15th May 2008
The Wombats have been knocking around the charts for a while now but I only really started to notice them shortly after Chris Riley mentioned them when I kept hearing their re-release of Moving to New York being constantly played on the radio earlier this year.
For a three-piece band they have a really full sound, and that goes for their instruments and vocals. Anyone who’s listened to their album will have heard the first short a cappella track Tales Of Girls, Boys And Marsupials. They opened the gig with this and proved they really can sing – albeit like a barbershop triplet!
Full of energy, they continued to impress throughout the gig and proved they really knew how to get the crowd going. They belted out pretty much ever song from their album – occasionally taking it in turns to add some keyboard to the tunes – before leaving the stage prior to the encore, when a huge inflatable wombat appeared on the balcony.
The Wombats are a talented bunch of musicians who write some catchy tunes and certainly know how to put on a good show. I’d definitely recommend getting tickets if you ever get chance to see them.
As always, watch the video above or view the rest of the photos and videos on Flickr.
Joe Lean & The Jing Jang Jong – Saturday 17th May 2008
This is the emptiest I’ve ever seen the Leadmill. You know a gig isn’t very popular when there are no ticket touts hanging around outside. We turned up fairly late and I reckon there were only a couple of hundred people there. Given that Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong were nominated for Best New Band at this year’s NME Awards – along with winners The Enemy and Foals, The Pigeon Detectives (see below) and The Wombats (see above) – this should’ve set alarm bells ringing...
Perhaps word had got out that Joe Lean is an over-the-top drama queen who obviously wants to be seen as some kind of troubled artist. When you tell the already sparse audience they need to do ‘this clapping thing’ and they don’t bother, it’s probably advisable to not shout “Just clap for f*ck’s sake!” expecting them to suddenly join in. And when another twenty or so people have walked out, you probably shouldn’t tell the remaining audience to “shut up and dance to this” either. It’s a shame Joe Lean feels he needs to be like this because the rest of the band seemed fine and the music was pretty good.
By comparison, their support band – The Beggars – were pretty good. Unlike Joe Lean, the four young lads from Reading managed to ignore the lack of audience and just get on with the gig. Their front-man needs to get a bit more stage presence but their lead guitarist, who also took on lead vocals on a couple of the songs, was really full of life and seemed to love every minute that he was on stage. It would’t surprise me if he’s the real talent behind all their stuff.
The Pigeon Detectives – Wednesday 21st May 2008
There’s not much else I can say about The Pigeon Detectives that I didn’t say after we went to see them last November.
Like I said after the last gig, you just can’t beat a classic five-piece band – i.e. lead vocals, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass guitar and drums. Despite having injured his leg a week or two before the gig, front-man Matt Bowman was possibly even more energetic that he was last time.
Unfortunately, since their new album was being released five days after the gig, the audience didn’t know all the new songs. That didn’t seem to make any difference though; the audience was still jumping around and singing along to all the new tunes. Having now heard the new album, I reckon it’s probably on a par with the last one. There are a couple of excellent, really catchy energetic numbers that stand out but the whole thing in general is really good.
The Pigeon Detectives didn’t bother with a pointless encore this time either. They just played all the songs they wanted to play and left the stage. I really wish more bands would do this instead of milking the audience for more clapping and cheering. And just like last time, the audience left the venue with another Phoenix-Nights-esque rendition of one of their tunes playing in the background. (This time it was their new single This Is An Emergency.)
Once again, this was a truly excellent gig by who I consider to be one of the UK’s best bands!
I guess it goes without saying now that you can watch the video above or view the rest of the photos and videos on Flickr.
Labels: music, personal
29 April 2008
I’ve just realised that almost three months has gone by since my last post. That’s quite simply because I’ve been rather busy and haven’t found the time to write any blog posts... other than the occasional one for Google Blogoscoped, which celebrated five years in the blogosphere yesterday. (Congratulations Philipp!)
One of the many reasons why I’ve been so busy is because I’ve been going to lots of gigs. So here’s a big long post wrapping up all the gigs I’ve been to this month to make up for it.
Scouting For Girls – Tuesday 8th April 2008
I’d seen Scouting For Girls on BBC2’s Something For The Weekend the Sunday before the gig and they seemed like decent lads who were still enjoying their newfound fame, having only been signed for a year or so. Their excitement is quite obvious when they’re performing. In fact, I think the lead singer was more excited to play the Sheffield Octagon gig than usual because they’d had to cancel four gigs the previous week due to him having a sore throat or something. Although still recovering from this, his ability to work the audience – which mainly consisted of teenage girls, some of which were even holding banners they’d presumably made at school by sticking a few A4 pieces of coloured paper together – didn’t suffer one bit.
Their young fan-base aside, my main grumble would be that they seem to be one of these bands that likes to play a song, get half way through, stop playing, chat with the audience for a while, and then end the song with a ‘big finish’ a couple of minutes later. This would be fine for one song, and maybe two maximum, but it gets a bit tiresome when it feels like it’s almost every song, probably emphasised by the fact that some of the songs do sound quite similar. Other than that, it was a pretty good gig.
Reverend and The Makers – Friday 11th April 2008
To be honest, the main reason for going to this gig was to be there for the opening night of the venue. Around 10 years ago, everyone at university used to go to The Roxy every Wednesday night. The promise of free entry and free beer before 11pm got the crowds of poor students through its doors without fail. But with deals like those, it wasn’t going to stay open for much longer. Apart from a crazy spell where it was home to St Thomas’s Church for a while, it’s been empty pretty much since then until the Academy Music Group took over in November last year and turned it into the Carling Academy Sheffield. Having watched the outside of the venue being slowly transformed from The Roxy Disco into Carling Academy Sheffield, I was intrigued to see what they’d done with the place.
As it turns out, they’d done a pretty good job on the inside of the venue. From my hazy memories of the place, I think they’ve moved a couple of bars, refitted the balcony and generally given it a lick of paint and freshened up everywhere a bit. I was particularly pleased to see they’ve got a red neon ROXY sign upstairs as a tribute to the venue’s historical signs on each side of the building which were removed as part of the refurbishment.
It’s a shame they’d not given as much attention to the support acts they’d booked for the opening night. The first band didn’t sound too bad when we walked through the doors, but then their Kelly-Osbourne-esque singer started to literally murder the rest of their set with her noise. And the next act was even worse. Consisting of what appeared to be two bouncers, two chav girls drinking alcopops and some guy on the decks, the best thing about their act was their “Radio Head” mascot who had a boom box for a head and did poor robotic-style dancing for some of the songs. I can only imagine that they chose these two terrible acts to make The Reverend seem better by comparison.
Despite what Chris Hill has to say about them, I quite like Reverend and The Makers. They should really be called The Makers and Reverend though because it’s The Makers who provide pretty much all of the talent, playing real instruments and belting out some tight tunes. What helped to keep me amused was the fact that The Reverend looked like my mate Gav who was the bass player in a band I was in years ago. Still, they played all the best tunes from the album and they sounded pretty similar actually – and much better than their live performances I’ve caught on TV – so I wasn’t disappointed.
Towards the end of the gig, I went to get my coat and wait for Suzy and Chris near the doors, only to see the entire audience running towards me. I found out afterwards that The Reverend had grabbed his acoustic guitar and told everyone to follow him through the front doors of the venue, where he was making his way to the fictional Penelope’s venue (which turned out to be outside The Crucible) where he was doing a post-gig acoustic set as advertised on some flyers which were being given out before the gig. I soon gathered what was going on when security were trying to make way for him to get out. Since I was stood in the middle of the door way, I stepped to one side and gave him a pat on the back, telling him he’d played a good gig.
The Fratellis – Sunday 13th April 2008
I was really surprised a few weeks ago to hear that The Fratellis were playing a small venue like The Leadmill and jumped at the chance to get tickets. They could have easily have filled a much bigger venue and on the night The Leadmill was absolutely packed, more than I’d even seen it before.
Bar service is usually pretty slow anyway on gig nights, but given that for this gig they were decanting every single bottle at the bottle bar into plastic glasses, it took us 40 minutes to get a drink, made worse by the fact some idiot staff member had seemingly ordered only half pint (284ml) plastic glasses which the bar staff were then using for 330ml bottles of beer and just throwing the rest of the beer away until some guy pointed out they were ripping everyone off!
Bar problems aside, the gig was fantastic. I’ve heard some of The Fratellis’ live stuff before and was expecting it to sound a bit raw, so I was pleasantly surprised when their sound was really polished. Embarrassingly, it took Suzy and I about half a song to realise it was actually them who’d taken to the stage because the lead singer had wet his hair, instead of having the big curly mop he usually has, and they opened with a new song we’d not heard before. It’s a shame they hadn’t released their new album before the gig (it’s out in June) but if the new tracks they played are anything to go by, it’s going to be a good ’un...
Anyway, check out what you missed and watch the video above or view the rest of the photos and videos on Flickr.
We Are Scientists – Thursday 17th April 2008
I first saw We Are Scientists when they supported Kaiser Chiefs at Sheffield Arena last December. Having bought their album after that gig, it seems I first heard them when I played Burnout on my Xbox, which features one of their track. They’re a really good live band who really try and interact with the audience. This didn’t work too well when they were in Sheffield Arena in front of an audience waiting to see Kaiser Chiefs but worked really well at Sheffield Octagon.
I seem to remember there being some discussion about Yorkshire puddings but I can’t remember much about it as I’d drunk more than I should have done really. But from what I remember about the gig, it was good.
The Kooks – Monday 28th April 2008
For the final gig of the month, we went to see The Kooks again, having really enjoyed seeing them play their V Festival warm-up gig at Doncaster Dome last year. Another gig at The Roxy, but the support act was much better than the last time we were there. Palladium kind of looked and sounded like they’d stepped into 2008 straight from the 1980s, but in a good way; you just don’t hear enough guitar licks and synth sounds like those anymore!
Before going to the gig, I’d been listening to The Kooks’ new album. There are some mixed reviews knocking around but I think it’s pretty good. I reckon it’s quite similar to the first album. There’s a good mix of catchy tunes on there. In keeping with the neon KONK sign on the new album cover, when the curtain dropped there was a massive flashing, buzzing, blue neon KOOKS sign above the stage. Much to my amusement, due to the dodgy neon font they’d used, the sign looked more like it said BOOBS rather than KOOKS though.
Once again, we spotted some banners saying things like “LUKE IS A SEX GOD” and “I ♥ THE KOOKS” and a cleverly timed banner just saying “YES” in response to the lyric, “Do you wanna make love to me?” The audience did’t seem that young at this gig though, so perhaps this is just the latest thing. Maybe I’ll make some for when we go to see some more bands next month...
Anyway, despite the banners that made us feel like we were at a Take That concert, this was an excellent gig. They played all the best songs from both albums and I had a right good sing-a-long!
Again, you can watch the video above or view the rest of the photos and videos on Flickr.
Still to come next month: The Wombats, Joe Lean & The Jing Jang Jong and The Pigeon Detectives.
Labels: music, personal, rant
20 December 2007
Before all you geeks who read my blog get too excited, this is not a post about Cascading Style Sheets – it’s a post about the Brazilian band Cansei de Ser Sexy who a few of us went to see at The Leadmill last night.
We unfortunately missed Joe Lean and The Jing Jang Jong but arrived in time to see Metronomy perform their crazy electronic music whilst wearing battery powered push lights attached to their t-shirts. According to Wikipedia, Metronomy started as a side project for Joseph Mount who’s remixed for loads of bands and is the friendliest man in pop (according to NME). The three Metronomy members have some interesting stage choreography, like saluting the corner of the room in the middle of their “slow and sad song” called Heartbreaker, which goes quite well with their interesting music that sounds a bit like Klaxons. Anyway, I think I’ll be listening to a bit more of their stuff as some of it was pretty good.
One of the reasons I decided to go and watch CSS was because I’d heard that they put on a really good show. I didn’t know that the lead singer – apparently known as Lovefoxxx – once stripped naked at one of her gigs until reading her Wikipedia article just now. Sadly, there was none of that at the Leadmill. Instead, the band casually appeared on stage dressed as Christmas presents while an interesting rendition of Jingle Bells (I think) was being played in the background!
Wearing a skin-tight leotard, high-fiving the first crowd surfer, grabbing someone’s mobile phone to sing into, constantly teasing the crowd with the microphone (she’s not got as much control with the mic as the front-men from Kaiser Chiefs or Pigeon Detectives yet) and generally dancing like a crazy woman for the rest of the time before throwing herself into the crowd at the end, Lovefoxxx is actually a pretty good front-person (is that PC enough for ya?) with too much energy. The crowd did seem a bit confused when 30 minutes into the set she announced “this is our last song’ before playing Alcohol and then proceeded to play from another half an hour or so. My guess was that she meant that Alcohol was their last song to be released and her English isn’t too good but I guess she could’ve also been joking, the cheeky minx. She even kindly thanked someone for throwing a bag of Brazil nuts at them. (What kind of weirdos go to these gigs!?)
CSS also appeared to have their own version of Bez; except theirs was a heavily tattooed girl who danced around the stage dressed up as a Christmas tree for a couple of songs, changed into a Bob Marley t-shirt to hold up a Jamaican flag then a sheet containing some lyrics for another song, and finally appeared as a Christmas present towards the end of the gig. She also helped Lovefoxxx try to teach the crowd how to do their little dance moves which they’ve got for each song. Quite amusing really.
With a bit of token instrument-swapping for the last song, CSS put on an impressive live show. They’re definitely better live than they are on recordings, so keep your eyes peeled for a CSS gig near you!
Labels: music, personal
6 December 2007
As part of my ongoing mission to watch more live music, we went to Sheffield Arena on Monday night to watch Kaiser Chiefs.
I bought the tickets back in June and have been looking forward to this gig for about five months. I’m not really a big fan of arena gigs though. I prefer smaller venues where you can see what facial expressions the band members are making. It takes an excellent band to put on a good show and make a massive arena audience feel like they’re part of the experience instead of just watching tiny dots in the distance. Luckily for us, Kaiser Chiefs are an excellent band!
Support came from California’s The Little Ones, who weren’t bad but didn’t make me want to buy – or even steal – their music, and New York’s topless We Are Scientists who, despite them being topless, I quite liked these dudes and may even purchase their new album.
The Chiefs played all the best songs (i.e. nearly all of them) from their two albums, Employment and Yours Truly, Angry Mob, along with some brilliant new songs. Frontman Ricky Wilson certainly knows how to get the audience going too. From what I’d seen of them on the TV, I knew he’d be full of energy and running around the stage. I didn’t expect him to suddenly pop-up in the middle of the arena though!
The sound was excellent. The screens – five smaller vertical screens above the stage instead of the two usual big screens on each side, as you can see in my photos – were a bit different but still effective, giving us a chance to watch each member of the band more closely. And the lights were plentiful... that is until some idiot lobbed a pint of beer over the lighting desk just before the encore! Ricky gave the audience the choice of them doing an encore without any lights (although the blinders were still working) or going home. Needless to say, they continued with the encore and the lights gradually came back on.
Personal highlights for me: Everyday I Love You Less And Less, I Predict A Riot, Oh My God and the more recent Ruby (all massive anthems), Modern Way (I love that cowbell), Na Na Na Na Naa and Heat Dies Down (great sing-a-long songs), Saturday Night (purely for the line, “Cos we are birds of feather and you can be the fat one!”), The Angry Mob (wonderful angry undertones), Everything Is Average Nowadays (the guitar playing the same melody as the vocals during the verses is cool), Love’s Not A Competition (But I’m Winning) (always nice to have a ballad in the set), Thank You Very Much (I love the subtle guitar and keyboard melodies playing underneath the bridge/chorus on this), Retirement (the way they kept varying the rhythm between each verse and chorus was pure musical brilliance), Born To Be A Dancer (spooky piano melodies are always good), Highroyds (just brilliant) and I Can Do It Without You (just cos it’s a damn good tune).
Erm, I think that’s pretty much most of the show then!
Not too bad for an arena gig really...
Still to come: CSS (Dec ’07), Scouting for Girls (Apr ’08) and The Pigeon Detectives (May ’08) – again – but this time at the brand new Carling Academy Sheffield, previously known as The New Roxy Disco, which will hopefully open its doors in April 2008!
Labels: music, personal
8 November 2007
I’ve been busy going to quite a few gigs recently, so here’s a summary post of the last four I’ve been to. Sorry it’s another long post. I really should learn to write and publish these things straight after the event...
Klaxons – Wednesday 10th October 2007
You may have read in my previous post that while we were in Canada last month, we went to see Klaxons at The Opera House. It was touch-and-go whether we got to see them though. First of all, we went to the wrong venue. Then we heard people in the queue saying that it had sold out. And then the door staff thought that Suzy didn’t look nineteen and reckoned they couldn’t let us in without any ID. Anyway, for some reason they changed their minds and let us in after we explained that we were just stupid Brits who didn’t usually take our passports to gigs.
After a bit of waiting around, support band OPOPO appeared on stage and played some of their crazy disco house punk tunes. This isn’t really my kind of music, but I thought these three lads from Toronto were pretty good; they certainly know how to have a good time on stage and definitely made sure the audience knew what they were called and knew how to find them online. (Young British bands, take a leaf out of OPOPO’s book!) My personal favourite of their set was the song where the lead singer was shouting something about his computer having a virus. Since he’d been playing samples from his MacBook and some loud noise was now filling the venue, I thought for a moment he might have been serious. Turns out it was one of their tunes called Computer Menace... I think...
It seems like Klaxons mustn’t be that big in Canada yet as this place seemed pretty small – probably not even one thousand capacity – which always makes a more intimate gig. Since we got there early so we could buy our tickets, we were right at the front of the queue and first into the venue, so we were two rows from the front too. In total contrast to gigs in the UK, there was no barrier or security between the crowd and the stage. And they served alcohol in glass bottles.
I hadn’t listened to much Klaxons stuff before this gig and there was a strange mix of people in the crowd too, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew some of their tunes – like Golden Skans, Gravity’s Rainbow and It’s Not Over Yet – but I’d not listened to their album. Not knowing all the tunes can sometimes make a gig less enjoyable, but not in this case because Klaxons know how to get a crowd going and play some amazing music.
For some reason, something quite simple that’s always impresses me is when band members swap instruments for different songs. Jamie Reynolds and James Righton exchange bass guitar and keyboard between some of their songs and also switch who sings lead vocals, which really helps to bring a bit of variation into the set. Admittedly, some of the tracks weren’t really to my taste, but that didn’t spoil the gig at all. (Which is more than can be said for Ash... see below.)
I’ve now been listening to their album quite a bit since we got back. Apart from a couple of dodgy tracks, I’d say this is probably one of my most favourite albums this year.
Editors – Monday 22nd October 2007
I’d only been back from Canada for the weekend and then I had another gig to go to on the Monday, this time at The University of Sheffield’s Octagon Centre, a venue where I’ve been to club nights, seen bands play, sat my university exams and attended my graduation. Anyway...
To be honest, I’m a bit of a late-comer to Editors. Even Chris Riley – who has very little decent musical knowledge and still thinks that The Stones Roses, Guns N’ Roses and Rolling Stones are the same band – was listening to them almost two years ago. I knew he’d be up for seeing them live, so I thought I’d give them a go seeing as though I liked their strong single releases which I’d heard on the radio. And I’m glad I did.
These guys sound great live; their tight drum beats, clean guitar melodies and faultless vocals really mean they own the stage and the audience. Although being able to watch the lead guitarist made me realise how little he appears to do (i.e. lots of arpeggiated picking without really moving his fingers) but his riffs and licks are perfect and help to give Editors their unique sound almost as much as Tom Smith’s vocals do, so I can’t really fault him. Anyway, I thought the entire show was amazing. There’s no need to just take my word for it either, because you can read what Chris thought about the gig on his blog.
So, Editors rock. It’s official.
Ash – Thursday 25th October 2007
Three days later and I was back in Octagon to see Ash. I wouldn’t really say that I’m an Ash fan, but I used to listen to their stuff in the mid-to-late 1990s and thought it would be good to see them live. (In fact, I’d completely forgotten until we left the gig that I’d seen them a couple of years ago when they were supporting The Darkness who were on their first arena tour at the time.)
Ash released a new album earlier this year, so they obviously played quite a bit of new stuff to help promote it. Unfortunately, I thought that most of the songs I didn’t recognise were all a bit rubbish. Perhaps I should’ve listened to the new album before the gig, just in case there were some “growers” in there, but you shouldn’t really need to do that if the songs are half decent in the first place.
Also, I couldn’t help thinking that the gig was all about Tim Wheeler (lead vocals and lead guitar). I know there are only three of them in the band and he writes all the songs, but he had a spotlight on him for pretty much the entire gig and liked to go off on his own doing some overly long guitar solos. Don’t get me wrong, I love overly long guitar solos when they’re played in the right place at the right time, but these just seemed to unnecessarily prolong songs and meant I was more tired at work the day after the gig that I should have been.
I thought 1977 was a really good album, but perhaps I’m just relating the songs on that album with my college days (particularly the “Sick Party” hidden track at the end of the CD). I enjoyed those songs at the gig, so it was a shame about the rest...
The Pigeon Detectives – Saturday 3rd November 2007
Although I originally thought this gig was going to be in the Foundry at the Student Union, we ended up back in the Octagon again for the third time in two weeks. Thankfully this gig wasn’t on a school night though!
I’d actually bought tickets for this gig before I was properly aware of any songs by The Pigeon Detectives. Having listened to a few samples on iTunes, Suzy bought me the album for my birthday in July and I’ve been listening to it ever since. This is now another one of my most favourite albums this year.
One of the great things about The Pigeon Detectives is that you can actually tell what they’re singing, which means you can sing (or shout) along when you see them live. Of course, if you’re going to sing along, you should really get down the front and jump around at the same time. However, despite Coco Riley claiming that he “might even attempt a mosh” at this gig, I couldn’t convince him to get down the front to get all sweaty and squashed with me and Jo.
If I had to use just one word to describe what The Pigeon Detectives were like on stage, I would have to say: “Energetic!” I think there’s something about a classic five-piece band – i.e. lead vocals, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass guitar and drums – where the singer doesn’t have to play a guitar, meaning he can actually be a proper front-man, running about the stage, climbing on the speakers and interacting with the audience. Having said that, throwing the microphone into the crowd probably doesn’t keep the sound men very happy!
One thing that annoys me at gigs is when bands disappear, pretending to be leaving the stage for the night, and then they come back on for an “encore” regardless of how much the audience is clapping and cheering. So, it made a refreshing change when The Pigeon Detectives played their final song, left the stage and the lights came up so that the clearing up could begin. (And the cheesy Phoenix-Nights-esque version of I’m Not Sorry which played as the venue emptied was an excellent touch!)
Despite a couple of over-excited dickheads who were pushing people around a bit too much and tried to start the odd fight, I’d say this was my second favourite gig of the year, only just being beaten by the Arctic Monkeys gig in August. That’s because The Pigeon Detectives really know how to write and play awesome songs which really get the crowd going. And that includes their new stuff.
(Chris Riley – who has very little decent musical knowledge and still thinks that The Stones Roses, Guns N’ Roses and Rolling Stones are the same band – enjoyed himself so much that he posted what he thought of the gig as soon as he got home, even though he was still a bit tipsy! Personally, I think he’s going of the rails a bit now that he’s started going to gigs...)
Labels: music, personal
20 September 2007
Back in May, I saw The Maccabees at The Leadmill, supported by Jack Peñate and some other cool band. (I didn’t catch the name; these young bands need to learn how to speak clearly down a mic when they’re on stage.) In July, I saw Black Rebel Motorcycle Club there too. I’ve already posted about seeing Arctic Monkeys supported by Supergrass, The Coral, Amy Winehouse and The Parrots at Lancashire County Cricket Club. A week later, I went to see Sheffield band Little Man Tate perform their South Yorkshire Flood Benefit gig at The Plug in Sheffield – and they were excellent! Later that month, I saw The Kooks play their awesome V Festival warm-up gig at Doncaster Dome, supported by The Holloways and The Rivers.
Who could possibly follow so many fantastic acts? There’s quite simply only one band...
Friends of Batman
Chris went to see them last year and I was gutted that I couldn’t make it, so when this opportunity of going to their next gig came up, I jumped at the chance, even though it was in York!
The Friends of Batman MySpace profile says they play “ultra violent acoustic” but a review I read said it was “comedy folk”. The band consists of a vocalist/guitarist, a stylophonist, a thereminist and a kazooist. Who are they? Jim (Friend of Batman), Terrys Allgold, Thereman and Kazoo-man, of course!
Anyway, we travelled to York with their alter egos in the Batbus (which is like the Batmobile only with more seats) and watched them perform to a fantastic audience at the last Children for Breakfast at the City Screen Basement Bar. We were treated to a bit of ukulele by Thereman, a rap by MC Terrys Allgold and an original cover of Billy Idol’s classic 80s song about quitting cocaine and taking it up again, White Wedding. It was quite literally one of the most entertaining live sets I’ve ever seen in my life.
Friends of Batman are supporting The Ape-Drape Escape next Thursday, 27th September, 2007 at The Grapes, Sheffield. I suggest you get yourself down there to catch one of their rare appearances! (Check out the flyer for more details.)
And still to come: Editors, Ash, The Pigeon Detectives and Kaiser Chiefs
Labels: music, personal
1 August 2007
For my birthday last week, Suzy bought me a SteakStones set which consists of a bamboo tray, a rectangular plate, three tiny glass bowls and a piece of lava stone. You put the lava stone in the oven for about 20 minutes before transferring it to the tray, where you then cook your steak or fish directly on it. I’ve not had chance to use it yet, but will try to post some pictures when I do.
As part of my extended birthday celebrations, I then went to watch the Arctic Monkeys gig at Lancashire County Cricket Club on Sunday. (That’s “Old Trafford” for normal folk like me who don’t know its proper name!) Fortunately for us, my mate Caz’s brother had decided he didn’t want to go, so we bought the two spare tickets last month.
Until two days before the gig, I had no idea that the event started and 14:00 and was presently surprised to find out that not only were the Sheffield Monkeys being supported by Amy Winehouse (who I’m not really into) but they were also being joined by The Parrots (who are a Japanese Beatles tribute band), The Coral and Supergrass.
Since we didn’t get a chance to go to Glastonbury this year due to “work commitments” this mini-festival almost made up for it; there’s nothing quite like long queues for over-priced food and drink and even longer queues for truly awful temporary toilets! Needless to say, we saw a few blokes taking leaks into the cardboard beer cups (one even dropped his pants to give us the pleasure of seeing his bare arse whilst doing so) and I’m pretty sure we saw several of those piss-filled cups being launched over the crowd.
Anyway – leaving the piss to one side – the gig was truly awesome! The Parrots played non-stop Beatles hits earlier in the afternoon to get the crowd warmed up. Amy Winehouse came on stage and got the crowd singing along to some of her more popular tunes like Rehab and The Zutons’ Valerie. (Much to my disappointment, she didn’t seem that wasted.) Although we couldn’t really see them as we were having a hot dog at the side of the grounds, The Coral still sounded great and belted out some cool tunes including their classic hit In The Morning. Supergrass played some of their classics too – including Strange Ones, Richard III, Moving, Grace, Caught By The Fuzz and Pumping On Your Stereo – but they also tried to push some of their newer stuff which sounded a bit dull by comparison. That wasn’t helped by the fact that their levels were a bit messed up which meant you could hardly hear the vocals, which was a shame, but they were still great to watch.
After watching clips from Arctic Monkeys music videos, showing various places in and around Sheffield, they finally came onto their understated stage setup. What they lacked in fancy stage sets and props, they certainly made up for with their music when they kicked things off with Fluorescent Adolescent, I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor and Brianstorm, Dancing Shoes, From The Ritz To The Rubble and Fake Tales Of San Francisco. Then they appeared to quite literally blow a fuse, causing all amps, lights and the big screens to die. After a couple of attempts were made to fix things, they were soon running on all cylinders again.
As expected, we only heard the odd bit of banter from the usually quiet front-man; we were a ‘lairy bunch’ according to Alex Turner, even lairier than previous night’s crowd apparently. It’s a shame a couple of people right next to us were a little too lairy and started a fight, but they soon calmed down after punching each other’s lights out, allowing us to carry on watching the gig without the fear of getting caught up in the middle of it.
As the darkness closed in, they continued to play tune after tune after tune from both of their brilliant albums. Favourites of mine included You Probably Couldn’t See For The Lights But You Were Staring Straight At Me, Teddy Picker, Mardy Bum, Do Me A Favour, The View From The Afternoon and When The Sun Goes Down.
Anticipating that 50,000 people all trying to flag down taxis wouldn’t be very much fun, we finally decided to make our way to the exit as they played their encore, just managing to catch the final track off their latest album, the mellow 505, before leaving the grounds.
Verdict? Excellent!
You can view the rest of our photos on Flickr.
Labels: food, music, personal
24 July 2007
Things have been a bit slack on this blog recently. To be honest, I’d almost forgotten I even had a blog until I read this status update on Facebook around a week ago:
Christian is thinking that people should be updating their blogs rather than concentrating on Facebook.
For those who haven’t been reading my status updates on Facebook, here’s a summary of what I’ve been doing since my last post:
Sorry, Christian, I know that’s probably not what you meant, but it’ll have to do for now... ;-)
Labels: facebook, gadgets, golf, music, personal, tv, wii
22 June 2007
Some of you already know what I got up to earlier this week; I went to Paris to live-blog Google Press Day 2007. If you’re interested, you can read all about the day’s announcements on Google Blogoscoped, but here’s a more personal (and quite lengthy) account of what happened over those couple of days...
I was flying out from Manchester Airport on Monday lunchtime, so I stayed at my parents’ over the weekend and started my journey at Bolton train station. While I was waiting on the platform, I was kept amused by a random drunk nutter telling some guy how he’d played on stage with loads of famous bands, like “Franks Ferdinand”.
When I got on the train, the guy the nutter was ranting to was on his mobile loudly telling someone all about it. I had no choice but to listen in. “I’ve just been chatting to that busker [the nutter] who was in the video. He’s given me his address and wants a copy of the DVD. Can we send him one? Who should I give his address to?” After getting someone’s name, he continued. “Yeah, the gig was brilliant. Everyone said it sounded really good. Shall we just tell Jay he’s on the monitors at Glastonbury?” So, I’d managed to establish that he was linked to a band, presumably playing at Glastonbury. “Sorry, this is a bad line. I’ll call you later.” And then he hung up, leaving me wondering who he was.
I arrived at Manchester Airport a few minutes later, checked in for my flight and bought a copy of Q. Imagine my surprise when I turned to page 20 and saw the guy from the train! Turns out that he’s Bolton-born singer-songwriter Simon Aldred, more commonly known as Cherry Ghost. I’ve no idea what his stuff is like, but he’s been on Later... With Jools Holland and one of his tunes – People Help The People – is one of Q’s 50 essential tracks to download this month, so I’ll have to check it out.
My flight was delayed by just over an hour but I finally arrived at Paris Charles de Gaulle International Airport and waited for my train. On the platform were two French chavs, one of which was playing crap French music through her crap, tinny-sounding mobile phone speakers. It’s both disturbing and reassuring to see that this isn’t just a British phenomenon. When the train arrived, it was crammed, dirty and far too hot. I reckon it was actually worse that the one we got to Headlingly!
Anyway, I finally got to my hotel with around 90 minutes to spare before I had to get on a coach at the Marriott that would take us to dinner. Plenty time for a shower and a leisurely stroll. Or so I thought. As it turns out, the map Google provided wasn’t entirely accurate, so I had to phone Suzy at work and get her to give me better directions. After making my way towards the wrong Marriott (there are apparently several in Paris) I had to resort to running(!) to make sure I made the coach pickup. Red-faced, sweaty and out of breath, I finally arrived at the right Marriott with blisters on my feet only to be told that there was no rush because the second coach wasn’t leaving for another 10 minutes. Thankfully, the coach had air-conditioning so I managed to cool off a bit before we arrived.
The venue for dinner was a small restaurant and marquee on the river, with a view of the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower. Danny Sullivan (of SearchEngineLand.com) was behind me in the queue for name badges. Danny overheard me stating my name and publication, joked that Google Blogoscoped wasn’t really a publication and introduced himself. Danny and I then shared a table with a member of Google’s PR team in India and a few newspaper reporters from Paris, Israel, Turkey and India. The food selection was pretty impressive; canapés on arrival (including a rather disgusting combination of chocolate, foie gras and what I think was some kind of cherry jelly or liqueur), a choice of terrines for starter, duck breast in a creamy mushroom sauce served with vegetables and some kind of bulgur-wheat-like substance for main course, and then a wonderful variety of desserts. After plenty of talking, listening, eating and drinking, we headed back to get some rest before our early start the following day.
Having picked up an agenda for Press Day, I thought I’d go back to the hotel, connect to the Wi-Fi and make a post about the evening. That’s when I found out that (a) the Wi-Fi wasn’t free and (b) the Wi-Fi didn’t work. So, I reluctantly paid €8 for a card which gave me 60 minutes of Internet time in the hotel lobby and battled with the French keyboard to post the agenda. Other than the annoying French keyboard, the Internet kiosk was a normal Windows 98 PC that had been locked down with software so that you had to enter the code from the card to use the Internet from its restricted browser. Except, as I learned while I was making my post, you could simply press Ctrl+N to circumvent the software completely and open a new, clean Internet Explorer window – even when your paid-for Internet time is up!
After a terrible night’s sleep (too noisy with the window open; too hot with the window closed) I was taken by coach to Google Press Day 2007 to start my live-blogging. When I arrived, I looked for a seat near the front with a power socket nearby because my laptop only has a battery life of around two hours and the day was going to last about four hours. Luckily, I managed to find a socket to give my laptop a recharge during the morning break and lunch hour. Throughout the day, the Wi-Fi was a bit flaky, as was most of the electrical equipment after a member of the catering staff managed to make a table collapse that was supporting loads of glasses and a few large vases, smashing them all and causing water to drip through the ceiling of the room below, directly above the stage, the lighting rig, projectors, microphones, laptop and front two rows of seating!
After four hours of live-blogging, taking photos and asking questions, Press Day was finally over and a coach took us to the airport, where I managed to catch a well-deserved power nap. My flight home was then delayed by an hour or so (again) due to thunderstorms and lightning in Paris, which meant I had to get a later train from Manchester Airport to Sheffield and eventually arrived home at around 01:30.
What a busy couple of days, eh? I saw Cherry Ghost, experienced a bit of Paris, met Danny Sullivan, got a photo with Marissa Mayer, asked Eric Schmidt some questions, saw a real iPhone (when Eric whipped his out of his pocket for a few seconds just to show off) and had a brilliant time at Google’s first Press Day in Europe and my first attempt at live-blogging from an event!
Many, many thanks for sending me Philipp!
Update: 23 June 2007 (10:54)
I’ve now uploaded all my photos to Flickr and added some links to them in the post.
Labels: google, music, personal, travel
22 May 2007
The problem with blogs is that when you’re busy, you have more to blog about but less time to blog because you’re busy. So you have to wait until you’re not so busy and then you can’t remember exactly what you were going to say. I’ve started to write this three times now. Maybe I’d be better of live-blogging when I go to gigs, although past experiences have taught me that alcohol and technology do not go together...
Anyway, a few of us went to The Boardwalk in Sheffield a week last Friday to watch saw more bands. We only caught the last two, but here’s a brief account of what I remember about them...
Downfall Of Paris – myspace.com/downfallofparis
Four young lads from Newcastle who we thought were pretty average until they played Burn The Roxy, which they claimed was about The Roxy in Sheffield. Since most towns and cities have a nearby shit-hole club called The Roxy, they could easily say that in every town and city where they play though. One good thing about them was that they’d actually bothered to burn six of their tracks onto CDs to give out for free which you don’t get very often these days. Just as well really as I had no idea what they were called until I read what was written on the CD when I got home. I don’t know, these young bands need to learn not to mumble on stage when they say their band name and give out their MySpace address...
Anyway, when they finished playing I decided to give their guitarist some words of wisdom from when I was on the live music circuit all those years ago. Basically, I told him to turn his guitar up, which is good advice if you ask me. I think he then got a bit freaked out when Jo managed to pretty much guess his and the lead singer’s professions though...
Dead World Leaders – myspace.com/deadworldleaders / 2
This band was the reason we were at the Boardwalk. When they sent me a friend request on MySpace quite a while ago, I had a quick listen and thought they sounded pretty damn good so I added their gig to my calendar. This was their “Homecoming Gig” as they’re a Sheffield band who hadn’t played in the city for seven months or so. DWL (as their friends call them) have a pretty decent following in Sheffield and it’s obvious why; great stage presence coupled with tight, catchy, powerful melodies and riffs that sound great and deserve to be alongside all the other popular indie rock guitar bands in the charts at the moment. And according to one of the reviews on iTunes, they’ve already supported Snow Patrol.
If you want to hear them for yourself, you can download some of their tunes from their website or buy their latest double A-side single The Start of the End Begins / Still I Think What I Think from iTunes – and it goes without saying that I’d definitely recommend catching them live at one of their upcoming gigs.
Labels: music, personal
22 April 2007
On Friday night, we visited Sheffield’s Under the Boardwalk. As far as live music venues go, UTB (as it is sometimes called) is quite a strange place. Most venues usually start off empty when the first band is playing and then get gradually busier as the night goes on. UTB is the complete opposite. We arrived just before 9PM and there were quite a few people there. Around an hour and a half and two bands later, the place had almost emptied. Maybe the audience hated the first two bands. Or perhaps they’d gone upstairs to The Boardwalk. Either way, I’d recommend that anyone thinking of playing there should try to get an early spot rather than a headlining one!
We’d gone to support Bolton’s Out Of The Gray embark on their UK tour, as I mentioned back in February. For an unsigned band to take time out from their day jobs and invest their own cash to go on a national tour for several weeks takes guts. Yarky (lead guitar) said in a recent interview:
I think we’ll be spending the best part of a thousand pounds on petrol and accommodation for the tour, then there’s the initial outlay on merchandise, and there’s really no guarantee of making any of it back. It’s hard for people to understand that when you’re doing this as an unsigned band you’re generally losing money hand over fist – everyone wants to come in for free or get a free copy of the album, and sometimes you just have to learn to say ‘no’.
I agree entirely. In this digital day where unsigned bands dominate MySpace, everyone wants free music downloads. And whilst it’s much easier for unsigned bands to get noticed, it’s still difficult for them to make any money – or just break even. At the time of writing this, Out Of The Gray’s MySpace profile has received 158,659 views, has 53,331 friends and they’ve had 6,711 comments – most of which are from ‘fans’ saying how much they love their music and can’t wait to see them live. Yet when I purchased and downloaded their latest tracks from their online store last week, I was their first customer, and I think I was one of only two people to buy their CD at the gig (which I guess wasn’t too bad given most of the audience had already left). Why more people can’t put their money where their mouth is and do more to support these unsigned bands, I don’t know...
Anyway, here’s a quick review of the bands we saw that night:
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Frame 3-13 – myspace.com/frame313
For three young lads from Swansea who describe themselves as being the love child of Placebo and Jamiroquai, these looked and sounded pretty good. Their funky indie music is sufficiently different to most of the droning same-same indie stuff out there, although they would clearly benefit from their lead singer/guitarist learning how to play a few more solos (each one sounded pretty similar from where I was standing) and toning down his obviously-rehearsed-stage-antics – i.e. “At this part of the song, I must drop to my knees in front of the bass player and bend over backwards whilst still playing guitar!” Overall, not bad though.
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The Smokestacks – myspace.com/thesmokestacks
If you were to go off first appearances, you’d think these were a bunch of weirdos. After a couple of songs into the set, you’d realise these weirdos make great music. Not afraid to have fun on stage by throwing in the odd bit of comedy barbershop quartet style singing, their incredibly tight funky beats, crazy synth sounds and unique look helped them to own the stage.
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Out Of The Gray – myspace.com/outofthegray
Definitely the most professional looking of the four bands – with laminated passes, spare guitars and communicating with the sound engineer over the monitor levels – Out Of The Gray were almost a complete contrast in style to the previous two bands. Strong acoustic guitar playing, powerful vocals and meaningful songs make them easy listening and an excellent live band, although maybe a little mismatched with the other acts playing that night. Personally, I think their performance would have been almost perfect if there was a bit more movement and interaction between the band members on stage, particularly from the bassist who looked a little lost at the back and almost bored.
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Strategic Intent – myspace.com/strategicintent
I’m not sure whether this band was a bit deflated because the audience was pretty non-existent but they seemed to be just another pretty average indie/rock band. Maybe they perked up a bit later but we left before they’d finished their 2nd song and pretty much halved the number of people in the audience... sorry lads!
So despite being the small, strange venue that it is, we’ll probably go back to Under the Boardwalk from time-to-time to see if there are any more talented bands out there.
Labels: music, personal, rant
1 April 2007
(Times are approximate...)
07:00 Got my Google Calendar SMS reminder to buy tickets for Glastonbury Festival
07:50 Got out of bed and had a shower
08:20 Checked my emails and the GlastonburyFestivals.co.uk website to see what I should be doing
08:40 Visited the Seetickets.com website only to get redirected to busy.seetickets.com by their load-balancing software
08:50 Setup two laptops and distributed the URLs and phone numbers to Suzy and Jo
09:00 Started to reload the web pages and constantly redial the phone numbers
09:05 Noticed that even busy.seetickets.com wasn’t able to cope with the number of visitors
09:10 Started thinking of ways to buy tickets via back-door methods, including doing reverse lookups and trying different aliases for the seetickets.com domain and server (some of which even worked!)
10:30 Found lots of blogs with posts by smug bastards saying they’d secured tickets after 30 minutes of trying, including one that claimed he’d got a more direct link to the order page from eFestivals.co.uk
10:31 Cursed all those smug bastards for a while
10:40 Registered on the Festival Forums to find that goddamn link and alternative phone numbers! (Turns out it was just another alias which I’d not tried, so felt a little pleased that I was on the right track!)
10:45 Standard (non-coach package) tickets SOLD OUT but not really bovvered cos we wanted coach tickets anyway!
10:46 More frequent reloading of the coach ticket sales web page and constant redialling of all the phone numbers we could find
11:10 Web page loaded, details entered, checked and double-checked (although slightly shocked by the fact that the coach departs on the Wednesday and returns on the Monday!)
11:15 FOUR TICKETS PURCHASED! I’M GOING TO GLASTONBURY!!!
22:43 Still waiting for the email confirmation, which may take up to 24 hours apparently... although that still doesn’t stop the paranoia that something went wrong with the transaction and we’ve not actually got the tickets!
Update: 2 April 2007 (18:10)
Don’t panic... I received my confirmation email at around 08:29 this morning!
Having read a few forums, blogs and all these comments on the BBC website, it seems that some people got through in minutes without any problems whilst others had several PCs and phones going for hours (like us) and yet still didn’t manage to get tickets. With 400,000 people having pre-registered their details and most probably having several PCs and phone lines trying to get through to bag one of the 137,500 tickets, it’s no surprise that phone lines were jammed and the websites couldn’t cope!
So could this have been handled more efficiently? Should they have had more phone lines open? Should they have had more web servers? Would a lottery be a better, fairer way to allocate the tickets?
Personally, I think that what happened today was a lottery anyway. Whether or not you’ve managed to get Glastonbury tickets was mainly down to luck, and I think the wide variety of circumstances under which people were successful in getting their tickets proves this. Unfortunately, everyone who didn’t get tickets will say the system failed and it was unfair – but that will always be the case no matter how they are allocated.
Labels: music, personal, rant
8 March 2007
As I mentioned previously, I’ve been listening to more music and playing my guitar again, and this has made me think about the guitars I own.
There’s my first guitar, a cheap Hohner Rockwood Strat copy; my cheap acoustic guitar which I covered in Budweiser labels to make it look cool when I was younger; my Epiphone Les Paul, the one I played most back in the days when I was gigging; and a Charvel electric guitar which I’ve probably only played a handful of times.
I’ve since discovered – thanks to those Jackson/Charvel experts at JCF Online – that the neglected guitar is a Charvel 375 Deluxe with a flamed (maple?) cherry sunburst body. If you’re actually interested, it looks like the orange one in the bottom right hand corner of this catalogue. The reason I bothered to find out its exact model was because I was going to sell it.
Here’s the problem though. I like to keep (almost) everything. I have thousands of emails cluttering my mailbox dating back to 1997 because I don’t want to delete them. I have letters and cards from old school friends in a box in the roof because I can’t throw them away. My first car – a bright orange 1974 VW Beetle – has been rotting on my parents’ drive since around 1998. And I never want to get rid of my first guitar, even though it’s really crap and I’ll probably never play it every again, because it’s my first guitar!
All these things obviously have sentimental value and they’re really not worth anything to anyone else. However, the Charvel doesn’t have the same feeling about it. I hardly ever played it after all. And even though it’s probably still worth a couple of hundred quid, I’m not sure I can bring myself to get rid of it. Also, in the process of finding out its exact model I discovered that the Jackson/Charvel experts think the 375DLX was a great guitar, so I’d surely be mad to get rid of it... wouldn’t I!?
So does that make me materialistic, a sentimental old fool or just a hoarder?
What do you reckon? Should I just stick it on eBay and say goodbye?
(Actually... is anyone out there interested in buying it?)
Labels: music, personal
15 February 2007
Amongst my New Year’s resolutions this year, I was planning on playing my guitar more often and going to watch more live bands. As a knock-on effect of that, I’ve been trying to fill my iPod with some more recent music so that I’m not restricted to playing Bon Jovi, Guns N’ Roses and Nirvana tunes like I used to when I was 15 years old. Current favourites include The Feeling, The Kooks, Razorlight, The Fratellis, The Killers, Snow Patrol, Arctic Monkeys, Feeder, Kaiser Chiefs and Kasabian (to name just a few).
All this has made me realise just how many really good guitar-based bands and talented musicians are still out there and emerging all the time. It’s so much better than some of the crap that was in the charts around the turn of the millennium – it’s like real music has actually made a comeback! And that’s just the chart-topping signed bands...
I’ve also been trying to search MySpace for some unsigned bands to support. I’d not spent too much time looking before I came across Sheffield band The Gentlemen (www.the-gentlemen.co.uk) whose funky riffs, tight rhythm and pure professionalism has convinced me to go and see them live at Sheffield’s Plug when they play there on Saturday, 2nd March, 2007.
For the past couple of days, I’ve also been listening to Out of the Gray (www.outofthegray.com). Maybe I’m slightly biased – because they’re from my hometown of Bolton and I went to Sixth Form with the lead singer’s sister – but I’m really drawn to their acoustic tones, passionate lyrics and Heather’s angelic-yet-husky vocals. So, I’ll be going to watch them too when they come to Under The Boardwalk in Sheffield on Friday, 20th April, 2007.
There must be literally hundreds more talented but unsigned or lesser-known local bands out there that need support and encouragement. Can anyone recommend any decent ones that I could catch playing in Sheffield?
Labels: ipod, music, personal
6 February 2007
Seriously. WTF is going on with the music industry these days? A few years ago I decided to ‘go straight’ and stop copying CDs from my mates and give up downloading music ‘for free’ from the Internet completely. I decided that if I wanted a CD, I would buy it. And I’ve been doing that successfully for quite a few years now. But then the digital age forced itself upon us...
Last year, I bought myself an 8GB iPod nano and ripped all my CDs to it – all of which were originals and legally mine. I actually don’t know whether ripping CDs like that is legal or not, and nor do I care, but it’s not immoral and that’s what counts (your honour).
For one of my Christmas presents, I got an iTunes Music Voucher to buy some tracks that are only available through iTunes. I purchased and downloaded them without any problems but was slightly peeved that I had to “authorise” my computer to play them. I figured that I could probably live with that though and burnt a copy to CD just in case I should ever wish to play the songs I’ve purchased on another player.
And that was my first experience of Digital Rights Management. It wasn’t too bad. I’d heard so many people moaning about it but really didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. It seemed fair enough to me. Until tonight...
When I got my new phone in December, part of my contract gives me £5 worth of free downloads each month. The great thing about the 3 Music Store is that when you purchase and download tracks to your mobile, you can also download them to your PC at no extra cost. That’s good because I don’t want to listen to music on my mobile; I have an iPod for that purpose. The problem? The tracks you download to your PC are DRM-protected WMA files. From the 3 Music Store FAQ:
Is the service compatible with iPod?
No. However, you can transfer your 3MusicPlayer tracks to any mp3 player which supports WMA format. Some third party applications exist for converting WMAs to mp3s but these are not supported or endorsed by 3.
Just to confirm: even though I have just spent ninety-nine British pence sterling on one three-minute long music track (ignore the fact that it was actually free) they’re trying to tell me that I can’t play it on the device of my choice? No problem. I’ll just burn it to a CD and rip it into an unencrypted format so I can play it on my iPod. (Again, I don’t know whether that’s legal but it’s definitely not immoral... is it?)
Anyway, here’s where the music industry, the record companies, Microsoft, 3 and DRM all get together and screw me over. The first time I tried to burn the CD, it failed. I was trying to use some old blank CDs and figured I was trying to burn too fast. So I tried again at a slower speed. Still no luck. So I tried again in my other CD drive. That didn’t work either. Having finally found some better quality CDs, I thought I’d give it one more try with an old disc in the 2nd drive on the slowest speed possible. Surely that would work, right? Nope! Because I’m only allowed to try and burn the tracks to a CD three times!!!
What sort of craziness is that? Even though I legally purchased and downloaded that music, and was only trying to listen to it on my preferred music device, I am now only able to listen to it either through the crappy, tinny stereo speakers on my mobile phone or through my PC speakers. I honestly feel like I’ve been put into a virtual prison for a crime that I didn’t commit!
Tell me, is it really worth trying to play fair by supporting musicians through purchasing their music in this digital age when the record companies are punishing the innocent like this?
Labels: gadgets, ipod, microsoft, mobile, music, personal, rant
4 May 2006
We went to watch Cats on Tuesday night at the Lyceum Theatre in Sheffield. (I would’ve posted about this earlier, but I was waiting for Chris to write an in-depth review so I could write a quick post and link to it, but it looks like he’s too busy talking about flowers and hot days...)
I like to think that I’m pretty good at following the plots of plays and musicals. However, it usually helps when there’s a plot to follow. I later learned from Wikipedia that I was almost there: the cats were having their annual Jellicle Ball at a junkyard to make the Jellicle Choice and announce the cat who can be reborn. And that’s it. (Except when they say “reborn” they actually mean “die”.) As the Wikipedia entry also says, “While CATS is often criticized for its lack of plot, it does have a minimal story used to string its musical numbers together.”
The production was very well presented, so it’s a shame that Andrew Lloyd Webber didn’t spend more time on the storyline really. I guess the producers felt that the lack of plot meant that they should add extra dance sequences and reprises of songs to give the audience their money’s worth. (The fact that the cats came to interact with the audience was a nice touch though.)
I noticed one of the ‘Jellicle’ cats (possibly The Magical Mr. Mistoffelees, although I can’t be sure because they all looked quite similar) had been to the Wayne Sleep School of Dance and learnt Wayne’s favourite dance move. You know the one I’m talking about – I’ve mentioned it before – it’s the one where he spins around as fast as he can on one leg. It got a huge round of applause again anyway. (Why the contestants on Strictly Dance Fever don’t just do that each week I’ll never know!)
My conclusion? I’m glad I’ve seen it. I was a bit unsure about going at first as I get the impression that all ALW’s shows are too pantomime-like. Having said that, any show that’s still running after 25 years must be worth seeing.
Labels: music, personal, theatre
7 April 2006
As always, Chris is right. I’m a part time blogger! Admittedly, there are a few things that have grabbed my attention over the past couple of weeks that I probably should have blogged about, so I’m going to cover them all now to try and keep him (and you) happy.
Chris has already blogged about the stupid (or maybe clever) woman who was in front of me in HMV yesterday lunch time, so there’s no need for me to cover that again. What he says is all true so just go and read it on his blog. What he doesn’t mention (presumably because I never told him) is why I was in HMV in the first place...
I went to HMV to buy a copy of the St. Elmo’s Fire (Man In Motion) single by 80s rock legend John Parr which is being sold in aid of the Help A Hallam Child charity. He agreed to re-release the single after Hallam FM’s Big John contacted him and persuaded him to do so. (At least that’s what they’ll have you believe.) Anyway, in order to make sure that as much money as possible goes to the charity and not to Columbia Pictures (who own the rights to the original recording that featured on the soundtrack to the St. Elmo’s Fire film back in 1985), he re-recorded the track from scratch, promising to make it sound as close to the original as possible. And he did a pretty good job. (Even he struggles to tell the difference, apparently!)
At this point it’s probably worth noting that despite what some people think, Help A Hallam Child doesn’t raise money for the poor kids who can’t afford to go to a proper university and have to put up with the nearby special needs uni; it’s a real charity that helps children who are sick or live in situations of abuse, neglect or deprivation.
If you’re ever near Torquay in Devon and want some good fish and chips, visit Hanburys Licensed Fish Restaurant & Seafood Takeaway. They are (or once were) one of the top three fish and chip shops in the UK! We ate in their characterful restaurant but I assume you still get the same high-quality food from their takeaway next door.
We’ve finally got a new bathroom (with a proper door so that you’ve no need to be paranoid about someone peeping through the gap at you).
And finally, if you’re after a couple of funky gadgets, check out this grass chair and these crazy keyboards. [Via Boing Boing and Chris Chris.]
Labels: food, gadgets, links, music, personal, photos, rant, restaurants
22 February 2006
Chris Riley’s brain was working overtime a few weeks ago. You could almost hear those rusty cogs turning! He was thinking about how he could use Amazon Web Services to power a cool new website. After throwing a few ideas around the office, he someone (probably the other Chris) finally came up with the concept for Judge A Book By Its Cover.co.uk.
The idea’s a simple one: view the covers of books, CDs or DVDs and rate them from one to five stars based purely on how they look. Once you’ve submitted your rating, compare what you and others thought about the cover to the Amazon rating to see if it really is that unreasonable to judge a book by its cover. If you want to see for yourself whether you judged correctly, you can easily click-through to Amazon to buy the book, CD or DVD and make your own mind up.
I prefer the Head to Head! version of the game. It’s much easier to compare two covers and choose which you think is best than it is to rate a cover from one to five. (Sometimes, you’ll be faced with two covers that are so similar that you can’t decide which one gets your vote – but don’t worry, you can always call a draw if that happens!)
There’s more to read in the About & FAQs section of the site and you can keep up to date with the latest news on the site’s blog.
Get judging!
Labels: books, film, links, music
15 February 2006
To celebrate our 6th Valentine’s Day together, I took Suzy to see The Magic of the Musicals starring Marti Webb and Wayne Sleep (I’ve heard of both of them) with some other guy called Robert Meadmore (I’ve never heard of him before and he’s apparently not important enough to have his own entry on Wikipedia either).
The show was generally very good, although the lighting was pretty amateurish in parts. Marti Webb is an excellent singer with an extremely versatile voice; she’s also great at convincing the audience that she’s actually living the part. Wayne Sleep isn’t anywhere near as good, of course, but I suspect he was there primarily for his dancing capabilities rather than his singing voice. Watching the show, it’s obvious that his favourite dance move is the one where he spins around as fast as he can (sometimes on only one leg) as though trying to make himself dizzy – just like primary school kids do in the playground! Maybe I’m missing something, but that doesn’t look too difficult to do. I don’t understand why the audience applauded each time he did it. His tap-dancing was much better.
Robert Meadmore’s singing was okay, but it wasn’t that great in my opinion. He just didn’t seem to empathise with the characters he was supposed to be playing. His voice even caused a bit of distortion and vibrated parts of Sheffield City Hall when he hit certain notes which didn’t help. He was also very keen on promoting his latest album and some of his introductions to the songs were quite annoying.
The backing singers and dancers were entertaining, although one of the blokes looked far too cheesy with his fake tan, huge mouth full of gleaming white teeth and over the top expressions. My sympathy and credit must go to one of the girls who slipped and fell during one of the songs but immediately got back up and carried on – a true professional! (Although a true professional probably shouldn’t have fallen in the first place...)
The live band consisted of eight multi-talented musicians, with a few of them alternating between several instruments throughout the show. Watching the band and listening to the music reminded me of when I used to play the piano and trumpet for the school choir and orchestra, and Bolton Schools Concert Band. In fact, watching the show last night has inspired me to go out and buy some valve-oil and a practice mute so that I can blow my own trumpet again – quite literally!
If I actually manage to get a note out of it, I’ll think about posting some recordings here... so watch this space!
Labels: music, personal, rant, theatre
