So I guess this is it, the final day of what has been a really good year.
Since November my blog posts have been sporadic and few and far between, each time me promising that I'm going to get back to sitting down and writing more regularly and each time me failing to deliver on it.
So let me explain publicly for the first time why I've been so quiet. There's 2 reasons really, the first being that my mind has simply been overloaded with amazing music this year that it could not cope with more being added in so hence there was not much to review and secondly and rather more importantly I've been working on a little side project. I can't yet say too much but what I will say is that next year I will be making my first foray into the music industry. The project has a tentative launch date in March 2010 and by this time next year it could be either a success or a dramatic failure but either way it will be a life enriching experience and one I'm pretty excited although cautiously optimistic about.
But before I close the year off I want to add some thank you's to some people whose music has dramatically enhanced my collection this year. So here goes:-
Kevin Montgomery
Ragz Nordset
Francesco Cinelli (Goodtimes Goodtimes)
Thomas J Speight
Paul Cook (...and the Chronicles)
Foy Vance
And an ultra special thanks to three musical acts who I truly believe are set for greatness next year (and who have provided me with the most amazing music, warmth and friendship)...
Greg Holden
Omer Leshem
Strange Folks / Roy Rieck and the Medley Band - Idan Rabinovici, Roy Rieck, Roy "Hamudi" Rabinovici, Emmanuel Slonim, Nadav Luzia, Daniel Shoham and Joseph E-Shine
I'd also like to thank each and every one of you who have stopped by and read my musings on music, those of you who have viewed my many videos on youtube, dropped me an email, followed me on twitter, etc.
Lastly to play us out (I've always wanted to say that)...here's some recommendations of people I'm monitoring closely with an eye to early 2010 purchases...
Daniel Kamas
City and Colour
Jon T
Matt Saxton
Luka Bloom
Massy Ferguson
Happy New Year, here's hoping 2010 is an amazing year for us all xxx
Thursday 31 December 2009
Sunday 13 December 2009
Is it safe to come out from behind the sofa yet?
That's the question kids up and down the country, if not across the world used to ask, and probably still do when sci-fi institution Doctor Who graced/graces the TV screens. But in my case, the TV nasty in question is the UKs very own "musical talent contest" the X Factor which I believe has finally finished tonight.
So I guess in that short statement you know where I stand on Simon Cowell's circus. Is it really music, well I guess 12+ million people in the UK would say it is, and then many millions more would tell you it isn't, I guess it depends on your perspective. For me it's not music, it's not about anything but gross profiteering and the production of more facsimile tribute act popstars to flood an already crowded musical world. What it creates is another layer of "noise" (not in the musical sense) that just further surpresses talent that is trying to get itself heard through the conventional methods of hard work and genuine talent.
Let's be realistic, as a contest it takes people with no better than half-decent singing voices and average talent and transforms them in a matter of months from being a total nothing to a chart sensation and that's good for them, I think we'd all love to go from a zero to hero in a short space of time for doing something where we receive acclaim from the masses whilst earning a stack of money but what is the end musical product?
I guess it depends what your musical taste is, but for me, good/great musicians need to be able to answer 2 of 3 questions with an affirmative answer to classify as having proper talent. Those questions are...can you sing well and with passion, can you play an instrument, are you able to write your own lyrics and music? See there's plenty of people out there who can answer yes to all three of those questions, let alone two of them but most on talent shows will struggle to answer yes to one of them and here's the thing about TV talent shows. Even if you as artist can answer yes to those questions, the likelihood is that your musical choices have already been decided for you and they're purely commercially driven decisions, it's profits over music all the way.
I guess that's probably the reason why you never seen singer/songwriters or proper bands on shows like the X Factor, it's a mix between genuine talent not necessarily being mainstream enough, the artists refusing to sell out their talent for money and from the likes of Mr Cowell's perspective the commercial risk of someone being allowed to release their own music without littering it with covers and fluffy meaningless songs.
The problem I guess I have with music TV talent shows though is the real potential damage that they're likely to have on the music industry in the longer term. First of all, kids now are growing up thinking that unless they get on TV they don't have talent, second that they'll see this as an accepted musical medium and if they want to create music think it more important to fit the mould rather than explore their own musical paths and finally they're growing up with the vision that the music industry is easy to crack and is simply a vehicle to making huge amounts of money....the bottom line is, it's not.
X Factor has a place...just not in my house or on my iPod...that's all I'm saying.
Nite all xxx
So I guess in that short statement you know where I stand on Simon Cowell's circus. Is it really music, well I guess 12+ million people in the UK would say it is, and then many millions more would tell you it isn't, I guess it depends on your perspective. For me it's not music, it's not about anything but gross profiteering and the production of more facsimile tribute act popstars to flood an already crowded musical world. What it creates is another layer of "noise" (not in the musical sense) that just further surpresses talent that is trying to get itself heard through the conventional methods of hard work and genuine talent.
Let's be realistic, as a contest it takes people with no better than half-decent singing voices and average talent and transforms them in a matter of months from being a total nothing to a chart sensation and that's good for them, I think we'd all love to go from a zero to hero in a short space of time for doing something where we receive acclaim from the masses whilst earning a stack of money but what is the end musical product?
I guess it depends what your musical taste is, but for me, good/great musicians need to be able to answer 2 of 3 questions with an affirmative answer to classify as having proper talent. Those questions are...can you sing well and with passion, can you play an instrument, are you able to write your own lyrics and music? See there's plenty of people out there who can answer yes to all three of those questions, let alone two of them but most on talent shows will struggle to answer yes to one of them and here's the thing about TV talent shows. Even if you as artist can answer yes to those questions, the likelihood is that your musical choices have already been decided for you and they're purely commercially driven decisions, it's profits over music all the way.
I guess that's probably the reason why you never seen singer/songwriters or proper bands on shows like the X Factor, it's a mix between genuine talent not necessarily being mainstream enough, the artists refusing to sell out their talent for money and from the likes of Mr Cowell's perspective the commercial risk of someone being allowed to release their own music without littering it with covers and fluffy meaningless songs.
The problem I guess I have with music TV talent shows though is the real potential damage that they're likely to have on the music industry in the longer term. First of all, kids now are growing up thinking that unless they get on TV they don't have talent, second that they'll see this as an accepted musical medium and if they want to create music think it more important to fit the mould rather than explore their own musical paths and finally they're growing up with the vision that the music industry is easy to crack and is simply a vehicle to making huge amounts of money....the bottom line is, it's not.
X Factor has a place...just not in my house or on my iPod...that's all I'm saying.
Nite all xxx
Thursday 10 December 2009
CDs versus Digital Downloads...
Where on earth do the days go? I keep promising to get back to blogging regularly then I blink and 10 days go by and I realise I haven't blogged.
Tonight rather than reviewing music I wanted to be a bit discussive and ponder a few thoughts, perhaps even get your synapses going. One of the debates I'm constantly having is CDs or Digital Downloads. Now before I start, I think I'll clarify where I stand on it...I'm a CD freak, I'll always choose a CD over a DD. I'm a bit of a traditionalist in the sense that I like something physical to hold when I'm playing music. I like the physical nature of being able to flick through the booklet reading the lyrics as opposed to searching for them online.
But that's not to say I don't adore my iPod, I really do, in fact I actually classify the iPod as the greatest thing I have ever purchased...by some considerable distance.
So here's the thing, I'm not anti-digital download. In fact I'm really pro legal downloads, I have hundreds of them. Had it not been for the internet revolution and the technological advancement of the music industry, local and regional talent would have remained just that.
Nowadays, an artist has the ability to build a global fanbase (of any size) through the internet alone. How many artists have we all discovered through myspace, imeem, youtube, facebook, itunes, spotify, and dare I say it in the formative years of the internet, the likes of napster, limewire and torrent sites (not that I'm condoning music piracy)?
But the internet has undoubtedly had the most dramatic effect on the proliferation of music distribution in a way that I doubt anything has since the invention of the transistor radio in the 1950s. Before the transistor radio, only the well-off were able to afford big bulky valve radios. In fact so expensive were they that people bought kits and built their own.
Tonight rather than reviewing music I wanted to be a bit discussive and ponder a few thoughts, perhaps even get your synapses going. One of the debates I'm constantly having is CDs or Digital Downloads. Now before I start, I think I'll clarify where I stand on it...I'm a CD freak, I'll always choose a CD over a DD. I'm a bit of a traditionalist in the sense that I like something physical to hold when I'm playing music. I like the physical nature of being able to flick through the booklet reading the lyrics as opposed to searching for them online.
But that's not to say I don't adore my iPod, I really do, in fact I actually classify the iPod as the greatest thing I have ever purchased...by some considerable distance.
So here's the thing, I'm not anti-digital download. In fact I'm really pro legal downloads, I have hundreds of them. Had it not been for the internet revolution and the technological advancement of the music industry, local and regional talent would have remained just that.
Nowadays, an artist has the ability to build a global fanbase (of any size) through the internet alone. How many artists have we all discovered through myspace, imeem, youtube, facebook, itunes, spotify, and dare I say it in the formative years of the internet, the likes of napster, limewire and torrent sites (not that I'm condoning music piracy)?
But the internet has undoubtedly had the most dramatic effect on the proliferation of music distribution in a way that I doubt anything has since the invention of the transistor radio in the 1950s. Before the transistor radio, only the well-off were able to afford big bulky valve radios. In fact so expensive were they that people bought kits and built their own.
But like all new technology, when the transistor radio finally made it to market, the cost was astronomical but within a few years as the components became mass produced and the cost of the raw materials dropped, the price began to drop and the market exploded and before long everyone had access to this musical vehicle...sounds familiar?
The transistor radio brought music from across a country into living rooms and bedrooms of houses but also gave music its first real portability. I guess it would be fair to say that the transistor radio was one of, if not the main vehicle behind the explosion of music that came in the late 50's and then into the 60's and beyond. It allowed youngsters to listen to the music they liked instead of what their parents listened to....and so a new generation of free-thinking expressive music lovers were born.
The same scenario to lesser extents applies to the cassette tape, the CD and the ill-fated minidisc. But all these things helped shape the music we have today and kept pushing the boundaries of music distribution and portability. And so you'd think that digital music, digital downloads could only be a further advancement and undoubtedly it has been and a very positive one certainly in terms of convenience but there are some perhaps unexplored and real downsides to it.
Let's suppose for a moment that we live in a Utopian musical society where everyone buys music and there's no such thing as piracy...every other rule applies however and society is otherwise unchanged. We still live in a world of convenience where we have to have everything now be it clothes, electronics, food or music, we consume it and then move on to the next item quickly forgetting our last purchase.
I'm as guilty as the next of finding new and exciting music, playing it to death until I find something else I really like and then moving on sometimes not revisiting that music I loved for some considerable time; and therein lies the first problem! Digital music is easily losable, you can store it away or maybe even more stupidly delete it and forget it ever existed, with an LP, cassette, CD you just couldn't do that, unless you put it up in the loft/attic/basement and even then you had to make that conscious decision to move it to a place of reasonable inaccessibility. So the digital age is making music too disposable and that actually risks today's generation not being able to pass anything musically on to the future in the way that the 60's passed on The Beatles, Elvis, Roy Orbison, The Beach Boys, Bob Dylan...in fact now I come to think of it, that list is endless. We simply won't hand down our ipods to future generations in the way physical music has been so today's amazing music will be lost forever in 30 years time...how sad is that?
What about artwork? Most will tell you they don't care about the jewel cases or the booklets. Some will even give you the spuriously weak answer of trying to be environmentally conscious. The truth is that a digital download is cheaper and immediately available and that governs the purchasing decision. But digital music pretty much alleviates the necessity for a creative to sit there, concept and design artwork. Let's not forget that what many now regard as a non-essential gave rise to true works of modern popular art such as The Beatles iconic Abbey Road cover. With digital music, record labels, music producers and artists can simply produce a 500 x 500 pixel image and that will suffice for an album. So where will these future classic and iconic works of art come from, it won't be music, that's for sure.
Finally there's one thing to consider about digital music. As I stated much earlier it has allowed musicians to build a truly global fanbase and it has allowed unsigned talented musicians to put music out into the world on mass distribution without the cost of producing thousands of CDs to send round the world (which is a frightfully expensive thing to do if you have no assurance of actually selling them), but there's a serious possibility that pretty soon record labels will go down the route of solely producing digital music in a bid to ramp up their falling profits (courtesy of music piracy) at the expense of the musician.
But ask enough musicians and they'll tell you that they prefer CDs, after all, they sit down to write songs, play music, go into a studio to record, edit and mix and then there's no actual final physical product, so some question rightly or wrongly what they're actually producing. I guess it must be quite disheartening to do all of that work to see nothing at the end of it apart from a link on various web sites. On top of that, the lack of physicality means that artists have nothing tangible to sell or even sign at gigs. How many people will actually go home after a gig and still have that impulsive attitude to go and buy music, very few I'd guess so in a way the net result of digital music is that it may actually damage the incremental income an artist gets from a gig which could be the difference between success or failure for even the most talented of musician.
So yes, digital music is brilliant, it's opened up music from across the globe to everyone and I have made countless discoveries because of it, but if the world continues to moves too far towards it, we risk losing so much more than just a piece of slightly bendy plastic, and I think that's really quite sad.
I'll leave you with one final thought, recently an album in Ireland got to number 1 in the album charts having only sold 400 CDs in its first week, but something like 15,000 digital downloads.
Maybe I'm old fashioned or a romantic but now hopefully you see why I'm so passionate about CDs and I hope that all record labels make a solemn commitment to their artists to keep putting music on CDs, the world needs it, our music legacy demands it, don't you think so?
Goodnight all xxx
Monday 30 November 2009
The late, late, but promised review of a Norwegian Treasure...
Ok so this last month was a pretty quiet one on the blog front for which I eternally apologise, I guess October was such a big, bold and fantastic month with some awesome gigs including Joshua Radin, Goodtimes Goodtimes, Strange Folks that November was always going to be a lull, in fact I haven't been out to any live gigs for weeks...that's becoming quite torturous now! I will put it right soon. Aligned with that I've been a bit self-absorbed with a project which I can't yet speak of but some of you know about so consequently I haven't been at my communicative best.
But in all of that excitement towards the end of October and the distractions of late I forgot to blog about someone's album who I promised publicly to review...on my own blog...so tonight's entry and the first of a new month goes to the stunningly beautiful and totally amazing Ragz Nordset who is still winning the award by a country mile for most breathtaking and mindblowing acoustic performance of the year 2009...in the made up awards that I have yet to define or get corporate sponsorship for...
So for those of you who caught my blogs at the end of October (when I was blogging lots) Ragz played a set at The Bedford before I saw the Strange Folks guys. She came on stage, I'll admit to being a bit distracted until this about 5 seconds into the set when she began to sing and I think the expression "jaws to the floor" pretty much summed it up completely.
I'm not a big one for female vocalists, call it sexist, call it boring, call it gay, call it what you like a lot of female vocals just don't connect with me....probably because I'm a guy...but Ragz just floored me. So at the end of the set and having felt like I'd witnessed something immeasurably brilliant I sought out Ragz, had a quick chat and purchased a copy of both EPs...god I love a CD....there's nothing better than a physical CD, beats a download any day (I've said that before I think)!
So the next day I popped both onto my iPod and wanted to see if the EPs cemented my bewilderment further and a month on and having forgotten to blog about it...the answer is....YES, they most certainly did.
Little Stings (which is available on iTunes) is quite an interesting EP, there's something quite dynamic about it in the sense that it feels somewhat supercharged with a singer trying many different style of songs and different applications of her amazing vocals in search for the perfect mix either that or just purely showing of the diversity and complexity of her vocals, songwriting and music playing ability.
To give you an example Where It's Gone and You in the Back are real singer/songwriter songs, More reminds me of a classical ballad a sort of Mariah track (although a lot more understated). When I hear Run it reminds me of something very theatrical and the music has this certain Russian/Polish/Eastern European/Jewish vibe about it. Feel Something is kind of hard to place, it's a nice song but I can't put it anywhere.
Finally we come to Breathe, the last track of the EP which is a live recording. Undoubtedly in my opinion the best track on the EP. It hit me the first time I listened through that this was amazing, it was Ragz the singer/songwriter who stole a piece of me, killed it sweetly and sent it to musical heaven back in October. It's just the most amazing song, amazing vocals, it's just utterly beautiful a true gem of a song.
So then we flip over to the second EP, Love You Still which feels like we've seen Ragz grow and move forward musically settling into a formula that perpetuates amazing music in abundance...wow I'm throwing big words out there tonight!!!!
The EP truly is Ragz the accomplished singer/songwriter at her very, very best. Love You Still the title track is amazingly moving, it actually caught me a bit the first time I heard it properly, it just connected with me in a big way, the sentiments resonate with me. This theme of beautiful and mesmerising music flows right through Hold On and Oh Oh and then into No Fairytale which feels like an astonishingly personal piece of songwriting.
The all too short EP rounds off with Mitt....hold on I need to get my iPod for a bit of Norwegian...Mitt Hjerte Alltid Vanker...which translates to My Heart Always Wanders...no don't be daft I don't speak Norwegian, I did a bit of research and came up with this as a resource :-) Anyways Ragz here takes a psalm/hymn and uses it beautifully to show off her voice Acapella on what's actually quite a challenging track, and again pulls it off amazingly.
And you know what really truly baffles me most about Ragz, is why someone hasn't signed her on a major record deal. It's surely only a matter of time...it just has to be.
Ok that's me done for tonight, I feel I've finally fulfilled a promise I made and hopefully one day soon I'll be able to share some big an exciting news with the world...not quite yet...but soon I hope...there's an oncoming storm people...be prepared!
Nite all xxx
But in all of that excitement towards the end of October and the distractions of late I forgot to blog about someone's album who I promised publicly to review...on my own blog...so tonight's entry and the first of a new month goes to the stunningly beautiful and totally amazing Ragz Nordset who is still winning the award by a country mile for most breathtaking and mindblowing acoustic performance of the year 2009...in the made up awards that I have yet to define or get corporate sponsorship for...
So for those of you who caught my blogs at the end of October (when I was blogging lots) Ragz played a set at The Bedford before I saw the Strange Folks guys. She came on stage, I'll admit to being a bit distracted until this about 5 seconds into the set when she began to sing and I think the expression "jaws to the floor" pretty much summed it up completely.
I'm not a big one for female vocalists, call it sexist, call it boring, call it gay, call it what you like a lot of female vocals just don't connect with me....probably because I'm a guy...but Ragz just floored me. So at the end of the set and having felt like I'd witnessed something immeasurably brilliant I sought out Ragz, had a quick chat and purchased a copy of both EPs...god I love a CD....there's nothing better than a physical CD, beats a download any day (I've said that before I think)!
So the next day I popped both onto my iPod and wanted to see if the EPs cemented my bewilderment further and a month on and having forgotten to blog about it...the answer is....YES, they most certainly did.
Little Stings (which is available on iTunes) is quite an interesting EP, there's something quite dynamic about it in the sense that it feels somewhat supercharged with a singer trying many different style of songs and different applications of her amazing vocals in search for the perfect mix either that or just purely showing of the diversity and complexity of her vocals, songwriting and music playing ability.
To give you an example Where It's Gone and You in the Back are real singer/songwriter songs, More reminds me of a classical ballad a sort of Mariah track (although a lot more understated). When I hear Run it reminds me of something very theatrical and the music has this certain Russian/Polish/Eastern European/Jewish vibe about it. Feel Something is kind of hard to place, it's a nice song but I can't put it anywhere.
Finally we come to Breathe, the last track of the EP which is a live recording. Undoubtedly in my opinion the best track on the EP. It hit me the first time I listened through that this was amazing, it was Ragz the singer/songwriter who stole a piece of me, killed it sweetly and sent it to musical heaven back in October. It's just the most amazing song, amazing vocals, it's just utterly beautiful a true gem of a song.
So then we flip over to the second EP, Love You Still which feels like we've seen Ragz grow and move forward musically settling into a formula that perpetuates amazing music in abundance...wow I'm throwing big words out there tonight!!!!
The EP truly is Ragz the accomplished singer/songwriter at her very, very best. Love You Still the title track is amazingly moving, it actually caught me a bit the first time I heard it properly, it just connected with me in a big way, the sentiments resonate with me. This theme of beautiful and mesmerising music flows right through Hold On and Oh Oh and then into No Fairytale which feels like an astonishingly personal piece of songwriting.
The all too short EP rounds off with Mitt....hold on I need to get my iPod for a bit of Norwegian...Mitt Hjerte Alltid Vanker...which translates to My Heart Always Wanders...no don't be daft I don't speak Norwegian, I did a bit of research and came up with this as a resource :-) Anyways Ragz here takes a psalm/hymn and uses it beautifully to show off her voice Acapella on what's actually quite a challenging track, and again pulls it off amazingly.
And you know what really truly baffles me most about Ragz, is why someone hasn't signed her on a major record deal. It's surely only a matter of time...it just has to be.
Ok that's me done for tonight, I feel I've finally fulfilled a promise I made and hopefully one day soon I'll be able to share some big an exciting news with the world...not quite yet...but soon I hope...there's an oncoming storm people...be prepared!
Nite all xxx
Wednesday 25 November 2009
TFDI...
"Totally ****ing doing it....urgh urgh...totally ****ing doing..."
The immortal and now famous words of one great Jay Nash on the commencement of the Evening of the Feeling Song tour (see video below) featuring Matt Duke and Tony Lucca back in late August. The expression became shortened to TFDI and the tour spanning some 20 days as good as got renamed.
Whilst on the road, these 3 amazingly talented singer/songwriters were invited into studio in Illinois to spend the day recording a number of tracks...fast forward 2 months and released just 2 days ago in iTunes across the world...TFDI - The EP.
So it's an EP of 4 tracks, one by each artist (Slow It Down - Jay Nash, Sex and Reruns - Matt Duke and Pretty Things - Tony Lucca) and a cover of The Weight originally by late 60's - 70's (and then 80's to 90's) The Band.
Each song uniquely showcases the vocal talents of Matt, Tony and Jay but more than that it shows that when you place together three outstanding artists, their musical qualities are taken to a completely new level and the cover of The Weight is simply beautiful.
The EP debuted at #1 on the Singer/Songwriter chart on iTunes and currently sits at #3 which is a testimony both to the quality of the music but also that these three artists have managed to fuse together their talents and fanbases to form something of sizeable note and acclaim.
At $4, €4 or £3, you just can't afford to miss out on this. Go buy it now, you need to TFDI!
The immortal and now famous words of one great Jay Nash on the commencement of the Evening of the Feeling Song tour (see video below) featuring Matt Duke and Tony Lucca back in late August. The expression became shortened to TFDI and the tour spanning some 20 days as good as got renamed.
Whilst on the road, these 3 amazingly talented singer/songwriters were invited into studio in Illinois to spend the day recording a number of tracks...fast forward 2 months and released just 2 days ago in iTunes across the world...TFDI - The EP.
So it's an EP of 4 tracks, one by each artist (Slow It Down - Jay Nash, Sex and Reruns - Matt Duke and Pretty Things - Tony Lucca) and a cover of The Weight originally by late 60's - 70's (and then 80's to 90's) The Band.
Each song uniquely showcases the vocal talents of Matt, Tony and Jay but more than that it shows that when you place together three outstanding artists, their musical qualities are taken to a completely new level and the cover of The Weight is simply beautiful.
The EP debuted at #1 on the Singer/Songwriter chart on iTunes and currently sits at #3 which is a testimony both to the quality of the music but also that these three artists have managed to fuse together their talents and fanbases to form something of sizeable note and acclaim.
At $4, €4 or £3, you just can't afford to miss out on this. Go buy it now, you need to TFDI!
Sunday 22 November 2009
75 minutes of pure brilliance!
So this month has been quiet, in fact having just sat down to think about it for long enough I realised I haven't seen any live music AND that's maybe the reason why I've felt musically quite empty lately...well up until a whole host of music I received recently and then the discovery of 24 songs by the brilliant Paul Cook and the Chronicles which are available NOW for you to download for FREE!!!
So have you downloaded them yet? No? Why the hell not...it's FREE?!?!
And let me tell you, you'll not be in the least bit disappointed. Each and every one of the 24 songs available to download are outstanding and it's not often you can say that about any album or collection of music.
A mix of British pop, pop/rock, folk and rock focused mainly around the theme of love, relationships and heartbreak, Home Recordings show off both the talent of Paul as a musician but more importantly the depth of songwriting ability. I don't know why and maybe I'll be proving wrong but I have this feeling Paul is the type of singer/songwriter for whom words come easily. He's an uncomplicated songwriter, never trying to be overly clever, drawing on personal experiences, the messages in each song are clear and I'm a firm believer that there's no need to over complicate something...particularly if the concept is good.
There's a number of songs that really grab me but the one which is probably my absolute favourite and potentially one of the best songs I've heard this year is The Trees Cling To You (which I've posted in the sidebar in case some of you are being retarded and refusing to heed my advice and go and download the tracks).
It's a great little song which is I think is so quintessentially British and really portrays that feeling for longing for a totally amazing girl who just seems the centre of everyone elses world apart from yours (ooh that's quite deep...I think I should shut up there!). All I'll add to that is girls, at some point in your life at least one guy has felt like that about you and guys, you'll understand what I mean when you hear it.
Other tracks that really jump out for sheer quality and diversity are A Real Thunderbolt which deals with the absolute longing for the perfect life partner, Latest Squeeze which seems to nicely portray the feeling of being played by a woman (and also has a 70's feel to it) and Six Places, a song about making time and again falling in love and it going continually wrong. Oh and if none of those grab you, Monday Morning will resonate with the entire working world!
I actually can't recommend this collection of songs highly enough...if I were behind a record label I know what I'd do right now...oh, err... :-)
Night all xxx
So have you downloaded them yet? No? Why the hell not...it's FREE?!?!
And let me tell you, you'll not be in the least bit disappointed. Each and every one of the 24 songs available to download are outstanding and it's not often you can say that about any album or collection of music.
A mix of British pop, pop/rock, folk and rock focused mainly around the theme of love, relationships and heartbreak, Home Recordings show off both the talent of Paul as a musician but more importantly the depth of songwriting ability. I don't know why and maybe I'll be proving wrong but I have this feeling Paul is the type of singer/songwriter for whom words come easily. He's an uncomplicated songwriter, never trying to be overly clever, drawing on personal experiences, the messages in each song are clear and I'm a firm believer that there's no need to over complicate something...particularly if the concept is good.
There's a number of songs that really grab me but the one which is probably my absolute favourite and potentially one of the best songs I've heard this year is The Trees Cling To You (which I've posted in the sidebar in case some of you are being retarded and refusing to heed my advice and go and download the tracks).
It's a great little song which is I think is so quintessentially British and really portrays that feeling for longing for a totally amazing girl who just seems the centre of everyone elses world apart from yours (ooh that's quite deep...I think I should shut up there!). All I'll add to that is girls, at some point in your life at least one guy has felt like that about you and guys, you'll understand what I mean when you hear it.
Other tracks that really jump out for sheer quality and diversity are A Real Thunderbolt which deals with the absolute longing for the perfect life partner, Latest Squeeze which seems to nicely portray the feeling of being played by a woman (and also has a 70's feel to it) and Six Places, a song about making time and again falling in love and it going continually wrong. Oh and if none of those grab you, Monday Morning will resonate with the entire working world!
I actually can't recommend this collection of songs highly enough...if I were behind a record label I know what I'd do right now...oh, err... :-)
Night all xxx
Thursday 19 November 2009
The Free Chronicles
Some months ago, in fact the night I first became happily embroiled in the mystical musical world of The Collective (Stange Folks & Roy Rieck and The Medley Band) one other act at Monkey Chews caught my attention who I've been desperate to blog about again and to see in it's full glorious form...Paul Cook and The Chronicles.
Paul told me some months ago that "The Chronicles" part of the band wasn't quite formed and as such the gigs, albums, etc were a short while away. So as a nice little memory jogger, someone subscribed to my youtube channel yesterday and added the videos of Paul to their favourites on youtube.
That sparked me tonight to go and see what Paul's up to and there's quite some update. It appears "The Chronicles" part of the band is now formed, there's an upcoming gig at The Lexington in Islington on 7th December and Paul has recently released 24 tracks called "Home Recordings" for FREE on Last.FM. It actually equates to just under 76 minutes of music...for absolutely nothing.
There's some great tracks in there, although I can't tell you much more than that because at 24 tracks and having only ever heard 6 there is a stack of great new music for me to listen to and pass judgement on.
Go check Paul out, tell him how great he is and if you're in London, go see him on December 7th.
See ya soon folks xx
Paul told me some months ago that "The Chronicles" part of the band wasn't quite formed and as such the gigs, albums, etc were a short while away. So as a nice little memory jogger, someone subscribed to my youtube channel yesterday and added the videos of Paul to their favourites on youtube.
That sparked me tonight to go and see what Paul's up to and there's quite some update. It appears "The Chronicles" part of the band is now formed, there's an upcoming gig at The Lexington in Islington on 7th December and Paul has recently released 24 tracks called "Home Recordings" for FREE on Last.FM. It actually equates to just under 76 minutes of music...for absolutely nothing.
There's some great tracks in there, although I can't tell you much more than that because at 24 tracks and having only ever heard 6 there is a stack of great new music for me to listen to and pass judgement on.
Go check Paul out, tell him how great he is and if you're in London, go see him on December 7th.
See ya soon folks xx
Thursday 12 November 2009
Driving is underrated...
Today I had the great pleasure of spending 3 hours in the car for work. Usually that'd be a real drag but for 3 uniquely brilliant things. First of all (and this is really something some of you particularly closer to the equator won't get) late autumn is amazing, I love the colours and there is something quite fascinating about piles of decaying leaves forming colourful patterns against usually mundane surfaces. Secondly, I realised how lucky I am to live in London. I drove past the Olympic site today and saw the rapid pace by which it's coming on and you know what, it made me proud to be British...even just for a moment. And to top it all off the sun was out and there was a lovely hazy foggy glow over the city which looked pretty cool.
So spending so much time in the car gave me a chance to have a really good musical session and to catch a second, third and maybe even fourth site of some music that I bought, played a bit then got distracted and moved on.
In fact I listened to 4 whole albums which I'd had for differing amounts of time. But for the purpose of tonight I'm going to focus on the artists that stunned me the most as was in fact first on...Cary Brothers.
I've had his EPs and his album "Who You Are" for a while and I really like his stuff but it never hit me how impressive it is. I fell in love with the album all over again. It's one of those albums that has an amazing array of sounds to it, there's some rich and complex ballads as well as a few upbeat rock tracks. There's a massive raft of musical sounds on show mixed in with at times some amazingly descriptive and painful (in the sense of hurting as opposed to bad) songwriting but what really hit me was the heavy piano ballads in particular The Glass Parade which almost knocked me off the road I was that engrossed in it. In fact it's one of those albums that has such a rich blend that I actually couldn't find one song I didn't like a lot and the overriding factor I was left with by the end of the album was "oh, is that it? i wanted more!".
Now I'll confess apart from having the music I didn't really know much about Cary until I did a bit of research for the blog and I discovered that he's actually quite well known and if you're of a certain age, you've almost probably heard of him as his songs have found their way into TV shows like Grey's Anatomy, ER, One Tree Hill, Smallville, Scrubs and a load of others...and that's why it probably took me so long to find his music...because I guess I just don't watch much TV let alone those shows.
Nonetheless, the album is awesome and if you don't know who he is, you need to go and find out more...right now!
Have a fun evening folks x
So spending so much time in the car gave me a chance to have a really good musical session and to catch a second, third and maybe even fourth site of some music that I bought, played a bit then got distracted and moved on.
In fact I listened to 4 whole albums which I'd had for differing amounts of time. But for the purpose of tonight I'm going to focus on the artists that stunned me the most as was in fact first on...Cary Brothers.
I've had his EPs and his album "Who You Are" for a while and I really like his stuff but it never hit me how impressive it is. I fell in love with the album all over again. It's one of those albums that has an amazing array of sounds to it, there's some rich and complex ballads as well as a few upbeat rock tracks. There's a massive raft of musical sounds on show mixed in with at times some amazingly descriptive and painful (in the sense of hurting as opposed to bad) songwriting but what really hit me was the heavy piano ballads in particular The Glass Parade which almost knocked me off the road I was that engrossed in it. In fact it's one of those albums that has such a rich blend that I actually couldn't find one song I didn't like a lot and the overriding factor I was left with by the end of the album was "oh, is that it? i wanted more!".
Now I'll confess apart from having the music I didn't really know much about Cary until I did a bit of research for the blog and I discovered that he's actually quite well known and if you're of a certain age, you've almost probably heard of him as his songs have found their way into TV shows like Grey's Anatomy, ER, One Tree Hill, Smallville, Scrubs and a load of others...and that's why it probably took me so long to find his music...because I guess I just don't watch much TV let alone those shows.
Nonetheless, the album is awesome and if you don't know who he is, you need to go and find out more...right now!
Have a fun evening folks x
Saturday 7 November 2009
Breaking the silence...
So having gone quiet and having to apologise for going AWOL I find myself having to do the same again having been MIA for the past week. Truth be told I've been busy but also feeling musically rather "constipated". I haven't had a lot of time to go search for new music and I haven't found anything that's made me go wow, apart from the stacks of amazing music on my iPod.
But I found something worth sharing at last!
On a random myspace scan I came across the interesting Speechwriters LLC. Stupidly I didn't write down the path by which I got there and now I don't remember even using the back buttons in the browser doesn't help. Anyways here's a brief background ripped right from their myspace page...
Musically they remind me of a cross between Blind Pilot and Semisonic, and a quick search has just shown that they've got 4 albums including a recently uploaded 6 track demo from their album Indifferent Cities.
You can, like me, download Regional Variations here and you can find out some more about the guys and their music here.
I'm heading off to go and do some more research right about now!
See ya x
But I found something worth sharing at last!
On a random myspace scan I came across the interesting Speechwriters LLC. Stupidly I didn't write down the path by which I got there and now I don't remember even using the back buttons in the browser doesn't help. Anyways here's a brief background ripped right from their myspace page...
Speechwriters LLC was initially conceived as a cautious alliance between West Coast songwriters Dave Lowensohn and Misha Chellam, who quickly became inseparable and have spent most of the 21st century touring the country in borrowed minivans. They've won countless, meaningless awards, and once loaned Jay Farrar their amp.
Musically they remind me of a cross between Blind Pilot and Semisonic, and a quick search has just shown that they've got 4 albums including a recently uploaded 6 track demo from their album Indifferent Cities.
You can, like me, download Regional Variations here and you can find out some more about the guys and their music here.
I'm heading off to go and do some more research right about now!
See ya x
Friday 30 October 2009
A triumph in the face of adversity...
You know, sometimes in life we make mistakes, sometimes we suffer bad luck and sometimes we're just in the wrong place at the wrong time and we get treated badly. But when the chips are down and everything seems to be going against us, it's how we respond and the level of resolve we show that defines our character; and over the past 2 weeks the 4 guys of Strange Folks / Roy Rieck and The Medley Band who were let into the country have shown the most amazing fortitude to overcome an almost fatal blow.
Losing two guitarists (Emmanuel and Joseph), a lead vocalist and harmonica (Roy Rieck) would be pretty much impossible to contend with but four hard working and outrageously talented musicians stuck their heads above the parapet, walked the line (I just realised I might rename this blog post - "The cliche post") and produced a string of amazing performances culminating in a rousing, brilliant and spell-binding show last night at The Slaughtered Lamb.
I'm never short of a superlative for the guys anyway but to so quickly adapt enough songs to make a set and make them sound great let alone the bravery to add in two new brilliant songs in "Running Away and "Girls" with such important parts of the band missing, shows the most incredible depth of musical talent.
And if bravery hadn't been shown enough, when challenged by a small but raucous awe-struck crowd to an encore (twice) and after a quick discussion where the words uttered included "what should we play?" and "we haven't practiced any more songs" two more exceptional efforts were delivered which included a rare live outing of Jungle Man (a track from Idan Rabinovici's solo album, a song which I adore).
So with this mini-tour over all too quickly for my liking, the guys are heading back to Israel before playing a few shows in Paris next month and then hopefully (immigration permitting) they'll be back in full force come January.
I've now seen the guys in different guises play seven shows since July and you know what, I am not in the slightest bit bored of my favourite musical discovery of this year and I truly doubt I ever will be!
Have a great day people xx
Losing two guitarists (Emmanuel and Joseph), a lead vocalist and harmonica (Roy Rieck) would be pretty much impossible to contend with but four hard working and outrageously talented musicians stuck their heads above the parapet, walked the line (I just realised I might rename this blog post - "The cliche post") and produced a string of amazing performances culminating in a rousing, brilliant and spell-binding show last night at The Slaughtered Lamb.
I'm never short of a superlative for the guys anyway but to so quickly adapt enough songs to make a set and make them sound great let alone the bravery to add in two new brilliant songs in "Running Away and "Girls" with such important parts of the band missing, shows the most incredible depth of musical talent.
And if bravery hadn't been shown enough, when challenged by a small but raucous awe-struck crowd to an encore (twice) and after a quick discussion where the words uttered included "what should we play?" and "we haven't practiced any more songs" two more exceptional efforts were delivered which included a rare live outing of Jungle Man (a track from Idan Rabinovici's solo album, a song which I adore).
So with this mini-tour over all too quickly for my liking, the guys are heading back to Israel before playing a few shows in Paris next month and then hopefully (immigration permitting) they'll be back in full force come January.
I've now seen the guys in different guises play seven shows since July and you know what, I am not in the slightest bit bored of my favourite musical discovery of this year and I truly doubt I ever will be!
Have a great day people xx
Wednesday 28 October 2009
A week of silence...ended with a jaw dropper!
Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry...I actually can't believe I've been so quiet for nearly a week, you'd have thought I could have found something amazing to talk about in a week - there is stuff, I promise you but stuff that's bubbling away just nicely at the moment and it's all pretty damn exciting and that's really why I've been so amazingly quiet, it's that immense that trying to comprehend it all is almost ripping my mind wide open. That big research project for that big and insightful blog post...oh yeah, it's still not done, but rest assured I now need to do that research urgently so it will be done.
So anyways with the apology out of the way and now we've made up and you realise I still love you all, I want to quickly before I head to bed tonight pop together an ultra quick recommendation.
Last night I headed over to The Bedford in Balham, South London (to see the London homecoming of my brilliant Israeli friends Strange Folks - yep folks...they're back - hooray!!!). The Bedford is awesome, one of the two best small live venues I've been to in London (along with the Slaughtered Lamb)...just totally amazing. The vibe is brilliant, the quality of the acoustics and the sound technicians is second to none and the attitude to music is so ridiculously commendable that I wanted to marry the place, it's a shining example of what ALL music venues should be like (big or small).
Anyways I digress and I wanted to keep it short so on with the music. First up last night and my sole focus of tonight was a girl (I never know if I should say woman or lady and if girl is disrespectful, sorry if it is) who absolutely mesmerised the entire room for about 40 minutes the astonishing, Ragz Nordset.
Originally from Norway but now living in Liverpool, Ragz is a singer/songwriter of unbelievable quality. Throughout her set you could hear not a pin drop in the room, in fact the only sound I heard was within about 15 seconds of the first song when the entire audience's jaws hit the floor in amazement all at the same time - audience captivation was taken to a completely new level last night.
I just cannot quickly in words sum up how utterly brilliant Ragz is, as I said to her afterwards "wow...just wow". Judge for yourself from the videos I shot. Oh and I have two Ragz EP's which I'll cover in due course but for tonight my work here is done. Be wowed, be totally and utterly wowed! Oh and pop a cushion on the floor first before you hit the play button, your jaw will thank you for it!
Nite all xxx
So anyways with the apology out of the way and now we've made up and you realise I still love you all, I want to quickly before I head to bed tonight pop together an ultra quick recommendation.
Last night I headed over to The Bedford in Balham, South London (to see the London homecoming of my brilliant Israeli friends Strange Folks - yep folks...they're back - hooray!!!). The Bedford is awesome, one of the two best small live venues I've been to in London (along with the Slaughtered Lamb)...just totally amazing. The vibe is brilliant, the quality of the acoustics and the sound technicians is second to none and the attitude to music is so ridiculously commendable that I wanted to marry the place, it's a shining example of what ALL music venues should be like (big or small).
Anyways I digress and I wanted to keep it short so on with the music. First up last night and my sole focus of tonight was a girl (I never know if I should say woman or lady and if girl is disrespectful, sorry if it is) who absolutely mesmerised the entire room for about 40 minutes the astonishing, Ragz Nordset.
Originally from Norway but now living in Liverpool, Ragz is a singer/songwriter of unbelievable quality. Throughout her set you could hear not a pin drop in the room, in fact the only sound I heard was within about 15 seconds of the first song when the entire audience's jaws hit the floor in amazement all at the same time - audience captivation was taken to a completely new level last night.
I just cannot quickly in words sum up how utterly brilliant Ragz is, as I said to her afterwards "wow...just wow". Judge for yourself from the videos I shot. Oh and I have two Ragz EP's which I'll cover in due course but for tonight my work here is done. Be wowed, be totally and utterly wowed! Oh and pop a cushion on the floor first before you hit the play button, your jaw will thank you for it!
Nite all xxx
Wednesday 21 October 2009
Marking the first landmark....50th blog post!
Does anyone celebrate such a thing? I think we should, why not and I intend to right here, right now and I want to do it with a bit of a personal insight into this whole mission of mine, so please bear with what might be a bit of a personal indulgent blog tonight.
I started this whole thing off back in late June as a way of writing down my muscial thoughts and recommendations with the world in the hope that it might spread the love of the music I enjoy not just with my native UK but to every corner of our amazing little planet. I wanted to help promote unsigned or unheard of artists a little so that they become more well known or at least build up enough of a following to provide them with the income and inspiration to keep them doing what they do best...producing amazing music.
The past 4 and a half months have been totally amazing. In that time I have seen more live music than the rest of my life put together, met an abundance of people I am proud and honoured to now call friends, been blessed with unspeakable acts of human kindness and hopefully inspired a few people along the way to go and check out some amazingly talented people.
I think in this short space of time I've already achieved a lot of what I set out to do and I will keep doing it today, tomorrow, next week, next year, forever...because I passionately believe in good music and I hope that by doing what I am doing I am making a difference to someone's life somewhere in the world, be they a music lover or a musician.
So tonight, in my 50th blog post I want to thank the artists who have inspired me enough to sit down and write about them, post videos, tweet, recommend and to talk about them. You are all truly amazing talents and I hope you are reminded of this every day! If you ever for one second doubt it, pick up your music, listen to it and know that people out there love and respect what you do and are inspired and moved by it! What you do for a living matters so never give up or get dis-enchanted.
I also want to thank my great friend Dave who it is a privelege to share my musical experiences with first hand, all of you who have taken the time so far to stop by to read my blog, view the youtube videos, add me on twitter, send me emails, send me recommendations...it just makes me even more certain that what I'm doing is worthwhile and that hopefully you're finding music you can enjoy as much as I do.
Finally I'm going to leave you all with a final thanks to someone who is totally awesome, truly amazing and who doesn't believe it despite me constantly telling her. So to that end and in recognition of my 50th blog I'm making a special recommendation tonight here is a first original song from the wonderful and totally beautiful Kamila who I am honoured and blessed to have in my life...
thank you all so much, in your own ways you all inspire me xx
I started this whole thing off back in late June as a way of writing down my muscial thoughts and recommendations with the world in the hope that it might spread the love of the music I enjoy not just with my native UK but to every corner of our amazing little planet. I wanted to help promote unsigned or unheard of artists a little so that they become more well known or at least build up enough of a following to provide them with the income and inspiration to keep them doing what they do best...producing amazing music.
The past 4 and a half months have been totally amazing. In that time I have seen more live music than the rest of my life put together, met an abundance of people I am proud and honoured to now call friends, been blessed with unspeakable acts of human kindness and hopefully inspired a few people along the way to go and check out some amazingly talented people.
I think in this short space of time I've already achieved a lot of what I set out to do and I will keep doing it today, tomorrow, next week, next year, forever...because I passionately believe in good music and I hope that by doing what I am doing I am making a difference to someone's life somewhere in the world, be they a music lover or a musician.
So tonight, in my 50th blog post I want to thank the artists who have inspired me enough to sit down and write about them, post videos, tweet, recommend and to talk about them. You are all truly amazing talents and I hope you are reminded of this every day! If you ever for one second doubt it, pick up your music, listen to it and know that people out there love and respect what you do and are inspired and moved by it! What you do for a living matters so never give up or get dis-enchanted.
I also want to thank my great friend Dave who it is a privelege to share my musical experiences with first hand, all of you who have taken the time so far to stop by to read my blog, view the youtube videos, add me on twitter, send me emails, send me recommendations...it just makes me even more certain that what I'm doing is worthwhile and that hopefully you're finding music you can enjoy as much as I do.
Finally I'm going to leave you all with a final thanks to someone who is totally awesome, truly amazing and who doesn't believe it despite me constantly telling her. So to that end and in recognition of my 50th blog I'm making a special recommendation tonight here is a first original song from the wonderful and totally beautiful Kamila who I am honoured and blessed to have in my life...
thank you all so much, in your own ways you all inspire me xx
Sunday 18 October 2009
The milk of human kindness...
So I said I was going into hiding for a few days to do a research project and here I am reporting back some 5 days later with absolutely no research done, because I got ligitimately distracted and haven't been able to focus since.
My favourite musical finds are the ones that just fall out of the sky and hit you and this week, I had one smack me so hard it almost knocked me out. Wednesday night with all good intentions, I sat down to research this big blog post I've been talking about for a while but before I did that a signed in to Facebook. Just as I was about to sign out, I noticed something in the highlights sidebar on the home page which caught my eye.
I thought I'd be...I guess, a bit nosey...and check it out, because my friend and Strange Folks front man Idan Rabinovici had been tagged in it. The video in question is this one:-
Within 23 seconds the idle curiousity turned into absolute fascination and I sat in complete silence throughout listening to the most amazingly beautiful song. At first I was so utterly bemused by the quality of what I had seen I actually had to watch it a second time, and after that I quickly stopped everything, abandoned all research and went off in search of some more information on another Israeli talent in Omer Leshem.
This search started with MySpace where further time was spent listening to tracks on the player and then a fruitless and frustrating trip over to the iTunes and CDBaby stores. So with bedtime fast approaching I dispatched a message via MySpace in the hope of finding somewhere to buy his album "Send Yourself Away".
The next morning, whilst I was sitting at work, I had a reply from Omer directing me to 2 sites however in the end did something quite unbelievable, totally amazing and something which I will always be eternally grateful for, he uploaded the album for me to download. I was and still am totally astonished by this act of generosity and human kindness shown by Omer towards a complete stranger...it's mindblowing!
So I immediately stopped everything, booted my laptop up and downloaded the album and within an hour I was listening to a raft of beautiful songs. That night I lay in bed drifting off to sleep listening again to the album. And I guess it was then it really hit me, how good this collection of Folk/Country songs sung by a man with a rich voice is. As an album, Send Yourself Away is so warm, fuzzy and beautiful that it just seems to suit every mood you could ever possibly be in. This is your stressful drive home made better, it's your lazy summer day spent basking under hot blue skies, your red-eye flight, your candle lit bathtime chill out, your late night under the covers, your early morning wake up, your reflective gaze on life, your momentary inspiration in a mentally challenging moment, it's all those and so much more.
You just can't help but be swept away by the rich vocals and melodies throughout the album. Musically there's definite undertones of the great Neil Young along with vocals that remind me a touch of Johnny Cash meets Ray LaMontagne without quite the huskiness.
It's a truly great album and you all need to go and check Omer out, it's music that'll lift you, move you and leave you feeling better and warmer than you were before you hit the play button. Just make sure you tell Omer how amazing it is and music industry folks...give this man a record deal for goodness sake and whilst you're at it, go and take a closer look at Israel, it's clearly got some amazing talent that needs exporting to the world.
I'll leave you with the thoughts of my great friend Dave who described the video above with this brilliant analogy so beautifully...
"I've been taken back to when I was a kid and my mum gave me 10p for the lucky dip. My hand dived deep in to the bucket of sawdust and i pulled out a gem of a prize.
Rich, thanks for the 10p....and thanks for being mum!
Nite all xxx
My favourite musical finds are the ones that just fall out of the sky and hit you and this week, I had one smack me so hard it almost knocked me out. Wednesday night with all good intentions, I sat down to research this big blog post I've been talking about for a while but before I did that a signed in to Facebook. Just as I was about to sign out, I noticed something in the highlights sidebar on the home page which caught my eye.
I thought I'd be...I guess, a bit nosey...and check it out, because my friend and Strange Folks front man Idan Rabinovici had been tagged in it. The video in question is this one:-
Within 23 seconds the idle curiousity turned into absolute fascination and I sat in complete silence throughout listening to the most amazingly beautiful song. At first I was so utterly bemused by the quality of what I had seen I actually had to watch it a second time, and after that I quickly stopped everything, abandoned all research and went off in search of some more information on another Israeli talent in Omer Leshem.
This search started with MySpace where further time was spent listening to tracks on the player and then a fruitless and frustrating trip over to the iTunes and CDBaby stores. So with bedtime fast approaching I dispatched a message via MySpace in the hope of finding somewhere to buy his album "Send Yourself Away".
The next morning, whilst I was sitting at work, I had a reply from Omer directing me to 2 sites however in the end did something quite unbelievable, totally amazing and something which I will always be eternally grateful for, he uploaded the album for me to download. I was and still am totally astonished by this act of generosity and human kindness shown by Omer towards a complete stranger...it's mindblowing!
So I immediately stopped everything, booted my laptop up and downloaded the album and within an hour I was listening to a raft of beautiful songs. That night I lay in bed drifting off to sleep listening again to the album. And I guess it was then it really hit me, how good this collection of Folk/Country songs sung by a man with a rich voice is. As an album, Send Yourself Away is so warm, fuzzy and beautiful that it just seems to suit every mood you could ever possibly be in. This is your stressful drive home made better, it's your lazy summer day spent basking under hot blue skies, your red-eye flight, your candle lit bathtime chill out, your late night under the covers, your early morning wake up, your reflective gaze on life, your momentary inspiration in a mentally challenging moment, it's all those and so much more.
You just can't help but be swept away by the rich vocals and melodies throughout the album. Musically there's definite undertones of the great Neil Young along with vocals that remind me a touch of Johnny Cash meets Ray LaMontagne without quite the huskiness.
It's a truly great album and you all need to go and check Omer out, it's music that'll lift you, move you and leave you feeling better and warmer than you were before you hit the play button. Just make sure you tell Omer how amazing it is and music industry folks...give this man a record deal for goodness sake and whilst you're at it, go and take a closer look at Israel, it's clearly got some amazing talent that needs exporting to the world.
I'll leave you with the thoughts of my great friend Dave who described the video above with this brilliant analogy so beautifully...
"I've been taken back to when I was a kid and my mum gave me 10p for the lucky dip. My hand dived deep in to the bucket of sawdust and i pulled out a gem of a prize.
Rich, thanks for the 10p....and thanks for being mum!
Nite all xxx
Tuesday 13 October 2009
Blogged out...
A few weeks ago, I sat down to do a bit of a research project and write a blog based on my findings. Since then I've been so pre-occupied with new music that I just haven't got round to doing that research or to even thinking about how to write that post.
So unless something outrageously amazing hits me in the next few days, I'm going "under the radar" and I'm likely to be very quiet. But hopefully by the time I come back, I'll have something fascinating for you to read and hopefully it'll provide you with some insight into something that, at the moment I know very little about.
But before I go AWOL, actually MIA is a better term...here's a cheeky little Tuesday recommendation...and it comes in the form of two videos...oh yeah I've now worked out how to embed youtube in here!!!
Today, my friend and all round musical hero the mighty Greg Holden posted Part 23 of the Not My Living Room series and it's a brand new song written and performed with the great Joey Ryan. The song doesn't have a name yet but I've suggested "Don't Come Looking" and in the absence of a name, I'm using that...
It's awesome, it's a new side to Greg's music and one I truly love. Send him comments, let him know how good it is!
Right then, second recommendation tonight comes courtesy of a beautiful little ray of sunshine in Sweden (yes Kamila...I mean you). When I was a LOT younger, I grew up being swept away by British band The Verve. Back in the mid 90's these guys got huge overnight and some of their songs still rip the hairs off the back of my neck. It was a shame they never stayed together longer and now they're back together they just aren't quite as good as they once were...harsh maybe but it's just an opinion.
Anyways, this song, arguably their most famous "The Drugs Don't Work" is being sung by Terra Naomi. I have no idea YET as to who she is...but a stunningly beautiful woman and an amazingly emotive version of this song. I defy you to not sit silent in amazement for 5 minutes and to not be moved, if you're not, you're emotionally stunted...end of!
Right then, this is me potentially for a few days, signing off, so unless any of you can tempt me to listen to something mindblowing I'm going off to do some research and will report back from the field in due course.
Stay safe people xx
So unless something outrageously amazing hits me in the next few days, I'm going "under the radar" and I'm likely to be very quiet. But hopefully by the time I come back, I'll have something fascinating for you to read and hopefully it'll provide you with some insight into something that, at the moment I know very little about.
But before I go AWOL, actually MIA is a better term...here's a cheeky little Tuesday recommendation...and it comes in the form of two videos...oh yeah I've now worked out how to embed youtube in here!!!
Today, my friend and all round musical hero the mighty Greg Holden posted Part 23 of the Not My Living Room series and it's a brand new song written and performed with the great Joey Ryan. The song doesn't have a name yet but I've suggested "Don't Come Looking" and in the absence of a name, I'm using that...
It's awesome, it's a new side to Greg's music and one I truly love. Send him comments, let him know how good it is!
Right then, second recommendation tonight comes courtesy of a beautiful little ray of sunshine in Sweden (yes Kamila...I mean you). When I was a LOT younger, I grew up being swept away by British band The Verve. Back in the mid 90's these guys got huge overnight and some of their songs still rip the hairs off the back of my neck. It was a shame they never stayed together longer and now they're back together they just aren't quite as good as they once were...harsh maybe but it's just an opinion.
Anyways, this song, arguably their most famous "The Drugs Don't Work" is being sung by Terra Naomi. I have no idea YET as to who she is...but a stunningly beautiful woman and an amazingly emotive version of this song. I defy you to not sit silent in amazement for 5 minutes and to not be moved, if you're not, you're emotionally stunted...end of!
Right then, this is me potentially for a few days, signing off, so unless any of you can tempt me to listen to something mindblowing I'm going off to do some research and will report back from the field in due course.
Stay safe people xx
Monday 12 October 2009
The UK's answer to Ryan Adams...?
Well what do you know people? Today is the sixth, yes sixth successive day I've found something exciting to sit down and write about. You'd have thought by now that I' have run out of ideas but oh no no no, we're carrying on a pace, because I haven't quite finished reviewing things from a week ago.
So tonight I'm going to begin with a quote of my own from some months ago...
"So how many of us are guilty of doing this? We book tickets to see a band or a musician we really like, we find out what time they're on and then what do we do, either turn up late or sit outside drinking beer...all the time not knowing or hearing what's going down on stage," (July 16th - "The Power of Support Acts").
Never a truer word spoken and to be fair I may have partially fulfilled this myself last week. On turning up to Koko to see Joshua Radin, we spent ages messing around waiting to put our jackets into the cloakroom and then getting the beers that we missed most of the first support act. What I did hear of this act sounded ok, but again, how much can you tell from a distance, not paying attention and trying to struggle through a noisy crowd.
So as the night ended and on the way out of Koko, I pitched up at the merch booth and decided to buy a CD from the first support act, partially as a guilty apology and also to share the wealth and make a musicians dream more of a reality. Wow that sounds so "up myself" but those of you who know me will understand I do things like that.
So Tuesday and Wednesday came and went and then on Thursday I finally added the CD in question to my iPod and since then have been swept away.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Guys and Girls, Kids, Music Lovers...I want to introduce you tonight to the incredible unsigned amd unbelievable BRITISH talent that is...THOMAS J SPEIGHT.
By now you must know I am a massive fan of good singer/songwriters, but the bar is set so high by the likes of Jay Nash, Josh Ritter, Ryan Adams, Chris Seefried and the UK's very own super talent Greg Holden that most singer/songwriters just get filtered out, that's harsh I know but the reality is that greatness stands out a mile off, so when you come across someone befitting of that illustrious company it needs sharing and Thomas is on the evidence thus far befitting of that company.
I can't comment really on his set at Koko as I only heard it from a distance (shame on me!) but what I can do is comment on his EP, This House. The 3 songs are just...amazing, nothing short of amazing and I think even that word doesn't quite do it justice. Sitting somewhere musically between Ryan Adams, Josh Ritter and Jay Nash with a hint of Eagles, CSNY and Low Stars chucked in for good measure, its scarcely believable that Thomas Speight heralds from the UK. In fact if you knew no better having listened to the EP and to Thomas' vocals, you'd assume he heralded from the US. I have no idea where the musical influence comes from and maybe in time I'll find out when I get to see Thomas play again but it certainly I doubt originates from these shores.
What strikes me even just as much is the level of intricacy and level of craftsmanship in each of the songs, from the lyrics right through to the music and it's most evident in the opening track This House. There's a hidden depth that means after 20 plays I'm still finding things that I haven't noticed before. It's the work of an incredibly talented artist and one who's taken meticulous care to produce songs he clearly wanted to. The other 2 tracks on the EP, Tears Of Mine and Start As We Mean To Go On, are of a rare and exceptional quality and feel like they should sit alongside any of Ryan Adams best stuff in my opinion.
I just cannot evangelise enough about how blown away by Thomas' music I am. You all will be and you all must, must, must go and check him out. How someone seemingly so young can produce such amazing music is totally beyond me. You know the only crying shame, the EP isn't on iTunes but you can buy it through Thomas' myspace page.
And that folks, finally after 6 days concludes the music action of the last week in reverse. It has been the most incredible week, I feel this musical journey I am on becomes more worthwhile by the day AND most importantly that my view some months ago when I wrote my original profile is ever more correct...Live Music is unbeatable.
From an autumnal UK...night all x
So tonight I'm going to begin with a quote of my own from some months ago...
"So how many of us are guilty of doing this? We book tickets to see a band or a musician we really like, we find out what time they're on and then what do we do, either turn up late or sit outside drinking beer...all the time not knowing or hearing what's going down on stage," (July 16th - "The Power of Support Acts").
Never a truer word spoken and to be fair I may have partially fulfilled this myself last week. On turning up to Koko to see Joshua Radin, we spent ages messing around waiting to put our jackets into the cloakroom and then getting the beers that we missed most of the first support act. What I did hear of this act sounded ok, but again, how much can you tell from a distance, not paying attention and trying to struggle through a noisy crowd.
So as the night ended and on the way out of Koko, I pitched up at the merch booth and decided to buy a CD from the first support act, partially as a guilty apology and also to share the wealth and make a musicians dream more of a reality. Wow that sounds so "up myself" but those of you who know me will understand I do things like that.
So Tuesday and Wednesday came and went and then on Thursday I finally added the CD in question to my iPod and since then have been swept away.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Guys and Girls, Kids, Music Lovers...I want to introduce you tonight to the incredible unsigned amd unbelievable BRITISH talent that is...THOMAS J SPEIGHT.
By now you must know I am a massive fan of good singer/songwriters, but the bar is set so high by the likes of Jay Nash, Josh Ritter, Ryan Adams, Chris Seefried and the UK's very own super talent Greg Holden that most singer/songwriters just get filtered out, that's harsh I know but the reality is that greatness stands out a mile off, so when you come across someone befitting of that illustrious company it needs sharing and Thomas is on the evidence thus far befitting of that company.
I can't comment really on his set at Koko as I only heard it from a distance (shame on me!) but what I can do is comment on his EP, This House. The 3 songs are just...amazing, nothing short of amazing and I think even that word doesn't quite do it justice. Sitting somewhere musically between Ryan Adams, Josh Ritter and Jay Nash with a hint of Eagles, CSNY and Low Stars chucked in for good measure, its scarcely believable that Thomas Speight heralds from the UK. In fact if you knew no better having listened to the EP and to Thomas' vocals, you'd assume he heralded from the US. I have no idea where the musical influence comes from and maybe in time I'll find out when I get to see Thomas play again but it certainly I doubt originates from these shores.
What strikes me even just as much is the level of intricacy and level of craftsmanship in each of the songs, from the lyrics right through to the music and it's most evident in the opening track This House. There's a hidden depth that means after 20 plays I'm still finding things that I haven't noticed before. It's the work of an incredibly talented artist and one who's taken meticulous care to produce songs he clearly wanted to. The other 2 tracks on the EP, Tears Of Mine and Start As We Mean To Go On, are of a rare and exceptional quality and feel like they should sit alongside any of Ryan Adams best stuff in my opinion.
I just cannot evangelise enough about how blown away by Thomas' music I am. You all will be and you all must, must, must go and check him out. How someone seemingly so young can produce such amazing music is totally beyond me. You know the only crying shame, the EP isn't on iTunes but you can buy it through Thomas' myspace page.
And that folks, finally after 6 days concludes the music action of the last week in reverse. It has been the most incredible week, I feel this musical journey I am on becomes more worthwhile by the day AND most importantly that my view some months ago when I wrote my original profile is ever more correct...Live Music is unbeatable.
From an autumnal UK...night all x
Sunday 11 October 2009
Bring on the Goodtimes...
Are you ready for a live review and 2 album reviews? Well it's Sunday so pull up a chair, pour yourself a drink and bring on the Goodtimes Goodtimes.
So there's a history behind this story. I don't want to re-type it all paragraph and verse so in short...
Went out in early August, didn't expect to see music so had no camera, came across a couple of acts (Thea Ford and a band called Goodtimes Goodtimes) who sounded quite good in a venue that wasn't acoustically very good (Bar Music Hall), came away with no videos just a couple of promo cards...and that is that...I wrote a blog about it, moved on that was that.
So now fast forward in time to October and more specifically October 5th. On arriving at Koko to see Joshua Radin I ended up by the merch stall. I don't quite know why I was drawn in that direction so early or what made me take a closer look but something out the corner of my eye caught my attention, there was something familiar about it. On closer inspection it appeared to be a promo card I already had, for Goodtimes Goodtimes. I turned around excitedly to show my mate Dave having realised they were the support act, then turned the other way to see the lead singer Francesco Cinelli looking at me like I'd gone slightly mad. He seemed taken aback that I remembered them from August and that I'd remembered that like me, he's a left-handed guitarist (although one of us is amazingly good and deserves to be on a big stage - and the other shall keep writing this blog). He explained he was playing a solo set which made me completely curious.
So we headed for a quick beer and settled in for what turned out to be a bit of a surprise. When I heard Goodtimes Goodtimes back in August I was a bit impartial because the acoustics were so bad. You couldn't tell what was good and what wasn't only that in principal it sounded good. It turns out Francesco is amazing and the music is too. Francesco played a set for I guess 30 - 40 minutes playing songs from their recently released EP Let It Begin including Let It Begin, Love and a couple of tracks from their next album which is set to be released next February.
So there's videos on my youtube channel which you can now access more easily using my new super-fantastic video player in the sidebar.
That's it review over...nothing more to see...oh no no no, don't be so silly. We're only just beginning, take a pit stop if you want, get a drink, have a smoke, hit the toilet if you need to but for goodness sake hurry up and come back you don't want to miss what's below!
So after he'd played Francesco floor walked the venue selling CDs of the album Glue (which is also available on iTunes). I naturally bought a signed copy for myself but again didn't really know what to expect given that I'd seen them as a band in a poor venue and as a solo artist in a great venue. So on Monday night when I got back to the car, I put the CD on and was blown and I mean BLOWN away, in fact elated by what I heard. It was Goodtimes Goodtimes in a third different form a slightly laid back, relaxed and acoustic.
The album begins with the beautiful Summer which reminds me more than a touch of Josh Ritter then heads on into Kids which for some reason I can envisage Paul McCartney playing. We then head a touch more back towards the modern day with three or four brilliant tracks in Sea Shantry, Temporary Freeze and Desire which feel heavily musically influenced by the 70's and maybe a bit Eagles, maybe a bit Dylan-esque (although I hate name dropping Bob Dylan because it's an easy name drop).
So I think I'm pretty much done for today's effort, if you do nothing else and you don't go any buy the album, just do me one tiny little favour, go and download the FREE EP. Oh and for those of you in the USA, they'll be playing 3 gigs shortly.
15th October - Living Room, New York, NY
26th October - Third and Lindsley, Nashville, TN
27th October - New Faces Night @ The Basement, Nashville, TN
No excuses people...go check em out.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend, whatever you do and wherever you are.
Rich x
P.S. - I ain't done yet, there'll be another musical offering tomorrow :-)
So there's a history behind this story. I don't want to re-type it all paragraph and verse so in short...
Went out in early August, didn't expect to see music so had no camera, came across a couple of acts (Thea Ford and a band called Goodtimes Goodtimes) who sounded quite good in a venue that wasn't acoustically very good (Bar Music Hall), came away with no videos just a couple of promo cards...and that is that...I wrote a blog about it, moved on that was that.
So now fast forward in time to October and more specifically October 5th. On arriving at Koko to see Joshua Radin I ended up by the merch stall. I don't quite know why I was drawn in that direction so early or what made me take a closer look but something out the corner of my eye caught my attention, there was something familiar about it. On closer inspection it appeared to be a promo card I already had, for Goodtimes Goodtimes. I turned around excitedly to show my mate Dave having realised they were the support act, then turned the other way to see the lead singer Francesco Cinelli looking at me like I'd gone slightly mad. He seemed taken aback that I remembered them from August and that I'd remembered that like me, he's a left-handed guitarist (although one of us is amazingly good and deserves to be on a big stage - and the other shall keep writing this blog). He explained he was playing a solo set which made me completely curious.
So we headed for a quick beer and settled in for what turned out to be a bit of a surprise. When I heard Goodtimes Goodtimes back in August I was a bit impartial because the acoustics were so bad. You couldn't tell what was good and what wasn't only that in principal it sounded good. It turns out Francesco is amazing and the music is too. Francesco played a set for I guess 30 - 40 minutes playing songs from their recently released EP Let It Begin including Let It Begin, Love and a couple of tracks from their next album which is set to be released next February.
So there's videos on my youtube channel which you can now access more easily using my new super-fantastic video player in the sidebar.
That's it review over...nothing more to see...oh no no no, don't be so silly. We're only just beginning, take a pit stop if you want, get a drink, have a smoke, hit the toilet if you need to but for goodness sake hurry up and come back you don't want to miss what's below!
So after he'd played Francesco floor walked the venue selling CDs of the album Glue (which is also available on iTunes). I naturally bought a signed copy for myself but again didn't really know what to expect given that I'd seen them as a band in a poor venue and as a solo artist in a great venue. So on Monday night when I got back to the car, I put the CD on and was blown and I mean BLOWN away, in fact elated by what I heard. It was Goodtimes Goodtimes in a third different form a slightly laid back, relaxed and acoustic.
The album begins with the beautiful Summer which reminds me more than a touch of Josh Ritter then heads on into Kids which for some reason I can envisage Paul McCartney playing. We then head a touch more back towards the modern day with three or four brilliant tracks in Sea Shantry, Temporary Freeze and Desire which feel heavily musically influenced by the 70's and maybe a bit Eagles, maybe a bit Dylan-esque (although I hate name dropping Bob Dylan because it's an easy name drop).Then out of the blue comes Sunshine Sunshine which was what I recalled the band being all about when I saw them back in August so it was re-assuring to know that I hadn't lost my senses that night. The album finishes with three utterly brilliant songs in The Red Sky & The Spanish Coast, You Know Why and the wonderfully laid back lazy and warm fuzzy Every Song. All in all its around 39 minutes of pure bliss, music heralding from a time when music meant people who could play and sing songs of genuine quality full of stories, humour and emotion. There's something "lazy Sunday summer late-afternoon" about the whole album, it's the sort of thing you want to listen to whilst laying under the scorching sun.
It's an album you absolutely MUST own, I'm currently viewing it as one of my top three albums of the year and I have bought a lot of new music this year.
Now usually at this point we're done but not so today. The good people of Goodtimes Goodtimes recently released a FREE EP - Let It Begin...Yes it's FREE, so you can download it without having to spend anything. It's 4 tracks with a slightly different but still utterly brilliant vibe, perhaps slightly more modern than Glue and a bit more electric. For all you Coldplay fans out there (and I'm not one, I detest them with a passion) you'll love the final track on the EP "Love", there's something very Coldplay about it. There's no official artwork for the EP and because I'm so anal about having music on my iPod without an album artwork, I knocked this together, which you're more than welcome to use. It's not endorsed by the band but it's my ident for the EP.
So I think I'm pretty much done for today's effort, if you do nothing else and you don't go any buy the album, just do me one tiny little favour, go and download the FREE EP. Oh and for those of you in the USA, they'll be playing 3 gigs shortly.
15th October - Living Room, New York, NY
26th October - Third and Lindsley, Nashville, TN
27th October - New Faces Night @ The Basement, Nashville, TN
No excuses people...go check em out.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend, whatever you do and wherever you are.
Rich x
P.S. - I ain't done yet, there'll be another musical offering tomorrow :-)
Saturday 10 October 2009
Rewinding the time with Joshua Radin
Ok last reference to the week in reverse...promise. So we're now back at Monday night, I'd say 9:30 - 11pm and Joshua Radin's gig at Koko in London.
Firstly I'll tell you a bit about the venue. I'd never been there before but its an absolutely amazing place. Koko was opened in 1900 as a theatre and over the years played host to many extremely famous names including the legendary Charlie Chaplin. Over the years it underwent subsequent name changes and many guises before closing in 2004 as Camden Palace. It re-opened in late 2004 following a multi-million pound refurbishment as Koko but has kept a lot of the original charm and decor you'd expect from a venue with a history spanning nearly 110 years with nice twists of the modern world throughout. The place itself feels vast with loads of levels to stand and watch and even chill out spaces with sofas and TV screens showing the live show for people who just want to relax.
The acoustics at Koko are second to none though, honestly some of the best acoustics I've heard anywhere to the point that no matter where you stood, you could hear the music at a great level and completely clearly at all times. It's THE place to see music with a biggish crowd.
So now onto Joshua's set. I'm thinking he played for about 90 minutes playing I'd reckon 15 songs. There were a mix of old songs, song from his most recent album Simple Times including Brand New Day, I'd Rather Be With You and One Of Those Days and a couple of songs from his next album...which has no name or completion date.
Not being anything more than a passively new Joshua Radin fan and having heard no more than 4 or 5 of his songs before the gig I was mightily impressed. Not only does this amazingly talented singer/songwriter command a stage but has the ability to capture an audience with his story telling, chatting, humour, warmth and of course music. He seems an artist truly at ease with himself and his music. For every time Joshua sang the crowd went silent - you could have at times heard a pin drop at times and you really pick that up on the videos I shot (which are on my youtube channel).
This I guess was highlighted brilliantly twice by Joshua and the band turning the gig into a 40's-style radio shack show with all five of them crowded round one microphone with the amps off. I sadly only caught Sky as the camera died but you'll see what I mean.
So Joshua's headed round Europe at the moment before heading over to Australia and then back to the US. He's certainly made one new fan here in the UK and I'm sure quite a few more.
Next time on the backwards review of the week I'm going to cover one of the two support acts from Monday who I'd seen once before and who have subsequently found a place in my heart and iPod this week.
Have a great weekend all x
Firstly I'll tell you a bit about the venue. I'd never been there before but its an absolutely amazing place. Koko was opened in 1900 as a theatre and over the years played host to many extremely famous names including the legendary Charlie Chaplin. Over the years it underwent subsequent name changes and many guises before closing in 2004 as Camden Palace. It re-opened in late 2004 following a multi-million pound refurbishment as Koko but has kept a lot of the original charm and decor you'd expect from a venue with a history spanning nearly 110 years with nice twists of the modern world throughout. The place itself feels vast with loads of levels to stand and watch and even chill out spaces with sofas and TV screens showing the live show for people who just want to relax.
The acoustics at Koko are second to none though, honestly some of the best acoustics I've heard anywhere to the point that no matter where you stood, you could hear the music at a great level and completely clearly at all times. It's THE place to see music with a biggish crowd.
So now onto Joshua's set. I'm thinking he played for about 90 minutes playing I'd reckon 15 songs. There were a mix of old songs, song from his most recent album Simple Times including Brand New Day, I'd Rather Be With You and One Of Those Days and a couple of songs from his next album...which has no name or completion date.
Not being anything more than a passively new Joshua Radin fan and having heard no more than 4 or 5 of his songs before the gig I was mightily impressed. Not only does this amazingly talented singer/songwriter command a stage but has the ability to capture an audience with his story telling, chatting, humour, warmth and of course music. He seems an artist truly at ease with himself and his music. For every time Joshua sang the crowd went silent - you could have at times heard a pin drop at times and you really pick that up on the videos I shot (which are on my youtube channel).
This I guess was highlighted brilliantly twice by Joshua and the band turning the gig into a 40's-style radio shack show with all five of them crowded round one microphone with the amps off. I sadly only caught Sky as the camera died but you'll see what I mean.
So Joshua's headed round Europe at the moment before heading over to Australia and then back to the US. He's certainly made one new fan here in the UK and I'm sure quite a few more.
Next time on the backwards review of the week I'm going to cover one of the two support acts from Monday who I'd seen once before and who have subsequently found a place in my heart and iPod this week.
Have a great weekend all x
Friday 9 October 2009
Being there at the very beginning...
So I'm still in my backwards review of the week and the next on my target list is the band that preceded Thea Ford on Tuesday night, a band I now know go by the name of Empire State. That sounds like I didn't pay much attention, far from it, these guys are so new that they hadn't even settled on a name. The working title on Tuesday night, as I found out from lead singer Paul Claxton was "The Latters" which is also in my opinion a great name.
But sometimes a name isn't important, it's what lies beneath it that matters. So these three guys had all fallen out of other bands and come together just a few weeks ago but played like they'd been together for years. Their 5 song shortish set was eye-catching not only because of the quality of the music but the absolutely brilliant vocals of Paul Claxton. What I really enjoyed more than anything was the rawness. There's something special about the early days of a singer/songwriter or band when everything is new and not so polished because the songs are still fresh and the artist is still learning how to play them. I was totally taken with the songs and there's a few on my youtube channel just waiting for you to see.
They're playing the Ground Floor Bar in Notting Hill (London) on the 15th October and will hopefully get their myspace, etc up and running soon after that, but in the meantime go check out Paul's myspace page and keep an eye out, these guys could be headed places in my opinion and I am so happy I was there right at the start to see it...I'll be keeping a close eye on them!
Back to the youtubing, still lots more videos to come and next under the spotlight...Joshua Radin and there are at least 2 more individual and new music reviews to follow that.
Catch you all again soon, but don't go too far away! x
But sometimes a name isn't important, it's what lies beneath it that matters. So these three guys had all fallen out of other bands and come together just a few weeks ago but played like they'd been together for years. Their 5 song shortish set was eye-catching not only because of the quality of the music but the absolutely brilliant vocals of Paul Claxton. What I really enjoyed more than anything was the rawness. There's something special about the early days of a singer/songwriter or band when everything is new and not so polished because the songs are still fresh and the artist is still learning how to play them. I was totally taken with the songs and there's a few on my youtube channel just waiting for you to see.
They're playing the Ground Floor Bar in Notting Hill (London) on the 15th October and will hopefully get their myspace, etc up and running soon after that, but in the meantime go check out Paul's myspace page and keep an eye out, these guys could be headed places in my opinion and I am so happy I was there right at the start to see it...I'll be keeping a close eye on them!
Back to the youtubing, still lots more videos to come and next under the spotlight...Joshua Radin and there are at least 2 more individual and new music reviews to follow that.
Catch you all again soon, but don't go too far away! x
Thursday 8 October 2009
This week in reverse...so Thea Ford first!
Now I've come down a little bit of the excitable high of yesterday, I'm ready to blog once more and hopefully put some more calm thoughts down, but as I sit here I don't know where to start, at the beginning seems logical but I'm not always a logical guy so I'm going to start by blogging the week's music in reverse.
So here we go...
Tuesday night I went to the Road Trip to see Thea Ford. About six or seven weeks ago I saw Thea play a gig just round the corner from the Road Trip (at Bar Music Hall) having not expected to see music, so I had no camera. Bar Music Hall was a good place to drink but not to listen to music. So without camera I blogged about that night and moved on, forgot all about it, until out of the blue some weeks later Thea got in touch having found and read my blog. I was quite honoured and humbled really and promised I'd see Thea play again and bring the camera...and on Tuesday night, I followed through on that promise.
The gig was really good and Thea played a great acoustic set which personally I think showed off her voice brilliantly. In there were five of her own songs including You Got Me, 22, So Long and a cover of the Cranberries song Zombie which worked really well at both being identifiable yet fresh which is always the key to a good cover (in my opinion).
I've added videos of the entire set onto YouTube so if you check out my channel you'll see what Thea's all about, go check out her MySpace page too, and show her some love!
Time to go and add some more videos on YouTube from Tuesday night...stay tuned folks, I'll be back with more pretty soon :-)
Bye for now x
So here we go...
Tuesday night I went to the Road Trip to see Thea Ford. About six or seven weeks ago I saw Thea play a gig just round the corner from the Road Trip (at Bar Music Hall) having not expected to see music, so I had no camera. Bar Music Hall was a good place to drink but not to listen to music. So without camera I blogged about that night and moved on, forgot all about it, until out of the blue some weeks later Thea got in touch having found and read my blog. I was quite honoured and humbled really and promised I'd see Thea play again and bring the camera...and on Tuesday night, I followed through on that promise.
The gig was really good and Thea played a great acoustic set which personally I think showed off her voice brilliantly. In there were five of her own songs including You Got Me, 22, So Long and a cover of the Cranberries song Zombie which worked really well at both being identifiable yet fresh which is always the key to a good cover (in my opinion).
Thea also announced towards the end of the set that she'll hopefully be releasing the song Cat & Mouse as a free digital download single next week, which will mean you can all enjoy a bit of Thea's music for free although that shouldn't discourage you from going out to see her and buy her album (Monkey To The West).
I've added videos of the entire set onto YouTube so if you check out my channel you'll see what Thea's all about, go check out her MySpace page too, and show her some love!
Time to go and add some more videos on YouTube from Tuesday night...stay tuned folks, I'll be back with more pretty soon :-)
Bye for now x
Wednesday 7 October 2009
The kid in the sweet shop....
Today I am like that. I have seen some truly amazing music over the past 2 days and right now I have so many things I want to blog about and I just don't know where to begin.
I have so much to say right now and so much to write about that if I sat down and did nothing but blogs till tomorrow morning I'd probably have loads to write about, in fact I am utterly convinced I could write an entire months worth of blogs in one night.
But like the little tease I am and because I have about 30 videos to encode and put on youtube (which will take forever to do), I'm going to blog sporadically over the next few days spreading out all the things I want to talk about so you can take it all in, enjoy, research and hopefully have your mind blown in the way mine has been...
And just to whet the appetite a little...
http://mrrichmuk.blogspot.com/2009/08/never-leave-home-without.html
This incomplete circle has now been completed and let's just say, something was way way way better than I remembered or thought possible...
Back to bouncing off the walls....stay tuned folks...IT IS GOING TO BE MEGA!!!!
I have so much to say right now and so much to write about that if I sat down and did nothing but blogs till tomorrow morning I'd probably have loads to write about, in fact I am utterly convinced I could write an entire months worth of blogs in one night.
But like the little tease I am and because I have about 30 videos to encode and put on youtube (which will take forever to do), I'm going to blog sporadically over the next few days spreading out all the things I want to talk about so you can take it all in, enjoy, research and hopefully have your mind blown in the way mine has been...
And just to whet the appetite a little...
http://mrrichmuk.blogspot.com/2009/08/never-leave-home-without.html
This incomplete circle has now been completed and let's just say, something was way way way better than I remembered or thought possible...
Back to bouncing off the walls....stay tuned folks...IT IS GOING TO BE MEGA!!!!
Thursday 1 October 2009
Reporting from the field...
Ahhhhh the sweet smell (no wait that's impossible)...sound of live music. Man I've missed it so much. I actually didn't realise quite how much. The other night I popped over to the brilliant Monkey Chews for an open mic night and wasn't disappointed.
There were a few acts that were kind of indifferent, ok but not memorable and then there were three that stood out above the rest.
The first two were guys playing solo sets but part of bands "Bronze Medalists" and "Tourist". Now I think myself a good judge of music...to the point my senses are so refined I can tell the talent of a musician 85% of the time without hearing them play...I was proved right with both of these two although I wished I'd got a video of the first song sung by the guy from Bronze Medalists because it was just awesome. I followed instinct with Adam from Tourist and was proven right hence why I captured two videos.
Why only two you ask. Well that's all each act got, which I guess was the only disappointment of the night.
Finally there was a two-piece band, a guy with a keyboard and one with a bass guitar who played two songs when we weren't in view. I have not a clue what their name was BUT they too were absolutely awesome and I regret not being able to share who they are/were at this current time...but I will endeavour to find out and report back.
So in the meantime check out the new videos in the side bar and let me know if you like.
See ya! x
There were a few acts that were kind of indifferent, ok but not memorable and then there were three that stood out above the rest.
The first two were guys playing solo sets but part of bands "Bronze Medalists" and "Tourist". Now I think myself a good judge of music...to the point my senses are so refined I can tell the talent of a musician 85% of the time without hearing them play...I was proved right with both of these two although I wished I'd got a video of the first song sung by the guy from Bronze Medalists because it was just awesome. I followed instinct with Adam from Tourist and was proven right hence why I captured two videos.
Why only two you ask. Well that's all each act got, which I guess was the only disappointment of the night.
Finally there was a two-piece band, a guy with a keyboard and one with a bass guitar who played two songs when we weren't in view. I have not a clue what their name was BUT they too were absolutely awesome and I regret not being able to share who they are/were at this current time...but I will endeavour to find out and report back.
So in the meantime check out the new videos in the side bar and let me know if you like.
See ya! x
Wednesday 30 September 2009
Greg Holden's EP - Sing For The City
It is released across the world on iTunes, no longer just in the US and Canada...people of the world...go forth and purchase...it is beautiful, you need it and it is a tiny price to pay for music that you will love and enjoy for...well...ever!
I have no more to say at this time, the message is clear enough I think. Well, what the heck are you waiting for?
Be gone from my blog!
No, really, don't waste time now looking here, go away, come back once it's purchased.
I have no more to say at this time, the message is clear enough I think. Well, what the heck are you waiting for?
Be gone from my blog!
No, really, don't waste time now looking here, go away, come back once it's purchased.
Monday 28 September 2009
Time to hit the streets again...
The last month, yes month has been quiet on the gig front. Pretty much all, if not all of my blogs in the past month have been about music I've found, music I own or musical experiences I've been part of...all without leaving the comfort of home. That doesn't sit all that well with me...I love live music but a combination of things has meant that it's been a month without, in fact the last live gig I saw was Summer In The City at the Luminaire.
That however, is about to change. I'll be out in force at some point on Tuesday or Wednesday night with camera in hand, hopefully finding something worth sharing with the world...then next week there's a potential back-to-back gigathon. Yesterday I booked tickets to see Joshua Radin play at Koko in Camden next Monday and then all being well I'll be seeing Thea Ford play at the Road Trip in Shoreditch on the Tuesday night. It'll then take me pretty much the rest of the week to upload videos, blog and tweet by which time I'll be shattered but there WILL be lots of new content and October and November look like they could be very very busy months.
That however, is about to change. I'll be out in force at some point on Tuesday or Wednesday night with camera in hand, hopefully finding something worth sharing with the world...then next week there's a potential back-to-back gigathon. Yesterday I booked tickets to see Joshua Radin play at Koko in Camden next Monday and then all being well I'll be seeing Thea Ford play at the Road Trip in Shoreditch on the Tuesday night. It'll then take me pretty much the rest of the week to upload videos, blog and tweet by which time I'll be shattered but there WILL be lots of new content and October and November look like they could be very very busy months.
Friday 25 September 2009
The Faces re-unite...for one night only...Ooh La La!!!
I woke up this morning and on the news there was a short story about 70's rock band The Faces getting back together for a one-off gig later next month in London.
For those of you who don't know the band. it featured the following (and these names you'll recognise)...
Rod Stewart, Ronnie Wood, Ronnie Lane, Kenney Jones and Ian McLagan.
Next month the band will be without Ronnie Lane who died some time ago and Rod Stewart...although there's no reason who he won't be playing.
Now I'll confess, I can't comment on much of their music as I've never had the chance to really sit down and listen to it, and one day I will, but to mark the occasion of their reformation...if for only one night, I wanted to share with you a cover of one of their songs, in fact their last ever studio track, a song called Ooh La La.
The song was written by Ronnie Lane and Ronnie Wood on the same titled album and lead vocals were sung by Ronnie Wood as story has it that Rod Stewart didn't think the song was up to much...despite then re-recording it years later on one of his solo albums. Now I really like the song, I've heard quite a few people cover it, it's appeared in movies, TV ads, but this version of it is my favourite...not just because it's by Counting Crows but because it's mindblowingly good and you can tell that much fun was had recording it.
So it's there in the sidebar for you to listen to and enjoy...I'll leave it up there for a while and you know, I've even been good enough to upload it so you can download it because i just know when you hear it if you haven't before, you'll absolutely love it.
Counting Crows - Ooh La La
Now I promise you it's a legitimate link and if you hit the download link underneath the music player on the page, it'll let you download the track for you to keep. Is it copyright infringement...truth is, I don't know...I think not as it's never been released on an album and it's readily available for free on many bootleg discs...so I guess not. Anyway, if someone objects or I'm asked to take it down then I will, but I don't think there's any issue to worry about.
Enjoy it!
For those of you who don't know the band. it featured the following (and these names you'll recognise)...
Rod Stewart, Ronnie Wood, Ronnie Lane, Kenney Jones and Ian McLagan.
Next month the band will be without Ronnie Lane who died some time ago and Rod Stewart...although there's no reason who he won't be playing.
Now I'll confess, I can't comment on much of their music as I've never had the chance to really sit down and listen to it, and one day I will, but to mark the occasion of their reformation...if for only one night, I wanted to share with you a cover of one of their songs, in fact their last ever studio track, a song called Ooh La La.
The song was written by Ronnie Lane and Ronnie Wood on the same titled album and lead vocals were sung by Ronnie Wood as story has it that Rod Stewart didn't think the song was up to much...despite then re-recording it years later on one of his solo albums. Now I really like the song, I've heard quite a few people cover it, it's appeared in movies, TV ads, but this version of it is my favourite...not just because it's by Counting Crows but because it's mindblowingly good and you can tell that much fun was had recording it.
So it's there in the sidebar for you to listen to and enjoy...I'll leave it up there for a while and you know, I've even been good enough to upload it so you can download it because i just know when you hear it if you haven't before, you'll absolutely love it.
Counting Crows - Ooh La La
Now I promise you it's a legitimate link and if you hit the download link underneath the music player on the page, it'll let you download the track for you to keep. Is it copyright infringement...truth is, I don't know...I think not as it's never been released on an album and it's readily available for free on many bootleg discs...so I guess not. Anyway, if someone objects or I'm asked to take it down then I will, but I don't think there's any issue to worry about.
Enjoy it!
Thursday 24 September 2009
I just changed my layout...
What a second post of the night? Just a real quick one. I kind of realised looking down my blog that the minimalist white approach was becoming quite hard to read so having now done this for a while I did a bit of exploring and I've added a new template which makes it a lot easier to read...least I think so....let me know what you think? I'll be happy to put it back the way it was if you prefer.
Oh and I've also expanded out the "some of my favourite musicians" section to 20 names (well it's 19 plus my youtube channel), so go check out who's been added, there's some real gems in there.
Nite all xx
Oh and I've also expanded out the "some of my favourite musicians" section to 20 names (well it's 19 plus my youtube channel), so go check out who's been added, there's some real gems in there.
Nite all xx
Wednesday 23 September 2009
A totally new and amazing recommendation and an incredible story...
I hadn't expected to blog tonight, I fancied a night off and then I decided to go hunting for new music again and so like always I find someone else, another incredible singer songwriter in William Fitzsimmons capable of blowing my mind...
I actually can't add anything of my own on top of the incredible and insightful bio I've just grabbed from his website:-
He'll be over in Europe in November on tour and I will definitely be heading out with the camera...the guy is immense in so many ways, what a talent. Go check him out, his outlook on life, his music, his story, it will all wow you beyond your wildest imagination. I'm almost speechless...almost!
I actually can't add anything of my own on top of the incredible and insightful bio I've just grabbed from his website:-
"William Fitzsimmons is one of the oddest people you will ever meet. Born the youngest child of two blind parents, William was raised in the outskirts of the steel city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Due to the family's inability to communicate through normal visual means, William's childhood home was filled with a myriad of sounds to replace what eyes could not see. The house was suffused with pianos, guitars, trombones, talking birds, classical records, family sing-a-longs, bedtime stories, and the bellowing of a pipe organ, which his father built into the house with his own hands. When his father's orchestral records were not resonating through the walls, his mother would educate him on the folk stylings of James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, and Simon & Garfunkel. By the completion of his youth and schooling, Fitzsimmons had become well-versed at a variety of instruments, at the minor expense of social standing, interactional skills, and a knowledge of proper shaving technique.
Fitzsimmons' path into music was likewise unusual, forsaking the hobby for many years to work with the mentally ill and pursue an education in the field of mental health. It was during his last semester of graduate school that William pooled monies from past birthday's, holidays, and snow shoveling outings, and bought cheap home recording equipment to begin creating songs again (the first collection of which eventually became his debut album). After finally achieving his goal of becoming a practicing therapist, William left, and returned again to his love of crafting and playing songs. He felt that is where he most belonged. Somewhere between a singing therapist, and a counselor who writes songs, is where Fitzsimmons endeavors to be. Using songs to address matters that he believes need to be addressed. "
He'll be over in Europe in November on tour and I will definitely be heading out with the camera...the guy is immense in so many ways, what a talent. Go check him out, his outlook on life, his music, his story, it will all wow you beyond your wildest imagination. I'm almost speechless...almost!
Tuesday 22 September 2009
A new and impressive experience...internet radio...
Another day, another set of thoughts for you, this time about a new experience I had last night which was surprisingly awesome and really enjoyable.
So I was sitting at home last night and checked out Twitter and saw that the amazing Jay Nash was appearing on a radio show on NEWMUSICINFERNO, courtesy of a link. I wasn't sure what it was but it turns out it was an internet based radio channel at blogtalkradio.com.
I was curious as to what it was and how it worked so I signed up, promptly forgot my username and password within seconds and when I finally got in, was still none the wiser as to what I needed to do. So I sat and waited and then on the stroke of midnight (UK time), the browser refreshed and the show started, a chatroom loaded and in my ears was the voice of John Rankin, I guess you'd describe him as an amateur radio host (meant in the nicest sense) hailing out of the USA. After a few technical issues he was under way and the two hours flew by, it was quite surreal. Within 10 minutes I found myself emailing John a couple of Jay Nash tracks as he'd had problems getting hold of the ones he'd been sent previously and putting out a recommendation for the listeners to check out Greg Holden just because I'm cheeky like that and like sharing the love of good music.
Halfway through the show, Jay, Tony Lucca, Matt Duke and Roy Jay appeared and chatted for an hour or so. It was very light hearted and extremely funny and the guys seemed to be very at ease just chatting away and having fun and well, you can hear the whole show and decide for yourself by clicking here.
Afterwards I chatted briefly to John before I crashed (it was 2am) and he confirmed he had over 27,000 listeners tuning in regularly. I was absolutely stunned, I genuinely had no idea how popular something like this could be it was quite mindblowing really. John appears to have a love of music and is I guess evangelising about music in the same way as I hopefully am...only in a very different media.
It got me thinking about expanding my means of talking about music...then I had a reality check and thought...."hmmm not sure I could do that regularly for 2 hours, nor have I necessarily got a voice for radio"...so I'll opt to blogging, twittering and youtubing for the time being. I'll also be checking in again to listen to John's show despite the early morning finishes in the hope and expectation of finding some more music I can enjoy.
By the way, the above was not planned for tonight's blog, I had something else in mind but this took priority just because I was that impressed last night with the whole thing.
Bye for now xx
So I was sitting at home last night and checked out Twitter and saw that the amazing Jay Nash was appearing on a radio show on NEWMUSICINFERNO, courtesy of a link. I wasn't sure what it was but it turns out it was an internet based radio channel at blogtalkradio.com.
I was curious as to what it was and how it worked so I signed up, promptly forgot my username and password within seconds and when I finally got in, was still none the wiser as to what I needed to do. So I sat and waited and then on the stroke of midnight (UK time), the browser refreshed and the show started, a chatroom loaded and in my ears was the voice of John Rankin, I guess you'd describe him as an amateur radio host (meant in the nicest sense) hailing out of the USA. After a few technical issues he was under way and the two hours flew by, it was quite surreal. Within 10 minutes I found myself emailing John a couple of Jay Nash tracks as he'd had problems getting hold of the ones he'd been sent previously and putting out a recommendation for the listeners to check out Greg Holden just because I'm cheeky like that and like sharing the love of good music.
Halfway through the show, Jay, Tony Lucca, Matt Duke and Roy Jay appeared and chatted for an hour or so. It was very light hearted and extremely funny and the guys seemed to be very at ease just chatting away and having fun and well, you can hear the whole show and decide for yourself by clicking here.
Afterwards I chatted briefly to John before I crashed (it was 2am) and he confirmed he had over 27,000 listeners tuning in regularly. I was absolutely stunned, I genuinely had no idea how popular something like this could be it was quite mindblowing really. John appears to have a love of music and is I guess evangelising about music in the same way as I hopefully am...only in a very different media.
It got me thinking about expanding my means of talking about music...then I had a reality check and thought...."hmmm not sure I could do that regularly for 2 hours, nor have I necessarily got a voice for radio"...so I'll opt to blogging, twittering and youtubing for the time being. I'll also be checking in again to listen to John's show despite the early morning finishes in the hope and expectation of finding some more music I can enjoy.
By the way, the above was not planned for tonight's blog, I had something else in mind but this took priority just because I was that impressed last night with the whole thing.
Bye for now xx
Monday 21 September 2009
A note to music fans in the US...
Yes, that means you! Tomorrow is a landmark day and well, I want you all, regardless of how tough times are, to try and find enough money to hit the iTunes store and go and buy my friend Greg Holden's new EP Sing For The City. There's no excuse actually, so if you've seen him touring recently with Ingrid Michaelson or you're a fan or you don't know who he is but you're just a music fan, go do it.
Not only will you have more enjoyment than I can possibly explain but you'll help a brilliantly talented artist continue to live his dreams and show him how loved he and his music are.
Due to some oddness again from the iTunes store (that's twice now - 1 more time and I will have words), those of you (like me) in Europe will have to wait just that bit longer for it to hit our shores and stores but Greg's on the case and he'll sort it as soon as he can...
That's it USA, make sure you put it in your diaries, September 22nd....ie tomorrow...if you do one thing, make that purchase on the iTunes store.
Not only will you have more enjoyment than I can possibly explain but you'll help a brilliantly talented artist continue to live his dreams and show him how loved he and his music are.
Due to some oddness again from the iTunes store (that's twice now - 1 more time and I will have words), those of you (like me) in Europe will have to wait just that bit longer for it to hit our shores and stores but Greg's on the case and he'll sort it as soon as he can...
That's it USA, make sure you put it in your diaries, September 22nd....ie tomorrow...if you do one thing, make that purchase on the iTunes store.
Friday 18 September 2009
Action Stations...a new recommendation!!!!
Blog readers, friends, people....WHAT.....IS.....UP?!?!?
It seems like an eternity ago I sat down and wrote something so let me say sorry and explain that it's been a mixture of feeling a bit unwell and very tired and run down that's prevented me sitting down and putting something together. In fact last night was the first proper night's sleep in ages, I slept like a baby for the first time in so long, well...I woke up at 12, 3 and 5 and wet the bed... :-)
Ok so that's the excuses out the way and there will be much blogging over the next week, more potentially than at any time so far so keep up to date!
So let's start off tonight with a recommendation shall we? This is not a new one to me but it is an artist I've never mentioned before so unless you've been thieving my iPod or reading my mind, there's a fair old chance you won't know who Sean N Smith is!
As with all my recommendations, I'll give you a low down on how I found him. His recent EP Action City (released under the name of Sean Smith and the Setting Suns) was produced by the breathtakingly talented David Immergluck (Counting Crows) and features backing vocals and guitars by awesome Low Stars front man Chris Seefried. I was checking out Immy's website and that's how I found Sean as he's listed as an album produced by Immy. I did my usual iTunes, MySpace scan and the rest is history.
I have both of his musical offerings and they're a bit different. "Underachiever" (which was released under the name of Sean Smith) features 5 tracks which are a blend of acoustic and bigger band chilled out rock maybe even Americana songs. It's actually one of those rare gems that you can listen to at any time even late at night. I'm quite fond of it and it has some great musical touches which you can see Immergluck has put his brilliant hands over.
Here's a video of his song Satellite, it's worth a watch...click here.
Action City is another little gem. It has a different sound, a much bigger band sound and reminds me a touch of some of Elvis Costello's music. The underlying good visual song writing remains throughout and again there's smatterings of Immergluck right the way through it which actually cements the belief I had from listening to Underachiever that two brilliant artists in Smith and Immergluck produce awesome music in tandem.
Now Sean is a rarity and when I give you the next bit of direction, be nice and don't do the unfair and unjust thing. On his personal website, he has a player and in there are all the songs on both his EPs in full and in great quality. So you can listen and judge both for youself but don't rip them, go and buy them if you like them, they're both on iTunes.
There we go, so I'm back with hopefully a bang tonight...you've got a full frontal recommendation.
And there'll be some more to come over the coming days...
Stay tuned...oh and it's nice to be back xx
It seems like an eternity ago I sat down and wrote something so let me say sorry and explain that it's been a mixture of feeling a bit unwell and very tired and run down that's prevented me sitting down and putting something together. In fact last night was the first proper night's sleep in ages, I slept like a baby for the first time in so long, well...I woke up at 12, 3 and 5 and wet the bed... :-)
Ok so that's the excuses out the way and there will be much blogging over the next week, more potentially than at any time so far so keep up to date!
So let's start off tonight with a recommendation shall we? This is not a new one to me but it is an artist I've never mentioned before so unless you've been thieving my iPod or reading my mind, there's a fair old chance you won't know who Sean N Smith is!
As with all my recommendations, I'll give you a low down on how I found him. His recent EP Action City (released under the name of Sean Smith and the Setting Suns) was produced by the breathtakingly talented David Immergluck (Counting Crows) and features backing vocals and guitars by awesome Low Stars front man Chris Seefried. I was checking out Immy's website and that's how I found Sean as he's listed as an album produced by Immy. I did my usual iTunes, MySpace scan and the rest is history.
I have both of his musical offerings and they're a bit different. "Underachiever" (which was released under the name of Sean Smith) features 5 tracks which are a blend of acoustic and bigger band chilled out rock maybe even Americana songs. It's actually one of those rare gems that you can listen to at any time even late at night. I'm quite fond of it and it has some great musical touches which you can see Immergluck has put his brilliant hands over.
Here's a video of his song Satellite, it's worth a watch...click here.
Action City is another little gem. It has a different sound, a much bigger band sound and reminds me a touch of some of Elvis Costello's music. The underlying good visual song writing remains throughout and again there's smatterings of Immergluck right the way through it which actually cements the belief I had from listening to Underachiever that two brilliant artists in Smith and Immergluck produce awesome music in tandem.
Now Sean is a rarity and when I give you the next bit of direction, be nice and don't do the unfair and unjust thing. On his personal website, he has a player and in there are all the songs on both his EPs in full and in great quality. So you can listen and judge both for youself but don't rip them, go and buy them if you like them, they're both on iTunes.
There we go, so I'm back with hopefully a bang tonight...you've got a full frontal recommendation.
And there'll be some more to come over the coming days...
Stay tuned...oh and it's nice to be back xx
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