Life, Music, Geek
Thursday, 14. August 2008, 09:36:19
Encyclopedia have some new demos up on their MySpace. They are worth blogging about. I've had a sneak peak of a few additional demos that you won't find online, and they are utterly brilliant. I can't remember being so excited about any other songs before, ever.
Tuesday, 5. August 2008, 15:00:55
This weekend, Vikki and I went into Piccadilly Records where to have a browse through the musical treasures the store holds, and there was a sale section with many records for 2 GBP. Vikki decided it would be a good idea for us to each buy a CD by an artist that we've never heard of before - so we did.
Admittedly, I thought that 2 GBP was a steal for a CD, so I ended up buying a few different ones, each with interesting covers, but my favourite by far has to be S - Puking and Crying.
After doing a little research, I found that the artist is Jenn Ghetto, who goes under the monkier 'S' with 'Puking and Crying' as her second full-length record. Interestingly, Jenn Ghetto was the co-leader of the band Carissa’s Wierd, who split up in 2003, with members Mat Brooke and Ben Bridwell going on to form Band of Horses.
The tracks on 'Puking and Crying' are quite dark and intimate and I really like the whole record - my two favourite tracks being '5 Dollers' and '100x' - both of which I've uploaded to this post.
This has an up-close feel to it, a direct look into the songwriter and quite possibly could have been made distinctly for fans of Björk who need fewer theatrics, lovers of Belle and Sebastian longing for less posturing, and admirers of The Postal Service who aren’t afraid to get a little dirty.
http://www.last.fm/music/S/Puking+and+Crying
http://www.myspace.com/sghetto
http://files.myopera.com/coxy/blog/01-S-5%20Dollers.mp3
Sunday, 3. August 2008, 22:06:03
Tellison are, without doubt, one of the best live bands around - I've just returned home from seeing them play Manchester's Roadhouse. Support was from Tubelord, The Maple State - who are each excellent - and Scholars, who I missed play.
It's the last tour for Ben, who plays in Tellison as part of the live line-up - but this just means that there's some exciting new stuff in the pipeline from Encyclopedia, which can only be a good thing!
I shot a whole roll of film and have no idea what I was doing with the flash / retro 60s manual camera combination. Hopefully I'll be able to post some pics next weekend.
Thursday, 31. July 2008, 20:47:26
I have to admit to not being familiar with Deerhoof, but I commend them for what they're doing with their latest single - their website says it better than I could.
“Fresh Born” is the first single from Deerhoof’s upcoming record, Offend Maggie. Download the sheet music, make your own version, upload it to your webpage or blog, then post the link here. Deerhoof’s version of “Fresh Born” will be shared soon too.
I haven't listened to all the covers, but Matthew Walker's cover gives me an excellent excuse to embed the Easylistener MP3 Player on my blog and makes the 'Fresh Born' sheet music project worthwhile.
Wednesday, 30. July 2008, 09:50:18
The BBC have launched the beta of their new BBC Music (beta) website that drags in data from a combination of different services - primarily MusicBrainz, Wikipedia, and their own music database - displaying it all in a nice, presentable format, which will undoubtedly become a great resource for both listeners and artists.
For those that want to dive straight in and explore the site, visiting BBC Music (beta) will just return a splash page that clicks through to a charts of 'Top artists played across BBC Radio' (ew, Coldplay), but there's actually a page for every artist in the MusicBrainz database. You can find your favourite artists by searching MusicBrainz and grabbing the MBID from the url...
musicbrainz.org/artist/83e72d2b-501e-4715-9bdf-8e6ffca42881.html
...then paste this into the BBC url below:
bbc.co.uk/music/artists/83e72d2b-501e-4715-9bdf-8e6ffca42881
Each page contains artist information; a biography and imagery from Wikipedia, a list of Album and Single releases, colaborations, weblinks and related artists from MusicBrainz, and radio play data from the BBC database; showing play counts for each BBC radio station and play counts for each DJ on said radio stations.
Matthew Shorter of the BBC offers a little more insight:
Currently our offerings around individual artists tend to be dispersed and hard to find. This leads to poor search performance for BBC music content, which means that users will typically only find content if directed by broadcast, or serendipitously by browsing brand sites.
Persistent unique URLs for artist pages which automatically aggregate what the BBC has to offer around individual artists will lead over time to much improved search performance and facilitate wider syndication of our content, building reach to brands. Automation and dynamic publishing means the pages can be created and maintained with a fraction of the manpower and server load of the current generation.
Building good interrelated metadata for artists and programmes will also help greatly to enrich the music offering of radio & TV sites, offering such things as a chart of artists most played by a network, further information behind tracklists, rich now-playing information and so on.
All the information that's currently displayed on the site is great to geek out on, however I can't help but one thing is missing; I would love to see social music revolution Last.fm incorporated.
Immediately I noticed that a few of my favourite artists were lacking a artist description or photography because they haven't got a Wikipedia page yet - or have had it deleted by moderators as the bands haven't yet made 'a significant contribution to music' yet (don't get me started on Wikipedia's moderation) - where Last.fm has a wealth of biography information and photography due to the nature of the site.
What's more, further incorporation with Last.fm would allow BBC Music visitors to find events in their area for each artist, watch music videos, view more accurate data for the 'related artists' feature and listen, using the most obvious feature, a music player. Though, I guess incorporating a music player deters from getting people to listen to BBC Radio.
The site is still in beta and is only semi-public, and so it would be nice to see Last.fm incorporated in future - and obviously a method of searching artists wouldn't go amiss (also, would a BBC radio data open API be viable?) - but as it stands, it's nice to see the BBC using a valuable, underrated service such as MusicBrainz and making it's own radio data open to the public.
Sunday, 27. July 2008, 14:44:22
I just read that folk / electronic / pop band Down the Tiny Steps have had airplay on BBC 6 Music thanks to my request(s). Ace!
Tuesday, 13. May 2008, 20:22:37
I'm pretty sure I've posted a bunch of stuff about pop-princess Luke Leighfield before, but what better reason to post again than to promote the release of his new single, a music video tie-in, his upcoming tour of Europe, some spiffing t-shirts that he's selling (though not as good as the limited run of Prince Charles ones I have) and an opportunity for me to give you track of his to download for free.
As you can see, Luke Leighfield is keeping himself busy on his path to potential future pop-stardom - it won't be long before you see him on Top of the Pops. But, before that can happen, you'll need to purchase his single as either a digital download, or a limited edition 7" vinyl disc - preferably both.
The single 'If You Haven't Got Anything To Say' is set to be released on 16th June 2008 via Banquet Records and Luke's own label Got Got Need Records. The 7" comes with an exclusive new demo which hasn't and won't be on any future releases, online or off, and can be pre-ordered / purchased at Banquet Records for just £1.99. Did I happen to mention that the limited pressing is only 500 copies? BUY IT!
For those that want to try before they buy, you can check out the music video for the single at Luke Leighfield's YouTube Channel. It sounds the same as the single, but has motion pictures for you to marvel at. It's in colour and has stereo sound. WATCH IT!
If you're not one for buying singles or haven't got a record player, you can support Luke Leighfield by going to see him play live in person at a venue near you. He's playing all around the UK and Europe at normal gig venues, festivals and people's living rooms - he may even play at your house if you send him a nice message on MySpace - which is also where you can find a comprehensive list of tour dates. LIVE IT!
Where it's not often you'll find me posting about a band's collection of t-shirts (except for maybe Encyclopedia - kings of merchandise), but there are some spiffing tees available with a Luke Leighfield logo on the front. What's more, they verify Luke as being 'pop music' and have a 'Got Got Need Records' logo on the back - there is truely no better way you can look good this summer. WEAR IT!
If you're still reading this shameless act of promotional guff, I thank you and present you with your reward; an MP3 of 'If I Try' - the second track taken from Luke's latest album - which you can buy together with his debut album for just ten of your Great British Pounds. DOWNLOAD IT!
Related Links:
Luke Leighfield on MySpace
Luke Leighfield on Facebook
Luke Leighfield on Virb
Luke Leighfield on Last.fm
Luke Leighfield Official Store
Got Got Need Records Official Store
Thursday, 8. May 2008, 19:03:22
So, I'm going to start posting here again. The blog on my own domain (coxy.me.uk) will serve for more personal affairs, where this blog, the one that you're reading right now, will serve for music matters.
I've quickly styled the blog up to look like my personal one - but in blue. The CSS is really poorly done. I'll tidy it up soon.
Thursday, 3. April 2008, 22:26:08
to check the New & Upcoming Releases and then headed over to my good old friend The Pirate Bay for some downloading action.
[yarr!] by Does It Offend You, Yeah? caught my eye the other day whilst wondering around Zavvi. It's a band that I've not particularly taken much notice of (in terms of checking out their material), but have seen them 'doing the rounds' over the past year or so.Tags: electronic, dance-punk, indie, music, doesit offend you, yeah, does it offend you yeah?, download, free, the pirate bay, bittorrent, torrents, zavvi, album, you have no idea what youre getting yourself into,
Friday, 21. March 2008, 11:59:40
Harry from The Old Romantic Killer Band takes a knife to his guitar.
Last night I went to Bring on the Dancing Horses (event listing: upcoming | last.fm | facebook) at The Retro Bar, Manchester. The Old Romantic Killer Band were headlining that night, with support from Arms at Last. I took my camera along and snapped some photos. My Arms at Last photos came out really crap, but I have a few good shots of TORKB.
There wasn't much of a turnout when Arms at Last were on-stage - not that it had anything to do with them, more the bad weather. Unfortunately, that just means they performed to a small crowd. I can't say I was particularly impressed with Arms at Last. What they did, they did reasonably well, but they just sound like a mix of everything else that's emerged from Liverpool over the past year or two - they don't carry anything special enough for them to stand out amongst the others.
By the time The Old Romantic Killer Band came to play, there was more of an audience and they seemed to get a better reaction. I was really looking forward to seeing TORKB play, especially since they had a new drummer in the line-up. I'd hate to think my blog is just turning into a fan-site for these guys, but I am truly impressed by the band - they're nice friendly people and play some really cool music. I hope they do well.
You can get a free TORKB track and four other free music downloads from Bad Sneakers Records by pointing your browser in the direction of badsneakers.co.uk/download and entering the password 'badsneaks'. You can also purchase their debut single 'You Don't Know How to Love' from Amazon from £1.99.
On a side note, I want to mention that faces in the crowd last night included music blogger Jamila of Fucking Dance and Matt of Hot Club de Paris - who was undoubtedly there to see Arms at Last, but it would be interesting to hear what he made of TORKB.
Tags: manchester, bring on the dancing horses, music, the old romantic killer band, hot club de paris, arms at last, liverpool, photos, flickr, bad sneakers records, you don't know how to love, download, free
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