april jazz challenge

As a general rule i am not a fan of radio; the ratio of 57 minutes of rubbish to maybe 3 minutes of good does nothing to entice me and i'm quite content to let my friends sift through the chaff and bring me the tasty wheat. Even though i don't deserve it. However, since choosing a "going to sleep" album became such a chore, i now opt for either complete silence or 30 minutes of radio 2 (usually accompanied with a quick prayer that Janice Long will stay off the air) to help me off to sleep.

Anyway, last night i was treated to a jazz documentary. Usually, when jazz comes on i think "that's nice, i really should listen to some jazz sometime" and then something catches my attention (a spot of light, etc) and i forget. My problem with jazz is that i know nothing about it, obviously it's a wide area and i don't just want to stroll into Fopp and scoop up a load of CDs that i'll hate.

So, last night, i heard a piece i liked and made a note of it, at least then i'd have somewhere to start, find an album with the piece on, then find similar stuff. Much like i did with Oasis -> Wonderwall -> What's the Story -> Britpop. Except faster, and with goatees.



Therefore, my challenge for the month is to listen to NO contemporary music, try and identify some jazz albums i will definitely like and buy them, and if there's time try and do the same thing with classical music (of which i am slightly less ignorant). I'm not going to name names, cause right now i only know the most mainstream exponents and that would make me sound like someone who doesn't know much about something.

The trickiest part of this challenge is that i have 2 CDs arriving in the next week - 'Panchpuran' by Bill Jones and 'April' by Sun Kil Moon.

erroneous cd - realtime review

Track 1, Same Old Road begins with some Pink Floyd-esque choir voice keyboards and guitar before careering into a weird country/80's MOR mix. The drums are definitely fake, which doesn't bode well for the rest of the album. The guy doesn't have a very strong voice, it might be endearing in the right context, but not this one. For some reason, the guitar solo just panned right to left. It fades out at a merciful 4 minutes. Unsurprisingly Windows Media Player hasn't picked up on it.
Track 2 continues the onslaught with hammond organ, oh, and wait, the cowbell has just kicked in. The drums are sounding even more fake on this one. He's not going mad with vocal cliches just yet, just had "going for gold" though. The drums are ridiculous. He's rocking a Brian May tone on this one, emphasised by the three-part harmony licks. This guitar solo panning left and right too, more rapidly, but it seems to be a favourite trick of Bill. By the way, it's called "Where is the love?". Searching for it on media player's album search function...
Track 3 is more of a ballad, he's layering sickly piano over keyboard strings - i'm not talking about realistic keyboard strings, i'm talking about the voice setting you had on that keyboard you had when you were 10. The piano is also fake, but not quite as blatant. It seems Adrian Wagner is to blame for the mixing and (possibly) the idea to smother this with every keyboard sound going. Media player has failed to find the cd. This ballad ("Private World of Dreams" btw) has decided to forego the MIDI drums but we are treated to an oboe solo. Not real of course; i'm beginning to wonder if his voice is real. I've got to skip this now before i go insane - onto "Share this Road". Bill seems to have a thing about roads.
This has what i would call 'church piano' at the start - that's slightly chorused and very bright piano. Bill implores us to "spend some time with me" - i will gladly will as long as he doesn't bring any instruments with him.
Oh my word! Track 5 starts with very sexy 80's drums and... SOUNDBITES OF A WOMAN MAKING 'WOMAN NOISES' AND SAYING "MORE!" AND "THAT'S IT!" Oh, okay, it's about a prostitute called Rosie. Still, this is an inexplicable departure from the rest of the album and i'm glad it's over.
This is more like it, track 6, "No Big Deal" goes back to 80's guitars, hammond organs, weird panning and, yes, the cowbell! We're at the mid-pont of the album so i guess i should explain it. A while ago i heard a CD by a female folk singer called Bill Jones, which i liked a lot, occasionally i trawl ebay for the album i heard but after losing out to a sniper i decided to try one of her other albums. At any one time there appear to be 3 or 4 different albums by said folk singer - one was stuck on 50p so i just whacked a bid on it.
Track 7 is the least offensive so far, it's almost Beatles-y, almost. His guitar lines actually work in this one. Anyway, so i won the album "From Life's Diary - Volume 1" by Bill Jones and eagerly awaited its arrival. On opening the envelope i quickly realised something was wrong. Firstly, it had a picture of a 50 year old guy on the front, secondly, it was from 1990, a good 10 years before any albums by the Bill Jones i knew.
Track 8 must be the 'rocky' number. Things are panning round my head like crazy; either that or i'm going mad. This one is called "Angel with Black Wings" and is Bill's bitter break-up song; that's not to say he doesn't attack it with trademark limp-wristedness. The thought of watching him sing this makes me a bit nauseous.
More cowbell and we're into Track 9 - "Sharing your stuff". This is a more laid-back bluesy number. And he's using playing card metaphor; come on Bill, i thought you were better than this. He's also ripped off wholesale the 'Money for Nothing' riff, in fact, i'd go as far as to say he loves Dire Straits. This is another of Bill's breakup songs; it's beginning to sound like this album was a direct result of a messy divorce, and was probably heard by a total of 10 people. Another wildly-panning guitar solo.
Track 10 is 7 minutes long :( I'm wondering how exactly Bill is going to fill this time - so far it's more fake piano and synth swells. Oh, and a keyboard flute solo; he's really working the woodwind section. 2 minutes in and nothing much has happened. Okay, he's rocking the jazz chords now - i can dig that - oh wait, we're back into Pink Floyd-ian whimsy. No drums thus far. I doubt anything in the next 3 minutes will be much of a revelation. Just noticed the last song is over 6 minutes as well! Anyway yes, it didn't take me long after opening this to discover i had made a grave error; this was not my obscure female folk singer, it was in fact an aging rocker. What are the chances? Track 10 is taking far too long to fade out.
Right, 11. Another bluesy number and he's cracked out the harmonica. Actually he has mad skills on the old blues harp. Again, this song might be okay if he actually had any balls - he should be singing introspective emo-folk really.
Okay, last song, bear with me, you're doing really well. This one's called "After the Storm" and starts, rather predictably, with more brooding, but not really brooding, synth noises. If i'd been producing this, it would've been way more stripped down and organic; it would've made a semi-decent country album, instead of the soft-rock/MOR/prog disaster it actually is. The fake drums are back, as long as they remain understated Bill might just get away with it. So yeah, i reckoned i would make the most of a bad situation and review this album in real-time. After this, i will decide the best course of action for it - i've got to say, so far the bin looks like the ONLY option. Another Dave Gilmour solo, just waiting for it to start moving around between my headphones... okay, so it's staying dead centre for the time being, but he's fluffing notes all over the shop. Not that i care about that, but i think with something this sterile sounding, a little ducking of fluffed notes wouldn't go amiss. A bit of vocal gymnastics from Bill, something approaching character! He really has saved the best till last. And we're done.
Well, i don't know about you, but i really feel like Bill has taken me on a journey, through the valleys of heartache and despair, over dewy hills, up and down seedy midnight streets and out the other side - a new morning and a triumphant future.

10/10

POTBOSH #1

Ten years on from 'You get what you give' and the royalty cheques have long since dried up for Gregg Alexander, who finds himself back in Spondon.



Gregg on the Rainbow 4, heading home after a day's work

I asked if he still has something against Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson, to which he replied, "who?"



Gregg in his heyday, A.K.A 1999

LOLworth cove

I was going to wait until i had something exciting to write, but frankly if i worked on that principle you might never get an update again.

Firstly, i'm feeling the strain at work. This is largely due to the End of the Financial Year™ - which is like an office-based version of Brewster's Millions. Also, i have a nemesis over in finance - to put it in context, he's Gordon Ramsay and i'm one of his chefs and i keep trying to make some ravioli but Gordon keeps sending me back to do it again and again and again and he's swearing and i'm red-faced and teary. Now replace Gordon Ramsay with this guy



and replace ravioli with invoices and you get the idea.

Which reminds me, I might just have been half-asleep, but i'm sure i heard a collabaration between Kanye West, Pharrel Williams and Lupe Fiasco on some "street" radio show last night, rapping over Thom Yorke's 'Eraser'. Of course, i could answer this in about 3 seconds but then the 'half-asleep' sentence would be redundant and i'd just be telling you about a song. Or not...? Oooooh.

I cut my gum last thursday cleaning my teeth, i've no idea how, i mean, if i was in the bathroom and someone attacked me, i wouldn't immediately reach for the toothbrush to defend myself. I'd probably grab a razor... and give them a comfortable shave, without irritation. Or some nail clippers, and hope they stood still long enough for me to cover them in tiny, slightly curved little cuts. In short, i hope i never get attacked in the bathroom.

Anyway, my cut turned into an ulcer. I didn't even know that could happen! In my experience, mouth ulcers are caused by sweets until you're 14, and stress thereafter. And i do love the taste of Bonjella but i could just as easily get that from aniseed balls and i wouldn't have to walk around in a foul mood all day.

Finally, do you ever get the feeling that every idea you have is already done, photographed, and online?



Dammit.

any fuel...?

Remember a few weeks back i said this:

"Don't be surprised if the next post is me moaning about how EVERYTHING fell through and muttering something about home recording and exotic tunings (again)."

Well, a little later than predicted, but things are kindof collapsing.

Barring a big change of heart(s) Band 1 is finished. Band 0 will not extend past the one-off gig. Band 4 was never looking likely, mainly for financial reasons. Band 3 is looking strong, but doesn't involve yours truly. All my musical hopes rest on Band 2. And riding the coat-tails of Band 3.

There, a whole paragraph that essentially says nothing about anything but leaves you feeling vaguely disappointed. Man, enough about bands for the time being; unless anything progresses to a gig, or even just a myspace, i'll spare you.

In fact, improvements i intend to make to this blog in coming weeks -

1. More photos
2. More excel spreadsheets
3. Retrospectively going back and changing all the uppercase 'I's to lowercase
4. More rubbish blog ideas
5. More links? i dunno though, i don't want to be a link-whore, or offend anyone
6. A proper domain name - imagine it... "bollr.org" "bollr.cz" "bollr.sch.uk"
7. I might reverse the colours to make it white writing on black; just so if you've been reading it for a while, then suddenly look at a white wall, you'll see the face of Christ
8. "what i trod in today" - a new daily feature

I dunno, essentially i'm just putting off cleaning the bathroom

x x

precocious metals

or 'How i relearned to love my CD collection'.

A long time ago i made an excel spreadsheet of all my albums; featuring heavyweights such as Be Here Now by Oasis, and having separate columns for album length and 'place of purchase', it was quite a sight to behold.

Anyway, my music taste may have moved forward (slightly) but my obsession with excel spreadsheets remains as unnerving as ever, so i had another go. By now, there is no chance of me remembering where I got most of my cds, and seeing as I am simply baffled by the fact i even had an album length column, both of these could go.

They were replaced with the more useful 'album release date' and 'album year' columns. I haven't really found a use for release dates yet, beyond finding the "average date of release" - 30 July 1999.

According to wikipedia, absolutely NOTHING happened on 30 July 1999.

Album year is much more useful as it eventually led to this beautiful graph



There is a bigger version here.

No... here.

The 80's is represented by the Smiths and REM. Late 90's indie is well-stocked before the early 00's surge and the inexplicable drought of 2004. The simultaneous events of my ensuing poverty and music becoming RUBBISH lead to a drop off after 2005.

The exercise gave me a renewed appreciation for my modest collection and the rediscovery of one or two gems. It also made me realise once and for all that Deserter's Songs by Mercury Rev is hella crap, and Mono's remix album is meandering, unlistenable pointlessness which doesn't even show up on Last Fm!

It also prompted me to try and replace my lost Ben Folds Five debut album; found one on ebay with this very informative description:

"fantastic sound/ bargained c.d/ 2nd clas"

...on this occasion, i think i'll pass.

indie 4 life!

Okay, this is the first piece of nonsense plucked from the REAMS of nonsense contained in bedroom A.

A list of potential replacement band names for my 6th form band, Camp David. It needs to be seen to be believed.

Although I'm not completely sure who the culprit is, I have a very strong hunch.

x x

budgie monitoring

1. Bands

a) News

i) 2 finished songs and ideas are coming thick and fast
ii) 1 upcoming gig, and lots of good intentions, but no songs as yet
iii) might be jeapordised by lack of a practice space
iv) have a video up on youtube
v) have a one-off gig and a slew of preporatory practices

These numerals may or may not correspond to the numbered bands from previous posts.

2. Weekend Activities

a) Friday

i) Chavved it up big style with Mrs Tom; that is to say we went to 'TK Maxx' to buy running shoes.
ii) Donned our jeans and new trainers and went to Wetherspoon's for 300 pints
iii) Not really
iv) Went to a swanky restaurant run by a MANIAC; they promised so so much but in the end only delivered chicken

b) Lincoln

i) Saturday
ii) That's wrong isn't it?
iii) Has a castle
iv) ...and a cathedral
v) ...and a steep hill called Steep Hill
vi) Had my second ever Ostrichburger; it was tastier than my first

c) Saturday eve

i) We tried unsuccessfully to get my housemate to come and see Juno with us
ii) Simon agreed to come and see Juno with us
iii) The three of us saw Juno

d) I recommend it if you liked Napolean Dynamite, Garden State, or any other film with an indie or antifolk soundtrack

4. I'm going to stop now

z) before this gets any more

mcmlxxxiii) out of hand

3. xx

you're both Ivan?

To my right, my housemate is taking his nightly shower; to my left, Vin Diesel is saving the world; directly in front of me is a growing number of really boring words.

I spent the weekend going through the bedroom in my parent's house - I'll post the funniest things here when they're scanned in.

I then came back to find the Breslau EP had arrived:



This is the work of no-fi nomad Heartbeeps and is a heartfelt ode to provinces, gulags, post-Communist Europe and the uncertainty of mid-20's life.

THEN, i discovered, quite by accident, that Foxface have released an album. Foxface is the current project of Michael and John from Peeps into Fairyland and if you enjoy(ed) Idlewild then you should definitely check out both bands.

Just to finish off, this (xXx) is one of the worst films I've ever seen; I think they'd have been better off going the whole hog and just making a real-life McBain movie.

nadge biscuits

Okay, so since the last post I've gone through numerous ideas for this blog. I had ideas for one where I write about ideas for blogs, then one where I write mainly about failure - then I considered how hilarious it would be to do NEITHER and got stuck in an infinite loop of smug post-modernism.

I then thought of one where i take this warning:



and apply it, out-of-context to other pictures. My test was the famous Eric Cantona kung-fu photo, but then once i'd done it i realised it's exactly the kind of thing i HATE. You know you should steer clear of an idea when you can picture it on a t-shirt being worn by a student with a mullet.

Anyway, this post is just to say "hang in there" while i think of a great idea; in a way this post doesn't really exist. But, in another way, it does, so let's press on...

Bands. I currently have two bands, neither of them have names so let's call them band 1 and band 2. Band 1 has practised a few times and is stretching me on all musical fronts, which is definitely good. Band 2 is an unashamed attempt to be liked by as many people as possible, whilst pretending we don't care. Simon is in both these bands, and also band 3. Band 3 have a name but i'm not into AdSense. Oh man, and then there's band 4 - which is just so crazy it just might work - and band 0 - who may reform for a one-off gig.

Don't be surprised if the next post is me moaning about how EVERYTHING fell through and muttering something about home recording and exotic tunings (again).

Right, that'll do for now. By the way, the reason I'm doing this post is because i gritted my teeth and gave the blog its first link; now i'm worried that there will be an influx of people (1 or 2) and nothing interesting to read. But then, i haven't really addressed that problem.

Also, I'm ditching the song lyrics for titles idea, but here is what i used up to this point:

Morris Chapman - Be Bold! Be Strong!
Bjork - Sonnets/Unrealities XI
Tears for Fears - Everybody wants to rule the World
Peeps into Fairyland - Suilven from Elphin
Kate Rusby - Who Will Sing Me Lullabies?
Smashing Pumpkins - Zero
Deftones - Korea
Bardo Pond - Walking Clouds
Laura Veirs - The Cloud Room
Manic Street Preachers - Revol
Lisa Loeb - Listen, Lisa
Logh - The Passage
Sufjan Stevens - John Wayne Gacy, Jr.
Teenage Fanclub - Take the long way round
Sonic Youth - Wish Fulfilment
Kate Bush - Dream of Sheep
Joanna Newsom - Sadie

x x

your life and my life they don't touch at all

Tenacious bugger that he is, Simon has persevered with the plethora of plug-ins bestowed upon his unwitting PC and apparently concocted some tasty beats. The electronic element is back on! x-kettlecore-x I'll report back after I've heard them.

As for me, I'm trying a new tuning, missing my amp, and using Liebezeit for chord sequences rather than clickyness. Also, getting a bit disheartened by the lack of paths away from obvious chord sequences.

Went to see a Senegalese band at the weekend; i'm usually pretty unreceptive to "World Music" but for one thing the main guy was captivating, and secondly he was packing one of these:



A Senegalese lute/harp called a Kora. The strings are stupidly close together and you play with your thumbs and forefingers - it winds up sounding a little like a Sitar but without the overtones and less cliched.

But back to the band though - it was refreshing to see a band like that just doing a proper gig, where people were really into it, rather than as a distant spectacle or something to fill a gap on Jools Holland. It was earthy and loud and rhythmic and carried the kind of charisma that the generic dreary indie dad-pleasers can only dream of.

Heaven knows where this leaves me.

quiet hands, quiet kiss on the mouth

Wowser, I still don't know if electronica is a wise route to take, musically or financially, but my eyes are certainly opening up to what's out there. In my ignorance I always figured there was a "right" way to go about making glitchy music - as a big fan of going about things the "wrong" way i was quite relieved to find that everyone has a different approach.

Found another useful device:



(i implore you to click and gaze upon its colourful apparel)

Won't go too deep into what it does except to say it's every quirky noise you've ever heard on a glitchy record, neatly packaged so that even a Kooks-loving monkey could pass themselves off as the new Squarepusher, simply by hitting the 'Random' buttons.

I very quickly got the result i was after but therein lies my conflict - it was all too easy. What next? A modelling amp? Autotune?

So, making things hard on myself - I think I need to investigate circuit bending. I'm pretty inspired by this crazy mutha - 6955 - a Tokyo-based Canadian with a penchant for modding audio equipment and vintage computer consoles (go to the site and check out the Famicon/Nintendo control pad pedalboard!!).

However, I don't want to make 8-bit soundscapes - it's just nice to think outside of 2 guitars, 1 bass and some drums for a change. And it's good to suddenly have avenues outside of "embellishing everything with chiming guitars".

In a neat, internet coincidence-a-thon, I ended up on the 'i am robot and proud' last.fm page through one of my online neighbours, he is a Toronto-based indie-electronic artist, and hosts the 6955 site on his website - they probably msn each other about schematics.

Could just be yet another case of perceptual set for me though.

can't come with you when you go south

So, this is my new toy:



(click to engorge and add vibrancy)

Apparently, it's designed for applications "sadly lacking in granular facilities" and it has the power to "turn skip textures into smooth things; rearrange rhythms; turn sustained textures into stuttering snippets..."

Really? Really? Cause when I use it I only hear this bit of the blurb: "to render your original audio quite unrecognisable". Ah, now that's more like it. Even the default "everything on zero" patch turns everything into a buzzing, static-y mess - not that that's a bad thing, but whether this device has a place outside of "hey guys, come and listen to THIS!" remains to be seen.

Been flitting back and forth between Liebezeit and guitar during the last week, stuck in an infinite loop of 'what comes first, the beats or the song?'. And do i even need beats? Or guitar? Anyway, net result is another Logh-esque guitar part and a petulant loop made of sampled guitar chords from an ancient home recording, impossible to sing over or develop further!

Simon, meanwhile has been quietly perfecting his 40-strong choir of Simons. I pray that things are going to snap together soon - it's all a far cry from the indie days, writing acoustic ditties, where our only concern was whether the guitars were sufficiently in tune.

a dear, strong woman coos gently along

As if i wasn't already doubting the direction i should go in, i realised that Efterklang are already doing everything i wanted to do, and better :D

Here is them in action anyway...



It's a glockenspiel darling ;)

i am an architect

Spent some time Sunday afternoon trying to improve my writing of drum parts in Cubase; it actually requires intense concentration otherwise you get lost in a sea of little red diamonds. Above the drum score just reads 4/4 6/4 4/4 6/4 ad infinitum and is no help whatsoever.

On top of that I found an infuriating little device called The Dr Liebezeit drum machine and through trial and error i managed to integrate it into Cubase with relatively few problems. It can only run two sounds at a time (i left it on the default of two clicking sounds) and you program a sequence of up to 32 beats by simply turning each beat on or off.



(click to enlarge and add colour)

This, however, is where the sanity ends. First i noticed that there is no way of setting a tempo on the drum machine, instead, it takes its cue from the tempo of the cubase click track. This is not such a big deal but there seems to be no way of lining it up with the cubase beat. In short, it plays at the correct speed, but starts at random and 9 out of 10 times is out of sync.

So, you have two choices; either keep restarting it until it lines up by chance, or make a lengthy recording of the Dr Liebezeit sound, which can then be inserted as audio and lined up relatively easily. Despite the romance of the former, I settled on the latter.

Then I listened to Efterklang and realised it was all futile.

walking clouds in the land

So there i am, waiting for my cake to cool, when my buzzer goes... it was Simon, open mic was cancelled and he'd come round to show me some new songs and share some posh coffee.

Having misplaced my capo, i quickly decided that trying to play guitar would be utterly futile and turned to the often-misused Casio MT-65 keyboard.



(a free-range MT-65)

In the past this piece of synth history has served two purposes; demo-ing unrealistic-sounding cello and trumpet parts, and producing "hilarious" chintzy covers of my own songs. Now that we're going all moody, Casiotone certainly has a place and the combination of fingerpicked acoustic guitar and 'Electric Piano' was certainly a winner.

After Simon left i iced my cake and converted my upbeat, guitar-led pop song into a slow, atmospheric dirge. Bardo Pond would be so proud of me.

so save your prayers

Almost forgot, an integral part of the recording process will be bottle after bottle of chilled ginger beer.

In other news, Simon got a lush new acoustic guitar this week and I am having trouble translating the Adore sound I have in my head into actual songs.

Still flushing the spazzy-ness out of my system.

every hill looks the same

Spent a very enjoyable evening going through a printed copy of the html code for this page, with a biro, in order to better understand it and to try and look impressive in front of my housemate. I then battled against our increasingly ropey internet connection to tidy up a few things.

Itching to get recording underway; i think we'll be able to tell quite quickly whether it's working or not. I've always been in love with bands who capture a feeling, Peeps into Fairyland for example - their second album would probably attract scorn from most producers but you can really hear that it was inspired by highland walks and mountains and cottages.

It's as if the surroundings and even the recording environment seep into the music; I want to record in as many different places as possible and hopefully capture something.

welcome to your life

A bloody frustrating night by all accounts. First off the broadband in my flat is reminiscent of 56k dial-up, both in terms of speed and reliability, and it was off for most of the night - subsequently I'm still yet to integrate Simon into the blogging process, although he is enthusiastic.

My housemate was out so I took full advantage of the noise-making potential; I'm about a hair's breadth from finishing my first song in months but the bridge is bamboozling me. What normally happens in the "process" is I'll toy with a difficult section for a week or two before dropping it altogether, which explains the haphazard structures of my songs.

Putting that to one side I set about consoling myself by layering kooky harmonies over the top - any kind of layering at this stage is largely futile but it's good practice nonetheless. I was hoping to put some mandolin over it but attempting to tune the E string to an F put a swift end to that.

This whole song started from an 80's-sounding riff and, as is often the case, this has now been removed - a little like stone soup - but I'm determined to use it. The riff itself was a result of repeated listenings of Tears for Fears' 'Everybody wants to Rule the World' - proof that inspiration can come from ANYWHERE.