Daily Grind » music

The Leisure Society

simon — Sun, 16 May 2010 09:33:22 +0000

Saw The Leisure Society play at a charity event yesterday in London. They were absolutely fantastic. Rich and clear vocals and instruments, great lyrics, fun and really nice people. Go buy their album, Sleeper, and go to see them play live.

How Not to Run a Website

simon — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 10:25:47 +0000

One of, what used to be, my favourite websites – thesixtyone .com (can’t be bothered to turn it into a URL – they don’t deserve any more search-ranking) recently completely changed not only the design, but the fundamental operation of their site.

- They didn’t beta test with all the users
- They turned the beta test into a live site, without telling the users or the artists
- They don’t reply to any feedback, or e-mails
- They’ve destroyed a thriving community of artists and listeners
- They are an ignorant collection of money-grabbers.

I’ve moved to Uvumi, which has a promising community and developers who actively communicate with the community.

Mabon

simon — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 11:37:07 +0000

Went to Theatre Mwldan last night, in Cardigan, to watch Mabon play. They’re a Celtic band – five Welsh plus one Scot. Think Riverdance – and you’ll be close to the kind of music they play.

One of their pieces was called Nicolai the Dancing Bear, it was stunning and very moving. The Scot (Calum Stewart) did a flute solo that was also amazing.

One of their albums, OK Pewter, is on iTunes.

Make an Album Cover

simon — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:22:27 +0000

Create your own album cover

1 – Go to “wikipedia.” Hit “random”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 – Go to “Random quotations”
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 – Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 – Use photoshop or similar to put it all together.

Mine: “Hirsutella – you do after you arrive.”

Album Cover

Feel free to post your own, or e-mail me your masterpiece and I’ll post it here. My address shouldn’t be too hard to work out from the URL of this site.

Seeing Rod Thomas

simon — Wed, 06 May 2009 12:05:46 +0000

Going to see Rod Thomas, playing in Cardigan (notice the capital letter) tonight. He’ll be there with a singer called Devon Sproule.

Some Bands

simon — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 11:43:27 +0000

Some, mostly Indie, bands that I’ve been listening to lately:

The Raconteurs
Metric
The Veils
Animal Collective
Papercuts
The Grand Opening
The Thermals
Fruit Bats
The Dodos
Ane Brun
Secret Machines
Squid
Felt Tips
Gravenhurst
Bubblegum Lemonade
The Field Mice
The Dears
Teitur
Harper Lee
Feist
Grizzly Bear
The National
The Hush Now
The Damnwells
Interpol
Modest Mouse
Math and Physics Club
Bishop Allen
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone

New Music

simon — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 07:52:57 +0000

Just got new albums, released today:

Snow Patrol – A Hundred Million Suns
Bloc Party – Intimacy.

Snow Patrol sounding quite similar to previous album, which isn’t a bad thing. Will see how that develops.

Insignificant

simon — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 16:04:10 +0000

Currently reading – Tricks of the Mind, by Derren Brown (check out some of his caricatures on his website). An excellent read! Magic tricks, memory techniques, NLP (neuro linguistic programming), self-confidence tricks (reason I bought the book), how to spot lies…. haven’t quite finished yet. I would recommend this book wholeheartedly.

Currenly listening to – Billy Joel Greatest Hits Volumes 1 and 2. Classics!

New Belleruche Album

simon — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:27:37 +0000

Somehow sneaked below my radar, but Belleruche have released their new album – The Express.

I’ve been following them, since they did a great set in Oxford a few years back. I also went to their first album launch party in London.

iTunes Genius

simon — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 09:07:18 +0000

The new version of iTunes (8) is pretty good. I had some doubts about what Apple are going to be doing with all of my music library.

One feature is pretty cool – Genius. It’s a bit like Pandora (before they only allowed USA listeners) – it recommends tracks and makes new playlists. Here’s an example playlist (based on the contents of my music library) for John Lennon’s Imagine:

Not too bad matching up some tracks. Sadly I’ve had to remove the iLike plugin.