So Steve Jobs has passed away. OK – so I am new to the Apple fan boy party but my respect for Jobs comes primarily with his involvement in the Pixar movie production house – the people that brought you Toy Story, Finding Nemo and my fave, Monsters Inc. He was an ill man who struggled for a long time and proves no matter how powerful, rich and successful you are, death is truly the leveller.
Nice Job, Jobs…
I realised that I’ve got all this artwork at my disposal and it is really easy to put said artwork onto T-shirts that I created my own T-Shirt shop. I’ll probably not sell any but it was a thrill just to see Verity jump up and down with joy when she saw her own picture adorning a T-shirt. But check out the designs, and if you like them buy a shirt and help a poor artist out.
This is the direct link: http://lock.spreadshirt.co.uk
Or give this a go instead:
Our products are produced and dispatched by Spreadshirt, the platform for personalised t-shirt printing.
I just heard that composer David Bedford has passed away. I came to him via his association with Mike Oldfield and remember at the height of my record collecting days (late 80s-early 90s) being completely entranced by his “The Odyssey” album. I was due to see him in November when he was due to appear with Roy Harper, but alas that moment has passed. I was really looking forward to it too.
This is a track that he and Oldfield did in 1977.
And here’s a link to his website.
To mark what would have been Freddie Mercury’s 65th birthday, I have made another “Prog Review” video on YouTube explaining why I think Queen II is in fact a progressive rock album.
This set of recordings were committed to hard drive between April and September 1999. At that moment in time, I’d only dipped my toe in the water of “ambient” music and was taking my cue from Robert Fripp, Brian Eno and Terry Riley. I remember that these recordings were put down quickly and it being quite a fraught, yet exhilerating process as it was really seat-of-the-pants stuff. One mistake or duff note and the take would be ruined, so you had to keep focus and really concentrate on the process. However, that rush of adrenalin was the key, I believe, to these recordings.
In terms of equipment, I was only using my Fender Fat Strat guitar and my Roland GR-1 guitar synth – there were no delay pedals in my collection at that time. The really good thing about the GR-1 was that you could modify the sounds so that had a slow decay, so you could trigger a note and it would resonate for a long while, allowing you to move your fingers to another note or chord. So you could create these big smears of sound and create a veritable audio soup without the need for looping or delay pedals. The sound would then decay slowly allowing you to consider your next move…or not.
I don’t know if this is particularly good or not – I have a great fondness for it because I was moving off the map – but here it is cleaned up for the 21st century and available as a free download too.
So this is the album “Blue” and it represents my first steps into ambient music.
Enjoy!
I don’t ever send music off for review or to record companies or to whatever. My music is mine and belongs to me and no-one else. I decided to send a copy of “The Luckiest Man in the World” to Sound on Sound – a magazine I have read since the early 1990s and is key to my musical education – in order to see if I could get some feedback on the quality of my music production. Unfortunately, the review didn’t really go that way and evolved into a more traditional music review. The criticism is valid, but I was hoping for more on my mixing and overall sound of my album. Oh well, maybe I should make some sweeping soundtracks instead?
Look at my manic, smiling face - hee hee hee...
And to mark this epic review, I might as well point you in the direction of where you can get it:
In order to garner any interest in my music, I have to give it away. If the professionals cannot sell their wares, then how can a lowly amateur such as myself? Am I still an amateur? I don’t know. I just do what I do and hope for the best. That’s all one can do, isn’t it? Just be. Ooooh, getting a bit metaphysical here.
Anyway the following review appeared on Jamendo, a few hours after the album went live on there, and it sums up what I was trying to achieve with this collection perfectly. Hitting the nail on the head is a fine art, but this reviewer got out his invisible reviewing hammer and knocked home that nail with one fluid motion.
Five star review from “Wolfsong.The Poet”
Sweet and relaxed . . .
a laid back style of music . ..
beautiful . . . it reminded me of laying in the grass,
without a worry on my mind . . .
feeling the whole world at my back . .
and watching the clouds drift away . . .
leaving blue skies . .. and forever,
an eternity of summer days
and dreams . ..Day dreamy music . . .
And you can download the album for FREE at Jamendo here.
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