If Music Be

Archive for July, 2008

**a little edit to include a picture that no-one and everyone needs to see**

Last night I took a short trip down the M6 and went to my first Earth Calling Alice gig. I almost wish I’d left a bit later because the band that was on before them were absolutely terrible. It was a bloke in a hat and a guy with hair, an accordion, a mouthorgan and 2 guitars…and a xylophone…and a blow into keyboard…and some chimes…and a bongo.

You see what I mean now don’t you?

Anyway, the guy in the hat couldn’t sing, he sounded a bit like Lou Reed but with less tonal ability. The bloke with the hair was ok and actually a reasonably good guitarist but wasn’t given any kid of opportunity to do anything at all. Apparently they are a 5 piece really (says a lot). Neither of them had even shaken hands with a harmony before and quite honestly I lost the will to live about half way through.

What was good (although unnecessary really) is that it made ECA sound even better than they would have done initially.

I can’t set list it because I am rubbish at things like that, suffice to say that there were a sprinkling of songs I knew but a load of stuff I didn’t. The two I liked the best that I didn’t already know were ‘I’ and ‘How We Live’. The encore (which went on for slightly longer than the actual set) also gave me ‘One I Love’ (yes I mean the REM song) which was beautifully done and I think only one of 2 tracks that Jim opened his eyes for all night (the other one was a Neil Finn cover).

So, musically they are very tight. You can easily see that they work hard on making sure that they sound right as a band, with no one instrument outdoing the others. Even with new tracks that were having their first airing, there was no mistakes (apart from starting the wrong song once but that’s not really an issue) that an audience would have noticed. They all have a lot of respect for each other’s skills and it’s refreshing to see a vocalist so into what the other members are playing while he’s not. I’m not a guitarist so it’s more difficult for me to talk about guitar sounds etc (although the 12 string was rather special), but what I can say is that Alex and Andy seemed very attuned with each other, each only glancing at the other to end songs. I can however, wax lyrical (as they say) about the vocals. I have been known to do a bit of singing in my time and I most definitely know what I like and what I think sounds good. For the most part the vocal is very good; it’s definitely got a great tone to it and has a range of power levels that suit the music. I do have an issue with a couple of the top notes being stretched for, but actually that has nothing to do with the vocal and everything to do with the vocalist but because you could see he was thinking about whether he was going to hit it rather than just hitting it. Not an easy thing to overcome, but on a repetition of it later in the same chorus (for example) it was perfect. I think it’s a confidence thing, similar to singing with your eyes shut, especially when it’s the thing you love to do more than anything else (apart from ‘that’ obviously). It’s a minor niggle for me though, which is easily overcome by how good the rest of it was.

It was probably the smallest venue I’ve seen live music in, but lost nothing because of that. In fact, I think that, for acoustic sets at least, it makes for a better atmosphere. The people in the back of the room at the beginning were all at the front by the end and from the comments I heard, enjoyed it immensely. The sound wasn’t terrific, but there wasn’t a lot to work with given the size of the venue and fixed speaker positions. I found it slightly distracting that the SoundEx kept adjusting things periodically but that’s just because I know what I’m doing there and he wasn’t running it to my liking. Fussy, me?

Obviously because I was out I didn’t do anything much else last night. I did have a quick go at changing the link colours on here after some advice yesterday though. Hopefully it’s a bit better but of course, keep letting me know if you find anything you can’t see or think looks odd with it won’t you? Oh and if anyone knows how to change the descriptor of background images so that they appear as image instead of background (and therefore get allowed through antivirus), let me know that as well, pretty please.

But will only be viewable by me.

Please feel free to comment on this blog now, I’m hoping your motivation will help me

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What is it about people and meetings? The right people are never invited and the wrong people seem to be trying to make the decisions. The latest idea is that they won’t even talk to other members of their team to find out if anything else is being done, they will just decide what they want and try and get me to implement it. Well I’m not getting involved until I have sign off from all parties. It always happens when I have to do it on my own as well. Typical I know.

Back in the world of other things, I don’t feel much like I’ve been away for a week really. It’s very quiet sat on this bank of desks on my own, and it doesn’t look like things are going to change there soon. So it’s right back into the work and right back into the diet as well.

It’s gone very quiet in the blogosphere recently, I know its summer and people are going away but posts have been getting shorter as well. So I have nothing fun to tell you about from my other places of relaxation and amusement. Mind you I can’t talk can I, look at how little I’ve been posting recently. It’s strange actually trying not to talk about diet and exercise here and leave that for the other place. I know I will get used to it but I’m sure a few things will creep in from time to time.

I have finally started drinking more water during the day. I’m not counting how much at the moment but it’s going well so far I think. Hopefully it will make me an even healthier bunny.

I think tomorrow I might use one of my random post titles given to me a few weeks ago…that’ll be a challenge!

Oh while I think of it, I’m looking for a new blog design, any ideas please let me know.

Starting weight 11 stone 3 pounds or 158 pounds

Goal weight 9 stone 9 pounds or 135 pounds

Total calories consumed this week about a hundred and eleventy million

Total calories used in exercise 520

Number of pounds lost -1

New starting weight for next week 11 stone 4 pounds

I don’t mind this too much. i had a week off work, did no exercise and ate whatever i wanted a lot. i’ve got straight back into my routine though so that’s pleased me as it shows i don’t lose it totally for having time off.

best quote from someone who i told “Oh well you’ll just lose it again then won’t you”

well yes, but that’s not really the point now is it?

more graph humor and song chart memes

thanks to Sunshine for the linky fun.