Tag: music

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One Night

Over the last week I have “borrowed” the soundtrack to the Megadeth live DVD recorded in Buenos Aires – That One Night. Once the soundtrack was ripped I had to separate out the tracks so I could import the files into iTunes. This was rather fun and I enjoyed using Audacity.

This process is now complete and I have a lovely album on my iPhone of Megadeth live. I have to say that the energy and quality of the music is brilliant. It really makes me want to listen to the original songs again.

There were some issues. The orignal rip was rather quiet and I had to try and increase that within iTunes. Also I cut the tracks without always listening to them and I had two which had some acoustic impovisation in front (which would make sense watching the DVD but not when listening to the soundtrack) so I have gone back to my original recording and re-cut those tracks. Going to import them back into iTunes and onto my phone tonight. Love it all. :-)

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It Took 20 Years

About 20 years ago I borrowed my dad’s car. I got in and turned on the ignition. The car radio was tuned to Essex FM and after a few seconds a dance / drum and bass song came on that stunned me! It started with a woman speaking about various sex acts and I was rather surprised it was broadcast.
I’m used to dodgy lyrics, the song Animal by WASP, Kickstart The Fight by Combichrist, F^^^machine by Combichrist, and quite a few songs by AC/DC all have dodgy or explicit lyrics. I do understand that these will probably never make it to broadcast.
Someone in Essex FM really messed up. This drum and bass song was explicit and obviously so. I guess they don’t always listen to everything before broadcast. I once heard Killing In The Name Of by Rage Against The Machine played in full on the BBC Radio 1 chart show when it was released!
Every now and then over the last 20 years I’ve wondered if the song existed. I’d never heard it again and didn’t really mention it to anyone. Recently, when I’ve thought about it, I’ve tried Googling but not really found anything. It was quite hard to decide what search terms to use.
Today was a breakthrough. One particular key phrase from the song brought up a YouTube link that seemed promising. I have played the link and am fully confident that it is the song I heard 20 years ago.
I feel somewhat relieved! Firstly I didn’t imagine the song. Secondly, it is as rude as I remember. Unfortunately the song is pretty rubbish apart from the “lyrics”.
Should you want to sample some of this disturbing song then try searching for “Andy C” and “Dirty lil slut”. You might be surprised or you might not.
Direct link here.

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Long Time

Continuing the iTunes and iPhone theme I have here a list of songs arranged by time (descending).

iTunes sorted by length of song
Long Songs

I need to listen to most of these to check whether they are proper songs or just tricks that have lots of empty space. Time to melt by Lard definitely seems to be a proper song. Over time I will check these and get back to you. The list stands as follows:

  • Lard, Time To Melt – seems a proper song.
  • Therapy?, Sister – seems some parts of silence, cheats!
  • Combichrist, At The End Of It All
  • Senser, Weatherman
  • Lodestar, Iliac Crest
  • Nirvana, Something In The Way – gaps and silence.
  • Throbbing Gristle, After Cease To Exit
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Current Most Played

Here’s my list of top played songs from my iPhone. Actually the first 5 were all children’s songs so I haven’t kept those in the picture.

20121010-173806.jpg

As you would expect Combichrist are at the top as are some other Aggrotech or hellectro bands. Some might question Boston’s Foreplay/Longtime but I reckon if you listen to it you’ll realise it’s a very good song. Black Betty by Ram Jam is one that gets my children dancing so, although I appreciate it is a good song, without them it probably wouldn’t be in the top.
It’d be very interesting to mine my mind for data about songs I have listened to in my lifetime as this list really only covers the last year since I rebuilt my iTunes library. AC/DC’s If You Want Blood and plenty of Iron Maiden and Megadeth would be in the list. Would there be some shocking surprises? Maybe some Prince!

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Excited

Very excited. I just bought my ticket for Download 2013. It’s a heavy metal festival held at Donington Park somewhere in the midlands. Now, I’m not a great fan of festivals and in all reality this will be my first, but, what a beauty it is going to be. I am going with my mate as it is his 40th birthday near to then and this seems to be the perfect way to celebrate.

First things first. I can’t go on the Friday as I have to work. So that means I am going to miss Slipknot. This is not a bad thing. I really am not bothered about seeing them. I will be travelling on the Saturday morning and then returning at a god-awful hour on the Sunday night / monday morning to head into work.

Headlining on the Saturday are IRON MAIDEN. This is good news as they were the first band I ever saw also the birthday boy was there for that one too. That was in 1988 and they were on the “7th Tour of a 7th Tour” tour. What makes this festival rather special is that they are going to be playing pretty much the same set as on that tour. It originally was filmed and released as the “Maiden England” video and I have a copy of that somewhere. Seeing Iron Maiden pretty much play the same set list as I saw 24/5 years ago is going to be brilliant. None of the new stuff will be played which is good as I’ve never really listened to anything recorded by them past about 1990!

On the Sunday the German industrial metal band RAMMSTEIN are going to be playing. This is also a good thing. I saw them a couple of years ago at Wembley Arena and they were brilliant. I am so looking forward to seeing them play again.

The headliners are making me sweat just thinking about it. I am very much looking forward to seeing the rest of the line up released. With a bit of luck Combichrist will be on there with, let’s say, Wolfsbane or the almighty for some real 80s throwback stuff.

 

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Aggrotech or Hellectro

As I explain on the page called My Music in the About Me section, music is something special. If it moves you then enjoy it. Metal is my preferred form of music. Heavy guitars with bass and drums. Vocals not always necessary as it’s just another instrument to me. I don’t really dissect the lyrics but friends if mine do.
Anyway. Rammstein was my band of choice for quite a few years. I go in phases of trying new bands and then becoming a bit obsessed. When my #1 son was born I explained to WW that there were two bands I still wanted to see:

  • AC/DC
  • Rammstein

If these bands toured I would go and see them. Rammstein sound new and different and so I really liked listening to them and AC/DC are just ace, even if you include the 4 shit albums they made in the 80s and 90s! I guess they are a bit like Iron Maiden. Class bands who keep releasing new material but it’s not as good as the stuff they wrote when they were young and trying to make their place in the world.

I saw AC/DC at Wembley Stadium and also I saw Rammstein at Wembley Arena. AC/DC were, of course, brilliant. Rammstein was just awesome. The support band for the Rammstein gig was called Combichrist. They sounded really good. So, I bought an album, taking a guess at what one might be their best.

Today we are all demons – Combichrist

I loved it. It has no guitars but is very heavy dance music with sick lyrics and metal type vocals. I bought another album and found it was very good to run to.

What the F^^K is wrong with you people – Combichrist

Now it was time to start investigating this rather strange new music style. It turns out it is called Aggrotech which is an off-shoot of EBM. It all came out of the industrial sound and went wild in the Benelux countries. Who’d have thought it eh?

So now I am the proud owner of a number of titles in this genre. It’s good to run to and emotionally a little crazy. Lovely.

  • Aesthetic Perfection
  • Combichrist
  • Icon of Coil
  • Scandy
  • Suicide Commando

Some other bands I have downloaded recently are:

  • Front Line Assembly
  • KMFDM

Although these are a bit industrial they definitely don’t fit into an aggrotech shuffle as they have guitars and, trust me, that’s a shock when you are running to sick clubby music to get loud guitars making a din!

My definition of aggrotech is:

Heavy metal with keyboards instead of guitars

or

Heavy dance music with sick lyrics and poor singing

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Vixen

Just downloaded the eponymously titled Vixen from iTunes. I have four observations:

  • it is actually pretty good
  • for a band with a female singer it actually works, I’m not sure females can sing rock! (sorry, personal preference)
  • they sound more masculine than Vince Neal from Mötley Crüe
  • Poison look more feminine than Vixen, more a criticism of Poison than Vixen
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    Descent into Metal

    Having already covered my descent into skepticism in a previous communication I thought I should cover what I regard as my journey to the correct side of music. I was about 15 when I found my way. It was a gradual dawning, that slow awakening, the discovery of sounds and noises that made me feel. A friend suggests that emotional response to music is a basic measure of personality and psychological construction. I would agree. I don’t think that the shiver down the spine can be manipulated. It is a basic fact of your identity. Anyway, here’s my own story of metal with some embarrassment along the way.

    Before 1982 my main exposure to music was listening to ABBA cassette tapes that my mum owned and Oxygene by Jean Michel Jarre that my dad had. Not a good start it must be said. For some reason the punk explosion of the 70s was completely missed on me, being only six years old at the time. I can remember a couple of Dr Hook songs and that’s about it. Remember that at this time in (un)civilisation there were exactly three tv channels and about four legal radio stations.

    At some point the music in the charts began to make its way into my consciousness. Previously I have indicated my first single and album purchases. I don’t count these as having any particular musical taste because I was buying what was popular. I did listen to those songs a lot though. My first real taste of excitement came with a particular guitar solo in a particular song.

    Together in electric dreams

    This single by Georgio Moroder and Philip Oakley was the main track from a film soundtrack but the guitar solo was something else. It really made me think about guitars and the sounds they make. This was late 1984.

    My next music references occur during 1986. I had joined the Air Cadets (a communication about this will definitely follow) and was now mixing with older teenagers and listening to their music and conversations. The following is a list of music events during 1986 and may not be in correct chronological order but given that it was 26 years ago that’s not a great surprise.

    • Europe released “The Final Countdown” and I really liked it.
    • Bon Jovi released some songs from the “Slippery When Wet” album and I really likes those.
    • Status Quo released “In The Army Now” which I liked.
    • Top Gun came out and the soundtrack was ace, especially the tile track and its gentle  guitar riff.

    In 1987 Def Leppard released “Hysteria” and I think my path was realised. I distinctly remember being at RAF Brize Norton for ATC annual camp and we listened to “Hysteria” and “Slippery When Wet” all the time. I was 15. During the summer Guns ‘n’ Roses released “Appetite for Destruction” and I saved my pennies and bought the album. I managed to get a copy of the record with the dodgy robot-rape cover that got changed (I didn’t think much of it at the time). I can remember being in the car driving home from Bishop’s Stortford and reading the lyrics from the inner sleave and being amazed that they had printed the swear words. Towards the end of the year I had discovered Iron Maiden and their album “The Number of the Beast”. At some point in that year “Animal” by WASP was discovered along with the song “DB Blues” and the bad language and music was really starting to work. Now I’m not quite at heavy-rock-bottom yet but I have pretty much followed my path of destiny.

    1988 was the start of my concert going and the release of “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son” by Iron Maiden. My mum bought the album for me and it made me very happy. I was meant to attend the Def Leppard concert at the Royal Albert Hall over the Easter break but was called upon to attend the ATC Cyprus Camp for about 12 days so elected to head overseas. This meant that my first concert was Iron Maiden on the 10 December 1988.

    At some point over the next year or so I got into Metallica and AC/DC. In the mean time there was a documentary on BBC2 called Heavy Metal. I watched it and there was a clip of a band called Megadeth playing “Peace Sells” at a concert. I didn’t really think much of it but for weeks I had the opening riff bouncing around in my head and I decided to buy the album. Initially I was slightly disappointed but over time the whole album sunk in and stayed. It’s brilliant along with the next one called “So Far, So Good, So What”. It’s all lovely stuff.

    Fast forward to 2012 and I am just about finished buying up CD versions of all my albums and putting them onto my iPhone. There’s a couple of albums I still need to get and I’m always on the search for new stuff that affects me but I’m starting to reach the point where a lot of music is old hat and just a particular fashion coming around again to be unleashed on the next generation.

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    Firsts

    It’s time to open up some of my darkest secrets! Once upon a time I was a young teenager unsure of my musical direction. I was still searching (although unknowingly) for the style of low density fluid compression waves that would emotionally move me. Here’s some interesting trivia:

    The first single I bought on 7″ vinyl was “99 Red Balloons” by the German singer Nena. It was sometime in 1984 so I was 12 years old. I’ve never really been a lyrics man concentrating more on the music but the song fits in quite well with my previous post about nuclear war.

    The second single I bought caused some controversy between me and my best friend of the time, Mark. He thought I ought to buy “The Reflex” by Duran Duran but I chose more wisely and opted for “Two Tribes” by Frankie Goes To Hollywood. This was 1984 still. Once again this is a song about nuclear war.

    The first album I bought came with a warning from my Mum that I was spending a lot of money and I should be sure that I really wanted it. I bought the Ghostbusters film soundtrack on 12″ vinyl. It is still 1984. I still have it in a proper box in the cupboard ready for future play. I still have a record player set up in the dining room just in case. There is a record on the player, it is Dance With The Devil by Cozy Powell.

    I don’t recall what my first CD was but I do know that I didn’t have a CD player on which to listen to it! I think I bought a CD single by W.A.S.P. it might have been “The Real Me”. I’ll have to look in the attic to see if I can find which singles I bought.

    I don’t throw music away. This is a potential fault because as my children grow up they might find some of the awful stuff I bought when I was young. I guess that music reflected my tastes at the time. I don’t think there is a record or piece of music of which I am ashamed as it is a part of me at some level.

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    iTunes Albums

    I spent a few hours at the weekend sorting out my iTunes library and then changing it back. I’ll explain:
    My car stereo lets the iPhone plug into it. I can then browse the library and select songs and playlists etc. from the stereo display. Unfortunately the display doesn’t have many characters and so long album names scroll across which takes some time. If there are two parts to an album and I’ve jogged the select wheel while going over a bump then I have to wait ages and concentrate on the stereo display while the album name scrolls across. This is a touch unsafe and irritating.
    So I decided to rename all multi-part albums with a 1 or 2 prefix so that I could see which part I had selected quickly on the car stereo display. Doing this took a while as I have my music library on my NAS drive and iTunes takes a while to adjust the music tags and then copy the new files to the phone.
    That night I slept rather uneasily. It was distressing me that my albums were not correctly named. It seemed wrong.
    So the next day I set about changing it back. Again it took a while but I feel more relaxed about it now. The albums are all correctly named and I’ll just have to be careful when selecting these songs in the car.
    See my music collection here.
    When I mentioned to WW that I had changed everything back to what it should be she said “I thought you’d do that”. I guess she knows me very well.

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    80s Rock

    I have been buying up CDs of all my records or tapes over the last year or so. Everytime I think I have finished I get a snippet of another song in my head and off I go and search Amazon and EBay. A list of bands that I could consider slightly embarassing to admit liking are below. I haven’t bought Hysteria by Def Leppard yet as I can’t find it cheap enough!

    If it gets you emotionally then that’s what you like! The best piece of music will send a shiver down your spine.

    Here’s the list of bands in my 80s playlist:

    • Adrian Smith And Project
    • Britny Fox
    • Dio
    • Dokken
    • Don Dokken
    • Extreme
    • Great White
    • Lynch Mob
    • Mr. Big
    • Poison
    • Ratt
    • Salty Dog
    • Tesla
    • Whitesnake

    For a complete list of music on my iPhone look at this page.

     

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    Bands

    Bands in which I have played. Date order.

    DBBTPC
    Death By British Telecom Phone Card
    Me – bass, Andy Smith – vocals, Nick Smith – drums, Kevin Horswill – guitar
    Recorded an EP on music cassette. We were rubbish. 1989 or so.

    Snakebite
    Me – bass, Mark Hodges – guitar, Ian Barber – guitar and vocals, James (can’t remember his last name!) – drums
    Recorded an EP on music cassette. We were pretty good. Played the sixth form leavers party, 1990

     Tinymind . . .
    Me – bass and vocals, Russell Denial – guitar, drums and vocals, Mark Dawes – keyboards and vocals
    Recorded an EP on CD. We were pretty good. 1996 ish.

    Cashback
    Me – bass and vocals, Andy Pomery – guitar and vocals, Ian Pickard – guitar and vocals, Phil Horstrup – vocals, Ian Wesson – drums and vocals
    Recorded a live video and some mp3 clips. We were pretty good. A full history of Cashback is here. We played a number of gigs in school. 2003 – 2006

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    A Conversation

    No, this is not my classic 1994 poem “A Conversation with Myself” this is a text conversation I had over a few days with a friend.

    With you on that. Thinking of getting 2 or 3 classical CDs. For when I’m marking books. Any ideas?

    Carmina Burana (omen). Planets suite (am I evil). Ride of the valkerys (apocalypse now). There is cd call heavy classics which is not bad.

    There’s a particularly ominous jingle played on freethought radio that I’m humming to people to work out what it is. Got Planets already, how is it I am evil?

    The opening of am I evil is Mars from the planets done on guitars. Other good ones: night on Bear Mountain and Danse Macabre.

    What! How did I not know that? Over 20 years of listening to it and only now I find out it’s clever!

    Haha! I read it somewhere and then it clicked!

    Fuck me. Just done the same. Utter brilliance. Btw have you heard S&M by Metallica?

    S&M? I’ve heard some: didn’t like it. I can see how the two could complement each other, but not how they had done it  The strings seemed too high pitched and detracted from the deep guitars. Sounded like a gimmick and a throw back to 70s prog rock! Also a lot of was new stuff that is crap!

    Agree. I heard snippets and thought it was shit. Also, not impressed with Metallica as possibly cancelling tour next summer because of currency worries! Wankers.

    How far have they gone from being alternative?  And Megadeth getting all religous? And Slayer apparently. Seems only Anthrax remain unchanged from the big 4.

    You have to change to survive if you don’t have tons of money. We work to survive. It’s politicians who need to act on principles for the better of all. We are shall cogs! They have the chance to change things but won’t because of compromise.

    Capitalism is dying?

    Politicians are only there to look after their own and them selves. Look at them on Question Time! Full of shit and we vote for them. Don’t see a decent one there. Is capitalism dying? No, it’s evolving. I expect companies to take over from countries as the next step.

    Interesting idea about companies. I hope not. Companies responsible to shareholders are essentially immoral. Maybe Jamie not voting is right? Should always be able to vote for “none of the above”. Mind you Belgium has coped without a government. Civil service just keeps grinding on. Perhaps I should invent moral economics. Governments as proper partnerships like John Lewis?

    I agree with companies not being moral, but then through funding they control politics anyway. I think there should be a new politics, less weasel words. Or at least someone with vision. Your idea sounds good though.

    Revolution time then? I’ll get my flag out. Perhaps the next wars will be over economics (or have they all been that recently anyway?). Quite like the aims of UK Uncut. Secrecy is a big factor in wealth. Perhaps we should have politicians who go after that. Going to need a beer in a bit! Blood pressure going up and my rant might last days! Can start influencing the next generation at work.

    This economic crisis will change things. And I think for the worse. Companies and the rich will escape while the rest suffer. If only China really believed in socialism!

    Agree with you there, and on pretty much everything else. Mind you we are establishment so how do we kick start the “evolving” process? Perhaps the youth will kick off as unemployment gets worse.

    On a brighter side: are you going to see Dragon Tattoo?

    Want to see Dragon Tattoo: David Fincher and Trent Reznor?! Of course. But don’t think I’ll get the chance.

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    Bands I have seen

    This is a memory test. Trying to list the bands I have seen live. I guess this page will be edited as I remember the hazy days of long ago before children.

    1st Concert
    Iron Maiden (support: White Dwarf) 10 December 1988, Wembley Arena

    After that:
    AC/DC, Wembley Arena, Donington, Wembley Stadium
    Aesthetic Perfection, The Underworld
    Alice in Chains, Cambridge Corn Exchange twice, Download ’13
    Asking Alexandria, Wembley Arena
    Bon Jovi, Wembley Arena, Wembley Stadium, Twickenham
    Bullet For My Valentine, Wembley Arena
    Combichrist, Wembley Arena
    Dan Reed Network, Wembley Arena
    Diamond Head, Milton Keynes Bowl
    Elvis Presley (kind of), Wembley Arena
    Evile, Brixton Academy
    Faith No More, Wembley Stadium
    Gary Moore, Wembley Arena
    Great White, Wembley Arena
    Guns ‘n’ Roses, Wembley Stadium twice and Milton Keynes Bowl
    Iron Maiden, Cambridge Corn Exchange twice and Earls Court
    Jose Gonzalez, Shepherds Bush Empire
    Killing Joke, O2 Academy Islington
    King’s X, Wembley Arena
    KMFDM, O2 Academy Islington
    Level 42 (the shame), Wembley Arena
    Lostprophets, Brixton Academy
    Madonna, Wembley Stadium
    Megadeth, Wembley Arena, Cambridge Corn Exchange, Milton Keynes Bowl, Brixton Academy
    Metallica, Wembley Arena, Earls Court, Donington, Milton Keynes Bowl
    Ministry, Brixton Academy
    Motley Crüe, Wembley Arena, Donington
    Nine Inch Nails, Wembley Stadium, Brixton Academy
    Prince, Earls Court
    Peter Green – Chatham Theatre
    Queensryche, Donington
    Rammstein, Wembley Arena
    Senser, Portsmouth somewhere, Underworld
    Skid Row, Wembley Arena, Wembley Stadium
    Slayer, Wembley Arena Earls Court
    Suicidal Tendencies, Wembley Area
    Testament, Wembley Arena, KoKo
    The Almighty, Cambridge Corn Exchange, Milton Keynes Bowl
    The Black Crowes, Donington, Brixton Academy
    The Darkness, Wembley Arena
    Treponem Pal, O2 Academy Islington
    Ugly Kid Joe, Wembley Stadium
    UK Subs, The Square
    Van Halen, Wembley Stadium
    Wat Tyler, The Square
    White Lion, Wembley Arena
    Winger, The Astoria
    Wolfsbane, Cambridge Corn Exchange twice, The Marquee
    Yngwie Malmsteen, Shepherds Bush Empire

    For the Download 2013 list click here.

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