technotik

Tag: music

  • Pandora, Last.fm, Spotify, Grooveshark the list goes on…

    I was really pleased to hear that one of the many new partners with Facebook Open Graph was Pandora so I went back to take a look for the first time in ages.  And got this apology from Pandora.  The service wasn’t originally available in the UK, then it was for a time and now it isn’t available again.  Licensing issues again, which become complicated because of the difference in licensing laws from one country to another.  It’s easy enough to circumvent if you’re that bothered using a US proxy service or VPN.

    Personally I much prefer Last.fm for radio style listening and have been an enthusiastic scrobbler for a few years now too.  Which means that Last.fm have introduced me to some amazing new bands and artists that I may not have come across any other way.

    For on demand listening Spotify has a nice slick interface that also allows users to scrobble to Last.fm.  We7 is a very similar service but from a web browser.  It doesn’t need any downloads or even a sign up (unless you want to remember what you were listening to or create playlists) and allows users to scrobble to Last.fm now too.  Both of those play ad’s occasionally between tracks for their free service and offer a paid service without ad’s.  I’m sticking with the ad’s for now.  At least until one of them can offer a more varied & comprehensive catalogue.

    The service which provides by far the best catalogue, has to be Grooveshark.  I’ve seen it’s legality questioned in the past but Grooveshark seem pretty certain that it’s all above board http://help.grooveshark.com/is-grooveshark-legal/.  The free service is pretty comprehensive as mentioned but there’s a “VIP” paid service for 3$ per month or 30$ per year which also offers scrobbling to Last.fm, Grooveshark mobile (to some phones) and no ad’s.  I use the noscript extension with firefox so I don’t even see the ad’s.

    It’s a great time to be a music fan despite all of the licensing issues.  Competition between music streaming and on demand services has to be good, despite the dreaded and draconian UK digital economy bill.

    I think I can live without Pandora in the meantime too.

    Let’s hope that the music industry support online music services though.  Then in the long term listeners as well as artists will ultimately benefit.

  • My hearing is rubbish

    That’s not a technical term used by audiologists funnily enough but it’s a fact. Added to which it’s quite frustrating to realise that it’s largely self inflicted.

    Like most young kids I didn’t give my hearing a great deal of thought as I was growing up. I loved music, particularly LOUD music and when I played my guitar I sat right in front of the amplifier (about a foot away) and turned it up full. Riding motorcycles there was no advice around to wear ear plugs although fortunately these days the volume inside a helmet on a motorcycle is recognised as very dangerous to hearing. I doubt I would have heeded the advice if it had been available anyway.

    Similarly wearing headphones I wasn’t careful about volume and loved my music loud.  On stage as a guitarist through the 80’s I couldn’t get the monitors loud enough. Competing with a drum kit on a live stage the volume can get to unbelievable levels.

    One morning after years of aural abuse I woke up to hear a street cleaning truck outside my window. It was there for what seemed like ages so I went to the window and couldn’t see a thing. I looked all around the house before I realised the noise was in my head. It’s still there most days and although I would really like it to go away I’m lucky that I cope pretty well. It rarely stops me from sleeping and I only really begrudge the fact that it makes my hearing even worse.

    I also have quite severe high frequency hearing loss. I’m not deaf but quite hard of hearing and need hearing aids to hear the average conversation or to cope with listening in noisy environments. The technology is amazing but nowhere near as effective as a decent healthy pair of ears!

  • Bridgnorth Music & Arts Festival

    I’ve been involved with the Bridgnorth Music and Arts Festival for the past four years now and for 2010, with the festival in it’s fifth year I’m more involved than ever.

    We have a brilliant team together and this year we’ve also formally changed our name and become an Arts festival, including Literary events and more Arts events than ever.  My involvement started out with running an acoustic/unplugged event down on the Quayside next to the River Severn.  Superb backdrop to what’s been a great afternoon of music for the last four years.

    Now I’m also running the festival website http://bridgnorthmusicfest.com/, twitter account http://twitter.com/bnorthfestival, Facebook pages http://www.facebook.com/bridgnorthfestival plus a fair bit more.  I’m dragging everyone kicking and screaming into the 2010’s despite struggling to get some even using email not so long ago.  It’s really paying dividends now though, we’ve made some brilliant contacts via social media and our reach is spreading all the time.

    We’re open, inclusive and more diverse than ever.  If you’re interested get in touch and get involved.

  • Taking the Myth out of Dexys Midnight Runners (part one) – Jockie Wilson

    Taking the Myth out of Dexys Midnight Runners (part one) – Jockie Wilson

    This was a brilliant part of my early twenties so I’m not writing this with any malice.  It makes me smile now to realise that we were taken so seriously back then, not to mention how serious and intense we were about most things that we did.

    In fact we were perceived as such a serious band few people expected us to have a sense of humour.  So when a huge picture of Jocky Wilson was shown on Top of the Pops in 1982  during our song Jackie Wilson (says I’m in heaven when you smile) – a Van Morrison cover – people would rather believe it was a mistake than think we might be having a laugh.  Here’s a youtube clip from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ao9p3ou7-U

    If you look to the left of the clip shortly after the beginning you’ll see a huge blown up photo of Jocky Wilson smiling his trademark toothless smile.  Brilliant photo!  The band in joke was to call the song “Jocky Wilson says I’m in heaven when you smile, so Kevin asked if they could find a photo of Jocky.

    It was in the press the following week as some kind of screw up on the part of the Top of the Pops production team.  And what with them having such a wonderful sense of humour we were told that they might not allow us on the programme again for making them look stupid!  As if they needed any help.

    It was an uncharacteristically smiley performance all round from us.  I dropped my guitar during the intro & couldn’t look at Steve or Helen for laughing throughout the whole song.  The following week it jumped up to Number 5 in the UK singles chart.  The week after it went down again and was the last ever Dexys Midnight Runners top 10 single.