I lost something....and gained some monitors

Today I lost 2 and a hlaf hours of my life to visual and aural torture.

I could have spent this time watching paint dry, staring at the wall or hammering rusty nails into my penis; all of witch are favourable to watching the film "Southland Tales". I don't care if you like it, as I will never be swayed. It's dire.

However, in order to salvage some enjoyment in my remaining free time, I decided to try out my new studio monitors. I have always known that you simply can't record your own music usng conventional loudspeakers. Subsiquently, I have used some very cheap "Mini Monitors" for many years. But recently I noticed that the tweater cones had been punched in (probably during a traumatic house move), thus I plumped for some new Tannoy Reveal 6 monitors.

Having purchased 'budget', but never the less, 'proper' studio monitors I thought I had better put them through their paces. Obviously I bought these monitors because they look very cool but how do they sound?

The first thing I notice about these cabinets is that they produce a lot of bass. Yet it is not the bass a conventional Hi-Fi speaker might generate. These monitors seem to emit a heart thumping and clear bass tone that might be too much for some. With these monitors also being so much larger than my old Gale Mini Monitors they also provide better stereo definition and slightly higher volumes. There is definitely more punch from these new monitors. All in all I'm very pleased with them.

The only draw back is their size. These new monitors make me realise just how powerful the Gale monitors are when you consider their size. Still I had a good time listening to some of my favourite tracks and managed to forget about "Southland Tales".

Beat Dis - RX-7

As part of my near constant eighties nostalgia trip, I developed GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome for
those of you non-synth geeks out there) for a Yamaha RX-7 drum machine. 

My first encounter of this machine was through my first keyboard a Yamaha PSS-680. The PSS-680 featured some low quality PCM samples taken from the RX-7. Listen to the album “Below the Waste” by The Art of Noise and you’ll hear these nasty sounds popping up all over the place. The real RX7 and its distinctive snare featured most prominently on the Bomb the Bass’s hit “Beat Dis” from 1988.  

I spent many months chasing these things on eBay only to baulk at high prices or dodgy sellers. I eventually acquired an RX-11 for £5: good, but not what I was after. Having given up on the real thing, I decided to perform one last search for samples on the internet. Wouldn’t you know it I found the full set of RX-7 samples available for free download. Having loaded them into my Fantom X8, I now have a virtual RX-7 and RX-11 at my finder tips. The internet really is great you know. Does anyone want to buy a RX-11 drum machine?

Writers block and the bass drum boom

Whilst trying to write some new tracks today I hit a brick wall. Complete block. Nothing was working, every four or eight bar loop I created sounded terrible. In the face of this difficulty, I decided to revert to methods used many years ago with my former band mate: steal something from The KLF. I plumped to start my chord pilfering from “The White Room” album. Listening to the track “Last Train to Transcentral” brought memories flooding back: sweaty nightclubs, day-glow t-shirts and whistles abound. Those were the days.

 Then THAT bass drum sounded. 

Possibly the greatest bass drum ever committed to tape blew the cones on my monitors inside out and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.  “The White Room” came out when I was about 17 and still at school. One of our favourite hobbies at the time was trying to destroy the schools stereo and recording system with THAT bass drum. I still have not worked out quite how they recorded this kick. Listen to the track from about 3min 30sec during the drop out with the string riff, then 10 seconds later it comes. Whilst it distorts slightly on any sound system its power is truly immense. One kick drum makes this CD a worthy purchase.  Thus, my attempts to overcome writers block descended into adding as much reverb to 909 kick drums coupled with explosion noises as my monitors would take. I spend ages trying to recreate THAT kick. I still have no idea how they did it. It’s a truly amazing album and a truly astounding kick drum. I haven’t created a new track yet but I do have about 20 reverb drenched kick drum samples. Hey ho.

Soulwax: "Nite Versions" - A Classic

Whilst compiling my list of favourite albums for my last.FM page I wrote a paragraph about the album “Nite Versions” by Soulwax. In this text, I muse that there are not too many remix albums that have a film or documentary made about them. When you also consider that this album spawned a 120-date tour that visited Europe, South America, Japan, Australia and the USA, you have to wonder what is going on. 

The phenomenon of the ‘remix album’ was born in 1979 with Sly and the Family Stone’s album “10 Years Too Soon”. This album took many of Sly Stone’s hits from the 1960’s and presented them in a contemporary disco style. Next came electronic music pioneers such as Soft Cell who released remixed versions of tracks from their 1982 album “Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret” as “Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing”. Hot on their heels were The Human League with “Love and Dancing”, a remix album of their hit record “Dare”. The concept of a remix album was firmly established by the success of “Disco” by Pet Shop Boys in 1986. 

Since the 1980’s, remix albums have flourished with many artists and continue to sell steadily. Groups such as Nine Inch Nails have released a subsequent remix disc with all but a few of their studio albums. Soulwax are clearly paying homage to the format’s eighties history with the title of their album as Duran Duran often used the title “Nite Version” for their dance remixes. The parent album from which the tracks for “Nite Verions” are taken is 2004’s “Any Minute Now”. 

On paper, the album looks great. Soulwax members include brothers David and Stephen Dewaele of “Too Many DJ’s” fame along with drummer Steve Slingeneyer and bassist Stefaan Van Leuven. With production maestro Mark “Flood” Ellis and mixing genius Alan Moulder at the controls what could go wrong? Well quite a lot actually. 

The album sounds messy and disjointed and to a lover of electronic music, its sound veers too close to a type of ‘indie grunge’ for my taste. However, the failings of the original album serve to amplify the glory of its remixed counterpart. I initially discovered “Nite Version” as I heard the tracks “Another Excuse” and “Compute” on the Xbox 360 game “Test Drive Unlimited”. When I eventually acquired the CD I thought it was pretty good. The original “Any Minute Now” album, which I bought simultaneously, soon began collecting dust, but I was drawn back to “Nite Version” again and again. Initially, I loved three or four of the tracks, but I soon stopped skipping “E Talking” and “Slowdance” et al and began to appreciate the album in its entirety. Within time, this appreciating became love and then the love became obsession. There was only one CD in my car last summer.

Level 42 live. Never to be missed.

The last time I saw the Level 42 perform was during their ‘Greatest Hits’ tour of 2002. The only disappointment of this tour was that founding member and keyboard virtuoso Mike Lindup was absent. His return in 2006 meant that I simply had to see them during their 2008 UK tour.

On the 15th of October the band were playing the newly refurbished Sheffield City Hall. My only visit to this venue had been in 2000 and it was a distinctly underwhelming experience. However, the new oval hall is much improved. It was a pity that the stewards would not allow either dancing or photographs. Luckily, the majority of the audience broke with these conventions with encouragement from the band.

The concert itself was brilliant. Seeing Level 42 perform live is an essential part of following the band, as their musicianship is simply stunning. I will never tire of seeing Mark King’s inimitable bass playing. You watch his right thumb for an hour and a half solid. Seriously.

However this would be something of a waste as the energetic Gary Husband (drums) and genius of Mike Lindup (keyboards) are equally mesmerising. Rather than rattle through their ‘Greatest Hits’ the band chose to acknowledge that they represent more than their 80’s chart success and presented some of their best album tracks, extended instrumentals and tracks chosen by fans via their website. Some of those less familiar with these ‘obscure’ selections could be seen sitting down and ruminating over the extended instrumentals ‘Man’ and ‘The Pursuit of Accidents’ only to be brought to their feet to sing ‘Running In The Family’. Yet everyone seemed to enjoy and appreciate what they heard whether it be chart hit or not. When experts like Level 42 perform music, an audience will respond to the pure skill and dedication on show regardless of their familiarity with the material.

At the end of the show the band did not simply walk off but spent some time at the front of the stage shaking hands and chatting with their dedicated fans. A nice touch sincerely meant. I know it was sincere because I was lucky enough to meet Mark King and his brother Nathan (guitars) outside the venue afterwards.

One of the greatest live bands in the world. Even if you are not overly familiar with their work you should never pass up the opportunity of seeing them in the flesh. It’s a wonderful, life affirming experience.

LsstFM listening map

As an avid user of LastFM and its 'scrobbling' software I am always interested in statistics related to my listening habits. Recently I have been investigating various scripts and BBCode utilities that can be used to display a range of statistics in your LastFM profile.

Of all the utilities to be found on the web, I was drawn most strongly to the work of Anthony Liekens. Anthony’s website offers the opportunity to create an interactive map showing links between the artists and genre’s you listen to. Once you enter your username the website retrieves your information and begins to create a map on screen. The map shifts in response to the data by moving unrelated tags apart and creating a cluster of related genre’s and artists.

I have to say that the majority of the items on my personal map were not a great surprise: 80’s, electronic, and synth-pop are very prominent tags which link strongly to the majority of the music I listen to. The map also shows a large number of artists in the EMB/Industrial/Future Pop genre with a scattering of ‘new wave’ artists thrown in for good measure. I was pleased to note the eclectic nature of my musical taste was represented with the ‘classical’ tag in evidence. This isolated cluster linked to music by Beethoven, Wendy Carlos and Philip Glass et al.

However, what did catch my eye was the revolting tag of ‘indie’. You see ‘indie’ music is something of an anathema to me. I hate both he tag and the music. Just mention the word ‘indie’ and it brings me out in a cold sweat. Note that the rock area of my map is fairly isolated and being shoved off to the corner by the sheer volume of ‘synth-pop’ and ‘emb’ bands.

It seems I am not as prejudiced as I think. Both Coldplay and the Longpigs were represented along with artists tagged with ‘prog-rock’ and ‘brit pop’. For a dedicated enthusiast of electronic music I felt as if I had let myself down slightly.

Yet on closer examination, the majority of the bands included are in my library because they use synthesizers as part of their sound. Yes is one example of a group I began to listen to as the minimoog performances of Mr Rick Wakeman are something wonderful to behold. Coldplay used tunes written by Kraftwerk and utilise many electronic instruments. In his solo work Ian Brown has created some fantastic music utilising a mixture of synthesizers and conventional rock instruments.

I have no excuse for the Rolling Stones. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.

Happy Birthday Chris

On Saturday I took a few moment to wish Chirs Lowe a happy birthday via the Pet Shop Boys website using my 'pethead' username 'Alter ego'.

Imagine my suprise when I received a personal message in reply.

I don't know if I'm more amazed that Chris read them or that he replied to me.

A Pet Shop Boys forum aser said: "I saw that message from Alter Ego. Wondered if it was actually Neil, or at least someone close to Chris." Afraid not. I'm just another nobody!

Someone else said: "bettin alter ego feels like a pillock!". no not really!