fleet foxes

WIth my manic rushing yesterday, I had to jump into the car in the afternoon to dash some work related material somewhere. I hurriedly grabbed the new Fleet Foxes CD to listen to in my travels. From the opening, it broke into my conscious like an early start to a peaceful weekend.

Strong, harmonious vocals and crisp instrumentation. A kind of chilled american folk style (not country & western) which emanates from Seattle (a favourite place of mine) and delights throughout the album.

In the little piece of paper that dropped out of the sleeve, it said they had recorded a lot of the tracks in various people's homes and that they'd done the recording as much for their own pleasure as anyone else's.

I found it a highly entertaining listen, my criticism being more one of my mindset at the time of playing, when I was in a mad, driven work mode and the guiles of this music had a possibility of slowing down my internal bpm more than I needed. But thats more about me than them.

Its quite difficult to categorize their musical style which is quite varied within folk-based roots, harmonies, gospel like interludes, some quite baroque moments across a wide variety of instruments. I'm reminded of a favourite band of mine, the Decemberists, for their range, albeit a somewhat different form of story telling. And I like bands that can play and sing well and want to cut their own rather unique path.

I see they are playing the meltdown on the South Bank in a couple of weeks; I assume they will get some UK publicity at this time and its good to see some new and interesting folk bands on the scene.

line

Awake 4am trying to dream sleep formulae.
Still hope, still open for business.
A wash of moments flittering,
tugging clock hands,
drifting ever closer to deadline.
Not stopping as reverse
calculations become necessary.
Minutes brush away hours.
Small devices contrive to add delay.
No toner. More paper.
Bright red cut drips onto everything.
Others demand. Norway next Friday. Hotel Monday.
Laura in a church.
Make a neat bundle and a second one.
Large print on white covering.
Car keys. Apply business look.
Start out whilst everyone else
winds down.
Take the second exit at the roundabout and continue to follow the A33.
Felt mountain on M4.
Wobbling Vaux. Two cops outside.
Gates, barrier, rotating lights.
Reflective jacket.
Package. Done.

cheesy post

Here's a picture I took a few days ago...

This is one of those weeks where I'm just about keeping my head above water. I think its a feature of short weeks (courtesy of Bank Holidays) and single days off (Tuesday).

The rest of the week becomes compressed as a consequence of the missing days. So by Friday, when this post should bip its way into the blogosphere, I'm hoping that I'll be back on top of whatever it is I'm doing.

I don't very often pre-post, but can't resist experimenting with blogger's post-dated function, hence creating this on Wednesday whilst sipping tea before diving back into the maelstrom.

If I really had time to drop into the Cheshire Cheese in Fleet Street on Friday evening then I'd be making progress, but I'll have to leave it for the inquisitive tourists. It'll still be there the next time I'm passing, judging by its heritage.

white out

Working hard to reduce the panic attacks.

an eco-friendly recycled post

gone fishing...

...well not really, I don't think I'd have the patience.

But I'm probably going to be rather busy for the next few days and that may impact my attempts to string words together for blogging.

I don't have any 'backup' entries at the moment so anything that appears until the weekend will be even more opportunistic than usual.

East coast

Today's part of the extended Bank Holiday involved a trip to the seaside. We picked a particular location over leisurely breakfast as a casual, last minute change of plan.

Arriving, the sun had forgotten to shine and the place was rather more 'atmospheric' as a result. We wandered about looking at the sea and the deserted beaches before seeking a point for refreshment.

Cutting through an alley back to the small high street, we were greeted by voices from behind us and without any prior discussion, there was Ray the Sax and Val, who'd made completely independent plans to visit the same place.

I think I'd only ever been to the small town maybe once or twice before, never talked about it and only selected it on a whim this morning. Ray and Val had planned to visit another place which had a power outage thus moving along the coast, creating this tiny frame of co-incidence.

music 2.0?

We are still away at a country retreat, last night listening to midnight owls and today watching more rain sweep across the Bank Holiday countryside.

The chillout time has also given me a chance to make lazy but satisfying progress on one of my sundry non-work projects, of which there will be more later, as they say.

Aside from that project, I've also said I'll help with some sound mixing but that also requires a block of time and my next few weekends already seem to be getting rather busy. So I'm interested in the sparse information about the new Music 2.0 format just announced which uses a new format called MT9, where the individual instruments in an mp3 like stream can be volume adjusted. Like knocking out the vocals or the lead guitar. Karaoke City.

The specifications are in Chinese at the moment, so I've struggled a bit to follow it, but it seems to include mastering, distribution and licencing models.

I can't imagine most people will want to fiddle with the individual track levels, so I guess it has a specialised audience, and if its driven from an mp3 like format then I wonder if it would be good enough for anyone 'serious' about mixing?

We shall see.

wet

Away for this rainy weekend, which has created some changes of plan.

I can watch the rain hitting the table outside and take solace that the weather is no better for the Grand Prix in Monaco where they keep changing tyres and (less understandably) nose-cones.

Quite a contrast from yesterday's Pimms outdoors whilst watching the swans guarding their cygnets.

long weekend

Made the most of the Saturday sunshine, because, true to form, I'm told that the rest of the weekend will be damp. So here's some water, in the right place, in a scenic hole in the ground, seen during today's wanderings.

stacked

Earning one's bread in the City has its share of occupational hazards, like the occasional lunch, business related drink or inevitable meeting in a coffee shop somewhere. Each of these little events can generate new ideas and things to do, so that by the end of a week like this one, I've still got a stack of 'to dos' to get 'done' before I can settle into the weekend.

Sometimes, like now when I'm sitting in Paternoster Square quietly eating a sandwich from M&S, I can clear my head for a few minutes before the next item appears in the hopper. It may seem slightly anti-social, sitting here alone, but its curiously refreshing.

Shoo, pigeons, its mine.

buddy good

Some real feel good factor entertainment yesterday evening. We all met in Covent Garden, Julie opened the carrier bag with the black glasses frames and then we rushed around the corner to the Duchess to see Buddy Holly, the musical. What can I say? It was great evening. None of us were really Buddy Holly 'fans' or even knew an awful lot, but as we watched the joyful musical, we realized that we each knew already about a dozen Buddy Holly songs - and they were all good.

The cast were full of energy and as it was a Wednesday, they'd probably all been in a matinee earlier in the day. Simple story, Buddy starts as a Country and Western singer. Rebels. Various contracts get torn up. Goes to Decca record label. They want C&W too. Rebels. More contracts get torn up. Finds a small producer. Makes multiple number 1 singles. Meets wife-to-be. And so the story goes on. We all know the sad ending.

Its a small theatre, we were in the stalls near the front. Amongst those in the full theatre there were another 100 with Buddy glasses and the intent to have a whoop, cheer, whistle and generally be a good crowd for the people on stage. And it seemed to work. Those on stage played and sang with great energy and seemed to get a genuine delight from the audience response.

If I had to take random London visitors to a show, I think this would be high on any short list. And the good news, its also touring as I discovered by the clever advertising handed out when we were expected to be the audience in a snow bound theatre in Clear Lake, Iowa. So non-Londoners, keep a lookout. Oops, I need to tone down the gushing praise. But why? we all really enjoyed it!

Check out the great website here

Technorati Tags: rashbre, buddy, holly, duchess, london, theatre, musical, Oh+Boy, Rave+On, Peggy+Sue

anywhere i lay my head

I've had a chance to listen to the Scarlett Johansson album of Tom Waits covers now, via iPod. It's a sort of sincere but tragic report.

I'll believe the story from Scarlett that she really likes Tom Waits and thats why she chose his songs for her album of covers. No-one would do that lightly when there's so much pap to choose from. As an enthusiastic listener to Tom Waits tracks (an acquired taste, I'm sure), I'd really wanted to like this and to get some different interpretations.

Sadly, it comes across a bit like a moderately musical friend's attempt rather than a professionally produced recording.

I suppose the agenda creates a combination of tricky vocals, the need for some slightly chaotic sounding accompaniment and ideally a sensible production that is sympathetic to the singer's range.

Regrettably not.

I can't fathom who mastered the production, but on several tracks the band drown the vocals and themselves seem a little muddied. In other places the accompaniment which is alleged to be from a swampy studio in Louisiana seems to be surviving on old Woolworths 1980's Casio organs. Waits might be able to get away with such tricks, but here it just sounds cheesy.

In fact I can't understand how they've managed to make a couple of the tracks sound like 10cc or Pet Shop Boys.

I think this is quite a pity. Tom Waits has a varied and interesting catalogue and there should be some songs in there which Johansson could sing in a way that was flattering to her vocal range and evocative of the the soundscapes which Waits creates. It comes close on "Green Grass" and maybe the David Bowie backing tracked "Fannin' Street", but overall I'm having to listen with too much sympathy rather than genuine enjoyment.

And I do come to this wanting it to be a good album. I'm not expecting a direct comparison with Waits and indeed was hoping for different ways to interpret the songs. My idle thought is to have a quick go at a remix of one of the tracks to see whether something could be rescued. This isn't the idea when one buys commercial CDs and I think the production team should be made to go back and have another go at mastering this properly instead of just putting all the tracks on +6dB with some 1980s compression. Perhaps its a peril of being a fan of Mr Waits. To Scarlett I say, "Thank you for trying".