Scott’s Record Store Day 24 Hour Song Writing Challenge

It dawned on me yesterday that I would not be able to make it to an independent record store this Record Store Day. This saddened me. Then, last night (Friday the 15^th of April 2011), at approximately 7pm I decided I would compose a song from scratch in less than 24 hours to coincide with record store day (for fun - music is supposed to be fun). A challenge I unexpectedly succeeded in completing much faster than I anticipated (I even managed to have a full night sleep). In the end the below track took me about 7 hours work from idea to internet, working at a pretty mellow pace. 

This track as you may have noticed is both short and instrumental. Annoyingly I have misplaced my microphone, if I had not I would certainly have added vocals as well as recorded real percussion. For lack of another alternative I had to settle for garage band beats and loops (hopefully I’ll get my hands on something more pro and interesting sounding soon).  Also, I'm pretty sure I could easily extend this song to 3 minutes, but I’m not going to; to do so now would feel force, not mention at odds with the writing process and the vibe of the track.

For anybody interested in 'what ifs', the vocals would have been about the photograph I took that accompanies the track: a frost bitten pier on Derwent Water, Keswick.

Everything you hear (bar the drums) I produced on three instruments – a guitar and bass guitar, as well as a retro Yamaha keyboard – played into garage band. Not particularly high tech.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it!

and

Happy Record Store Day!

Scott 

Scott’s Year In Music

Hello, and welcome to this short journey into sound. You may notice not everything included in the lists and rankings below aren't strictly from the last year. This is simply because the following lists reflect what I’ve been listening to, and what I have enjoyed over the last year (ish).

The lists were deduced by no scientific method, nor are they of any quantifiable importance or purpose.

Top 5 Live Acts of the Year

1)   Beach House

2)   Holy Fuck

3)   Local Natives

4)   The Cribs
Joint 5^th) Slow Club / Jack Johnson

Top 10 Albums of the Year

(with a handy one line description and 'Key Track' you should give a listen to if you are new to the music)

1)   Beach House – Teen Dream

Chilled Out Indie Goodness

Key Track – Walk In The Park

2)   Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Trebly Guitars And Electro Goodness With A French Accent

Key Track - 1901

3)   Local Natives – Gorilla Manner

America’s Finest

Key Track – Wide Eyes

4)   Wild Beasts – Two Dancers

Music And A Voice You’d Never Associate With Kendal

Key Track – Hooting and Howling

5)   Stornoway – Beachcomber’s Windowsill

Echo Friendly Folk

Key Track - Zorbing

6)   Miike Snow – Miike Snow

Scandinavian Trip Pop

Key Track – Black And Blue

7)   Radiohead – In Rainbows

The Perfect Soundtrack To Any Darkened Room

Key Track - Reckoner

8)   The Xx – XX

They Won A Mercury Prize… Meh. Mopey Minimalist Moreish-ness

Key Track – Crystallised

9)   The Tallest Man On Earth – The Wild Hunt

He’s Like Bob Dylan But Swedish

Key Track – Burden Of Tomorrow

10)                  Foals – Total Life Forever

Haircuts As Conventional As Their Musical Objectives

Key Track – Spanish Sahara

Top 15 songs of the Year

1) Beach House - Walk In The Park

2) Grizzly Bear - Two Weeks

3) Tokyo Police Club - Wait Up (Boots of Danger)

4) Radiohead – Reckoner

5) Bob Dylan – Blowin’ in the Wind

6) Elliot Smith – Between the Bars

7) Bright Eyes – First Day Of My Life

8) Phoenix – Lasso

9) Local Natives – Who Knows Who Cares?

10) The Cribs - We Share the Same Skies

11) Stornoway – I Saw You Blink

12) Wild Beasts – We’ve still got the taste dancing on our tongues.

13) The Xx – Islands

14) Slow Club - Giving Up On Love

15) Little Comets – Lost Time

Best Bass Line

Wild Beasts – This Is Our Lot

As Hooky As Peter Hook If He Was Holding A Hook With A Hook Hand

Best Guitar Riff Of The Year

The Cribs - We Share The Same Skies

Johnny Marr

Buskers of the Year

Microguagua

As Mental As Their Parc Guell Haunt

Musical Displeasure Of The Year

Mumford and Sons

They Have One Painfully Country Harmony

Guilty Pleasure Of The Year

The Drums

Leading Purveyors of Indie Nursery Rhymes

The Ben Folds' Song Title Game

Whilst at Uni I decided to play this game. You can play to, if you want to... Here 's how:


Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly (without repetition) answer the following questions. 

Pick your Artist: Ben Folds / Ben Folds Five 

Are you a male or female?: 
Sentimental Guy 

Describe yourself: 
Best Imitation Of Myself 

How do you feel?: 
Selfless, Cold and Composed 

Describe where you currently live: 
Effington 

If you could go anywhere, where would you go?: 
Jesusland 

Your favorite form of transportation?: 
Dog 

Your best friend?:
Dr. Yang 

You and your best friends are?: 
Brainwascht 

What's the weather like?: 
Fair 

Favorite time of day?: 
In Between Days 

If your life was a TV show, what would it be called?: 
Your Redneck Past 

What is life to you?: 
Philosophy 

Your relationship?: 
Battle of who could care less 

Your fear?: 
One angry dwarf and 200 solemn faces 

What is the best advice you have to give?: 
There's all ways someone cooler than you 

Thought for the Day?: 
Learn To Live With What You Are 

How I would like to die: 
Missing the War 

My soul's present condition: 
Evapourated 

My motto: 
Still Fighting It 

Newcastle's Evolution Festival, and Glastonbury Festival 2010 (The 40th Anniversary) - A List Of All The Artists I Watched

Hello my fine readership,

Here is a simple list of all the live music (and related businesses) I have seen this fine 2010 festival season thus far. The list starts with Newcastle's Evolution festival along the Toon's quayside. Secondly it lists the performers I witnessed on the hallowed grounds of Worthy Farm, Pilton, Glastonbury, at the world's greatest festival's 40th anniversary celebratory shindig. Lovely. A proper review / blog will be done covering my Glastonbury experience giving you the full low down. I've also attached a link to all the artists I could find on spotify that I saw at Glasto! So you can listen to (nearly) any of the named artists that take your fancy.

Anyway to the list!

Evolution

John Smith

Po Girl

King Creosote

The Unthanks

Field Music

Lissie

Smoove + Turrel

Slow Club

Ellie Goulding

De La Soul

Baskery

Hadouken!

Delphic

Glastonbury (2010)

Josh Thorner

Two Door Cinema Club

Egyptian Hip Hop

Chapel Club

Local Natives

The Magic Numbers

The Charles Hazlewood All-Stars

Beth Jeans Houghton

Shlomo

The Hypnotic Brass Ensamble

Phoenix

La Roux (with Glenn Gregory of Heaven 17)

Rob Da Bank

Faith SFX

Plan B (with Faith SFX)

Radiohead

Broken Bells

The Flaming Lips

The Xx

Troy Ellis and the Longshots

Brother Ali (With DJ Snuggles)

Coheed and Cambria

Peter Hook

Huw Stephens

The Strange Boys

Beach House

Stornoway

The Cribs (with Johnny Marr)

Editors

Laura Marling (with one member of the Wilkomen Collective)

The Pet Shop Boys

Sub Focus

Dizraeli and the Small Gods

Frightened Rabbit

Everything Everything

These New Puritans

Holy Fuck!

Dry the River

Grizzly Bear

Ray Davies (with the Crouch End Festival Chorus)

Jack Johnson

Loudon Wainwright III

Toots and the Maytals

Rodrigo Y Gabriela

Dan le Sac Vs. Scroobius Pip

The Journey So Far...And What To Expect Next

Hello Blog Readers!

My Blog now includes all my entries from the NSR (Newcastle Student Radio) Blog. From here on in then it is a solo journey of music scrutinising, starting with Glastonbury. I'll be keeping a Glastonbury Diary, logging all the bands and acts I witness. I'll let you know who was good, who wasn't, and who you should endeavour to check out!

Also, in the coming weeks my musical project should be much further along in the production process. Find attached a cheeky video trailer. Don't forget you can add me on myspace (www.myspace.com/iamconfuciusmusic), add me on twitter (@SirScottofMac) and of course comment on all the Blogs I post.

Thanks,

P.S. I Am Confucius

TUESDAY, 26 JANUARY 2010 Murder FM – Anthems for the Used (Mini Album)

Like angry shouty men? Particularly, angry shouty tattoo covered men with interesting hairstyles? If yes, you’ll love Murder FM. Simply breed ‘30 Seconds to Mars’ with ‘LostProphets’, add some extra hate of the world, and let it stew in a disco. Murder Fm emerges from the mean rock disco broth to challenge your musical tastes. Though FM do not advocate murder, many makers of musical opinion will argue Murder FM do indeed murder music. ‘Heavy’ music still divides opinions, however, Murder FM are much more than just ‘guitar metal’. Synthesizers and keys, though not the biggest part of their sound, temper something really heavy, and make it much more accessible. Murder FM’s tracks ‘Mrs. Wrong’ and ‘As Beautiful As You Are’ are quite a good examples of metal mitigation. They are in effect potential pop songs that got kicked out of ‘The Charts’ (a high-class nightclub called), and spent a night behind bars for drinking too much and kicking Barbie Girl in the face. Though possibly an intimidating music venture for mellow music fans, Murder FM are surprisingly easy to listen to. Maybe I am guilty of presupposing everybody is as receptive to rock music as myself. Even so, try Murder out. You might well be surprised.

3/5
http://www.myspace.com/murderfmmusic

Tori Amos - Midwinter Graces

Midwinter Graces has ‘BBC Radio 2’ written all over it. If you like Tori Amos and wear cardigans deliberately to be pretentious this is definitely the Christmas album for you. In ‘Midwinter Graces’ Amos puts her own take on classic Christmas and festive winter songs such as: ‘What Child’, ‘Nowell’, and ‘Star of Wonder’. Amos’ gift to the listener appears to be a simple rearrangement of seasonal songs into a more conventional pop structure. The result is an album of Christmas songs you will probably never play as you opt for the classics, or a pop album you’ll store with the Christmas decorations. Once you’ve dusted off 11months of dust every year you will probably come to realise it is a very good album in regard to musicianship. However, it has no clear purpose, apart from actively and positively seeking musical territory usually filled by failed Christmas number one attempts. Give it to someone who wants to be ‘alternative this Christmas’, or someone who really likes Tori Amos.

An easily ignorable 2.5 / 5