lemonstar

I credit having a dog with discovering some of the best music I've found in the last 3 years of so because it's only when I've had the time and been really tuned in to listening while I'm out on long dog walks - 4hrs today - that I've really listened to the words and that's something that switches me on. An album I've listened to maybe only a couple of times that made as near as damn it no impression suddenly got through to me today. 

Phoebe Bridgers - Stranger In The Alps - from 2018 

On 04/07/2022 at 16:08, MothMan said:

Cream - White Room

 

 

Great but... imagine if Hendrix had sang and played this. 

7 hours ago, SonnyBassPlayer said:

I'm actually listening to my band's newest release, Muffling! I'd love a feedback as we put a lot of work into it!

 

I like this a lot but not mad about the way the vocals sit in the mix - I love the way the melody changes in small intervals - I just wish they were higher in the mix, sweeter (more top end I suppose) and less buried in reverb. Nice bass playing.

The latest Arcade Fire album - some very good tracks - would go down well at a festival - a couple of mediocre ones too - but I like the album - even Peter Gabriel on BV on one track who would be a great addition to the band vocally - no idea what he doing now. 

Laura Marling - I been listened to 4 of her albums as I've never really got into her but always recognised the quality of her musical DNA - at times I heard Joni Mitchell, Nick Drake, Leonard Cohen, Dylan, even Paul Simon, Lou Reed/Velvets - she's an interesting song writer - uses a lot of alternative tunings and and even though she has a great voice sometimes  I've found her songs to lack strong memorable hooks - there is a lot melody changes and it's all very interesting if you are playing these songs as a guitarist but I never found it quite so interesting to listen to - however - I have now seen the light - her album Song for Our Daughter as a really strong collection  - it's taken a few listens to really appreciate it - I think it's her best album of what I know.

An album that should be listened to as an album - I like the atmospheric recording and the way tracks are slow and build - nothing too attention grabbing. In a way reminds me, in terms of instrumentation and sounds of one of my all time favourite albums Jim White's The Wrong Eyed Jesus. It's from 2012 - the previous album, perhaps more acclaimed one - Hadestown is more in the vein of Tom Waits. 

Well I would have been 8 for most of 1970 and I do have faint recollections of music on the radio and TV before I got interested enough to want to know who it was or even to buy records but it's much later on when I started to discover and like the music that I'd missed by 5-10 years - it's only then and long after that I came to really appreciate what I'd missed. 1967-1977 was an incredible time - I could have picked any of those years - especially the first 5 years of the 70's - I was reading Carly Simon's biography Boys In The Trees which I found ages ago in a 2nd hand book shop - I only wanted to know why she and James Taylor divorced - I haven't quite worked that out yet based on what I've read so far - it wasn't just the affairs, drink or drugs apparently - they both still live in Martha's Vinyard and she clearly is so positively open hearted and has no problem saying she still loves him in many ways but he can't bring himself to even talk to her - this is worse that Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham - at least they have worked together! Anyway - that's why I was listening to James Taylor and thinking about that time - they were married between 1972 and 1983. 

Because I only had narrow interests then which have only got wider - I wondered what I had missed. 

Thanks George - that could not have gone any smoother.

Just bought a Mac Mini M1 - exactly as described - perfect. Plus a bit of tech support and advice thrown in too. I'd have no hesitation in doing business with George again and I can see that happening.

What a great community this is. 

2 hours ago, Clarky said:

Chuck in a dose of early prog

 

Trespass- Genesis

H to He who am the only one - Van Der Graaf Generator

 

(Not including Floyd's Atomic Heart Mother as its a bit pants compared with the subsequent few albums)

Well - there was so many different and strong genres - prog rock definitely

I heard this song today and was feeling nostalgic for the music itself - I wondered what music I didn't know about of appreciate from this year. Maybe we can have a series of threads for different years. This was from an album released in 1970

Waxahatchee - Saint Cloud - 2020 album

The girls are killing it on the songwriting front ATM - an interesting mix of sounds, songs and styles.
Don't judge an album on one track. I found it to be an easy album to listen to lots of times. 

18 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

 

I have a 24" Asus 2560x1440 IPS screen that was £180. For that sort of money I would want something higher res. I mean this little 16" screen is 3456 × 2234

Yes - the 4k (3840 x 2160) version was out of stock and priced at £450 - £100 less - not sure what the reason for that is. I'm not gaming or designing anything - I just saw some excellent reviews for the Asus 27".

@Velarian I am also used to having a laptop but there aren't many occasions it goes outside the house but there are some - perhaps the Macbook route and an external monitor would be a better overall way to go.

The use of Logic is really the main thing making me think of going down the Mac route. I don't have the space for more than two monitors perhaps and I'm not building a home recording studio - that would be a) a money pit and b) a big distraction from song writing and playing - I just have a decent amount of songs written since 2007 and a couple of muso friends who keep complaining that I should make the effort to record some of them properly. 

1 hour ago, owen said:

You will be getting quite the monitor for £500!

i agree it is a hell of a lot - I was looking at something like this for £550 but it's probably totally OTT - I'm just looking around ATM:-

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Asus-PA27AC-27-Inch-Professional-Monitor/dp/B077XJSC9D/ref=pd_rhf_dp_s_ci_mcx_mr_hp_d_1/258-1105259-0464921?pd_rd_w=Vv4kV&pf_rd_p=f1512742-6a19-4088-9827-09f4d3d40791&pf_rd_r=K444Z6FJQ5HVEXQDXNJ9&pd_rd_r=a19fe6d1-ed5b-41a4-a9d9-051ca2b927c5&pd_rd_wg=sgcIL&pd_rd_i=B077XJSC9D&th=1

I'm sure i could spend less.
 

Anyone consider the M1 Mac Mini instead of going for the MacBook? I know I’d have to spend another £500 for a monitor on top of the £1500 I’m looking at for the M1 Mac Mini including Logic Pro. 

I am thinking about going down the M1/Logic Pro route (but on a Mac Mini) as an alternative to an Intel NUC i7 system - I don't think there will be much in the way of a price difference. Much as I appreciate the strong points of the Apple ecosystem I think iOS is useless as a "file system" so for some of the things I use my ipad for I find it frustrating and limited but.. processing is fast, display is great, touch interface is responsive, etc - can I live without having a windows machine in the house - that's what's bothering me - or will I have to put some cash aside for a less highly spec'd win11 machine? Hmm - don't know. Haven't used Logic Pro so just watching some YT videos ATM.

Two great tracks by Evan Dando (first a cover of a song by Tarka Cordell) - 2nd brilliant orchestration by Craig Armstrong - makes me realise I my life is richer for having so much great music in it.

I don't know how I got here... but I got here. 

@ProfJames Great to see ELO so raw. It's at my uni - about 10 years before I got there. There was a Tears for Fears gig on YT I was at, an outdoor gig 1983 but I couldn't see myself on the video (awful quality) - looks like the original full TFF show has been taken down and chopped up in to individual songs. I've seen a few bands on that same stage though. J Geils, Nick Lowe, Aswad - I wish I'd been around  for shows in the 70's Brunel attracted some top bands - early Genesis for one. 

This is surpisingly good...wait until you find out who wrote this.

7 hours ago, 12stringbassist said:

Their 1st album is a little gem, an underappreciated classic imho - all those layers of guitars.

13 minutes ago, Leonard Smalls said:

Fancied a bit of Baroque Bassoon this morning!

That's a refreshing change. 

I just read that he wrote 39(!) bassoon conciertos but 2 are unfinished - it's not known exactly why he wrote so many for an unusual instrument. 
https://www.naxos.com/mainsite/blurbs_reviews.asp?item_code=8.570798&catNum=570798&filetype=About this Recording&language=English#:~:text=These included the bassoon%2C for,of which are seemingly incomplete.

1 minute ago, stewblack said:

I feel he's a bit of a song machine. Restlessly writing what and how he likes (like my other 70s/80s hero Elvis Costello, but way more listenable) there are some great thoughtful tunes on this. 

Thanks for the link. 

He was keen to mention On Sunset which he said he was very proud of (not heard it) and True Meanings which he never toured. 

7 minutes ago, stewblack said:

Fat Pop vol 1.

Weller's latest. Gorgeous. 

He was interviewed earlier on today on R5 Live - 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000w4c3
I can't stand the toadying interviewer Nihal Arthanayake - "as the voice of a generation..." "as a rock icon..." - you can imagine Weller gritting is teeth but he's got to put the word out. I will be interested to hear it - he's a man of many influences and not afraid to put them in the blender as he sees fit.

1 hour ago, Barking Spiders said:

As a rug rat of the early 70s I missed out on the heyday of punk but just about caught the tail-end of the post punk thing. Been recently listening to a lot of Undertones, Buzzcocks, Stiff Little Fingers, Ruts, Generation X and Wire. Right now it's the latter's  excellent Chairs Missing

Wire were in a niche of their own - looking back on the first 3 albums I feel they appeared in the wrong era but tried to blend in with the punk movement which I never felt they were truly a part of - i know people might disagree. 
I liked Evan Dando's cover of this:-

@msv At @dannybuoysuggestion a while back I switched from using the free version of LastPass to bitwarden - an open source project; I think it's excellent software - I have it working across Win7, Android and iOs - I find it very easy to use - it generates and saves all the passwords - I think it's far better to use software designed for the purpose than to make up your own system using ad hoc tools. If you have very strong passwords - why change them so regularly? As @adamg67suggests - register your email addresses with Have I Been Pwned - I have 30+ email addresses for my own reasons and all are registered with the site. 

The level of organisation and effort that goes into hacking is enormous and these guys are skilled and knowledgeable - i wrote advanced real-time embedded control software (and other stuff) for 25 years - (to save my company from being bent over backwards by a software supplier I and another engineer spent 18 months part-time hacking a proprietary database format to get "our" data out that we wanted to use (export) to use with the software design tool that we had designed to replace the software we were using and paying 10k pa for - the software supplier wanted to charge us £30k for software tools to do that) so you see people go to incredible lengths when it is worth it. IMHO l'm afraid that keeping passwords in a text file is something hackers will have been looking at for decades - the days of using passwords you remember have been over for along time.