Music to My Ears

My musical tastes have changed radically in the past ten years. When I was thirteen, I didn't listen to anything. Not really, anyway. I never chose what music would be played.

Then I gave Green Day a try, and they were all I played for a year. Literally. It wasn't until reading and watching The Commitments that everything changed. I found Soul. I became especially fond of Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Ray Charles, Wilson Pickett, Marvin Gaye, and Bill Withers. I would switch their CDs around, listen to their greatest hits, attempt to sing along - all the usual things a teenager does when they listen to music, except that most of my favourite artists were dead.

Over the following years, I was introduced to Muse, Nightwish, Hollywood Undead, Smashing Pumpkins, The Doors, Elbow, Oasis, and a plethora of others from the 60s and beyond, including The Beatles, She & Him, and The Mountain Goats.

These days, I find myself listening to three different things over and over again, two bands and one "genre" of music - Walk Off the Earth, A Great Big World, and Disney songs.

I first found Walk Off the Earth when one of the papers printed a link to a cover they did of Gotye's Somebody I Used to Know, when the whole band played the same guitar for the performance. That turned into subscribing to them on YouTube, going to see them live in Dublin, and playing their EP on repeat in the kitchen until I knew next to all the words.

My discovery of A Great Big World is a little more geeky than that. I first heard one of their songs on Glee. I loved This is the New Year so much that I looked up the original song, and fell in love with the band right away. I waited for months for their album release, played it constantly in the house, even got my niece singing along to Rockstar, and have tracked their tour right to London - which is still too far away for me to travel to for the day to go see them.

The Disney music varies quite a bit, depending on my mood. Sometimes it's songs from Frozen. More recently, Hercules and Mulan found their way in there.

All of this leaves out soundtracks, and a collection of albums from DFTBA Records. I don't listen to single genres anymore. I'm more open to listening to new bands for the first time. And I love it.

No Talent? You Don't Even Know Talent!

That title comes to you courtesy of Futurama...because Futurama. Also, there was a Talent Show in college tonight, hosted by upcoming comedian Darren Lalor, and judged by the Head of the Music Department, and the current President and Welfare Officer of the SU. Much banter ensued at the expense of the Welfare Officer. Rule Number One: don't heckle the comedian with a microphone.

Other than the fact that it was a Talent Show and I couldn't stop quoting the Robot Devil, the title has no real significance. There was actually quite a lot of talent, from pianists, singers, a song-writer, a musical-theatre actor, and a Daft Body re-enactment, all of whom showed what a fun and exciting place my college is. People did things I didn't know they could do, (like people I didn't know could sing), dressed up for various acts, and ultimately gave us a reason to be there aside from the charity aspect of the event, and the pizza.

So. Much. Pizza.

Anyway, I was on the bus wishing I had taken part. I can't sing. I can only dance when drunk, and I'm fairly sure insurance doesn't cover flailing arms and legs to the face. I can't play an instrument. But I can write poetry, and I know how to deliver my own work, and all I had to do was either (a) write a long poem or (b) write a series of short poems to add to one I wrote that only the Writers' Soc have heard. I could still do that during the summer. God knows I'll have time.

But anyway: fun. It was all fun.

Especially the jokes directed at the WO, because he kept bringing it on himself. (I'll admit some of it was uncalled for, but other parts of it had me laughing too much to care.)

It was the first Talent Show I'd gone to in the college. Yes, I know I've been there four years, but somehow I never managed to make it. This time, I didn't even know who was doing what. I just wanted to go, and I was conscious enough to attend. So that's fun. (Context: I had a late night on Monday, and couldn't make a gig yesterday because I was so tired.)

I'm glad I went, despite my regrets in not parttaking (I wish I'd had to idea to do a kind of poem-medley sooner!), and I definitely think the best act won (Daft Bodies). Tomorrow night: the Ball. How did it get to that time already?

When a Hero Comes Along

John and Hank Green came along to Dublin recently. On Wednesday, they had a show in the RDS Concert Hall, which is essentially a large library that seats a thousand people. Every one of these people was excited, almost deliriously so, because for the first time two of my favourite people arrived in Dublin to put on a show the likes of which I could only ever see on YouTube, or dream about.

Usually the latter.

Starting at seven, they were on to cover the following:

- An explanation behind the writing of The Fault in Our Stars, perhaps my favourite book of all time
- A reading from the book
- Questions from audience members
- The mispronunciation of the name 'Ciara' (like 'Kieran', but without the 'n')
- A song about Quarks
- A horse-head mask
- Songs about Harry Potter
- A song about chord progressions
- More questions from audience members
- A slap in the face
- Lots of cheering
- Crowd-volume control
- A misunderstanding of the word 'heckling'
- Five hundred miles
- A song about the book
- A signing

The latter, after all the excitement of music and laughter and reading and emotional stories about children's hospitals and Esther Earl, took the longest to get around to.

Myself and two friends waited an hour and a half to get on stage to meet John and Hank. We got our tickets signed, because only one of us knew this would happen and we should bring books. John thanked me for wearing his face, and I told him about scaring myself by forgetting it would stare at me in the bathroom mirror.

Good times.

Of course, the excitement doesn't end there. John was on Ireland AM the next morning (thank you, Mammy Carroll, for telling me about that!) and both brothers were interviewed on Two Tube. Frickin' awesome. Hank's latest video tells about their time in Dublin, though I have a feeling that John will end up showing some footage from their day-before-the-show wandering, too (because he got some footage of his book in The Gutter Bookshop which I was delighted to recognise when Hank showed them in Temple Bar). Also, we got to say good morning to Hank.

I can't wait to see that. I cheered first, I think. Then it all set off.

John described the crowd of one thousand Nerdfighters as sounding first like 100,000 people on Twitter, and then like 10,000 people on Ireland AM, and I have to say: I'm damn proud of that. Irish crowds are louder and more enthusiastic than most people expect, and it has nothing to do with alcohol (as is often the case when Irish people are loud and enthusiastic.) On Wednesday, there were mainly teenagers present, everyone sober, and we still raised the volume to a ridiculously high level, with much due excitement.

It is our duty as rarely-visited Nerdfighters to make ourselves remembered, and to make the night as awesome as possible. Mission accomplished, Nerdfighters of Ireland.

So, awesome night. I got home fairly late, but didn't care. It was all worth it. We had brownies and white chocolate while waiting to get inside, and were greeted with the type of awesomeness we could only before imagine, over and over again. It was an evening of awesome, when a hero came along.

Whatever You Say About Glee

Let's make a point clear: I like Glee. Yes, the storyline is somewhat cliché and predictable, but it presents an enjoyable hour of television filled with covers of songs that don't always butcher the originals. Sometimes you can go a while without actually liking any of their covers, but aside from that they do a good job of actually singing them. Even if they ruin the effect of the song.

Whatever you say about Glee, though, you cannot deny the commercial success it brings to others. Ignoring the obvious example of bringing Journey back into the limelight for the current generation of music lovers, we have Fun.'s We Are Young. An indie single released in September 2011, it wasn't until Glee covered the song that the band reached commercial success with it.

And that's the power behind the show. Not it's ability to tell the same story we've been exposed to for years through shows under different guises, and not it's ability to sing a song in complete contrast to how the original artist wished it to be sung, but to ignite and reignite the flames that drive the music industry, albeit through cliché. The songs performed on the show have a history of doing well, not just the covers but the originals, too. While it may be something of a heresy for certain fans that Glee dare touch their favourite songs, the success that follows in many cases cannot be denied.

So while I recognise that they have butchered songs in the past, and will continue to do so in the future - for everybody hates to see their favourite songs altered and distorted - I must proclaim that the music industry does well from the revitalisation of songs performed by the show.

That and the humour one needs once a week as a pick-me-up is reason enough to continue watching the show. Though you won't find me rushing out to buy the merchandise, especially not at full price. (I'm guilty of buying cheap CDs, but that's about it.)

Next time you hate on Glee, just remember what it does for the songs they butcher: sometimes it can help. And sometimes that's enough.

Back Into Writing

So, the weekend was fun. Actually, that's only mostly true. Work was a bitch and a half of boredom, but Saturday evening got me back on track in terms of writing. While my "output" will certainly decrease as the exams loom closer, I've gotten back into being able to think about stories and actually do something with them. I wrote eight thousand words over the Easter weekend, and I consider that something of a good start.

Those eight thousand words finished off what I call the Sooper Sekrit Project, called so because I don't want to reveal the intimate details of work that may or may not see the light of day. Ever. The public eye is so glaring and menacing sometimes, and I had to protect my fifteen thousand word baby. It's a novella, and a short one at that, and that's about as much of it as I can reveal without feeling like I'm holding it over a balcony.

With the Michael Jackson jokes out of the way, and the novella completed - first draft, anyway - I had to do something else. Not just a want, but a must. I can't just sit idle, and it still seems too early to get to studying like it's my job. It's not, nor will it ever be, my job to study. I might end up doing research for a book or an article at some stage in my life, but my job, for now, is to sell books. And I only do that at the weekends.

However, the study bug must bite eventually. For now, I'm putting it off by writing articles and planning a Young Adult Fantasy novel. I got my inspiration for it a couple of weeks ago while walking down to the cinema, listening to music. Specifically, I was listening to The Cake Sale, an album of Irish "indie" music, featuring the likes of Lisa Hannigan and Nina Person. It was the latter that lit the candle of inspiration under my fantasy novel, with her song Black Winged Bird. It's not so much that the novel has anything to do with a bird. In fact, as far as I know, I don't have any ideas for birds in the book at all. It's other things in the song that got my attention.

So, I've been planning the book. It has a title, but that's a secret from everyone but That Guy I Am, mainly because no one else is around who might take an interest. I don't even know if he cares, but he was within proximity, so I sprung it on him over a cup of tea. Five chapters of planning into the book, and working on getting other ideas around in my head into some sort of order, and I might be sorting myself out for books for the next few years. Or decades.

Now I just need a publishing contract.

But in all seriousness, this is just the beginning. I mean, you need to have a book or books to get published, not just the contract. Because no one will just publish your signature and sell it for 7.99 at your local bookshop and call it a work of literature. Unless you happen to be like Allah, with 99 names. Then it might be something special to watch how someone signs their name.

Did I just make a Muslim joke? I'm going to hell, aren't I?

Now, the writing bug has taken me, and it's time to put it to some use: I need to write the first chapter of my Research Paper. Still need to do research on that. It's going to be fun... Well, you know, some of it will be.

Interview with The Moceans

  

Last Tuesday, I ventured out to Swords to meet up with Indie Rock band, The Moceans. We sat in Cafe Libro while I hosted the band’s very first interview. In true fashion, Eoin Walshe and Rob Brennan began to make jokes to lighten the mood. While they may have been kidding around a bit, from the sounds of their EP, Warmth of the Shade, they’re very serious about they’re work.

______________________________________________

Eoin Walshe and Rob Brennan

Me: First thing’s first: who are The Moceans?

Eoin: I’m Eoin, one half of The Moceans, some would say the better half, others would say the better half.

Rob: I’m Rob, lead singer of The Moceans. I’m actually learning guitar at the moment, so hopefully I’ll be able to touch up on that and add something more to the band, but for the moment I’m just the singer. I can talk a bit better than Eoin.

Me: *laughing* But he does everything else.

Rob: Well, we work well as a team, I think Paul, you know, when it comes to song writing and everything.

Eoin: Eoin’s the lead guitarist and singer in The Moceans, lead song writer as well. Next question.

Me: Eoin’s talking about himself in the third person here! *laughs* What brought you together as a band?

Rob: First day of college, I knew his face, ‘cause Eoin was in my primary school. I did know him before. Not as friends, more as enemies – the different classes, and the stupid childish rivalries between classes. I was in a different secondary school. And it was just, “You’re Eoin, aren’t you?”, “Yep”, “I’m Rob.” And the rest is history.

Me: What was the first time playing on stage together like? And where was it?

Rob: Well it wasn’t on stage, it was in the oratory in college. We were asked to organise a prayer service, and I obviously couldn’t play guitar, I was singing.

Me: Well, first time on stage.

Eoin: Eh, Pint Pub on Eden Quay. It was open about a week. We thought it was going to be the biggest gig ever, and about five people from the college football team showed up, and my girlfriend and a friend of Rob’s that’s a girl. That was it.

Me: Do you ever argue about the songs you play?

Eoin: Yeah, all the time.

Rob: *joking* Eoin comes up with the real kind of poppy songs, like Busted and the likes, and I’m more Oasis.

Eoin: What?!

Rob:  You kind of have to draw a line. Year Three Thousand was one that we did, but that’s it.

Eoin: This is quickly becoming one of the most inaccurate interviews of all time.

Me: Who are your biggest influences in terms of what you play? And who do you compare yourselves to most?

Eoin: Well, I’d be very well influenced by Oasis and the Verve

Rob: *whispers* Busted.

Eoin: And, eh, Busted...

Rob: My favourite band growing up was Red Hot Chilli Peppers, so I was very into them and I’ve kind of moved on to Oasis and a little bit back. My dad was a great fan of Queen, so I started listening to them, and like that, real 70s-80s rather than the 90s.

Me: So it was older music rather than the modern stuff.

Eoin: Queen and Bon Jovi would be big influences of mine as well, yeah.

Rob: Yeah, Oasis, Queen, Bon Jovi – they’d be the three big ones.

Me: In terms of what you play, who would you compare yourselves to?

Rob: I think the songs are different in ways; The Cycle is very Oasis-y, you know a laid back kind of song, Only You Know has a bit of a Verve sound to it.

Eoin: Yeah, we’ve been compared to Brit Pop sounding. No one in particular.

Me: According to each other, what are your best and worst traits when it comes to The Moceans.

Rob: *joking* Mood swings, they’re the worst.

Me: So Eoin has mood swings.

Rob: Yeah. I suppose his best qualities would be his ability on guitar, ability with the aul voice and he’s a genuinely nice guy. Can’t fault him really. Just the mood swings. It happens.  And I’d be like, “We’re playing this song” and it doesn’t go down too well. Just little disagreements.

Eoin: *joking* Eh... Rob’s worst aspect would have to be mood swings.

Me: So you’re both quite moody.

Eoin: We’d be quite moody, quite hormonal. Quite manstrual. Ah no, he’s a great singer, I suppose. It has to be said. His song writing’s come up tenfold since my tutoring, coming along good. I’m proud of him in a lot of ways like that, you know? And his guitar’s getting better!

Me: That’s good to hear! So, it’s still early days for The Moceans – your EP has just been recorded. What would your ideal gig be like?

Rob: Hundreds of people.

Eoin: Thousands.

Rob: Billions of people! *laughing* But seriously, you have to start small, work hard – we’re all about hard work. We knew it wouldn’t just be a matter of recording a CD and that’s it. We’re putting together packets at the moment to send to record labels. We’ve to get professional photos done, we’ve a few interviews with papers this week and we’ve to record a professional video for one of the songs, Only You Know.

Eoin: Just on that gig one: it doesn’t matter whether it’s The Ambassador or Slane or Croke Park, just to have a group of people knowing the words and singing it back would be great, a dream come true.

Me: If you could play with any other artist, who would it be and why? We’ll assume they’re still playing.

Rob: It’s a pity Oasis aren’t still playing...

Eoin: Bono? Maybe Shakira. I think that might work well. I think we’d work well musically.

Rob: Well, Oasis broke up, Queen... Freddie Mercury is dead.

Me: Yeah, that’s definitely a downside!

Rob: A modern day band... I mean, we went to see The Script. Maybe the Script. That might work. For me that’d be good.

Eoin: I wouldn’t want to play with bands, I don’t think that’d work. But when it comes to idols, Brian May from Queen – he’s still playing. I’d play with him.

Me: Where do you see yourselves in five years time?

Rob: The big time. Eh, we’ll be teachers hopefully, both of us.

Me: Eoin doesn’t look like he agrees!

Eoin: No, I see ourselves sitting in Hughes and Hughes, five years down the line. Perhaps, they’ll open up maybe in somewhere like South America, sitting opposite Paul Carroll, we’ve all come so far, we’ve a tour and you come over, guest interview. It’d be savage.

Me: What about more short-term plans? You’ve just done your EP; when will it be released and how can people get their hands on it?

Eoin: Well, at the moment, the short term – the very short term – with the EP is, it’s basically just through gigs and through our Facebook and Myspace if people mail us with interest we can arrange more informally how to send it out to them, or meet up. We’re looking to set up a PayPal account, we’ll be able to post out CDs, and in the next few weeks hopefully sort out the iTunes situation.

Rob: Which may be the best solution.

Eoin: But for the time being, come along to a gig.

Me: Which actually leads me on to my next question, will you be playing during the summer?

Rob: Yes, we play local on Monday night at Gibney’s, it’s acoustic sessions, Friday in Oscar Taylor’s, that’s also an acoustic session.

Me: They’re both in Malahide, are they?

Rob: Yeah. We have one on the 25^th of June in the Pint Pub on Eden Quay, and there’s a couple of other bands playing. Slow Motion Getaway are playing that one as well, I think. That should be a good one. Beyond that, we’ll be sending the EP - obviously to the labels -and to hotels and pubs to try get some gigs.

Eoin:  I mean, the main plan is to have an official EP launch, but we’re trying to spend the next month building up a fan base to make sure there’s people actually at the EP launch, try make it as successful as possible. We haven’t been gigging much because of college exams, so we’re going to get the ball rolling again.

Me: Cool. What makes you different from other bands?

Eoin: *joking* Talent.

Rob: I’d say, in terms of our sound...

Eoin: Honesty would be key. There’s a lot of honesty in them.

Rob: I think people could relate to our songs.

Eoin: In a lot of ways there’s stripped back. We’re not too concerned with gimmicks, with lyrics or with the music itself.

Me: And for new listeners, hopefully there’ll be some, what one of your songs would you recommend to give people an idea of what you sound like?

Rob: Only You Know.

Eoin: Yeah, there’s a video for that on YouTube. There’ll be a proper video for that as well, soon, and it’s the number one track on the EP as well. And it’s on Myspace and Facebook. It’s our first single. It’s our “Hello” from The Moceans to the world. “Hello, how are you?” actually!

Me: Do you have any more remarks? Anything else you’d like to add?

Eoin: On a serious note, we actually do have self-belief, and we’re just trying to get people to actually listen to the music, because we believe if people listen to it they will like it. It’s just that initial stage of getting it into people’s hands. So hopefully that’ll go well.

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The Moceans can be found at the following sites. Be sure to Subscribe, Follow, Like and Friend them!

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheMoceans

Twitter: http://twitter.com/themoceans

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/themoceans

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/themoceans1

Thanks again to the lads for taking the time out for the interview. Keep an eye on this spot for a review of The Moceans’ first EP, Warmth of the Shade.

Nuggets of Info - Music

Music is an ever-changing subject for me; when I was younger, I didn't have too much of an interest in it. My time with music was restricted solely to religious music and musical theatre - one musical, Joseph and the Amazing Technicoloured Dreamcoat, in which I was Benjamin. On Sundays and on drives, my dad would play music I liked the sound of but didn't know the artists. Turns out it was Neil Young.

When I got to secondary school, it wasn't until I was in third year that I developed any real interest in any band. In saying that, I only really developed an interest in Green Day. I had most of their albums, an American Idiot notebook, and a stereo in my room that let me play them every day. I may have overplayed them, sometimes. It wasn't until later that my brother introduced me to Smashing Pumpkins, when I began to branch out my musical tastes.

Then came fourth year, and Roddy Doyle's The Commitments. This marked a new stage in my musical interests: I began to listen to Soul. It started with the film's soundtrack, then the likes of Aretha Frankin, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett and Bill Withers began to fill my room. I got a Blues Brother's soundtrack and a Marvin Gaye album for my birthday from a good friend of mine, and suddenly I was gathering more Soul than before.

During this time, Muse and OneRepublic found their way into my life. I loved the new sounds; I played their stuff constantly. I was doing key board lessons, and what I most wanted to play were some of Muse's songs. To this day I still can't do it. A severe lack of playing the instrument would do that to a guy.

As I began to pick up new bands, including Nightwish and Hollywood Undead, I joined a choir. My friend was running it. Suddenly religious music was back, but combined with some pop songs I hadn't listened to before.

As time went on, I came across the likes of the DFTBA musicians, The Mountain Goats and the show-choir cover-artists that embodied the television show Glee. Towards Summer 2010, I picked up The Doors, and in the months following Oasis, Creedance Clearwater Revival, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Elbow and Electric Light Orchestra, all courtesy of a friend in college. Lately Cee Lo Green found his way onto the shelves - basically thanks to Gwyneth Paltrow's cover of Forget You on Glee.

About a year ago, I picked up the ukulele. I still don't make myself play it enough to learn how to actually play a song. So, with over 2,000 songs on my laptop, I remain a Shower Singer, with a taste for music in as many genres as I can think of. The list above isn't exhaustive, it's just all I could think of as being the truly significant ones. And I still bother my friend for new music.

Review - Erase This

It's been a while since I reviewed anything, and here we are - a DFTBA Records album called Erase This. The album is a projected by founder Alan Lastufka and one of DFTBA's prominent artists Luke Conard, with some cameo appearances from some other singers, including Kristina Horner. I happened to be lucky enough to see Lastufka announcing a give-away of the album on Thanksgivings Day last Thursday, so I swooped in and got a free download.

So what did you think of it?
In short - brilliant. Some of the tracks don't work alone, simply for the fact that there's a radio theme running through the album, but the songs within the tracks are still fantastic. Other tracks hold their own and really blew me away!

Wait, radio theme?
You read that right. The album has a DJ speaking every three or four tracks to introduce a song, making them seem like a radio track-list. It really was a great way of doing things, even if it's been done before (Queens of the Stone Age did it, right?).

Oh right... so, did any tracks stand out then?
A few; I have a weakness for Kristina Horner, so when she and Luke Conard sang  Mirror Song I fell in love with the song. Beforehand, I'd only been able to hear that version on YouTube. There's a solo version of the song, too, which is good but not my favourite of the two. Without making my list of Favourite Songs from the album too long, I'll just give one other song a mention - Forgiven. I'd heard a cover of this song on the EP Taking Leave (Alan Lastukfa and Tom Milsom), and the two versions are so different! I mean, they're barely recognisable as the same song. I'm still not sure which one I prefer!

Is the album recommended?
Well I liked it! If I had the money, I'd have bought it a long while ago, but my online purchases have been restricted to cheap books and birthday presents. The album is really catchy, though, works great a whole piece of music and it's full of great songs! Buy it and love it!

Justin Bieber Vs Meat Loaf

While on an excursion through Dublin the other day, a mate happened across a Justin Bieber album. He looked at the back. "It only has seven songs!" he said. No really - seven songs. I've just come from the wonderful mass-collaboration site Wikipedia; the album is less than twenty six minutes long. Seven songs. Seven. This was Bieber's début album.

Now let's look at another album with seven songs. Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell. Seven songs, forty six and a half minutes long. That's the average length of an album, I believe. I don't have many that go widely above or below that mark. So, Meat Loaf also has seven songs on his album. What's the difference?

Bieber doesn't do epic rock songs. That pretty much sums it up. Meat Loaf has these great big songs about love and sex and the lack of it. Bieber sings what Wikipedia classes as "teen pop". Bit of a rubbish definition, if you ask me. But it's rubbish for a reason. He's some strange little sensation in the States who's not known for being wonderfully weird and rather frightening like Meat Loaf; he's known as the guy who walks into glass doors and escalators and doesn't know what Germany is. I'm not making that up! He was on an Australian chat show and he didn't know the word "German".

Now, Bieber's songs are the average length for a song. There's nothing wrong with that. I don't know what they sound like because I refuse to subject myself to that, but let me make one thing clear - if you're only going to have seven songs - seven! - on your album, you'd want to make sure that they're a bit longer. That, or don't call it an album. It's an EP. His début album is an EP. His second album has ten songs (thank you Wikipedia) and is just shy of thirty eight minutes. It's also "teen pop". So probably a bit rubbish unless you're in love with Justin Bieber, or it's your job to pretend to like things enough to write a favourable review to make people 1. buy your magazine and then 2. buy the album, or 3. the other way around.

Something tells me that once Bieber grows up, though, and his fans grow up with him, he's going to try drop this "teen pop" thing. But, like Harry Potter is to Daniel Radcliffe, "teen pop" will be hard to forget for the general public. The walking into doors things and getting bottles thrown at his head at a concert are also going to be hard to forget, especially when there are several dozen videos of each incident on YouTube. Because the public is that cool.

Meat Loaf's career is obviously much bigger, too. And his market is wider and a lot more favourable. People like Meat Loaf. He has some very awesome songs. I mean, you don't have to like everything he's ever done, but he has some brilliant songs, and they're more than a little more mainstream than Bieber. He appeals to people young and old...er. He has songs people actually listen to. He has songs on compilation albums because they're that good. It's like Journey - not everyone likes them, but by damn they love Don't Stop Believin'! That's something the likes of Justin Bieber won't get in his current market. By lacking marketability to the wider public, he'll never get what Meat Loaf - epic rock legend - or Journey or a dozen others have: long standing careers and songs so memorable that people actually choose to listen to them years and years after their original release. It's over thirty years since Bat Out of Hell came out and it's still selling in shops. Justin Bieber... well, he sells to pre-teens and young teenage girls. Need I say more?

Meat Loaf pwns Bieber. The latter should understand that, right? I mean, he did start out online. He should understand when he's been pwned.

Review - The World is Mine (I Don't Know Anything)

I think a lot of people will look at this and think ‘What?’ Okay, crash course in Alex Day. He’s this guy on YouTube called nerimon, or Alex, or ‘Hey you from London, yeah you, singing boy reading Twilight.’ Alex is part of a generation of Super Nerds. I mean that in the nice way. Super Nerds are awesome.

Okay, so Alex plays music. You with me so far? He plays music on YouTube. Okay, I know what you’re thinking – lots of people do that. Except, and here’s the fun part, these two Super Nerds, Alan Lastufka and Hank Green, set up a record company called DFTBA Records, and they signed Alex and many other cool people. This is Alex’s second album with them, The World is Mine (I Don’t Know Anything). So, now that you have the crash course in Alex Day and how he came to be on my blog, let’s begin!

What’s so special about this album?

In short? I think it’s how it came about. And the songs are ridiculously catchy, especially Georgia, The Time of Your Life and the title track The World is Mine (I Don’t Know Anything). And many others... or all of them. And, like Elbow, Alex Day sings with his own accent. He tried, before, to sing in the sort of American-commercial way, but he didn’t like it. He could do it, but he chose not to.

What’s it most like?

I would say his first album, but that’s not true. He did what Muse and many other bands do and created a new type of sound for his next album than what his listeners were used to. However, there’s common ground between this and his first album, Parrot Stories – the songs are pretty much all about love. Bless. He doesn’t claim for the idea of singing about girls to be original, but I like how he does it. Sort of a melancholy in some songs, but an enormous amount of energy in others (like Georgia).

Is this album really recommended?

If you can get past the fact that it’s not a commercial act, that it’s not made in the same way commercial albums are, and therefore doesn’t have the same sort of sound as commercial albums by much better known bands, then yes, this album is recommended. But if you have an attitude about music that restricts the growth of indie artists (not Indie the genre, but indie as in without a massive company behind them), then you may not be able to see The World is Mine (I Don’t Know Anything) as an album worth your time, because you’ll have attached a distaste to it before you’ve given it a shot. In short: your prejudice will get the better of you.

If you can get past your prejudices about certain types of music, then you will like this album. You’ll at least like it. As in, you might not love it like I do. But that’s okay, if you give it a shot first. I can almost promise you’ll find something you like on the album. Almost. I have to take into account that different people have different tastes. This is what Alex Day calls his “dance” album – really it’s called that because it has a lot of electrically produced sounds in it, it’s generally fast and it’s very much the sort of album you want to move about to. It’s a fun album to listen to, and I never get sick of it.

What next, then?

Well, Alex Day has another album and an EP that I’ve listened to a number of times, and he’s in two bands – Chameleon Circuit and Sons of Admirals, whose work I’ll be reviewing soon, too. Watch this space, because the DFTBA artists need backing to help them keep doing what they do best.

Review - Creedance Clearwater Revival: Rock Legends

I picked this little number up recently on – you guessed it – a recommendation. Creedence Clearwater Revival’s edition of Rock Legends (or is it the other way around... it’s a collection of CCR songs, anyway) is a fantastic album filled with songs by one of my latest crazes. I fell in love with the sound of CCR from the moment I heard Bad Moon Rising, so I had to have the CD when I found it in the shop!

Was it what you expected?

It was, and it wasn’t. I knew it’d be awesome, but I wasn’t sure of the sound before I listened to it the whole way through. My experience of Creedence Clearwater Revival was strictly limited to Bad Moon Rising and Proud Mary.

So does that mean –

Yes! They’re my favourite songs on the album. Two of my favourite songs to listen to out of everything I have in my collection. And that’s a lot of songs. I wasn’t going to get a CD with only one of them on it – it was both or nothing at all. Thankfully, this one found its way into my hands, and I love it. I mean, I may have two favourite songs out of sixteen on the album, but I can’t complain in one bit about any of the other songs. I love the guitar. It’s real classic rock guitar, not the sort of I’m-desperately-mainstream guitar you hear from a lot of bands. It’s not muddled up with a plethora of electric sounds, either. This is pure rock, and I love it. Which might surprise a few people – I paint a picture of myself as something entirely more modern, with an obsession with Glee that verges on dangerous. But, if it wasn’t for Glee I wouldn’t have first heard Proud Mary. I think it all evens out, there.

Which is better, then: the CCR or the Glee version of Proud Mary?

I knew you’d stick me with that option. Okay, one thing I’ll say – same lyrics, but they’re essentially different songs. Glee speeds up the CCR track to a dangerous tempo that threatens to throw the earth off its axis. Don’t get me wrong, I like it. I like the speed, the energy, the life that’s gone into the song. But it’s completely different from the mellow rock tune that CCR created. Instead of a slow, rolling beat to go with the lyrics, Glee created something that – as was intended – put life into the wheelchairs they sat in while performing the song in the show.

Let’s just clarify that, in case you don’t watch the show: there’s a kid in a wheelchair in the Glee Club, and to make him feel more included, they all go around in wheelchairs for a week. That way they know how he feels all the time. Part of the deal was also to do a “wheelchair song”, which is where Proud Mary comes in. To create a tune that showed that the guy wasn’t just a chair, they picked a song with the word “rolling” in it, and sped it up some to show the life, the energy, the emotion that the guy still has, even if his legs don’t work.

And it’s in that that the songs are different. Glee gave it a new purpose. For them, it wasn’t a classic rock song that was widely covered by a number of artists – it was a tune of expression. I think they did CCR proud, even if they had to change the song’s vibe. So, neither version is better. In saying that, though, I prefer CCR’s version of it, now that I’ve actually heard it. Originals tend to win hands down, because you can get a feel of the artist in them better.

Recommend the album, then?

Definitely. You haven’t heard rock until you’ve heard Creedence Clearwater Revival. They’ve got something special about them. They’ve captured some of the essence of rock. Too few people know about them these days. Sit back and enjoy the music, ladies and gentlemen. You won’t be disappointed.

Review - I Made You a CD But I Eated It

First thing’s first – what a great title for an album! This is an EP by the wonderful Molly Lewis, I Made You A CD But I Eated It. In summary: it’s short, but it’s sweet and it’s very funny. From the first song on the track listing you’re filled in on what you’re letting yourself in for: Molly sings (and plays her ukulele) about MySpace, an astronaut, Mr T, Peeps (whatever they are... American’s, please fill me in), Wikipedia and the president in her EP, with much hilarity guaranteed. There’s also the added bonus of Molly being a Super Nerd, one of few female Super Nerds.

So, why this strange CD?

Okay, so when I first got introduced to the idea of DFTBA – Molly is one of their artists – I got a compilation CD that had Molly Lewis on it – I Pity The Fool. Very hilarious, I have to say. After that, I decided I had to hear what else Molly could get up to, and I couldn’t resist the price, either. So I got the EP and I loved it. It’s strange, but funny, and well worth it.

What’s your favourite song? All of them isn’t an option.

You know me too well, vicious Review Alter-Ego. Okay, not all of them. Simply because I don’t understand it, Peep Fight is my least favourite song on the EP. But that’s it. The rest are all brilliant in their own ways, and they’re all hilarious. I especially love the two website songs (those about MySpace and Wikipedia), because they show off a couple of the best known sites on the Internet – one a social network that none of my friends are on, possibly bar one, and the other a mass-contribution encyclopaedia that colleges disagree with because anyone can change it, and so anyone can make it wrong (or funny). It’s also not complete, which Molly makes a point of. Why is there no page about her?

Is it recommended?
Oh very much so. It’s still one of my favourite things from DFTBA Records, because it’s so funny and so easy to listen to, and I fall in love with the nerdiness of it all every time I start to play MyHope, the first song. I can’t claim to know any/many funnier artists that Molly Lewis – a few have some funny songs, but Molly Lewis takes the biscuit (ew, a cliché!) with these six songs (plus one live version of a song) as they’re all funny in some way or another (okay, I might not get Peep Fight, but I’m fairly sure that the joke she makes about them is both right, and funny because it’s right! Definitely get it. You will laugh your pants off! (Warning: if you’re going to laugh your pants off, don’t do it in public, because that will get you locked up.)

Review - The Seldom Seen Kid

I know what you’re thinking – that’s not a book. I know. It’s a CD. I have a few passions in life – my friends (who can’t be reviewed and sold on Amazon), books and music being in the top three. So, I’m taking things up a notch and reviewing my collection of CDs, starting with the wonderful The Seldom Seen Kid (MP3 download also available), Mercury Music Prize winning album by Elbow.

What made you listen to this?

Well, it wasn’t the award, that’s for sure. I hadn’t any intention of getting the album, except I was told it was good. Plus, it was fiver euro. And ‘good’ was an understatement. I could literally listen to this album all day and not get bored with it. Since I got it, I’ve pretty much done that. It’s one of my favourite albums, ever. So, to answer the question: recommendation from a friend.

What’s it most like?

Nothing I’ve ever heard. Okay, English accent comes through a lot, and that’s not original, but I love it. It adds a certain degree of, I don’t know, homeliness to the songs. They don’t sound like a commercial band, fine-tuned to sound like they’re from nowhere. Elbow sound like they’re from a home. I like that; it doesn’t make them seem like massive pop stars, and therefore someone to be ogled like they have two heads each. Unless you’re into running up to them.

Favourite song?

I have two. Is that okay? I’m going to say it’s okay. Two favourite songs from it: The Bones of You and One Day Like This. They’re pretty damn amazing, though I wouldn’t skip any of the songs before or after (i.e. between them) to hear them. The album is too good to not listen to as a whole.

Will you be listening to their other albums?

If I find them in the shop, most definitely. Or I may just borrow them from a mate. Following that, I’ll give my verdict (I’m going to assume the other albums are also awesome, though.) Until then, I’ll just have to get by with the amazing album already in my possession.

Can I Be Happy?

I set the target – write a piece on happiness. On discovery. On freedom. And I thought, “I’m going through a good period. I can do this. Easy.” Not so. I have an unfortunate way of slipping into moments of darkness, spiralling down into a pit of insecurities. It drives me mad, and most of the time I’m not happy. Not alone, anyway. I’m rarely happy when I’m alone anymore, not if I think I’ve done something to deserve being alone.

I’ve been called a “little self conscious bastard” by someone. It’s not entirely false, either. I’m self conscious, a lot of the time. Other times I don’t care. People can hate me if they want, once they understand that whatever they hate me for is in their own head. I don’t do things to intentionally get on people’s nerves to that extend. I intentionally aim not to offend people.

So I thought – happiness. I can write about that. This is it, I suppose. This is me writing about happiness. I lack it. It’s not in enough quantity. My insecurities get in the way of that. They drive me absolutely mad. Can’t be happy like that. I know that, you know that, and one of my very best friends knows that. He’s the “someone” from before.

I deserved what he said, of course. I was being a strange little cretin, and I deserved it. And once everything had been sorted out, for the umpteenth time, musical education. “Seriously? Just like that? Musical education?” Yes. Music has a profound effect on me, and this friend, he has a wonderful way of knowing exactly what song to have me listen to. It started with Bob Marley, Don’t Worry Be Happy. He was taking the piss, a bit. But he knew what he was doing.

It moved on from there. He showed me music I’d never heard before, or showed me songs I’d heard before but never knew who performed it. Donovan, Sunshine Superman. Ben Folds, There’s Always Someone Cooler Than You. Ennio Morricone, The Mission Main Theme. Those are just a selection of the songs. Admittedly, there weren’t very many songs during this time, but there will likely be more in the future.

So why did I just tell you the songs I was told to listen to? Music, I’ve told you, has a profound effect on me. It lifts me up inside. I get lost in songs. The lyrics, the story of the song, the beat, the rhythm, the sounds of the instruments. Each and every one of these songs pulls me into them, into the happiness they’re capable of creating.

And in all this? Discovery. I hadn’t heard of a few of the people I was asked to listen to, and most of the songs. Music, I’ve decided, is happiness and discovery. And freedom? I suppose. I mean, I never feel more free than when the world slips away around me. Only darkness. Not the bad, soul eating type of darkness, but the type that’s there because nothing else needs to be. The world just leaves, goes away. The traffic and the mayhem around me as I walk down the road? Gone. Not important. If I was brave enough, I’d completely forget about them and just spin around in circles as I listen to The Doors. They make me want to do it, as my head gets filled with a strange euphoria, as I feel let loose, allowed to wander about inside my own head.

Musical education: my path towards freedom, towards happiness. I know it sounds absolutely bonkers, unless you really, really understand music, but that’s how it’s happened for me. Just last night, literally. And, I suppose, into the early hours of the morning. Earphones in, volume on just loud enough to hear, or I’d be deafened, Facebook chat open.

So I still ask myself, Can I be happy? I mean, all the time, can I be happy? I don’t know for sure. But I have these songs, now. I have the things that made a difference, and I’m listening to them all again and again in whatever order suits me. I’m letting myself fall back into that same mood as I was in last night, after all the worry that I was making a huge mistake, after all the doubt I placed in my head about whether or not a friendship was what I thought it was. I won’t lie – I do worry. A lot. I try not to, but I can’t help it. I worry, and it kills me on the inside.

And then... then the music plays. All sorts of music does the job, but new songs, new to my ears, at least, they do it better than anything else. While I don’t consider Glee to be an education in good music, the very fact that’s it’s new is all I need. Something new, something fresh, something lively, most of the time. It does the job, just like Ben Folds, just like Donovan, just like James Tiberius Kirk – William Shatner – doing his version of Common People.

Can I be happy? That’s the whole point of this, isn’t it? To see if I can be happy? I write, and I can be happy. I listen to music, and let it take me away on a strange new journey, and I can be happy. I go to a movie, and even when I’m feeling upset, like when I lost my job back in February, whenever I worried whether or not Jonny Havron, rest his soul, was safe or not, and for a while, at least, I can be happy. Senseless violence, I think it was. That was all it took. Feel good movies from explosions and banter. But, that’s different. The writing, that’s in solitude. The music, that’s a shared experience sometimes. Especially when it’s music someone’s shared with me, or something I can share with someone else, like Sorcha and my entire back collection of DFTBA’s finest. The movie, that’s with friends. I never go alone, and I mainly go with the same group of three or four people, and every time it’s over, every single time we get out of the movie, we walk to the end of the road while I wait for my dad or brother to come to pick me up, and we just talk and laugh, and make fun of the movie we just saw.

So can I be happy? I think so. I mean, if the past couple of months are anything to go by, I can be an annoying, self conscious, somewhat depressed little git, but I can be happy, too. I can most definitely be happy, when I have my friends there, the words, the music and the movies, the light-hearted entertainment and the escape from the world. And if I can be happy, with all my worries, and fears and doubts, there’s nothing stopping you from being happy, too

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Written as part of Summer of Writing 2010, Challenge 1 - I Can Be Happy. Deadline: June 26th 2010, 18:30 BST.

Flash Fiction

Hello, good people on the Internet, readers, writers, bloggers, vloggers, retail workers, office drones, party people, anti-socialites, and mermaids; I'm back after a much too long absense (*gasp* six whole days!). The reason for this absense is that I have news for you all that I only want to spread in Vlog form. Or at least, start in Vlog form and write the matching blog here too. My family have been against me on this agenda... By that I mean I can't make the video because they're never all out of the house when I'm still here!

Until such time I might be able to Vlog again, I have more news better suited to this blog. As you might guess from the title, I now write Flash Fiction. It's a rip-roaring barrel of fun and I highly recommend it. So far I've written four stories and submitted each one to a different magazine that my delightful followers on Twitter recommended to me.

Now it's your turn to recommend something: music. I know, it doesn't seem connected, but I'm going to attempt something mad that encompasses songs by a particularly fantastic band, and I'd like to know I have the creativity in me before I go forth. So, songs (they must have lyrics please) that I might be able to make a story out of. The only ones that are excempt otherwise are songs that are already stories (for example, Journey's End by Chameleon Circuit, or A Boy Named Sue by Johnny Cash).

By September 22nd latest, I will have heard from the first magazine. At that stage, if I'm successful, I'll leave a link to the story. Until then, music, music, music!!

Leave the song and artist in the comments below, or a direct link to the song on YouTube (which is where I will be going to listen to these wonderful songs). If you prefer to reply on Twitter, use the hashtag #musicpaul and I'll get all the recommendations. Thanks!