Went to see the Average White Band at the Jazz Cafe last night. Very entertaining gig.

Labels: diary, music

Internet Radio

While I was out in the US for the wedding, a friend who lives out there introduced me to a very cool website, which had previously passed me by, although I now think I recall having read about the site, its founder Tim Westergren and problems with the US copyright authorities on Doc Searls. Pandora.com is a website that allows you to play a stream of music over the internet, which you can “teach” so that it plays a programme of songs that appeal to your taste. The way it does so is by having laboriously catalogued all of the available tracks according to their characteristics and playing songs which have similar characteristics to songs or artists in relation to which you have expressed approval when “seeding” your “station”. You then have the opportunity to approve, deprecate or remain neutral about each song played by the website, further guiding it in the desired direction. Basically, you end up with an internet radio station where the “DJ” only plays stuff you like.

How gutted was I, therefore, to arrive back in the UK to find that as from January 2008, access to the website has been restricted to those in the United States due to international licensing restrictions. We need this in the UK. Come on, the PRS, etc, give them a licence.

Labels: computers, music

Akon still struggling to grow into mighty oak

Does the extended remix version of Sorry, Blame it on Me by Akon include a line about “sorry for being shite and making irritating records”? It should do.

Labels: music

Stan Tracey

After watching the first half of the rugby last night, I took the difficult decision to go to a gig at the Pizza Express Jazz Club on Dean Street instead of watching the second half. It was the Stan Tracey Trio (ST + Andrew Cleyndert (bass) and Clark Tracey (drums)) with Benjamin Herman (alto sax) and Guy Barker (trumpet). It was extremely good and enjoyable and I think that in the end I made the right decision. Spoke to Clark Tracey afterwards and apparently they were recording for a CD that night, so I will be looking out for that in due course for my collection.

Labels: diary, london, music

Led Zep

Did anyone get tickets for the Led Zeppelin Ahmet Ertegun tribute gig on 26 November 2007? Tickets are £125 and were allocated via a ballot that was enormously over–subscribed. I applied but was unsuccessful. I saw that Harvey Goldsmith was on the TV having a big moan the other day about the secondary market that has developed on ebay (although I am not exactly clear what the principled basis for his complaint is — “real fans” are no more likely to win in the ballot than anyone else, or any less likely to have £1,000 to buy a ticket on ebay than anyone else).

Labels: music

Apparently, this Joseph is the big thing at the moment. “He looks handsome, he looks smart. He’s a walking work of art”. Doesn’t stop him looking like a young Colonel Gadaffi, mind you.

Labels: london, music

George Melly

R.I.P. George Melly. Ronnie Scott’s at Christmas won’t be the same without you.

“He was a noted drinker but claimed to have cut down in later years. “I’m very fond of alcohol, but I drink a minute amount compared with what I did at one period in my life, when I drank at least a bottle of brandy a night, plus gins and things during the day,” he said. “Now I’ll have a dry sherry around noon, maybe a glass of wine at lunch and then in the evening I’ll have two or three gin and tonics and half a bottle of wine and probably a couple of brandies, which for me is practically being teetotal.””

Labels: music

Woah, I just heard/saw Natasha Bedingfield’s song “I want to have your babies” and its accompanying video and they are bloody terrifyingly egregious. Following on from her earlier single “These Words” (“I love you, I love you, I love U-hu”), this confirms my view that Natasha Bedingfield’s concept is totally, like, “the over–sized nightmare psychotic girlfriend set to music”. Clever positioning: sure she’ll sell millions.

Labels: music

Not every Akon grows into a mighty oak

Is it just me, or are Gwen Stefani and Akon crap? By which I don’t mean “Gwen Stefani feat. Akon” is crap. I mean separately, they are both crap. “Gwen Stefani feat. Akon” should be doubly crap, but in fact it is actually slightly less crap than some of their particularly crap stuff separately. But it’s still crap. In my opinion.

Labels: music

What do you get if you nick the title from Velvet Revolver (Fall to Pieces) and the music from Bob Dylan (Like a Rolling Stone). Razorlight’s new single that’s what. Also, that boney posh bloke seems like a nob. Put a shirt on mate.

Labels: music