OCCUPIED COUNTRY

Trans.....

I got a call out of the blue the other week. Well, not out of the blue as such, more out of Stalybridge. It was my old band partner who, for the purposes of this blog, we shall dub 'Riff'. He was down my neck of the woods to do a live interview and play a few of his songs on a local radio station and suggested meeting up after it to catch up on the five years or so since we'd last made music together.

Geography and apathy were the reasons we drifted apart. There was no animosity. That's not to say there was a lack of 'musical differences' towards the end, but it was still amicable.

The last band we were in was a five piece predominately blues combo with acoustic leanings. We had a female vocalist, a bass player, harmonica, guitars, mandolin and a good mix of harmony vocals. Later a drummer appeared but by then the boredom had set in. Apart from anything else I was living miles away from the rest of them so every practice session ended up a very late night for me. On top of that the practicing was only being actually practiced by a dedicated few: other members made the same mistakes week after week. It was infuriating even though they usually got their act together for actual gigs. Worrying about bum notes from other members of the band while fretting about your own makes for a volatile mix though - guaranteed to churn the stomach.

On top of this I was curator of the most of the equipment which meant that I had to arrive at the venue and start putting the gear up and then pulling it down at the end. I was fed up with the whole enterprise and wanted to twiddle around in my little home studio.

And that's just what I did - much more enjoyable. Anyway I digress.

I listened in as Riff was probed by a local presenter and sang three of his self-penned numbers. Later, over a couple of drinks we reminisced about old times and told each other who'd died/had a stroke/divorced/gone to prison. It were grand!

Riff's in the process of recording his new CD and wants me play mandolin on four tracks. He's sent me the basic demos - just him and his acoustic so now it's down to me to come up with some arrangements. Three of them are fairly simple but one of them is run-laden master class in guitar playing that cries out for the mandolin to follow. I could get away with vamping chords in the background but my musical soul tells me that I would be doing the song a disservice.

There's some intense mandolin practice on the horizon that's for sure.

Riff is also a member of a loose coalition of musicians who call themselves the Acoustic Collective. It's an ad hoc, no strings coming together to play and sing for the hell of it. They do occasional gigs and festivals and he's asked me to pop along one night to check it out...........tempted. Very tempted.

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For the first time in my Personal Communications Device mobile phone toting history I have finally acquired a brand new one. From scratch as it were. No more accepting hand me downs from my kids as technological advances lure them on to the next new thing, I've bitten the bullet. To be fair this wasn't just a whim - the phone I had (a very nice but battered HTC with pull-out keyboard , wi-fi and unlimited Internet) was great untill it started playing up: freezing, turning itself off and phoning people in the middle of the night!!! The decision was made.

I decided I was staying with O2 as I also had a dirt cheap fast broadband deal with them. So it was an 8Gb iPhone 3G.

I love it.

Apart from anything else it's a sublimely designed thing of beauty - as most Apple products are. It doubles as an iPod. I have downloaded an app to make it a DAB radio. I've downloaded an app to remind me of all the mandolin chord shapes I've forgotten. I access my email on it. Surf the net, watch YouTube videos, message, use it as a torch, play the piano, record and playback stuff....you can even phone people up on it if you wish.

In fact the only thing on it that lets it down is the camera. A measly 2 megapixel jobby that performs reasonably well during the day but is woefully lacking in low light. It looks like it has a variable ISO thingy to attempt to compensate for slower shutter speeds, but all this seems to do is add a lot of (visual) noise to the images. When I get my replacement in two years time I expect the camera to be at least as good as the one I had on my Sony Ericsson last year. Still....mustn't grumble....... Did I tell you I love it?

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One of the apps you can get for the iPhone is Spotify, but at £9.99 a month I'll give it a miss. Even so it's odd that Apple have allowed this undermining of its own iTunes with a piece of software that allows you to listen to stuff in its entireity as well as now offering the option to purchase tracks. I guess Steve Jobs knows what he's doing so who am I to question.

But speaking of Spotify, once again I am indebted to this swell little Swedish service as it has allowed me preview another album before nipping along to iTunes to get it. Pugwash's amalgamation of past glories into a new album entitled 'Giddy' is a gem to match (if not surpass) The Duckworth-Lewis Method's homage to the Gentlemens' game earlier in the summer. Superbly crafted pop songs crisply played and produced and sung with a true pop voice by Thomas Walsh - driving force behind both bands.

I have started creating playlists for my own listening pleasure. I am half way through creating lists from my musically formative years - '65, '66, '67, '68, '69, '70, '71 and '72. A rummage around on Google soon throws up lists of stuff from the years mentioned that you can then find on Spotify and add to the lists. It's a nostalgia-fest that constantly reveals forgotten gems.

A great example of this was redsicovering 'Birth' by the Peddlers from 1969. I had completely erased this from my memory banks. I'm conviced I've never heard it since on radio or TV. It had just gone. But in 1969 I loved it, it was so out-of-odds with everything else that was happening musically. Three jazzers with the classic jazz line up of piano, bass and drums and the pianist singing in a strange half-strangled manner, took this into the top ten before promptly disappearing. And there it was on Spotify, waiting for me to find it again after all these years.

Pics as we wait..........


Nice bound.


Early morning on my way to work. iPhone


Fog!

That's all folks!