Oumou Sangaré "Seya": Grammy Nominated.

The other day I got a rather pleasing email from Nick Gold or World Circuit Records, telling me that the latest Oumou Sangare "Seya" has been nominated for a Grammy Award under the field of "Best Contemporary World Music Album". I was fortunately to have Mixed the album along with Jerry Boys as well as some arrangements, Dubs and recording for the album. So I can now call myself a Grammy Nominated engineer. Unfortunately you can't eat Grammys or use them to pay the bills (The Grammy always own the actual trophy) and you especially can't eat Grammy nominations, like I couldn't eat the Mercury nomination (didn't stop me trying), but it's nice to know someone notices your work.

You can read more about the Nomination and the album on the Nonesuch website here. Buy it. It's a great album.

Oumou Sangaré - Seya

Wiglaf Piece Of Fruit/Given Single Launch 28th Nov

The first release is here. On CD and soon to be out on the Internet. Keep your eyes peeled. We got it all ready to co inside with the finale of the Liverpool Folk and Roots Festival at St Brides Church, Liverpool. It was the first proper gig that John and I had done together and the first time that our Cellist, Sophia, had heard the songs (well done Sophia. Sterling work). When I say proper gig I mean more than just a few men ad a dog and people actually payed to get in. Packed it was and very cold, but that didn't do anything to dampen our spirits. We played first to get everyone warmed up (so to speak) and were followed by, Liz Green, The Random Family Band (our kind Hosts) and to finish, Denis Jones. An amazing night and a great end to a week of great music.

So the single is out for sale on CD now, contact us for a copy, and it will also be available for download from 8th December (RIP John Lennon). That's all for now, but here's the beautiful Piece of Fruit/Given Single artwork by Alex. Take care

Music industry: stop whingeing

Recently my cousin Patrick (@patrickjpr for tweeters) introduced me to a friend/colleague of his Dean Bubley. After being introduced and being told what I do for a living (making records) he soon laid into me (in the nicest way and quite welcome) about the music industry and how it should stop whinging. I wish I had recorded the conversation as it was a far better argument than his blog here but have a read and you get the general idea. The following essay (sorry guys but this is the abridged version) is my reply to his blog after careful consideration.

I might just add that I have not had a response from Dean after this. Does this mean I have converted him? Thoughts please.

All Hail The Internet.

The Internet, iTunes and social networking are of great benefit to the music industry. Large record companies are trying to maintain "business paradigms", but this shouldn't be confused with upholding current law.

I do not wish to over regulate or censor. The Internet should govern itself to a large degree. However, only up and until it infringes on the current law. Change the subject to pedophilia and there is no question about regulation. The law currently governs both.

Progression not Regression.

From your blog I assume you agree The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 is valid. So what is the problem with upholding it, whether or not you are directly affected by it?

The music industry is the ringleader, loud and arguably over dramatic, but does that invalidate the argument? Does being the first to shout, mean being the only one? If they were, would we be having this debate? This problem affects intellectual copyrights.

Should all creatives accept this as inevitable? Should Hawking have to give away 'A Brief History Of Time' to make money from teaching? Or Trevor Baylis his windup radio patent?

Ignorance Is No Excuse For Crime.

People find it difficult to compare physical and intellectual property due to intangibility (I mean songs not CDs, stories not books). It’s argued copying doesn’t deprive anyone of the intellectual property, but that does deprive potential revenue. If we replace an album with a house the issue is a viewed differently. The sums of money involved can be equated.

A housing developer buys land, employs architects, builders, an estate agent, and creates show-homes (free content). They manage to sell one; the others have been taken over by perfectly wealthy people because;

“We want to live there but it wouldn't be possible to buy all the houses we want to live in. We'll buy the next one. Think of it as marketing. Well tell our friends to buy from you. You make money from lecturing about town planning anyway".

- Joe Public BA (hons)

Why is that not right even though shelter is a greater necessity than the luxury of owning music. I'm sure the homeless would prefer a free home. The law notices the similarities, so why, does the Internet, change that? Can I steal your home over the Internet, just because I wanted it but don’t want to pay for it?

It’s Not What You Know.

You say the music industry is making a disproportionately loud noise in relation to the importance of music (debatable, "without music, life would be a mistake" - Nietzsche). Is it disproportionate to the importance of intellectual property however? Music has a unique relationship with all humans, but what is the problem with using this for the greater good? is the argument less valid? I can only attribute a wish that one's own industry had a similar appeal.

Bob Geldof has proven this usefulness but it isn't a music industry phenomenon. Thomas Clarkson used his contacts with William Wilberforce to abolish slavery. Geldof or Sharkey's work is not to be regarded as highly as Clarkson and Wilberforce's, but Sharkey doesn’t wish to abolish the Internet, just enforce current law. Racial or sexual exploitation is as abhorrent whether on the Internet or in a shop.

The Starry Lights.

"I cannot believe that anyone entering the music industry in the last 10 years has done so expecting to make $$$ from record sales. All the musicians I know are well-aware of the score."

You know some particularly well-informed musicians then. I'm a record producer and work with lots of musicians. Most believe they are destined to earn millions and that because I’m in music I must be super wealthy. They confuse the glitter with shiny coins. When they find out the harsh reality they are surprised at what they can actually earned... if they get paid at all.

This problem has been around since the music industry began, but is unrelated to copyright infringement. Most of these musicians probably download illegally but that shouldn't justify the act. If a victim of racism reciprocated, they would be just as guilty as their attacker. Should both accept the prejudice and, as you say, 'stop whingeing'?

The rise in musical instrument sales is also another erroneous issue adding to the confusion. One of market competition and reduced manufacture and distribution costs. Another blog perhaps.

Giveaway or Takeaway?

The music industry is not interested in a pseudo-communist market where only certain people can sell music and at a set price. No one denies that freebies and some illegal copying are great marketing tools. Metallica owe some of their success to bootleg tapes. It's been happening it since the industry began in newspapers and on Corn Flake packets. Mr Sharkey himself gave a free copy of his music to a certain Mr Peel. Lily Allen gave out music on Myspace, but this shouldn’t mean all music should be free.

File sharing adds a new problem. It can be done on scale far greater than pirate radio, bootleg tapes or CD combined… with absolutely no degradation of quality.

Surely the price of a work should be the decision of the owner, digital or not. Whether people pay that price is a different matter determined by demand on a free market. Recorded music may, due to variety of entertainment forms, be reduced to the gig-marketing budget, but let a free market decide, not a black market.

A Question of Responsibility.

Consumers have some responsibility, but individual persecutions would be like herding cats (sharers on a large scale should be prosecuted though). The creative industries have a responsibility to educate the public about the problems but the onus should be placed on those allowing and profiting from the popularity of P2P: The P2P/ service providers.

We shouldn’t restrict them; it's a great service that should be encouraged, but nor should allow them to deny responsibility the part they play. Why should they profit from content while the creators don't?

You might say it’s huge undertaking to track all illegal downloads but the MCPS, PRS, PPL and BPI have been doing this for years. The problem isn't manpower,; it’s the lack of authority to claim what is legally theirs. Radio stations are responsible for a DJ playing a song, both profiting from selling advertising aimed at the listeners of those songs. What’s the difference?

Radio listeners don't even own the final product. Regulation hasn't reduced radio stations, or the quality and variety of content. There are more radio stations with more content than when the BBC was allowed to tax the purchase of radio equipment.

Music free to the consumer, regulation of broadcast and distribution, free markets and ‘freebies aren’t new concepts. The only thing new here is the technology, yet that is still only the broadcast of electromagnetic waves.

The Wrong Conclusion From The Right Results.

The issues and consequences surrounding copyright infringement have been muddled up with market competition, censorship and paradigm maintenance. The web is here to stay and is only getting bigger. We should embrace the change, but not to the detriment of our values, ethics and laws. "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing".

We need to uphold our rights and responsibilities that have taken hundreds of years to refine. Let’s not stop now. Rather than waste time and energy telling the industry to turn it down, help focus the real issue. Encourage good moral grounding. Maybe it will affect you someday… maybe it won't. Slavery didn't adversely affect the people who abolished it though.

Anyway, maybe it will sift out some of the shit that is swamping the markets (wink). God forbid 'shit' be determined by anything other than popularity... or lack thereof.

People power

A bit off topic today, but I wanted to bring this to the attention of those who didn't know and those who snub social networks as gimmicks.

My faith in humanity has been restored a little after the two real world situations that Twitter users affected last week. I'm not going to go over what happened as it's now been told a million times but you can find out about the Trafigura incident here and the Jan Moir talking shite incident here. 

Has Twitter finally found it's niche as a open forum to express opinions en masse? The Trafigura story broke and was finished with in a matter of hours. In the old days there would have been a petition and maybe a demonstration or the like, which would have taken days, weeks or even months to organise and execute. Now the same effect can be achieved within a day. Love it.

I also love the fact that people with power seem to take the internet seriously, and in some cases are even intimidated by it. Not exactly why that is yet, but it could be because the net is such an open playing field. Once a dirty secret is laid out in a secluded corner of the net it can spread within hours to be a global talking point and those involved are often forced to respond. This is a powerful tool, and unbelievably it's still in it's infancy. It's inspiring and scary all at the same time.

In other news, I somehow was talked into running the live sound for an awards show at Alexandra Palace. It was for inventors and whilst I had no idea what most of the things did, the Korean guy who won invention of the year had a pretty amazing product. It's a synthetic bonelike material that can be used to hold breaks together. The idea being that if you break your arm you can be out of hospital in a couple of hours and have no need for a plaster cast. That's got to be worth an award at least!


 

See you soon,

Kev.

New Day Rising

It's quite possible to create a good recording anywhere with the equipment available these days but the one point that people seem to miss out is that you have to have the experience to be able to get the most out of it. For example - Waves have just released a series of 'Signature' plug-ins from such luminaries as Tony Maserati and Eddie Kramer. You can have a look at them here. Now what each these units actually are is a group of various plug-ins (compression, eq, stereo imaging, FX, etc) controlled by one GUI. Each of these units settings have been designed by the aforementioned 'Signature' artist, the idea being that you can now EQ your kick drum in the same way Eddie Kramer would.

I haven't tried these plug-ins yet and am actually looking forward to seeing what they do, but I do do have one huge problem with them - the way they are being marketed! I'm sure they sound great and do a good job, but they will not sound great on everything. On some things they will be bang on and exactly what you're looking for, and on other things they may be not so great or even make things worse. There's nothing wrong with that, as the same can be said for almost every bit of kit out there, from Neve to Behringer. Ok maybe not Behringer but you get my point.

Waves have chosen to market this as if it's the same thing as having Eddie Kramer come round to your house and mix it for you, and I think that's incredibly misleading. Most professionals and knowledgeable amateurs will know the score and if they choose to purchase, they will do for the right reasons - because they like what they do. However I think there will be a lot of people without the experience buying these thinking they will be the magic wand they've been looking for. If you put to much bass on something it doesn't matter that Eddie Kramer or Tony Maserati designed the plug-in, it'll still be too bassy! The same goes for too much compression, over (or under) use of effects, bad stereo imaging - the list goes on.

The greatest example of this technological quicksand is what i call 'The Beatles Fallacy'. Ever since the advent of the Tascam Portastudio, salesman and the misguided have been keen to point out that the home recording set up du jour is technically better than what The Beatles had available to them. I couldn't agree more.

But!!!!!

A) You're not The Beatles.
B) You're not in Abbey Road.
C) You don't have George Martin around.
D) You don't have have some of the most inventive engineers of their time helping out.

I could go on.

There was a interview I read once that I swear was with Brian May though my memery of it is a little cloudy. Anyway, whoever it was supported Jimi Hendrix one night, and for one reason or another ended up using Jimi's guitar rig. They said that all it just continously produced feed back and a sounded bloody awful, yet when Jimi got up and played through exactly the same set up it sounded like Jimi Hendrix! The point being that having the same kit doesn't somehow allow you to absorb someone elses talent or instincts.

So in conclusion, be careful - don't believe the hype! Buy something because you've tried it and you like what it can do, not what you hope it can do!!!

Kev.

Brave New World?

How are we all? Everyone ok? Good.

I'm the proud owner of an iPhone which has become an intrinsic part of my life in the last few months. Indeed, I'm actually writing this blog on it! Amazing bits of kit. A couple of weeks ago I downloaded the Spotify app for the iPhone and also signed up for a premium account with them. I'm sure you all know about Spotify and if you don't then you should.

Anyways, the app only works if you have a premium account, which costs about £10 a month, and as I'm the adventurous type I thought I'd give it a go. The main feature for me is it's ability to cache up to about 3000 songs for a month, meaning that you can have your playlists available off line if you need it (on the underground, on a plane, up a mountain, etc, etc). For me that is definitely worth £10 a month and more importantly Spotify itself may offer a glimpse of the music industries future. Sure it's not perfect and I know there's some controversy about artist payments but as a starting point it is definitely worth taking seriously.

The thing about it that compelled me to write this blog is the customer review section for the app on iTunes. There are plenty of people singing it's praises but there seems to be just as many who are complaining about the 'rip off' pricing of Spotifys premium account without which the app will not work. The ferocity and venom that some of these reviews have really shocked me.

It seems to be indicating that there are a lot of people out there who believe that they deserve this service for free. Not would like it for free, but rather expect it for free. Are these people a minority? Has the the wonderful inclusive and liberal nature of Web 2.0 backfired and created a mindset where music as a commodity is worth less than ever?

I know this cultural battle is far from over but I do belive that sides are becoming more clear cut than before. I understand the pirate reasoning for doing what they do, but I do not condone it. On the flip side to that I think the mainstream industry has been desperately hanging onto the past when they should be the innovators. Maybe it's too late to turn this round or maybe it's just a cultural shift that will balance out in the end. I don't know what the outcome will be or most importantly what this means for the musicians who are valiantly sending their work into the ether in the hope of some reward, but I do know that when the smoke clears it will definitely be a very different world.

Keep on keeping on.

Hello world,

How are we today?
I've been trucking away in the studio with quite a selection of jobs this last week and a bit. We've had in Darling Bones, Nimmo And The Gauntlets, Jessica Grace and Alex Vald (a.k.a. Lextrical). I've also been getting the scissors out for a radio edit of Wild Palms forthcoming single. The engineering legend that is Tom Morris took the reins for a quick and dirty session with the band Deep Shit (yes that's really their name), and Pinna is currently accomodating producer/engineering team Weller Hill tracking drums for a band whose name I don't know.
Add to that a couple of voice over sessions and a bit of avant garde electronic noise sculpture for Dan Wilsons latest film project and there you have it.
Currently I'm enjoying a couple of rare days off, but no rest for the wicked as you can expect to see a new Pinna website very very soon. How exciting!
Also today I made a stand for common decency. Some 'youngsters' on the bus sitting behind me kept playing bad hip hop from their phone as loud as they could. So annoying. So I played Frank Sinatra on my phone as loud as I could. They stopped their music and I won a small, petty victory. Still tasted sweet though.

Till next time,

Kev.

From the pen of
Kevin James Feazey.

How to get your sound

Hello one and all. Sorry for being a bit late with this, I am trying!

This week I’d like to talk a little about a subject that is often overlooked and ignored by musicians (and often engineers) in the recording process and leads to a lot of wasted time in the mix and worse, a lot of unnecessary compromises. I’m referring to the art of knowing what you sound like. Before any session I talk to the band I’ll be working with and discuss what direction and overall sound they want to aim for. Invariably they will have a strong, definite vision of who they would like to sound like, but when they actually start loading the kit in it becomes obvious that they have no idea how to achieve that goal. The guitarist will want to sound like Hetfield but will only have a Strat and a Fender Princeton amp, and the keyboard player will want to sound like he’s playing a Steinway with a £30 Casio.

I believe that a lot of this comes from a lack of understanding of what The Studio is for. Yes, most studios will have an array of preamps, equalisers, compressors and the like with which you can beat your particular sound waves until they submit to your will, but wouldn’t it be better to use said tools to enhance your sound rather than mangle it into something it didn’t want to be? I’m starting the movement now - getting your sound at source is the new black!!!

For now I’m just going to be talking about electric instruments, as I think setting up acoustic instruments for your individual needs is something to be talked about separately another day.

The problem that I see most is when a musician wants a sound he’s heard produced by a hugely expensive pro rig. Invariably the penniless musician will only have the instruments and amps that he can afford, and usually these are nothing like what is required to get the aforementioned ‘expensive’ sound. What I propose is that you (the musician) should give in to fate, accept the equipment you have and it’s limitations and use it to your advantage. Sure you may never sound like The Edge or Jack White, but you will hopefully start to carve out something that sounds like you and nobody else!

The most important thing here is to not get frustrated. Frustration will lead to gear lust which will lead to spending money on kit you can’t afford, debts, jobs delivering pizza, and broken marriages, all to chase a sound that belongs to someone else. What you need to do is to sit down with the equipment you have and learn how to use it! I cannot stress this enough. Learn the sounds that your rig is capable of.
Guitarists - go through each pick up setting on your guitar. Roll the tone pot back and then up again. Roll the volume pot back and then up again. Try different combinations and take note what effect each change of setting has. Set the equaliser on your amp to zero and listen to what each knob does as you turn it up. Then try different combinations of eq, more bass less treble, more treble less bass. Crank the gain up, see how distorted a signal you can get from the amp. Is there a sweet spot for the gain? Listen loud, and (very important) listen quietly. What sounds good loud might sounds terrible quiet and vice versa.
You are now learning what your rig can do, what it is capable of. Forget what anyone else sounds like; just keep experimenting until you get something that you like. Certain combinations of settings will sound better to you than others and this will be the beginnings of your very own sound produced by your very own rig.
Keyboard players – learn what every setting on your keyboard does. Read the damn manual!!! Synthesisers often have hundreds of settings and you are going to have to learn them all. Sorry. What do the filters do? What do the oscillators do? Can you set the portamento rate? Can you assign settings to the mod wheel? Can you turn effects on and off quickly? If you are using a sampling keyboard do you know how assign and edit new samples? Most will have a display with menu functions, so learn what is buried within each sub menu of this. What does the sine wave sound like? The square wave? The sawtooth?

So now you should have a pretty good idea of what you can do with your rig, and what you sound like playing through it. Hopefully you will also have found a unique combination of settings that you feel good about. This, my friend, is what you sound like!
And as you now have an expert knowledge of what each component of your equipment does tweaking it should be a breeze. Does your guitar amp sound a bit dull in a particular room? You should know whether it’s the treble or the presence knob that needs turning up right? Are your synths oscillators slightly out of tune with the track? That’s ok because you know how to alter the tuning right?

All of this hard work will make your life so much easier both in the studio and live. You will be able to adapt your unique sound quickly and easily to fit in with other instruments and to be heard in a mix without having to be kicked through with a steel toe capped boot. And now all of the dark arts of the studio can be used to make you sound as good as you possibly can. No longer will microphones be placed with damage limitation in mind, they will now capture every facet of your dynamic performance! Equalisers will be used to sweeten rather than chop huge chunks of offending frequencies out. And compressors will help you to bounce along in the mix instead of keeping you in your place with a sledge hammer. Happy days and good times for all!

Kev.

BLESSAY 02: Mastering

After a long pause in proceedings, due to the fact that everyone seems to want to make records during a credit crunch, I'm back to writing my blessays and with popular demand this one is about Audio Mastering. It would appear to be the part of the process of making a record, that everyone knows of it's importance and yet don't know what actually goes on in the 'mastering suite'. Now as mastering techniques vary from engineer to engineer and between genres of music, I won't go into what a mastering engineer does specifically, but what you would expect to be done in mastering and what you should be listening out for.

1. The Definition.

Basically Mastering is making your collection of songs into an album. It's more than likely that, on their own each of your mixes sounds pretty good, but you'll notice that when you put them together on a CD and listen in the car or at home, you'll notice one sounds a bit dull in comparison to the next and you have to turn the volume up for some of them, or the whole thing is just a little quiet compared to the CD you had on before hand.

Mastering is the process used to make each song roll into the next, EQing where necessary, making the tracks the same loudness (perceptual volume rather than actual volume) and making sure the gaps between the songs gives you the right movement. The treatment you give each track will vary depending on running order. It's the audio equivalent to cutting the edges of your photos so that they fit in the photo book properly and organising them so that you're not jumping from wedding to christening to the photos your mum really shouldn’t have seen.

 2. As Much Or As Little As You Like... Or Can Afford.

The Mastering process can start at various places in the album making timeline, but it all depends on money.  The more you give your mastering engineer to do the more expensive it gets, but it may well help you to see the bigger picture if you start piecing things together early on. Test mastering allows you to see everything put together and processed as a master so that you can see what you need to change and at the same time see what you thought you needed to change but actually don't. Whenever you start to master, there are a few things that you can expect your mastering engineer to do... and some you can't.

3. Getting The Right Source.

It's important to give the mastering engineer the right material. This all depends on your mastering engineer so talk to them about it. For example, if you're mixing in the box at 96kHz 24bit, your mastering engineer may prefer to have the mixes at full quality and for them to sample rate convert and truncate. On the other hand they may just want 44.1kHz 24bit files from you. If you've recorded to analogue tape, they may be best set up to be able to digitise the tapes via analogue outboard gear and expensive high quality converters.

You may, due to cost, have to digitse them yourself. In this case take advice from your mix or mastering engineer, but the fewer the number of times that your material is converted from analogue to digital and back, the better.  Also if you can get around not sample rate converting then your music will sound better too. Analogue tape is the best option in my opinion.

4. Editing

Depending on how you mix and how decisive you are, you may wish to do some editing in mastering. When mixing to tape you may put down a couple of versions per mix to see which you prefer in the real world (e.g. with or without backing vocals). You can then edit between these two mixes. You may need a few bars taking out to make the song move along quicker or make a ‘single’ edit, but you don't want to, or can’t, go back and recall the mix.  All this can easily be done in mastering.

If you digitise the tapes yourself, or you're mixing to a digital format, you may wish to edit the takes together yourself. This will save you money, but depending on the takes/mixes you're editing together, they may need to process the mixes differently, which might be more smoothly done in mastering. Also your mastering engineer might be able to add a fresh opinion to mixes and advice on some edits that you can't quite decide on, allowing you to step back and be more objective.

5. Running Order

This is probably one of the most important things when compiling your album..  There are no rules for this really. It's all personal preference and how you perceive your music and album to be. The idea is to take the listener on a journey, not just a random fleet round the houses. In the similar way that an artiste will organise their artwork round the room so as you progress, you are taken seamlessly from idea to idea.  You should take your time over this and make sure you're happy with it. The way an album moves can really affect whether someone listens to the whole thing or just picks a couple of tracks to slot into their shuffle playlist.

6. Mind The Gaps

Gaps are very important. Don't underestimate them. They make everything flow together properly. Like the old musician's saying "it's not the notes that you play, it's the notes you don't play". If your gaps are too short it can make the album seem relentless and tiring on the ears. If they are too long then you can loose the all important "suspension of disbelief" and so people don't get lost in the record. The length of gaps all depends on the running order as well, whether you want to keep things up and pumping or slow things down and relax your listener more.

7. EQ and Level

This is running order dependent. The idea is to bring the best out of each track and make sure that each sounds great ,but also to make sure that each feels right following the track before. You may have a really bright track which needs to be nice and bright to make it feel right, but then the track after it might be duller. On it's own it feels the duller track feels bright enough, but after a bright track it might need to be brightened to balance it out.  It may not. You ears may be glad of the rest from all the top end.  Listen and see how you feel. 

The level of the track is very much the same idea. You don't want to have a track that comes in too loud after a nice quiet track. You may need to change the level of different sections of a track to make it feel right after processing. For example the intro of the following track might feel a little quiet after a loud track, but the main body of the song is loud enough, so raising the level of the intro will make everything balance a little more.

 9. Compression

Now this one is the Holy Grail, the thing that everyone asks me about, when talking about mastering. Many people seem to think that Mastering compression is more magic than mix compression. I hate to say... it's pretty much the same. It doesn't make you play more in time or sound like Hendrix. It is very important however, and can be so easily over done. At first the extra compression can feel nice, but if you compare the old mixes and listen to the record as a whole, it may become tiring.  You obviously want you record to sound loud and compete with other records, but don't kill the dynamics of your album and all that hard work you put into playing in the first place. 

Radio's will compress the hell out of it anyway so don't worry about that, and people are always going to turn it up or down as they please.  Too much compression at a low level can still feel tiring. It can make you feel like your ears are compressing naturally (read more here) even when they aren't. 

10. All in All.

Make sure you work with someone that has been recommended or you know their work and make sure to compare what they've done to the material that you started with.  Like mixing you may not get it right first time so don't be concerned about going back and making tweaks (if you can afford). Make sure you take just as much care over this as any other part of the recording process and have fun in the process. Good mastering really can make you hear a record like you're not the one who's made it... and so it feels much better. Believe me. It helps.

Sonny

Getting it together

Hello world!

Haven't been on here for a while,which is mainly due to my inability to organise my life properly. But all that is in the past now, and I have a new system worked out that will help me to blog more regularly. I call it a 'Calendar'. That's right folks i've invented the 'Calendar'. Once i've ironed out the bugs I might let other people have a go on it.

So from now on you should expect to see a new blog every week on either Wednesday or Thursday. If I slack off please feel free to shout at me. I highly reccommend subscribing via the RSS feed so that you don't miss out on my spectacular ramblings. And if you want to follow me on Twitter you can do so here. And there's more!!! Have you often said to yourself, "I wish I could actually see what Kev gets up to, ideally in 12 second bursts"? Well fret no more! Get your self over to my 12seconds channel and your wish will be granted! For those of you who don't know what 12seconds is, just go there and have a look as it sounds really dumb when you try to describe it.

So that's enough self promotion for now I think.

In other news i've been working with Lydia Lunch again. Her new band is now officially called Big Sexy Noise and you can get hold of the first e.p. here. It's only available on vinyl but i'm guessing when the full album is released there will be other formats. I'll let you know when it's all done and dusted, we're mixing it in July so should be out fairly soon after one would hope.

Polar Bear have been back in to finish of the new album sessions. You should check out my amigo Sonny's blog for more on that as it was his gig and I was just helping out. Bloody good stuff though, it was a joy to listen to. Not sure when it's going to be out, but keep you eyes open people!

Talking of which we managed to catch Acoustic Ladyland (whos share two members with Polar Bear) live at the Southbank centre last Sunday. They too have a album coming out and from the new songs I heard in the live set I would say that it will be well worth taking a punt on it!

And on that note, good bye!