Yorkshire Music: News and Updates

Christmas 2006 will always be remembered by the family of James Brown as the day that he passed away. Brown died early this morning and below are some quotes from the various news agencies around the world reporting on this event:


BBC - "Singer James Brown, known as the "Godfather of Soul", has died at the age of 73, his agent has said... He was admitted to hospital in Atlanta after being diagnosed with severe pneumonia but died at 0145 local time (0645 GMT), said Frank Copsidas."

CNN - "He was, literally, an impossible act to follow: The Rolling Stones were said to have been terrified to come on after Brown in "The T.A.M.I. Show," a 1964 concert that appeared on film the next year. ("Nobody could follow me," Brown told "T.A.M.I. Show" director Steve Binder, according to a Los Angeles Times article.) Brown's performance in that show even earned an ovation from the backing band."

Fox News - "Along with Elvis, Bob Dylan and a handful of others, Brown was one of the major musical influences of the past 50 years. At least one generation idolized him, and sometimes openly copied him. His rapid-footed dancing inspired Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson among others. Songs such as David Bowie's "Fame," Prince's "Kiss," George Clinton's "Atomic Dog" and Sly and the Family Stone's "Sing a Simple Song" were clearly based on Brown's rhythms and vocal style."

ABC - ""He made soul music a world music," Sharpton said. "What James Brown was to music in terms of soul and hip-hop, rap, all of that, is what Bach was to classical music. This is a guy who literally changed the music industry. He put everybody on a different beat, a different style of music. He pioneered it.""

It's been another busy time for me of late and so getting around to doing regular blogs has been a bit more tricky than usual. Not so much because of a busy working schedule but because of the chaos that inevitably ensues around Christmas time. Only last night I was at a party at my cousin's house and got chatting to a lady there who is a devout catholic. When the issue of the Christmas mass came up she started to ask me about my religious convictions, or rather my lack of religious conviction.

One of the things I didn't bring up in that conversation (and now wish I had) is that my beliefs on this matter stretch as far as this: Christmas carols and other songs / foods / traditions associated with the festival are not just for Christians. A secular humanist, I am without faith in a God and do not subscribe to any religious group, but I love going to carol concerts, either as a member of the audience or as one of the performers, and I think that the sound of the Salvation Army Brass Band in the town centres lights up the atmosphere as much as the electric illuminations manage to. Indeed, when I sang with the Salt Grammar School Choir (some years ago now!!!), I would most enjoy this time of year because the repertoire we performed was just wonderful - as well as the traditional 'hymn-type' carols, such as Hark the Herald Angels Sing and When Shepherds Watched Their Flocks, we sang loads of the more recently composed works by the likes of John Rutter, such as the Nativity Carol and the stunningly beautiful Candlelight Carol.

You could argue that I'm a hypocrite and/or somehow missing the point - if I don't have a belief in Christ then presumably these pieces of music (or, at least, their lyrics) are meaningless to me and not worth singing. But, on the contrary, many of these songs mean a great deal to me. Not because I believe that Jesus was born at this time of year 2000 years ago but for other more personal... more humanistic, relevant reasons. I don't personally think that the story of the birth of Christ is a true one, but it is a great story and it offers the contemporary generation some thoughts that are still crucial: the importance of being respectful and kind to your fellow man now and always.

So, my thought on midnight mass or the local carol service is this: you don't need to have a strong religious conviction to get something great out of participating in religious songs and ceremonies. Let's face it, if classical choirs stopped performing sacred works today then they'd have to find a replacement for over half of the current repertoire! There are many beautiful works there to be enjoyed and you can take pleasure from them based on their own merits. They have, after all, come about as a result of someone's personal inspiration, whatever that might be, and as you listen to them they become part of your world - you own that experience and can take from it as much or as little of the original religious meaning as you wish.

Personally, my favourite song for this time of year is by John Lennon and Yoko Ono: Happy Xmas, War is Over. Now that's a thought that is definitely relevant to our modern times.

Merry Christmas everone!

I've just been watching the movie Walk the Line again, for the first time since it was released in the cinemas last year and I've got to say that I'm even more impressed having seen it for a second time. I walked away from the movie theater after my first viewing in awe at the performances given by both lead actors, Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon; stunned by how well the pair sang and how they gelled together on stage.




Phoenix clearly has a great voice and the uncanny ability to sing with both the style and timbre that made Johnny Cash so famous in his time - both Phoenix and Witherspoon are themselves heard throughout the movie and the only original Cash / Carter recording used for this film can be heard when the credits role. It's not surprising then that this relatively unknown actor was chosen for the part, not least because of his 'rugged' look that seemed to suit the part of the 'young' Johnny ideally. But, Witherspoon's outstanding talent was most surprising - prior to the release of this picture I only knew her for her part in the Legally Blonde series of bimbo-teen movies (although, she had appeared in a number of other big productions including a couple of episodes of Friends and King of the Hill, as well as playing Cecily in The Importance of Being Ernest) and here she is - a wonderful acting talent backed up by the most amazing vocal impression of June Carter. Truly wonderful to watch these two actors working together: if there was no chemistry between them then they pulled off a quite stunning performance because the desperation in the eyes of Phoenix as Witherspoon turns down his marriage proposals time after time is quite remarkable. First class stuff.

I've been a fan of Johnny Cash's music for a few years now and I certainly knew his most popular repertoire before this movie was released - hell, I see this guy as a musical role model, if only for the bare, painful honesty that he managed to bring through the relatively simple songs he sang - but the film was still something of an eye-opener to me. For a start, I didn't realise that the root of many of Cash's problems lay in the relationship he had with his father, particularly after the death of Johnny's big brother (although, Freud could probably have told us this without watching the movie!) I also found it quite moving how the Carter family brought him back from the brink of drug and alcohol abuse, despite their collective disapproval - the picture suggests that they did much more for Johnny than his own family ever bothered to. Quite inspiring stuff - I'd recommend this movie to anyone with an interest in either film or music, and while you're at it, you better pick up some of the Cash CD's - there really are some wonderful songs in there! :)

It's been a busy couple of weeks finishing off most of my teaching commitments and getting prepared for Christmas. And, on top of everything else I need to do over the next few days and weeks, I'm also updating my website, FinishMySong.com, so that it has an easier, more user-friendly look.

Watch this space: the main changes I'm making to the layout of the website should be up in the next day or so. Let me know what you think of it.

Despite encouraging people from all over the internet to use the FMS forum to promote their music and art, I have found over the last few months that it has been the least visited section of my website, while also being the most resource-hungry. I have also found that it is regularly abused by people trying to sell pornography on the internet.

For these reasons, I have decided to uninstall the software and bring the forum to an end. Hopefully this will mean that I will have more time to devote to the upkeep and updating of these rest of finishmysong.com

Will the controversy surrounding Lily Allen every die down? Every day there seems to be another story about how she said something mildly rude about another pop star or else somebody else in the pop limelight slagged off Lily for whatever reason. The one that caught my eye today was on the EntertainmentWise website, the story headline reading "Lily Allen Gets a Tongue Lashing By Girls Aloud". Here are a couple of insightful comments made by the 'singing' group, Girls Aloud:

"Her first single was really good. It seemed she was really different - a female, but I don't know anymore. I don't really like her as a person."

"Lily was saying she liked me because I was moody and not that pretty. I really appreciated her when she first came out - she was a breath of fresh air. But now I think fuck her."

How profound. It beggars belief that these are the people who are elevated to goddess status for our children - these are supposed to be the role models the kids look to; the crème de la crème of human existence. I just find it sad that we as a nation continue to believe this about not just the bitchy little girls in this manufactured pop group but about so many other equally dull individuals who have found themselves been shot to fame. They themselves don't even seem to be aware that they're not actually anything special - just being used by the corporate media machine to make lots of money for the fat-cats who run the record labels and distribution companies.

I don't like to name drop but I vaguely know - or used to vaguely know - Kimberley from Girls Aloud (the first quote cited above being the product of her loose tongue) and I honestly fail to understand why I'm reading what she has to say about some singer or other in the national and international press. Not in a blog like this one but in 'respectable' news sources. Kimberley can sing a bit, granted. But, she's just some young girl who went to stage school as a child (Stage84 in Bradford, to be precise - this is where I worked as a rehearsal pianist in the late 90's), no doubt forced into it by her parents, got pedaled by that agency to various other greedy organisations in the industry then eventually tarted up and sold as a sex symbol in front of millions on our television screens each day. Are we REALLY interested in seeing her remarks about Lily Allen (or anything else for that matter) in our national press? If we want to read various rants about random people we go to the blogs - at least they're genuine and sometimes have something relatively interesting to say!

I'm trying to clear out a load of stuff from my room at the moment and some of it is in really good condition and could be incredibly useful to some people. Take the IT books I bought just a year or so ago when I first started getting into web design - I must have shelled out ÂŁ150 or more on these things and yet there they are getting dusty sitting on a shelf day after day. So, I figured I'm going to give Ebay a try.

The thing I find most difficult with Ebay, though, is the decisions I have to make during the process of putting together adverts for the items I want to sell. For example, is it worth being included in the 'gallery' feature (that Ebay charges another 40p or something for) rather than just have a picture of the item on the ad itself? And, then, how do I lay the description out? Would should and shouldn't be included? Will the layout of the ad really matter given that everyone is so used to seeing these amateur jobbies posted on Ebay?? I really just don't know - I suppose the best way to do it is experiment a little bit until the way becomes clear. Only trouble is that I could spend days of my time and quite a bit of my money messing about with these things without ever actually managing to sell the various miscellaneous items from my room.

Ah well, maybe a bit of marketing here would help..?!!! :)

CLICK HERE to see the items I'm currently selling on Ebay. Hey, if you come through FinishMySong I might even be tempted to give a discount!

Well, I'm still zonked from my trip to Amsterdam (it was a good one - click here to see a few pics!) so I thought I'd post today's blog as nothing more than a unashamed promotion of a website that should have the effect of perking anyone up and getting them in the mood for the Christmas season:

http://www.thecompassgroup.biz/merryxmas.swf

I love the singing reindeers... if anything could increase my enjoyment of the classic Irving Berlin song I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas then this little corker can! Click and relish 3 minutes of pure Christmassy fun!!

This is just a quick note to let everyone know that I'll be away for the next couple of days, so if you email me I'm unlikely to respond until the beginning of next week.

I do usually aim to get back to all enquiries sent through the FinishMySong.com contact page within 24 hours but, as I said, I will be unavailable this weekend. I'm off to Amsterdam for a long weekend of hedonism and, hopefully, a bit of music. I'll no doubt be reporting back on how it went and any other info about the Holland 'scene' in days to come. Watch this space! :)

“I am happy being single,” I said, “until the right person comes along, that is.”

She knew exactly what I was getting at and, in the slightly drunken haze of that moment, I almost fooled myself into believing that the perfect companion was standing right there in front of me, listening out for those subtle words that might give away the honestly painful fact that it has been her I’ve been wanting for months now. And, as we chatted and danced, and touched and glanced, and found reason to play the symphony like it were a duet, all her gestures were welcome: my weak soul sought out each one and tried in vain to capture them, each like snapshots of a sly smile, the clutching of soft fingers in the palm of a hand, or the moist heat prickling skin in the darkness of the rock club that night. This was a longing - the longing to be with this someone who I’ve always known all too well was not.. or rather, is not available.

The heart can play funny tricks and I console myself with the thought that I may well be suffering from the common male condition of wanting exactly that which I cannot have. It is convenient to play it like this because it means that I can throw my hand and be sure that I only had the 5 and 2 off-suit all along. And, it’s probably true.

But, there’s a big part of me that won’t accept inevitable defeat. This part is seductive and tempts me with the notion of calling the bluff; going all in, putting myself directly in the firing line and at least getting to see the other guy’s hand. It would all end in tears, of course, but perhaps that’s what’s most inviting about it: I’ve always been a sucker for the tragedy of unrequited love. Rather that than the safe route to mediocrity.

It’s probably uncharitable to compare this situation with a game of poker, but I think this is the way beginnings and endings often feel to be played out; almost as if who the individual players themselves are doesn’t matter as much as the way we all choose to get on with the games around us. And, yet, if it weren’t for this particular individual.. this one lovely person who is clearly so refreshingly straight-up while being extremely smart and witty, warm and caring, sensitive and undoubtedly beautiful all at the same time.. if it weren’t for these great, magnetic qualities I see in her then I wouldn’t have been bothered about being dealt in in the first place.

What I need to remember, though, is that she also has her hand to play and the community cards are not looking like they’re in my favour. I suppose I know that I’ll be throwing this hand in – why bother denying it any longer? - but, to paraphrase common romantic wisdom, there are plenty more chips at the cashier’s desk.

I was just saying a few weeks ago how much Lily Allen gets under my skin and how the weird thing about it is that I don't even like the sound of her music, least not the whiney sound she makes when she sings in her upper range. She really doesn't actually sing from her chest at all - it's all very head and throat, but perhaps it's the honesty about this singing style that attracts me most about her songs; like she's not trying to hide behind a massively polished technique.

Anyway, no sooner do I think that this girl is someone I should keep an eye on because she might well release some really interesting stuff in the future, than do I read loads of articles about her 'attitude', including one today in the Independent (actually published yesterday) that told of Lily's website that contains not only a blog full of insights into her personal view away from the official line pedalled by her record company, but also loads tracks available to enjoy free of charge. Certainly, it's worth a visit.

By the way, I'm putting together a bit of a directory of miscellaneous blogs that have caught my attention on the internet (of course, including some written by my mates), one of which is the Lily Allen blog. The list will include feeds of the 4 most recent posts on each blog for easy access to content that catches your eye. Feel free to take a look and come back regularly for updates.