Neurovision

Take three musicians. Sit them down to watch the spectacle that was the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest. Soak in alcohol. Add instruments and a dash of Tull. Record.

Neurovision (7 songs, 63MB zip)

And now, ladies and gentlemen, SKING!

Here's an oldie from a fried Mars bar eating mate of mine. I can't figure out the lyrics for the life of me, but I think they have something to do with the vertical movement.

DJ Sking - Can't Go Up, Can't Go Down

etree Friday

I've been meaning for a while now to put together some kind of post about the etree/archive.org Live Music Archive - a monstrous collection of live bootlegs that you could get lost in for weeks. It does skew slightly towards the jam band side of things, but there's enough variety to guarantee that you'll find something you like.

My Morning Jacket - Gideon - Bonnaroo, 2006-06-16

The Dismemberment Plan - Sentimental Man - The Middle East, 2003-07-24

Gomez - Get Miles - Cleveland Odeon, 2003-05-08

Rogue Wave - California - Bimbo's 365 Club, San Francisco, 2006-03-30

By the way, the above photo is of a random Nigerian guy hugging commentator Eamonn Dunphy during Wednesday's Ireland/Slovakia match in Croke Park. With thanks to Wes Gorman.

A model of restraint

Buddy Rich was born in 1917. This was filmed in 1981. Not bad, old man.

De Blues

Rob Matthews (seen here on the left) would have you believe that this is not the work of his own hands, but an unearthed gem from 1926, talking about an old Dave Dineen, and not any contemporary person of the same name. Affectionate mockery or vicious satire? You decide...

Blind Lemon O'Hara - Dave Dineen (1926)

Loops of fruit

Right, Mullen, listen up. Here's how I put together drum parts in Fruity Loops:

1. Play the main bit of the song on an acoustic guitar, taking particular care with regards to timing and feel
2. Using the wave editor of your choice, make a one bar loop of it. Note how long it is
3. Make a new project in Fruity Loops and set the bpm to match the length of your one bar loop. bpm = loop length / number of beats (probably 4) * 60.
4. Put the loop on one of the tracks. Now you can add drums on top until it sounds good.
5. The most important thing to get right is probably the swing. I usually put hi-hats all the way across (i.e. 16th notes), and nudge the swing slider until they're in time with the guitar
6. Add your favourite drum samples. Often for, say, a kick drum, I'll layer an acoustic sample (for some gritty warmth/feel) with a drum machine kick (for a serious low-end smack). I've heard Mylo is a big fan of this method

Here's one I made earlier (no vocals yet though):

The Ecuador Three - Easy (Thus Do All)

And that's it...

A blast from... a while back

Here's a random jam recorded in a living room way back in November 2002 (we're only playing Tony Hawk 2, and those are video tapes on the windowsill). The muffled small room sound was pretty strong in the original recording, so I've tried to tart it up with some reverb. Your truly is on acoustic, Shano (see below) is on bass, and electric guitar is provided by none other than Norman, inventor of the world famous SLiMDisc software. Peter Smith provides random cupboard closing sounds towards the end as he goes about cooking his dinner.

Dav, Dave, Shano - Riders on the Slide