Category Archives: Music

GlastonBury: The Doves

I cant tell you how excited ive been since noticing that my favorite band has been playing the UK’s Best Summer Festival of music. They were heading the “John Peel” stage on friday night. And i stayed up, putting everything on hold in order to see them live. And despite me getting the time wrong by one hour as  “Bloc Party” started at 10.30 so, i waited patiently, as my dad sleeps in the sitting room these days due to ill-health, i didnt have long to record and watch the “Doves”, he told me 12.30 was my limit.Despite this i prayed the “doves” would be on soon and at 11.30 on BBC3 (Via BBC2 with the Red Button) they were on and it was the best live gig ive ever seen.

I want to say a huge thanks to my favorite Doves Blog http://dovesmusic.blogspot.com/ for the videos and music from the best night ever. Despite being totaly confused about the way the BBC were showing the Doves, i recorded the best i could. Which Seemed to 45-60 minutes  of “bloc party” then the doves and vice versa. Which i felt was unfair and very confusing on BBC Digital, despite checking many times who was next etc.

The gig was amazing in everyway posable, from the crowds cheering to Jimis interaction. You cant beat “g,g,g,g,glastonbury” as a great feeling for folks being there and him thanking all “you magical fucking people”.Not to mention the Doves played there absolute best tracks that night.

10/10

If only Slane in ireland was like this:)

Fore more Doves News Visit:
http://www.doves.net
http://dovesmusic.blogspot.com/

Music: Creating Amazing Music with Albeton Live 8

ableton_live7_boxIve found what i think is the most amazing piece of music software ever made. Its called “Ableton Live 8” and its just incredable.I was on youtube one night browsing videos and i found a video that was just incredable which demonstrated the software.

That video is below ive also added a video showing hot to make a trance track from those great folks at the sonicacademy.com a site which i joined straight away after seeing how superb there tutorials were on youtube, check out there youtube channel on;

http://www.youtube.com/user/SonicAcademy

Make music with Ableton Live

I love music and thats no understatement, i love all types from rock to dance and trance. Ive always loved to be a Dj or make some kinda of a dance song and this software lets you do that. My two favorite trance artists are “Paul Van Dyk” and “Dj Tiesto” so bearing that in mind i then found another amazing video from a website called the “sonicacademy.com”. This is an awesome tutorial showing you how-to make a trance track using the instruments in Ableton Live. Of course its not just dance music you can create the skys the limit with this software.

How To Make A Trance Tune – Tutorial 1

The Doves Live in Belfast-My First Ever Concert

Ive been a huge fan of this band since about 2002 since i heard the song pounding from their album “The Last Broadcast”. Since then ive bought every album theve released and followed them. The new Album “kingdom of Rust” is awesome and ive been listening to it since it was released.

Some time back in March i was checking out their myspace page and seen the UK Tour Dates and had the idea of going to see them in Belfast. So without thinking about booking the tickets i just said to myself “if i dont book these ill never get to see them live.”, So i booked the tickets got 2 seated for the gig in the Ulster Hall in Belfast.

Anyway booking those tickets was the best thing i ever did, the concert was fantastic, it was a small venue about 2000 people max i think and the atmosphere was electric. My sister took some photos and videos on my phone ive posted some below. The Doves were so good that if i could have i would have went down to dublin to see them the next day.

Theres a lesson in all this of course, sometimes thinking about doing something too much means you’ll never do it.

doves161 doves162

The Doves are Back!

Doves Kingdom of Rust
Doves Kingdom of Rust

One of my favorite bands ever have realised two new songs from there upcoming “Kingdom of Rust”. The First song is the new single Called “Kingdom of Rust” and its fantastic the other song is called “Jetstream” a Free Download available from the doves website. Both songs are brilliant and if you like music you are bound to love the doves.

The Album doest come out until the 6th of april and i cant wait for it. Forget U2 coming up with the same old sound again with their new Album and usual Over-the-top Hype and Bonos huge Ego.

Official Site:
http://www.doves.net/

I-Tunes – Irish music Madness

Today i went on a downloading spree on I-Tunes (which i hate) and i bought a load of albums. Mainy Irish bands from the 1990s. And it kinda blew me away how much great irish bands there is and was back a few years ago. Bands such as “Something happens”, “The Stunning”,”the Frames”, “Frank and Walters”, “Aslan”,”the Saw doctors”,”Whipping Boy”. Some of their songs id forgotten all about until today.

One of the things that i hate about I-Tunes is;

1) it wont let you preview a song
2) The songs you get are .M4p (Mpeg 4 Protected Files) so you cant uses them on any other device than your I-Pod. (i mean how fucked up is that?)

Ive added some of the great songs by these bands to my video blog site at;
http://videos.irishbloke.net/category/videos/irish-videos/irish-music/

Coldplays – Viva La Vida, New Album is out

coldplayalbumcov.jpgIve been a huge coldplay fan since i heard there first single way back in 2000 called “Yellow”. I was struck how such a song with simple lyrics and acoustic guitar intro and video of chris martin walking along a beech could sound so great and fresh at the same time.

Around that time there was only Oasis and few other bands doing the rounds as the whole Dance Music scene took off. But Coldplay were a breath of fresh air and remain to be so.

Their last album X&Y was great with some fantastic songs on it, an album that reminds of going to work in the morning on my bike back in 2006. Played it non stop for about 2 weeks.

Their new album came out yesterday but was leaked on the net about 2 weeks ago i believe. After grabbing it from I-Tunes ive yet to listen to it in full. So expect a mini-review of each track soon.

In the mean time you can read RTE’s review of it at;
http://www.rte.ie/arts/2008/0611/coldplay.html

 

I-Tunes Album Review:

1) Vida la vida:
A Great Triumphant anthem that builds up nicely to sort of heavenly euphoric chorus. The violins make it sound sweet and uplifting.
4/5

2)Life In Technicolor:
Is an instrumental track that starts out slow then has a kinda indian drums and guitar riff building up into something quite uplifing.
4/5

3) Cemeteries of London:
Starts out kinda slow and feels sad then builds up into that familar Coldplay sound with the Acoustic guitar in the background and electric echoing out solos.
4/5

4) Lost!:
Using church organs to start out with a drum loop makes it feel “disorientating”, feels like a “Album Filler Track”.
3/5

5) 42
Minor piano chords give away the area this song is heading in with sad lyrics about about death for the first 1min 30 of the track, it then takes a U Turn with an electric guitar kicking in playing over drums and then ends up back in familar Coldplay territory and back again to the start. Strange song.
3/5

6)Lovers In Japan / Reign of Love
An up-tempo start and feel good factor kicking in, builds up nicely into a feel good song.
4/5

7)Yes
Has an Arabian sound to it but doesnt seem special
3/5

8)Chinese Sleep Chant
Distorted guitar riff loops over drums while chris martin whispers over the track. This song is a bit of a “Grower” a couple of listens
3/5

9) violet hill
There 2nd single from the album is fairly soild and typical coldplay but annoying guitar chord change seems to un-balance the song a bit.
4/5

10) Strawberry Swing
Another guitar riff almost silent in the background plays over the song as chris sings softly for the first two mins where the acoustic guitar comes to forefront and the song feels like a sort of day dream love song.
3/5

11) Death and All His Friends:
Sad slow intro start with a mellow piano playing and mute electric guitar echoing in the background. Then the piano kicks in strongly and then the song really starts to build up into a chorus of chris martin singing hits. I expected a “Fix you” like chorus here but it was cut short.
4/5

12)The Escapist
Instrumental nothing really to say.

13) Lost?
Not sure the difference between this verison of the song and the other at the moment

14) Lovers in japan(Acoustic)
Acoustic and still great.

 

 

 

I-Tunes Sucks, admit it!

itunes-button-logo-300×300.jpgI hate I-Tunes and i hate buying music from itunes not becausei could get ir for free if i looked hard enough i want my music that i pay for in the Mp3 format and without DRM protection which music you buy from I-Tunes has. Usually the music you buy is in the (.m4p) format, a protected Mp4 file. Which means you cant use it on anything other than I-Tunes and your I-pod.

MP4-Protected I-Tunes Music Format:
This sucks make no mistake about it, i have an I-pod and its great but i hate I-Tunes and i hate music that you buy thats got DRM (Digital Rights Management). However there is a few ways around this if your determined to get the music you bought on your other Mp3 player which doesnt support M4P. I recently went about finding out how i could do this as i wanted to use the music i bought from itunes in my own music library software which only plays Mp3 files. This method is quite messy and very frustating to do but it does the job.

Basically it involves “Burning” a Audio Cd in I-Tunes to a virtual CD-Burner which then converts the Audio tracks to Mp3 sounds complicted and it is slightly. The software is called “NoteBurner” and its quite good at what it does.

M4A – Unprotected I-tunes Music Format:
If the music you bought has this format then you can use some software to convert the music to mp3 quite easilily, check out “m4a-to-mp3-converter” from maniactools.com