lemonstar

I'm also listening to everything by The Rosebuds - mainly because the lead singer sounds a lot a friend of mine - especially on tracks like this - it's ghostly hearing his voice.

Two for one - it's the track Taxi by Blue States but I couldn't find it on its own but its used in this trailer for the terrifying 1966 Truffaut film of Fahrenheit 451 - I was terrified of the future when I read it when I was about 14 but most of Ray Bradbury had that effect on me at that time)

Tom Rosenthal - frustratingly inconsistent artist IMHO - sometimes brilliant, sometimes tedious and irritating.

Everyone says the same thing about The Clientele - under-rated! I've been binge listening to everything they've ever done - I could have picked any number of their songs - this is the opening track from their great 2005 Strange Geometry album... it's as good a place as any to start listening to a band I know many of you will wonder why you never heard of them before.

I'm still trapped in a previous decade:-

Listening to this again for the first time in years - at 1:18 always thought the guitar sounded a little like the sound of Tom Verlaine (Television) on Marquee Moon - maybe the phrasing is similar.

Ooo-wee - babbly dab bab ba dab. Great!

Not an album or tracks as such but I came across a video of a live show I saw in Barcelona a few years ago - it was hands down the highlight if my holiday and I'd recommend a trip to Barca just to see a show like this - Gaudi's buildings and the cathedral (Familia Sagrada) are astounding and unforgettable but so was the flamenco dancing and music I saw and heard at this show in the incredible Palau de la Música Catalana - the dancing was electrifying, emotional and full of genuine passion... Go if you ever get the chance. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvsXDU35owpxRv5Dd4qIh9g

More atmospheric instrumental jazz:-

I'm trawling a deep trench of atmospheric instrumental ECM-label type jazz ATM - Andy Sheppard - British sax player... Andy Sheppard Quartet - And a day... (Romaria 2018)

Anything with the drumming of Michael Giles - I have always loved this guys drumming and I just had a raving mad passion to hear him again - he appeared on all sorts of odd albums in the early 70's after leaving King Crimson - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Giles In particular I've been listening to everything by the 21st Century Schizoid Band made of alumni from King Crimson....any Crimson fan should check them out. Look at the line up Jakko Jakszyk - guitar, lead vocals, keyboards, flute Ian McDonald - alto saxophone, backing and lead vocals, flute, keyboards, piano, percussion Mel Collins - alto, tenor and baritone saxophones, backing vocals, flute, keyboards, Peter Giles - bass, backing vocals, percussion Michael Giles - drums, backing and lead vocals, percussion I've also been listening to the last 3 albums by Jackson Heights as he played on those albums: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_Heights_(band) he has a light, crisp, jazz influenced progressive rock style - he's a great but under rated British rock musician imho. (as is his brother - the bass player Pete)

Big Thief - their latest Capacity which made me listen to the previous one, Masterpiece. Before that I was listening to the band Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever.

We were thinking more of songs in the pop/rock/folk category - could be classic or more recent (as though they are diametrically opposed/mutually exclusive) but he wants to play drums first & foremost and secondly, some bass. thanks anyway.

Hey! I'm still open to suggestions. Thanks

Thanks for that White Stripes song suggestion. The video is NOT me - Ben Kweller is a pretty damn good performer live and was (maybe less so these days) a great songwriter.

I want to play a few songs with a new acquaintance who plays both drums and bass - hes' actually a seasoned brass band instrumentalist - I had no idea that he secretly harboured a passion for playing drums (in particular - he's been having lessons) and bass. I've played with a bass player a couple of times before - I'm struggling to remember what we played - I know we played this song and it (seemed to me at the time) to work really well with just guitar and bass:- Ben Kweller - In Other Words ...but I'm looking for some other suggestions. So I'm after songs suggestions that we can perform with just guitar & bass and with just guitar and drums - I thought someone here must have been through this before and identified some songs that work well with this line up. TIA Neil

Late - 1 quick comment out of many I'd like to have the time to add. Agree - try writing away from your instruments. Keep a notebook - buy yourself a nice one, one you'll treasure and enjoy having at hand (keep it under your bed at night - I often get ideas (not dreams) first thing in the morning as I'm just about to get up - write them down before they evaporate). Don't put pressure on yourself about not being able to write BUT it's a myth that you have to wait for inspiration to strike (I have a technical paper somewhere that concluded that) - in the words of Jack London "go after it with a club". See my comment on this book:- Inspired creative writing: Secrets of the master wordsmiths There are no short-cuts - songwriting is 1% inspiration 99% perspiration but you can learn by practicing, by writing - Lennon (I think) said they threw away a 100 songs before they wrote a good one. I bought this book before Christmas and while not specifically for songwriters I'm finding it helpful, e.g. you have to be reflective - really deeply instrospectively personally reflective - that's what will make you and your songs unique, don't be vague with detail - be specific..., try to find your own (writers) voice - to hell with the fact that it doesn't sound the way you'd like it to or the way you expected it to (I had great difficulty getting over that particular mismatch between reality and expectation) Be inspired by a book title, a book cover, a newspaper article, write a response or a sequel to a song (e.g. Ticket To Ride - be that girl, Get Back - be Loretta) if you want to tie yourself down to a subect - make a list of your unique experiences in life - the 5 things that might surprise or interest a stranger, listen to songs and think hard about how and why the writer wrote them, structured them, worded them, edited them, arranged them, orchestrated them - what inspired them and would your response have been different? What might they have left out/also included? Identify what is it you personally like about the songs that inspire you - I've been listening to Death Cab for Cutie for a month (Transatlanticism and Narrow Stairs) on my mp3 player when I've been out running doing exactly that - I'm with Finn on that - I run about every 2-4 days for about 40 mins and do most of my serious music listening and reflecting/thinking about song writing then. As you can tell, I'd like to write more but can't.

Anyone else come across this or anything similar to it? It's helpng me find better deals than I'd found myself - it's specifically for musical gear. www.clearangel.net

I'm had the idea to marry up my requirements with those of my daughters (violinist and flautist) who need to learn piano. We have more than enough music in the house with all their practicing and as I have to work in the evenings I was thinking that an upright piano was really going to add to the noise problem. ATM I have an old Roland D-50 that they use but it's not a weighted keyboard so the first requirement is that we have a really good weighted 88-note keyboard - I think the keyboard could just be a midi-controller and then we can buy a seperate midi-sound source, soem kind of rack mounted device. The Nord keyboard caught my eye though and we're hoping to try that and compare it with some other weighted keyboards in the near future - a good set of sounds with the option of expanding them appeals to me but the kids will probably only need a fairly limited set of patches - so, so long as we can use the keyboard as a midi-controller one and it has a fairly good set of on-board sounds (ideally expandable), it should will do. I expect the keyboard will get a lot of use over the next 3-4 years as they both should be able to press on to grade 8 and beyond. So, I'm looking for a good weighted keyboard that feels and responds something like an upright and is robust enough to put up with a lot of use.

Thanks for the reply - I checked out their website and the video on the site - I know M-Audio as a manufacturer of other music technology. I'm waiting for NAMM in a couple of weeks (Jan 15-18) to see if anything gets released to coincide with the show.

Thanks everyone - Nick the clips you linked to really showed me how versatile the H2 is - I was particularly impressed with the first one and the one in the car - I think a small portable will suit me. The Boss BR and the BR-600 look good too as I can record onto seperate extra channels. I'm going to wait a couple of weeks because the NAMM show is on Thur 15th Jan - Sun 18th Jan and some new devices may get announced then - I understand that some manufacturers make the release date coincide with NAMM so they can surf on the back of the publicity it generates. The Korg 1 bit device looks like the best option for pure front end quality but at the other extreme things like the Zoom HD8-CD offer a lot of mic/amp simulators and effects, mixing control/multi-tracking capability if you don't want to go down the DAW route. (I won't actually need to simultaneously record on more than 2 channels) I'm still not exactly sure whether to start off small, simple and low cost, say £100-£150 (it always has its merits) or leap in and spend £350-400; compromising and going for something in the middle is always going to leave the door open for some regrets. If the H4's display wasn't so small and the UI so widely criticised I might have gone for that (a shame as the Tascams, etc have quite reasonable size displays) but I probably won' tbe taking it out and about as much Nick does so a larger/less portable device (with a bigger display) is not going to be a negative.

Is anyone here using either of these devices or an equivalent compact digital recorder? I'm considering one of these as I think it will suit the way I work. For years I've simply used my digital camera as a kind of audio notebook for capturing ideas when I feel like quickly testing out my lyrics/vocals/guitar part while I'm trying to write or develop an idea - that, essentially, is the way I normally work (I also just write lyrics in my a notebook - as songs firm up I type up the words and chords into an old freeware editor Keynote - it has a tree type structure that allows my to organise the ideas by date) I found plenty of reviews on these devices (still wading through the details) so I'm aware of a few quirks in both devices but there may be newer devices around that I'm not aware of or haven't yet looked at. There are a good set of reviews on digital recorders here: http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/audio/port...der-comparison/ For the most part I'll just record vocals and acoustic guitar but I may also want to record electric guitar and keyboards. I don't have a pre-amp/compresser/limiter - the Joe Meek 3Q mono pre-amp box plus mic was something I was considering but that's mor cash and doesn't really help me with working the way I want to. I 've sometimes made recordings with 2 Sony condenser mics (fed through a cassette deck that acts as a pre-amp) and the M-Audio Delta Audiophile 2496 on my PC but I don't think I have the time, space or motivation to set the mics up and record properly - that's why I just reach for the camera and capture/playback things quickly. I wondered if anyone else had any other thoughts about these devices(other kit I might consider and perhaps this way of working) cheers Neil

THis forum is quiet so I guess I might not get much of a response. I'm looking for a weighted keyboard (e.g. a master keyboard) that has an action/feel as close as possible to a real piano. http://www.nordkeyboards.com have a hammer action keyboard (e.g. Stage EX) but Nord is a name I turned up in a search engine - I've not previsouly heard of them and don't know first hand what the keyboard is actually like to play. I'd like to get a short list of manufacturers and model names which I can then try and hunt down. cheers Neil