The music

Hi, how is everyone during this holiday season (or lead up to it).  That is of course unless you are me, because I have just seen my rota and think my employers are taking the piss. One day off out of 14 days!  Really?  Gee thanks...

Anyway, I'd better get on with the blog.

The other day I recorded a video while I was at work, which I was going to put up here as a video blog.  However, because I recorded it inside a site vehicle, it came out more like a podcast that a video blog, because there is nothing viewable on there at all.  I switched the inside vehicle light on and everything, but still it came out as darkness.

It is a shame really because I think it was a good blog, but I don't want to waste all the download/upload limitation of my internet, so I will write a blog that touches on the basics of that video.

Dmitri Shostakovich

Sergei Prokofiev

I mentioned that I was listening to Classic FM in the background, which showed how my taste in music was changing.  I don't think that it's changing in the way that I am beginning to go that way and lose the pop and rock side of my enjoyment, but just that what I seem to be getting more and more into classical music.  I don't think there is anything wrong with that.  Horses for courses they say, and to be honest I think the way mainstream music is nowadays, that I need to look for something different.  Most chart based music now seems like the same thing over and over again.  It's a case of "well they are bound to like it because it's the same as every other song out there".  That's why I think it is popular, is because the songs are interchangeable.  They must be thinking about linking the songs on those Ministry of Sound compilations or something.

The funny thing is that I have really been anchoring for being in a rock based band for a long time, and now more than ever after I've been going through some old material that me and Paul McLaughlin recorded way back when.  Even now I listen to riffs that he came up with, or me and him together in some cases, and I am still bowled over by riffs, licks, and the shebang with funky rock music.

Soundgarden

I remember not too long ago I caught Soundgarden on Later... With Jools Holland, and they were absolutely amazing to watch.  Back when grunge first came out, both Soundgarden and Pearl Jam were the bands that were at the forefront in my mind.  I didn't get into Nirvana in a big way for a long time, mainly because I was scared away by people saying how great they were, and I didn't want to be let down.  For some reason then, I shied away from them.  I got into Alice In Chains very quickly, but Nirvana is a posthumous enjoyment.  I know that me and Mac touched on Come As You Are by Nirvana back in the day, but that was just a quick run of the riff before going into the Red Hot Chilli Peppers' song Backwoods (like the Chilli's did themselves a few times).

I've added more songs to my list of self-penned Christmas songs, of which I hope to one day record a full album's worth of them.  I have had another idea about this, but I need to research it first.  If I can find a way, then I would be really happy with it going ahead in the alternative way.

Novoselic, McCartney, Grohl.

While talking about Nirvana on the video blog that never got posted, I pointed out that I had caught the remaining members of Nirvana playing with Paul McCartney at a charity performance recently.  I actually like the song, and it surprised me.  It shouldn't have done really, because I was also surprised when the last Fireman release (a McCartney project with the Producer and ex-Killing Joke member Youth) came out, and found some really great stuff on there.  In a lot of ways, I think that McCartney's experiments at home should have been worked on more over the years and issued then as official recordings.  I think then that the people who have put him down over the years might have looked on things differently.  If he had replaced some of the things he had released with more of these, then perhaps he would have been viewed in a much different light.  He is the guy that wrote Helter Skelter, Daytripper, Paperback Writer, and all of those other great riffs.

Erm, I've forgotten where I went then on the video...  I'm tempted to look at the video, but I can't be bothered to be honest.

Let's just say that music is still in my heart, and that will never ever change.  If anything my love for it will just keep growing and growing.

I think I will leave that there.  The original video blog had more in it I think, but I really think that I have said enough.

I am almost sure that I will be posting again beforehand, but I will just wish everyone a very Happy Christmas/Hannukah/whatever.

December 21 2012 (42 years and 26 days old).