A Lost Weekend - Music Festival

Continuing the theme of of up and coming festivals in the local area this year there is a new music festival in Rutland. Organised by Richard Garton it is attrachted attracted sponsorship from The Grainstore Brewery, hmvtickets, and gigamtic. It looks like it going to be a fun event.

The festival runs from 20th until the 22nd July and will be located at Sykes Lane site near the banks of Rutland Water. Given the location it will be one of the most picturesque music festivals in the country. The festival has been named "A Lost Weekend " and it has attracted enough acts to keep two stages busy for the three days. In fact there were enough acts to keep even more stages busy, but I guess it is it first year. It is hoped that it will attract around three thousand music fans a day.

Personally I think it is a wonderful idea and the site is ideal for the people of the three nearby cities, Peterborough, Nottingham and Leicester, as well as for the people of Rutland itself. The nearest music festivals to Rutland are ones like Summer Sundae and Glastonbudget all based in Leicester. Not sure I will make as the cost is out of my league at the moment, but hopefully it will run again next year and I can get along and see some of the bands. It is just what I need, I love live music and maybe I can take all the girls.

M is for Music - Genesis

I have never been a big fan of the music of what I call modern Genesis prefer their earlier works more, while Peter Gabriel was still with the band. Somehow for me they lost their way and the sound that made them uniquely different from other bands, but they are still good at times. This did stop going to one of their concerts when I was offered free tickets many moons ago. 

   

I saw them play at Roundhay Park in Leeds with countless thousands of other people from the North of England and beyond. Thankfully they played just enough of the old stuff to remind me of their past, as this clip from a later concert tour shows, so not all was lost for me. Having said that they are still worth watching if you love quality live music. They are nothing but entertaining and the concerts are full of energy and feel fresh, which can't be easy when you have been going for so long. Their concerts now seem far and few between but when they do come along they live up to their reputation. It is a band I would recommend people to see if you don't dislike their Music, you might be surprised how much you end up enjoying yourself. I know I did in the end.

Hope Murphy

On Saturday I selected someone called Hope Murphy as act of the week and instead of selecting the cover on the show as a video I picked one of her own songs. I'm not sure she will win the show, you know what the British public are like, bust she deserves some attention from the independent record labels. So here are some of her own works rather than covers to add weight to the argument.

I find myself, asking the question will winning the show be good for her? Once she is taken in to the Simon Cowell music machine I wonder ifl she be allowed to develop her own style without having some style imposed upon her She is still young and developing musically. She is clearly a talented singer and songwriter, she just needs work to find a style that is her own. To do that she needs someone that will be in there for the long haul and not for the quick buck. Simon Cowell and his music machine might be the wrong thing for her at this stage.

If she does win, or Simon Cowell takes her under her wing, I hope I am wrong in whatmy fears I have expressed here. Simon Cowell has a good ear for singers and I have seen do wonders to people he rates on TV talent shows, like American Idol, but I sometimes wonder if he is to quick to exploit them and make them conform what he feels people want. If he has such a young artist he needs to given them time to develop so they have a future in the music industry and don't have to appear on the The Voice ten years later hoping to restart their careers after a being a one album wonder.

M is for Music - Jethro Tull

It is Monday and M is for Music, so lets talk Music for a bit. The other day I was looking back to what really made me take notice of music. Not an easy thing to home in on when music has been around you all your life, after all my mum use to listen to Radio 1 as I ate my breakfast every morning. Later I would listen to Radio Caroline because it seemed naughty to listen to a pirate radio station. Soon I discovered they where playing some of the best music on radio. As I was thinking one moment stood above the rest, a concert that show on television that was simultaneously broadcast on the Radio 1 in stereo.

The strange person in the video above is Ian Anderson, the lead singer of a band called Jethro Tull. It was this bands concert filmed at Madison Square Gardens in New York that helped me from the cornerstone of my thinking about what makes a good band or artist. The one thing I took from the performance, other than a love of the band itself, was the idea that any good band should be able to play as well live as they can on record. Jethro Tull certainly did that when they played that night and when I was lucky enough to see them myself at the NEC in Birmingham some years later. They were brilliant.

Over the years I have seen quiet a few bands and artist including big names, up and coming artists, and small local bands. In terms of the big names I have always picked them carefully and avoided the artists and bands that are over produced on records or are likely to use computers to improve vocal pitch. I would just feel cheated when they performed live if they didn't match what they sound like on record. It would be like paying for a high quality leather sofa only to find when it was delivered it was made of cheap PVC and it was falling apart at the seams. 

What I thought I would do over the next four Mondays is starting today is to feature bands that I have seen in the past that have influenced some of my idea's about music in some way with live clips. Clearly starting with Jethro Tull who started it all off and a live performance of "Thick as a Brick'. It might not be to everyones taste but the quality of the vocals and musicianship is excellent.

Different Music for Wednesday

Listening to BBC Radio 6 Music reminded me of some of the great music I have discovered through the station in the past. It got me going through my iTunes library and dipping in music I have heard for years. 

There is some music you come across that just grads you and takes you off to some dreamland with the way the words and the words combine to make you mind drift into some other place. One such group hat comes to mind is Hope Sandoval and the warm Inventions whose sound owes a lot to the amazing voice of Mazzy Star. The track I have featured is another great track played on 6 Music, that made me take note of the group, "Blanchard".

I have always had this love of music that takes you places and has a fresh distinctive sound and this group certainly ticks all those boxes. It might not be everyone cup of tea but I like it and it makes such a change from the more popular music played on mainstream radio stations. If you fancy something different they are worth listening too.

Tuesdays Music Surprise

On of the things that makes BBC Radio 6 Music different it doesn't have the same reparative mix of songs playing over and over again like the more normal popular music stations, but surprisingly they do have a playlist of core tracks which appear on the different shows. For example Laura Marling, who is featured in the video singing a different song, is featured in next weeks playlist with the song "All my Rage".

To me this came a bit of a shock, as I had never really noticed the existence of the playlist in their programming. It never seems to repeat that often you actually notice that any kind of playlist exists at all. This weeks list feature artists like the Arctic Monkeys, Laura Marling,Ladyhawke, The Shins, Paul Weller, Florence and The Machine, The Crookes and many more.

Personally the fact the station manages to have a playlist without actually over playing the songs is a big plus. The problem with lots of radio stations is that when you have listened to the station for a few hours the music just repeats over and over again and this seems to go on for weeks on end. The commercial radio stations like Capital Radio being one of the worse offenders. BBC Radio 6 Music avoids this and it always manages to sound different and fresh.

Music for Monday

I was listening to BBC Radio 6 Music and I was pleased to find that the station hadn't completely sold out to the BBC Radio 2 brigade which was the way it seemed to be going last time I listened. The show that really made me sit up and listen was the presented by Gideon Coe. It started at nine and the evening and finished at midnight, and it is well worth listening too.

A band that took my fancy was "Sergeant Buzfuz" and the historically correct three part song called "Here Come The Popes". I just loved the idea of putting history to music artistically, after all it is method of telling stories that probably dates back from mans first attempts to sing and create music.

The band themselves are from, according to their Facebook page, from London and they have been recording together since 2000 when they released their first seven inch single called "Plugged in". Since then they have recorded four full albums, a number of singles and various collections of tracks. If you want to see them live they can regularly found doing gigs in the London area and occasionally nationally.

Listening to there music it is a surprise that they haven't made more of an impression in the music world. Their sound is sound is distinctive and very pleasing to the ear, and their song writing is interesting. Hopefully with more exposure on the Radio we will be hearing more of them in the future. As for the show I listened to, I will certainly be listening to it again.