Obviously as far as games go they are very popular and fun for many people. But do they have any musical merit? Should musicians see them as a positive thing, negative, or indifferent? My own experience with these games began a couple of years ago with Guitar Hero II on the Xbox 360 (complete with plastic wired Gibson Explorer shaped guitar controller). I thought it was good but didn’t find it something I was motivated to come back to again and again. Recently I revisited the music game genre when Santa brought us a couple of the RockBand games for Christmas – we got Lego RockBand (which is great for kids) and The Beatles RockBand (great for me as I’m a massive Beatles fan) complete with wireless Hofner Bass controller, drums, and microphone. I’m not going to comment on these games specifically other than saying that I think the Lego game is a huge improvement to make these games more accessible to younger players. Previous games were/are just a bit too tricky for most kids below the age of around 10 to get into. This game adds a “Super Easy” mode which requires only a basic idea of rhythm and not the co-ordination skills usually involved in these games. The narrative is fun (like all the Lego computer games) and the song selection is good, truly making it a game the whole family can enjoy together. I hope future editions of RockBand and Guitar Hero will include a similar Super Easy mode for the little ones.

As for The Beatles’ game, it’s a great snapshot of the career of this great band. Musically and visually it’s excellent, though technically a little more challenging than the Lego game so not ideal for kiddies. The wireless Hofner bass controller is a beautiful thing – very high quality construction which doesn’t have the cheap plastic feel of my old guitar hero controller. And in case you were wondering it can be used for guitar and bass play – the controls are just the same.

Ok, enough about the games themselves… what about their musical merit?

My view is that these games are a good thing. If nothing else they challenge people’s timing and rhythm, improve co-ordination and possibly even their sense of pitch. The guitar play obviously doesn’t truly replicate a real guitar, with buttons instead of strings, however the finger movements, and the right-left hand co-ordination are important skills to develop in playing real guitar. You’re never going to be able to jump right from playing this game to playing a 6 string like Van Halen, but it might give you a little bit of an advantage in learning compared to a complete novice.

Drumming is probably one step even more realistic than guitar playing – it’s similar to having an electric drum kit – the physical movements of hitting the pads,  and using the kick pedal are pretty much the same as the real thing. My Beatles drum kit even came with real wooden sticks. I’m not a drummer but my feeling is that playing RockBand drums would give you a decent intro and a huge head-start for learning the real thing. Starting with the easy levels and moving through to expert would be a great way to develop pretty good rhythm skills.

And singing is well, singing. There’s nothing fake about singing into a microphone and hearing your voice back through speakers. And in many ways this is better than singing in the shower or singing along to a CD in your car because the visual cues in the game help with timing and pitch. I haven’t played any of the dedicated singing games (like Singstar or Lips) but the singing feature in RockBand itself is pretty cool. The Beatles game even allows you to sing harmonies and use multiple microphones. Not quite like having a singing teacher in your living room but still pretty good.

Beyond those technical skills I think these games offer two more things – music appreciation and inspiration. The repertoire of songs in these games is a great way of exposing younger generations to classic rock and pop music. My boys have been enjoying classic tracks from artists like Queen, Bon Jovi, Tom Petty, David Bowie, Bryan Adams and heaps more – even the Ghostbusters theme! (who knew that song had such cool guitar riffs?!? – see below) – and of course no one should be ignorant of the Beatles!

Secondly if playing these games inspires a few people to take up a real instrument themself, or gives them a bit of confidence that they might be able to, then surely that’s a good thing too!

Rock On!

What’s notable is that they are releasing mono remasters of some of these albums, more like they were originally heard back in the 60’s. Apparently these mixes carry lots of little differences and details to give a quite different experience to the current (1987 era) CD versions. Very tempting, but perhaps for the time being I’ll just stick to my 1987 box set (complete with roller door… hehe – take a look at the picture. I still love that box – has pride of place in my music wall) – hard to justify spending that much on a bunch of albums I already own, even if they are much better versions. Sooner or later I’ll have to get them though as I do love The Beatles.

Also on 09/09/09 we’ll see the release of The Beatles RockBand game, which looks cool. I’m not a serious gamer but this is very tempting too… maybe something I’ll look at getting later in the year when I’m not so crazily busy.

And coincidentally on 9/9/9 there’s also a big music related Apple event scheduled where they are likely to be releasing new iPod models. Usually these events are held on a Tuesday so the fact it’s on a Wednesday on the same day as these other Beatles may herald the long overdue addition of The Beatles’ catalogue to iTunes. I won’t be buying them, since I already ripped my 1987 CDs into iTunes a long time ago, but it’s an important step so the younger generation of non-CD-buying iPod listening youths can have better access to some of the most important popular music ever made… Will also be interesting to see if Steve Jobs makes his first post-transplant public appearance here..

Just came across this piece of news : U2 super tour here – in 2011.

Now I’ll be amazed if the tour actually makes it to us in Perth. Usually it bothers me that big name artists always skip Perth on their tours – we’re a decent sized city not some little country town – but in U2’s case I will choose not to be angry. After all it does take 60 semi-trailers to cart their stage and equipment from city to city (wonder if The Edge has one of those just for his guitars and effects and amps?) and Perth is a very very long way from anywhere, as you can see on this map…

If you’re not familiar with Australian geography, consider that the whole continent is roughly the size of the continental USA, and basically the whole huge area between Perth and the blue bit is pretty much empty (Adelaide is the next reasonable sized city and they are pretty close to the blue section… U2 probably won’t make it to them either). Perth is the most isolated city of it’s size in the world. So I’ll make an exception for U2 and their 60 semi trailers and will quite happily fly across the country to see them (maybe in Sydney – middle of the green; or Melbourne – bottom of the blue)… now what would be cool is if they decided to just fly the band across and do some ultra-secret intimate gig somewhere in Perth and only a select few (including me) got invited – that would be awesome.

So anyway that’s my plan for 2011. If anyone ever hears about confirmed dates or ticket sales etc (or if you can score me an invite to the “secret Perth gig” – shhh…) please let me know straight away! I will be forever in your debt!

Anyway better get back to work and see if any patients have showed up (a bit slow today), and I’m due in theatre in half an hour or so..

Spent the first part of the evening playing with Apple GarageBand – such a fun and easy piece of software. The new version makes recording guitars so much better as it gives visual representation and control over virtual amps and stomp box effects. I also added in some nice clarinet and organ sounds. It took 2 clicks to send it to iTunes and now I have the fruits of my labour on my iPhone. Very cool. I could easily waste a lot of time on this program…

Anyway typing on an iPhone is a little slow and I have stuff to do so I’ll end this now.. hope it works

The music is inspiring and I like the comments he makes at the end… Enjoy.

One of the other things I am into (aside from country music and beer) is playing worship guitar in our band at church, but I’ve never found a way to combine the two (country and worship that is – hard to combine beer and worship…) until now…

Wash Away is a recently released album from a guy called Don Poythress who is a top songwriter in the Nashville scene, having written for quite a few big names in country music. He is also a worship leader at his church.  I really like this album for a number of reasons, and not just because it has a strong country flavour.

Firstly the songs are interesting. Often with worship CDs lately I find there’s 3 or 4 songs that grab my attention and then a lot of more mediocre, less memorable ones. On this CD almost every song has something interesting about it, even the songs I am less keen on still hold my attention. There is a creativity in the music that grabs me – partly it’s the lyrics, partly the song structure, and partly the instrumentation. Every song is different. They don’t all sound the same. There is plenty of musical space – but also plenty of moments of musical virtuosity (for want of a better word) that inspires me as a musician. For example the mandolin introduction on “The Faiithful Love of Jesus” is exquisite – I really must pick up my mando more and put more effort into learning it. And there’s plenty of nice slide guitar, acoustic, and of course distorted Telecaster licks on the album also.

Lyrically the album is good also. I think it’s probably hard to be original as a worship songwriter but Poythress does a good job of creating some fresh and inspiring songs which range from up-tempo country rock to more hymn like songs. Some of the ones I like best are Expectation, Fill Me Up (greater slow song – powerful lyrics), and A Thousand Generations (up tempo but interesting lyrical theme…) The title track is really good as well.

If you haven’t yet acquired a taste for country music, try not to let that put you off this CD. The songs could easily be reworked to de-countrify them for any sort of worship setting. I’m glad I thought outside the box of the usual suspects for worship music, and I would encourage you to get on your boots and do the same – it’s well worth the ride…

Things are super busy at the moment – work is busy, home is getting busy, out 4/7 nights this week with church related stuff, trying to fit in study for my new course in Diving medicine as well as get started on an assignment for my other unit, and of course fit in all the other things I want to get done – family time, get through some of my mountain of unread books, play my guitar etc etc. Oh and Owen seems to have come down with flu today quite badly 

So my plan now is to try and do a little bit of every thing every day so I don’t get to the end of the week and look back at all the things left undone. Part of that involves maximising my time at work so that when I have down time between patients (who inevenitably don’t show up or are late) I can do some blogging or study or whatever.

During one of those quite patches today I rediscovered this awesome page that I want to now link to for  future reference : A Study of The Edge’s Guitar Delay. This brilliant site examines in detail how The Edge achieves his sound. Worth looking at if you are a guitarist and a U2 fan (and in my mind there should be no guitarists who are not) – check it out.

And now, for your entertainment, here’s a song I used to like when I was a kid. I often chide my friend Gav for being a big Petra fan (he even bought 2 of their guitars even though he’s a keyboard player!), but I do have a history of listening to some dodgy Christian ‘metal’ myself… Unlike Gavin though, I moved on from that phase about 15 years ago… but this is one of the songs I used to like : X-sinner – Living on the edge

And while we’re on the topic, here’s another great but different version of this song, from a Ukelele maestro Jake Shimabukuro. I picked up this guy’s CD while we were in Hawaii a couple of years ago – it’s amazing. I often get tired of people mistaking my mandolin for a Ukelele (it’s got twice as many strings and looks and sounds completely different people!) but if I could play half as good as this guy I wouldn’t mind so much…

It’s a guitar that looks awesome, and sounds great too, with a nice thick full tone and heaps of sustain. It was my main axe for a long time but in the last couple of years has languished while I’ve primarily used my two Fenders – my VG Stratocaster that I bought in Nashville and my beautiful Custom Telecaster. Both of these are fantastic sounding versatile guitars that are a delight to play and are perfectly suited to worship music… but a Les Paul is still the ultimate guitar as far as I’m concerned.

Recently I’ve been inspired to get my Black Beauty out again and start playing it, although it needed new strings and had a couple of little crackles in the input jack and toggle… so I decided to give it a complete overhaul to make it better than ever.

The Problem

My main criticism of the Black Beauty has always been that you can’t take full advantage of the 3 pickups in the factory configuration, in which your three way toggle switch selects between the following 3 combinations of pickups :

• neck
• middle & bridge
• bridge

I never liked it that you can’t have a typical Les Paul middle position neck & bridge combination, and also that you can’t isolate the middle pickup on it’s own or with the neck pickup. Ideally they should have put in a 5 way switch to give a strat style combination of pickup options. Years ago when I first googled this I discovered some methods of adding a new switch and rewiring the guitar, but they seemed overly complicated and I was never brave enough to do it since it was my main guitar at the time.

The Solution

This time I discovered a simple more elegant way of rewiring the Black Beauty that didn’t require any new parts. Basically the aim is to create a guitar with a volume control for each of the three pickups, and a master tone control (who really needs two tone controls anyway?). The toggle switch would switch between pickups in the normal Les Paul style, ie :

• neck
• neck & bridge
• bridge

However the middle pickup would always be “on” independently of that switch so using it’s volume control I would have the option of dialing it in to any of the above combinations, or dialing out the other pickups if I want the middle one on it’s own.

I found some wiring diagrams online which portrayed this setup. Here are the two most useful ones I found (click on the pictures to see larger versions) :

Now I’m pretty much an electronics newbie, but on first glance these didn’t look too complicated to me. Unfortunately, once I’d removed the plates on the back of my guitar and looked into the control and switch cavities, I found myself totally bamboozled by what I saw. Anyone who’s not such a tech-newbie like me would hopefully find it somewhat less confusing. But anyway, I managed to disconnect all the existing wires, and re-route the wire from the middle pickup which was going to the switch, and instead point it down towards the control cavity. At this point I “phoned a friend” and called in my talented brother Kyle who knows much more about this kind of thing. He took the guitar away and got it all wired up just the way I wanted it.

Results

So now it’s like I have a new guitar all over again – and all polished up and shiny and with a new set of Elixir strings. Nice to be able to isolate the sounds of the ‘normal’ Les Paul pickups in the neck and the bridge and to be able to add in that middle pickup when I want to. Also never having been able to use that pickup on it’s own I didn’t realise what I was missing – the middle pickup has a nice treble sound to it but with a little less bite than the bridge pickup… nice for playing clean arpeggiated rhythms or U2 type stuff (have always loved listening to their stuff but only now getting game enough to try playing it… spent half the evening at our home group the other night jamming out some U2 stuff on Gav’s new guitar… also helps that I have an awesome new delay pedal, which I may or may not get around to blogging about.. a TC Nova delay).

Anyway it makes the 3 pickup Les Paul the versatile instrument it always should have been… sounds great and I will definitely not be neglecting it as I have done over the last couple of years. It’s actually good to give me another tonal option in addition to my Strat and Tele – both of these are still a good fit for a lot of the worship music we do at church – the challenge will be picking the songs where the Les Paul will be a good option. My favourite song we used to do which sounded great on the Les Paul was ‘Take Me In’ which we did in a lot heavier style than the Kutless version. It was in F#m which is an awesome key for Slash sounding lead work and also allowed me to play in drop-D for heavier sounding power chords… but it’s been a while since we’ve done that one… I still haven’t got a song list for this Friday’s service, but I will definitely find a way to include the Black Beauty in there somewhere (especially since it’s my last service for a few weeks as I’m off to Queensland for Uni next week..)

Doesn’t make sense to me. I either want my music in one of two formats – either a digital file for my iPod or a physical medium such as a CD with artwork and liner notes that I can file on my shelf. The other advantage of CDs being the quality of the sound is generally better than most compressed digital files such as mp3, aac, wma etc. The disadvantages of the Micro-SD concept are many. If I want digital files I will download them from somewhere like the iTunes store or just rip them from CDs I have bought (my method of choice since that way I have the best of both worlds) – I’m not going to go and physically buy cards with songs on. This would mean either having to continually swap cards every time I want to listen to a different album or to use a computer to transfer them onto a larger card or hard drive based MP3 player (like my iPod). One of the big advtanges for me of an iPod or similar MP3 player is the ability to carry around a library of music so you can select what you want to listen to based on your mood, or just randomise it. So why would I want to carry around a bunch of little fingernail sized cards that can easily get lost? Crazy. Plus it will also necessitate people going out and buying new MP3 players and phones which support Micro-SD. In an age dominated by iPod and iPhone, I can’t see this happening to the extent required for this to be successful.

The future of music is continued growth of online downloads and ongoing improvement of MP3 devices to play those downloaded files. Wireless purchasing like on the iPod touch and iPhone will gradually become more widespread for those who want to get new music while they are out and about and listen to it immediately. Hopefully at some point a worthy successor to the humble CD will catch on and gain wide acceptance (like Blu-Ray is succeeding DVD, albeit very slowly). This will be some sort of high definition audio contained on a standard sized disc, with all the usual booklet/notes/lyrics etc. I know there have been a few candidates in recent years but none has really caught on. This is where the industry needs to get together to build consensus but in times dominated by digital music downloads and the recent video format wars I guess it’s not a priority issue. Whatever the future of audio is, Micro-SD is a dead end alleyway.

So I was pleasantly surprised with my first listen to the band Casting Crowns. I’ve heard their name plenty but never felt compelled to listen to their music until I picked up their CD Lifesong at Koorong recently (partly due to a recommendation in a recent book I read by Roger Olson). Well it’s a great CD. Musically very tight, melodic and interesting. The main male vocalist sounds a bit like Neil Diamond in places but that’s not necessarily a bad thing And the lyrics are honest and original and generally down to earth. Only a couple of lines in one (otherwise very cool) song I didn’t quite see eye to eye with theologically, but at least the fact that I have listened that intently shows how much the music and lyrics have otherwise got me hooked in. I keep intending to take this CD out of my car and play something different, but after at least 5 times through I’m still keen. Well worth getting hold of.

Here’s one of my favourite tracks – Praise you in the storm

Here’s the lyrics to just one of the good songs on the album, Stained Glass Masquerade. I love the realism and honesty here :

Is there anyone that fails
Is there anyone that falls
Am I the only one in church today feelin’ so small

Cause when I take a look around
Everybody seems so strong
I know they’ll soon discover
That I don’t belong

So I tuck it all away, like everything’s okay
If I make them all believe it, maybe I’ll believe it too
So with a painted grin, I play the heart again
So everyone will see me the way that I see them

Are we happy plastic people
Under shiny plastic steeples
With walls around our weakness
And smiles to hide our pain
But if the invitation’s open
To every heart that has been broken
Maybe then we close the curtain
On our stained glass masquerade

Is there anyone who’s been there
Are there any hands to raise
Am I the only one who’s traded
In the altar for a stage

The performance is convincing
And we know every line by heart
Only when no one is watching
Can we really fall apart

But would it set me free
If I dared to let you see
The truth behind the person
That you imagine me to be

Would your arms be open
Or would you walk away
Would the love of Jesus
Be enough to make you stay

More lyrics from the album here.

Old style music

Originally uploaded by baggas.

Visited my dad tonight who had just been given a massive pile of old LPs by his brother, who was doing a big clean up. Amongst it all there were a few gems and I managed to grab a heap, some of which you can see in the picture. Mostly it’s 70’s stuff – Bowie, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, Iggy Pop, Deep Purple, Led Zep and many others. I also inherited a Yamaha turntable so I can play them – it just needs a new stylus. Was funny showing the boys how we used to listen to music in the ‘olden days’ when I was a kid, before CDs were invented. Strange how the world has changed so much in such a short space of time…

Into the Wild was the first one. This is a true story of a young guy named Chris who, upon college graduation, decides to leave his troubled family life behind and disappear, living life as a “supertramp.” Ultimately he finishes up living a solitary existence in an abandoned bus in the wilds of Alaska, but on the way we share in his journeys across America and the people and places he encounters. As the story progresses we learn more of the back story of his home life that led to him doing this, and also of the anguish of those he left behind. This is a brilliant movie – one of the best I’ve seen in a long while. Amazing scenery combined with fantastic performances as the odd-ball characters that Chris encounters along the way. It is a classic road movie but with an emotional intensity and depth few road movies can match. Nevertheless it’s added further fuel to my burning desire to get out and travel again, particularly to America – I just can’t wait to get back over there!

The icing on the cake of this already excellent movie is the wonderful soundtrack by Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder – a bunch of original acoustic folky songs that fit perfectly with this film. I got this soundtrack (from iTunes ironically) last year before my last trip to Africa and have been looking forward to seeing the movie ever since.

Briefly, the other movie we watched was Run, Fatboy, Run! This is an English take on a romantic comedy formula you’ve probably seen at least half a dozen times before. You know, the one where the slightly screwed up nice guy who goes for regular visits with his child meets the new boyfriend of the child’s mum, who he is still carrying a torch for. The new guy is always “perfect” on paper – wealthy, good looking, great job, apparently good with kids. And then the rest of the movie shows how the dad works at keeping his kid, regaining the love of the mother, and generally proving that he’s at heart a better man than Mr Perfect. Run fatboy, run takes that tested formula and delivers it in the manner of the standard British comedy, set in London with a range of colourful supporting characters. Simon Pegg does a good job as Dennis, the main character, and he’s well supported by a good cast including Hank Azaria who plays the American interloper Mr Perfect (“Whit”). Interestingly, this movie was directed by David Schwimmer (who I assume is the same guy as Ross from Friends?), yet it still retains that British film-making feel. It’s a predictable movie, but still worth watching for a bit of fun.

Interestingly though, even though only 1% of iTunes software users shop through the store, it has still become the number one music retailer in the US, surpassing Wal-Mart. I would imagine we will begin to see that 1% figure start to rise a little bit, in view of that.

Excellent article here looking back on ten years since the first MP3 players were produced. The author mentions some of the good things about digital music, but also some of the things he misses such as borrowing and lending music, shopping for used music, album liner notes and artwork, and (my favourite) music as furniture.

I can relate to many of his points. I jumped on the MP3 bandwagon fairly early, using my dialup connection in the heyday of Napster to download hundreds of tracks. It was slow but fun in a way, and challenging -like trying to find that elusive final song you were missing from an album, or the rare album that few people had. And although it was anonymous there was still the pleasure of finding a user with similar music tastes and a huge collection of songs – even better if they had a fast internet connection to leech from. And there was the built in chat box that added at least a little bit of human interaction into the process. None of the P2P software I’ve used since has been quite the same, although I did use one called DC++ a few years back that came close. But by then we had broadband, which took some of that challenge out of the whole thing and gave us the ability to flood our hard drives with vast quantities of files that we were unlikely to ever seriously listen to. And after a while the whole downloading thing just lost it’s shine. Now we have bit-torrent which is easy and fast, but no fun.

Going back to the points in the article above I guess I’ve come the full circle as well. I now purchase more CDs than I ever have before. Admittedly it’s partly because I have more income than before, but it’s also because I like to have the CDs in my hand, reading the notes, looking to see what track is coming up next, and sitting on my shelf as a reminder of what I have and what I like, instead of being tucked away on a hard drive. I totally get the whole “music as furniture” appeal – a bit chunk of the wall in the room I’m sitting in is full of CDs (as you can see in the photo, taken from the couch I’m sitting on with my iSight camera). A related concept is the “books as furniture” one – few things make a room or house more inviting and appealing than shelves and shelves of books. If you’ve been to my house you’ll know I’m definitely a big adherent to this.

I love my iPod and having a collection of digital music at my fingertips, but it’s still just not the same as having something physical to hold, to collect, and to enjoy as part of the overall experience of the music. I’ve bought a few albums over iTunes but probably at least half of those I’ve then gone on to purchase the physical CD. Nowadays I don’t bother as much with the iTunes store unless I’m in a real hurry to get something or if I just want an individual track for some reason (like this Reindeer song I sang at our Christmas carols event last year). I did get one album on iTunes last month – Luka Bloom’s Before Sleep Comes (which is a brilliant mellow acoustic album) but I liked it so much I’ll definitely be getting the CD. I rarely acquire music now by less legitimate means, but even then it will usually now lead to a purchase. For example I’ve had the O Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack languishing on my hard drive for years (I think I actually got it when I traded some MP3 CDs with a friend rather than downloading it myself) – never listened to it until a month or so ago, and when I finally did I immediately went out and bought the CD at the next opportunity.

So from my perspective at least the music industry need not fear the death of the CD just yet. For all it’s benefits digital music is still just not quite the same.

The remainder of this post will be a bit of a test post to try and make sure some things are still working… but read on nonetheless…

To test the YouTube embedding, here’s a video clip from Nickel Creek, one of my favourite bands at the moment, and part of my ongoing journey into bluegrass…

Here’s a quote from one of the books I’m currently reading :

Our life’s dance is not painted for us in footsteps on the floor. It’s not laid out so we know where to place our next step. We simply have to judge which steps best fit the rhythms that we hear.

~ Paul Marshall Heaven is not my Home p62

And the new version has tags. I’ve never previously bothered to use tags on my blog, choosing to stick simply with categories. But since wordpress 2.5 supports it natively, and the rest of the web is going that way, I guess I’ll be tagging my blog posts from now on…

Having said that I have to admit that in general, those old hymns often have a lyrical quality and theological depth that is in the most part lacking in our modern worship anthems and ballads. The song excerpted below is a good example – it actually conveys a (perhaps neglected) biblical truth and engages both the mind and the emotions. Too often our modern songs just work on the latter. I guess the challenge here is for the next generation of worship songwriters to learn from those old hymns, not to emulate them in terms of musical style, but to aspire to that same level of deeper truth in the lyrics. Easier said than done though…

This is my Father’s world. O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world: the battle is not done:
Jesus Who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and Heav’n be one.

Maltbie D Babcock – 1901 – click for the entire song lyrics (good), including cheesy Midi music (beware!)…

Despite the convoluted title, this is a great album. Essentially it’s like a live ‘greatest hits’ package from Hillsong United, with two full discs of tracks recorded in various locations on every continent (wish our worship band could go on tour like that… lol). Although the locations vary, the album flows seamlessly between tracks (and in some cases even within tracks). For the past few years I’ve found that the majority of the good songs to come out of Hillsong have originated on the United youth albums and this album distills most of the best of those songs into the one package. The recording quality is excellent (as usual for Hillsong) but retains an authentic live feel, and it’s nice to hear some fresh versions of some familiar songs. Pleasingly for me, United’s music is very much guitar driven, and the guitars cut through here even more strongly than usual – they’ve really captured some brilliant guitar tones. These CDS will be on high rotation for me for a long time I think (along with all the bluegrass stuff of course, and Dream Theater’s Greatest Hit, which I picked up the other day). Without a doubt Hillsong United are putting out some of the best worship music on the planet.

This album is just the first part of this ‘I Heart Revolution’ project from United. I’m not clear on the details of this but it seems to involve a heavy emphasis on missions and justice issues as part of their world touring. Nice to see this sort of emphasis coming strongly out of Hillsong (you can hear it in a lot of the lyrics as well) and especially the youth. It’s only as the church gets fired up that issues of poverty and justice are going to be more effectively addressed, and I think that Christian youth will be in the vanguard of this – look forward to seeing where it all leads.

My latest Mac win is another piece of great software I downloaded last night. After the fire the other day (which actually didn’t even come close to threatening our home – my brother’s house was much closer to his fire) I got to thinking a little bit about insurance and replacing all our stuff if it was lost. Aside from the fact that the insurance probably wouldn’t come close to covering it all, I was reminded of the need to keep track of things – specifically all my books, CDs, DVDs etc. Well books are already taken care of by my online catalog at LibraryThing (which I have recommended a number of times already – awsome site). Unfortunately I couldn’t find any comparable online catalog for my DVDs and CDs – if anyone has any suggestions I’d be glad to hear them. So I decided to go with a software solution.

After looking at a few alternatives I settled on the ‘pedias’ from Bruji. They have a suite of four programs CDpedia, DVDpedia, Bookpedia, and Gamepedia for cataloguing those things. Very powerful software with a host of options I haven’t explored yet. Data entry is easy – you can scan the barcodes of your CDs using the iSight camera on your Mac – which works quite well, just takes a few goes to get used to. Or you can use a handheld scanner like a cuecat (which I have and works reasonably well). It then uses the barcode data to look up your CD, DVD, book etc on an online database like Amazon (or many others) to retrieve the cover art and lots of other info. You can customize your library with various custom fields and of course tags. All of this is integrated with spotlight for easy searching. There’s plenty of other features which you can check out on their website but already I’m finding this software a joy to use.

One feature I’m yet to try is the web export function which lets you export your catalogs to a website. I’ll do this once I’ve entered all my data and will post links in a few days. But this is perhaps my one disappointment with this (and other similar) software. What would be really great would be if you could somehow dynamically synchronise your library from this software with an online catalog (akin to LibraryThing) so as to have your data permanently available on the web and up-to-date. Maybe this is possible somehow but I’m yet to see it. If not perhaps they could look at making this part of a future version.

But overall, yet another very useful piece of Mac software

For those instruments that I don’t possess and/or can’t play myself, Garageband fills the need, with a huge range of software instruments and a nifty “musical typing” keyboard for adding piano or any other virtual instrument. Of course you can also plug in a Midi piano but I’d have to work on my keyboard skills to make much use of any of that. One of the coolest things is that there is a huge database of pre-recorded loops to jam along to or I can create a “Magic Band” in moments in a range of styles – an instant backing band! It also integrates well with other iLife software like iMovie and iTunes so any tracks I record are instantly available to download to my iPod or mobile, or to use in any video projects – watch out YouTube!

As I said I’ve barely scratched the surface of what this software can do but so far I’m having a lot of fun

I bet no-one could make Hillary sound this cool. 

Coincidentally, I’m working through the Led Zeppelin back catalog at the moment. Having gotten hold of the remastered CD and HD-DVD of “The Song Remains the Same” and their new compilation “Mothership.” After just listening to their first two albums over the the last couple of days I was reminded of what an awesome band they are. This is a band where each of the four members would be a candidate for “best _ _ _ of all time status” Not only do they have the aforementioned vocals of Robert Plant and the legendary Jimmy Page on lead guitar, but the huge sounding drum work of John Bonham and the melodic bass of John Paul Jones are amazing. These latter two members of the band may not get as much attention as their colleagues but every time I listen to Led Zep I am reminded of just how great the rhythm section of this band was – that’s why they are still probably the ultimate ’super-group’ in my opinion. Looking forward to revisiting the rest of their albums over the coming weeks.

A different story with my Digitech GNX4 guitar effects board. For many months I have had problems with this since Digitech were extremely slow in releasing drivers for it to work with Vista (they finally have within the last few weeks). And now it seems I can’t get it working with my Mac. Not sure if this is a problem relating to the new Leopard version of OSX or what but it’s quite frustrating. Not only can I not install the X-edit software for editing my effect presets on the GNX4, but I cannot even use it as a recording input via USB. It shows up in audio preferences and I can even “see” the sound when I play guitar on the little input meter – but when I load up recording software like GarageBand or Audacity it complains of MIDI driver clashes and refuses to work. Very frustrating – mostly I blame Digitech for this – releasing a product and not providing adequate software support to ensure it works on all platforms. I’m still exploring the forums and hoping for a way around this but I’m not holding my breath.

Finally I’ll just mention the cool iSight camera that is built in to the MacBook Pro. Very handy for recording little video clips like in the intro to the video below of Luke playing piano. The picture quality is very good and it’s quick and easy to use. The iChat software for video chat seems pretty cool, with some fun background and picture effects the kids enjoyed playing around with. Sadly it is not compatible with MSN which is where my few chat contacts hang out – but I’ll see if there’s a workaround for that. I’m not a heavy duty chat user anyway, but this camera may well come in handy for other things.

In the meantime, enjoy Maestro Luke…

And it’s at this point that I rummage around my hard drive for all my Christmas MP3s. For some people it’s putting up the tree, for others it’s lights on the house or a wreath on the door – for me it’s copying my Christmas songs into iTunes that marks the beginning of the festive season. Copied off CDs or downloaded from the net, I have accumulated a lot of Christmas music over the years – I’m now over 1,500 songs. I’ve got all sorts, from Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and Elvis (of course), through to Christina Aguleira and even David Hasselhoff! Christmas is the one time of year where kitsch is in, and no style of music is off limits – even Neil Diamond sounds cool when he’s doing a Christmas carol. This year I’ve been into country music all year, and so I’m working on finding a few more country Christmas songs for my collection.

All this was triggered off by music practice last night where we started to get organised for our upcoming carols concert in December. Once again, I’m not really a big fan of old hymns in church, but I’ll make an exception for Christmas carols. It was great grabbing an acoustic guitar and having a bit of a sing-along last night – even let the country influence creep in there too   It’s a great time of year…

1. Most blues begin “woke up this morning.”2. “I got a good woman” is a bad way to begin the blues, unless you stick something nasty in the next line. I got a good woman – with the meanest dog in town.

3. Blues are simple. After you have the first line right, repeat it. Then find something that rhymes. Sort of. Got a good woman with the meanest dog in town. He got teeth like Margaret Thatcher and he weighs about 500 pounds.

4. The blues are not about limitless choice.

5. Blues cars are Chevies and Cadillacs. Other acceptable blues transportation is Greyhound bus or a southbound train. Walkin’ plays a major part in the blues lifestyle. So does fixin’ to die.

6. Teenagers can’t sing the blues. Adults sing the blues. Blues adulthood means old enough to get the electric chair if you shoot a man in Memphis.

7. You can have the blues in New York City, but not in Brooklyn or Queens. Hard times in Vermont or North Dakota are just depression. Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City are still the best places to have the blues.

8. You can’t have the blues in an office or a shopping mall; the lighting is all wrong.

9. The following colors do not belong in the blues:
a. violet
b. beige
c. mauve

10. Good places for the Blues:
a. the highway
b. the jailhouse
c. the empty bed

11.Bad places for the Blues:
a. Ashrams
b. Gallery openings
c. weekend in the Hamptons

12. Do you have the right to sing the blues?

Yes, if:
a. your first name is a southern state-like Georgia
b. you’re blind
c. you shot a man in Memphis.
d. you can’t be satisfied.

No, if:
a. you were once blind but now can see.
b. you’re deaf
c. you have a trust fund.

13. No one will believe it’s the blues if you wear a suit, unless you happen to be an old black man.

14. Neither Julio Iglesias nor Barbra Streisand can sing the blues.

15. If you ask for water and baby gives you gasoline, it’s the blues. Other blues beverages are:
a. wine
b. whiskey
c. muddy water

16.Blues beverages are NOT:
a. Any mixed drink
b. Any wine kosher for Passover
c. YooHoo

17. If it occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it’s blues death. Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is a blues way to die. So is the electric chair, substance abuse, or being denied treatment in an emergency room. It is not a blues death if you die during a liposuction treatment.

18. Some Blues names for Women
a. Sadie
b. Big Mama
c. Bessie

19. Some Blues Names for Men
a. Joe
b. Willie
c. Little Willie
d. Lightning

20a. Persons with names like Sierra or Sequoia will not be permitted to sing the blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.

20b. Other Blues Names (Starter Kit)
a. Name of Physical infirmity (Blind, Cripple, Asthmatic)
b. First name (see above) or name of fruit (Lemon, Lime, Kiwi)
c. Last Name of President (Jefferson, Johnson, Fillmore, etc.)
Mix and Match

“Now that I have seen, I am responsible. Faith without deeds is dead…”

Here’s something to keep an eye out for – the annual Country Music Awards happens tonight in Nashville (hopefully it’ll be broadcast on the Country Music Channel). Aussie Keith Urban is up for best album with his Love, Pain, and the Whole Crazy Thing, which is an excellent country/pop/rock album with some great tracks. I had the misfortune of hearing a Phil Collins version of the Leo Sayer classic “Can’t stop loving you” whilst driving around Johannesburg and was horrified at the anaemic 80s sound. Keith does a far superior version on this album. “Stupid Boy” is another of my favourite tracks from this CD.

Another contender for best album mentioned in the article above is These Days, a four disc opus from Vince Gill. I haven’t come across this album before but looking at the names of some of his colloborators it’s definitely one I want to check out. Might be perfect for my drive down to Busselton this weekend with the boys if I can find it by then. I may have to source it on iTunes though, since our music stores here in Western Australia generally have a pitifully small country music section.

Anyway, speaking of Keith Urban, here’s a video I posted on my facebook yesterday of him performing with Australian roots band The John Butler Trio, originally from Perth. They are another of my favourite bands so seeing John Butler and Keith Urban performing together is a real treat. Anyone who doubts Keith’s ability on the guitar just check this out…

When I arrived at the airport I discovered that, since my paper ticket originally was for a different date, I was unable to check my bags right through to Sydney for my flight this afternoon. This meant that I had to go through South African customs and collect my bag, only then to be told that I had to wait another 3 hours before I could check in for my Sydney flight and get through to the good departure lounge.

When I finally did get through, feeling sore in the neck and mid back I saw a shop offering seated massage for 120 Rand (around $20). After being pummelled by a middle aged African woman for 20 minutes I can now say that instead of being sore in those spots, I am now sore all over (wish I had my sports therapist friend from our medical team here!). So some Voltaren gel from the chemist and an excellent glass of red from the Diners lounge are my next strategy.

OK, now thats today out of the way – let me go back to discuss something much more fun – last night. Five of our group decided to go to a concert by one of the singers from KPC church, called Enoch. Actually it was not just his concert. His band was the headline act but was well supported by a bunch of other performers – soloists, dancers, rappers, an a-capella group, and a Ugandan comedian! We were expecting it to be some dingy hall or club but in fact it was a beautiful modern theatre. And the concert was fantastic. All of the artists were good, especially Enoch and his band, who were great musicians – particularly the lead guitarist and bass player. I got a lot of video of it on my digital camera so I’ll endeavour to post some on here in the next few days.

Only a small group of us went which meant for me I was able to avoid the goodbyes with most of the other members of the team. I’m not one for goodbyes so that suited me. But it was nice because the four that I was with last night were the ones that I connected with the most during the trip – friendships born out of a similar outlook on life, interests, sense-of-humour, musical tastes, and a little bit of adversity thrown in (especially in the case of my two partners in criminology, Emma and Mairin). I’m not always strong at making friendships, so aside from all the mission and medical aspects of the trip, connecting with these guys was one of the highlights for me. There were plenty of other great people on the team too, but with these guys we just clicked, which was great. The other cool thing about our team this year was that it was more multidisciplinary in nature. In addition to two doctors and a bunch of nurses, we had a physio/sports therapist, speech pathologist, and a couple of lab scientists. I was doubtful going in to the trip how much they would have to do, but they really added a huge amount to what we were able to achieve.

Anyway time to go grab some more food, and drink – and then maybe a shower before I board the plane…

Also, whilst waiting in the airport last night, I listened to Radiohead’s new album In Rainbows, which I downloaded yesterday afternoon. It’s actually a pretty good album, perhaps their most accessible since OK computer, thus making their exclusively online distribution experiment even more interesting.

Right now I’m in the Diners Club (or Premier Club) arrivals lounge at the airport. Free coffee, juice, soft drinks, free hot breakfast and a wonderful shower have gone some way to making me feel human again. Seriously this is the coolest shower I’ve ever seen. It has so many options and dials and different places for the water to come out. I even took a picture – check it out here. Once I’m done here I’ll try and dump my bags at my hotel, which is just around the corner, then rent a car and head off to explore Johannesburg. Hopefully the dodgy weather will keep the criminals away. First stop might have to be the Lion Park.

Specifically, the allegations related to Australian Idol are that Hillsong have deliberately infiltrated people into the competition and then (shock, horror) advised their congregation that they might want to vote for them.

To tackle the first allegation, it does seem that a disproportionate number of successful contestants on ‘Idol’ are Christian and have some kind of connection/affinity with Hillsong, however they are inaccurate when they suggest that all of these people are Hillsong plants. Most are not members at all, but attend other churches. One blatant error in their story was their claim that the original Idol winner Guy Sebastian was a Hillsong member, when in fact he went to Paradise Church in Adelaide (the home of PlanetShakers). The reason why there are so many Christians on Idol is much more straightforward – contemporary churches are an excellent nursery for musical talent. Where else in our society are so many people given an opportunity to use and develop their musical talents but in Christian worship? Even of those who work hard to form a band and persue a musical career, few would play to audiences of several hundred or more every week but this is commonplace for church musicians. And the example per-excellence of this is Hillsong church, who are at the cutting edge of innovation and excellence in Christian music in Australia, if not the world. So don’t be surprised if, in a musical competition, a disproportionate number of contestants hail from the breeding ground of Christian churches, especially those in the style of Hillsong. Churches don’t need to plant or infiltrate a competition like Australian Idol – contestants will spring up naturally from such a nuturing musical environment. For millienia the church has been the soil and the inspiration for music – why should things be any different today?

Secondly, the charges that it is somehow wrong or insidious for churches to encourage their members to consider voting for Idol contestants who hail from their congregation, their denomination or their faith in general – what is wrong with that? Imagine a member of the West Coast Eagles also happened to be a brilliant singer and at a game an announcer encouraged the crowd to “don’t forget to vote for Ben Cousins in Australian Idol tonight” – would that be considered a form of brainwashing? In the first season there was a performer called Cosima who we were encouraged to vote for just because she was from Western Australia (I believe even the Premier at the time was guilty of this) – is that part of a sinister plot? If someone from our church at Warnbro was on the show I wouldn’t consider it to be at all wrong if our pastor or one of the worship leaders encouraged us to support them? So why is it such a sin for Hillsong to do the same? Apparently they’ve shied away from such public mention of Idol candidates now, but I wouldn’t have a problem with it if they did.

I’m sorry but such illogical, biased and erroneous reporting really gets my goat. I really must make a better effort to avoid these shows from now on.

So there’s a new album coming out from Radiohead, and since they’ve divorced from their record label, it’s only available for order from their website in either a discbox format (with CD and Vinyl versions), or for download. The really interesting thing is that for the download you can choose how much you want to pay, from nothing upwards. I like the concept, and will definitely download it on Oct 10 when it becomes available, and will certainly pay them for it. But there’s a couple of concerns I have. Firstly, they should have made an intermediate choice between the digital download and the 40 pound discbox. I like Radiohead and own most of their CDs and would prefer to purchase the CD to add to my collection, but can’t justify spending 40 pounds, especially when I no longer own a record player. So I’ll just have to be content with the downloads alone. Secondly, by not selling their album through traditional outlets (such as music stores and even iTunes, if you can call that traditional), Radiohead will significantly limit the audience who may end up listening to this album.

But most importantly, I’ll be interested to see how good this album is. Will it be as listenable as their earlier stuff, or weird and atmospheric, like their recent albums? Guess we’ll find out next week…

I must confess, there have been moments since I heard this news that I’ve seriously considered booking a flight to London in November! A one off Led Zep reunion concert would be an awesome show to see. But considering that I’m already leaving Jen on her own with the kids for nearly 3 weeks in October, and also that the concert tickets will be allocated by a lottery, it’s probably a sensible move to stay home. I’ll catch the concert on the inevitable DVD release next year (hopefully it comes out in HD). Another one of those moments where living so far away from the rest of the world is a bit frustrating. If I lived anywhere near there I would be entering that lottery in a second!

Keep your ears open, it looks like Steve Jobs is set to make an iPod related announcement this Thursday – hopefully concerning the release of a new generation of iPods.

With all the hype around the iPhone and other products like AppleTV, the humble iPod seems to have been forgotten the last couple of years. My old 60gig one is still fine for music but in these days of video it doesn’t quite cut it. I used mine a lot on our recent trip watching TV show episodes, and it was fine but it would be great to have a larger screen.

So my wish list for the next generation iPod would include :

1. Larger, brighter screen
2. More storage – how bout a 120Gig iPod?
3. Touch-screen controls
4. More connectivity options – maybe bluetooth (for headphone and care stereo connections), ? wi-fi, or a built in FM tuner or how bout a built in FM transmitter!

I look forward to seeing what Jobs pulls out of the bag. The other thing that the article mentions is the likely iTunes release of The Beatles catalog. Long overdue, no doubt, but for any serious Beatles’ fan it shouldn’t really matter. I’ve had all The Beatles’ albums on my iPod since day one, since I already own the CDs. And I wouldn’t have it any other way – as much as I am in to iPods and downloading music etc, it still doesn’t beat having a big wall of CDs in your collection to choose from. If I really like an album, I’ll still go and buy the CD. Maybe I’m just showing my age…

Monday morning I got up nice and early, bundled the boys in the car and drove halfway across Tennessee to Memphis, birthplace of the blues and home of The King – Elvis Presley. Was a smooth 3 hour drive through some beautiful countryside before we arrived at Graceland. And Graceland itself was well worth the effort, not only to see the 70s style home decorating, and Elvis’ cars and planes and gold records etc, but to really step back into history and connect with a man whose legacy is still with us today.  Graceland, and the city of Memphis, would have to be the rock ‘n roll Mecca. It’s a shame Memphis was such a drive because there was so much more I wanted to see there – Beale St, Sun Studios, the Gibson factory – but after a drive through the city along the edge of the Mississippi, we had to head back East to Nashville, along the aptly titled “Music Highway” – between these two cities there is an awful lot of music history.

Today I created my own piece of Nashville related music history (well sort of) – I visited a couple of guitar shops and picked up that Fender VG stratocaster I’ve been wanting. The first shop didn’t have any but when I walked into the second there it was hanging on the wall, in the exact colour I wanted – Suburst with maple neck. Actually it’s the same colour as the strat in the domino picture I’ve had in my blog banner all these years which is kinda cool. So far I’m quite impressed. The essential strat tone is great, and the simulations seem very good. The alternate tunings see to track flawlessly, and there’s virtually no noise from any of the guitar sims, even the acoustic ones. Before now all the acoustic simulators I’ve ever tried have had a terrible hiss. I also grabbed a Roland Micro Cube amp so I can plug in and play for the rest of this trip, and as a useful practice amp for back home. Wish I had the money and the luggage space to pick up some more guitars – they had a huge range of beautiful Fenders, Gibsons and others at pretty good prices – but until the next trip this one versatile guitar will have to suffice. Oh, I also visited the Gibson store on Sunday after lunch – never seen such a fantastic range of Gibsons in my life, including some quite unusual models. Might try and get back there tomorrow for another look, since we’ll be over that way again.

Anyway everyone else is snoozing so I’d better log off. If it get time over the next couple of days I’ll post some more pictures (including Graceland), and my overall (very positive) impressions of Nashville and more updates on what we’ve been up to.

Bruce Cockburn – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bruce Cockburn, OC (IPA ['kob?rn]; phonetically: “co-burn”) (born May 27, 1945) is a Canadian folk/rock guitarist and singer/songwriter. He has recorded an immense volume of work, his 29th album being released in summer 2006, and has written songs in styles ranging from folk to jazz-influenced rock to rock and roll.

He had made his first solo appearance at the Mariposa Folk Festival in 1967, and was the headliner when Neil Young cancelled in order to appear at Woodstock. In 1970 he released his first, self-titled, solo album. Cockburn’s phenomenal guitar work and songwriting skills won him an enthusiastic following. His early work sparkles with rural and nautical imagery, biblical metaphors, and a sense of delight in the belief that whatever happens here on earth, heaven isn’t far away. Early in his career he became a devout Christian; many of his albums from the 1970s show evidence of his religious beliefs. His use of Christianity in his music is from such a fresh and personal perspective that it draws in nonbelievers and people from other faiths almost voyeuristically. “I’m certainly not a Christian, but if I were, I’d want to be one like Bruce” is a not uncommon refrain among his listeners.  [..read more..]

Fairport Convention – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fairport Convention is often credited with being the first English electric folk band. Formed in April 1967, with Simon Nicol, Richard Thompson, Ashley Hutchings and Shaun Frater, Fairport rapidly developed from playing cover versions of American ‘west coast’ style music to an individual style which melded rock music with traditional English tunes and songs.

Bedevilled by numerous personnel changes throughout its first decade, Fairport Convention was temporarily disbanded in 1979 but played annual reunion concerts until it reformed in 1985. Since then, it has enjoyed stability and continues to tour and record regularly.

In part, the continuing success of Fairport Convention is due to the annual music festival it organises. Cropredy Festival has been held every year since 1974 near Cropredy, a village five miles north of Banbury, Oxfordshire and attracts 20,000 fans. Now renamed Fairport’s Cropredy Convention, it remains one of the key events in the UK folk festival calendar. [..read more..]

Doom metal – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Doom metal is a form of heavy metal that emerged as a recognized metal sub-genre in the early/mid-1980s. Doom metal is heavier and slower than other metal genres. Lyrics play a very important role in this genre, and are traditionally rife with pessimism, evoking an atmosphere of darkness, despair and misery. 

Doom metal is among the oldest forms of heavy metal, rooted in the music of early Black Sabbath, who are one of the first heavy metal bands. Their music is rooted in blues, but with specific loud guitar playing of Iommi and, at these days uncommon dark and pessimistic lyrics and atmosphere, they set the standards of early heavy metal and inspired various doom metal bands at first place. In the early 1970s both Black Sabbath and the American band Pentagram composed and performed this heavy and dark music which would in the 1980s begin to be known and referred to as doom metal by subsequent musicians, critics and fans. From the late 1970s to mid 1980s, bands such as Trouble, Saint Vitus, Candlemass, Pentagram and Witchfinder General contributed much to the formation of doom metal as a distinct genre. The form of music played by these artists can be described as being rooted in both the music of Black Sabbath and, especially in the case of Witchfinder General, in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Some North American acts such as Cirith Ungol and Manilla Road also influenced the rise of the style, especially its epic side which Candlemass defined on their classic, debut album Epicus Doomicus Metallicus.  [..read more.. ]