I've given up on my myspace boycott. Lasted longer than my facebook boycott, but I missed all you lovely myspacers, and I failed miserably to keep my wordpress blog active.

I'm trying very hard to sort out the tunes on this profile, as you may have noticed. Still having trouble fixing Icy Apathetic Morning and How Am I Feeling, so sorry about that. If I don't fix them within the week I'll post links to download and scrap them from my player, cause they're taking up valuable space.

Also, I'm planning on morphing this into an Ely page, gradually. So the new tunes here are the instrumentals for tracks we're working on together. Hopefully the finished article should be available by late next-month.

In the meanwhile, please enjoy this little ditty I demoed last night. It's fairly rough and ready, but delicate with it. Quite Bond-esque, I think. Would fit nicely over that one where he gets the girl in the life raft in the middle of the sea at the end and the camera zooms out to make it clear James is doing the nasty.

Forgive the popup ads - it's a free hosting site, and you get what you pay for:
http://www2.zippyshare.com/v/13368988/file.html

Loads of love and other insincere sentiments.
Tx

I've got a new blog. It's very quiet at the moment, with no comments, and likely no readers either. So go there. I can't promise you'll enjoy it, but I can promise that it will have more blogs by me than this one does. What you doing reading this blog anyway? I told you already, I've quit myspace and am never posting here again! Duh.

The new blog is hosted by wordpress, and so can be conveniently found at:
http://bishely.wordpress.com

also... i dunno if just posting this script will work, but here goes:

I'm the 5,780,722,892 richest person on earth! Discover how rich you are! >>

Yeah. I'm that rich. This is why I have a paypal button.

Hope everyone's well, I feel good after waking up feeling terrible. Plenty of coffee plus a pint of cool filter water to every cup of beans (helps dilute the tarry-thick black stuff I call coffee, thereby preventing stomach-death). Perked me right up. Bit lethargic though, but generally good.

I'll shut up now.

ps - if you haven't listened to what I'm listening to, you really probably should. it's like Ok Computer, but from a much more funk/soul/generally black kinda angle. Very good. But you knew that, because you're far cooler than me. In fact, you're so cool you were probably bored of this album long before I first listened to it (and wasn't sure if I liked it - it grew on me a lot, but gradually), so why am I even telling you to listen to something you've heard and got bored of, cause it's, like, so September. I'm also listening to Britney's new effort, Circus (though not simultaneously with Dear Science - which I keep calling Big Science, which is obviously Laurie Anderson's classic trippy art music album thing, which you probably ought to listen to too, but that was way back in 1982 before I was even born, so you're probably well-acquainted and find it a little too naive and pretentious anyway... I agree.) and am pleasantly surprised by Ms Spears' post-black-cherry-era-goldfrapp eurobeat pop, or was when I first listened a week or so ago; so now I'm just 'pleasantly'...

Also, I have completed both the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy text adventure thingy (a 1984 game by infocom, with Douglas providing the words), and Bureaucracy (another text-based game by infocom, based on ideas and notes and such by Douglas). I feel very smug. I got the babel fish, and gave Marvin the right tool, and I even hacked the nerdy hacker at the end of Bureaucracy, and got an apology from the bank. But you're far too cool to have any idea what I'm on about.

I *WILL* shut up NOW.

i said i had quit myspace for good. and i have. but i'm here, blogging? let me explain.

i'm still logging in on occasion to delete annoying spam comments and such, and to check things are working and check up on the friends who haven't followed me into facebook (thanks, to those who have, and hello to those who were already there, but are still here too...).

anyway, i just logged in and my profile views had reached 4,999. which seemed a momentous number, for some reason. i mean, it's not loads by any stretch, but it's always nice when you reach the big nice ones, and i'm not about to hang around waiting for it to roll over to the big 5k, so i'm blogging about it now.

thank you to everyone who has lent their support and encouragement to me via this little profile, it's been lovely, and has given me a lot more confidence in my tunes than i'd ever had before. in fact, i was on a train last tuesday afternoon, listening to some of my newer stuff, when i realised i was actually really rather enjoying it. that may sound terribly big-headed, but i just mention it to illustrate how much more at ease i am with what i do, thanks to people saying nice things here.

when i started making my tunes, although i enjoyed the process, and found some things i liked about the results, i couldn't really listen to much of it without hearing all the failings. now (partly because i've got better at what i do, but largely because so many people have said nice things) i can sit back and just enjoy it, which is definitely very big-headed, but although being big-headed all the time is not something to aspire to, every now and then it feels lovely ;)

now, since i last updated a few things have changed - i've got my facebook 'page' verified, so you can head to t i n y u r l . com/bishely - for some reason, myspace doesn't like tiny url dot com much, so you have to write it in stupid ways or they pick it up as a phishing link - honestly... and hear some tunes there. but facebook's servers are bloody awful - sometimes they're very fast indeed, and sometimes they respond like a mid-90s dialup connection. so there's another alternative - if you can't deal with having to be online whenever you want to hear some of my tunes, i've uploaded a BIG zip file of 40 tracks (over two hours) of the bits i like best (they're not all great, but - in my opinion at least - they're all good ideas) which you can download from rapidshare.com

here's the link - "Dear Sonic Death Monkey" (the title's a nod to Cookie's band Sonic Death Monkey). Or copy and paste this into your address bar:
http://rapidshare.com/files/161910975/Bish-DSDM.zip

you'll have to click free user (unless you've got a rapidshare account of course) and wait a couple of mins before it starts downloading. after that, it should take around half an hour with a 120kB/sec connection, or longer for slower connections. yeah, not very quick, but i leave it to you to judge whether the rewards outweigh the bandwidth. the file is 200MB, and can be extracted using all popular .zip software. it's free, no strings. it'd be nice if you'd get in touch and tell me what you DON'T like and why, but i know you're busy, so no pressure :)

also, you can find me on soundcloud here, or visit the ely website(www.elylovesyou.com), which is shamefully currently more of a 'me' website - we don't really have the content to put up at the moment, since we're still pontificating a few matters and working out where we're going, so while i'm paying for the domain i may as well use it.

oh, and you can donate now too - go to the ely site and there's a big paypal button on the donate page. not that you have to, or that i'd think any less of you if you didn't, but just in case anyone's got money burning holes in their pockets; i've got pockets whose holes have already been burned.

lastly in this last update for a while (maybe), i'd like to point you in the direction of Little Boots, if you're not already aware of her (i'm becoming notoriously out of touch with music). she's small and cute and has a voice that sounds very much like Madonna to me, except she actually plays instruments (sometimes a few at once) rather than just poncing around with a guitar and a pretend English accent. she's from Blackpool, has the sort of musical background i'd kill for (but apparently, having been in lots of strange bands/performance thingys isn't regarded by most journalists as a good 'musical pedigree', what ever that is) and makes rather good pop records. oh, and she's named after Caligula, which is rather unsettling.

she was on Jools playing an 'acoustic' version of her single "Meddle" last week, and you could do a lot worse than heading over to iplayer before the week is out and watching it for yourself. however gimmicky and Regina Spektor-esque it may seem, playing syncopated patterns on a stylophone and piano, while singing and occasionally clapping is bloody hard work (i've had a little go myself since watching it, and it all falls apart when i try singing - have to keep practicing) even without the distraction of BBC cameras and a bloody big telly/studio audience. Jools is often rather patronising, but when he told her "Nice left hand" after the song, i got the impression it was coming from the heart. it certainly impressed me.

there's a slightly more flawed youtube performance on her youtube page of her doing the same arrangement of meddle in her bedroom (presumably not long after she wrote it, or at least came up with the arrangement) which at least reassures me she's not a robot sent back from the future to help bring down skynet with her post-pop.

so anyway, although my plugging isn't really required for a talented artist who's already got herself a major label and Hot Chip's Joe Goddard on production duties, i'm doing it anyway - check her out. oh, also, she's done a bunch of cracking 'mixtapes' which you can find to download with a bit of google snooping - i'm not linking them because they're easy enough to find and i'm not sure if i'd get in trouble with myspace for linking straight to downloads of content that isn't mine to give.

right, well then. lot's of other things have happened recently, not least in political and world events, but i'm going to rein myself in and just say i'm quietly pleased that the better man won in the US, and now we get to see just what sort of "change" he had in mind. as for Africa, i can't talk or think about what's going on without despairing. Milliband's an arse. i know we're very stretched at the moment, but a million here and there will achieve nothing.

and that's all i have to say about that.
have fun and take care, kids.
Tx

enough is enough.

i'm in pieces. or one big piece. hard to know which. i feel in pieces. i look like one big bit.

anyway, im calling time on myspace for a while. im hardly ever on here anymore, and its just not fair to either of us to pretend its still working. it isnt working. you're very lovely, and i'll hold you dear in my heart until the day i die, but it's time to face up to facts. having a myspace profile does not count as promoting yourself. im very lacklustre at the promotion generally, but particularly at the moment because im spending so long looking for a 'proper' job.

and yes, there's someone else. facebook. i tried to end our affair several months ago. i wasnt happy with how much they knew about me, and i didnt really trust them. but i was deceiving myself.

frankly, facebook is getting so big (among my friends at least), that not using it is like disowning half of my friends, since nobody txts anymore (why bother when wall posts are free?), so although i managed to boycott it for a few months, i have to admit defeat. also, facebook has music pages now (yeah i know it has had for a while), so i can do some promotion there instead.

im not deleting this profile, and i'll still pop back to say hello, if you'll have me. but i can't go on pretending i'm trying. this profile was just an experiment in the first place, to see if anyone had anything nice to say about the little tunes i was making in my bedroom at night. now im making tunes every day, every night (in between the job hunting) and with help from y'all i've got a bit more confidence in my own abilities.

so thank you, all of you. for your words of praise and inspiration, for your kind messages of appreciation, concern etc. everyone ive spoken to on here has been tremendously supportive, even when they were criticising, and that just goes to show how lovely (you) people are.

and to everyone ive promised everything - im a man of my word, but useless with deadlines. it may be weeks, months, or years since i promised whatever i promise, but i will stand by my promises and complete them in full, eventually. just don't go holding your breath. for one thing, im in such a financial mess im getting scared to answer the door in case its the bailiffs (you can take my life, but you'll never take my instruments!) so until thats sorted im in limbo.

if you want to contact me, there's always my facebook profile, which you can reach by going here:
facebook

or you can email me (and im sure ill regret putting my email address up when the myspace spam spiders find it, so im not writing the actual email address - suffice to say that it's "ATgmail.com" and the first bit is bishely)

righto, that's all for now. i might try tidying up/replacing the music on this page at some point. thank you again to everyone whos hosted one of my tunes on their page!

inabit kids...
Tx

Reasons why the universe is not right.

this is a geeky doctor who post. all week i have refrained from looking at the rumors apparently being reported all over the web. ive only told kenni my suspicions, cause i didnt really want to bore people with them. but here are, for the record, my reasons why tennant will still be the doctor next season, and theories on how everything else fits together.

1) it would be a stupid time to get rid of tennant
2) it would also mean recasting torchwood, assuming captain jack had a planet earth left to start a torchwood on
3) davros and the daleks? again? seriously? why dont they just die?
4) rose kept appearing throughout the series looking like there was something urgent she had to tell the doctor, but didnt know about the daleks, so its something else.
5) bad wolf, again? creepy, but suggests the tardis is playing up, or something
6) in turn left, donna had that bug on her back which changed the universe. thats probably still happening

OR

we're all in the wrong universe, and have been for a while now...

or something. i confess, ive no idea, but its starting now.

more music for your delectation.

this is almost a full album of new/ish tunes. most (maybe all) of them have been written in the last month. when i shouldve been revising. ive an exam tomorrow and frankly i dont stand a chance. anyway, enough about me, what about you? i hope you enjoy these little tunes. there's 8 of them for now - ive another 2, but one of them was a nightmare to mix (was away from my fancy speakers, and mixing bass on macbook speakers is worse than a stab in the dark) and the other has a vocal on it that just isnt working right yet (mainly cause its me singing it).

this is somewhere between emperor bish+simon and ely, i think. theres all kinds of influences. aphex twin, cooper temple clause (for that breakdown on 'my thoughts for a penny'), that bog roll advert with all the factory workers throwing themselves off walkways onto the toilet roll, drugs, misery, nights out.... all sorts

i do hope you like.

you can obviously listen here, or you can click the rapidshare link below the player to download all the tunes in one zip file... no 'artwork' im afraid - ive taken some nice pics lately, but artwork for mp3s seems a bit silly.



EDIT: the flash player mysteriously became a linkin park playlist. i dunno if mff have decided to turn all their playlists into linkin park promos (good idea, but fucking annoying) or if my files have been removed from fileden due to inactivity. im sensing a great deal of ambivalence here. i dunno if its ambivalence to myspace or to my music, but my tunes have not been heard. theyve been here a while now, and noone's downloaded them. maybe you all heard them and didnt like them? i thought at least one or two were worth a download, but seemingly not. not a sausage.



so im a teeny bit miffed. im not blaming you lot. im blaming myself. clearly the tunes arent good enough and/or im not promoting them hard enough. so i shall redouble my efforts. there will be big supamassive blog soon where you can download everything and anything ive ever done and deemed good enough to let out into the world of blog. and following that, expect to find lots and lots of annoying messages from me insisting you have a listen and all that.


toodlepip

im feeling incapacitated.

this is not an apology or an admission of guilt, but there's lots of people to whom i owe things, and i'm still working on repaying those debts. ive done all i can for most of them - cds in the mail etc. for those of you waiting on replies or blogs or whatever, these things take time. i find i have less time with every passing day. and this has coincided with one of those purple patches i get where i feel like ive got big fluffy tendrils sticking out from all over my body, numbing me from the world, and rather than feel anything, or communicate anything, i find myself writing lots of music... usually what happens is, a few months later i listen back and begin to understand what i was feeling... so i dont know what im feeling or thinking. im just reacting really.

anyway. ive got slightly emo hair (its beginning to grow on me, but its still rather difficult to not look silly) - i should point out i never asked for emo hair, but the very camp fellow who did it for me looked so pleased with himself i didnt have the heart to tell him i thought i looked like a twat.

why do hairdressers hold up a mirror for you to see the back of your head? its the only time i EVER look at the back of my head, and frankly, as long as he's not written TOSSER in the nape of my neck, i couldnt give two shits what it looks like.

anyway.

ely have a website. yessir. a real website, with a real web address domain thingy. awesome, no? well, no, actually. kenni's the only one of us with any real experience making websites, and he has a proper job to learn the ropes and a new flat to move into and such, so he has no time to put his talent to work on making it look good. so its a bit bland.

you can visit it here though : www.elylovesyou.com

and ive written two new tunes. i wont go into details here because ive far better things to do, and because i already have, over on elylovesyou. theres no link to the page on the site itself, but if you go directly here you can have a listen and download them both and read some pointless waffle.

The Queen Eats Her Sisters is a 'proper' song. Piano Improv, as the name suggests, was just a piano improvisation i decided to record, because its quite pretty.

comments and suggestions are welcomed below, or directed to bish@elylovesyou.com (ha! ely email!)

i hope everyone's well, and patient enough to feel pleased when they finally receive all the things ive promised them.

lots of love, hugs, cuddles, and sinister looks from behind my new fringe.
Tx

had a shower. this is not part two of the afforementioned ramble, but rather some thoughts on reflection in the shower.

1a. lynx recover shower gel is - despite being lynx, and despite looking like the contents of a particularly poorly person's tissue post-sneeze - really rather good. wakes you up quite nicely, but gently, not like that mint extract stuff that burns like acid.

1b. however, i must dispute the lynx bottle's claim that it 'wakes you up, no matter how big the night was' - ive had a good handful of 'big' nights after which no amount of shower gel could possibly have woken me up, not even the evil mint stuff.

2. head and shoulders for men is evil. it has more chemicals than iraq and iran combined (not hard, frankly, but anyway...) and makes your hair feel like dried corn stalks.

3. my spelling is not what it used to be, owing to fancy spellcheckers - ive just got windows running on my mac (ha! what a stupid idea! but well worth it actually...) and so firefox has forgotten how to do that spellchecking thing, so my blogs are full of words that i cant remember how to spell. sorry to the pedants out there.

4. tony blair is in fact the antichrist. gordon brown is azarael, or some similar, lesser demon. still not exactly a good guy, but somehow better than the devil we all know.

5. music is worth ranting about, no matter what you may think.

6. so is politics.

7. so is the annoying presence of dirt under fingernails - i dont do any dirty work, and i wash my hands regularly (almost obsessively actually) so where the hell does it come from?

8. i ought to stop blogging and start reading - much to read, not long to read it.

9. i intend to start blogging via blogger or something similar - hopefully ill work out how to make it update my blog here and my notes on facebook, so i will become a unified 'self facilitating media node' (as nathan barley puts it) presenting my online presence to all and any who care to read it.

10. im sick to my eyeballs of myspace. i dunno why, its just so dead these days...

11. i hate facebook even more. the CIA involvement doesnt help (google it), and the fact that it feels like everything you do is seen by EVERYONE - theres nowhere to hide...

12. i ought to spend more time making music.

13. i NEED to spend MORE time playing music, live.

14. i WANT ELY BACK NOW! NOW!!!!!!!!!

15. ely would like to advertise (yet again) their desire to find a drummer - if you are a drummer, or know a drummer, or think the person on the bus you catch every morning might be a drummer, get in touch.

16. if we held a tiny gig, in a house or something, would you come? answers on a postcard.

17. oh, and im getting back into writing that book of mine.

18. and ive got a serious hankering to make a film. something fun. anyone interested in getting involved? i need people to help in all aspects, since its currently just a few vagueish ideas, so potential actors, directors, producers etc please apply.

19. im fully aware that my reach exceeds my grasp, but thats part of the fun of "creative industries" (thats such a wonderful oxymoron, im going to be using it a lot from now on, always with the inverted commas - its from the article i just finished ranting about)

20. secretly, i hope people dont think less of me for what i say in my blogs. except its not very secret now. so please dont.

thank you and good morning......

ive written a long blog. it started as a short blog, but then i remembered i had something to rant about, so i ranted, and realised the length had gotten out of hand, so i shall post the rant first, here, and then the preceeding ramble later on this afternoon...

so anyway, the rant concerns this - the government has asked absolutely noone and decided that what we, the tax paying (well, im not at the moment, but y'know...) electorate really need is for them to pass a law that forces ISPs (internet service providers - tell me you knew that, for heaven's sake) to check their customers arent downloading illegally pirated material produced by the so-called "creative industries", and to issue a three strikes policy on any customers doing so. under this regime, ALL your downloaded and uploaded content (including bank details, for instance) would be subject to investigation by your ISP, and if they found you guilty of downloading or uploading illegal pirates, they would first warn you, then suspend your account temporarily, and then finally ban you on your third transgression.

apart from the privacy issues concerned, and of course the absurdity of the notion that they could even monitor all web activity if they wanted to (i suspect theyd just watch anyone downloading more than about 1GB per day or week, which would leave me absolutely fucked, as and when i have to switch back to residential internet) theres the small matter of cost - this would cost the ISPs a lot of money to implement (assuming it could be done) and the government's new green paper makes no mention of subsidies for the ISPs, so the cost would inevitably be passed on to the consumer, so basically, everyone would have to pay extra to fund policing against those who download illegally.

broadband in this country is already a lot more expensive than elsewhere (along with ALL telecommunications), but seemingly the government think this need for anti-piracy law far outweighs the fact that they pledged to make britain a world leader in internet provision and accessibility.

yet again, our delightful, supposedly socialist leaders have seen fit to make policies that defend those poor helpless multi-national corporations from evil PIRATES (ARRR!), at the cost of, well, everyone else. labour, like the tories before them, have discovered how easy it is to ignore all principles of democracy and just legislate whatever suits the big city businessmen (and take whatever handouts might happen to drop in their lap as a completely unconnected result). its fucking disgraceful.

i have blogged before about the proposed alternative, where the citizens pay a small tax - its a mandatory but essentially tiny monthly tax, which, when accumulated, equates to a lot more money than the music 'industry' currently takes per month. in return taxpayers can download whatever they want, for free. the tax monies are distributed to artists (creative businesses?) based on their popularity - if 75% of all downloads in a week are of your song, you get 75% of the income from the tax.

it makes more sense, it would be more profitable to artists and record companies alike, and it allows for the fact that modern technology has made the distribution of music (and film) a quick, easy, and essentially costless practice. in addition, as has been shown by several studies already (not to mention millions of anecdotal cases), free (illegal) downloading increases a customer's spectrum of knowledge - more is on offer than via mainstream commercial outlets, and the fact its all free means people are more willing to experiment, to download a song they havent heard seven million times on radio one this morning. this helps bolster independant 'businesses', as well as the big labels, since they get a wider audience of people who would not perhaps have heard their output otherwise.

if the green paper is implemented, the government will be yet again taking regressive action to placate the dinosaur music and film industries, which are run by money driven idiots who cant see the wood for the trees - since napster (at the very least - who remembers audiogalaxy?), downloading music and film has had widespread support, and that would make for a huge market if only they had the sense to realise that switching from a pay-per-download to a subscription model would be much more profitable.

ah. rant almost over. but first i should like to list a few of the musicians that spring immediately to mind whom i may never have heard, had it not been for illegal 'piracy' (all of whom i have since supported through actually buying some or all of their music):
animal collective
cocorosie
explosions in the sky
the herbaliser
jenny lewis and the watson twins
do make say think
clouddead
st vincent
boom bip
kelpe
m83
tujiko noriko
65 days of static
a silver mount zion
arts the beatdoctor
joanna newsom
alias
the bamboos
bell orchestre
godspeed you black emperor
mogwai
and you will know us by the trail of dead
regina spektor

a fairly diverse list then. how many do you know? im not being smug and snobbish - just pointing out that downloading has introduced me to lots of music you NEVER hear otherwise. well, maybe not never - theres a few there, regina most obviously, who have become a bit more commercial since - but soviet kitsch wouldntve propelled regina to her current popularity here, had it not been for the filesharing that went on across the atlantic when it wasnt available to buy here - like many people i downloaded it and listened overawed, then went out and bought it the moment it was finally bought up and pressed for its uk release, then waited and waited until she toured here, and went to both the gigs remotely nearby, and bought a t-shirt - in what way did my illegal downloading cost ANYONE anything, except me!?

theres no doubt tens to hundreds more artists id not have heard without downloads, some i liked, some i didnt, and learnt to steer clear of! - these are just the ones i can remember off the top of my head, who i actually did like, and did go on to buy things by.

so i impeech you, ladles and jellyspoons - fuck the government, get downloading, and finding new stuff that YOU like, whether that be commercial pop, or uber-exclusive navel gazing pomp nonsense, or anything in between - the important thing is that sense of discovering someone for yourself for the first time, that feeling when its the middle of the night and you stumble across a track that makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck, and makes you feel like the singer knows you personally, that theyre singing that song about you and to you, that noone else could possibly share this perfect moment of connection across space and time. or putting a tune on, on a bus or in a car, and finding yourself grinning like an idiot, because all of a sudden youre the star of your own hollywood blockbuster, setting out on some significant quest soundtracked by that perfect piece of music.

sorry to sound wanky, but personally, i love music. i think its the single best thing mankind has ever created - art in general is, in my opinion, what seperates us from other animals, and for me music is the highest form of it - time on the x axis, frequency on the y, it plays with our sensations from such simple fundamentals, creating incredible results, so much more than the sum of their parts. science is pretty cool, but ive never been the sort who can read a formula or theory and shiver with delight. music does it for me. and i think this kind of anti-piracy only hinders music. it forces us to put up with what is available via mainstream and nothing else. it forces us to listen to lift music, to diluted bland department store radio, and buy it because we kinda like it. its ok, we say, i dont mind that, i think its quite good.

we used to love music, we used to queue outside shops to buy the new albums by the bands we adored. we used to save our money and go to gigs and walk out high, because we just saw a bunch of people do something magnificent. now, we just buy it. its wrong.

sorry to be preachy.

comments, suggestions, derision and defamation are welcomed, if not equally, then at least a little bit each... let me know what you think, people.

i was supposed to blog on thursday, but didnt.
i was going to blog on friday, but didnt.

in my defence, ive been exhausted, and my mabook cracked and split (only slightly) on thursday morning, so i was fretting about that for a while and came back to my dads to take it to the apple store to have a whinge at them and see if theyd replace it or glue it or whatever.

to their credit, they replaced the whole keyboard (which was good because the original one didnt feel quite right at all) and the whole thing cost me nowt (thank god for warranties, eh? wouldve been £137) and they did it in less than 4hrs. and i didnt lose any of my work or music or anything (although i spent a couple of hrs friday night trying vainly to hide all my naughty stolen software).

anyway. a contact of my dad's wants a cd of some of my bish/ely tunes, and ive said thats fine by me, so i thought id post up the playlist of the moment.

and for the record, to the incredibly patient DJ Ola, and mr Slouch, ive still not forgotten about you. now that everything's hunkydory, i should be able to deliver on all the wonderful things ive promised - Ola, i am going to make you some cds and other goodies after i post this blog, and Slouch, i will email you on sunday night when i get back to my speedy internet connection, and try again to send you lots of bits and pieces with which to mix things up. if either or both of you are reading this, yet again, SORRY SORRY SORRY!!! really.

right. here's the list. most of it is around somewhere, either in these here blogs or at bishmusic.co.nr - im not going to post a tape of it just yet, but if i get bored next week, i might well do.

1. Circuz Walts
2. Categorical Imperative
3. Forget, Rail Arch!
4. How Am I Feeling?
5. I'm Using Amusing
6. Interlude
7. You're Underrated, You Are
8. Not What I Had in Mind
9. Sunday
10. Atonement
11. Bells for m'lady
12. Downfallen
13. Metallurgy
14. An Other
15. Risible
16. Wobbly Space
17. Use of Weapons
18. Godbye Himn
19. The Pingu Organ Trance
20. TH Lucy
21. Hixhop
22. Morkestra
23. Sing Piano Sing
24. Song for Orange County Kids

I hope this proves an informative, albeit completely irrelevant list.

Oh, and for the record, none of kenni or marshy's demos are included on here, not because i dont think their worthy (on the contrary, 'find time, settle down' [kenni] and 'im only someone' [marsh] are both far better than some of the shit on this list) but rather because i dont really feel comfortable just giving away their tunes to other people to use for incidental music in shows without first getting their blessing - so, messers kennedy and marsh, you will shortly receive a text from me requesting permission to use your tuneage, and informing you that i will be in the valley for the night ce soir (tonight).

right then people. thats all for now.

circus waltz

(right click and save as or click to play - its a slow server so best to save it really)

*** *** ***

hey peeps. long time no blog. i was going to post a big rant about bush's state of the union address, but i wont bother. we all know hes insane. its both funny and scary to watch though. pay close attention to the way he dehumanises our terrorist 'enemies'. its strange. obviously the rest of the speech is a pack of lies, but the terror bits are weirdest, because they work so much better than the rest. i reckon its cause we're so used to his terrorism soundbites that we just dont really listen anymore.... but anyway, dont worry, not going to bore you with a political diatribe, i promise.

instead, heres a few new tunes ive made. you can right click and save them or just click to play. my fileden account doesnt have the most bandwidth ever, so if its arsing about, try again later.

anyway. the most important one here is "new tune" which is the newest, and the first semi 'proper' tune ive done on logic - the others were/are just me trying to get to grips with the software.

whoops. i should explain. my computer was almost completely broken - you may recall me whinging about it. so i asked for money from everyone for chrimbo and my birthday, put it all together, added a bit of this term's student loan, and hey presto! i bought a macbook.

its ace.

anyway, ive got logic studio running on it, and since ive always been a cubase man, theres a bit of a learning curve to get back to my usual working speed. so i made a few bits and bobs whilst trying to get to grips with it.

im still nowhere near as competent or quick using logic as i am with cubase, but im good enough now to use it to arrange 'proper' bits of music (ie - ones ive actually put some thought into, rather than just tongue in cheek cliches) without getting frustrated and throwing my nice new computer at a wall.

so this is my first of said new tunes. it should be pointed out that although i think its one of the best things ive done in a while (since forget rail arch, i reckon) its nowhere near finished (there are two more sections to add - it wont always be so repetitive) and some of the sounds ive used are awful - the strings in particular sound like an early 90s keyboard. this will be addressed in time.

in the meanwhile, hopefully you can appreciate it despite its shortcomings. no title yet (im thinking maybe 'circus waltz', but i dunno...) so its just 'new tune' ive included the other bits and bobs that are remotely entertaining to listen to below it, just incase youre interested, but theyre not 'real' tunes, so feel free to hate/mock them! - i wrote this blog hours ago but didnt post it. for the time being im calling the new one 'circus waltz'. and for now theres only that one tune as a link below. ill update this shortly... or in the next few hours/days/weeks... eventually there will be about 5 tunes, but theyre not that important, so just listen to circus waltz for now.

circus waltz

(right click and save as or click to play - its a slow server so best to save it really)

hope y'all's well

Tx

ps - to the many people (many many - djs ola and slouch in particular - who may think ive disappeared off the face of the earth, i havent - i will be in touch asap... computer turnover has buggered my plans, but everything ive promised ANYONE will eventually be delivered!)

right. here begins the edited version, extra tracks etc.
weird having a macbook. i keep reaching to put my pc's keyboard on my lap, then remembering...
so. did another mix of circus waltz (fast becoming circuz walts out of my usual wankiness) - one last night, with some subtle guitars, and one tonight with some extra percussion to make the minor section a bit more different... having just listened back after a short break, i think its probably a bit too different now, so i wont bother putting it on here.

but heres some of the other bits and pieces for anyone whos interested in what my music sounds like when im really not trying to make something i like.

Building Steam

hey, its going to be okay

theres a couple more to come, but cant be arsed uploading more now. i feel tired, which makes sense cause its almost 2am, but also makes no sense at all cause i slept in a lot today. oh well, tired is good.

anyway this last one (for tonight) is one that i did ages ago (a while before chirstmas) on my pc, before it died... i really like it. i think its very good. im proud of it. so be warned if you hate it, ill do my best to not be upset or annoyed, but your opinions may go down in my estimation :) just kidding. tell me what you really think, and i wont hold it against you. i just probably wont listen to you! its called "you're underrated, you are." and thats all you need to know.
you're underrated, you are

pps - no comments yet... hmmm... my myspace is going down the toilet, clearly!

we are tottenham, we are tottenham,
super tottenham, from the lane...

Tottenham                    5 - 1                     Arsenal
                                  (6 - 2)
Jenas 3                                            Adebayor 70
Bendtner 27 o.g.
Keane 48
Lennon 60
Malbranque 90 (93rd minute!)

i couldnt bear to watch it live.

lots of possible places in town and on campus, and quite a few fellow spurs to watch it with (odd that, in lancaster). but i couldnt face the heartache of another loss to the gooners in a public place, so i sat in my room listening to radio london online.

if the commentary is anything to go by, our boys worked so very very hard to get this result. they ran and ran like lunatics, not letting arsenal have any time on the ball to settle. as a result we seemed to be shattered by about 60mins, but carried on trying, and weathered the storm. ok so it wasnt their full A-team, but nor was it their youth team - 'injuries' meant arsene was able to field several of his top drawer players, and still we shat on them. stunning!

we're going to wembley...

ok i just watched a simpsons episode, thanks to that illegal beast the internet, from over the shores. it was episode 09 of season 19, so keep your eyes peeled (or message me) if youd like to see the whole thing.

anyway, the point is, about five minutes before the end theres a really special sequence. its a parody (although parody doesnt seem right somehow, perhaps homage is better) of a very successful youtube film you may have seen - noah k.'s everyday, in which noah undertakes to take a photo of himself every day, and string them together, to a nice cinematic bit of piano played very expressively by carly commando. its a work in progress but already hes done six years worth (apparently - theres six years worth of pictures but you cant help thinking theyre all a bit inert... not much happens, really) which is more than five minutes. if you havent already, you can see noah's video below (but its not essential to the point of this blog):


right then. so you know what im talking about now. well the simpsons made their own version, if not a parody then an homage, and if not an homage then a tribute, or something, to noah's everyday film. its called "picture a day for 39 years" and does what it says on the tin, taking pictures of homer, to carly commando's music, and squashing it all in to pass quicker. of course theres not really a picture a day for 39 years there, but what you see covers the whole time scale.

but the point is, its fucking magnificent. when it started i recognised the music, and it took me a moment or two before i realised what it was sending up, which made me watch it in the context of a joke. but it finished so soon, so i immediately skipped back and watched it again. and again.

i cant help but feel the whole concept lends itself to animation much better. in my opinion the simpsons version works much better than the original. ultimately youve got to feel a bit sorry for the noah bloke, because he cant really compete with this version. theres not as much detail in the simpsons version (as far as my eyes, with my crappy monitor can see) as there could be, but theres enough going on to make it easily worth a few viewings... ive specifically avoided posting a youtube version for reasons which will become apparent.... (plus stage 6 is better resolution... but you may need a plug in to make it work. just download it - its divx and perfectly harmless, promise!)

i tried embedding this but myspace doesnt like stage6 so youll have to just click this link instead... ye gods, why cant anything be easy... all that effort wasted, clicking. come to think of it, youre wasting time reading this really. go on, click me.

is that not just the most incredible, awe-inspiring, deflating, poignant, resonant joke youve ever seen? i mean, its so moving, and its still just a joke. the rest of the episode was pretty damn good too, but that sequence is, in my know-nothing opinion, brilliant.

i hope you all enjoyed that, i felt i simply had to share (also, arent i ace - ive given NO SPOILERS! - the clip above doesnt even have any hints as to whats going on!)

im not going to say any more about the clip until people have seen it...

Tx

im at home. here on the cold farm at the top of the cold hill of a cold valley where only cold wind blows. and im boiling. the fire is roaring, and coming in from outside has triggered a huge leap in my body temperature. its effect is that of an off switch-im sleepy. back home now so possibly last blog of the year. so check out dj ola's kool kitchen (search her out-cant post links from my phone!) have a messy christmas and a nappy new year. Tx