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Posts tagged ‘Music’

12
Aug
grassyroots

Covering an eco music festival

As well as my personal blog at Up Your Ego I also write a blog about Jersey Life for the BBC.

When there is a cross over I’ll share those posts on here. Read moreRead more

17
Jun
phone

No more music on my iPod thanks to Spotify

I’ve had ‘the middle’ iPod in one form or another since the first iPod Mini was released in 2004.

And ever since, from the very beginning of my iPod ownership life, music and speech have been fighting for dominance of the limited space. Read moreRead more

14
Jun
glasto

New look Glasto site makes use of 6music names

Every year  the BBC relaunches its website for one of the major festivals it covers or, in the case of the Big Weekend – hosts.

The latest site to get this treatment is the Glastonbury festival, normally I wouldn’t blog about this but, unlike the others there are a number of things of note. Read moreRead more

17
Nov

Setting goals for the approach to 30

I’m 28 and 4 months, by February that will be 28 and a half.

I won’t say I’m NOT doing well, I’m married with three children, have a lovely house and a job I enjoy – but everyone needs goals.

So, instead of setting normal goals for my age of career, family, home… I’ve decided to play on my geeky obsessive tendencies and round off my guitar skills.

I can already play guitar, acoustic, electric, whatever – as long as it has six strings I can find my way around it.

I won’t go as far as to say I’m any kind of guitar master – but I could hold my own in a band.

But that’s mainly on the rhythm side – I’m a drummer at heart – but with a tab in front of me and a couple of hours to practice – I could learn the lead part to a song or two.

But I’m not talking about rounding off my six string guitar playing skills – nope I want to add other guitar shaped instruments to my repertoire.

So between now and 25 July 2011 I want to have learnt to play the ukulele, the bass guitar and the banjo to a level where I could comfortably perform a middle level song on the radio.

As I can already play the guitar, these instruments shouldn’t be TOO bigger stretch for my limited mind and capacity to learn.

So I’m starting with the ukulele (thank whatever you believe in for spell check on that one), and already have enough chords down to play a couple of VERY simple songs.

The Janet & John of the ukulele songbook if you will.

I’ll keep you posted with my progress and if you live in Jersey, have a proficiency in any of the instruments I’ve mentioned and don’t mind a difficult student – I’m looking to record this as a series for radio – so need another voice.

In fact – my first public performance on the ukulele – an instrument I picked up for the first time yesterday evening – will be on Children in Need Day at the Jersey Arts Centre as part of the ‘Do Something Different’ mentality.

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9
Sep

The simple interview format

Every year at the Jersey Live music festival I get an opportunity to interview, in person, a fairly good number of the acts taking part in the annual event.

As I’d actually been pretty proactive this year and interviewed most of them before the festival – I didn’t really have a lot to say that I hadn’t already said – or at least that THEY hadn’t already said.

But I didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to meet them, and having interviews recorded in person is always better than ones done over the phone.

Which is why I decided to try out a short form interview – one or two questions at most for every act and in most cases asking the same question all the time. It worked basically like an extended voxpop – but with bands instead of random nameless people.

So at Jersey Live I took my little Sony camera (more on that in another post), a microphone and went back stage with the festival press agents – Excess Press who were wonderfully helpful.

I interviewed Frank Turner, Craig Charles, Fight Like Apes, Annie Nightingale, Jimi of the Doves, Golden Silvers, Passion Pit, Felix of Basement Jaxx and Twisted Wheel.

I did have a chance to join BBC World in an interview with Dizzee Rascal – but it was at the same time I needed to get photos of Basement Jaxx on stage (you only get the first three songs in the ‘pit’) so went for that instead.

Then, with the help of a wonderful MacBook Pro and pretty good WiFi I was able to upload a few of the videos during the festival and have been working on putting the rest up ever since.

They will all be up on the BBC Jersey site and on YouTube and I’m told they’ll be going up on the BBC Introducing ‘Advice’ section as well as part of a blog post I wrote for BBC Introducing – although I’m not 100% convinced that’s still happening.

Some of the advice included Frank Turner suggesting bands carry their own kit and avoid writing Coldplay style songs, Craig Charles telling bands to take their time over decisions and Annie Nightingale suggesting you should perservere and stick with it.

As you can see from the footage I’ve tried to film in an intimate style where I’m focusing very closely on the person and they’re talking to the camera as if they were talking directly to me – the camera is held to my chest.

I’d never use that style if I was filming the interviews for television usually – although some of my footage was used as part of the wider television coverage of the event – but for the more intimate web viewing experience I think it works well.

For the geeks

My bag of kit at Jersey Live included a 17″ MacBook Pro, a Samsung NC10, a Nagra Ares audio recorder, a FlashMic audio recorder, three Nikon D40′s and a Nikon D60, a couple of wide and a couple of longer lenses for the camera, a Sony Z1 and the little Sony V1.

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26
Aug

Covering a music festival – socially

A weekend for me is usually a fairly predictable affair; I wake up on a Saturday and spend the day looking after my (nearly) six year old son while my wife goes shopping with our eight year old daughter and toddler.

Then on Sunday we spend the day together as a family – go the park, sometimes to the zoo and usually have a Sunday roast at around 2pm – like I said, all pretty predictable.

But one weekend a year, the first weekend in September to be exact, I spend nearly a full 23 hours interviewing, listen to, photographing or filming bands.

The first weekend of September is when the Jersey Live music festival happens at the RJA&HS Showground in Trinity, Jersey.

This is the sixth year of the event and the sixth year I’ve covered it for the BBC in Jersey.

For the first four years I spent the weekend gathering content and then pulled it all together for the BBC Jersey website, BBC Radio Jersey and a bit for BBC Channel Island News (then BBC Spotlight Channel Islands) on the following Monday.

Then last year I tried an experiment – instead of holding all the content and publishing it on Monday – I’d publish as I went along – socially.

2816227820_468f2e56da_bActually the original idea was to publish it all to the BBC Jersey website – updating a series of features and galleries as the weekend went on.

But it didn’t really work out that way due to an error with 1) logging into the BBC FTP server and 2) intermittent WiFi in the press tent.

So our coverage sort of went social by accident and by that I mean photos on Flickr and updates on Twitter – with slightly longer reviews posted to our MySpace blog.

This year we have a whole new look BBC Jersey site, a new publishing system and no way to update the site remotely on a non-BBC laptop.

So I’m planning to go social from the start and will be tying the whole thing into the various social media pages for my show – BBC Jersey Introducing.

As with last year I’ll be posting photos to Flickr as I come out from the front of the stage, or as I get back from wandering the festival site taking photos of people.

Then I’ll write 140 character reviews of the bands on the various stages I visit (as will the other two people covering the festival with me) on Twitter as well as using our Twitter stream @jsyintroducing to write any interesting festival facts or stories.

I’ve also set up an Audioboo account for BBC Jersey Introducing where I’ll have the phone next to me when I interview bands – so you’ll be able to hear (albeit slightly lower quality) interviews as I do them.

I’ll then be pulling the mass of content together using Tumblr so it can be found in one place and having that re-post the mass of content to the BBC Jersey Introducing fan page on Facebook.

I’ll then be able to use all of the above to help me write the various reviews, articles and create the galleries that will make up the bbc.co.uk/jersey coverage of the festival.

It will also help me piece together my first ‘post festival’ show on the following Saturday as the highlights will be on Twitter and Facebook.

And obviously I’ll be trying my best to respond to any comments or feedback on any of the various social sites while running around the Showground in Trinity.

So if you’re not going to Jersey Live but want regular updates on what’s happening just follow @jsyintroducing on twitter, become a fan on Facebook at jerseyintroducing, follow my boos or keep track of the whole thing on Tumblr.

Or you can still do all of the above from a half decent mobile if you’re AT the festival – you might even hear about a cool band just starting you might not have gone to otherwise.

Then again you could just enjoy the event and catch up with our coverage on the BBC Jersey site on Monday – they’ll even be video.

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27
May

Who let Clarkson programme Glasto?

For the last few years Glastonbury has become renowned for putting ‘interesting’ acts in their headline spot.

This year they’ve pretty much filled the main stage with ‘interesting’ bands. In fact the bands are so interesting thatthey could have asked Jeremy Clarkson to pick the acts.

I’m not saying this is a bad thing. It takes all styles to make a festival – especially one the size of Glastonbury – and once you take the fact that there are plenty of other stages to enjoy – it’s pretty quirky fun.

So lets take a look at the Pyramid stage (aka the Dad rock stage).

On Friday Neil Young is headlining the stage followed by The Specials as the penultimate act.

But there is also Lily Allen and friendly folksters Fleet Foxes and the first band on the stage on Friday is Bjorn Again – the ABBA TRIBUTE act.

On Saturday The Boss, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band are headlining – then Kasabian are on bring things a little towards the 21st Century while still remaining dad-inoffensive.

But then we are going back a few decades to Crosby, Stills & Nash followed by Dizzee Rascal and Spinal Tap.

Then on Sunday you have Blur, Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, Madness and Tom Jones.

And at the start of the day on that stage you have Status Quo and Tony bloody Christie.

If the goal was eye opening shock, laughter and then realisation that – you know what – actually that could make for a great day out – then they’ve succeeded.

And if Dad rock isn’t your scene then go the Other Stage for The Prodigy (which WILL be an amazing set), Glasvegas, Bat for Lashes, Bloc Party, Ting Tings and many more.

Not to mention the John Peel stage, the BBC Introducing stage and the Acoustic stage.

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I think Glastonbury, now approaching its 40th year of existence, seems to have been through its quarter life crisis, had a snap at a mid-life crisis with JZ last year – and is now settling comfortably into middle aged.

While at the same time providing a garage and a room downstairs for its children, grandchildren, the cool kids from over the road and the odd wandering hippy.

Of course if you want a really interesting, friendly and top festival experience – book a ticket to Jersey Live in September and say hello to me.

Headliners Kooks and Basement Jaxx are joined by Passion Pit, Doves, Jack Penate, Twisted Wheel, Spinnerette, Frank Turner and my current favourites – Fight Like Apes.

But that isn’t all there is to it – you’ve got a silent disco, a great local stage and a VIP stage backstage with Frank Turner headlining on Sunday and a DJ set by Craig Charles.

That isn’t all though – you’ve also got the thing that splits Jersey Live from the other UK festivals – the Les Inrocks stage – bringing a touch of France and the French music scene to a UK festival – mixing France and the UK – much like Jersey itself in fact.

Then there is the brilliant dance arena with headliners Andy C & MC GQ, 2MANYDJS joining London Elektricity, Birdy Nam Nam, Beardyman and others.

NOTE: Main image CC by hbl

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16
May

Loving the Eurovision

I’m a big fan of the Eurovision song contest – so much so that my new music, bleeding edge BBC Introducing branded radio show will be taking a Eurovision theme this week.

Don’t get me wrong I won’t be playing Boom Bang a Bang or even Dum Tek Tek (Turkish tip for Eurovision top spot that means Boom Bang a Bang).

But I will be playing songs from around Europe – namely the four countries with a reasonably large population pressence in Jersey – just so I can keep a bit of a local angle.

So my ‘alternative’ Eurovision picks covered four countries: Ireland, Poland, Portugal and France – oh and I dropped in one from the UK for good measure.

Iowa Super Soccer for Poland, Xwife for Portugal, Fight Like Apes for Ireland and Naïve New Beaters for France. And my UK tip came in the form of Frank Turner.

And looking now at the Google tips for Eurovision success (based on search results from different European countries) France (Patricia Kaas) is the only one in the top ten – not including Jade from the UK who is ninth – Frank Turner was only a wildcard throw in as I normally play UK artists anyway.

Here see for yourself – the top five are Turkey with 375 votes, Norway with 351, Greece with 264, Sweden with 205 and Ukraine with 173. The Google forecast puts UK in ninth with 70.

This is based on the number of searches for each countries entry from around Europe – with each country awarding a number of points based on the number of searches to each of the finalists.

MOSCOW - MAY 15: (L-R) Andrew Lloyd Webber, Ja...
Image by Getty Images via Daylife

It excludes searches for an entry from within that singers country – so a search for Jade Ewen from within the UK won’t count.

Personally I don’t care whether we win or not – although it would be nice to see a ‘Home Eurovision’ in 2010 – even if it will probably end up costing around £3 million.

Although if the Aussies could vote then Greece would get 12 points – at least that is the way it’s shaping up on the SBS Unoffical Scorecard – although that is only based on the semi-final – might be interesting to keep track of though.

Anyway – if votes are awarded on how actively people are pushing for their country on Twitter – then I’d put Norway first, Hungary second and Ukrain in third. Although that is only based on a quick search.

Graham Norton, Irish actor, comedian and telev...
Image via Wikipedia

I’ve been a fan of Eurovision since I was a small child – watching it while my parents made sarcastic comments in the background – I loved the comedy, the glamour (or more often lack of) and VERY OCCASIONALLY the music – but most of all for the spectacle and … Terry Wogan.

But this is the first year we won’t have Terry in the hot seat – his place is being taken by another sarcastic Irishman – this time in the form of Graham Norton. Personally I think, based on interviews I’ve seen – he’s going to fill the boots admirably.

This is the first year though that I’ve watched the semi-finals – I always avoided them in the past because for me Eurovision is a social event and my wife would only tolerate the final.

But thanks to the wonder of Twitter I was able to watch it and engage with other Eurovision fans from around the world – including some (like @ewanspence) who were in the Eurovision arena.

I was there for both semi-finals twittering along and the two hours went by really quickly – I’m now going to spare my wife the “pain” (her words) of the whole final and Twitter along to that as well.

My Eurovision follow tips include: @bbceurovision, @sara_cawood, @ewanspence and @thoroughlygood. Anyone you can think of I’ve missed? Oh and feel free to follow me @upyourego.

NB: Main page photo credit: cc by CharlesFred

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23
Apr

Bands: Don’t go with Facebook

There is a blog post on Mashable written by Stan Schroeder which basically explores and asks whether you would be prepared to pay Facebook for your own persistant URL – so mine would be facebook.com/upyourego.

In my case the simple answer is no. I’d much rather set up upyourego.com/facebook and give that out to people with a redirect to my Facebook profile.

I’m not a big fan of facebook, I’ve got a profile and have to use it as people seem to insist on getting in touch with me through it – but I personally wouldn’t pay for a vanity URL as I DON’T WANT people to find me on there – unlike Twitter, Flickr, MySpace et al where I actively hunt for friends (god that makes me sound sad!).

But, I do present a new music show for the BBC, a show that involves playing music by unsigned bands with no label promoting them and usually no website – so after playing a track I give the bands myspace address.

We Are Scientists

This is great because it means people can find out a lot more about the band easily, can listen to more of the bands music and find out when they’re playing next.

It also acts as a great way of cutting some of the waffle about the band ‘to find out more go to myspace.com/greatband’. In fact for the rest of this article I’m going to use an actual MySpace profile for a group in Jersey I’m into right now.

Brobots: myspace.com/brobotsyeah

However an increasing number of bands are turning to facebook as their platform of choice – basing this on the fact that as ‘they’re are a lot of people on facebook’ they’ll be found easier.

Unfortunately this creates a problem for giving out that domain name, for selling the band on air and for the band selling themselves at gigs.

DSC_0139

If the band have Facebook as their prefered social site of choice it means to promote the bands home online I have to say something along the lines of ‘to find out more or hear other tracks from ‘insert band name’ go to Facebook and do a search for ‘band name’ and it is probably the fourth one down

Instead of the much friendlier – go to myspace.com/brobotsyeah.

So from that point of view only – I’d say it would be in the interest of a band, comedian etc to pay for a premium URL – just to make marketing easier. But personally, if I was advising a band I would tell them to YES get a Facebook fan page and fill it with links to all the other social sites online that work with bands much better.

Or just stick with MySpace – after all the people listening to the music and will be really into it, the people playing the music on the radio and finding new bands to play at their club night – still use MySpace.

In face almost all my band communication and a large chunck of production for my show is done through MySpace.

And when a band only have a Facebook profile I’ve started setting up tiny URLs for the bands that only use Facebook and giving that out on air instead.

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