OK, it's time to chill out a bit after my last post.
Here's a beautiful song and video from composer/producer/chill-out artist Reuben Halsey and musician/author Miranda Dickinson, otherwise known as Wurdsmyth of Mywriterscircle.com. It's called The Meaning of Life...
As ever, if you are receiving this post by email, you will need to visit my blog to see the video.
In her recent blog post Miranda says that the song is being released at www.indiestore.com on 1st December 2008, just in time for Christmas!
A few weeks ago in this post I talked about the 50th birthday party of my old friend, the poet and performer Simon Pitt.
Simon threw a great party for friends and family in a Birmingham pub. And as part of this he organised a night of cabaret-style entertainment, headlined by himself and guitarist Tony Wille, in their long-standing partnership Redman Greenman.
I was there with my video camera and recorded the whole of Simon and Tony's set. It's taken me a while (I'm new to this video lark), but I finally got the footage I shot uploaded to YouTube. So here - as promised back in January - is a taste of the entertainment we enjoyed that night. This is Redman Greenman's opening number. I thought it was a good one to post for an audience of writers, as it's called Cliches...
If you are receiving this post by email, you will need to visit my blog to watch the video.
Sorry the video is a bit dark, by the way. The pub was chock-a-block with guitars, amplifiers and who knows what, but nobody thought to bring any extra lighting...
Also, in case you're wondering, I couldn't just post the whole set on YouTube, as it was half an hour long, and the maximum duration for a YouTube video is 10 minutes. So I ended up chopping the set into eight short videos, one for each of the numbers Simon and Tony performed. If you'd like to see them all, I've created a special Redman Greenman page on my website and put them there.
And finally, just in case you're interested in booking Redman Greenman or want to offer them a multi-million dollar recording contract, you can contact them via the web page of Tony Wille (Redman). Or, of course, I'll be more than happy to pass any messages on.
I'm off-topic today, but I just wanted to mention a really good night out Jayne and I enjoyed last week.
We went to see a group called Off The Wall, a tribute band for the rock group Pink Floyd. I've been a life-long Floyd fan but never seen them live, and now the members are all over 60 and seldom play together any more, I doubt if I ever will. So seeing Off The Wall at the Garrick Theatre in Lichfield (my nearest town) seemed the next best thing.
Anyway, Off The Wall easily surpassed my expectations. They started on the dot at 7.30 and finished at half past ten. In between was a magical three hours.
Off The Wall are a very talented group of musicians - as you have to be if you're going to do justice to Pink Floyd's music - and the numbers they played went through pretty much the whole of Floyd's career, from early hits like Arnold Layne through to selected tracks from their last studio album, The Division Bell.
Cameras weren't allowed in the theatre, but on YouTube I found this video - posted by the band themselves - which shows them playing Time and a reprise of Breathe (from the classic Pink Floyd album The Dark Side of the Moon). Obviously the video wasn't shot in Lichfield, but they did perform this number at the concert we went to, so it was great to see it again here. Make sure you turn the volume on your computer up loud ;-)
If you are receiving this blog by email, you will need to visit my blog to see the video.
As you may notice, although Off The Wall are described as a tribute act, they don't dress up as or pretend to be members of Pink Floyd (that would be difficult, anyway, as one of Off The Wall's lead guitarists is Stella Fairhead, and the actual Pink Floyd don't have any female members!). Off The Wall simply perform the music of Pink Floyd extremely well, generally staying close to the originals, though occasionally adding their own individual slant. Hence, I assume, the subtitle on their website, 'The Spirit of Pink Floyd'.
As well as the music, the audience was treated to a suitably psychedelic light show and projections, the latter including some of the Gerald Scarfe cartoons used in the movie and video of The Wall. Overall, it was a polished and complete performance, including a note-perfect rendition of The Great Gig in the Sky (which all Pink Floyd fans will know is a very difficult number for anyone to sing live) performed by the multi-talented Stella, which left many in the audience - including me - open-mouthed.
Finally, it was great to see that the Garrick Theatre was a full house (even if this did mean long queues for the bar and toilets at the interval!). Off The Wall are touring Britain and Europe for much of this year, so if they come anywhere near you - and you enjoy intelligent, melodic rock music - I highly recommend going to see them!
OK, so it's Monday...the holiday period is over...the decorations are down...you're back at work...and (in the northern hemisphere anyway) we still have the worst few months of the winter to look forward to...
Never mind! Here's a YouTube video featuring another beautiful track by my favourite band of the moment (well, one of them), Conjure One, the electronic music project headed by Rhys Fulber.
The track is called Sleep, and it's sung by a guest artist, Marie-Claire D'Ubaldo. The track can be heard on Conjure One's debut CD, also called Conjure One.
As ever, if you are receiving this post by email, you will need to visit my blog to watch the video.
As with Conjure One's Endless Dream, which I featured in this post last year, I like the lyrics of this number as well (any song that includes the line 'kindred spirit of candlelight' is OK by me!). The video is nicely done too, though I did find one or two of the anime-style images unintentionally scary!
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the video, and that perhaps it may give you a bit of a lift on a cold, grey Monday.
Here's another of my occasional musical discoveries. I first heard Endless Dream on my favourite Internet music station, Radio Paradise. It's by Conjure One, an electronic music project headed by the Canadian musician Rhys Fulber.
This particular track is sung by a guest artist, the American singer-songwriter Poe. As she also apparently wrote the song, I guess she should share the credit with Conjure One at the very least! The track can be heard on Conjure One's CD Extraordinary Ways.
As ever, if you are receiving this post by email, you will need to visit my blog to watch the video.
The video is one of several on YouTube which combines this track with footage from the video game Kingdom Hearts. I'm not sure how much the video adds to the music really, although it is quite fun seeing how often you can spot the Disney characters such as Donald Duck!
I think Endless Dream is a beautiful song, beautifully sung by Poe. And if you listen carefully to the lyrics, there is quite a clever, original idea behind it as well.
On my recent holiday in Greece, a particular song was played a lot around the pool and bar at the hotel where we were staying. I'd never heard it before, but it had a haunting quality that I liked, and I found myself humming it when I got back home as well.
With the aid of the Internet (what did we ever do without it?) I discovered that the song was called Last Kiss, and it was performed by an Arabic singer called Ishtar. With a little more research, I found this YouTube video of the number being performed live...
If you are receiving this post by email, you will need to visit my blog to watch the video.
I hope you enjoy listening to this song, which for me brings back happy memories of lazing around the pool or sitting by the pool bar with a chilled Mythos (Greek beer) or milk shake. Ah well, back to reality now!
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