. . . → Read More: SOUNDTRACKING (2) by Rachel]]> Hello you lovely lot! How have you been?  The two weeks since my last little blog have flown by and I have new music bursting to get out of my brain and into your daily soundtrack!  I can however only pick one track per week! So here is my offering…

At the moment I’m loving loads of artists that seem to be in some way connected to each other.  In the spirit of community and sharing, one of the labels I’m particularly interested in at the moment is Communion Music (http://www.communionmusic.co.uk/) they are a London based label, set up by Ben Lovett (of Mumford & Sons), Kevin Jones and Ian Grimble.  The reason I like these guys so much is that they are providing a platform for relatively unknown artists to make a name for themselves.  A community of musicians committed to seeing great music flourish!  I owe a lot of my recent music purchases and discoveries to them!

One of the guys I’ve loved discovering is Nathaniel Rateliff.  With his gruff country/folk voice and his storytelling lyrics, he’s become a form favourite and a real inspiration in my own songwriting.  He’s got so many songs that I could quite happily recommend; but the one that I chose to share today is called “You should’ve seen the other guy” from his album “In memory of loss”.  Think Johnny Cash with harmonies…beautiful harmonies and effortless performance.  Here’s a live version, just him and his double bassist…Enjoy!

http://www.nathanielrateliff.com/

P.S Check out the rest of the Communion lot!  Here’s something to tempt you further…

Ever since I can remember music has been a huge part of . . . → Read More: SOUNDTRACKING (1) by Rachel]]> As I am doing more and more collaborating with Rachel I asked if she would fancy contributing to the blog. So here is her first in a series of posts about the songs that are soundtracking her life…

Ever since I can remember music has been a huge part of my life. It has accompanied me in the everyday hustle and bustle and soundtracked my many memories. From the teenage years of listening to the Cranberries, Ben Folds, Oasis, Tori Amos to the more modern offerings of Laura Marling, Bon Iver, Ben Howard and the Civil Wars. I love music! I’m always looking to extend that soundtrack, to discover new artists, to keep it fresh…At the moment I am buying music faster than I can listen to it! Recommendations from friends are always welcome and trawling the internet for new musical talent is so rewarding, there’s a lot out there! One of the ways I often discover new songs/artists, is through movie/tv soundtracks. Steve asked me if I’d write something for the blog about a track that I particularly love at the moment. After much deliberation (from the worlds most indecisive person) I chose a track that isn’t new to the world; but is new to me. I discovered this whilst watching the chick flick “Crazy, Stupid, Love” (Don’t judge me…I can’t resist Ryan Gosling!) and had to google the lyrics straight away. The track is called “Blood”, the band is called The Middle East.

I sometimes find that songs I buy from soundtracks lose their pull when they are played without the movie/tv scene. It’s like they need the visual media to draw the emotion from the song. That’s not the case at all with “Blood”, it is already a beautiful song, and is made even more beautiful when used with visual media. It’s one of those songs that works however you’re feeling, I hope you enjoy it and it becomes part of your own soundtrack like it has mine!

Unfortuately the band split up in 2011! Boo!

You can follow Rachel on Twitter on @rai_chull

 1. THE STAVES

Last Sunday evening I headed over to my favourite venue (possibly ever), The Glee Club in Birmingham to see the lovely The Staves. We managed to get some brilliant seats . . . → Read More: FOUR THINGS I HAVE LIKED THIS WEEK : 7.5.12 (Featuring @thestaves, Toasted Sandwiches, @shemakeswar and @hopeandsocial and Sculpture.)]]> Sorry for missing a couple of weeks of these posts, but anyway here we go with this week…

 1. THE STAVES

Last Sunday evening I headed over to my favourite venue (possibly ever), The Glee Club in Birmingham to see the lovely The Staves. We managed to get some brilliant seats and very much enjoyed the support Chrisof. The Staves took to the stage and you could tell they had done nothing but play live since the last time I saw them back in February. This was The Staves up several gears. Their songs were as strong as ever. Half of the audience nearly wet themselves half way through the gig though as the bass player, who was casually standing against his amp while not playing for a song, actually went to sleep for a split second! I am not kidding!! It was so funny! He played it cool and pretended it never happened. I don’t know if anyone actually told the ladies! Anyway, I chatted to The Staves afterwards and gave them a copy of Whole Picture EP which they then tweeted me to say they were listening to in the van the next day! Do go and see them live. I hear rumors of an album in July?!?!

2. TOASTED SANDWICHES

Aren’t toasted sandwich makers one of the great modern day inventions? I love them! I love cheese and mushroom, or cheese and tomato (although watch out for how crazily hot they get though!). Not the healthiest thing to eat when you are using real butter but hey, they are rather tasty!

3. THE SECOND CRYPT COVER

I mention this brilliant idea in another ‘Four Things’ post a few weeks ago. HOPE AND SOCIAL have teamed up with the lovely SHE MAKES WAR to record their version of Madonna’s ‘Dress You Up’. This isn’t a cover it really, rather a complete rework. It has been filmed in a lovely way too. I think they are planning to release all the recordings when they have enough (well I hope they are!).

4. SCULPTURES OUTSIDE

This weekend I went to Cannock Chase forest park and found their lovely sculpture park. Many of you will know I did a Art Degree a few years ago and did alot of 3D work (which reminds me about getting the images of my work online.). I love sculpture parks as it often exposes art to people who wouldn’t go into a gallery to see it. Somehow the work doesn’t seem to precious and distanced when it is out in the open at a park or forest. I really liked the piece called ‘Walking the dog’. The whole space was about about keeping healthy through exercise and how it keeps your mind healthy. This piece was made my a boy in a pupil referral unit and I am sure would have been often labeled as  a ‘naughty boy’. Anyway that is a complete different post. I liked this alot.

I have written this second blog post for Record Store Day 2012 for the Echos and Dust Music Blog

In our RSD posts so far we’ve largely looked at what record shops mean to the punter, the enthusiast and the fanboi. In this piece, Steve ‘Stylusboy‘ Jones gives us . . . → Read More: RECORD STORE DAY BLOG 2 – WORKING IN A RECORD SHOP]]>

I have written this second blog post for Record Store Day 2012 for the Echos and Dust Music Blog

In our RSD posts so far we’ve largely looked at what record shops mean to the punter, the enthusiast and the fanboi. In this piece, Steve ‘Stylusboy‘ Jones gives us the view from the inside.

While I was at Univeristy I worked in a record shop in Coventry called Spinadisc. I had been a customer in the shop since before my voice had broken and I remember being pretty excited when I got a Saturday job! Every Saturday I was picked up by a guy called Matt just down the road from where I was living and drove to the shop which was in the city centre. I remember one of my first jobs every week was to go through all the albums to make sure they were in the correct place and were looking all smart! What a brilliant first job, looking through all the albums, including the new releases to see what I wanted to buy! Brilliant! Once the shop opened it was always fun serving people, particularly the regular customers. Sometimes people would come in and ask us about a song they had heard (this was before the days of the Shazam app). Matt always loved this as he would play along, pretending not to know just so the customer had to attempt to sing the song to us all! We usually knew what it was and were able to point them to the right album or single.

In Spinadisc none of the CDs were in their packets on the shop floor, they were stored behind the counter under catalog number. This meant very quickly I became a record catalog number geek! Another interesting time was one Christmas when our computer till system stopped working! This meant we had to write all our receipts by hand and use calculators to work out the money! Thankfully this only lasted about half an hour as it was pretty stressful!

The end of the day always meant cleaning the shop and usually I was the boy with the vacuum which was probably the worst bit of the day! Once the shop closed I often went and chose the CDs I wanted to get for myself. More than once I must have put nearly my entire days wages back in the till buying new releases! It was a great job. Record shops are special places. If you have never bought a record from a record shop, I mean a real record shop, not a supermarket to buy records, then go. It is brilliant and the people are always lovely. Happy Record Store Day everyone.

My Dad loves music and loves records and CDs. He has so many CDs he sometimes buys the . . . → Read More: RECORD STORE DAY BLOG 1 – MY DAD]]> It is RECORD STORE DAY on Saturday and I thought I would contribute a few little thoughts about records and music. This first post is about my Dad and his record collection.

My Dad loves music and loves records and CDs. He has so many CDs he sometimes buys the same CD twice because he isn’t sure if he has it! It was my Dad who introduced me (and still does) to a range of great music. Don’t get my wrong, my Dad also likes some I think is tripe (I mean rubbish!) but alot of what he listens to is great and some is even brilliant. When I was a teenager he was always introducing me to music, most of which at the time I thought was pretty bad but now I rather like lots of it. It was my Dad who took me in to the record shop where I worked for a couple of years while at Uni (that is another blog) and he bought me my first stereo from Comet. It was a Comet below a bowling alley and it was really noisy because you could always hear the people rolling the balls down the lanes above!

One person who my Dad loves is a guy called Bruce Cockburn. He is not the most trendy or that well known singer songwriter but brilliant all the same. I have lost count of how many of his albums my Dad owns, I reckon it must be over 20. I didn’t care that much for Bruce Cockburn until I got a copy of a recent live album which is simply stunning. It captures Bruce’s magic guitar playing and quick wit in the live arena. It is now one of my top 10 records, possibly ever.

Elliot Smith is another person that my Dad introduced me to. Elliot is an American singer songwriter that is one of my favourite artists. The first album that my Dad gave me was Either / Or and then Figure 8. Tragically Elliot Smith died in 2003 but he is still an incredibly influential songwriter. If you haven’t listened to his stuff please do…

 Thanks Dad for all the great music. My second Record Store Day blog all about working in a record shop will come soon…