Most garden-variety electro/dance tracks don’t really require much sophistication to get into the charts and onto dancefloors across the world, and a lot of the time it shows – Basshunter’s efforts, for example, are truly shocking (in my humble opinion) yet have done pretty well for themselves.
Occasionally though, you get a song that’s relatively simple, but just works. Baditude by Spoon, Harris and Obernik is a prime example. Funky, catchy beat, uncomplicated lyrics (with a couple of continental ones thrown in for good measure), and a brilliant vocalist all makes for a brilliant track that you can’t help but a) dance to, b) sing along to and c) purchase and play a LOT.

It also goes REALLY well into Overseer’s Velocity Shift, as Rob and I found out when putting together the mix for HanClareFest ‘08.

Also, I don’t know if anybody noticed, but the whole site was down for quite a while. Expired domain names and mix-ups with settings are to blame. As am I.

But we’re back now, and Rob has some great self-produced tracks going for download on his page.

Before I begin, I’d like to suggest that you check this out. It’s a real-life robotic exoskeleton. Called the XOS, it allows its wearer – currently – to utilise superhuman strength, and by the look of it, it’s just the beginning.

Anyway, onto my topic of today, entitled ‘The Missing Person of the Party’.
I was supposed to be out tonight, after I got out of work at 7.20 (yup, long day today!) and after I drove into Newport, found nowhere decent or accessible to park, I came home intending on catching a bus. But being that public transport is shit as usual, there was only one more bus, and it was at 10.35. Anyway …

Those that know me, probably know me as a fairly quiet person a lot of the time, other than when with close friends when it can be hard to get me to shut up (usually with appalling jokes about meaningless stuff … my god I’m becoming Chandler more and more everyday). I’m not a massive party-goer and never really have been, but I do enjoy spending quality time with friends and generally having a bit of a laugh.

The only problem is that I’ve developed a trend over the last few years of not showing up. I’m becoming one of those people who you invite out of courtesy, but don’t really expect to show. It seems that this only applies to Newport gatherings though …

I apologise to anyone who I may offend with this, but I really, truly hate the place. It’s filthy and vandalised, mainly due to the god awful chavs that seem to infest the entire city. There are no decent bars/clubs/pubs (that I know about) and it’s not cheap enough to make it worth the odd visit, nor expensive enough to price out the Dole Queue Specials. There’s no decent parking, and I’m pretty convinced that if you park a half-decent-looking car in certain areas, the local shitheads will throw rocks at it just because they don’t like success of any sort.

It takes a lot of will and effort for me to go out there, and more often than not it’s much easier to just not bother. Cardiff is a quick train journey away, and Chepstow has proven more than often enough that it has some excellent pubs to have a nice drink with friends in.

The problem is convenience. Newport City Centre is nice and easy. What’s that? Easy? Not for me it ain’t. But then again, living where I do nowhere is – I always have to travel. So for me, going that extra step to Cardiff or going just as far to Chepstow isn’t an issue, but apparently for other people it is. I don’t want to make out like I’m a martyr or anything but when some people require a car ride for what is essentially a 5 or 10 minute walk, you realise that the chances of going further afield are pretty slim.

I have no hard and fast rule for what I like to do when I go out, but it’s either chilling and laughing, or raving my socks off to some decent dance/electronica (then anything goes after I’ve had enough to drink). A Newport night out seems to fall fairly flat on both counts, if I’m honest. Sitting upright in a soul-less Wetherspoons all night long is definitely not my idea of fun, especially when nobody really has much to talk about, and as I mentioned above, there aren’t any decent non-chav-infested clubs around.

Maybe it’s wrong, but the way I see it is, if I’m going to put the effort in to make a journey and (if I want to drink) sleep on a couch, I should be getting some fun out of it. Newport just isn’t fun anymore, and hasn’t been for years. Cardiff is full of life and has some fantastic places to go out, and to my mind there’s no reason not to go there. But it has never happened and continues to never happen, so maybe it’s time to make a break and go it alone, see what happens. Who knows?

Clare mentioned something in a reply to a previous post that really got me annoyed. Not at her, but at the vast number of what I like to piously call ‘Musical Idiots’.

Pendulum, a Drum’n'Bass/Electronica/Rock (I guess) band are performing at Glade as well as a whole host of other festivals this summer. Glade is pretty much billed as an Electronic dance music festival first and foremost, so I’d say that Pendulum is a pretty good fit, especially given the sneak peak of their new album ‘In Silico‘.

Apparently, some people are saying that Pendulum is ‘too commercial’ for Glade.
Let’s just examine that in more detail. First, a little history.

Pendulum started out as producers, before hitting the scene with ‘Hold Your Colour‘, an album that was critically acclaimed and did what a lot of bands try and fail to do – bring a totally new, interesting take on a standard music genre or – in this case – fuse some together and create a sound that can only really be described by using the band’s name. Think of Prodigy, who have hits spanning so many genre variations that you can’t possibly pigeonhole them other than under the broad ‘Electronic’ umbrella.

The album, deservedly, did very well. They are now about to release their second album ‘In Silico‘ and, by the sound of what I’ve heard, they are again trying to morph genres – taking what they made with ‘Hold Your Colour’ and bringing in a more rocky element, this time a bit heavier on the home-grown vocals. I was dubious at first, but I now can’t wait for the release.

Now, about Pendulum being ‘too commercial’.

Well, as far as I can see, they took a bit of a risk and a gamble with their first album. They took all the good elements of drum’n'bass and gave it their own injection of their vision of what music should be. It was a huge success.

They’ve now taken that sound and again thrown a whole bunch of new ideas at it, citing influences from all over the musical spectrum.

Nowhere along these lines did they ever ’sell out’; i.e. start creating a more mainstream sound for general consumption, start neutering the music to be more ‘poppy’ or anything like that.

So what are these people trying to say? Pendulum are too commercial … what, successful? Oh christ, cancel the bookings now. God forbid that we should promote a successful band that produces good music. If you ask me, what these people want is a festival that only showcases the little guy. The weird and wonderful music that a handful of people like but is a bit too off-the-wall for a larger scale audience.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with that. Everyone has got to start somewhere, and experimentation with sound is one of the things that I love the most about electronic music.

But why the fuck should we penalise those bands or individuals that DID make it big? Their music is JUST as individual and innovative as the guy playing to twenty people in the corner with a name that has the letter Q in it seven times. So what if they’ve had the money and opportunity to polish it and refine it in a studio? All that means is people enjoy it and, in the case of Pendulum, a LOT of people enjoy it.

Yeah, we all know that huge corporations can be a little evil, but if a band is good enough, the labels will never TRY to mess with the music, because it’s good enough already. And if a label DOES have to mess with the music … maybe they were never that good in the first place. Saying that a band shouldn’t be included for being good enough is ridiculous, frankly.

This is the thing that bothers me about music. A lot of people take it far too seriously. Instead of just enjoying it for what it is, they start catagorising individuals and bands into moronic groups so that they can pretend to be part of some sad little society that nobody really cares about.

Here’s an imaginary conversation.

“Oh, I only listen to independant music.”
“So as soon as your favourite band gets signed up and goes on tour, you won’t listen to them again?”
“That’ll never happen, they’ve got too much integrity.”

*Six months goes by*

“I can’t believe they sold out. What a bunch of losers.”
“Sold out? You mean … signed up to bring their music to the masses, introduce a new sound to the world and make a living? Got the opportunity to expand their sound and explore new avenues? God forbid.”
“But they’re part of the corporate machine! THEY SOLD THEIR SOULS! Plus now normal people like them too, I can’t possibly continue my support!”
“You’re just a bit of a wanker really, aren’t you? Get a job for fuck’s sake.”

Like I said. Makes me annoyed.

BT, or Brian Transeau*, is an Electronic Music artist/producer/DJ/wizard from America. He made his major breakthrough in the UK, effectively giving life to what is known as Trance (hence one of his many nicknames as ‘Father of Trance’).

I’m not going to wax all lyrical about him, because I’ve done that before. Trust me when I say, this guy is brilliant.

I like electronic music because sounds are created that are otherworldly. I love that nothing in this world can produce the sorts of sounds that are made by artists such as BT and their plethora of interesting technology. Songs that are composed entirely on a computer have the ability to send a shiver up and back down my spine, which I think is amazing.

As I’m currently discovering, one of the best ways of really getting in touch with the brilliance of an artist like BT is to listen to the instrumental versions of tracks. The treatment that he gives to the vocals is always interesting, but with them stripped away, you start to pick out nuances of tracks that you’d never even noticed before.

Thanks to a site called MusicFreedom, you can do exactly that. If you like BT or are remotely interested, click here to access those instrumentals, plus a whole load more. You can even buy downloads of the tracks if you like them.

—————-

*NOT British Telecom thankyouverymuch

It was bloody nice weather today. For the most part I was inside, sitting inside a room with 12 servers and no airconditioning, plus a number of other blokes, but after work it was still nice to drive home in the sunshine.

I also got to wear my summer shirt for this first time this year. It’s a Calvin Klein short-sleeved shirt with an awesome orangey-bluey-swirly-nonsense all over it, and I love it. Even though it is a few years old and a little small on the arms, I still pull it out everytime it’s very warm.

Let’s hope it continues.

I now have another potential music festival dilemma. Glade. It’s an electronic music festival on in July. The only name I really know is Pendulum (wooooo!) but it would be really interesting to go and get immersed in the whole thing. I’m just so indecisive about these things this year for some reason, it’s really annoying