Category Archives: Nifty Stuff

I Sing the Body Eclectic: Wired Radio

Tomorrow I embark on my most daunting critical venture yet: I’m becoming a dee-jay.  Tune in to Wired Radio tomorrow night and you’ll find me presenting my very own live-to-air radio show.  You may or may not be aware that I present a semi-regular podcast for the super-cool, super-small, super-indie label Bearfaced Records, but they are all recorded and put together before hand; this will be a different kettle of fish entirely.  For every minute of speech on a Bearfaced Podcastthere’s usually at least half and hour’s worth of stuff on the cutting room floor, so trying to get my head around the discipline of a live broadcast is going to be challenging, to say the least.  Add in the fact that I’ve never even seen the studio I’ll be using before, let alone knowing how the gear works, and you’ve got a sure fire recipe for disaster.  Hilarious consequence, as they say, will surely ensue…

So in order to snatch triumph from the jaws of disaster I’m doing my damnedest to make sure my first playlist is absolutely marvellous.  The way I see it, if I keep the talking to a minimum and simply play great songs then hopefully the opportunities for it to all go pear-shaped will be few and far between.  That’s the plan anyway; as we all know, a plan is just a list of things that don’t happen.  So wish me luck, and tune in at 9pm (English time) to hear what could be a glorious victory or an abject disaster.  Either way it’ll surely be entertaining…

The show will be called I Sing the Body Eclectic (see what I did there? Clever, eh!) and while I’ll most likely post the odd reminder on these pages, I’ll provide more info (playlists, comments etc) on a new blog created solely for the purpose, which you can find here.

Bearfaced Podcast 14: Brain One

What links James, U2, Talking Heads, Devo and Coldplay?  Bugger all, you might be forgiven for thinking, but you’d be wrong.  Their best albums were all produced by the same man: Brian Eno.

This is something of a first for the Bearfaced Podcast; practically a documentary, this episode features not only a stellar line-up of songs, but also extracts from all sorts of interviews and TV shows.  The aim of this ‘cast is to serve as an introduction to the more populist side of Eno’s work; possibly the most influential producer of all time, who’s had a huge influence on a veritable cornucopia of genres and styles.

He’s got a new record out this autumn, which you can find all about on his site, but for now sate your appetites with this sample of his biggest hits, inter-spliced with some enlightening footage stolen from all sorts of places.

As usual, you can get the Bearfaced Podcast through iTunes, download the mp3 directly from the Bearfaced website, or just by using the embedded player below:

Bearfaced Podcast 14 – Brain One


Bearfaced Podcast 12: The Year Ahead

As promised in the last ‘cast, here’s the Bearfaced Podcast guide to what’s going to be hot in the 2010 musical landscape.  If I’m honest, this is one of the best playlists we’ve had on the ‘casts to date; there’s tracks from old BF Podcast favourites like Frightened Rabbit, Meursault and Lightspeed Champion – who all have albums out this year – as well as some new discoveries like The Kays Lavelle and The Black Atlantic.  There will most likely be full reviews of all these albums as-and-when I get my hands on them, but for now this ‘cast should serve as a nice potted introduction to what I’m sure will be a great year for music.

As always, you can find the ‘cast in iTunes, download each episode directly from the Podcast page of the Bearfaced Records website, or simply listen to the embedded player below.  Enjoy…

Bearfaced Podcast 12: The Year Ahead


Bearfaced Podcast 11: The Snob ‘Cast

Well happy new year, folks.  The first Bearfaced Podcast of 2010 is upon us, and this time there’s a slightly unusual playlist.  The theme for this episode is “musical snobbery” and looks at all the stuff we really ought to have turned our noses up at; good songs by bands that we’d never actually admit to liking, and that sort of thing.

There’s also a couple of Christmas songs thrown in for good measure – now the joy of yuletide has past us by, how well does this year’s crop of festive songs hold up in the cold hard light of the new year?

As always, you can find the ‘cast in iTunes, download each episode directly from the Podcast page of the Bearfaced Records website, or simply listen to the embedded player below.  Enjoy…

Bearfaced Podcast 11: The Snob Cast


Bearfaced Podcast 08: The Mammoth ‘Cast

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Lock up your daughters, it’s that time again; we’ve released another episode of everyone’s favourite podcast.  This, the latest installment, is rather on the long side.  The reason for the length is due to our somewhat ambitious choice of topic; no less a theme than our top five songs of all time.

It’s at this point that any true music fans amongst you will be be shaking your heads and saying things like “surely not” and “heavens, that’s not a task within the reach of any mere mortal man” and other variations on that theme.  But it’s true; Steve, Lloyd and myself (whom one could call the guiding lights behind the ‘cast) have each attempted to pin down their five favourite songs of all time.  Though it goes without saying that there will be just a few caveats to that claim, not least of which would be the fact that the lists are only a representation of our top five songs at the time the podcast was recorded.  And of course we didn’t need to include any songs which would be considered “classics” because it’s obvious that we’d like them.  And so on and so forth…

The basic objective of this ambitious scheme is fairly straightforward.  We’ve been waxing lyrical about music in these ‘casts for coming on for a year now, handing down our opinions from on high with scant regard for objectivity or anything approaching journalistic rigour.  So this podcast is an attempt to lay down a base-line from which to judge our opinions; we’re nailing our colours to the mast in order that you, the beloved and cherished listener, can gauge exactly how much salt to take with our ramblings.

As always, you can find the ‘cast in iTunes or can download each episode directly from the Podcast page of the Bearfaced Records website.  Enjoy…

Bearfaced Podcast 07: Roll On Summer

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Huzzah, summer’s here! After a lovely walk along the Cornish cliffs – and suffering terribly from sunstroke – I took it upon myself to record another podcast for Bearfaced Records, the ersatz record label I run with a few of my friends.  Normally these podcasts are brought on by an exclusive band session or exciting guest, but this time there’s no purpose other than to give a warm and friendly welcome to the warm and friendly weather that (touch wood) heralds the onset of summer.

As such, all the songs featured are of a somewhat summery nature, but mostly they were included merely because I happen to like them.  The summer months will see some quite spectacular Bearfaced Podcasts, with sessions and guests aplenty, but for now you can sate your appetite for great music with this subtle, graceful darling of a ‘cast…

You can download the ‘cast directly from its page on the Bearfaced website, or if you’d rather subscribe (as I do) you can easily find it in iTunes by searching for “Bearfaced Podcast”.

Bearfaced Podcast 06: Part “B” – Tom Stephens and the Retreat

Podcast 6BHere it is, as promised: Part “B” of Bearfaced Podcast 06.  Last week, in Part “A”, I was talking about the up-coming releases that have piqued our interest here at Bearfaced Towers, and this week I had the honour to be joined in the studio by Tom Stephens and the Retreat.

The whole band came in and recorded a couple of “live” tracks for us, and the next day Tom Stephens (lead vocals and guitar) and Tom Cornish (lead guitar and backing vocals) came in for an interview, where they deigned to play us an acoustic version of their new song Olivia.  The interview stayed surprisingly on-topic (especially given Bearfaced interviews’ past form) and as a result you can hear the guys regaling us with tales about being an independent band out-and-about on the mean streets of London, as well as enlightening us with regard to their songwriting process.  All lovely stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree.

The band has undergone a bit of a line-up change since I reviewed their EP last year, and their “sound” has also evolved quite a bit too.  As always you can find the Bearfaced Podcast in iTunes, but if you’d rather just download the individual episode then you can do that from the Bearfaced Website here.

Tom Stephens and the Retreat – Olivia (Bearfaced Session)


Tom Stephens and the Retreat – This Town (Bearfaced Session)


Bearfaced Podcast 06: Part “A”

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I’m sure you’ll all be overjoyed to hear that I’ve finally found the time to record another episode of the Bearfaced Podcast, and what’s more I had so much to talk about that it had to be split into two parts.  Next week I’ll release Part “B” which will be a live session and interview with Tom Stephens and the Retreat, but this week I’ve concerned myself with the up-coming releases that are getting all of us at Bearfaced Towers hot under the collar.

A lot of the songs I play in this ‘cast are mostly from recent blog posts (as they’re the ones I’m most excited about at the moment) but there’s a few other treats in there for your listening pleasure.

You can download the ‘cast directly from its page on the Bearfaced website, or if you’d rather subscribe (as I do) you can easily find it in iTunes by searching for “Bearfaced Podcast”.

Discovering Music: BBC Radio 3

discoveringmusicOn of the things I miss about analogue radio is the accidental discoveries I would make whilst cooking with the radio on.  Being a child of the digital age – and having long since banished any non-digital devices from my flat – I have pretty much everything I want pretty much whenever I want it.  This causes problems, as I’m literally spoilt for choice, but it does have plenty of benefits.

First amongst these bountiful benefits is the marvelous BBC iPlayer.  I’ve always struggled to watch or listen to any program at the same time each week, and now I don’t have to bother at all.  Hurrah for On Demand!

Now I can finally catch up on back issues of the excellent Discovering Music series that I would occasionally catch on Radio 3.  Often presented by the inimitable Charles Hazlewood (whom I suspect shares a stylist with Richard Hammond), the program dissects a piece of classical music, playing crucial extracts and discussing the work, before playing the piece in its entirety.

This week it’s Haydn’s Symphony No. 100 (the Military) that’s under the knife, with the help of the BBC Concert Orchestra, conducted by Hazlewood himself.  The 8th of Haydn’s 12 London Symphonies, the Military was Haydn’s first with a 60 piece orchestra (before coming to London, he’d only had access to 40 piece orchestras).  This episode is available from the iPlayer here until Sunday, but being as the series is designed as an educational aid there’s also an archive of past episodes here.

Discovering Music is public service broadcasting at its best.  Many people umm and err about the benefits of analysing music in this fashion, but I’m of the opinion that increased knowledge increases appreciation.  A full understanding of what tricks and techniques Bach uses in his Goldberg Variations, for example, can only add to the sense of awe with which everyone should hold the composer.

A Music Obsessive’s Guide to Surviving the Recession: a Top Five

piggybankIf you’ve had even a passing interest in current affairs over the last few months you’ll have noticed that the nation’s in the grip of a “recession” (that’s merely official parlance for “two quarters of economic slowdown” and doesn’t mean that the sky is falling in, lest I be guilty of the kind of scaremongering that got us all here in the first place…) and thanks to our oh-so-clever friends across the pond in yankville we’ve all got a little less money to spend.

So what does that mean for us self-styled music obsessives? Those of us who have to buy at least two CDs a week or we’d explode from a lack of new music… Well fear not, for here’s the cavalry with the Top Five Ways to Get a Cheap Music Fix:

1. Don’t panic.  You don’t necessarily have to spend £10 for an album; as long as you keep your mind open and your computer on then you can amass a respectable music library for free.  And what’s more, you won’t have to break the law (well, there’re a few gray areas, but we’ll come to those later…) or resort to the bane of industry-types everywhere: the dreaded torrent!

2. Visit this site (and others like it). Any regular readers of this blog will know I’m fond of ranting about mp3 blogs, and their legitimacy, or lack of, as a route for discovering new music.  The way things stand at the moment, there are plenty of new and independent acts out there who’re desperate for promotion and press.  The current trend is for those acts to “give away” sample mp3s for bloggers to link to.  Meaning, that there’s loads of new music being given away for free: all you have to do is find it.
By far the easiest way to do this is to peruse a “mp3 blog aggregator” (a site that searches a selection of blogs for links ending with .mp3 and offers them up to you via a standard search page) such as Elbows or Hype Machine.
The other way is find a blog you like and then explore that blog’s “blogroll”.  This way you’re using the bloggers own taste to filter your results, meaning that what you find tends to be a bit more “focused”.
It should be mentioned, however, that there are a lot of unscrupulous bloggers out there who post mp3s without any permission at all.  It’s safe to assume that any song from a major label that appears in a blog had been illegally half-inched, so watch your step…

3. Be a fan.  Committed fans have been getting free sh*t from bands since the days of fan-clubs and Xeroxed fanzines…  If you sign up to a band’s mailing list you’ll be inundated with band-spam, but amongst all the “please come to our gigs” emails you’ll often find the odd link to exclusive downloads, fan-only website areas, etc.  If you go one step further and join a band or labels “street team” you’ll get even more stuff – full CDs and T-shirts – in exchange for nothing more arduous than an afternoon of handing out flyers.

4. Review stuff.  I shouldn’t really be telling you this, as it eats into my margins, but bands and labels will always hand out previews of albums in exchange for press.  If you’re a student (and therefore always poor, recession or not), get in touch with your university paper and offer to write stuff for them.  That way you’ll get free CDs and gig tickets in exchange for a (generally quite short) review.

5. Sleep with the band.  Surely the most sure-fire way of getting free stuff, and pretty self-explanatory…