lemonstar

Selling England by the Pound -actually enjoyed most of it - haven't heard it for a long time - I'm not saying it sounded fresh but I was surprised how relatively little of it sounded truly dated - I just listened to it on my mp3 player while out walking the dog today. Being an ELP fan originally I sometimes find Tony Banks chordal keyboard work a bit uninteresting TBH (his lead lines aren't too bad imho) but there are so many great melodies in both the music and the vocal lines and some great performance moments from PG. Even though I have the remastered recording I still find the sound quality and even the mixing a bit disappointing.

My ringtone is Radioactivity from The Mix

Reminds me of Pete Sinfield's singing a bit.

I was at this eventful Siouxsie & the Banshees gig in 78 when Spizz Oil were the first support act on, Human League (they only had Being Boiled out at the time) were the main support... I won't bother repeating the details - you can see my comments about it here...

Hmm - I might try and find that then.

@Baloney Balderdash I'm a fan of early Eno, Taking Tiger Mountain, Warm Jets, etc and I had a few Bauhaus singles bought at the time but I didn't know about their version of this.

I'm glad you created this thread @AndyTravis - it's interesting because the problem of creating new songs must be one that haunts most bands - the one thing I've wanted for years was some kind of writing partnership and I guess we all feel we'd like that because we've all got our limitations and get stuck or run out of ideas or steam. There is a load of good advice and ideas in this thread that's why I had it in mind for a while to come back and go through it and read everything again - I liked a lot of comments first time through and liked a few more this time round. The drummer sounds great so I'd focus on trying to work with him and I think you'll just have to try and accept the limitations and lack of useful feedback and engagement from the others - there are plenty of decent musicians and singers who just aren't interested, able or willing to get into songwriting - it's often not a simple or straightforward thing to do - it's difficult. You probably stop at some point because you aren't sure how best (or whether) to proceed and this is where you could just try and work out what input of feedback you want from the others - sometimes it helps to narrow down the problem for them. Do you just want the singer to write some words or even just work out a melody. I'm think it's hard to be too definite about rating fragments of songs - even with a few words - I've found it can take a very small change, a spark of imagination, to save something that seems to be going nowhere; those sparks often come through persistence imho. I have a lot of unfinished songs where I have a verse, maybe 2 and maybe even the bare bones of a chorus - I'm good at starting things - OK on the words, melody, singing, finding chords but I'm not good at creating great rhythms or riffs or at finishing things. Most of the time I have no idea what a song might be about - I make up words and chords by improvising them both at the same time - I get a few more chords then add a few more words with a melody and this prompts a few more chords, the structure starts to evolve - it's all very ad-hoc - I never write all the music or all the words first. My closest musician friend of nearly 19 years now is completely different - he composes and records all the music for one song (often has the melody completely worked out too) then frets (he says) over the lyrics for weeks but then seems to write them relatively quickly - he doesn't do what i do and flit from one new song to another when I run out of ideas for one song. We both have our limitations but overall, he is far more successful than I am - I had hoped we would manage to work together on his or my songs but it's never happened - I'm confident sitting down with a guitar and blank page and I just don't think he would feel comfortable putting himself on the spot to work that way yet he's a good musician, singer, songwriter - we are just different. I send him fragments as I go along wondering if he has much to say - I'm open to suggestions; he sends me songs that are completely finished and really he is not open to any feedback at all but all credit to him - he gets the job done - I'm an admirer even if I think some of his songs could be improved with a bit of feedback earlier on in the process. So - the conclusion I've come to - and I think this is where you might be too - is that, if I want a supportive songwriting partnership - I need to find the right person or people to work with or just try and do the whole thing myself - could you and the drummer put your own band together or is there enough of what you want and need in the rest of the band for you to stick with it? If the singer has only contributed a few songs in a a couple of years I think you can just forget about trying to involve him. Does your band play many covers? Does the singer suggest any? If that's more in line with his background singing covers - maybe he can focus on that, finding interesting, possibly little known songs, or thinking about ways to bring something new to old songs - I liked Noel Gallagher's version of Help - using a lot more minor chords to suit the lyrics better - even a mashup. What's happened anyway - any progress or how you are going to work with your band to satisfy your want to create more original songs? You sounded a bit frustrated you just hadn't had any help or feedback from the band that was that useful. The limitations of the lockdown aren't likely to be helping - I've found my friend most helpful when we've been in the same room together and I have his full attention on a fragment I've started on - he's nowhere near as engaged when I've emailed over an mp3. Keep us posted! cheers Neil

I've been listening to some of these sound recordings on the Nomadic Ambience YT channel - for videos around an hour you can rip the audio easily (and set the quality) using https://youtubetomp3music.com But for the 2,3 and 10hr videos it's easiest to download the video (I use the VideodownloadHelped browser add-on in FF) and then use VLC to strip the audio off the .MKV video file (drop me a msg if you want to know how - it's not too difficult once you've done it once) - I use it to fall asleep to. Ever since I had a radio as a teenager I've listened to something to fall asleep to (e.g. John Peel 10-midnight) - it seems weird when I can't do it like when I'm away and have forgot my mp3 player)

Outstanding! Deep. Philosophical. Life enhancing.

i wasn't won over by Western Stars and soon stopped playing it. It has decent enough reviews - maybe I need to give it another go - wouldn't be the first time I ended up rediscovering an album after switching off from it too soon. This sounds oh-so-familiar but... that's OK. I was never a fan but was never negative about him for any reason - I was just listening to other stuff but I was won over when he played Glasto.

Blue is one colour I generally dislike quite a lot TBH - I never chose it for anything, e.g. paint in the house - HOWEVER - I think LPB looks great on a bass - no idea why. One I liked the look of is this custom (Moniker) Zuma Yonit Spiegelman had made - I think the maple and white colours set it off nicely:-

That would be surprising but truth is sometimes stranger than fiction... for instance. on the wiki page for The Scaffold song "Lilly The Pink" I was looking at today (long story how I came to be on this page) it says:- "Backing vocalists on the recording included Graham Nash (of The Hollies), Elton John (then Reg Dwight), and Tim Rice while Jack Bruce (of Cream) played the bass guitar" So... you could be right I guess.

I've faintly heard of Bevis Frond but I'll have to look them up on YT. Hearing about an unfamiliar band and the endless search for new music made me think of a website I haven't been on in a while; it's an odd site created by a guy I've followed for a while - he's done some interesting projects/website - some of which he has decided to close to avoid having to maintain them so he can focus on new projects - I constantly forget the name of this site - it's www.gnod.com ( I think that's General Network of Discovery or something to that effect) - it's really a jump off point for several "discovery" sites that all use the same underlying technology - sites for discovering music, authors/books, artists - for the music site - one part - Project 1 (https://www.gnoosic.com/) relies on users entering the names of several bands that they like - it then makes recommendations based on bands/artists submitted by other users. The other part of the site - Project 2 (https://www.music-map.com/) simply enables you to enter the name of a band/artist and it displays a map - with the names of other bands/artists clustered around the one you enter - proximity should give some indication of how strongly they are linked by users liking the same bands. He also made the product comparison sites: https://www.productchart.com/ FYI The creator of these sites is https://twitter.com/marekgibney I've been listening to some King Crimson on YT and was surprised and incredibly impressed to hear a live version of Starless from 2016! It has not lost any of it's emotional strength - it's still an incredible piece imho.

Haven't seen this for a while...

One of those days when every piece of music I play disappoints, depresses or irritates me - obviously it's me - like when you lose your sense of smell and taste when you are under the weather - except we don't have a specific that applies only to losing the ability to enjoy music.

I think I have something in my eye.

Sounds a bit 33 at 45 to me but still interesting - not sure I could manage an entire A and B side of it though!

Easy to overlook Bruce Foxton's contribution in terms of vocals as well as bass to the Jam... this Smash The Clock album from 2016 is pretty easy to like.

Takes me back to the time when Eurovision really was worth watching. Brilliant!

I bought an FX pedal off them a few days before xmas - came quickly - no problems.

Wouldn't have been surprised if I'd heard Bowie singing over this.

Interesting to see how you see the lie of the land. I've really struggled with "Double Negative" - I got to like Drums & Guns after initially not liking it - but DN - in isolation some instrumental parts are haunting - it's just the bad impression the 1st track in particular (and the 2nd) make on me - I honestly thought I had a faulty CD on first listening - that harsh gravelly distorted sound and other similar studio effects that appear at intervals are not pleasant to listen to on earbuds/headphones - I have no idea what they were thinking - if some of these treatments could be removed I'd be interested in listening to the songs underneath more. I like the darkness, the space, the harmonies, the slow pace and the emotional graveside gravity in what they do - the first album is probably the one I've played most.

I've got or heard all 13 albums (I'm including C'mon acoustic) and not heard this! Too many singles and EP's! Under-rated band imho.