So 2011 has, after 12 months, decided to relinquish it's title of "most current year". You can find my Spotify best of here:
BEST OF 2011, SPOTIFY PLAYLIST..
For those who can't be bothered, here is the list. I tried to make it chronological but I got bored. So any way here are twelve songs from the year 2011.
1. 48 Roses - Mariachi El Bronx
For me this was the stand out song from Mariachi El Bronx's second album. Although the album as a whole didn't impress me as much as the first, this song alone was worth (downloading for free, listening to the whole album on Spotify and not) buying the album.
2. Africastle - Battles
Battles did what Battles did this year and made an album that did exactly what it says on the tin.
3. Exile Villify - The National
A beautiful song that doesn't really go with the infuriating nature of the game that it was written for... (Portal 2)
4. Fuck Tactics - Entrepreneurs
The one new band from 2011 that really stood out for me.
5. White Limo -Foo Fighters
I love Dave Grohl, but I feel slightly cheated in our relationship. For instance this year he shows me this song, "White Limo" and promises me he's on form again. "Great!" I say, "an album just like that? Sure I'll buy that Dave..."
"Eeerrr... Dave? I like White Limo but whats with the rest of this crap?"
6. The Cascades - Fleet Foxes
I'm not going to lie, I'm not a fan of Fleet Foxes, they have one good song, that song. But I thought I'd give this album a punt. And yes they still have that one song, plus this nifty little number...
7. Titanomachia - Rolo Tomassi
The one record I bought at record store day this year was the Eternal Youth 4 vinyl set by Rolo Tomassi. A great natural PROGression from the band.
8. Gabriel - Joe Goddard
A fantastically clever song.
9. Blasteroid - Mastodon
I wondered where Mastodon had gone... Then BAM! They bring out The Hunter. (It's great)
10. Better Off Without You. - Summer Camp
I'm not a massive fan of bands that get favourable press, as I'm very pessimistic at heart. But when I saw this band live it was a tour de force in how to do things. Like everything.
11. Cutting Class - Cerebral Ballzy
I only just knew about Cerebral Ballzy in November! Why on earth didn't I see them at Great Escape earlier in the year???
12. Geek USA - Smashing Pumpkins
So the Sma... Billy Corgan, re-mastered and re-released Gish and Siamese Dream this year, as it will:
A. - Earn himself some cash.
B. - Make people realise he has another Smas... solo album coming out.
C. - Make people remember how good he used to be.
D. - Have the opportunity to be a dick in public/performances/interviews.
Joking aside, he took the Siamese Dream sessions and turned the drums up. Good call.
Wednesday, 21 December 2011
Saturday, 17 December 2011
Billy Corgan gets a B...
Back in high school I wasn't too keen on the regular methods of learning, I was more keen on plodding along at my own leisurely pace. At that point in my life I had discovered The Smashing Pumpkins and like many teenagers I took Billy Corgan's own dismal lyrics as my own.
As I was leisurely plodding along one day, the English teacher announced that as we were 2 weeks away from finishing our exams, we needed to hand in one more essay chosen by us that could showcase our strongest point.
Like a lot of high school; I couldn't be bothered.
So I hatched an ingenious plan... I would pass off Billy Corgan's Machina essays as my own, no one would know any different and I could use the rest of the free time to sit around.
I was slightly worried that my English teacher would be a big Smashing Pumpkin fan, or that he would realise that I had obviously copied someone else's work.
But no, I or should I say Billy Corgan got a B! My best mark ever in high school. Thanks Billy.
As I was leisurely plodding along one day, the English teacher announced that as we were 2 weeks away from finishing our exams, we needed to hand in one more essay chosen by us that could showcase our strongest point.
Like a lot of high school; I couldn't be bothered.
So I hatched an ingenious plan... I would pass off Billy Corgan's Machina essays as my own, no one would know any different and I could use the rest of the free time to sit around.
I was slightly worried that my English teacher would be a big Smashing Pumpkin fan, or that he would realise that I had obviously copied someone else's work.
But no, I or should I say Billy Corgan got a B! My best mark ever in high school. Thanks Billy.
Saturday, 10 December 2011
Interview with Tom Diamantopoulo (The Eighties Matchbox B-line Disaster)
Following on from my blog about musicians and their art, here is an interview I did with Tom Diamantopoulo, the drummer for the now defunct The Eighties Matchbox B-Line disaster.
When did you first start painting?
I started painting when I was about 19. I've always drawn since I could pick up a pencil but never really went for painting seriously as I am colour blind so I just drew and did sculpture instead until then. I decided to start using colour and painting as I had some ideas in colour that I wanted to try out so thats when I started to use paint.
How did it figure in the life of a touring musician? Did one ever suffer?
I actually had to stop painting when we became signed because we were constantly touring or writing music so there wasn't anytime to paint really. I got back to it after we got dropped by our label and things calmed down a bit in 2006.
What influences your work? It's very photo realistic, is this something you strive for or a product of how you paint?
Actually it's something I strive for at the moment. To be honest my painting style before was very loose and free. I used to paint with my fingers to get really thick textures and movement, I used to paint in a more expressionistic and impressionistic way. But when I got back into it after the band I decided that I didn't know anything about painting and wanted to learn how to paint properly before I went back into what I used to do. I used to draw in a photo realistic way and I thought if I could draw that way I would like to paint that way. It was a very steep learning curve and I realised I couldn't paint that way at all! My first attempts at photorealism might have well been impressionism. It actually took me a few years to learn how to paint the way I do now. I actually want to end up back where I started with the more loose and free style of painting but I figure if I want to do that properly, and to really know what I'm doing I need to learn the basics first.
I have lots of influences in art, some being Pierre Bonnard, Lucian Freud, Egon Schiele, William Da Kooning, Frank Auerback, Paul Klee and David Hockney...
That being said, did you study painting?
I did start a 2 year HND in fine art but after about 6 months we got signed so I had to quit the course. Also when I was eighteen I got into Canterbury University, I was going to do a fine art degree there but I decided to stay in Brighton for the band. Then a few years later we got the record deal so I think that was a good decision! So yeah I've never really studied art properly apart for the basics at A level and Foundation. I do kind of regret that as an art degree is something I've always wanted to do. I've had to learn the techniques myself which has made learning to paint a bit more difficult.
Do you think think that being an artist as well as a musician helped both creative outputs? Did they actively inspire each other?
Yes I do definitely, although not in any direct way. I think if you are one then you have a bit of the other in you as well. I think in both you are trying to express something and its just creating that in different ways and yeah I think both aid each other in some way.
Having a quick look you were credited to writing a lot of the Eighties Matchbox material, do you consider yourself more of a songwriter than a drummer?
Actually at the risk of sounding like a bit of a twat yes I do. I actually started writing songs before I played the drums properly. I think I wrote 'Chicken' before I actually started playing the drums in Eighties Matchbox. That was our first song. I was made to do piano, violin and sing in a choir when I was a kid so I have always played music and drumming was something I took up later. I didnt want to be the drummer actually but Guy, our singer, said I was too short to be a guitarist and I was the only one who had played any drums at all in the band so by default I became the drummer.
Did this affect how you play the drums and create the parts for the songs?
Yes definitely. I wanted to write drum parts to suit whatever music was happening rather than to sound impressive as a drummer in his own right, no matter how basic it was and I think because I wrote music as well it gave me a better ear for what works. Andy used to write some great songs that had so much scope for interesting drum parts so he made my job pretty easy.
Do you still write and is this something that we'll see more of?
Yeah I do still write and I'm actually writing my own album at the moment! The albums gonna be called 'Dutch Winter Hunger'. It comes from the phrase 'Dutch hunger winter' which describes the Dutch famine of 1944 when the Nazi's cut off the Netherlands food supply and thousands died.
The albums nearly finished and once I've done that I need to find a way of recording it and hopefully getting it released sometime. I'm also putting together another thing called 'The Squirrels'. Its gonna be a really heavy band, a cross between Nirvana and Captain Beefheart.
With regards to your art what does the future hold?
I'm not sure! Just to continue painting really and hopefully some good things will come out of it. I'm trying to get commissions for portraits at the moment and also hopefully get some paintings in a gallery. I enter the BP Portrait Award every year and hopefully one day I'll get in!
Tom Diamantopoulo paintings, Facebook.
When did you first start painting?
I started painting when I was about 19. I've always drawn since I could pick up a pencil but never really went for painting seriously as I am colour blind so I just drew and did sculpture instead until then. I decided to start using colour and painting as I had some ideas in colour that I wanted to try out so thats when I started to use paint.
How did it figure in the life of a touring musician? Did one ever suffer?
I actually had to stop painting when we became signed because we were constantly touring or writing music so there wasn't anytime to paint really. I got back to it after we got dropped by our label and things calmed down a bit in 2006.
What influences your work? It's very photo realistic, is this something you strive for or a product of how you paint?
Actually it's something I strive for at the moment. To be honest my painting style before was very loose and free. I used to paint with my fingers to get really thick textures and movement, I used to paint in a more expressionistic and impressionistic way. But when I got back into it after the band I decided that I didn't know anything about painting and wanted to learn how to paint properly before I went back into what I used to do. I used to draw in a photo realistic way and I thought if I could draw that way I would like to paint that way. It was a very steep learning curve and I realised I couldn't paint that way at all! My first attempts at photorealism might have well been impressionism. It actually took me a few years to learn how to paint the way I do now. I actually want to end up back where I started with the more loose and free style of painting but I figure if I want to do that properly, and to really know what I'm doing I need to learn the basics first.
I have lots of influences in art, some being Pierre Bonnard, Lucian Freud, Egon Schiele, William Da Kooning, Frank Auerback, Paul Klee and David Hockney...
That being said, did you study painting?
I did start a 2 year HND in fine art but after about 6 months we got signed so I had to quit the course. Also when I was eighteen I got into Canterbury University, I was going to do a fine art degree there but I decided to stay in Brighton for the band. Then a few years later we got the record deal so I think that was a good decision! So yeah I've never really studied art properly apart for the basics at A level and Foundation. I do kind of regret that as an art degree is something I've always wanted to do. I've had to learn the techniques myself which has made learning to paint a bit more difficult.
Do you think think that being an artist as well as a musician helped both creative outputs? Did they actively inspire each other?
Yes I do definitely, although not in any direct way. I think if you are one then you have a bit of the other in you as well. I think in both you are trying to express something and its just creating that in different ways and yeah I think both aid each other in some way.
Having a quick look you were credited to writing a lot of the Eighties Matchbox material, do you consider yourself more of a songwriter than a drummer?
Actually at the risk of sounding like a bit of a twat yes I do. I actually started writing songs before I played the drums properly. I think I wrote 'Chicken' before I actually started playing the drums in Eighties Matchbox. That was our first song. I was made to do piano, violin and sing in a choir when I was a kid so I have always played music and drumming was something I took up later. I didnt want to be the drummer actually but Guy, our singer, said I was too short to be a guitarist and I was the only one who had played any drums at all in the band so by default I became the drummer.
Did this affect how you play the drums and create the parts for the songs?
Yes definitely. I wanted to write drum parts to suit whatever music was happening rather than to sound impressive as a drummer in his own right, no matter how basic it was and I think because I wrote music as well it gave me a better ear for what works. Andy used to write some great songs that had so much scope for interesting drum parts so he made my job pretty easy.
Do you still write and is this something that we'll see more of?
Yeah I do still write and I'm actually writing my own album at the moment! The albums gonna be called 'Dutch Winter Hunger'. It comes from the phrase 'Dutch hunger winter' which describes the Dutch famine of 1944 when the Nazi's cut off the Netherlands food supply and thousands died.
The albums nearly finished and once I've done that I need to find a way of recording it and hopefully getting it released sometime. I'm also putting together another thing called 'The Squirrels'. Its gonna be a really heavy band, a cross between Nirvana and Captain Beefheart.
With regards to your art what does the future hold?
I'm not sure! Just to continue painting really and hopefully some good things will come out of it. I'm trying to get commissions for portraits at the moment and also hopefully get some paintings in a gallery. I enter the BP Portrait Award every year and hopefully one day I'll get in!
Tom Diamantopoulo paintings, Facebook.
Friday, 2 December 2011
The great drum gear geekiness of 2011...
So it's a lot easier to post pictures on a blog than to actually write something... Saying that, every drummer is secretly a drum geek so I feel no shame in posting pictures of my gear.
Geek out on the following;
TIKI modern vintage custom, in red glitter sparkle.
20 x 14 Bass drum
14 x 8 Rack tom
16 x 14 Floor tom
13 x 8 Akira Jimbo snare
The combination of a smaller bass drum with the monster 60's inspired tuna can rack tom is ridiculously loud...
Cymbals;
21" A sweet ride
20" A custom medium crash
18" A custom EFX
18" China
13" K custom dark hat bottom
13" A new beat top
This is the second time I've used this kit, the first time didn't really go to plan. This time round went very well indeed and you shall soon be able to hear the results in the form of FERAL PRICK.
Geek out on the following;
TIKI modern vintage custom, in red glitter sparkle.
20 x 14 Bass drum
14 x 8 Rack tom
16 x 14 Floor tom
13 x 8 Akira Jimbo snare
The combination of a smaller bass drum with the monster 60's inspired tuna can rack tom is ridiculously loud...
Cymbals;
21" A sweet ride
20" A custom medium crash
18" A custom EFX
18" China
13" K custom dark hat bottom
13" A new beat top
This is the second time I've used this kit, the first time didn't really go to plan. This time round went very well indeed and you shall soon be able to hear the results in the form of FERAL PRICK.
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