“… and other tales of transfiguration” Simon Jackson, playwright and novelist, is known around the Edinburgh music scene as Torpedo Buoy. This is his ‘greatest un-hits’ – a collection of thoroughly wacky but intriguing songs and poems-with-music. Ideas are flying all over the place here – even the first track has gone through about five … Read more
This may be my last post on the current version of my blog and site, as the new one’s not far off completion. Some of my friends have been making up, even giving away, albums of the music they’ve liked best from 2011. I don’t actually listen much to music and when I do, most … Read more
To do list of music tasks complete, I had an evening free to work on it. My expert son had shown me how to use FL Studio with Rewire so I could easily (!) channel individual FL instruments to individual tracks in Cubase. I had one song complete but for a very naff automated drum … Read more
A friend, actually a very good singer songwriter, asked me for suggestions on turning an idea into a song. I said: Take a song you like, sing new words to the same tune, then change the tune, then change the chords. Keep the structure. There you go. Or my technique, walk around town with it, … Read more
This is from David Hepworth’s blog, and will ring a bell with many who read these pages! I was talking to a young musician friend recently. He plays in his own band but also goes out regularly doing covers in pubs. "You’ve no idea," he said, "how difficult it is to get people to listen." … Read more
It’s not often you’ll get Robert Fripp and Bruce Springsteen in one blog entry but here we go… Went to see Springsteen at Hampden last night. Sound wasn’t great, but the sense of occasion and party feeling was. It’s the fantasy of most performers to have a huge crowd, desperate to see you, knowing all … Read more