Music

After the joy of launching an EP (look to the right of screen - that's my EP), my rock music career has quietened down substantially in the last few months. Initially, I wanted to concentrate on writing songs suited more to my band (The Solution), but the band has itself faded into the background a little after our bassist moved to the other end of the state for work. We're still getting the occasional practice session in, and are steadily working towards recording an album, but it's left a lot of time in which to ponder other musical directions.

One of these has been the choir I joined last year - the Tasmanian Song Company. When I joined, I sang in the tenor section but as the number of males in the group has grown (due in part to some of my friends joining!), it became obvious that we needed more basses so I moved there instead. As time's gone on, I've found my involvement growing to the point where I found myself joining the committee and helping out on a regular basis. I've never been on any kind of committee before, but this one involves cake and cups of tea so it can't be all bad!

The other way I'm keeping myself going with music is busking. It had been a long time since I busked, so a month ago I put together a collection of covers and made my way out to Elizabeth Mall - and I've been trying to get out there every week or so. It's a great way to practice performing in front of people - something I sorely needed when I was a beginning musician years ago, but just as useful now that I've got a little more experience and want to keep my skills under pressure fresh.

Though I'm fortunately not broke enough to need the money from busking, I still find it a good way to "keep score" of how well I'm going - of course, it doesn't hurt if I make enough to buy lunch and have some change for parking meters! Over the weeks, though, I've found the money really isn't a good measure of how people are reacting to my music. A couple of weeks ago, I went out on a crowded day and only made a couple of dollars despite singing my heart out, and I was feeling pretty miserable about the whole affair. Then, in the middle of my set, an obviously down-and-out, slightly elderly lady came up to me and said very sincerely "Lovely singing - I'm sorry I don't have any money to give you."

Since then, I've gotten far more joy out of playing music I love out in the winter sun, getting a smile of recognition or a kind word from a passer-by, or watching small children dance gleefully in front of my guitar case. Sometimes it doesn't hurt to be reminded of the old cliché that money doesn't buy happiness!

Launch day!

So, it's finally here - the day where I launch my EP. Part of me feels kind of underwhelmed by the whole affair - after all, I've had plenty of time to get used to doing gigs and at the end of the day, this is just another gig. But the other part - and the part I'm sure will start screaming louder as the day goes on - is quick to remind me that I've intentionally made this particular gig all about me.

Making myself the centre of attention is usually something I actively avoid, but writing an EP demands a launch party, and I'm not going to miss out on an opportunity to party with many of the people who made it possible and supported me through the whole thing. Also, it'd be nice to sell a few copies now it's done!

I've done pretty much everything I've needed to do - putting the CDs together, making posters, drumming up a little bit of publicity, rehearsals, getting audio gear. The Facebook page for the launch is looking pretty healthy as these things go, so hopefully I'll get a decent crowd. But until 7pm tonight - and possibly some time after - I'm going to be terrified that no-one will show up. But at least I can rely on the friends and family who got me here, and even by themselves they make a nice little (but vocal) crowd.

I intentionally didn't put any thanks on my EP itself: mainly because there wasn't much room left. But also because I'd rather do my thanks in person (or... well, in internet). So thank you - everyone who's bought a copy already, asked about it, even considered buying a copy, asked me how things were going along musically (both with the EP and in general), come to (or wanted to come to) my solo gigs or those with the band. If it weren't for all of you, they would have had to drag me out from under the table to get me to perform at all! I said this gig is all about me, but really* it's all about you**.

I'm really looking forward to tonight, and playing a gig that means a lot to me. Even more than that, I'm looking forward to continuing on with music after tonight - planning gigs, writing songs, maybe even recording some. Nearly all of that will be done with my band, The Solution, because - well, because they're awesome, and I find it much more fun and rewarding playing with a band than solo. So look out for us!

For those of you who can't be there tonight (or randomly stumbled upon/were directed to this blog) the EP is now available to download on my bandcamp site for $4, complete with secret bonus tracks! You can listen to all of the tracks live on the bandcamp page and decide for yourself whether I'm worth the price of an overpriced packet of chips ;) Go to http://nickbeeton.bandcamp.com or press some buttons below!


* cliched moment warning
** I warned you!

Locked and loaded

At long last, my EP is done and dusted*. All that's left to do now is get ready to show it to people, which means a launch party! I've booked a venue, organised a support act, burned the music onto CDs, printed CD labels, cajoled my friend and co-star Ariel into providing art, sent away to get CD sleeves printed... I've never been much of an organiser, but somehow it's coming together. I won't say putting this thing together took nearly as much work as my PhD did, but it's taken almost as long - and strangely means almost as much, though in a different way. When I first came to Hobart five years ago, doing something like this was no more than a far-flung fantasy - I could barely manage to sing in front of my friends, let alone record something that anyone might happen upon! It's only been through the support and enthusiasm of my family and friends (you all know who you are!) that I've been able to believe that my voice and my words are something that people might want to hear. Even now it amazes me that people are interested in my stuff - but because they are, I wrote it, because I knew that somebody would want to hear it!

The launch party will be on Saturday, 15th September at Brookfield Margate - we'll most likely be kicking things off around 7pm with Vino (consisting of good friends David McEldowney and George Begbie), and then I'll be taking to the stage with The Solution to play songs for you (and hopefully sell some EPs!). Stay tuned for more info as I get it organised!

The EP will be released under a Creative Commons licence - in short, it means that once you've bought it you can distribute it around as much as you like as long as you give me credit, don't sell it, and share it under the same conditions! Of course, I would love it if you bought my EP - and it'll be available online on bandcamp.com after the launch date for those ascetics who don't believe in the whole "physical objects" thing** - but I'll be just as happy if you listen to it on my blog, enjoy it and share it around with your friends*** :)

So, in the spirit of sharing, here's a third track from the EP for you to listen to - it's called The Garden, and it's the closest thing to a love song I've ever written, dedicated to my girlfriend. Aww. Enjoy!




* Also, I changed the name. I'm indecisive >_>
** Except for a computer, of course. Let's not get crazy here!
*** And maybe they'll buy it, seeing as you won't. Stingy bastard. (kidding!)

Didn't Know (aka the Duck Song)

Thanks everyone for your support and comments while I tried out this new gimmick to drum up interest! Voting has now closed and the clear winner was Didn't Know, one of my most often-played songs recently!

Didn't Know - 6 votes
Green Eyes - 3 votes
The Garden - 1 vote
Survive You - 1 vote

The very simple riff for this song entered my head in a dream, and persisted after I woke up... I managed to play it on a guitar, and then all I needed to do was add lyrics. I really had trouble with this part of the process, and ended up putting in some placeholder lyrics about an "omnipotent duck" to try and move things along. I fully intended to change them for something more serious later on, but my girlfriend insisted they stay... and so has basically everyone else who's heard the song so far. When recording, I gave Dave completely free rein and told him to add as much messed-up stuff as possible - I think he's done an amazing job of that :)

So here it is - enjoy!


... oh. I guess you want to know who won the free copy of the EP. Well, I used my magical random number generator, and the winner was... Ariel Pascoe (whose fine vocals you'll see featured on the final cut of the EP!). But she's already getting a free copy, so I ran it again and the winner is the first voter, who I happen to know is the infamous IriXx Jorvik! She's planning to write a remix for "the duck song" so I think it's very fitting that she wins the free EP. Congratulations!

More news will be coming up soon, so stay tuned! Who knows, if you're lucky I'll even release another track before the EP launch and give away another copy!

Return of the prodigal EP

Hey peeps!

As my regular followers know, I like to play music and have been slowly putting together an EP of my own songs over the course of the last couple of years. I'm excited to announce that it's nearly done, and I'll hopefully be launching it later this year!

We have a relatively polished version of each of the tracks, and I'd like to put one of them on here - but I'll let you decide which. I've already posted one of them (Longest Night), but there are four previously unaired tracks left to choose from:

Green Eyes
Survive You
Didn't Know
The Garden

Just mention which track you'd like to hear in the comments below, and after a few days (or once I get enough interest) I'll choose the track with the most comments to publish here on the blog! Just to keep things interesting, I'll randomly choose one of the responses to win a free copy of my EP :) So what have you got to lose?

(Note: if the site won't let you post a comment, try anonymous mode!)

Updates of a musical note

Sigh. I couldn't resist the pun in the title. I neglect you for nine months and this is how I repay you - my poor, masochistic audience.

Due to thesis finishing, my musical pretensions were put almost completely on hold until recently. However, I plan to correct that with a vengeance. Find below my evil plans!

Though I haven't had a lot of time as mentioned, even so EP preparations have continued in dribs and drabs and we're now at the stage where we (by which I mean Dave) have collected enough material to put together all the tracks! This is not a promise that it will be done really soon. This is music production: there's almost certain to be something that we didn't notice before and have to fix, and these things always take longer than you'd think (also, truth be told, we're both lazy) - but things are happening. If people are still interested, I could put another track up here - a couple of others besides Longest Night have been mixed down. These are the tracks of the EP (in no particular order):

Green Eyes
Longest Night (already up)
Survive You
Didn't Know
The Garden


So vote for the one you want to see on here :)

As far as new stuff, I haven't done much songwriting for a long time, but there are a lot of songs that I wrote or partly-wrote a while ago to work on. So maybe I could write another EP! Or at least, have material for gigs and bands and so forth.

Speaking of bands... there's bad news and good news. The bad news is, The Solution's talented drummer George Begbie has left the band to concentrate on his own musical ambitions. Considering the amazing stuff he's coming up with, we'd be committing a crime against music to hold him back (go see him play, he's awesome) - it's not a tabloid magazine acrimonious breakup, and we're not plotting his death any more than we already were when the band was together ;)

The good news is, this is by no means the end of the band - myself and vocalist/guitarist/bassist Ariel Pascoe are still keen to keep things going and have finally gotten back into rehearsing. Soon we'll be gracing Elizabeth Mall with our presence for some acoustic busking sets, and after that... who knows? We have a potential new drummer lined up, so watch this space.

On a slightly different note (there I go again), I've been considering joining a choir for a while - it's always looked like great fun and good practice for ear and voice, which I think will be very useful to self-taught little me! I went to the Open Night of the Tasmanian Song Company and quite enjoyed myself - so I'm thinking of joining up. Would be interested to hear peoples' thoughts!

Music - but not mine

Before I start, I'd like to say thanks to the people who actually read my blog and agitated for me to write in it again.  The fountain of wisdom that is xkcd suggests that only really boring people apologise for not posting more in their blogs... so I won't!  However, I will make what will be a pretty common excuse in the coming months - along with working, I've been very very busy with trying to get my PhD finished.  My current plan is to get it done by August - it's ambitious but it may actually be feasible.

I thought this time that I'd write about music other than my own.  For someone who professes to be a musician I really don't listen to a lot of other people's music, Powderfinger notwithstanding*.  When I do listen to music, I am strange in that I like to listen to a single album at a time - sometimes for days or weeks, constantly, while I work.  I've never really gotten into the listening to mp3s thing - I really enjoy listening to an album played in order (or sometimes on shuffle if I'm feeling adventurous) as the artists intended.  Lately I've had the chance to do this with a few different artists, so here goes...

My very musical friend Dave gave me an album for being a groomsman at his wedding.  That album was Arcade Fire's Neon Bible.

To be brutally honest, I was a little cynical after the first listen or two.  The last offering that Dave had bought for me as a present was some of Sufjan Steven's more experimental work, and other than a couple of standout tracks I found it a little too experimental for my tastes - so I was preparing myself for the worst with this new unknown offering.

But, to their credit, Arcade Fire's album really grew on me.  A lot of good music does this for me, but because of my preconceptions I wasn't really expecting this to - I would never have fallen in love with this album if I hadn't had a couple more listens to give it one last chance to impress me.  I recognised a couple of  songs from the radio - Black Mirror and No Cars Go, which I really enjoyed from the start - but over time, I grew to love many of their album tracks** even more.  Particular standouts are Black Wave/Bad Vibrations and Ocean of Noise - these were stuck in my head for weeks!  There aren't really any tracks I could count as "misses" - they're all tight and well thought out, and even at their worst provide enjoyable background music.  I might accuse the title track Neon Bible of being unmemorable; but then, it's part of a long tradition of unmemorable title tracks.

I love good emotive vocals and the lead singer Win Butler really delivers, particularly in the lesser-known tracks.  I'm not-so-much taken with the backing vocals of Régine Chassagne - on their own - but the harmonies between her and Win are for the most part amazing!  I tend to concentrate most on the vocals (in terms of both lyrics and melody) in terms of music I like, and to this end Neon Bible is a winner for me also: the instrumentation and various sound effects scattered throughout the album are always interesting, always tight and very nicely complement the vocal work.  I know (from listening to the album as I type) that there are a multitude of really nice hooks played by the keyboards and guitar in particular, but I wouldn't be able to remember most of them - they fit so seamlessly into the story the voices tell.

Anyway, I think I've ranted enough about this album.  Tell me your thoughts on this album if you've listened to it, and I'd be particularly interested to hear peoples' opinions of the other Arcade Fire albums.  Is this as good as they get?  Or am I really missing out if I don't give the other albums a try also?

* I've been avoiding writing a full-blown critique of all seven of their albums lest my fanboyish gushing send you all to sleep!
** I usually call them "B-sides" but my girlfriend scolds me for it...

Is this the real life?

Hullo everyone!

Thanks for all your support and suggestions on Longest Night and EP covers.  There were literally dozens of pageviews that weren't mine!

Sorry about not posting for a while - life has gotten hectic.  A few of the things that have been going on:

• I have searched for, and found, a new place to live with a lot more space for me and my lovely partner.  We move in next week.  I'm excited!
• I have searched for, and found, a new job!  I will be a typist working from home.  Hopefully I can type fast enough to make it worth my while, I'm looking forward to having a bit more money as things have been getting pretty dire lately.
• I have been helping prepare for Dave's wedding, including attending his buck's night last night!  The wedding is in two days, so it's going to be a huge weekend.  After the wedding, we can expect to see more news on both my EP and his shiny new album!

Speaking of music, I have two gigs coming up!

The first is on the 26th of February at the Lark Distillery, as the support act for the amazing George Begbie launching his new EP "These Familiar Streets".  I've listened to these songs at length, and I can assure you that you are in for an incredible treat!  I can't wait to get my hands on this and future EPs from him, so come along and get in on the ground floor ;)

The second is on the 1st of March at Irish Murphy's with my band The Solution.  We haven't had the chance to rehearse or play for months and we're relishing the chance to start playing again, especially after our last gig unfortunately fell through.  We are so excited to play for you, and hope you'll come along and have fun with us!

Oh and as a final note, check out the blog list on this page, there are two thought-provoking and pretty new blogs to while away those lazy hours!

In which things are revealed

Right, it's about time I stopped putting it off.  This is what I have so far for one of the tracks on my upcoming EP.  I alternatingly love it and hate it each time I listen to it, so I'm going to put it online now before I change my mind.  Again.

I'm new to all this online music posting trickery, so let me know if it worked - and of course, what you think!

Hopefully in a few weeks there will be a bit more stuff to put up here, but in the meantime, here's Longest Night:



Also, just because I feel like being generous to my poor long-suffering readers, here are a couple of sketches for cover art provided by the talented Ariel Pascoe - these may change before I actually print the EP, but I'd appreciate some thoughts in the meantime on these too.  And I'd like you to tell me which one you like the best!

Happenings in music

Hi all!

I have a gig on Sunday week at Irish Murphy's, my fourth solo gig, and I'm excited about it!  There will be:

• New songs!
• Unprecedented levels of audience participation! (hopefully - don't let me down, you bastards)
• Tortured nautical metaphors!
• Hats!

and much much more!

I hope people can make it - tell your friends, but especially tell your enemies.  If you bring your enemies to the gig, the awkward silences will mean people pay more attention to me, and after all, isn't attention-seeking what music is all about?

My band The Solution also has a gig coming up, also at Irish.  It's our long awaited comeback tour, otherwise known as our second gig.  We've had a long time without gigs or practice, and we're all gagging to get back into it.  Please come along to that too, and justify our existence :)

In other music news, the EP is coming along well - we've had more recording time, and I think we might be approaching the halfway mark.  Hopefully over the next couple of months we'll get enough time to knock most of it off.  I'll get to putting the first completed song on here sometime soon!

And while we're talking about music, I woke up with a song in my head this morning.  This is about the third time this has happened.  I'm hopeful, generally when this happens I end up with a song I really like!

Finally, if you want to avoid the actual human interaction in this blog and just see what's happening musically, you can use (or give your friends) this link: http://firstsignofmadness.blogspot.com/search/label/music

Christmas posting

Hello, my few faithful followers! (and the more common faithless ones)

I've been spending the last week waiting impatiently on the results of a job interview, checking email and my phone compulsively every few minutes just in case they've contacted me.  I've been sorely tempted to call them up and see if any progress has been made on the decision, but have managed to hold off so far.  I think I'll probably crack and check for news before I leave to spend Christmas with my girlfriend's family on Thursday - I'd rather not spend time stressing over whether I've got the job or not when I should be relaxing.  People seem to be divided on whether checking post-interview is a good idea or not... I suspect it's probably for the best to leave it where possible, as you'd expect to hear about it if you've got the job at least, and checking isn't going to change the result!

Musically, I've been working on new songs lately.  I can't really do anything towards the upcoming EP at the moment as my producer is away on holidays.  However, I have been working on getting some cover art with a very talented artist who just so happens to be the bassist in The Solution, the band I play in!  Expect to see previews of the cover art and music from the EP in the new year.

One thing I will reveal though, is my working title for the EP - I'm thinking of calling it "Windows to the Soul". I hope it doesn't sound like I'm taking myself too seriously, or sounds too emo, or anything like that... simply put, it's the only name that's stuck so far.  So that's most likely what it will be called, unless I get an outpouring of hatred towards the name - of course, the customer is always right ;)

I did a quick Google search just now and found that someone else has also used that title.  However, I don't think anyone's going to confuse my music with contemporary Christian music, so I should be pretty safe!  Oh someone else used it too... a DJ.  Yep, still safe.

Anyway, that's me for 2010 - hope everyone has a fantastic Christmas!

Enjoy this picture of a fluorescent hyperferret.

Music!

As a change of pace from the maths post, and in an attempt to win back people I may have scared off... ;)

I had a gig last night!  It was my third solo gig at Irish, and as usual all the other performers were intimidatingly good.  But I think I'm developing as a performer - the nerves and fear about getting up on stage aren't quite so paralysing as they were a couple of years ago, that's for sure!

I'm doing some recording of the best stuff I've written so far, with good friend Dave acting as producer (and featuring heavily with instruments and backing vocals!).  It's going well enough that I'm thinking of releasing the recordings as an EP, hopefully to be released early next year.

I'm considering at some point putting a track or two on here for people to listen to, as they are churned out. I'm keen on the idea of musicians giving their music away for free, but asking for donations or people buying their solid-format music in return.  I figure if something's popular enough, it'll be pirated in any case (I'm not expecting that to happen with my stuff anyway!).  And having your music spread around is a great way to drum up publicity, and thus people who are likely to actually look out for you, attend your gigs, and buy your stuff!

So what do people think?  Would you like me to put something up?