This is my personal site, expect random musings from an internet connected, VW Drag Racing, music loving, Software Engineering professional. Occasionally you might even get a usefull nugget of information!
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Ok, I know I missed the boat on this one too but I've been listening to another album over and over for the last few weeks, it's called "Feed The Animals" by "Girl Talk" and I think it rules!
Feed The Animals is the fourth album from Pittsburgh, PA's Gregg Gillis under the name Girl Talk and it's a sample-fest of the highest order! Think Osymyso's classic Intro Inspection (or Intro Expansion series) vs ColdCut's seminal 70 Minutes of Madness. With everything from Avril Lavigne and Big Country to Rod Steweart and everything in between! Roughly centring around hip-hop most of the mix has that kind of feel, but the beats range from 80's cheese and disco right up to the latest pop hits. This mixtape is a great example of sampling and how to generate "flow" in a cut and paste style mix, it manages to blend a huge number of in some cases just the tinyest snippets of tunes into one, without feeling choppy or overly disparate, a great example of how a mix can be more than just the sum of it's parts.
Interestingly Girl Talk have done "the Radiohead thing" and released the album on a name-your-price principal, but the difference is the more you pay the more you get, so whilst you can have 320kbps MP3's for free (or pay whatever you like), if you pay $5 you can have it in high quality FLAC glory, make it a tenner and you get it on CD and as one file too. I think this is a great way of releasing music and I highly recommend you head over to http://www.illegalart.net to have a listen, right now!
Click Here for the YouTube original.
Hey hey, you you!
I know my last post was about the Jyrojets single "Dead On Arrival" and that I'm a couple of days late with the review, which in itself isn't as comprehensive as I'd have liked due to time constraints... but... the self titled album that they took that excellent single is out on download NOW (and physical media next week), and I suggest you check it out!
Putting the music aside for a minute I'm a big fan of what the band have done with their album release, sure, you can buy it on iTunes, where it'll count for the charts and yadda yadda but you can also buy it direct from the band, and here's the clever bit, in DRM-FREE high-quality (192kbps) MP3 format! Good on you guys. I'm a big fan of digital music, but not a great fan of DRM. It's good to see a band trusting their audience and embracing fair use with a proper commercial release.
The album itself is a mix of catchy guitar driven indie pop and I really like it. Given the nature of the record it's hard not to draw parallels with other artists, I'm sure the band hate being compared to fellow Scots the Fratellis but I gonna do it anyway. I don't know if there's a big scene up in Scotland making this same style of tune, but there are tunes here that certainly wouldn't be out of place at a Fratellis gig. One other obvious comparison is to the Stereophonics, back when they were really good. The gruff "I gargle gravel for breakfast every morning" vocals on "Holywood Hold On" (a great anthemic rock moment) and "Favourite Thing About Jane" really do it for me.
That's far from all the Jyrojets offer though, there's some great poppy tunes here, I found myself singing along to "All The Rage", "Rocksinger" and "Sandcastle Girl" even after just a few listens! "Wishing You Well" shows a more mellow side of the band but I can just see the light show going from dim backfill into blinding the crowd for that chorus. A little reminiscent of The Departure "Little Sister" is a great rock tune complete with feedback, crashing intro and an excellent singalong chorus.
This is the first new album for a while that's stayed in my CD changer for more than a few days and I can honestly say I've had it in the car since I got it a few weeks ago and it seems to get better and better.
A great album, and even better considering it's a début, this record has the kind of depth you don't expect from an upcoming band and shows that Jyrojets clearly offer a lot more for the future.
As I posted last time they've got a MySpace and a Bebo and their official site contains loads of information, audio, video and information on how to buy both this album and their previous releases
available at http://www.jyrojets.com
Jyrojets - Favourite Thing About Jane
Click Here for the YouTube original.
We're out drinking it the citaaaayyyy!!
I've just been tipped off about another new release that took my fancy, this Monday the Inverness band "Jyrojets" will release their third single "Dead on Arrival" on Songphonic records.
I think this is a great tune!
With a great guitar riff, a proper singalong chorus and the best use of reverse delay I've heard for a while they've spent the past couple of years touring the world with shows as diverse as Moscow, SXSW in Austin TX, Radio1 sessions and even a slot at Rockness, I strongly encourage you to check them out as I think they're gonna be big very soon!
Their debut album follows on the 16th June (review coming soon) but for now you'll have to cope with downloading the single from 7 Digital or iTunes.
As ever they've got a MySpace and a Bebo and their official site contains loads of information, audio, video and information on how to buy their previous releases available at http://www.jyrojets.com
Jyrojets - Dead on Arrival
Click Here for the YouTube original.
... but I'm paranoid
In light of a recent post by Rob Weir on the woeful inadequacies of Microsoft Excel 2007's financial functions I thought this might make interesting reading...
This move has been treated with trepidation by some ODF advocates and we do need to wait until early 2009 to see what Microsoft will actually do, but I firmly believe it's a step in the right direction for Microsoft. Hopefully this will mean that they have recognised the multitude of mistakes they made with OOXML and that ODF is a much more suitable format, and with their joining the standards boards and a continued promise of interoperability we can only hope this is the first step of many!
Well, it's started, I've just had my mate (and fellow racer) Rich come over and start taking the second car apart. We're trying to strip as much as we can as quickly as we can, I want to try and keep the engine, gearbox and front suspension together as one and move it all out in one piece, that way it should be relatively easy to move around on it's wheels!
Here's a picture as we'd just started... Rich managed to get the bonnet off quicker than my N95 managed to focus!
Before
And after some four hours of work we managed to get most of it un-bolted, almost ready to roll out from under the car.
After!
Now for the big-reveal!
As some of you know I've got a VW Fastback shell in storage waiting for build-up into a race car, but as yet I don't have an engine/gearbox etc. Well... Plans change and given I now have an engine/gearbox etc "spare" I'm thinking RNJ Motorsport will be getting a call to locate this 150bhp Golf GTi motor in the back of said Fastback shell! The aim is reliable, dependable power without costing the earth, and with the likes of James Hodson running serious power from the 20vT motors (which are physically very similar to the 16v you see here) the upgrade path is obvious.
