Skip to main content

Music to Do Sums By.


Sorting my 2015/16 receipts today to the tune of the Paul & Linda McCartney album Ram made it a far more enjoyable experience.

One thing I don’t do much of at the moment, as I’m not doing any muso work, is to have a really good sing. I tend to listen to music when I get ready in the morning, and will often join in with it a little (much to the consternation of my neighbours or anyone walking past my bathroom window), but outside of the occasional bit of bath-based Karaoke, I’m not keeping my voice in shape. I did give it a stretch today however, whilst knee-deep in bank statements and receipts, and if you going to do this, an album like Ram is a good one to work out to.

The vocal parts are literally all over the shop, which is meant as a compliment. It was McCartney’s second post-Beatles album, which was slated at the time - largely fed by him supposedly being the root of the Beatles' breakup - but has been critically re-evaluated over the intervening years. It’s a slow-burner and isn’t necessarily his most instantly accessible work, but it’s brimming with melodic ideas…and consequently, it's a welcome distraction from getting your tax records together.

Second on the Ephgrave Self-Assessment Jukebox playlist today was Bowie’s The Next Day, which was a similarly spiky audio accompaniment. It perhaps wasn't the best choice for what I was doing as - like Ram - it’s pretty full-on, but I still enjoyed it. Tomorrow, I’ll go for something a bit more mellow (not that I’m planning ahead).

Putting the tax stuff to one side, I really should get my voice back into shape. I’ve become very lazy of late, only doing vocal warm-ups when I’m gigging and seldom doing scales. I go through phases with it; when I was doing Buddy, I’d be warming up every day, but these days, not so much. It’s similar to being an athlete in that if you don’t train, you quickly get out of shape. Perhaps I should pull my proverbial finger out and book some singing lessons - and get this: I can stick them in my tax return as a business expense.

Popular posts from this blog

Shakerpuppetmaker.

Have Parker from Thunderbirds and Noel Gallagher ever been seen in the same room? The resemblance is uncanny. So much so, I think something’s afoot. If my suspicions are correct, I've stumbled across a secret that will blow the music and puppet industry wide apart. In the mid-60s / mid-90s at least. It doesn’t take long to see the signposts. There’s the similarity between the name of Oasis’ first single, Supersonic, and Supermarianation, Gerry Anderson’s puppetry technique. The Gallagher brothers would often wear Parkas . Live Forever was clearly a reference to Captain Scarlet and Standing on the Shoulder of Giants to the size difference between Noel and his bandmates. The more you think about it, the more brazen it gets. It’s fishier than Area 51, Paul is Dead and JFK's assassination put together. The only glitch to the theory is scale . According to Wikipedia, Anderson’s marionettes were 1’10” and Gallagher is 5’8”. How does he maintain an illusion of avera...

"Speaking Words of Wisdom, Let it Shine."

Tonight saw the second instalment of BBC1’s latest advertise-a-musical-for-months-and-then-cast-it-with-performers-too-inexperienced-to-do-it-a-thon ‘Let it S̶h̶i̶t̶e̶ Shine’ (or as I call it: ‘REAL AUDITIONS ARE NOTHING LIKE THIS’). I didn’t watch it (clearly), but being reminded of how angry seeing just five minutes of it made me last week caused me to mull over what I would call a musical based on the band’s songbook, if I was responsible for it. Here are a my suggestions: IDEAS FOR TITLE OF A TAKE THAT MUSICAL: Barlow! Dirty Fat-Dancing Orange! A Million Love-changes-everything Songs Owen! Howard's End Pray Misérables Mamma Marka! Babe (with a pig as the lead) …BUT MY FAVOURITE HAS TO BE: Jason & His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. "It was Orange, Orange, Orange, Orange..." (TAKE) THAT’S ENOUGH OF (TAKE) THAT.

'...I'm Gonna Look at You 'til My Eyes Go Blind."

Over the past week or two, I’ve been on a bit of a Sheryl Crow kick, largely thanks to rediscovering her cover of one of my most-liked Bob Dylan songs. She has one of my favourite female voices, yet despite this, I only own one CD and that’s just a single (her '97 release ‘Hard to Make a Stand’); on that basis, you can only imagine how much of her back catalogue I’d own if I hated her (it would fall into minus-figures). Dylan, conversely, takes up more of my collection than anyone else, save The Beatles and Paul McCartney’s solo work. He’s one of those artists who, when you get him, you really get him - and once I’d tuned into his style as a student, I'd time and again be blown away by his lyrics; he’ll have more jaw-dropping imagery in one track than other people fit in a whole career. These days, I mostly listen to music in the morning when getting ready, and more often than not, this will consist of a suggested YouTube playlist when I’m in the bath, r...