Christmas Pimping

It's that time of year where you get two types of songs released. The first is the traditional Christmas Cover, where some musician(s) re-record a famous Christmas Track and are satisfied that they are now in the Christmas Spirit. I myself recorded a version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" last year. The other type, is the new and original Christmas Song. Where someone actually takes time to write and put together a track for the festive period. These are the one's I look forward to. However it's very rare that one of these tracks will get more than one play on my speakers, this year though, I've found a track that has had it's fair share of playing through the old blowers.

Chances are if you're anyone who knows anyone then you'll have been attacked with posts for the video of "Christmas Pimping, Everybody's Gimping" and my hope, is that you have taken the time to watch it.

"Christmas Pimping, Everybody's Gimping" is not your usual Christmas Song and yet at the same time encompasses everything you could want from a Christmas Song. It has the bells jingling in the background, a few "Tra La La's" and copious amounts of references to Santa along the way. Musical wise the song is very simple, there's no over the top instrumentation and the beat is very simple. Lyrical wise, this song is  Christmas Gold. I would however state, that no one listens to this track without opening up your mind to the world of what I now refer to as "Giro Humour" and as you can probably guess from that, the Girobabies do make an appearance. The track features Colonel Mustard & The Dijon 5, The Girobabies and The Plimptons.

As much as I had slightly gone off the Girobabies (and someone may need to slap me for that) my faith has been restored. Mainly because they have the best lines of the track. "The police are scum, locked up my" and "stick on a Pogues song and lets get.....single fished" are just a few of my favourites. 

The whole track is a track that is 100% worth listening to and purchasing. Not only is it a great piece of Christmas, but it's also for Charity and if it wasn't worth buying before it definitely is now. 

Christmas is gonna pimp your ass! and it starts here.

Or be a really really nice chap, and buy it here https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/christmas-pimping-everybodys/id584451456?i=584451536&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

X-Factor 2012

Just as shite as it was last year.................




Just saying

Proud to be Scottish

Scotland is my country and no matter where I go in the world it will always be home. As it's St Andrews Day I was just thinking about what this tiny tiny country has contributed to the world. Believe it or not, we have shaped so much of the world it's almost unbelievable.

Throughout the world people pick up a telephone and talk to friends and family at opposite ends of the globe, they make business calls and (dirty buggers) use it for cheap thrills to those durty sex lines. The telephone is without a doubt one of the most used creations ever, and it came from the mind of Edinburgh born Alexander Graham Bell.

James Chalmers from Arbroath created the sticky postage stamp, and we're nearing the time of year when millions of these get used.

You know that big box that you keep your eyes glued to for ages? Watching such classics as Doctor Who and such gash such as River City and I'm a wannabe put me in there? Aye? Straight from the mind of another Scotsman - John Logie Baird

Did you also know that Scotland were the first country to print postcards? Random bit of information for you there!

The MRI body scanner was invented by John Mallard from Aberdeen (I wrote so many sheep jokes there, but decided it was best to remove them incase I cause offence to any sheep that may be reading this)

Speaking of sheep...............who could forget Dolly the Sheep? The worlds first cloned mammal, cloned in Midlothian

Our great country also invented the worlds most boring and tedious game...............Golf!

William Cullen from Hamilton invented the fridge (refrigerator) so remember that next time you need to chill yer beer!

There's so much more that Scotland has introduced to the world including the flushing toilet, the Kaleidoscope, The Boys Brigade and The Bank of England (it's true, google it!) to name a few

Of course, our football team sucks, we are over run by neds, we invented the deep fried mars bar. Our national dish is minced heart, liver and kidneys inside a sheeps stomach and our national instrument sounds like the after effect of Cheryl Cole getting a grizzly bear rammed up her anus. 

Scotland has also given us some of the best music in history including Deacon Blues "Dignity" and music from The Proclaimers, Biffy Clyro, IdleWild, Dougie Maclean and even Mark Knopfler is Scottish. 

We lay claim to The Big Yin himself, Billy Connolly and then of course there's Mr Bond himself Sean Connery and yet all of these don't begin to scratch the surface.

No other country in the world produced Rabbie "Robert" Burns did they? Naw that was us! And every country in the world echos his famous "Auld Lang Syne" on New Years eve.

We have the best Hogmanay Street Party in the world! We also have some of the greatest landscapes in the world.

I may not walk around with a Saltire painted on my face and I may not sing Flower of Scotland at any god given moment, but I sure as hell am proud to be from the best country in the world.........Scotland

One word of warning.............if you fuck with us......................."We'll set aboot ye"

Taay it to the bone!

They say that Rap music is an acquired taste and I guess they'd be right. I don't actually know who "they" are, my guess is that they refers to the general minds of the world. I suppose though, it's not everybody's cup of tea. Me? I like the odd bit here and there and I do have a place in my heart for Scottish Rap, I have no idea why but something about it just sits very well with me.

You may remember a couple of months back I spoke with "Taay" about his future prospects and where he was headed now that the "Underdog Theory" are no more and at that point he was pretty unsure about how long it would be until he picked up the microphone again. Well................that moment has come.

Taay's first release is "The Mirror" and I couldn't wait to listen to it. It seems like eons ago since I last heard anything new coming from this section of space and time and now it had arrived.

Mirrors is a great re-awakening from Taay, it combines the raw sound of the underground and mainstream hip-hop and creates something not too far removed from Ray Cash or Roots Manuva (certain aspects at least)

Rather than change his Modus Operandi to adapt to the current musical landscape Taay has updated the music and really remained true to the lyrical values that make him such a talented artist. Listening to Taay you can take in every beat of the track and every lyric that comes with it. The production is very well thought out and it really just allows him to sink in to the sounbed and perform in his laid back style.

"The Mirror" is a very focused track and it really is like a comeback track and a re-introduction to an artist who's talent has unlimited and untapped potential, I think we haven't yet scratched the surface of what Taay is fully capable of.

All in all a great comeback track and definitely worth a listen.

Check out the facebook page and give "The Mirror" a listen

https://www.facebook.com/TaayOfficial

Teknishin

I love new music, you could say I'm obsessed with new music! I'm one of those people who's in a club at night and would rather have them playing a remix of some local band that what "classes as music these days"

I guess I just have that thing in the back of my head that knows when I hear good music. Today I've been listening to a wide variety of stuff though, and I actually started listening to "Crystal Castles" and "TNGHT" and that's something I don't normally do, but I was really enjoying it. It must have been my third eye telling me that I was going to get some Electronic music to review, because about an hour later I got a message about "Teknishin" an Electronic artist from Scotland. So doing my usual thing that I do, I got my mind on the ball and started listening to the "Teknishin" Soundcloud page. So glad I did, and I'm so glad I had listened to Crystal Castles earlier because my mind was fresh with a highly rated artist in that field.

The tracks on the Soundcloud page are a clear example of what a good ear for music and some hard work and determination can achieve, taking into account that "Teknishin" has only been producing music for around 12 months and you'll agree that what he's produced is a great achievement.

"San Antonio Bay" is a track that takes me back to some great music from the 90's and early 00's possibly even back a little further. There's something very similar to "Infected Mushroom" and their early work. "Teknishin" seems to be able to bring an intricate and smarter sound to Electronic music than most and listening just simply to this track you can hear that come across.

With the music that "Teknishin" is producing, it seems that Electronic fans of all ages will love it. Jean Michel Jarre was a pioneer of Electronic music back in the 70's and there's time during listening to a "Teknishin" track where you imagine it could have been part of Jarre's work. There are other points where you feel that there could have been slight adjustments made to the tracks but never the less what you hear from Teknishin is well constructed and thought out pieces of music.

Teknishin is not yet the finished article, and I see a lot of  work going into to future productions, but there's no doubt in my mind that what lies in that brain is some serious works of art.

Check him out

http://soundcloud.com/teknishinofficial
www.facebook.com/teknishin

Sixth Avenue Traffic

I am possibly the worst in the world for Procrastinating..........I sit down to do one thing, like review an album or work on a Marketing Campaign and something else grabs my attention. One day I aim to sit down with my list of work and rattle through it in order and have it all completed without any distractions or any curve balls thrown my way.

"Sixth Avenue Traffic" proved to be quite a distraction today. I have a backlog of EP's to listen to and it's always the same, I end up hearing one song of the band I'm NOT supposed to be listening to and end up listening to the whole lot, then I come over here and start typing away. I'm pretty sure that in a few years time the Oxford dictionary will say this "Procrastination - [proh-kras-tuh-neyt, pruh-] To do a Martin McLaughlan and do something completely different to what you're supposed to be doing, Martin has missed out a lot of massive acts because he got distracted by someone else"

Anyway.......see I even procrastinate when I'm writing these blogs, I can never just write what's meant to be written. 

Sixth Avenue Traffic are an Alternative Rock outfit based in Glasgow, and they're one of those bands who I'm ashamed to say I hadn't listened to until today. With four tracks on their SoundCloud page, it's easy enough to get a feel for the sound that the band have. My first stand out point is the vocals, the vocals are so reminiscent of late 90's early 00's post-grunge. I automatically thought of a blend of Drowning Pool and Radiohead, so I wasn't surprised to hear that lead singer Chris Thomson is a huge Thom Yorke fan. If you can take an influence and mirror it so poignantly in your music and make the impact that this does then you automatically win brownie points from me.

"Ever changing light" is a knock out track from the four piece. Starting off with the focus mainly on the vocals in that "grungy esk nesss" (I've been assured that is a techincal term) it soon picks up the pace and evolves into a brilliant piece of music. The lyrics are powerful on their own and combined with the well constructed music make for some great listening. "Ever Changing Light" is a slow building rock song that could very well have came from the mind of Ed O'Brian himself.

"Burn Away" is another song that stands out, a different pace from "Ever Changing Light" but a piece of music crafted to instantly catch your subconscious with it's faster paced beat and a melody that gets stuck in your head for a long time after the song actually comes to an end.

Sixth Avenue Traffic are definitely a band who can write and produce good music and if this is anything to go by then I do believe that future material could be something to get excited about.

As for me, I think I'll be putting them in my favourites list for now.


Now.................time to get back to work.

Check them out!!!

http://soundcloud.com/sixthavenuetraffic

Nicole Hope

Sometimes when I'm working I like to trawl through the music world of SoundClound and see if I can get any inspiration. A lot of the time I find an artist, I listen to them and then I move on. It's not not necessarily because they aren't good at what they do, it's more to do with the fact that they don't excite me. I need music to hit a button, to make me go back and listen to it again and again. So for all the hundreds of acts I've came across, there's possibly a ratio of 1:20 who actually make me listen again. Tonight, I was working away on Festival Applications and doing the usual "trawling" and I found a couple of good artists who I would certainly recommend but there is one who truly sticks out.................Nicole Hope.

I had never heard of Nicole Hope before tonight and I really wish that wasn't the case. The first song on her SoundCloud page was "Innocent" and it is such a powerful piece of music. It is so simplistic, with only vocals and piano, yet it really gets a message across. Her voice is one of those voices that sends a shiver up your spine. There isn't much to the music, but with the vocals as strong as they are, that doesn't really matter. Towards the end of the track you are introduced to some vocal harmonies which only adds an extra dimension to a track that is already so well written and performed.

The next track I listened to was "Rise" and once again, it is so simplistic, vocals and piano are the only things present here. This song can really show the range of what Nicole has. The song holds to a very simple instrumentation and is constructed in a very simple manner that allow Nicoles expressive voice to develop the story in which she is singing about. According to the SoundCloud page, Nicole is just 19 yet her voice is so much more mature than that.

It's such a good feeling to know that such amazing voices still exist around us, if only they got the attention that they deserved.

Nicole Hope is one for the future. I can pretty much guarantee it.


http://soundcloud.com/nicolehope