Everything’s gone green - The world of mistrust music

Not exactly music-related, but some news anyway. I’ve recently had an article published in a popular e-learning magazine in the USA. I wrote about how young kids are growing up learning the language of the World Wide Web and how we should encourage them to become proficient in using the internet at an early age. The article was reproduced from my own e-learning blog that someone from the magazine found a while ago, and asked if they could publish it. I’m quite chuffed, as you can imagine, and it just adds to the the list of other articles/letters I’ve had published in the last year or two (eg in Future Music magazine).

You can read the whole thing (and the rest of the magazine) online in a virtual magazine reader here at E-Learning Magazine’s website (go to page 50 of the NextBook edition.) or see it in its original form on my e-learning blog.

Also…. I’m seriously considering moving all my other blogs into one place (here!) as it’s easier for me to keep tabs on what I’m writing and who’s reading them.

Following on from my previous post about how I started making music with various bits and pieces of old radios and things, I posted a comment on Createdigitalmusic’s website about all it in an article about Kids making electronic music between the 60s and the 80s. I also I put in a link to “This is the Mood….”, the track I made in the mid-80s using just a Jen SX1000, Casio MT31, and a Kay Drum Machine. I was really surprised to get a reply. I maybe expected maybe a “hmmm”, or “well, it WAS the 80’s”. The reply came from the Editor-in-Chief and Publisher himself, Peter Kirn: “Excellent. Totally excellent”.

I’m convinced there’s something in some of these old tracks of mine - maybe I have a plan….

Have a look at the original article on Createdigitalmusic, with all the comments:

Kids making electronic music

I often get asked how long I’ve been making electronic music. The answer is - probably most of my life! My dad was a TV engineer in the 60s and 70s, so he had allsorts of circuit testers and oscilloscopes and other bits of junk that I could mess around round and make odd bleeps and sinewave wails! My dad also had an old valve stereo radio and I used to tune it in to all sorts of weird and wonderful Eastern European radio stations on Short-Wave, and made crazy frequency sweeps. I even hooked up a model train transformer to the radio’s input socket and made wacky noises. I moved on to buying a cheap stereo reel-to-reel in a wooden box and recorded tunes I made on an old electronic organ that worked by blowing air from a fan. The first “proper” song I made was called “The Car Park”, and then something called “Do you know Mister Wall?” (anyone spot where I got that title from?). I used to try making “musique concrete” tunes by cutting up my tapes, but I didn’t have the right gear to join them up again, and made a horrible mess of the tape heads!

I got my first synth in about 1980 - a Casio MT31, followed by a Kay Memory Rhythm, and then a Jen SX1000. Not much, I know, but it was all I could afford and it allowed me to make tunes for all the lyrics I’d been writing about teenage angst and life in general. I recorded everything onto a Phillips hi-fi system (with adjustable Left and Right mic inputs!) bounced down with a Phillips portable cassette player and a home-made 4-input mixer (in a small tin box!). Most of the parts were pretty much played live, then bounced down and things like the synth solos and vocals were played over the top.

I made about 5 cassette tapes full on songs around that time, and they all survive to this day. The only one I’ve copied to CD so far is the first one, called “Ultraviolent Light”. Listening to them now makes me think of the songs of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, who still use similar gear as I used. One of the tracks from this “album” is called “This is the Mood (I’m in) and is here for you to listen to in all it’s glory. Bear in mind that it’s from a cassette tape that’s nearly 30 years old and I haven’t used any noise removal equipment….. it sounds quite a quirky little song….see what you think!

This is the Mood (I’m in) - 4′40″

Download:

This is the Mood (I’m in)

After much soul-searching and discussions with Mrs Mistrust long into the night, I’ve decided to sell the wonderful Yamaha Motif XS6 that I recently won on the Music Tech Magazine forum promotion. It’s a brilliant keyboard and I could spend hours playing on it, but the problem is that I just haven’t got any HOURS or minutes to use it. With all the stuff that’s going on at home with Paul, my stepson, and his Autism, the only chance to make music is for about 10 minutes a week on my laptop, sitting in front of the TV, waiting for Paul to get ready for me to talk on his regular evening ride. This situation isn’t going to change for the forseeable future, so I’d rather the synth went to a good home. I can use the cash to upgrade my laptop and take my family on holiday. The Yamaha Motif XS6 is currently listed on ebay.co.uk if anyone’s interested….

 I’m still concerned about the apparent lack of musicians who run blogs on WordPress and (ahem) Blogger, in fact all the other major blogging sites. Come to think of it, there don’t seem to be many “bands that blog” on Myspace these days. When I’ve looked under the “music” tag on WordPress, the majority of links and headlines that appear are usually from people commenting about their favourite tracks or all-time 100 love songs, something like that. Not a lot from either established acts or bedroom musicians like me. Why’s that? Why not blog, all ye musos of the world? I must be missing something. I’ll be they all run blogs on their own websites. That’s it. Must be the answer.

So, here’s the challenge: If anyone knows of either established acts who run blogs on WordPress (or Blogger) comment back and I’ll add them (and you) to my blogroll.

If you look at this  blog regularly, you’ll notice my capacity for dissatisfaction with my blog theme. I think the people who design the themes are very clever, but the ones on offer at WordPress.com don’t really suite the needs of a downtempo/chillout musician. I’ve chosen the “blue” one this time, and added my own header (a crop from Music Tech magazine’s announcement of me winning the Yamaha keyboard - see thread below). Well, it’s different to all the clouds and rivers and flowers, and other pretty pictures. No doubt I’ll get bored and go for pink or something soon.

I used to frequent a website and forum called “Electromancer”, where I uploaded my first “modern” tracks (”Never Alone” included), and where I got a lot of support and inspiration to make more tunes. Sadly, Electromancer folded (read about it in my old blog) and most of its members went over to a site called Nervejam, where they all continue the spirit of support, inspiration (and tomfoolery) and make nice tunes. I’m mentioning Nervejam because the site admin (Nervejam, himself) has changed my profile name/avatar to something that I really like and which I’ve decided to adopt as my byline on this blog (thanks NJ)….

YammyGit

Talking of which, you can now listen to this and all my other blog posts in MP3 format. I’ve got a RSS feed going off to Talkr.com which produces all my posts in audio format with a weird-sounding, automated female sounding voice. I guess I now have my own podcast. Rather than having “listen” blocks in every previous post, there’s a link to all of the “podcasts” here at TruMix. Have a listen - it’s really quite bizarre…..