Tones of Town

A Winged Victory For The Sullen

2011-12-21T11:56:00.002Z

As anyone who reads my posts on here, I'm someone fascinated by context and association in music. The way that a certain song or album suddenly makes sense under a set of circumstances, often forming associations that may live with you for the rest of your life, provides an incredible insight into the interaction between sound and conscious. As a result, I've absolutely adored The

Observations From An Arts Council Of Wales Consultation

2011-12-16T17:44:00.000Z

Time for something new. While we over here usually just muck about posting comments on a 6-track shuffle on the mp3 player or blathering on about our favourite records, when the opportunity came about to sit in on a public consultation for the Arts Council of Wales' draft proposal for Funding for Music Industry development....well, you just have to, don't you? The proposal is being jointly

CHRISTMAS

2011-12-13T17:33:00.000Z

Working in retail around Christmas poses a problem. Well, not even working in it around Christmas. I started working on Christmas promotions and the like in August. As a result, the past few years have meant I'm so sick of that damn festive period malarkey that I've never really enjoyed it. It remains to be seen whether this'll play out again this year, but one thing is for certain: I've

Six Shuffle #3 - 6th November 2011

2011-11-06T12:57:00.005Z

Sleeve Interface

2010-03-25T19:38:00.001Z

Influences and idols are tricky things, aren't they? Whether you're Ryan Adams and his thankfully-as-yet-to-be-realised threat to re-record The Strokes' “This Is It” note for note, or someone less heard of like The Miracle Fortress, channelling the Beach Boys in an interesting, tangential way, they tend to act like a millstone round the neck more often than not. Jaded critics can appropriate

The Man Who Doesn't Listen To Big Bands For A Different Reason

2010-02-26T10:45:00.002Z

“I was talking to a mate, right...” is an ugly way to start any post, but I've never been ashamed of my ugly face, so I'm not going to start being ashamed of my ugly prose now. Because what I'm about to write about would genuinely never have popped into my mind had it not been for a post-Sunday league match chat with a friend about future gigs we had lined up.What did said mate say that stuck in

Collection-Ogling and Bus Journeys: The Sociological Aspects of Physical Music Formats

2010-02-23T14:57:00.001Z

As some of you may have picked up in my previous posts, I have reservations about downloading as a format (both legal and illegal varieties). Not from a musical/artistic point of view especially – any outlet that allows an artist to get their music ‘out there’ can only be a good thing – but rather the sociological aspects. I truly, truly dread the day where I walk into someone’s house and can no

Tones of Town TV

2010-02-21T21:35:00.003Z

Here are some "music videos" of recent songs I like. I have never watched them before, not having any music channels, and also not really caring about them in the first place any more. I say anymore because back when I was 17-20 it was my first port of call to find new bands - ashamedly, I didn't stick to the eclectic diet of the 120 Minutes shows, but watched the Gonzo show, and various top

TDON CD Sampler Breakdown

2010-01-29T12:19:00.015Z

I received this free promo CD from the record label Thirty Days Of Night through Rock Sound and HMV and was impressed by the failure of both my computer and the Internet to locate the track and artist names – good work on the watermarking/encoding there. Suffice to say, none of these tracks have titles and there’s no way in hell I’m trawling last.fm to look for tracks that are of similar length

A Poorly Constructed, Impulsively Written Eulogy on Sarah Records.

2010-01-26T21:01:00.002Z

Despite owning a lot of music, I can’t really say I’ve ever felt any great affinity for any one particular label. I doubt the majority of people can, truth be told. It’s becoming especially difficult in these times of mergers, takeovers, subsidiaries and imprints and all. One can imagine fewer more horrifying (or, depending on your viewpoint and/or level of imagination, amusing) situations than

The Disposability Of Music & How I Learned To Love The Album Again

2010-01-26T20:16:00.002Z

The music industry’s never-ending quest to provide more convenient media has, it can be argued, made music more disposable, more forgettable. Think about it. In the days of vinyl, you sat through a record all the way through. Partly, it must be said, due to the fact that changing the track (with all the faff of lifting the needle and putting it back down in the wrong place without scratching the

I Just Don't Like Joanna Newsom

2010-01-25T20:19:00.004Z

What's the etiquette here, can anyone tell me?Am I supposed to put some big label, or yellow and black-striped-back sign saying “WARNING: POTENTIALLY CONTROVERSIAL POST”? Or has this rather self-effacing first couple of sentences (along with the – let's face it – fairly descriptive title) tipped you the wink that Something Polemical This Way Comes?Yes, I don't really like Joanna Newsom. And yes,

Hi! I'm Alan the Reviewer.

2010-01-21T08:43:00.005Z

And I'll be using Spotify to publish my own review of each of Pitchfork's top 50 albums of 2009! (If they're available on Spotify, that is).Because I know next to nothing about any music published after Grandaddy's seminal 'The Sophtware Slump', you can expect my reviews to be artless, or excruciating, or both. But I will at least try to convey what I think is going through my ears - albeit in

Putting A Ban on the Guitar

2010-01-18T10:05:00.002Z

I stand atop the Empire State Building as the bombers scar the sky and the clouds of firey smoke rise above the burning trees in Central Park. The sirens are long gone and echoes of the explosions from the apocalyptic hell bringers are still ricocheting off the walls as the city slowly dies from inside. The stories below are filled with the papers of offices firebombed, the streets below only

FUGLY ALBUM ARTWORK

2010-01-16T02:26:00.013Z

An entirely random selection, this: I just went through my collection and picked one or two others currently out there.You often don't think about this when just enjoying the contents of an album, but an album cover can be an opportunity to sell the music really effectively/ineffectively, and sometimes they really mess it up! There are some dreadful album covers out there. Really, I don't know

Uckfay Hetay Anmay

2010-01-11T20:40:00.018Z

The conventional answer when faced with the question “what is the best album by Dexter ‘PHD in Molecular Biology’ Holland’s The Offspring” is to blurt out ‘Smash’ and turn your nose up to anyone who preferred the album that featured those songs about being a work-shy Vanilla Ice fan. Granted, ‘Smash’ is excellent; one of the most popular punk rock records in existence, with sales reaching over 6

What? You Want Me To Listen To A Videogame Soundtrack?

2010-01-11T20:38:00.001Z

It may not be the most shocking revelation considering I'm a young male writing stuff on a blog about music, but I'm a bit of a geek. I know, earth-shattering right? What I'm getting at is that I'm a geek about more than just music, again not real surprise considering I'm a man – we're a very geeky bunch really – but yeah, I thought I should just put it out there. My main other vice is computer

The Death of the Alternative

2010-01-05T09:00:00.000Z

If there ever was a dirty word in the music industry it's "alternative" because, by distinction, it appears to be aspiring to be out of the box, or obtuse; far removed for the current status quo. As for the actual "alternative" acts... they slowly either fade into obscurity but held onto by dear fans, or become gradually less alternative by either success and acceptance of their original sound or

Capturing Albion

2010-01-04T22:07:00.000Z

The first decade of the 21st Century saw a handful of musicians invoke the spirit of ‘Albion’ in describing the England of Betjeman, Boudicca and Britten. An England of triumphal spirit, doff capped faux-patriotism and Cheshire cat grinned irreverence. The chief progeny of this group were the Libertines, a band with much to commend, though not their misty eyed pining for non-existent idyll with

Judging is Fun

2010-01-04T15:08:00.001Z

Just a quick bit of linkage:Sterotyping People by Their Favourite Indie BandsBecause we all do it, don't we?Some favourites:Fleet Foxes Hopelessly patchy beard growers.Arcade Fire Frequent transcendental experience havers.Joanna Newsom People who have considered befriending a squirrel. Devendra Banhart People who have considered becoming a squirrel.RatatatBoys who think Ocarina of Time is the

Something About Johnny Mathis

2010-01-03T19:58:00.000Z

I'm never quite sure how to describe the kind of music taste my family, as in parents and sisters, have collectively – possibly because it's not collective at all. I'm not really sure where I get my interest in music from either, as there wasn't any indoctrination as a kid – I've got friends who were brought up being force-fed Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and the Who, for example. Not for me. Hence

Welcome to Tones of Town

2010-01-01T20:04:00.001Z

*clears throat*Hello everyone, and welcome to Tones of Town, a brand new (as in this, this is the first post brand new) music blog from the people who brought you...okay, we've not brought you anything so far. But that's ok, this is going to be good enough that you'll forget we're comparative novices!Over the coming weeks, months and other arbitrary lengths of time, this space will be filled with