TOURASAUR - UK gigs and Tours Map

Hi,
We've been working on a little site that lets you find music shows on a map. There are lots of listings sites for gigs and I get annoyed trawling through by date etc. This might make things a little easier:

http://www.tourasaur.co.uk/

We hope you find it useful, everything on there has been hand picked, some big bands some small.

Cheers,

M

Ableton Tutorials, free samples etc

We use Ableton Live a lot these days, so thought we'd share what we've learned (and are learning) with you.  We'll cover the basics and the more advanced topics in what we hope are easy to follow tutorials.
There are also some free samples and instruments we'll be posting on there using what instruments and gear we have lying around. There's a free drum machine kit there at the moment, so feel free to download that.


Go over to the blog for our most recent Ableton Tutorials

Reviewing music and the like!

Have started to review music ont this site. It began at a pretty rubbish attempt at an Amazon affiliate site (hence the URL) and has now morphed into something more "real" with reviews and things, thus allowing me to look in the mirror without hating myself.
There will/should be a new review up their every day, and usually things I like, or that I need to warn you off (not that my opinion matters). They might be rubbish, might be good, but they'll always be about music (indie, pop, electronic etc). By the way, there are adverts on there yes, it's so I can pay for the hosting, not going to make much more really :(

Love to you all.

http://indiemusicbargains.co.uk/

Here's a review of the new Why? single Sod in the Seed

Is there life on mars?

Handy website for keeping up to date on one of the ultimate questions... are we alone??

http://www.is-there-life-on-mars.co.uk/


M

Seekae - Sydney Opera House session

HD session video with good sound and even better song. Reasons for loving music continue to grow...



Mike

Telfords warehouse and other things

Half Avian are playing Telfords Warehouse in Chester on Thursday 13th July (next week). It's a free entry event, which is great, because at the moment money and people seem to be mutually exclusive. Early days of course, we're really having a great time playing as a duo. If you've not been to Telfords Warehouse, it's right on the canal, serves really nice beer and the sound isn't bad either. It's one of the only decent venues in Chester, which is oddly not that musically active. I'm not sure why that is, Chester is a nice City, busy and has a university. You'd think the music scene would be great, perhaps it's the proximity to Liverpool and Manchester. Who knows? Maybe it's the races keeping sane people away.
Visit the official website to read more about electropop band Half Avian.

Half Avian recently recorded this video in a room with a camera having found the slow motion button. 

Australian electronica: Hidden behind a planet... and other news

Australia electronica

Ashamed to say I hadn't appreciated the Australian music scene until very recently. PVT, Seekae, Cut Copy... what the hell else have I been missing?

In fact, if our Australian friends could bring us up to date that would be amazing, just post your informed electronic/indie suggestions up on the > Half Avian facebook wall. 

Debut of Half Avian

Maff and I played our first proper show as Half Avian on Thursday night, in the Roadhouse, an underground (literally) venue in Picadilly, Manchester. It was an Awesome night for us, the crowd was "intimate" but really up for it, and the sound was huge. Itching to get onto the next show, which is in my local town of Mold, North Wales on Sunday. After that we're organising as many shows as possible, we've missed doing this, it's been to long.

M

Buy Half Avian Future Proof (Single) on itunes.

The first single from Half Avian is now available from all your favourite online music retailers. The song "Future Proof" was recorded by Mike Payne and mixed by Daniel Shepherd.
More information and songs at www.halfavian.co.uk or...

Thanks for your continued and stylish support.

M

Half Avian Website

A new website for Half Avian, go have a look, and keep checking as it will be updated frequently. You can also join the Half Avian mailing list to make sure you're up to date.

Half Avian are an electronic/inde/pop band from North Wales: Mike Payne and Matthew Stenning.

TEN - Live in Y Delyn, Mold. Friday 12.04.2012

The Absence by Ten LIVE from Boo Said the Goose on Vimeo.

TEN

Live in Y Delyn, 

Mold. 

Friday 12.04.2012

9pm

Thoughts on Sadness

I've been listening to Infra by Max Richter recently (tonight). You only get out of music what you put in I think. Or not that, more that you only feel what you have in you already. Music isn't a shortcut to emotional depth. Music is a frame, a kindling to flickering embers of memory and memory of emotion. I think every memory can have the opposite emotional effect. Memories of happy times become melancholic reminders of good times past, and the sad, reminders of the good you have now. But if you write sadness off as something to fear, or to avoid, you miss the truth in it, and you look back only with regret.

Your highs are relative to your lows, constantly seek highs and you stop feeling them, only the difference, the jump up between them excites you, and each leap becomes smaller, less exciting, less fulfilling. By exploring sadness in life, in music, in film, in works of art and in books does the middle ground, the mundane become a truthful, achievable high. Failing to understand the true meaning of sadness I think means not understanding the power and strength that comes from not hiding from the horrors of world, but embracing them.

This music is a cathartic, beautiful, melancholic celebration of the depth and sorrow of being human. I love frivolous indie pop as much as the next man, or maybe the next man along from the next man, but it would mean nothing to me without sadness, without the shade and the darkness. I'd be smiling, but I wouldn't know why.

Now where are my ELO albums...

m

Web Development (Pipeclamps.co.uk)

I'm a Web Developer by day. This is the new site for www.pipeclamps.co.uk. A Web development project using Drupal 7 to create an additional e-commerce site for Collister & Glover.

Pipe clamps are used to create structures from lengths of pipe without any welding or special tools by the way. Incidentally, there are lots of applications for music like lighting rigs, stage barriers, custom keyboard/laptop stands etc. So, it's almost relevant to this blog, which is why I thought I could get away with posting it here.

M

The Beard Site

As you might have guessed form the previous post (About Drupal), there is a new website on the way. The Beard Collector site will have musician profiles, videos, music and more. Hopefully we'll be up and running next week. I'll try and put it up before I get to the point of constantly changing it and not being happy with anything, which is inevitable but with any luck, avoidable.
Wish us luck.


Mike

The Beard Collector on Soundcloud

Geek time!: Starting off with Drupal

This is a blog to just point you in the right direction when it comes to developing sites with Drupal.

If you've heard about Drupal you'll have probably heard there is a steep learning curve, but that it is ultimately worth the effort. I think I'm about half way up the curve now, and am starting to see what people are talking about. Thought I'd just note a few things that threw me, and a couple of pointers and the like. I apologise for the structure and flow of what your are about to read...

Here's a little list of the steps I took learning Drupal, they've worked for me: 

• Set up a XAMPP test server (other servers are available) 
• Install Drupal 6 (or 7, look into what modules are available, they're not all there for 7 yet)
• Don't worry too much about Theming yet, it's hard and you won't know how to do it until you realise how the site functions, so...
• Create some nonsense content
• Mess around breaking things 
• Move things about
• Install lots of modules
• Mess about and break it some more

THEN

• Start to read up about it
• Watch some youtube videos
• Mess around some more while reading and watching youtube videos (some great youtube videos out there, and can be great for learning fast)

Once you've done this, have a day off, go for a walk, eat some exotic foods, just do something non-drupal. 

First stumbling block (that's a pun, which you might not appreciate, which makes it an even better pun) is getting your head around the terminology and architecture of Drupal. I won't go mad, you're probably busy, just a couple of bits of infomation...

Some terminology:

• Content Types
• These are what define your content. So if you list bands, then you might have a band content type called Band that has available fields for Band Name, Genre, bio etc. A bit like classes in C# (other languages are available)
• Content
• This is what happens when you fill in the form that the content type creates, so you enter a Band Name, a Genre and a Bio, you save it, and you have a Band.
• Blocks
• Now, I thought blocks were used to place your content, like a Band on the page. Not quite true, it's more for the things like Header, Footer, Sidebar etc. You can place blocks in these predefined areas.. So you might make a menu that lists the bands youve created and put that in the header area. When it comes to viewing the content you've created, then you use Panels and views etc. Anyway, like i say, mess around and watch videos.
• Modules
• Modules add the functionality you need to your site, the UI, admin, database, search and so one. If Drupal was Microsoft Word, then you  might start with being only able to have12pt Font and a white page you can type on. If you want to delete, then you download a module called "delete" and enable it, now you can delete. You'd do this for different fonts, the ability to add headers and footers etc........ I think that analogy works. Anyway, there are loads of modules, look out for how they are maintained, "actively maintained" is the best. If they're not, then there's probably another module that does the same thing but better (not always true)
• To install a module, download it (choose the one that corresponds to your version of Drupal), unzip it and upload it to sites/all/modules, navigate to site building > modules, find your new module and enable it. It'll then usually show up somewhere in the menu system (check documentation to find it).

The community is your friend, and Drupal has a very large community of developers and users, all blogging and using forums. Look for the ones that deal with the specifics of your problems, they are the best, general ones like this are just rubbish. 

Check out the Drupal Documentation...

Here's some more practical advice for starting off:

Get your filing right, don't put the modules you download in the root modules folder, but them in sites/all/modules (create this if not there). Basically, if you don't, then updating is much harder, and you're not supposed to "hack the core", they get really irate about that on forums. The same goes for themes you add or create, put them in sites/all/themes. 

Some modules to find out about first, you'll most likely need them:

• CCK
• So you can make add what ever you like to you content types
• Views
• So you can bring together, relate and list the content you make
• Panels
• So you can layout your content however you like.

Obviously there are lots more modules, and modules that extend the ones above, but these are very powerful and you should really have them in you configuration.

Oh, If you think you know the way to do something, it's probably not the best way, there's probably a better way of doing it, and you'll feel a fool, a FOOL when you realise.

Anyway, this might not have been useful. But it's a start, I'll post some more about this in the future, once I have my head around it a bit more. Just remember, don't worry, it is quite hard, and I feel your pain. 

M

Update: Half Avian, News, things

Album
In a room in North Wales, with a throw for a curtain (should really buy some curtains), the recording for the album "Future Proof" (working title) is taking form. Happy with 10 of the songs, some are just the motar between the bricks, but still. It's difficult to record an album in the spare moments between work, eating and sleeping. It's like trying to sleep but being woken up every few minutes.

The album will be available online via digital download and a physical release is on the cards.

On the record player (spotify/car stereo) this week:

Woods - At Rear House

         This has been on and off for 4 years, such lucid and beautiful songs which should be exhibit A for the case against high production values.

Everything Everything - Man Alive

       Not had this album long, and bought it when not a lot was going on, so no real moments to tie it too on an emotional level. It's a very good album, I do skip some tracks that I'll probably come to like in the future. The vocal is what has probably brought it too peoples attention. I'm less concerned with the voice, but I do enjoy the unorthodox structures and some of the melodies, and some of the songs are great for the harassed car trip to work. It is a good, sometimes beautiful album, but Everything Everything have not joined the ranks of my favourite bands, they must be gutted.

Death Cab For Cutie - Codes and Keys

      I think I'll probably like anything Death Cab do. Not convinced yet on an objective level with this one, but his voice, the little melodic motifs that scatter all their work allow me to love it without thinking to much.

MIKE

Free thing on the internet of the week: Andrew Bird free download

Free Andrew Bird song The Crown Salesmen' from the Break It Yourself 7" from his facebook page.


www.facebook.com/AndrewBirdMusic?sk=app_182222305144028


Enjoy.


Mike

Half Avian (Album)

Coming Soon

Good morning Winter

Good morning Winter

~

He took out a blue can and sprayed the contents onto the windscreen,

Dissapearing for a second into the glove compartement,

He returned with an expensive ice scraper and a cloth,

A few effortless scrapes,

And a few polishing wipes later,

The glass was clear,

Reflecting the clear blue sky,

He started his car and drove away,

Past me,

Hacking away with half a CD case,

And muttering.

mike

Poem/lyrics: Heights

Heights

~

Wild birds on mountain tops,

The air is brittle, cold,

Camped down where giants slept,

Now buried underground.

My retina still burned with the ghost of the sun,

Bare flesh reacts like a chameleons.

And it's a long way down,

When you're a afraid of heights,

Like me,

And the way down is steeper,

Than you thought it would be.

Mike

Delayed

We are still putting together a compilation called "Quality not geography". It's been delayed due to circumstances of our own creation. Currently, the artists to feature are...

Nitkowski (London)
Hyfrydol (Melbourne)
UV (Wrexham)
ten (Leeds/York)
Zenk (Manchester)
Eta Carinae (London)
Half Avian (Mold)
Olfar (London)


More tba.

Please email a track to: info@thebeardcollector.eu to be involved.

M

The Death of Dr. Sample (Holding on to hope and the danger of PSU mixups)

It still hurts, even after two years. Every day, I wake up, a dusty stream of light cuts through the gap in the curtains and the warm glow calmly cuddles me out of a childlike slumber. Then it hits me, Dr. Sample is dead. He is dead, but I can't let him rest in peace. I miss his built in microphone, chunky trigger pads and on-board effects (especially the one that holds the sample and you can pitch it up and down), how i miss the little light show he put on every time I hit the on button.
But two years ago that all came to an all too abrupt end in a play school nursery / band practice room. You see the thing about the PSU for my sound card, is it's black, and the thing about the PSU for my Roland SP404, is it's black. I'm only human, just like he WAS. I didn't notice his little light show that day consisted of every light, very brightly lit up and the number 8888 lit up in a frantic glow in his little window. The smell of burning sampler filled my nostrils, the smell collided with the memory centres of my brain... a few seconds passed... something wasn't right, I thought... a few seconds past... I should really look into this, I thought. I was right, and as I stood their my friend and companion from lonely solo shows above pubs in Northern cities, where his light show made me think of home, was being burned alive. I didn't shed a tear, there would be time for that. First I had to go through the futile motions of trying to revive him... to no avail.

It's been two years. He is done for, his main processing chip is charred. But he's still in a box, waiting the way people wait in cryogenic stasis for medical science to cure death. I'm waiting for roland to cure death. Or that one day I might actually look into getting him fixed. One thing is for sure, I'll never let go old buddy, never.

(I know that technically the 303 is the Dr. Sample, not the 404, but that was his NAME)

Playlist loop death

Not sure how many more Radio 2 phone ins I can take... Radios should be banned from the work place. I thought the ipod had been invented, have people missed that? You can have any music you like, all to your self, you can even have Stephen Hawkins explain theoretical physics to you, in your ears.

Yamaha CS1x (Not a sound on sound review)

Year of construction: 1996
Cost: Bought for £70 (ebay)
Key Features: Knob controls, it's blue... Sounds are fun.

It was Christmas day and a large unopened package from my brothers lay under the tree. I discovered it wasn't a really big super soaker, as I had initially contemplated, the relief was probably visible. No, under the festive paper wrapping was a large, long brown box, sealed with gaffa and giving off that definitive ebay smell. My brothers had done me the greatest service this Christmas; finding and buying me an old synth on ebay, saving me the nail biting bidding and irritating dealing with sellers and paypal.
It was a Yamaha CS1x from 1996. It's a sort of Mondeo blue, or the colour I imagine Mondeos to be. 6 rotary knobs control ASDR (well, AR anyway), Cutoff, Resonance and two are assignable. You can get a really wide range of sounds, so if you're into flitting about from genre to genre and having fun with music, then this is a really good buy. It even has some basic effects like reverb, and with basic LFO you can get creative with some more interesting effects. I should probably talk about the performance vs multi mode, and the editing of patches and... oh just read the SOS review. It has an arpeggiator, and that makes me smile.

Apparently, it was Yamaha's first attempt at a digital emulation of an analog synthesiser. I'm not sure I believe that, or if it's true, then it's quite a mad attempt. I mean that in a good way, it feels confused, unsure of itself, like a youngster synth making it's way into the world and desperately seeking it's place. Its a weird and great middle ground between trying to produce emulations of real instruments, very electronic sounds, sampled sounds and even drum machines. It of course, fails in each case, but as Bright Eyes said "Failures always sounded better".

It's got a good keyboard too.

M