Understand Me

It all happened pretty quickly. My friend Gary Crause, who runs Legend Music recording studios in Phuket was contacted by a guy who was making a promotional video for a marketing campaign. He had seen a video on Youtube, which featured a track by "Band of Horses" and he asked if we would be able to come up with something original, but as good as that to use in his video.

Well not one to refuse a challenge I was well up for it when Gary asked me about it and it wasn’t long before we’d penned the song "Understand Me". The song features in a video promoting the Burnham Beeches Horse trials in the UK (on the right). The mood and the theme for the song was inspired by the relationship between a rider and their horse. I’m not a very horsey person, but I have people in my family who are and the love they have for horses goes deep and is something that I sense can only be experienced first hand to really understand, so I tried to put myself in that position.

So together Gary and I created what I think is a pretty emotive song and I’m happy with how it turned out – happy enough to put it out under the Boy@Heart name! We decided to add another co-composition – "Bon Voyage", which is a bit of a departure from my usual style and I added a song that I had recorded ages ago and loved it just the way it was in all it’s lo-fi glory (also a little different from the usual offerings from Boy@Heart).

Thanks to Justin White of White & Wong for inviting us to take the challenge of writing the song, now go buy it!

No it Really is Massive News!

Hahahaha. Despite many distractions, lots of indeciciveness and several collaborative projects I have commited myself to a deadline for the next Boy@Heart album.

Standing in the Sky will be officially released on September 1st 2011 and will consist of 8 songs. I describe it as follows:

An Eight Track Album, reflecting a particular time, in a particular place, in a particular world. 
It’s a mood album – One that is designed to stir an emotion of some kind.

I still have a way to go to finish it. It’s all written, you may even have heard the demos of the songs already if you follow my FAWM output or notice what I put on my Reverb Nation player, but for now only two songs can be heard. They are pretty much finished tracks and will only change if I decide I want to re-record any parts (vocals to be specific).

If you buy the album now, you can download the two tracks right away.

Please enjoy.

An Impressive Display of Tech!

Did you see the live U2 webcast of their concert at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena California? I only found out about it an hour before it was due to start from a tweet I saw in my twitter stream and I’m glad I did.

Now before anyone rolls their eyes and starts saying "U2 are boring" or whatever, this is not about how great U2 are although I do like them. In my opinion it was not as impeccable a performance as their classic Boston gig from the Elevation tour, immortalized on DVD, but it was just as impressive for a completely different reason as far as I see it.

If you have seen U2 Elevation 2001 – Live from Boston (Amazon.com), (Amazon.co.uk), then you will know just what a premium job Hamish Hamilton did as director. That concert looked like a movie, which I guess it was really, but what Hamilton managed to draw out of the U2 performance was a tangible link between the images on screen and the space occupied by the viewer, making it feel like you were closer to being right there.

Now of course, if you don’t like U2 then none of this is going to make any difference to you and that’s OK, but hopefully this next bit will.

A Round of Applause for the Production Team

The live webcast contained all the factors that the Boston DVD had. It was obviously directed and produced, there was obviously an army of technicians, workers and ass kickers to keep everything in check so we, the viewers could experience what appeared to be an exhilarating show, effortlessly delivered from it’s origin to our computer screens. It did look pretty effortless didn’t it?

Producing a DVD is easy compared to this. If it’s a lack-lustre night or there is a technical hitch then the crew can have another go on the next night and the best gig gets edited, the music mixed to sound the best it possibly can and it’s all put onto disc.

The U2 webcast was live, which added another dimension to the experience. Although I was about 8,000 miles away it felt more like being there than watching the DVD regardless of the performance of the band.

I want to say that again because in our super fast, super-taken-for-granted world, we can forget this. IT WAS LIVE! No post production, no remixing of audio, true to the source, as it was captured and it still looked and sounded like a full-blown production. Did you notice the sound and picture quality? Even on my less than reliable internet connection it was an almost uninterrupted stream. Not only that, it was free!

I’m very interested to know exactly what systems and technology they were using to aggregate all that data because, as expensive as I’m sure it is right now, this is the technology that will in the not-too-distant future be accessible to you and I.

If we see more of this from other artists, including independent ones, like me then I’ll be pretty happy. I don’t like watching television and where I live it is vary rare to get the chance to go to a big gig, so this is something I love.

I’m impressed with this production because it was not really about U2 as far as I’m concerned. It showed a glimpse into some very exciting future possibilities for the internet and the way we experience the content. The concept of a live webcast may not be new, but at this level of quality I think it breaks new ground.

I would like to thank everyone who was involved with making the delivery of that experience possible because it made me feel good. You all did a great job that goes much further than simply putting on a show.

Thanks very much.

You can watch the Youtube video recording of the webcast in the box on the right. It’s 2 hours long. Enjoy!