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I know this blog is being severely neglected (I just tend to put everything on Twitter now), but if I want to write quite a bit about something, I guess I’ll still post it here.

Someone on Twitter posted about a new Australian-based online music service called Guvera. Its principle is free music streaming and downloading, paid for by targeted advertising. I love music, and I love free stuff – win win for me. So I was in.

You can register for a beta account at Guvera.com – I was worried that being in ‘beta’ might make it tough to get an account… but within a few minutes, I got an email saying my account was ready. Don’t know how readily they’ll be dishing out accounts, or when it will go completely “public” or out of beta – but there’s nothing to stop you from registering an account. I logged in, and was directed to update my profile in order to get “credits”. Essentially this just involves going through 11 different categories and saying what you like in each section… so that the advertising is aimed at you. Don’t totally understand the whole “credits” thing.

Once that was completed, it was onto the music. First thing was that the streaming wasn’t working – both at work on my PC using IE and on my Mac using Safari. Little bit annoying. But the downloading works perfectly.

It seems to all be done based on ‘channels’ – each channel is an advertiser who then sponsors those downloads. Whether that happens in actual fact, or whether money just changes hands in bulk amounts that’s then paid onto the record companies, it isn’t clear. Doesn’t matter I guess. But when you search for a song, you’re presented with a handful of channels who’re offering that song. And you visit their page, which is filled with plenty of info about their product, and you can then download a 256kbps MP3 of the song.

Pretty sweet deal.

So what’s the catch? There doesn’t seem to be one – just that there’s copious amounts of advertising. But that’s obvious based on the fact that those guys are paying for your music. And another very minor downside is that you don’t have the ability to download full albums – you have to search for and download all the individual tracks, but again, this is expected because you therefore have to see more advertising to get your music. There’s a bundle of terms & conditions, but none of them seem anything much different to what you’d expect from an online music store (such as iTunes) – it just states that your login is for your personal use only, and that when you download the song, you receive one licence to play the music only on your personal equipment. Nothing out of the ordinary there.

As for the music available – Guvera say they have the whole catalogues of EMI, Vigin and Capitol (pretty much just EMI) on board right now, and say they’re working on IODA, Universal and the rest of the world’s music. Presumably, when they say “the rest of the world’s music”, that will also include Warner and Sony. Really, if we just do some generalisation of the Big Four music labels (EMI, Universal, Sony & Warner), they’ve only got 25% of the world’s music at the moment. But it is only in beta I guess. They do say in the registration email that throughout 2010 they are “expanding available music to every major music artist in the world.” That’s a big statement. But hopefully it will mean that the missing labels of Warner, Sony & Universal aren’t far away.

Legitimacy? Well, I am very certain this is totally legit. From what I understand, there have been press releases about Guvera, and they’ve been saying loud and proud that they have EMI and Universal on board. Their company is based in Queensland, and so I’m sure that they would’ve been quickly and swiftly dealt with by those music lawyers had any of this not been legit. So fear not.

As far as artists getting paid any more or less than, say, iTunes Music Store? As far as I understand, it doesn’t make a squat of difference whether you pay $1.69 per song, or whether you deal with looking at ads and download it for free now via Guvera – the record company is still getting whatever fee the outlet (iTMS or Guvera or Bigpond) has negotiated with the individual record label, and thus the artist then gets their agreed royalty that they have with their record label. It’s just that Guvera have set up their company to have advertisers pay them plenty of money to cover all their charges to the record companies.

I’ll certainly be looking to use it next time I think of an album or songs that I want – advertising sucks me in any normal time… surely I can’t be that much worse off looking at a little more to get some music :) And I’ll just say a big thanks to McDonalds or Contiki or Bacardi  for buying me some new music.

I think it’s great to see something like this in Australia – the US have a bundle of free music streaming sites (that are strictly for US users), but I’m not actually sure if they have anything like this where they can download music for free. But at the moment, Guvera is strictly Australian – run by a company in Queensland, solely for Australians. Pretty cool.

And I like the sounds of something in their ‘about’ section: And if that’s not cool enough, film & TV isn’t too far behind.

I really never thought the day would come when I’d get to see Cold Chisel live. I only discovered their music in the early 2000s, so I missed their Ringside reunion show around that time.

For me, they are really up there as one of my all time favourite bands – even though the majority of their music was written well before I was even born.

I’d bought my tickets to the V8s in Homebush way back in May – there was no way that B2, Steve, my Dad and I were going to miss one of the best street race events. We knew there was some kind of concert entertainment that was yet to be announced, but we didn’t think much of it – we were going for the racing! Well, that was until September rolled around, and it was announced that Cold Chisel was reforming to play on the Saturday night! My Christmases and birthdays really had all come at once.

And tonight has been nothing short of epic. Grinspoon opened the night, and played a good set, even if they were a little bit drunk. The Living End came on and played a set of brilliance and were just so very tight – not that you’d expect anything else from them.

Finally the time had arrived for Cold Chisel to take the stage. They walked on and smashed some Standing On The Outside with such perfection that it was like this was the 15th stop on just another tour. It was pretty much everything I assumed to expect from Chisel! They played for a solid two hours, going through the likes of Bow River, My Baby, When The War Is Over, Forever and Flame Trees – all the stuff you’d expect them to bring out really. Surprisingly, Khe Sanh was in the middle of the set – but that didn’t stop the incredible singalong that was sure to happen. It was cool to see the boys all looking at each other every now and then with a bit of a wry smile that said, ‘wow, I’d forgotten how awesome this was!’

They did a couple of encores, but eventually finished up coming back on stage and playing Breakfast At Sweethearts and then closing the night with Last Wave Of Summer.

Some people do have lists of bands that that absolutely must see before they die, and such lists usually contain those bands who’ve broken up and are usually going to be nearly impossible to see. I don’t have such a list – but if I did, Cold Chisel would’ve been at the top of it. And I can very, very happily cross them off tonight.

Although, if they do reform again, I’ll be right there in front of the stage to see it all again without any hesitation.

I’m getting pretty poor at this blogging thing. It’s been nearly two weeks since I last posted.

And I can’t even think of anything decent to blog about.

But I will harp on The Basics’ concert last Friday night that Tamara and I went to. Incredible. It took me a while to get into The Basics, and I only saw them live for the first time a couple of months ago. But they are such a brilliant trio who write and perform some incredible music.

Keep Your Friends Close is their new album, and it’s an amazing piece of work. Stand Out Fit In comes from a few years ago, but is equally awesome - but they are definitely quite different albums.

Switchfoot have released a fantastic new album as well. There’s a lot of opinions floating around about Switchfoot, and if they’re anything like my thoughts, I loved The Beautiful Letdown, but that was about it. Well, Hello Hurricane has completely changed my thinking on them. You should just put any preminitions about Switchfoot out of your mind and just listen to this album on its own, and I really doubt you’ll be disappointed. It’s turning out to be one of my favourites this year.

I’ve definitely enjoyed these few new-music-months that tend to happen around this time of year. 2009 has been quite wonderful for music I think. Pity that the concerts have been few and far between for me over the last few years. Although I will finally get to see Cold Chisel in a week and a half thanks to Tony Cochrane and the V8s – they were one band I was sad I never got to see, and was sure I’d actually never get a chance to!

Sam had been talking about Indigo Ridge wine for a few months now. He found it at The Rocks’ markets one day a few months ago, raved about it, but then hasn’t been able to find it again since.

You’re able to order cases of their wine from their website… but where’s the fun in that? So with Debbie away for the weekend just gone, Sam and I thought it would be fun to head out to Orange (where Indigo Ridge is) on Sunday to buy some wine. We were greeted by a very friendly middle-aged couple who own Indigo Ridge, and who loved to chat, tell us about their winery, and about Orange too. They are very focused on the land they’re on, and about making the most use of it without damaging it – you should definitely check out their website (even if you aren’t into wine) to see how they are “greener than organic”.

They talked us through their 6 wines and gave us tastings of each – and they were all very impressive. Finding little wineries like this is fun; they don’t sell to bottlos, and basically don’t supply to Sydney at all, except through people ordering wines through their website. They just sell to a few restaurants and boutique bottlos in Orange, and then rely on cellar door buyers (like Sam and I) to sell their wine. They told us they prefer it that way, cos it means they get to meet most customers that drink their wine – I thought that was pretty cool.

Sam and I made mix tapes for the trip… not necessarily for each other – that would be a bit too romantic. Anyway, I was pretty proud of my mix. I thought I’d post the track listing:

1. The Resolution – Jack’s Mannequin
2. 1,000 Strands – Eliza Magill
3. Santeria – Sublime
4. Thump – Bertie Blackman
5. The Hard Road – The Hilltop Hoods
6. Until You’re Over Me – Maroon 5
7. The Mixed Tape – Jack’s Mannequin (oops, two JM tracks!)
8. If You Believe Me – Relient K
9. Cheer Up, Boys (Your Make Up Is Running) – Foo Fighters
10. The Feeling – Kutless
11. Guerilla Radio – Rage Against The Machine
12. King Of Wishful Thinking – New Found Glory
13. Dancing On The Inside – Antiskeptic
14. Stray – The Ross Irwin Soul Special
15. Break It Out – The Rocket Summer
16. Alarm Bells – The Lyrical Madmen
17. Waiting For Us – The Porkers
18. Forever Now – Pete Murray
19. Cailin – Unwritten Law
20. The Only Exception – Paramore
21. Lord, Save Me From Myself – Jon Foreman
22. Song For Elias – The Cat Empire

While it wasn’t deliberate, I just realised that just under half of those tracks are from Australian artists. I do love me some Aussie music.

Hanging out for the next few weeks:

• The Basics’ new album, Keep Your Friends Close, is due to be released on September 28, according to JB Hifi… but nowhere else seems to have confirmed this yet. But after seeing them live recently, I’m excited to hear these new songs.
• Paramore’s new album, brand new eyes, should be out that same weekend as well. I loved Riot! and love their new single too, so I’m hoping this album will be tops too.
• And then Relient K are releasing a new album on 6th October! Forget And Not Slow Down has actually arrived only about a year after their last release. Their last one was this awesome fusion of country and punk, and their new one should be great by the sounds of the title track.

Then sometime in November, Switchfoot are releasing new music too. And lots of people are talking up the sound of this new album, Hello Hurricane.

Wifey and I headed up to Katoomba last night to have dinner, and to see Playjerise play @ The Clarendon. Amazing venue, and a brilliant show. The idea of Katoomba to see a gig on a weeknight didn’t seem so bad when I booked the tickets a few weeks back. But in hindsight, it wasn’t the greatest of ideas. Still, the show more than made up for today’s tiredness.

Playjerise playing with a mini string orchestra supporting was just perfect. It worked amazingly well. It all could’ve been mixed a bit better, but that could’ve just been the venue. The arrangements were brilliantly written, and they all just generally looked like they were loving it.

The evening in photo form. Apologies for the glary-ness of some of the photos – an iPhone isn’t the greatest of low-light cameras.

I’ve loved Relient K’s music for quite a long time. I bought their self-titled album shortly after it was released in 2000, but didn’t give it too much of a listen. It wasn’t until the Three Tops Toonie Chicks got me Two Lefts Don’t Make a Right, But Three Do for Christmas one year that I really got into them. I back-tracked and picked up The Anatomy of the Tongue in Cheek, and then began collecting and listening as they came out… and I was just so into each album. Every release was different from the last – they’re a band that are so hard to wrap in a genre, because they break out of whatever you label them as with their next album!

Their most recent album, The Birds & The Bee Sides was a double album that contained the Nashville Tennis EP and the aforementioned CD, which contained a bunch of b-sides and demo recordings. Pretty cool… but it was the original stuff they recorded on the Nashville Tennis EP that I was most hooked on. It was the first album that Ethan Luck (former OC Supertones guitarist) played on as their drummer. The drums were incredible – so tight, loud, and just brilliantly complex. But what I most loved about the album was the general direction that it took – country. RK showed just how you mix a country flavour with their brand of, I guess, pop punk. And it was amazing to listen to. Again, it was because it was so different to everything they’ve released before that I think I’ve loved it so much.

And only 12 months down the track, they’re releasing a new album, Forget and Not Slow Down, will be released in early October. Something that I can’t wait to hear.

And finally, after 7 years of visiting Australia, they’re heading back in the coming months. I can’t wait. They’re playing at the Big Exo Day… a pretty cool Christian Skate/Music Festival aimed at teens. I’m desperately hoping they play a sideshow… but I’m doubting it. Might just have to pretend to be 18 again…

Work is tough at the moment. After a few months of some solid results, I had to have some decent sales in June to finish off the fin year hitting my overall target (yes, monthly targets are important, but for my yearly review, hitting the year target is most important).

Things started off this month quite promising – a big network opportunity for a mining company to link their Sydney office to their mine, and then link both back to a head office in Beijing. Huge stuff. But as the month has gone on, that deal has taken longer to come together, and the chances of getting a signature this month are slim – not just cos the customer isn’t keen, but pricing and contracts for something like this take longer than usual, as you’d imagine.

And the usual simple ADSL connections and data cards that usually just flow through from different customers to make up a large chunk of my sales numbers each month are just seeming a bit slow. And there’s been a couple of other reasonable sized sales that have just faded away in the last fortnight. All in all, quite frustrating.

But I wrote the numbers that I needed (with 8 working days in the month left) up on my whiteboard at my desk tonight before I left the office. It’s a fairly huge gap… but I ain’t giving up. And as soon as I make up that H2 number, some serious commission kicks in thanks to an incentive they gave us in January for this half of the year. So that looks promising as well.

We’ll see how things pan out.

In other news… I still have bandit.fm credit thanks to Commbank, and so with Chase That Feeling in my head, and really loving that song, I bought the Hilltop Hoods’ new album. I’ve appreciated a couple of their songs before now – always loving their sampling and strong beats – and so thought it was about time I gave a whole album a go. Listening to bits of it now, but going to give it a proper listen tomorrow morning.

Had a great chat with some friends last night, pondering life as a Christian, and what it means to have the Holy Spirit inside you. And it made me think of these lyrics today…

Please allow me to introduce me:
Half of me slave, the other half free.
Righteous and sinful, both at the same time.
Iniquity and purity fill up the same mind.
And out of the same mouth, the holy and profane:
I curse all my brothers, then I bless Christ’s name.
I hang in the balance, but still I’m secure.
I’m leaning towards evil, but striving to be pure.

I stand between the saint and sinner,
Chasing after holiness,
Close enough to grasp,
But still it’s just beyond my reach…

Who I am is in between,
What I wanna be and what I am.

[In Between - The O.C. Supertones]

Switchfoot have been in the studio recording a new album. They have a Twitter account, and their updates have been a little boring, but not too bad I guess.

But this morning’s update from them was huge:

So we haven’t been entirely honest when we said we’ve been recording a new record. The truth is, we actually recorded 4 albums, 80+ songs.

We’ll be releasing them one at a time, starting with the first one this aug/sept. We’ll announce the album title this Friday when we finish!

Awesome!

Seems like the Jon Foreman thing of doing multiple albums in quick succession has caught onto the rest of the band.

IMHO, one of the greatest rock/ska bands to ever record an album.

But which one is your favourite? Please comment and vote.

Mine is Chase The Sun.

Relient K are recording a new album [awesome!], and Ethan Luck (music superstar: guitarist from The OC Supertones, now Relient K’s incredibly awesome drummer) has been writing some blog posts about the recording process.

They’re apparently in the middle of recording the guitars and he posted the below picture of their studio and the amp set up.

*drool*

I really need to play my guitars more. I really need to pull my electric apart and put the decent Fender pick-ups in that my former housemate kindly gave me. I also need to restring my acoustic. And I just need to play my bass more.

Music is so cool.

After 3ish long years since they released Cross The Line, Playjerise have finally released their 2nd CD of acoustic brilliance – Better Life. They had their “lead single” and title track up on their Myspace for a while, and I had a listen to to it quite a bit. I did like it.

On Wednesday, being the first day of the month and with not much motivation to do much work that day, I headed down to Red Eye Records. I knew the album wasn’t due for release until Friday, but asked about the album nonetheless. She looked in the system and said she should have one in stock, looked through a few screens and then disappeared out the back. She came back with a smile on her face saying, “it just came in!” And I smiled too cos I realised I was about to get the album 2 days early – score!

Upon first listen to it, the first thing that’s noticed is that there’s far more “band” songs than there was on their debut. On Cross The Line, there was probably only one song that you’d call a band song. The rest were all very acoustic and voices only. Not even much bass. But at least half, if not more, of these new songs have drums and bass. Second thing I noticed is the mix in those band songs – the drums have been mixed in very quietly. I understand that they have probably deliberately done it that way in order to keep the focus on the acoustic guitars (their driving instruments and what their music is all about)… but it just comes across as a bit uncomfortable in some songs. The exception is the title track Better Life. It was mixed separately to all the others (presumably because they’re looking to get some air-time from it), and so it’s a bit more natural.

Debbie and I headed out to their album launch gig at The Vanguard in Newtown last night. We’ve seen them once before together, and then I’d seen them once before that on my own. But last night was a big step up for them – it was still very much them, but a much tighter and more relaxed gig. It felt like they were much more natural doing it. They had drums and bass for a handful of the songs, which was cool. But they still retained the majority of the gig as just the two of them playing most of the songs.

The harmonies are more amazing live than they are on the CD, and it’s one of the best things about their live gigs. The live mix last night was pretty tops too –  a good mix of both guitars, and the vocals mixed in perfectly as well. And when they finished off the set with the first two songs from the new album (both with band), they were loud, punchy and I very much enjoyed hearing them live.

I am really going to enjoy hearing their second album more and more, but will definitely always enjoy their first album for what it was. Better Life is a great example of a fantastic second album – the band stepping out and growing, but also remaining true to their sound that gave them so many fans.

Make sure you jump onto their myspace page and listen to Better Life.

It was a pretty huge day:

• 3 months of being married
• Exchanged contracts on our new house
• Playjerise’s new album came out and we saw them in concert

To play my entire iTunes library would take 11 days, 9 hours, 9 minutes and 19 seconds.

Maverick were this awesome folky-pop band from QLD; a bunch of Christian guys who wrote some amazing music.

I went to a multi-band gig at The [now defunct] Attic a few years, mainly to see Wishful Thinking, I think. And a friend said that I needed to come upstairs and watch Maverick, that I would love them. And I did. I got their album, teacuppostcard, and have loved listening to it since. Only a small handful of their songs are written in 4/4 time… everything else is in at least 6/8, or even weirder timing like 5/4. Makes for some brilliant music.

And then the other week, I realised that there hadn’t been much on the radar for them and I wondered if they’d released new music. And I jumped on their website, only to find out they’d called it a day. Disappointing… but it seems to be the way a lot of young, Australian, independent bands – Wishful Thinking, Sounds Like Chicken, Antiskeptic, The Frugals, Crying Out Loud.

But they did record an EP of some new songs, which I was excited about getting my hands on yesterday. Still very much the same relaxed, folky feel of their own genre… but new. And I loved listening to it this morning.

If you get a chance, grab a copy of their self-titled album from Koorong - it’s a re-release of the teacuppostcard album with a couple of extra tracks.

I think the best way to describe tobyMac has already been done by someone else:

Take this any way you want, but the fact is that Tobymac is pretty much the Justin Timberlake of the Christian pop set. A refugee from a successful boy band, he is jaw-droppingly talented, with a gift for both butt-kickingly funky grooves and irresistible hooks. Like Timberlake, he also knows how to distribute his hooks, doling them out carefully so as to keep your attention focused; he also possesses the admirable ability to work in a wide variety of styles without ever sounding like a panderer or a dilettante. [allmusic]

But unlike N*Sync, I adored dc Talk’s music.

I kinda missed the whole part where the dc Talk boys went solo. I bought an album by Tait, but never really liked it. And I definitely missed the whole tobyMac thing – knew he was releasing albums and doing well, but never bought the first two or was even really interested.

But if you listen to FM103.2 in Sydney, then you most likely would’ve heard Lose My Soul from his latest album – it seems they like to play it just about every couple of hours. And after hearing it a few times, it really grew on me, and I became quite interested in what the rest of the album would sound like. I jumped on iTunes, and saw the above review, listened to some previews… and decided that I thought it was definitely worth a go.

I’m so glad I did.

The mixture of hip-hop, rock and funk/soul is just incredible and almost perfect. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a couple of tunes that are a bit ho-hum… but on the whole, it’s fantastic. There’s brilliant grooves and hooks, and very, very strong beats. I have had it on repeat in my car just about constantly for the last 7 days since I bought it (thank you iTMS for allowing me to make spontaneous purchases and not having to wait for a trip to Koorong/random CD store). And it is showing no signs of tiring on me yet.

You can’t pin the album down to one genre. But if you tend to just generally enjoy music with a good beat, then you’ll probably enjoy quite a few tracks on this. I sometimes think I’m a closet hip-hop fan, and so I’ve really enjoyed those points on the album too.

Stand out tracks are defintely Boomin’ and Feeling So Fly. And thankfully, those are the two tracks that he’s posted up on his YouTube channel…

edit: And if you’ll look to the right in my Last.fm box, you’ll note how much I have been listening to it… tobyMac on its own is 51 times in the last week. (I need to change all the artist names in iTunes… I don’t like how iTMS has named all the tracks/artists.)

I love them.

I got in my car a little while ago to head home, and the first song that started to play on my iPhone when I told it to shuffle was Come Out Swinging. Tops song. And so I decided that just listening to Offspring, very loudly, all the way home was in order.

And it was good.

Finally, after being anticipated and expected for about the last 6 months or more, Jack’s Mannequin finally released a new album: The Glass Passenger. This had been talked about since last year, and then at one stage was down to be released in April this year. But that got pushed out to July, and then again to late September. Frustrating indeed!

Jack’s Mannequin are pretty much the Andrew McMahon solo project – there is a band behind him, clearly, but it’s all his songwriting, arranging, etc. Andrew was the front man and songwriter for Something Corporate, but began doing his own thing a few years ago – you can read about all that on his wiki. I had adored the first album, Everything In Transit. It was just pop/rock heaven. Amazing piano driven songs, brilliant story-telling lyrics… just an awesome album that I could listen to cover to cover, over and over. So I was very much looking forward to what he pulled out for a follow up.

And the album didn’t disappoint. It’s definitely a pop* album (but without really knowing how to describe the whole “pop” genre), but that definitely didn’t bother me. The same musical brilliance and lyricism was there and was glowing. Overall, as a cover to cover album, I’m still warming to it. But there are just some incredible stand out tracks that have hooked me right from the first listen.

The Resolution easily takes the cake as my favourite track. Its chorus grabbed my attention straight away: the 4th chord in the progression is just beautiful and is so different. It breaks all the usual music rules. Such fun. Suicide Blonde is quite similar – it breaks all the usual rules by doing quite a sudden and almost violent key change into the chorus. It takes you by surprise and actually takes a bit to get used to, I reckon. I definitely loved that about those songs, and a couple of others too in minor ways – they just don’t follow the usual pop rules, but completely rewrite them.

Hammers & Strings also sits right up there as a favourite for me – just such a brilliantly told story. Makes you feel like you’re reading a book. I love songs like that, and Andrew’s voice just fills the song’s emotional values brilliantly.

Downloading the iTMS Australian version was a good move too – came with a bunch of bonus tracks that were on separate versions of the album in the US, and also a couple of live, acoustic stylin’ tracks from the Everything In Transit days.

One of my most looked forward to albums of 2008, and definitely one of my favourite albums of the year too. Man, it’s gonna be hard to pick a favourite album of ‘08…

* I reckon the album is “pop” because of its musical qualities – not because it’s mainstream and played by just about every radio station on the planet. Cos Jack’s Mannequin get no radio play in Australia, and quite minimal play even in the US.

I probably should be sleeping… but I’m just catching up on things around the net and haven’t quite made it there yet.

I stumbled across the video clip for Do You Feel? by The Rocket Summer (aka Bryce Avery – the incredible musician who plays all the instruments on his albums). It’s quite cool and he’s done well to portray a very strong message in the clip that the song tries to put forward.

There’s some interesting faces in the clip too – I spotted Andrew McMahon (from Something Corporate and Jack’s Mannequin), Matt Thiessen (from Relient K) and also Mike Herrera (from Mxpx). There may be others you recognise that I missed, if you are into those kinds of bands.