Woody Pines (woodypines.com)

What a great night. Never though I would like country & western music. Funny thing to hear it in the heart of Wales.

The guys played great and made a great atmosphere despite the hall not being completely full.

As a fellow guitarist I was impressed and did appreciate how quickly the vocalist and guitarist Woody recovered from a broken guitar string.

By the way, I thought the name of the band “Woody Pines” came from an association with the local North Carolina forests. In fact that is the name of the apparent leader of the group Woody (last name Pines, of course).

They are currently touring Scotland and they come very warmly recommended!

http://woodypines.com/

http://www.myspace.com/woodypines

V Veliki Britaniji že nekaj Božičev zaporedno prihaja na britanski glasbeni lestvici do nadvlade pocukranih komadov iz tovarne pocukranih komadov Simona Cowell-a in njegovega X Factor glasbenega show-a.

Tudi za letošnji Božič je kazalo, da bo zopet zmagal njegov protežiranec in zmagovalec Faktorja X – letos je to uspelo Joe McElderry-u. Račune mu je prekrižala zelo odmevna Facebook kampanija Jona in Tracy Morter, imenovana Rage Against The Machine For Christmas No.1. Po 13. decembru, to je datumu, po katerem se začnejo šteti nakupljeni singli v okviru glasbene lestvice za Božič, je bilo potrebno preko katerekoli spletne trgovine z MP3 skladbami kupiti komad Rage Against the Machine imenovan Killing in the name. Na tak način naj bi uspeli spravit ta komad na prvo mesto namesto singla Faktorja X.

To jim je to soboto tudi uspelo. Povzetek zadnjega dela oddaje, ki jo je ustvaril BBC Radio 1 lahko slišite tu http://bit.ly/ratmbbclive

Kar očitno je, da skladbe, ki jih skoraj po SAW principu izdeluje Faktor X, gredo marsikateremu močno na živce in številnim se ni zdelo škoda tistih 50 do 99 penijev, ki jih je bilo potrebno plačati za komad Killing in the name. Še več. Vzporedno s to kampanijo je prej omenjena Facebook skupina spodbujala kupce komada “Killing in the name” da prispevajo kak funt v dobrodelne namene, in sicer bolj konkretno organizaciji za brezdomce Shelter.
Uspelo jim je namreč zbrati čez 80.000 funtov.

Poleg tega pa so 17. decembra imeli na BBC Radio 5 Morning show v živo predstavo iz Los Angelesa. Producenti so skupino prosili (mogoče celo zahtevali) da ne kolnejo. Če poznate pesem Killing in the name veste, da je kletvica “Fuck you, i won’t do what you tell me” integralni del skladbe in to so seveda zapeli. Voditelja oddaje so jih po hitrem postopku odrezali, kar se na spodnjem posnetku ne sliši. Res bi rekli, da so si sami krivi. Lahko bi iskali namig v skladbi in tako vedeli, da se ne bodo ravnali po navodilih drugih.

http://www.rockpit.com/ratm/index.php

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Puncheston (slikala Lisa Phillips)

Veliko hecov se je že razvilo na ta račun in ka nekaj sem jih verjetno začel sam. V večini so kar upravičeni in ravno te dni imam to srečo opazovat v praksi, ko v tej državi, v kateri trenutno živim, popadajo v stanje absolutne panike, ko jim pade bela snov iz nebes.

(slikala Lisa Phillips)

Kot prvo ne znajo vozit v snegu. Speljevanje iz druge jim je španska vas. Zimskih gum tu seveda nimajo, ker zimske sezone praktično ni. Največji problem pa je pluženje in soljenje. Nisem mogel verjeti, ko so v ponedeljek zvečer kazali cesto, novinarka pa se je čudila, kako to, da je cesta neprevozna, če pa so prek kratkim solili. Očitno še niso slišali, da je treba sneg najprej splužit in šele potem solit. Halo!!! Soljenje jim namreč še kar gre, samo plugov imajo pa bolj malo. To so kolegi iz službe izkusili na lastni koži. Splužene (in soljene) so bile le res glavne ceste in če nimaš te sreče, da živiš ob njej, si ga malodane najebal. Ostalih cest niti ne povohajo.

Pa jih ne bi stalo preveč, da bi se nekaj vasi zbralo skupaj in našlo kmeta, ki bi bil pripravljen, v primeru snega, na svoj traktor (ki jih je tu okoli res veliko saj živim v precej ruralnem delu Walesa) prišraufati plug in malo počistiti lokalne ceste. Na ta način se to dela po mnogih vaseh v Sloveniji. Če pa jih je škoda denarja, kot jim ga očitno je, naj pa ne tečnarijo, ko izgubljajo miljarde svojih funtov zaradi izostankov iz služb.

Prilagam fotografije, ki jih je posnela kolegica 3. februarja malo pred 12. uro. Vse kar je uspelo voziti po cesti so bili traktorji.

Puncheston (slikala Lisa Phillips)

This song from the rock group »The Airborne Toxic Event« has been playing quite a bit on the BBC Radio 1 here in the UK and it stands to be a hit. The group is from L.A. and has been put in the indie section of music tastes.

There has, however, been some confusion about its release in the UK, the TATE website states that it should have been released yesterday on HMV, Amazon mp3 and iTunes but it has come out that only the latter has actually made it available. Both the HMV and Amazon sites claim it will be released next week, February 2nd 2009.

In any case, those who have iTunes and are willing to get their limited version (I presume, as they still dish out DRM music there for the time being) from iTunes. Click here to get to it (need iTunes installed though).

So if you are willing to wait these few days to get a nice free-2-use non-DRM mp3 go to somewhere else, but iTunes.

The day was good, the sun was up and the road was clear, well just to Haverfordwest golf club, after that I got stuck behind the never-ending queue of cars driving 40mph on a 60mph road I’m not bitter. Really I am not.

My final destination was Cardiff and Bristol although the latter was more as an alternative as I could not find any good music shops there over the internet.

In Cardiff I visited Cranes and Gamlins. The first was a renowned music shop established in 1851 but I found it difficult to browse the guitars as many of them were high up on the wall and the price tags so small that they were illegible. Gamlins seemed to have a better collection and the guitars weren’t stacked high because the ceiling just wasn’t that high anyway and the price tags were clearly visible. After passing the very tempting Gibsons that mostly cost over a grand I settled-in to the more affordable ones. I had a go at playing three quite different guitars and after a thorough test decided on the Cort EVL Z2. True it has a more hard sound than the other two I tried but it was much nicer to play and that in the end is quite important. Also I hope that the harder sound will be adjustable with the amp and different type strings but the ease the guitar is played cannot be changed easily or at all – I have learnt that very hard lesson from my acoustic