You've Got A Friend

As I've mentioned here before, I have a couple of notebooks, of different sizes, that I tend to carry around with me. They’re very useful for scribbling down thoughts, ideas, quotes and overheard comments etc.

In one of those I wrote down the following thought, “Music is like a life-raft on the turbulent seas of life”.
I know why I wrote those words at that time, although I’m not going to share that here.
The point being that there are times in all of our lives when we need a bit of comfort, and for many of us at least a part of that comfort comes via music. You only have to listen to the lyrics of many songs to realise that this is nothing new.

Sometimes we need music to raise our spirits, to reassure us, to cry along to, to escape into, or to motivate us. There is music and a song for every occasion, emotion, mood, mindset and situation, and if you have an open mind, musically, there will always be something out there that can work wonders in one of those aforementioned situations.
I expect we’ve all been there at one time or another during our lives? In fact I’d suspect that you’re lying if you say that wasn’t the case.

I’ve been a passionate music lover for as long as I can remember. I’ve played the drums in local bands, been a DJ on local radio and with mobile disco’s, I’ve written about music in various publications and on websites.
Music has been a constant and huge part of my life and I’m very grateful for that. I find it hard to see how it can be any other way for anybody and consequently the people that I tend to mix with and choose to be friends with, usually share that passion, albeit to varying degrees.
But over recent years music seems to have increased in importance to me and I’ve found myself turning to it more and more often, and not just because of a personal situation either, but often just because I’ve felt the urge to listen to music.

I realise that music is now more accessible than it’s ever been. It seems to be everywhere, inescapable even, in this Internet age. We can find it at the click of a mouse, or the tap on a smartphone. Whether that is a good thing, or not, is a topic for another day....

I’m not sure if I’m alone, or unusual, in feeling this way, but I suspect I’m not. The more I talk to people of my age, this seems to be a common theme. Yes, as I’ve mentioned, the people I mix with are musically minded people, but even so.....

As we grow older the amount of music that we become familiar with and hear, especially if you’re open minded to it, naturally increases. Using myself as an example, I was born in the late 1950’s and since the mid ’60’s have been absorbing music of varying genre’s. Some of that is bound to sink in, like a form of osmosis, regardless of how you feel about the music itself.
I’m sure we can all recite the lyrics and sing along to songs that we’d forgotten all about, or to songs we’d rather we didn’t remember! Why can I always sing along to songs that I dislike?

Music is also something that continues to deliver, often because no matter how many times we listen to a particular song, or piece of music, there always seems to be something new to discover within it.
I have often found myself listening to a song for the umpteenth time, and suddenly hearing the lyrics, as if for the first time, and finding that they really resonate with a particular time in your life, a situation you’ve been in, or are going through.
Funnily enough, I was having a conversation with a friend about this topic just last week. A conversation during which we both mentioned exactly the same number one song from the 1980‘s. We had both heard the song recently and we’d both been suddenly struck by the relevance of the lyrics, even though we’d both listened to the song countless times over the years.

The musical library in my head is expanding everyday. More songs are being added and old songs from the distant past, are being dredged up and remembered, often like old friends. A snippet of a song on the radio, in a film, or even on a TV commercial, can transport you back decades to another time, and another place. Music, just like the sense of smell, has the power to do that.

Music can be like that life-raft, something we can cling onto in times of need. But it can also be a time-machine, transporting us back a day, a year, or even decades, to times past.
Maybe that’s the ultimate beauty of music? It can mean many different things to many different people, and we can all use it for our own ends, and needs, whatever they may be.
What else can provide such a ubiquitous and enjoyable service?

PS: Since writing this I’ve come across another note I’d written, this time on my phone. Who needs a notebook these days eh?
It was ‘scribbled down’ some months ago now: “Music is a refuge, a safe haven and a loyal friend. One that you can rely on in times of trouble”.

Music is a loyal friend that doesn’t answer back, or question you or your actions. A friend that always says exactly the right thing, at just the right time.

Radio, Video and Local Music

I've been on the radio again. This time it was for Carnival FM where I was presenting a series of Local Music Shows.

Here's a new YouTube video about it all and some things that have come out of it all.

The Re-Invention of Andy

New YouTube video talking about and reflecting on 3 years of change, new ventures and recent tough decisions.

Another Radio Show To Listen To.

As you may have seen already, I have posted my Local Music Shows for the 2013 Hastings Rock broadcast onto the radio stations own Mixcloud site and may well end up posting them on my own Mixcloud site as well.

But, I have now also decided to post a couple of my 'normal' Hastings Rock shows onto my personal Mixcloud site.

This is the first one and it was originally broadcast on Monday 27th May between midday and 3pm.

I hope you enjoy the show and I will post another one in due course.

Hastings Rock 2013 - 27th May 2013: 12 - 3pm by Andy Gunton 

on Mixcloud

Hastings Rock on Mixcloud

I know that I may well have mentioned this before, but Hastings Rock radio station now has it's very own Mixcloud account and we've now started to upload some programmes to the site.

So far, we've only uploaded the four Local Music Shows that I presented during this years broadcast, two shows from the final night of the broadcast and also one of the Progressive Rock shows presented by Tony Bell. But, more may well follow.

You can find the Hastings Rock Mixcloud site here: Hastings Rock on Mixcloud

We chose to use Mixcloud, as opposed to another site such as Soundcloud, because Mixcloud pay PRS royalties. Therefore you can upload copyrighted music, knowing that you are doing so legally and that the artists will get royalties because of it.
The service is also free and has no upload limit.

Happy listening.

It's Not As Easy As It Looks

New YouTube video and my first one for 6 months!

Talking about another month of Hastings Rock radio and how so many people just don't realise just what happens behind the scenes to get the station on the air and then keep it there for 28 days.

Looking Backwards, Looking Forwards.

I had a good 2012, so i thought i'd relay some of it for you. Hopefully, 2013 will be equally as good.

Spain Video Playlist:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEBC37CDECFD54624&feature=mh_lolz

Pierless Music: http://pierlessmusic.co.uk/

Moose Musings eBook:  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Moose-Musings-ebook/dp/B006RXBRTC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1357053904&sr=8-1

Moose Musings Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC5uQzuE9wE

Olympic Torch Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro5Po5caIXc

The 'scrabbleman' Trail:
http://andymooseman.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/scrabbleman-trail.html

As expected, i did forget a couple of things. Beatles Day & doing some radio shows for the local University radio station were missed. Phew.

Bland

A bit of a rant after listening to Danny Baker's last show for BBC Radio London.

AudioBoo - Radio Rental.

listen to ‘Radio Rental.’ on Audioboo

I've been decorating and have been listening to the radio. But, it's been a frustrating experience.

AudioBoo - The Listening Project.

listen to ‘The Listening Project.’ on Audioboo

Talking about lost memories & a new way of recording them for future generations.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/the-listening-project
https://audioboo.fm/channel/listening-project

Mixcloud

I've discovered yet another website to use!

Here's my page: http://www.mixcloud.com/AndyGunton/

My last video, which was also about radio:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAbf5K0hvnU

There is a link in the border, to the right of this vodeo, where you can follow my Mixcloud account.

I'm On The Radio Again.

I'm going to be doing some more local music shows & even doing a bit of of comedy acting as well.

Carnival FM: http://www.carnivalfm.co.uk/

Local Music Shows - Monday 30th July to Friday 3rd August, 6 to 8pm BST

Revenue Streams.

A couple of recent events have made me think about this topic.
Where does your money come from & has that changed over recent years?

David Hepworth blogpost: http://whatsheonaboutnow.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/what-closing-magazine-tells-you-about.html

Word Magazine: http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/

Planet Rock story:
http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=1050208

That Was The Month That Was.

Another 28 days of Hastings Rock radio is now over & i thought i'd reflect on the month once again. This year was a little different, especially for me.

Business vs Creativity.

This was recorded a few days ago & i have since had other conversations about the same type of topic.

Andy Kershaw - 'No Off Switch'
http://www.amazon.co.uk/No-Off-Switch-Andy-Kershaw/dp/1846687446/ref=sr_1_1?i...

Sexed Up?

I am an avid viewer of the UK Channel 4 TV program "Time Team".

For those not in the know, it is a program all about archaeology and it has been broadcasting now for many years. Every program visits a different archaelogical site and spends 3 days excavating there. Sometimes they find very little and other times they strike the jackpot and find something historically exciting and significant.

The program has been in the news this week after two of its presenters have quit the program. One a long serving archaeologist and the other, a new presenter brought in for the latest series, the 19th, which started airing on Channel 4 a few weeks ago.

Whilst i have no intention of trying to read between the lines of statements, from various parties, that i have read and second guessing what actually caused those resignations. Some things, to fans of the program at least, are pretty evident.

Before the current series starting broadcasting, i saw pieces saying that the old format had been changed slightly. There was a new, second presenter for example, Mary-Ann Ochota, one of those who has quit. It was also revealed that some other regular contributors would not be as visible this time around.

This has been born out when watching the start of the new series. Some people seem to have gone altogether and others are not present for whole episodes, but turn up occasionally in others.

Of course i understand that there can be many reasons for this. People move on to pastures new, although i've not seen any suggestion of this. Others could be busy with their own careers as professional archaeologists, or experts in their own particular field and, maybe, just can't spare the time to appear in a tv program.

But, what has become evident to me as i've been reading the fall out of these resignations over the past few days, is that the whole program production of Time Team has changed for this new series.
For some strange reason the producers seem to have decided to mess with a well loved formula and to try to sex it up.

I fully understand that things might have to change. Things can get a little stale, but we're not talking about a comedy show that has to dreamt up and written here. We're talking about a factual program with a seemingly endless supply of material.
This seems to me to have been a classic case of trying to fix something that wasn't broke in the first place.

Sure, Time Team isn't for everybody, but it never will be. It is what i would call classic niche market tv. The audience will never be huge, but those that do watch will be passionate about the program and the subject matter. They will and have, become very attached to the program and don't want to see change just for the sake of it.

I feel very sorry for those presenters that have felt the need to resign. After all, it's hardly their fault that they've got caught up in all of this.
They have, in effect, become the victims of the changes, as have the viewers as well.

How many more times are we going to see perfectly good tv programs and radio shows being sexed up to, supposedly, make them more appealing to the general public?
We can probably all think of examples of our favourite shows being changed and usually changed for the worse too. I know that there are several shows that i now don't either listen to, or watch because of this trend.

I just hope that Time Team doesn't become another one.
Thankfully, the fall out from this latest debacle suggests that lessons have been learned and that the next seires will feature a return to "normal service".

Only time will tell.

Time To Think.

A beach vlog.

AudioBoo - LOL Funny?

Here are links to the books i mentioned in this Boo:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Super-Sad-True-Love-Story/dp/1847082491/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326966001&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.co.uk/McCarthys-Bar-Journey-Discovery-Ireland/dp/0340766050/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326966067&sr=1-1

Billions.

I was listening to the radio this morning and happened to hear the song "Billion Dollar Babies" by Alice Cooper. A track that was released in 1973 and a song i vivdly remember from my school days.

Apart from transporting me back to those days, as music so often does. It also struck me that back then a billion was a huge and pretty much unimaginable number.

I have no doubt that when i first heard that song, i probably didn't know exactly what a billion actually was and had to look it up. I can even remember discussions as to what a billion really was. Was it a thousand million, or a million million?
Even a million was a pretty big number to a fresh faced 15 year old, so a billion was mind boggling!

Fast forward 38 years and a billion is a number that is so well known now that just about everybody could tell you what it means. We all seemed to settle on a thousand million as the definition of a billion by the way.
I realise that inflation means that a billion dollars is worth nowhere near as much as it was back in those heady days of 1973, but even so....

Since the banking crash of 2008, we have all grown used to hearing the word billions being bandied about, day after day, by the media and economic commentators. And not just a billion either, but hundreds of billions. So much so, that the word billion just doesn't have the same impact that it once did. Even a few years ago.
We have become numbed to just how much money these people are actually talking about. Which is a rather scary thought in its own way.

These days though, those same commentators now regularly talk about trillions. That's a thousand billion to you and me. Now, that is a huge number. But, how much longer will it be before we have to start thinking about a thousand trillion?
How many noughts is that? It makes my mind boggle just thinking about it.

And talking about noughts. I wonder when we will need to start writing down the number 1 followed by one hundred noughts? That's called a Googol (sic) by the way.

Now, where have i heard that word before?

Bothered?

Yesterday morning, on the radio, i heard a piece about how the current economic problems are affecting different people in the UK. A cross section of the community were asked about their own personal circumstances in these increasingly difficult times.

As we all are no doubt aware, especially here in the UK, this week has brought even worse news. The continuing concerns about the Euro currency and how that might affect us. The statement from the Governor of the Bank of England, saying that even he doesn't know what's going to happen and that things are pretty grim. As if we needed to be told that.
And then the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, gave a statement in Parliament saying that things are worse then he thought they'd be and that the end is not in sight yet.
It was also announced that the state pension age is going to raise to 68 and, of course, we had the public sector strikes, over personal pensions.
So, not a good week!

During the course of that radio discussion two teenage girls, aged 17 and 18, were interviewed. When asked what they thought about George Osborne's statement this week and how it might affect them, they both admitted that they hadn't known who he was. One of them had even asked the other if he might be related to Sharon Osbourne, the wife of Ozzy!

While this produced some laughter amongst the other participants, it does pose a rather serious question. If, at this time of world wide economic crisis, two teenage girls don't even know the name of, arguably, the second most important politician in the UK. What hope is there?

I'm not blaming these particular teenage girls for their lack of knowledge, as i know that they are far from alone here. I have a 17 year old daughter myself and i have a feeling she wouldn't know who George Osborne was either.

Politics, even in these testing times, holds no interest for the young. In fact, politics seem to hold little interest for a fair proportion of the UK population, regardless of their age.
This situation is quite probably replicated across the world.

This apparent apathy about politics, especially amongst the young, is a big worry. After all, these are the people who will be voting for the first time at the next general election. They are the people who should be providing us with our next generation of politicians, both locally and nationally.

So, why this apathy?

I'm sure that some of it can be put down to those old favourites, "what can i do about anything anyway?", "my vote doesn't count?", "they are all as bad as each other" and "politicians don't care about people like me anyway, so why bother?"
Those concerns are age old ones and are still as relevant as they've always been. But, i'm sure that things are worse now than they used to be.

Politicans are now, more than ever, distrusted and seen as being hugely out of touch with the people that they govern. You only have to look at the recent scandal here in the UK about MP's expenses claims to see that.
The current UK goverment is run by multi-millionaires, from public schools, who insist that, "everybody is in this together", when it is patently obvious that they are not.

Money has also become a bigger factor in whether somebody can get elected in the first place in many, if not all countries. Running for office, or running a political party is a costly business and this has taken its toll and excluded many from being able to put their names onto the ballot paper in the first place. It also raises the potential for corruption and favours for those who donate, in the future.

Of course, the recent financial crisis and the bailing out of the banks has had a serious effect on the lack of confidence in politicians. The fact that the banks have been seen to have got away with their bad practices, seemingly, scott free and at the expense of the rest of us (the 99%) has hardly helped.
And then there is that small matter of those very same bankers still being allowed to pick up their large bonuses, while the politicians wring their hands and do nothing. Even though "we", the people, own a large proportion of many of those same banks, after rescuing them.
When were you last rewarded for doing a bad job? Exactly....

Another aspect is that all the mainstream political parties all seem pretty much the same. There really doesn't seem to be much to choose between any of them. The fact that we in the UK have a coalition government at the moment just reinforces that.
All the parties seem to be trying to appeal to the same voters. They have forgotten, or chosen to forget, the rest of us. All we ever hear about is "Middle England", whatever that means.

All of the above does mean that it is hardly surprising that the youth of today find politics unappealing. They feel angry, or at least see the anger of their parents. But, they also feel that they can do nothing about it. Except maybe riot, or occupy a small part of a city.

Politics used to be a worthy profession and one that many people aspired to. Thankfully, there are still some who, fortunately, try to carry that on. But, it is now a profession which has been tainted forever. People now seem to be attracted to it for all the wrong reasons, or are just not attracted to it at all.

I don't deny that being a politician is not an easy life, regardless of what some may think. It is hard work, if done properly and the increasing public scrutiny and constant media pressure can't be easy to bear. But, that is partly the result of that public distrust and past misdemeanours.

But, i do wonder if another reason politics has lost its shine over recent years and is not now such a valued career path, is because of the rise of the celebrity? After all, celebrities command more column inches in today's newspapers than many politicians, or world leaders.

Politicans themselves can often now be seen as celebrities. They've increasingly started to appear on reality shows and tv panel game shows. This usually happens towards the end of the particular persons political career i know, but....

So, if even the politicians see celebrity as a future career path, is it any wonder that the youth of today feel the same way and can't be bothered to find out, or care who is actually governing them?

Worrying, isn't it?

So, what can be done about this?
Personally, i can't see things changing any time soon. Well, not until the whole political set up changes. Or, until a completely new political party comes along to shake the foundations of the current system.
Until that time, we will be left with the same levels of distrust and dissatisfaction, with our politicians, that we have now.

Vive la revolution!