Another snowy walk this morning listening to the boards of Canada’s “The Campfire Headphase”. Excellent stuff.
Tag: music
I love music. Making music, listening, talking about it and anything else too.
Danse Society, KTP and Obscurity
I was listening to the Danse Society today. Their greatest hits or something like that. I only bought the CD for 1 track which I really liked and was unable to find anywhere as a single track download.
This got me thinking about other obscure music I’ve been hunting of late. I recently got back into Kissing the Pink, who’s later albums are very hard to get hold of except on vinyl, and whilst I do like vinyl I don’t find it practical on a day to day basis.
Every time I hunt down something obscure that I’ve remembered and decide that I really must get again I think that this will be the last bit of obscurity I need to locate, but in fact it turns out that it reminds me of another 2 or 3 tracks or albums that I’d love to hear again that don’t seem to be available anywhere on this planet.
I’m sure I’m not the only one though, and I guess it keeps things interesting.
Sorry if this doesn’t make sense, it is late and I think I’m rambling. I’ll stop now.
Old tech
This is what I’ve been using to retrieve my old songs from often crumbling cassettes. Sadly it too is somewhat past it’s best and I’m not sure how much longer it will last.
I’m considering getting an old cassette 8 track. Probably not immediately, but in a while I think.
Some more about old multitracks
If you’re interested in old multitrack stuff then here’s a few more posts on the subject.
I can’t believe I missed Cassette Store Day
It was last weekend and I missed it completely. Which is a real shame for me. So, to make it up to myself I thought I’d post a few of my favourite cassette pictures.
Cassette Store Day 2015: The Awesome Tascam
Thinking about cassettes for me has to include a tape 4-track, or in this case, 8-track. A beautiful and highly functional piece of hardware.
Four Track Futures
Since I started going back over my old tapes and retrieving them I’ve been thinking about the process of recording to tape, or if not to tape in a linear way and not wholly sequenced.
I liked that way of doing things in the past. There was more room for error and because of that more room for inspired accidents. I miss that. You just don’t get that so much with sequencing.
So I am giving serious consideration to tape again. I might even consider getting a tape 8 track at some point!
Tascam Cassette Multitrack 
Teac Blue Reel to Reel Cassette 
TDK Metal Cassette 
Teac Black Reel to Reel Cassette 
Listening to myself
I’ve mentioned before that I’m currently going through a process of moving all my old cassettes to digital. It will take a long, long, long, time. I assure you.
But part of the process is listening to music I haven’t heard in years. Mostly things I’ve recorded myself, some great, some terrible, some embarrassing, and all enjoyable in one way or another.
It is a good reminder of why I love music, why I love the creative process. A reminder that software and hardware are just tools for doing something creative and should be looked at as that.
I think it can be really easy to get lost in tools you’re using to the point where you focus so much on what the tool can do and can’t do that you forget what it is you’re trying to achieve. That’s the danger and listening to my old stuff made with simple hardware and usually no software at all made me realise that perhaps I need to think long and hard about where my music is going, or more importantly the fact that it isn’t going anywhere at the moment.
The Wire top 50 albums of 2022
It’s that time again, beginning the process of listening to the Wire’s top albums of 2022
A signed copy of Steve Jansen’s ‘Slope’
I already have this album, I got it when it first came out, but when I heard that Steve Jansen was selling off the last remaining stock and signing them I thought I ought to buy it again. It’s always lovely to have a signed copy of things and this album especially so. I hope…
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Palm Apps from the past …
If you’ve been reading my PalmSounds blog for a long time you’ll know that in the past I’ve dabbled with making my own Palm OS apps with a little bit of success. The apps I made were never going to be totally amazing music production apps, but they were free toys and a little bit of fun to play around with.
Anyway, I’ve moved them all here now and you can get them in the ‘PDA Obsessions‘ page.
I do plan to do some more apps using old Palm OS and some other mobile OS stuff too, most notably Android, but more of that in another post.
For now I hope you like the old Palm stuff. Give me some feedback if you do.
Here are a few other PDA related posts
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I am Ashley Elsdon 