Guess the songs!

So this little game has been going around in facebook notes. But I thought I'd bring it over here to my blog so everyone can play!

Basically you put your whole itunes on shuffle and go through the first 40 tracks, writing out the first line of lyrics, then people guess them in the comments. I'll try to keep it edited so you know which ones people have got already by putting the answer in bold after the line, but I will probably fail.

I skipped over a few but only if they either 1) had no lyrics or 2) had the title in the first line or 3) would have been ridiculously difficult e.g. my mates old band (that actually did come up!)

I don't know if there are rules in general but let's just say you can't use the internet to help! Obviously Googling the line will give you the answer in 99% of cases, so there's no point. YOU'RE CHEATING YOURSELF! etc, etc...

So answers in the comments and though I think the idea is to tag people, I cba... Do it if you like.
Ok let's go!


1. Everybody wants you to be special, and everybody wants you to be high. Rescue Blues-Ryam Adams

2. Can I get close to ya, if only for a while. I don't mean to busy you. You're the jive guru and
I want to sing along with you. Cause a Rockslide - Badly Drawn Boy

3. So I look in your direction, but you pay me no attention do you?
Shiver by Coldplay

4. Jehosaphat the mongrel cat jumped off the roof today. John Prine - Livin' in the Future.

5. I used to say 'just follow your heart', but my heart always lead me in circles. Don't Say No- Patrick Wolf

6. All the boys are begging for her, reaching long to grab her clothes. Minus The Bear- Lost My Money At The Cock Fight

7. Fill these spaces up with days, in my room you can go you can stay. Sleep-Azure Ray

8. Look him in the eyes, there's no need to be scared. He's as powerless as you and me. Willy Mason- Hard Hand to Hold

9. There's children on the street using guns and knives, taking drugs and each other's lives. FotC- Issues (Think about it)

10. I am waiting till I don't know when, 'cause I'm sure it's gonna happen then.
Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles) by Arcade Fire

11. Bleed in your own light, dream of your own life
smashing pumpkins- rocket

12. The city freeze for, I just realised I don't like you.
The Kooks - Sofa song

13. I want to live, I want to give. I've been a miner for a...
Heart of Gold by Neil Young

14. Well I'm gonna write a little letter, I'm gonna mail it to my local DJ
Roll Over Beethoven by Chuck Berry

15. Send my love to the city for I'll be having an affair this summer. Larrikin Love - Meet me by the getaway car.

16. When I was a child, running in the night, I was afraid of what might be. Hounds of Love- Futureheads

17. It's to reveal that fucked up cop. Elliott Smith - Riot Coming

18. Where's that smile at, where'd you take it to? I never thought that anything could hurt you. Hurtin' You - Ben Kweller

19. It seems we stood and talked like this before. We looked at each other in the same way then. Frank Sinatra Where or When (was actually the Harry Connick Jr. version but yeh!)

20. Rebel, rebel and yell. Cause our people still dwell in hell. Rage Against The Machine - Township Rebellion

21. Catch a feel or cop a ride, I won't be late, I won't decline. Martha Wainwright - GPT

22. Now here's a tale. Tale I will tell. Blood lust after no sweet love and a many, many things I do so well. stix and stones - babyshambles

23. You don't answer my call with even a nod or a wink, but you gaze at your own reflection alright. Smash the Mirror- The Who

24. You thought the fire could protect you from it, but why have you been so, why have you ill informed? Idlewild - Actually It's Darkness

25. Found your name across the chapel door, carved in cursive with a table fork. Muddy Hymnal- Iron and Wine

26. I change key from C to D, you see to me it's just a...
Minor Thing - Red Hot Chili Peppers

27. He hides in his suit like, like a snake in the grass. His sales pitch fork tongue hissed. Survival of the Fittest - Desaparecidos

28. Lies and love. Lies, love bed wetting son, of the great heat it's all over me, it's all under me,
the face ain't making what the mouth needs. Way Out - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

29. Sup up your beer and collect your fags, there's a row going on down near slough. The Jam- The Eton Rifles

30. Since I'm putting down all of the true things around, but I like it. Foo Fighters - Good Grief

31. Hair blowing in the hot wind, time hanging from a clothes pin, there's no sorrow that the sun's not gonna heal. Sausalito - Conor Oberst

32. I remember when the days were long and the nights when the living room was on the lawn. Death Cab For Cutie - Photobooth

33. I got a letter this morning, what do you reckon it read? The White Stripes- Death Letter

34. You needed it when I was away, and no matter what I say, you'll never forget when I wasn't there. So, why should I care? Overdue by Muse

35. We kicked our shoes off. Can you feel the ground beneath you shift? Liam Frost - If Tonight We Could Only Sleep

36. If life is a carnival, can I stay here a while? Nemesis rose, and I feel I'm about to go down. Music Was Saved by Starsailor

37. I am a dull and simple lad, can not tell water from champagne. The Kinks - David Watts.

38. They lead a lifetime that is comfortable. They travel far to keep their stomachs full. Nirvana - Swap Meet

39. Hey now girl what's the matter with me? We're on a back road something to see. Beck- Rental car

40. It's not enough to hear me say you've won, you only wanted me for having fun.
Goodnight, Goodnight by Hot Hot Heat

Rofl...

So apparently it wasn't designed like that... It's just broken.

SOZ!

Still annoying, but not wanting to murder facebook so much now.

Most ridiculous thing I've ever seen.

If you create an event on facebook, when it comes to the part where you send out invitations, instead of a big list of names like it used to have, it's now a big list of profile pictures. HALF OF THEM DON'T EVEN HAVE THE PEOPLE'S FACES IN THEM! There are no names written anywhere WHAT. THE. FUCK?! How the fuck am I supposed to know what everyone's profile picture is? Well done facebook, you've made a one minute job into a half hour annoyance-fest. FUCK YOU.

Allow me to demonstrate with a picture:


The end.

Ah YouTube...

Here's a little quotation from the latest youtube blog.

"Our search advertising programme is about helping anyone promote their videos to a larger audience on YouTube (right now this is only available in the U.S.)."

Gutted for those of us outside the U.S. who aren't anyone!

Hello there

I'm getting out of the blogging habit it seems. Personally I hold twitter and dailybooth accountable! But to be honest not much is going on that is blog worthy. I've just got some new strings to put on the old geetar so I can start recording some of my newer songs over the next couple of weeks. I've started rowing (on a machine, not on water) in an attempt to not be such a lazy git. I made a video about High School Musical toilet paper and I just missed Ginger Chris doing student radio.

There, up to date.

Today I think I might record a video for the song 'Alaska' which I gave to Hank Green because he asked me for a song. It's gone on this compilation album, which should be on itunes soon. I'm thinking I should get a video done so I can respond it to the announcement video and hopefully get some new viewers from it.

SOUNDS LIKE A PLAN!

It's all gone quiet

In my house.

As you probably know if you know me, which you probably do because you're reading my blog, I've had some friends over the last couple of days. the reason was so that we could hold a blogtv show to raise money for Red Nose Day. But I'm going to start before that, on Thursday.

I got the train to London, which included sitting next to a woman who, just seconds after I sat down, took a load of horrible smelling fast food from a bag. I swap seats because it would have been so obvious, but it wasn't pleasant. I got to London, checked into the hotel, met various friends, ate Wagamamas, creeped out a guy in the office across the street from the hotel, went to see Watchmen at the IMAX and stayed up later than was advisable talking with Ian. Watchmen was good, not having read the novel I wanted more explanation on some things but I guess that's to be expected, and the IMAX was pretty incredible - it was the first time I'd been, and Charlie - I still owe you money.

On Friday we got up very early (for me) and went to a meeting with the RNLI. They are rather lovely people who are even worth getting up early for! We talked about their project and I was fairly happy with how it went - I'm always a bot concerned that a charity is paying for our trains and hotels and so I want them to get a lot out of it, thankfully I think they did. We're good value for money us youtubers!

Friday night we drove back to Derby, we being Ian, Charlie, Tom and myself, stopping off at Miss Sophie's to get the car and steal a converse bag (bitofaresult). We got back to mine after picking up Jazza who had been waiting for us for several hours, and I'll tell you why: I told him to get to Derby between 8 and 9 to give us time to get back. He got there several hours before that. That night involved relaxing, talking and above all, not planning what to do during a six hour long blogtv show the next day.

The next day would be Saturday, and it started much later than the previous one, which is always good. We spent all morning (which to be fair was not technically morning) doing very little apart from watching The Crystal Maze - an inevitable occurrence when I have friends over. Again we failed to plan anything for the show until we realised it was going to start in about an hour. So we made a couple of videos to let people know and then began.

The show itself was both enjoyable and stressful, for the main show I was doing more organising than entertaining as it was at my house - take away the time I was going out to get props, sorting out food, taking people to train stations, etc... One viewer noted that they had been there for longer than me! But I get on really well with everyone that was here so even the stressful stuff wasn't that stressful. Apart from Jazza missing his train and me having to take him to Stoke to get his next train only to find the station closed and discover that he'd booked for 11am not pm. That was pretty bad. But it was worse for him to be fair!

We got back after midnight - when the show was supposed to end, but they were still going when we walked into the kitchen. People started going to bed and pretty soon it was just Ian and me still up, and still live on blogtv. By that time we were tired and had had enough of doing challenges so I imposed the rule that whatever people wanted from us, it could not involve getting off the sofa! So basically we just talked to them, which was good for me as I had hardly done that all day. Somehow the hours just rolled by and suddenly we realised that it was getting light out, birds were making noise and I was taking Jazza to Stoke in about three hours, so we went to bed. I really enjoyed that chat though, and even though we were tired and weren't doing anything beyond talking we were the most viewed show all night long.

So a couple of hours sleep later and I got up to take Jazza to his train, it went better the second time around. I went home and slept for a few more hours, then people started getting up and we had a bit of a lazy day... Especially Charlie who slept through the majority of it, literally.

Tom, Ian and Charlie left at around 6, and though I've been about ready for bed since then, I've snuck in a few episodes of 24 and caught up on most of my emails/internet stuff. But the day is definitely drawing to a close now.

And there's no way I'm reading this back.

xxx

p.s. I forgot to mention, we raised a little over £1600! Quite a bit more than I'd expect if I'm honest, so I am pleased. Though even if we hadn't been raising money for charity at all, it would still have been a good few days!

Comic Relief

I came up with an idea - a way for people to spread the word about our Comic Relief fund raising. Then I realised I was a lazy man, so I asked Tom to do it. Now it is done.

Basically if you're partner you can add a Red Nose Day banner and/or 'side column image' and link them to the donation page. I figure if a lot of us do it, it'll be some good exposure. Even if people don't donate, they might find out about the project and make a video response, come to the blogtv show, show friends etc...

So here (thanks to Tom) are the links:

Banner-
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/9471/rndbanner.png

Box (side column image)-
http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/299/rndsidebox.png

And link them to-
http://www.tinyurl.com/rednose2009

So I hope some of you partners will help us out. If you aren't a partner you could do something similar by making yourself a RND background, but I appreciate that requires a lot more work than the main plan!

The most important thing is still video responses, so if you have any time over the next few days we'd really appreciate it if you could make one, and thanks so much to the people who already have!

On 'success'.

Read a piece in the paper today about the music industry and how it's changing. It suggested that the big turning point was in 2006 when TOTP was taken off the air, that showed how the singles chart just didn't matter anymore. It also focused on people's perceptions of 'success' and how it's outdated. Using examples of Leona Lewis and the relatively unknown Ingrid Michelson. People would assume that financially speaking Lewis was far more successful - she's all over the radio/tv and top of the charts. Michelson doesn't have a record label. But she's managed to get some of her tracks on tv shows e.g. grey's anatomy, and has built a following from that synchronisation, as it's known. Not having a record label means about 60% of the profits from her sales on itunes go straight to her. What percentage do you think Leona Lewis makes? It'll be a single digit, and probably a low one. That's not even to mention the fact that alone you maintain 100% of the creative control of your project.

The article also made reference to Conor Oberst as one of the first artists to use the internet as a substitute for reliance on a major label. He had his own following, and with the internet could keep things organised and keep in touch with the audience and that was enough for him not only to sell enough of his music to become 'successful', but he started a record label called Saddle Creek, to which he signed friends' bands and oh my God, that guy is my hero. I want his life but with fewer overdoses.

Ten years ago you pretty much either 'made it' or didn't in the music industry. There was very little middle ground - people who made music and sold it but weren't famous or ridiculously wealthy. But the middle ground is growing, and fast. I think it's an exciting time. If there are fewer superstars but more people able to just make a living from music, 1) the people you are left with will be the ones who love music and not the idea of being famous and 2) there will be more artists around and we will get that great feeling of discovering great bands rather than being told what to listen to by conventional media.

Well actually, I take back the fewer superstars part, there will always be people who want to be the next pop idol, and there will always be record companies happy to make money from them. So that element will remain, but personally I find it easy to ignore. I don't listen to the radio much, I tend to find people either on the internet or through friends/local venues.

But the growth of the middle ground leads to exciting times! I just hope to be a part of it. I can't imagine where I'll be in ten years. Let's hope for selling lots of records through my own record company that has a lot of my friends on it and doesn't involve me being too famous.

x

p.s. I found the article online if anyone would like to read it.

I've written two 'comedy' songs in a row

And I'm already annoyed!

I need to write something real, and soon. Actually I've already started two. Hopefully I'll get one of them finished in the next few days.

The jokey songs aren't really my thing - they don't come so naturally and I'm just not as good at them. I did get one comment on the new one saying it was my best song... That's a 'lol, gutted' moment if ever I heard one! I did like the solo part though, I even let it go on a little too long because I was having fun.

Well it's all good anyway, hopefully we get some responses and some money for Comic Relief.

I just really can't wait to have a new proper song. There's nothing better than falling in love with a song you've written that's so new you're literally the only person in the world who's heard it.

xx

p.s. Joy of joys - gotta do 4g&m tomorrow, might just fuck it off and write songs instead haha (oh, translated into English, 'fuck it off' means not do it.)

As if just to prove me wrong...

Or to give me some faith back, the new video is doing really well!

I thought it would be well received, but it's got over a thousand ratings in the first day, which for me is unheard of... It must already be my third top rated video, which is pretty crazy.

It's also just got to the top of some good search results, hopefully it will stay there for a while!

Last night I was in London with the Ian, the Beard and the Cheekychen, we went to this mental show, which included an orchestra, a choir, a choir of clappers, a beatboxing flautist, the worst dancers you have ever seen and a rapper named Chipmunk, who claimed to have just won a MOBO, but I am suspicious of this because he was so very, very terrible. According to the small section of the audience that was made up of ten year old girls however, he did appear to appeal to ten year old girls. They especially enjoyed the part where he requested the audience hold up their hands in the shape of a C. C for Chipmunk. We came up with a few alternatives...

The night in general was great: Southbank is just beautiful at night, we got some Wagamama's, had some laughs and the show was at times enjoyable because it was good, and at other times enjoyable because it was hilariously bad. When Ian, Sophie and I got back to Soph's we watched a hell of a lot of The Young Ones, one of the greatest shows EVER. Then we found this and laughed. A lot...
After that Ian and I somehow discovered that Sophie hates feet, and thus proceeded to put our feet in her face for the next... several hours. Honestly, it just didn't get old!

Went to bed at God knows what time, got up a little after 1pm and soon realised I had to leave at a little after a little after 1pm to catch my train. I left, missed the train, but managed to sneak on the next one without having to pay so it's all good.

First thing my Dad said to me as I walked in the door was 'I'm making a curry, do you want some?' It was about 5pm and I hadn't eaten all day... Sometimes people say the exact thing you want them to. Those times are good.