Saturday 2 January 2010

Setting Sail - part 2

So Why?

I guess it's a fair question. I mean I can barely keep up with one blog let alone two. Well Why Not? I've always loved music and not only does this give me an opportunity to experience new bands and artists I may otherwise have let slip me by, I can document my feelings towards music in an almost therapeutic manner. Why Do I love music so much, what it makes me feel and why.

The start of this blog wasn't really just triggered by The Boat That Rocked (perish the thought!) but also by Phonogram, an indie comic published on Image about the occurrences in a club night, with music being a form of magic. Very inspiring comic that I suggest you check out, there's a few samples over at this link.

While it can be a little pretentious at times, I've very rarely been as inspired as I was the night I read the better half of volume 2. Anyone who loves music will be able to relate to it, hell even know people like the characters because of how well crafted the writing is. Check it out if you can, just don't be put off by the first volume!

Well I guess with that, it's almost time to embark on a voyage of musical discovery... hoist the anchors mateys... There's an adventure out there!

Friday 1 January 2010

Setting Sail - part 1

God, I hope I don't have to add another 0 to that number counter haha...

So if you're here, you've probably seen Teasign. If not, why not give it a little peak :) If you have let me explain the concept of this blog to you before I start posting in it.

While sitting around on the 29th of December, two days after my 21st and with a certain level of curiosity flowing around inside me already about the logistics of a singles club (not the lonely hearts kind...) I watched the boat that rocked. Oh dear, commercial spins on the music industry in an independent blog, WTF MATE?! Well keep your credibility skinny's firmly buckled down partners, its only a point of reference from which an idea was conceived initially.

My family got into a conversation about pirate radio based on the facts at the front of the movie. Facts confirmed by my parents about how they, much like the kids in the movie, used to snuggle up in bedrooms late at night, with old standard tuned transistor radios listening to music on such stations as Radio Luxembourg. The romanticism that there were millions just like you, ears to the speakers trying to re-tune the radio as waves lapped the tankers the pirates were broadcasting from.

These days are well and truly gone. Much like radio has pretty much had it's day, preciousness of music died away as it became a multi-million dollar industry. Those 45 minutes of pop music in the 1960's the film told us about, which caused pirates to rebel and give music to the masses, seems such a foreign concept. Now music is with us in supermarkets, on the way to work, in our homes, on the television and even in our pockets on demand via mp3. Congratulations on stating the obvious I hear you cry, but the obvious needs to be pointed out for the sake of this post. How else am I going to get the clever metaphor of this blog's title across ;)?

But how much of this music do we enjoy because we like it? If we had to listen via transistors would we bother going out and buying a record based on one play? Those DJs played what they wanted too, not what they were told. Or is the corporate, box ticking, radio friendly and easily accessible what we really would have gone bat-shit crazy for given the choice? No, we'd just download it. But surely that's another story entirely, an ethical debate I really can't be bothered to get into because I'm morally gray on it. People want music that's cheap / free but musicians gotta eat.

So it is in this spirit I launch the trawler, a blog in which for an hour a day I will search the internet for something a little different, something off the beaten track of Radio 1, to scour the musical high seas in search of gold in a media chock full of fish, not to say that fish isn't nice once in awhile. After all, fish fingers are slightly golden I guess, but surely there's more to life than processed food and music?

But take from it what you will. I'm just a boy in room with a mac book who, much like everyone else on the internet, which in the words of Kevin Smith is defined as "a communication tool used the world over where people can come together to bitch about movies and share pornography with one another." I don't think my opinions should be taken as gospel, I don't even mind if you like or dislike the music I choose to include. I'm just letting you know, it's there if you want it.