Category: music

Life, musicLeave a comment

Bowie – Changes

Mark Cathcart

Today mark’s the release of a new David Bowie single, Blackstar, also the title track of his 25th Studio album to be released on Bowie’s birthday next year. The Fred Perry Subculture website has an extract from a David Laurie book, called Dare. I have to admit, I found a couple of the claims somewhat troubling. How Bowie & Kraftwerk Inspired The Death of Rock’N’Roll Screams the subhead, and book cover, along with [David Bowie and Kraftwerk] invented modern pop music I admit, I have not read the book. While I can see some validity in the death claim, except … Continue reading Bowie – Changes

films, musicLeave a comment

Toyface: Follow the Rules of the Trainwreck

Mark Cathcart

I’ve not covered music and arts projects I am, or have been involved here, much to my changrin. My film ventures have taken a back seat this year, although Moving Day continues to garner awards, my role as Associate Producer has long passed. Yesterday I had the chance to catch-up with Tamysn and James the two driving forces behind toyface. They are just off their frantic album launch phase, I was Executive Producer for, and we talked on Skype to look at the next few weeks and getting a promoter and publicist involved to help them gain wider attention for … Continue reading Toyface: Follow the Rules of the Trainwreck

musicLeave a comment

Where Love Lives: Frankie Knuckles And The Dance Floor : The Record

Mark Cathcart

I’m not going to drone on here about Frankie Knuckles, I’ve done enough of that on Facebook. This NPR review of Frankies’ impact and his music though contains two of the best ever in a music review To listen to his “The Bomb Mix” of Chanté Moore’s 1995 R&B song “This Time” is to be suspended in air for 10 minutes. and Moore sings Knuckles’ rendition more tenderly (she recut the vocal in his studio, following his directions to sing it at a club-friendly tempo), more like she’s having a secret talk with God, as if she’s praying that this … Continue reading Where Love Lives: Frankie Knuckles And The Dance Floor : The Record

Life, musicLeave a comment

Flash Mob Austin: Operation Happy

Mark Cathcart

Mission date: March 15th, 2013 Mission time: 9:45-10:45a.m. Meeting Place: St Davids Episcopal Church, E 7th, San Jacinto. Mission description: Dance as a group, inspired by Pharrell Williams Happy and the 24hoursofhappy website. After a mission briefing between 9:45 and 10:00 a.m., agents will disperse and assemble at assigned positions along East 6th Street. At 10:15 a.m. an agent will come along 6th St playing happy, the other agents will come out from the sides and dance along behind the Happy Agent. We will dance from San Jacinto to Red River, turn and come back. Agents are requested not to … Continue reading Flash Mob Austin: Operation Happy

mp3, musicLeave a comment

Because music(2013)

Mark Cathcart

I’ve found no “best of 2013” music lists that contained anything even vaguely my taste. This year has also seen dance music “Jump the shark”  like it did back in 1979, where EDM has really become an acronym of Electronic Disco Music and should really be called Electropop, it mostly has no soul.. The list that put me over the top this year though was “The 25 Best Songs of 2013 (The Entire Year)” by time.com’s Melissa Locker @woolyknickers which contains almost nothing palatable, a few ok tunes, and a couple of down right offensive tracks. As far as I can … Continue reading Because music(2013)

Life, music3 Comments

Ageing Concert Love – Zimmer Park

Mark Cathcart

Despite living within easy walking distance of Zilker Park, I very much doubt I’ll ever go to ACL again. I know many people love it, there is a real buzz around it. C3 seem to have overcooked it this year extending it to two almost identical weekends. The number of free giveaways of wristbands, people offering them for sale is much higher than in previous years. For me though, ACL is without doubt the worst open air music festival I’ve ever been too. Half the bands are geriatric; about the same percentage of the audience is so past their prime, … Continue reading Ageing Concert Love – Zimmer Park

Life, music, technologyLeave a comment

TWC Cable and Home Telephone gone

Mark Cathcart

After some procrastination, most due to the real/actual lack of choice, today I cancelled my Time Warner Cable “All the best” subscription and switched to just Internet only. I’m replacing the TV part of the subscription with DISH network, using their Dish America package. At least according to Time Warner Cable, my Internet will cost $62.10 for the Turbo Internet service, which is what I have now, and claims “Up to 20Mbps” download and “Upload speeds up to 2Mbps”. Once all the change is done, I’ll likely upgrade this to Extreme if the prices are as TWC say they are. … Continue reading TWC Cable and Home Telephone gone

Life, musicLeave a comment

Listening to music

Mark Cathcart

Sometime contact and innovative UK Dj/Producer Greg Wilson has a 33-minute interview, I assume based on his Living to music series that he has been running for a couple of years now. Greg talks about actually sitting and actually listening to the music, while not doing anything else. Greg makes a good point about being able to focus while listening. Which reminds me of being about 14, and converting my clothes cuboard in my bedroom into a mini-recording, listening booth. I had a small stool, papered the walls in music newpaper and magazines, wired up a small red light, and … Continue reading Listening to music

Life, music2 Comments

The Roxy, and walking out on the Clash

Mark Cathcart

Well I listened to the Robert Elms, BBC London show from Wednesday, it had a fascinating regular feature from Russell Clarke, the “rock and roll routemaster“. This week Russell was covering the history of the Roxy Night Club in London. Between Russells description and Roberts memories of London and the London club scene at the time they captured it perfectly for me. I went on to read Paul Markos “The Roxy London WC2: A Punk History”. The book contains some great qoutes that seem to sum up the dance music scene at the time too, one from Billy Idol: We … Continue reading The Roxy, and walking out on the Clash