Tom Doyle :: TALK

Over the last few years there have been a host of artists who claim to have made it big through the Internet. The most famous of those being the Artic Monkeys, who have had huge success from their Internet fame. Then there is Lily Allen has also claimed that she became successful from her bedroom, she too claims to be a MySpace queen. Rumours are though, that this wasn’t this case.

But, it still amazes me how naive people are when it comes to artists using the Internet to promote themselves to the world. Let’s face it, the Internet is one of the most powerful marketing tools available to all of us. I know the music industry have for a long time ignored this medium. They spent more time trying to stop people downloading their music, rather than focusing on how they could use it to their advantage. Since successes like the Artic Monkeys, they haven’t been slow at using the web to promote their acts. In fact, nearly every new act now has a MySpace account.

This article on TheRegister shows how naive people really are when some bloggers finally realise their beloved Marié Digby is professionally backed.

The great Italian tenor, Luciano Pavarroti has died this morning, aged 71. It’s been reported he died in his home at 4am this morning. RIP Luciano.

The legends that are, Led Zeppelin, are rumoured to be reuniting for a one-off charity gig! This would be their first live performance since Live Aid in 1985.

It would be nice if they could do more than one gig so we younger ones can see ‘em!

The artist formerly known as Prince is planning to give away his much anticipated new album “Planet Earth” FREE (yes free!) with The Mail on Sunday.

What seems like another outrageous (but courteous) gesture from Prince is an obvious backlash at the record companies that controlled him for so long. However, I’m disappointed with the music industry’s response.

In a response to Prince’s publicity stunt, Entertainment Retailers Association spokesman Paul Quirk said, “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince should know that with behavior like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores. And I say that to all the other artists who may be tempted to dally with the Mail on Sunday.” He went on to say that it would be an insult to record stores if this goes ahead.

How rich is that? The guys that wouldn’t be around without people like Prince think that they own the artist and can tell them what they can and can’t do…..

Personally, I think Prince is just cheaping himself by doing this, but hey, he has try anything to get people interested in him again!!

Sadly, I’m a huge fan of talent spotting TV shows. but I tend to lose interest when they no longer search the streets for talent and become nothing more than a glorified cabaret show.

However, this weekend while waiting on my wife to get ready to leave for a night out, I tuned into The X-Factor results show. I was surprised that the last two fighting for the judges votes were Robert and Eaton Road. It’s fair to say that both these acts were certainly not the worst left in the competition.

Just before the two acts were about to repeat their performance in the hope that the judges would keep them in, Simon Cowell insisted he would choose the best act based on their performance of their final attempt. He even went as far as to say, “Robert, so far you are in the lead”.

Robert took to the stage first and there was no doubt that this guy is a talented singer. However, I always felt he didn’t have what it takes to be a huge pop star. His voice is old fashioned and his appearance…… well there is none. None the less it was a great performance.

Eaton Road took to the stage and sang what can only be described as a terribly embarassing rendition of the Scizzor Sisters, “I Feel Like Dancing”. It was excrutiatingly bad, it’s just so hard to explain. The song just did not suit them at all, or should I say, their voices just didn’t suit this song!

I’m a fan of Simon Cowell and in most cases feel he seriously can spot talent. Although sometimes, he gets stcuk on something and is to proud to admit he was wrong. So as I sat in anticipation, waiting to see if Simon for once had the guts to stick with an act that was by far the least commercial of the two, but miles better in the talent department. I really thought for once he was going to change his tact!!

But no, commercialisation stuck through for Simon, he just knew he couldn’t sell Robert to the masses, but he does know that these guys probably have the greatest chance that any group that has performed on X-Factor to actually carve out a career….

Shame on you Simon!!! Never true to your word!

I came across these guys whilst watching my favourite Scuzz Music Channel. I don’t know if it was the lead singers big fizzy head OR his high pitched voice that caught my attention, but either way, within seconds I was hooked.

The track I heard was “Welcome Home”, a classic rock epic with simularities to a Led Zepplin song. So at this stage I thought it was worth the purchase of their album.

So off I went on the trek of tracking down their latest album. After the first listen, I just couldn’t get into it. After listening to 3 tracks my brain just couldn’t handle the high pitched voice of Claudio Paul Sanchez. The songs were also a bit light for my liking, but none the less very catchy and radio friendly songs.

The best of the lot are “Welcome Home”, “Ten Speed” and “The Suffering”.

So would I recommend the album? No
Are they worth a listen? Yes

You can get the album here >>

Finally got my hands on AudioSlaves latest album, Revelations - you can buy it here >>

Although the album has everything I’d expect from an AudioSlave album, classic Rage Against The Machine style riffs and Chris Cornell’s amazing gravelly voice, it just doesn’t do it for me. Surprisingly Tom Morello even tries a “normal” guitar solo at one stage and pulls it off pretty well. Brad Wilk also seems a bit more adventurous on the drums than he has in previous albums.

The biggest flaw of this album in my opinion is the lack of catchy tunes! It sounds like the album was rushed and not much time was spent creating a new set of classic songs. But in saying that… it’s still a good album for the hardcore fans! It’s definitely worth the €12 to have in your record collection!

“People can get [tab] for free on the internet, and it’s hurting the songwriters,” MPA president Lauren Keiser told the New York Times.

So now the MPA want to remove all our beloved guitar tab sites that allow us musicians to quickly learn the latest number ones.
To say that these websites are hurting songwriters is a bit over the top. Ok, songwriters get some royalites for the sale of books with their music notations in them, but it’s by no means their main source of income.
In fact, I would go as far as to say that it is actually helping songwriters as opposed to hurthing them. The easier it is for us musicians to quickly learn tunes, the more time we spend playing them, hence promoting their work.

From my experience, I never once bought one of those books with guitar tabs in them. I’d do one of the following.

1. Buy a guitar magazine, any guitar mag was always full of the latest or greatest track in tab.
2. Do it the hardway, by ear. A lof the fun about playing an instrument is tryin to figure out how it’s done. Our buzz is emulating our idols or being able to play our favourite track. Sitting down for a couple of hours figuring out a new song is good fun!
3. A worst case scenario is that we have a gig tonite and haven’t got the time to try figure out if it’s a C or a G they’re playing. So you go into a music shop, have a look for one of these books and right it down on a piece of paper and leave the shop…. people do it all the time.

The music industry needs to understand that we musicians are promoting their music, we’re not trying to rip you off!

I had the pleasure of being at the Pearl Jam concert in The Point Depot on Wednesday night. I have to admit, I’m am not a huge fan of Pearl Jam, in fact, I wouldn’t even have any of their records in my record collection….

But a good friend of mine coaxed me into going and in a way I’m glad he did. Although they are not the most crowd interactive band I have ever seen, I enjoyed the atmosphere at this gig.

Musically, they are a very talented bunch of guys. As I’m a drummer myself, I was enthralled watching Matt Cameron playing, what a great bloody drummer!

All in all, a very good gig - but god, they did a really poor rendition of Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys are Back in Town”. I hope they only thought about doing this while caught up in the moment, because if they had rehearsed this….. hhhmmmm…. it was a very poor attempt!

Apparently Pearl Jam are rebels against the strict finishing up times that all venues seem to adhere to nowadays and Wednesday was no different. The main lights in the point were turned on at about 10.45 but they continued through this until 11 O’Clock… I’m sure the point depots management weren’t very happy about this!
All in all, I’m still not a fan and the gig certainly wasn’t worth the amount I paid for the ticket, which I didn’t get at cost price!

The French Constituitional Council has reject the law which would have forced Apple to make music from it’s online shop playable on any device.

So may think this is a God sent, but personally, I think it is only fair that the music can be played on any device.

I personally think it is anti competitive to only be able to play the tracks purchased from the iTunes store on an iPod. But hey… why does it matter what I think, it doesn’t seem to bother the millions of iPod owners!