Blipping eck, it's Ultravox! ♫ http://blip.fm/~7igbg
Blipping eck, it's Ultravox! ♫ http://blip.fm/~7igbg
I'm just testing out ping.fm which lets me post updates to all my networks in one go! Let's see if it works....
A while ago I mentioned the remix I did for New Zealand band, Pitch Black. I'm proud to announce that the remix, entitled "Rude Mechanicals (mistrust's ambiotik remix)" is out now in New Zealand, and will be released worldwide over the next few weeks.... Here's part of the official press release from Pitch Black's label: "we're proud to announce the imminent release of Rhythm, Sound And Music, a collection of remixes of tracks from Rude Mechanicals. Some of our favourite from artists around the world have stepped up to the challenge of tweaking the originals: Bluetech, International Observer, Simon Flower, Patch, Kerretta, Friends Electric and many more (including England's mistrust!). The full track listing is below. You can check out the tunes in full at last.fm or most of them are also up on Pitch Black's myspace. (The mistrust remix is on my own myspace player here - myspace.com/mistrust) You can either buy the 14-track CD from one of the online stores below, or if you are one of those thoroughly modern interweb peeps who prefers a download, you can get the surgically-enhanced 20-track ultra augmented bumper edition!! To celebrate the new release, we are heading across to Australia in June for some shows in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, and then swiftly over to the West Coast of the USA for a handful more. All these dates are below, we'd love to see ya! We will also be heading to the UK and Europe in October, so keep an eye out for us and we'll keep you updated closer to the time. Enjoy the tuneage, we look forward to seeing you on the dancefloor sometime soon!" Release Dates NZ - May 4th in stores, April 27th online AUS - May 30th in stores, May 12th online USA - May 16th in stores, May 12th online UK/EU - May 26th in stores, May 12th online Online Stores: NZ - available from Amplifier AUS - available from Vitamin USA - available from CD Baby UK - available from Dubmission Records EU - available from Dubmission Records Special downloads: NZ - 20 track version available from Ampilfier USA - 20 track version available from iTunes Track Listing:
First, a few changes/updates I've made to this blog: - I've reverted to the "everything's gone green" theme from last year (see why below). - Most of my old songs and tunes are now available as free direct downloads in my Music page. - I've reorganised my links on the blogroll-type list, and included some new friends. Still more changes to be made though... Too much time on Twitter recently has left me little time for my proper blog here on Wordpress, and even less time for changing the homepage at mistrustmusic.co.uk. I realised the other week that the link on the homepage still pointed to my blog entry about my Rude Mechanicals remix being released last October. I guess it was still relevant at the moment, but now it's coming out on the Pitch Black remix CD at the end of April, I need to update it. Cue redesign in Dreamweaver! I'm trying to tie in the design of the homepage to my photo of Talacre Beach that people have commented on, along with this wordpress blog. Vincesapplemac (Vince Elgey), one of my twitter friends, keeps telling me to go the self-hosting route and install a wordpress.org blog so I can change the theme to something more individual than the wordpress.com themes. Maybe he's right, but I need to get organised first! In the meantime, I'll probably add a couple of pages to mistrustmusic, including links to all my music. Other recent news/updates Henry in New Zealand, who is definitely my number one fan, is still plugging my Rude Mechanicals remix! Can't thank him enough. I've made quite a few new friends on Twitter - as I mentioned earlier, so hello to everyone on there. I've also invented a couple of new categories on there: #fickletwittering and #unfollowed. If you're a twitterer, have a look for them to discover what they mean! If not, all will be explained in my next post on here. I'm going to see Ultravox in concert next week, and getting very excited about it! For those who don't know them, they were big in the 1980s, and have just reformed for a one-off tour. I'll hopefully be twittering from there and post some photos up in twitpic. The last time I saw Ultravox (in 1984), they were using a lot of pre-MIDI equipment, things like the ARP Odyssey and Yamaha CS80, so it will be interesting to see how they recreate the songs using things like the MacBook Pro... (Follow them on Twitter!) I've sent Animat some video clips I took of them performing the live score of Tuvalu in Leeds a few weeks ago. Some of the clips are very dark, but they may put some on Youtube. My songs on MusicFreedom have disappeared, in fact MusicFreedom.com has disappeared! Paul, my 16 y.o. stepson with Autism, is still out of school, however he's visiting a special school for an hour or two twice a week, which is progress... Really need to publish more updates on here! By the way - the photo of the tree is one I took on my new Sony Ericsson phone.
More on from my recent post about Young kids and Facebook, where I read on my local school's newsletter that some of the 7-11 year olds were going on Facebook. I decided to take matters into my own hands and send an email to the headteacher, asking if they knew there was information readily available on the internet about the pros and cons of children using Facebooks and other social networking sites. I also suggested that they look at sites like Thinkyouknow and maybe list them in one of the newsletters. To my surprise, I got an email back the next day, thanking me for pointing out what I did, and then got a mention in the next newsletter, in a paragraph telling parents about the Thinkyouknow website. So, a big tick for Parent Power! It's probably the first time I've written to the school about anything - probably because it bothers me so much. We'll probably never know if any of the parents take notice of it, but it's a start. However, I'm now waiting for the backlash from parents saying "how dare you tell me how to bring up my child!" It actually makes you wonder why the Local Education Authority haven't issued guidelines to school about things like using Facebook etc. Surely they're the people who have more influence. I think I'm going to have to suggest going in and talking to the staff and kids about all this.... As you may know if you're following my ramblings regularly, I am a Twitterer as well as a Wordpress blogger. As such, I'm interested to read that Wordpress have finally got round to adding a Twitter widget to the list available to those of us with Wordpress.com accounts. I won't go into details about what the widget will do as there's more information about in Wordpress.com's blog post here - "Bring Twitter to Your Blog". However, I'm still not convinced about having all my eggs in one basket - in other words, will people prefer to follow my tweets in Twitter, and my blogs in Wordpress? And finally - for those people who don't know me, or are just interested in the ramblings about Facebook etc., you might like to know that I also make music in my spare time. In fact, I've been quite busy recently with the music-making. I''ve been making my own tunes for a few years, but a chance meeting with a DJ from the Big Chill organisation put me in touch with New Zealand band Pitch Black. I asked if I could do a remix for them, just because 1. I like their music, and 2. for a bit of experience of doing a remix. I sent it in, and they liked it so much they released it on their EP of the title track of their last album, and it's on their new remix CD out in May. Because of that, I was asked to do a remix for Big Chill band Animat for their next single - that's out early May too. Not bad eh? I'm on the lookout for some more remixes to do, but so far, so good! If you'd like to hear the remixes, please go to www.myspace.com/mistrust The tracks on Myspace are: Pitch Black - Rude Mechanicals (mistrust - ambiotik remix) Animat - Deep Space Lament (mistrust remix)
As well as the Rude Mechanicals remix I did for NZ band Pitch Black, I did one just after Christmas for a friend's band from Sheffield (UK) called Animat. The remix is of a song of their's called "Deep Space Lament", from their latest album, "Earplay". I'm really proud of this remix - I only had a week to get it done in and somehow it all came together really quickly. It's one of those tracks that you think to yourself "how did I do that?" Hopefully Animat's fans and followers will like it, and the people at the Big Chill label like it too. A preview of Deep Space Lament (mistrust remix) is now up exclusively on my myspace music player, so please listen and see what you think (and add it to your profile!). It's going to be released on Big Chill Records on 11th May 2009 There are actually two other remixes up on my myspace music player. There's Deep Space Lament, and the two versions of the remix I did of Rude Mechanicals. The original version of this track is on "Rhythm Sound and Movement", Pitch Black's new remix CD, which is out on download at the end of April 2009, and in the shops early May!!!! Looks out for the change in title from the recently available EP versi0n. The track on the remix CD is called the "ambiotik" remix. Deep Space Lament (mistrust remix) by Animat is out 11th May on all good download stores! Rude Mechanicals (mistrust/ambiotik remix) is out end of April/early May 2009. Get more music on my Music page.....
It really comes to something when your child's Head Teacher has to put a notice in the weekly school newsletter telling parents about the dangers of letting their little ones go on the internet unsupervised. Apparently some of the 7 - 11 year olds at this particular primary school are regulars on Facebook, and are even posting information about which school they go to! Seven years old! I won't go into why these young kids would want to even go on Facebook, but maybe someone could explain in more detail than me. What I want ask is why their parents are even letting them go on. Apologies to some of the parents of this school who may read this message (if you even know that I blog!), but how on earth can you let your child say that they were born in 1987? Did you know that Facebook only allow over-13s on? I know that younger kids go on there (my 11 y.o. daughter is on it - completely supervised and not allowed to post any messages/comments without me or mrs mistrust approving it first). It makes me wonder if these parents who let their kids go on the internet unsupervised actually about parental controls, or even that they should really be supervising their kids when they're on the web. I'm not saying what me and mrs m are doing with our own kids by supervising them when they're on the web, but as I've said before now in my post "A is for Amazon", I really think it's necessary to let you kids learn the language of the web, and get a grip on new technology, new ways of communicating. However, apart from needing a balance between going on the web and doing real-life things, kids really need to know the pros and cons of going on the internet as soon as possible. My kids are hopefully fairly sensible when they go on the internet, because we haven't stifled them and stopped them going on every site they come across. To me it's like teaching kids to learn to ride a bike. You don't just put a 7 year old on a new bike on a main road, and say "off you go", and let them get on with it. You teach them how to ride the bike, put stabilisers on so they don't fall off, and you teach them what dangers to look out for - "don't go on that busy road until you're old enough", "don't go too fast or you'll fall off". So. back to these kids at the local primary school... it must be a complete lack of ignorance about what's out there on the web, or a couldn't care less attitude, that lets a 7 year old child go on Facebook and post details of which school they attend. Which is worrying. The school is holding a session in a few weeks showing parents how to help their kids improve maths and literacy skills. They should also be holding a session about how to improve parents' and children's awareness of using the internet safely and securely. Finally, if you have a child or want to know more about child safety on the web, please visit Thinkyouknow, which I came across a while ago, and which should help you enormously! Moving my blog... No more posts on here... I've moved my blog and website to www.mistrustmusic.co.uk
Musicians and bands should take notice of Stephen Fry's comments on BBC's Analysis programme "Stephen Fry: The Internet and Me". Fry points out that Twitter and its ilk have made it easy for celebs to bypass the press offices and gossip columnists, and tell the world what they're doing as soon as it happens. Why though, are there not many bands and musicians on Twitter? Why aren't there many bands from Manchester (UK) not tweeting that they're doing a gig on Friday night? No DJs either, plugging their new set? Mr Musician, it's ok to have a Myspace page and add a new event, or go on Facebook and tell your followers when your CD is out, but do you use your Myspace blog to involve your fans (or potential fans) in your writing process, or post a comment on your FB wall to say you've finished another track? If you had a Twitter account, you could send update your fans on a regular basis: "someone from a record label was at the gig earlier tonight" - that sort of thing. Surely you're not waiting for manager to do it for you? If you've got a PR person, are they on Twitter, or Digg, or even blogging on your behalf? To me, a lot of bands - especially unsigned ones, are missing the boat. They're not looking for new ways of promoting themselves. Yeah, they're on Youtube, Bandcamp, Facebook, but everyone is. How many people read comments or blog posts on Myspace these days? How do you know it's not the record company's PR department writing a post? Think about Stephen Fry's "Help, I'm stuck in a lift, but I've still got time to Twitter" tweet as an example of what I mean. Stuff like Twitter just a great medium for keeping his fans and followers uptodate with what he's doing: when his next TV programme is on, when he's recording a podcast, and when he's going to have a cup of tea. So many people, many of them are celebrities, have switched on to the self-publicity machine that is Twitter, especially in the UK. Jimmy Carr, Philip Schofield, Chris Moyles, Alan Carr - they may not be really famous and massive celebs, but they've all realised that their fans and potential fans read their Twitter posts. Mr Musician, Mr Band member, Mr DJ, Twitter et al let you build up your profile for your fans and let people know that you're a real person, with real thoughts, not just a noise on a CD. Get Tweeting when you've finished a recording session, or when you're getting a new guitar! My daytime job is in e-learning in a further education college, and I'm amazed by the number of applications, websites, and other stuff I come across that could be used by bands to promote what they're doing. Don't forget, this is just my opinion. If you want to know more about what I'm upto, why not follow me on Twitter!
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Internet Blackout New Zealand"]
[/caption] Partly because I've got a link with New Zealand music (because of my remixes for Pitch Black), and partly because I think the new laws stink, I've joined The New Zealand Internet Blackout to protest against the Guilt Upon Accusation law 'Section 92A' that calls for internet disconnection based on accusations of copyright infringement without a trial and without any evidence held up to court scrutiny. This is due to come into effect on February 28th unless immediate action is taken by the National Party. The webiste Creative Freedom says "Join thousands of New Zealanders already against this law by blacking out your Facebook photo, your websites, your Myspace pages, your Twitter account, in protest against this unjust new law that may come into effect on February 28." There are over 5,000 signatures to the petition on the site already. If you're a Twitterer, please include the #blackout tag to your Tweets! My Twitter profile and blog have been changed to reflect the "Blackout" theme! If you want to get involved with this protest, go to the following link and get some more info! Creative FreedomIf you're a Soundcloud user and want to play your tracks in your Wordpress.com blog, here's how to do it: Just copy the link location from the "download" button on your soundcloud player and paste it into your Wordpress visual editor (not the code editor). You need to add the usual WP code to it so you get, eg: [a u d i o ] Obviously, you'll need no gaps in the word audio! So it should look like this: [audio http://soundcloud.com/mistrust/pitch-black-rude-mechanicals-mistrust-remix/do...] Publish your WP post and then view it. The standard WP flash player appears (the one with the speaker and the play icon). You'd think that you would need a .mp3 extension, but you don't! Also, you don't get a Soundcloud player in your blog. Have a look here to see it in action properly: It works! Thanks to Soundcloud.com for hosting my tracks. PLEASE NOTE: My blog has now moved to http://www.mistrustmusic.co.uk so please click the link to go there... The world of mistrust music