Andrew Nicholson

..still recording songs for the second tribute cd.
At this stage there is a possibility it may turn out a double cd, which would be great if it did.
I am about halfway through recording the songs and it seems I am picking a song from each of Bruce Springsteen’s studio albums

Hopefully be done with the recording towards the end of August after which I will put the songs up in the cds/albums section of the site.

I have quite a few photos to add to the site from a Bruce Springsteen concert I went to in June and from my holiday in Disneyland Paris. Will post them soon.

-Andrew

I was sad to hear Michael Jackson died this week. Although I did not have tickets for any of the O2 shows (they seemed to have sold out in minutes as far as I could see) but I was hoping he would do well and give a new generation an insight as to the excitement of watching him perform live. Whether or not he could have pulled those shows off well I am not sure but I certainly was hoping he would make a come back. I had always been disappointed with the lack of new Michael Jackson music since History/Blood on the Dancefloor and although Invincible (2001) features some great tracks (Unbreakable / 2000 Watts / You Rock my World) it seemed to lack the creativity and productivity which I am sure he was capable of. I guess I was a bit of a fan of Michael in the 90s as I had bought all his cds and was always looking forward to seeing his new music videos.

I was lucky enough to have seen Michael Jackson perform live on Monday September 30th 1996 in the Amsterdam Arena. It was the second of a three night stand there. He came back for a further two nights in 1997. He toured all throughout Europe for around a year I believe without doing any shows in the USA. I am guessing that had to do with the bad press he was starting to get in the mid 90s. What I personally remember really well from the show I attended was the excitement of watching him perform, the amazing dancemoves, the custome changes, the great use of the huge screens, waving of the Dutch flag by MJ and especially the marvellous CGI style introduction (quite ahead of its time back then) played on the big screens which was customised for each city on the tour after which Micheal Jackson stood still on stage for minutes to the huge roar of the crowd. The concert introduction from that tour can be found in various YouTube clips online and I have posted one of the better quality ones here.

I found a couple of instrumental MJ tracks I did years back on a tape which belonged to my nan. I cannot fully remember the list of equipment I used to record these tracks but I think I did these using a Technics KN1000 keyboard along with the Yamaha MU100R sound canvas and a 4 track taperecorder. I used a lot of sequencing back then so the songs are more mechanical sounding than anything else I’ve done but I thought it would still be interesting to make some mp3s out of them and post them online to share. The date of the tape is 31st of October 1997 and thus the tracks must have been recorded before then. So from the vaults as a little homage to Michael Jackson here are “We are the world” and “Will you be there”.

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Oh my god. Words fail to describe this awful, awful, awful mess of what cannot really be called a “movie” in my opinion.
And me actually having an appreciation for the MTV – popcorn style movies which Michael Bay is famous for doing (I loved “The Rock”, “Bad Boys I” and especially “Armageddon”) I can ONLY conlcude this one sucks big time. Possibly one of the worst cinema experiences I have ever had (no joke). I just wanted it to end after about 45 minutes in… I definitely would have walked out of the cinema if I had been there alone or if I was with someone else who didn’t like it.

The first Transformers movie would never be in my top 100 films or let alone top 1000 probably but at least it had originality, some interesting ideas and funny bits. I actually remember seeing the Transformers car chase mid way through and thinking it was excellent. The 2nd installment is just ridiculous. 150 minutes of explosions, CGI, empty and uninteresting characters who all pretty much do nothing, plot lines which move far too fast, no single shot that lasts longer than 1 second, Megan Fox (hugely overrated imo) running around for no reason in a slinky top, terrible humour, irritating characters which are unnecessary to the film (Shia’s parents), absolutely NO character development, etc. etc. And believe me I actually wanted to like this film and would have forgiven some of these cliches to an extent but 150 minutes of constant CGI really does not make a movie I think. There is NO heart in this, NO passion for making a movie which harnasses human values to any extent, instead it spits in the face of decency and it makes a Britney Spears musicvideo look like an opus. The “script” must have been 1 single A4 sheet????

Definitely the worst thing I have EVER seen that has had the names “Michael Bay” and “Steven Spielberg” associated with it. I have forgiven them both for “Bad Boys II”, “Pearl Harbour”, “1941″ and “Amistad”. How in God’s name do they get away with making something like this????

Extremely disappointed…. I cannot believe Paramount and Dreamworks have commissioned Transformers 3. I can only conclude they have NO dignity whatsoever and I have lost a LOT of respect for Spielberg on this one too.

A colleague at work pointed out this review by Mark Kermode from a radio show he does on five live. He starts talking about the movie about 17.30 minutes into the broadcast. He makes a lot of good and valid points; this is simply not good enough for a summer blockbuster movie which costs $200 million to produce. Indeed making an action flick based around robots with plenty of CGI is fine and the first installment is perfectly acceptable, but this one is just not. Outrageous.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/entertainment/kermode.shtml

What a Rubbish film, utter garbage in my opinion. How dare Michael Bay took a pun at Spielberg’s “Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” when he makes a movie that sucks about a thousand times more than that one even if it was just meant as a joke! (http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/05/08/michael-bay-says-indiana-jones-4-is-gonna-suck/ ).

Like Mark says in his review: I hated it.

SCORE: 1/10

I attended yesterday’s gig of the Meat Loaf tribute band Maet Loaf at The Robin in Bilston, Wolverhampton. A great show by the band and a great packed venue. Highlight for me were great renditions of “What about Love?” and “I’d do Anything For Love (But I Won’t do That)”. The latter probably the best version I have heard from the band partly due to their new drummer who follows what’s on the original songs pretty acurately.

Caught almost an hour on the camcorder so here are the vids uploaded to YouTube. Don’t forget to hit the HQ button if you have a fast connection, it’s worth it!

I’d Lie For You (And That’s The Truth)

For Crying Out Loud

Paradise By The Dashboard Light (1 of 2)

Paradise By The Dashboard Light (2 of 2)

What About Love?

Life is a Lemon (And I Want My Money Back)

Bat Out Of Hell (1 of 2)

Bat Out Of Hell (2 of 2)

Hi again,

I had a question come through about if people can buy the albums on this site. You certainly can. Just send an email to andrew@ (this domain) and I can sort something out. All cds come with proper artwork and professionally printed cds.
I only charge for cd materials and shipping costs as I’m not into music to make money out of and do not hold copyright of songs I have not written.

Currently taking a break from recording but will be putting up the 2nd Springsteen tribute cd over the next few months along with one filled of Bob Dylan songs.

In the long run I aim to complete “Thunder” around the autumn, an album filled with my own songs again.

Thanks and peace,

Andrew

Yesterday I went to see Per Gessle perform live in London at The O2 Academy in Islington. A great show and Per played a lot of Roxette stuff. Very good atmosphere too with everyone jumping up and down and singing along to all the songs. It’s been the first time I have seen him live and it definitely lived up to my expectations. I have always considered Per Gessle to be a fantastic song writer who has a huge catalogue of hits. It’s worth checking out some of his stuff even if you have only listened to a handful of Roxette stuff and like it.

I definitely hope to see him or with Marie as Roxette live again soon.

I managed to take some decent vids which I have uploaded to YouTube;
(Be sure to hit the HQ button if you have a fast connection as the sound quality is pretty good then)

Dressed For Success:

I Wish I Could Fly

She Doesn’t Live Here Anymore:

Listen To Your Heart

The Church of your Heart / Dangerous:

It Must Have Been Love:

Sleeping In My Car:

Another Bruce Springsteen cover I put together a few weeks ago. It’s “Thunder Road” with just piano and vocal… Not incredibly impressed with my version, think I could have done better here. I will see how it pans out in amongst the other songs on the second tribute album. If I still don’t like it then I will rerecord it.

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I just read a sad report that singer/songwriter Gregg Fulkerson, the composer of the beautiful song “A Date With Destiny” passed away on Tuesday (April 14th). Gregg was only 44.

More information about Gregg and his music can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregg_Fulkerson
http://www.myspace.com/wwwmyspacecomgreggfulkerson

“A Date With Destiny” was in fact rumoured to be a contender song to be on “Bat out of Hell II:Back into Hell” (by Steinman/Meat Loaf), it has remained unrecorded by any big named artists up until now. A gorgeous song in my opinion which has a very “Thunder Road”/Bruce Springsteen feel to it.

I recorded my own version of the song in 2006.

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Rest in Peace Gregg….

Another song for the second Springsteen tribute album.
This is a very simple version of a Woody Guthrie song which Bruce Springsteen performed a few times in the past during some of his tours and he has also included it during some shows in his current 2009 tour as well.

Interestingly to make the song more current I’ve read that Bruce Springsteen changed the lyric “The Gamblin’ man is rich while the working man is poor.” into “The Banking man is rich while the working man is poor.”, so here it is with that lyric change as well.

I chose for a simple arrangement with just a warm synthesizer pad as backing and the vocal. It will probably be the only track on the album with an apparent electronic backing as I am going to keep the rest more acoustic sounding (guitars and piano). I think it is a slighly eerie/empty sounding version but hopefully interesting because of that and will probably stand out as a bit different in amongst the rest of the songs on the final album.

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I’m not long back from a short trip to The Netherlands. I went to the AutoRAI car show in Amsterdam on Monday and took some photos. You can see them in the photo galleries section of the site or click the image below.

The car show was pretty good. I would say it was probably even bigger than the Motorshow at the Excel Centre in August 2008. There was probably less to do outside of the venue as at the Excel centre they had a small fun fair and of course the concerts every evening. However the show in Amsterdam seemed to include a more comprehensive selection of cars eventhough some manufacturers such as Nissan and Subaru were absent.

As there is no Excel Motor show next year (it has been cancelled) and the AutoRAI is not returning to Amsterdam until 2011 it will be a while before I visit one of these exhibitions again.
More information about the AutoRAI 2009 can be found here.