I’m still alive, again…

It’s been a long time and alot of inactivity. Oddly enough when I am unemployed I tend to do nothing but now I work 48 hour weeks I seem to get more inspiration and actually find the time to get things down.
Needless to say I have several song structures down and hopefully will be adding vocals soon. Might just chuck songs out as they are finished rather than do the whole album thing, see how that works out!

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

From a music genre perspective, I don’t know what I’m doing yet. Whether I will stick to dance metal or goto piano music. Maybe I will do both. But it’s damn essential I start writing something, and also developing this website.

I’m writing things, I’m always playing around with synths, piano chord shapes and general rhythms. But not stringing anything together. But I am going to be more liberal with what I produce. Starting soon, any little records or developments I do will be shared here (under the Creative Commons of course). If I develop a four bar loop that I think is terrible, I’ll share it. Piano diddlings, consider it viewable.

Why am I doing this? I don’t know really. I think at some level I have to prove that I’m still competant in the genre of music writing and production. I’m leaving the Idoliside of the past and entering something new which reflects the state of music today. When people listen to music I write I would like them to consider the efforts I’ve used to come up with it. And the end of the day, fans who follow the writing and documentary of the song will consider it much more than someone who spent their 99p on the Number 1 song from iTunes (or Play.com if you are sensible)

Who knows, maybe I’m like an old soldier who never went to war yet still wants his part in the glory. Or maybe I genuinely do want to create something new and unique for listeners of music who are fed up of disposable music.

In regards to website changes, I’ve moved the music to the Music tab, got rid of Twitter (big old waste of time, who wants to know when I’m excited or spamming for competitions) and will probably be adding and removing things over the next few weeks (such as a new review section where I shall cast my unholy opinion on subjects of media)

On privacy, releases and the future

While I have been fairly inactive for the last few years in regards to my music it doesn’t mean I havn’t been working on stuff. For the years I was at university I seemed to succumb to writers block which I think I’m over now, my problem is that I don’t really have the right vocal recording setup at the moment. Now I know that’s no excuse for any musician, who should be able to write and record anywhere but I tend to be quite shy about recording my vocals.

Not shy as in stage shy, that’s different. But having privacy when I’m working out new lyrics, melodies to go over songs is extremely vital to me. I can get quite embarressed with bits that don’t fit or if I mess up and someone walks in. One notable moment when recording one track back in 2006 was me singing, and my step-dad walking up the stairs to find out what was wrong with me, he thought I was in pain.

One situation i’m thinking of is when I do finish a set of tracks, how should I release it. The fairly common was is to bundle it into a group and release as an album, but that is an age old system that I believe could do with some shaking up. In this modern times people are still writing individual songs and bundling them together to form an album. From a popular-culture point of view this is fine but I’ve always believed that if I’m writing songs to be put next to each other I’d like them to have some kind of relationship, tell a story etc. Some of my favourite albums do exactly this (Tommy – The Who, Snow – Spock’s Beard, Year Zero – Nine Inch Nails).

But also the case of when I do write individual songs (which I do most of the time) should I bundle them together or just put them up on this website for people to download. Do individual songs lose their punch if released in the singular or can they be regarded better as part of a collection. This is what i’m tempted to do, simply put out songs as they are mixed and mastered.

I’m also going to put up my source files for anyone to use (creative commons license obviously) as-well as a detailed explanation on how I wrote the song, what it means etc. I feel alot of artists don’t spend enough time explaining how they came about songs and what interesting things happened in the recording process. In that regard I’d like people to know how I came about using a certain instrument, how I go about writing music and what goes through my head when I sing “pump and they pump and they pump”.

I think that’s enough reading for you for now. I’m going to sort out the tabs on my site to better reflect the changes that are coming up. I’m not sure whats coming up in any update, wether it be ideas, track excerpts, song explanations or maybe an actual musical release (not seen one of those in a while ).

Tracks now removed from digital retailers

They may be still there, but i’ve stopped paying the publishing company so they will probably be gone soon. There are several reasons for this

1: It kinda goes against why i’m writing music to sell it. The reason i did it in the first place was to get a small amount of publicity by saying “hey, i got albums on sale” whereapon people would go “ooh posh”. But in principle i believe that my music should be enjoyed without having to fork out cash, so it will be permenantly available for free here on the website.

2: The RIAA in the ultimate move of stupidity fined someone an unbelievable sum of £1.9 million for downloading/sharing 24 tracks. That was outrageous, had they been sharing entire archives I could agree but this sounds like someone just left Bittorrent on a little too long. Even though the RIAA and any record company have nothing to do with my music, I still feel i can distance myself from the outdated music business that still exists.

3: Giving music away to people is much more satisfying than selling it. I don’t really get any statistics on who’s downloading what or how i fare in people’s minds. But the music is there and free for anyone to use as they wish. Except claim as they’re own, but I trust people not to do that. So feel free to distribute/remix/play these tracks as you wish.

Work on new tracks is on hold until i can find a good audio recorder that will link with Reason. I’d love to use Adobe Audition but lacks the support sadly (unless i’m missing something). I may go with Reaper but nothing will be totally satisfactory until Record comes out in september. I’ve been playing with the demo and it’s damn good…

Preview New Tracks!

Yep that’s right, i’ve got some new tracks for you to preview! These small clips are for the next release. Though these are lacking any Guitar or Vocal additions, because i’ve yet to record them yet. But here’s some of my works in progress, small clips from five of the new tracks that will be on the next album. Hope you enjoy!

People viewing this post from Facebook notes will need to goto the website to listen to the clips as the audio player doesn’t work with the notes.

New facebook page

We now have a new pagebook page for fans to join! Took me a while to realise this existed and have been setting it up for a few days now (had to authourise music uploads which was a bit annoying).

I think this will be one of the two community portals (look at me using net lingo) for idoliside, the other one being here on wordpress, but not many people want to make a wordpress account and already have facebook. Makes it much easier. Click the link on the right to see the page, and become a fan, if you wish

New music is starting to shape up, got a folder called “You Will Work On This” that concentrates the hundreds of ideas into a handful of potentially finished song frameworks. Got to work on lyrics and guitar works next.

Also still trolling around the idea of piano works and other miscellania, not quite sure what these will form up to…

Anyway, enjoy!

Old stuff, conflict, future…

I just found a load of my old dance recordings i did years ago. Some original, some from Dance Ejay (remember that!). I’ll probably put them online at somepoint.

I’m still feeling unoriginal and conflicted about my music, i don’t quite know what path im on in writing. Whether its dance, jazz, electronica, rock whatever. I love alot of music and want to make music but hitting the preverbial wall when come to writing my own stuff.

The tracks i know as Idoliside might be something of the past or something i explore more, i dunno. Listening to music isn’t enough anymore, i need to write, i need to create…

Some piano improvisations

Here’s some random piano improv i did. This was recorded using a condensor microphone literally sitting on the side of a cabinet. These recordings i just sat down and played, there are problems and mistakes and some resemblance of structure. Enjoy.

Explanation and Jazz Jam 1:

Jazz Jam 2:

Messing About 1:

Messing About 2:

Also available for download on the download page.

Me playing around on the piano

Just playing around on my new piano, which cost me all of £100! Bargain. Slightly out of tune and apologies for the bad video, it is just a webcam on a laptop.

new website!

Welcome to my new easy to manage WordPress website. The advantage over using this style of website over one construted in HTML is that it’s far easier for someone like me to update without the hassle of re-loading pages and complex construction.

For me this is an extreme advantage as my time is limited and i don’t always want to spend it editing html files and playing around with Dreamweaver’s server browser. So welcome one and all, i plan to keep this more frequently updated than i did previously.

You will also notice i’ve got albums for sale as well as direct downloads. So if you like it you can buy it! I’ll also be putting up random reason demo’s and projects im working on mid-cyle. Rather than hide away my progress like other artists do, i want people to see where i come from when i make music. Also adds the option for better critisism and anaylses.

Look forward to a better Idoliside!

Alex Sharkey