Author Archives: Tim Hall

Old Clichés Never Die, They Just Smell Like It.

Posted on June 2, 2012 by Tim Hall

Since it’s Jubilee year again, people of a certain age are getting nostalgic about punk.

To hear some of them it’s difficult to escape the conclusion that a couple of years in the late 70s must have been their one moment of excitement in what subsequently became drab and unfulfilled lives.

Yes, punk produced some great rock’n'roll records, and that ought to be it’s legacy. Not the pseudo-intellectual hogwash from certain sections of the music press that went along with it. All those usual tired clichés are being trotted out yet again, and some of the historical revisionism approaches David Irving levels. The idea that punk completely invalidated prog-rock ignores inconvenient facts like Johnny Rotten being a big fan of Van der Graaf Generator, or some of The Damned liking Pink Floyd. Isn’t there something inherently fascistic about anything that tries to define itself purely by what it hates?

I’ve heard one person on Twitter respond to the question of why you can’t listen to both prog and punk with the patronising “If it has to be explained, you just don’t get it”. These people give every impression that they, like the revisionist punk-era music journalists, don’t actually like music for music’s sake. It’s all about socio-political posturing, tribal identity, image and attitude.

If punk was a reaction to anything, surely it was the parlous state top-40 pop in the second half of the 70s after glam-rock had run out of steam. Unlike Pink Floyd or King Crimson, whose music remains influential to this day, enjoyed by people who weren’t even born in the 1970s, the dross that filled the charts back then hasn’t stood the test of time, full of names nobody can remember thirty years later.

So, can we put the oft-repeated lie that “Punk was necessary to save the world from prog-rock” into the dustbin of history where it belongs, and just appreciate the music itself for what it is?

Posted in Music, Music Opinion | Tagged , | 8 Comments

Two trains are going to crash. What do you do?

Posted on May 23, 2012 by Tim Hall

One of the Twitter testing community, @JariLaakso, posted this question:

Two trains are going to crash. Brakes don’t work. What would you do?

Of course, you can’t answer this without asking a lot of questions to establish context.

  • Are you on board one of the trains? If so, are you a passenger or a member of the train crew? If train crew, are you in the driving cab, or elsewhere on the train?
  • Is your train actually moving, or is it stationary and about to be hit by the other train?
  • If you’re not on board the train, are you a bystander, or someone like a signaller?
  • How long before the collision? Just seconds, or longer than that?
  • Is there anyone on board the trains at all? Perhaps it’s a staged crash for a film?
  • Is the “crash” even an impending collision? Or is it a case of software gone blue-screen-of-death meaning the brakes can’t be released and the train needs rebooting before it can go anywhere? This may sound silly, but I’ve been on a Virgin Trains Pendolino that had to do precisely that.

The actual answer turned out to be none of those things, but that’s not really the point. It’s about asking the right questions to get the information you need to be able to answer the original question “What do you do?”.

As an aside, real-life rail (or air) accident reports can often be worthwhile reading for a tester. I’m not talking about sensationalist reports of death and destruction, but the technical stories behind the accidents and how they occurred.

I remember reading L.T.C.Rolt’s classic “Red For Danger” at a formative age. It’s a very well-written and readable account of the evolution of railway safety throughout the steam age. It starts with the development of early primitive signalling systems from the 1840s onwards, and tells of the lessons learned from each successive serious accident. As the story moves into the 20th century, increasingly sophisticated systems from signal interlocking to better and stronger rolling stock meant far fewer disastrous accidents. But even the best systems can fail, with sometimes fatal consequences, and the book explains how.

It’s essentially the story of bugs.

Posted in Testing & Software | 6 Comments

Storm Corrosion

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Tim Hall

Storm Corrosion is the much anticipated Anglo-Swedish collaborative project between two of the biggest names in the contemporary progressive rock world, Opeth mainman Mikael Ã…kerfeldt and Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree and myriad side-projects. While initial expectations might have been that they were going to do something along the lines of the prog-metal of their respective bands’ recent work, they soon made it clear it was going to be something altogether different.

The lengthy, atmospheric and sinister-sounding opener “Drag Ropes” sets the tone. With dominant sounds of acoustic guitar and mellotron plus piano, strings and woodwind it comes over as a soundtrack of a particularly spooky film, probably shot in grainy black-and-white. The film probably has subtitles, and everyone dies at the end.

It’s a record that owes as much to classical and folk music as it does to rock, and manages to combine a stripped-down minimalism with an ambitious cinematic scope. Save for one clattering outburst on “Hag”, accompanied by the only powerchords on the entire album, there is very little in the way of conventional rock drumming. But despite those dissonant strings and even the odd outbreak of pure white noise, it’s by no means an impenetrable record. It does need a few listens to fully appreciate it’s subtleties, which means it’s something you can listen to many times and keep discovering something new. It’s a work filled with moments of delicate beauty, whether it’s vocal harmonies or the sparse acoustic and electric guitar work.

There are elements of both musician’s other work, from Steve Wilson’s solo work to Opeth’s “Heritage” and “Damnation”. Parts of the instrumental “Lock Howl”, built around a rhythm loop and swirling keyboards recalls mid-period Tangerine Dream before giving way to percussion loops and disturbing discordant strings. There is also something of Talk Talk’s classic “Spirit of Eden” in it’s eschewing of conventional song structures in favour of soundscapes and textures, and that comparison is especially apparent on the dreamy closing track “Ljudet Innen”. There is also a bit of the spirit of Radiohead’s “Kid A” in it’s refusal to make any compromise towards commerciality or pander to audience expectations. In the unlikely event that you were still expecting Blackwater Park meets In Absentia, this is not the record you were looking for.

What we have is the sound of two of the progressive rock world’s most talented individuals following their combined muses wherever it takes them. It takes them and their listeners through some strange and exotic sonic landscapes, and it’s a more than worthwhile journey for anyone who chooses to follow. Bold and experimental, but still remaining accessible, it’s a genuinely progressive record in the true sense of the word.

Posted in Music, Record Reviews | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Mostly Autumn – The Ghost Moon Orchestra Launch Party

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Tim Hall

Saturday May 12th saw two hundred of Mostly Autumn’s hardcore fans gather at The Post Office Social Club in their home town of York for the launch party of their new album “The Ghost Moon Orchestra”. A lot of familiar faces present, many of whom I hadn’t seen for ages. Previous album launches, such as the Heart Full of Sky launch at The Astoria in 2007 had taken the form of a high profile showcase gig. This one, in more intimate surroundings had a rather different format.

Things started with a short live set from the band. Well, most of the band, since they played as a semi-acoustic five-piece minus Andy Smith and Gavin Griffiths. Bryan Josh played acoustic guitar throughout, but Iain Jennings play more than just piano parts on keys, and Liam Davison did some electric lead parts. Anne-Marie Helder doubled up on flute and percussion (is there no instrument she cannot play?). The set consisted entirely of stripped-down reworkings of existing material with no completely new numbers, drawing very heavily from “Passengers” including a great flute-heavy “Pass the Clock”. Other highlights were “Second Hand” from “Glass Shadows” with some very atmospheric lead guitar from Liam, and Livvy’s oldie “Rain Song”, played as a trio with piano and flute. It had been the band’s original intention to play the bonus disk “A Weather For Poets” in their entirety, including some new songs. Unfortunately several of the band were ill in the days immediately before the gig, and there wasn’t enough time to rehearse them. Still, it was interesting to hear fresh takes of those older numbers.

The second part of the evening was a playback of the album through the PA, at something approaching concert volumes, with various members of the band scattered among the audience. It’s difficult to judge an album properly on just two listens, especially for a band of Mostly Autumn’s musical scope. So this shouldn’t be taken as a proper review, which will have to wait until I’ve got hold of the CD when it ships in a few weeks time. Rather it’s my immediate first impressions.

The album starts with a very dynamic and very immediate opening number that reminds me of European symphonic metal bands like Sonata Arctica or Nightwish, and things continue in that vein. There are a couple of Deep Purple sounding songs awash with Hammond organ. There are one or two quieter moments, with a bit of Anne-Marie’s flute, and yet again there’s some Uilleann pipes, presumably from Troy Donockley.

But the overall feel is something heavier and more contemporary-sounding than anything they’ve done before. I wouldn’t have used the word “metal” to describe anything Mostly Autumn have done in the past. This is an album which, if properly marketed, could win over a significant crossover fanbase from the metal community.

Livvy’s vocals are amazing; there is a lot of material that makes full use of her power and range, and sounds utterly unlike anything Heather would have sung. If Go Well Diamond Heart emphasised Bryan’s guitar, this one’s far more about Livvy’s vocals. There are performances here in the same league as the likes of Within Temptation’s Sharon Den Adel.

This is the sound of a very different and re-invented Mostly Autumn. While I liked a lot of “Go Well Diamond Heart” and reviewed it favourably at the time, hearing the new one makes you realise how much the band had been playing it safe for their first album with a new lead singer. Now they’re showing what they can really do. Not only can I not wait until I get the CD so I can hear it again, but I can’t wait to see it all performed live when the band tour in September.

Posted in Music | Tagged | 4 Comments

Thought of the day

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Tim Hall

Turning life’s lemons into lemonade is part of a songwriter’s job description.

If you’re aggrieved about something, the last thing you should do is start washing dirty linen in public on social networks or on blogs. That does nothing but reflect badly on you, and risks dragging your fans into a dispute they didn’t ask to be part of. If you really can’t stay silent, do what every other musician I know has done. Go and and write a song about it.

Posted in Music, Music Opinion | 6 Comments

What The Liberal Democrats need to do now

Posted on May 6, 2012 by Tim Hall

So the Liberal Democrats, to nobody’s real surprise, did very badly in last week’s local government elections.

Part of it is down to the fact that government parties always do badly in mid-term council elections, and this is a new experience for the Liberal Democrats having not been in government before. It’s unfair on hard-working local councillors who lose seats through no fault of their own, but sadly that’s the way that it is as long as voters are more interested in “Sending a message to Westminster” than they are about electing a local council over local issues.

The Tories did badly as well. Nadine Dorries, recently described as the “Tories’ equivalent of Lembit Öpik”, is taking of leadership challenges, and demanding the return of traditional Tory values of anti-Europeanism and homophobia, oblivious to the fact that the Tories didn’t actually win the last general election, which is precisely why we have a coalition government.

Some sectarian Labour types are gleefully prophesying the end of the Liberal Democrats altogether “So that we can get back to proper two-party politics”. But The Liberal Democrats are not going to disappear any time soon, no matter what the tribalist wing of the Labour party would love to happen. It’s precisely because of their tribalist machine-driven politics that a party like The Liberal Democrats are necessary in the first place

But I do think this may well mark the turning point in the coalition.

The coalition hasn’t worked as well as many people had hoped. LibDem blogger Jonathan Calder, who enthusiastically supported the coalition in the early days rightly says

It was inevitable that the Coalition would run into trouble. One of the constituent parties had long been out of power, had leaders with no experience of government, and hordes of backbenchers and activists with bizarre views and little concept of party discipline.

I’m talking about the Conservatives.

To quote a former US president, “It’s the economy, stupid”. And the Very Big Stupid in question is Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, whose policies have failed in a way just about everybody but himself had predicted. If there is one thing Nadine Dorries is right about, it is that it’s time for him to go.

George Osborne is facing a double-whammy here. Not only is he hopelessly compromised by close association with the Murdoch clan in the still-unfolding scandal which may yet engulf the Prime Minister himself, but he’s proved himself spectacularly incompetent at his job. And the entire country is paying the price.

The way he allowed himself to be “intellectually persuaded” by ideological nonsense about Laffer Curves shows far out of his depth he is. Osborne doesn’t just not know the price of milk, his understanding of economics is reminiscent of the typical 17-year old libertarian troll on the internet. He comes over as a prime example of the Dunning-Kruger effect in action; he understands so little he doesn’t realise how little he understands.

At this point, the Liberal Democrats in Parliament have reached the point where they have nothing to lose from rocking the boat. The price of their remaining in government must be the removal of George Osborne as chancellor, and his replacement by someone who is both experienced and a pragmatist rather than an intellectually-challenged ideologue.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Panic Room’s “S K I N” now available for pre-order

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Tim Hall

Panic Room’s new album S K I N is now available for pre-order. As stated on Panic Room’s website:

We are taking pre-orders through our official website SHOP, and in the coming weeks the album will also be available directly from Esoteric Antenna at the Cherry Red Records website.

The first 2000 orders placed will receive the stunning ‘digipak’ version of ‘S K I N’ – an exclusive special edition with extended artwork and a beautiful fold-out design. A true collectors’ item.

After these first 2000 copies, the album will be available in standard jewel-case format. All pre-orders will be despatched first in line, when the albums are ready to send.

If you like great music with a real singer and real musicians, go and order this now. You won’t regret it.

Posted in Music, Music News | Tagged , | Comments Off

Time to log out of Facebook?

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Tim Hall

I’ve recently taken an extended break from Facebook. I’d got fed up with the drama, vapidity, over-sharing and passive-aggressiveness. I’m know I’m probably guilty of some of those things myself; that and the fact can easily become a huge time-sink are reasons I felt I needed a time-out from the place. But it’s made me wonder if there is a better way.

I really detest Facebook’s walled-garden approach. The most valuable thing about any internet-based community site isn’t the site itself, it’s the relationships you build and maintain through it. I don’t want those relationships wholly owned and controlled by an increasingly creepy corporation that’s only interested in monetising our mutual personal data so they can sell it to advertisers. Facebook has sucked the life out of far too many forums and blogs, and while many forums have their own problems, that can’t be a good thing. With more and more external websites morphing into detestable Facebook ‘apps’, they’re now actively trying to eat the rest of the web.

The only reason I’ve got a Facebook account at all is because there are people who have no significant online presence outside it, and I don’t want to lose all contact with them. I’d much rather a few more people who want to contact me follow me on Twitter, or comment on my blog. Or just use old-fashioned email.

It’s been said that Facebook was created by people with Aspergers syndrome. Whether this is true or not, it does appear to have belief in the geek social fallacies written all over it, especially #4 in that list. That does seem to be a root cause of a lot of the site’s problems.

In an ideal world, a combination of Twitter and blogging does everything I want out social networking. But blogging in particular is quite hard work if you want to build an audience. Facebook’s greatest strength is that it provides a ready-made audience for those who don’t have an awful lot to say. Unfortunately that’s also it’s greatest weakness, hence the vapidity and over-sharing. I always feel bad when I have to mute, unfollow or in the worse cases block people because they’re friends-of-friends in real life. Just because we like the same music doesn’t necessarily mean we have anything else in common.

So what to do? Should I hold my nose and use Facebook sparingly, just to keep in touch with those who are active nowhere else? Or should I try to encourage more people who actively want to interact with me online to follow me on Twitter or read my blog? Should I be spending more of my online time on existing communities like RMWeb and Dreamlyrics? Or should I put my faith in alternatives such as Google+ or even Diaspora?

You should be asking yourselves the same questions.

Posted in Social Media | Tagged , , | 10 Comments

Tinyfish/DeeExpus, The Peel, 27th April 2012

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Tim Hall

It was a bit of a last-minute decision to go to this gig, following the cancellation of the Cambridge Rock Festival’s Springfest due to the weather. I may not have been the only one. With the huge crowd milling around outside when I arrived, it was one of the best-attended gigs I’ve seen at The Peel. A lot of the south-east’s prog glitterati were there; several of Touchstone and Crimson Sky, guitar-loop maestro Matt Stevens, and even the drummer from Praying Mantis. As well as what seemed like half of Twitter.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen Tinyfish live. Last time was the now-infamous CRS Octoberfest way back in 2009. They proceeded to play an enthusiastic set of highly melodic song-orientated progressive rock interspersed with their distinctive spoken-word interludes from poet and “audience-frightener” Rob Ramsay. The latter reminded me a lot of “Fact and Fiction” era Twelfth Night. It’s not to everyone’s taste, but it is something that makes them distinctive, and Rob Ramsey has the dramatic presence to make it work. They drew heavily from their most recent album “The Big Red Spark”, from which the title track was a particular highlight.

I loved the band’s laid-back unpretentious style, exemplified by Leon Camfield’s line about his drumming being “like a clown ambling through a minefield”. Unusually for a prog band Tinyfish don’t have a keyboard player, relying on a mixture of programming and strange guitar effects whenever unguitarlike sounds are required. The folk-style fiddle sound coming from Jim Sanders’ guitar at the end was particularly effective. A nice set, and I’d have liked to have heard them play for longer.

DeeExpus are another band I haven’t encountered for some time; the last time I saw them live was again in 2009, supporting Touchstone at The Wesley Centre in Maltby. The band started out as a studio-based project from multi-instrumentalist Andy Ditchfield and singer Tony Wright. Now they’re a six-piece, who in the manner typical of the prog scene at this level includes people who are also members of numerous other bands.

They played heavy neo-prog that reminded me a lot of Grey Lady Down a few weeks before. Unfortunately they suffered from a rather muddy sound, with the vocals in particular not coming through clearly. I was told afterwards that the sound was actually better in the bar. There was much shredding from new guitarist Michael McCrystal, who sported an impressive 1980s-style perm and gave the impression he’d escaped from Mike Varney’s Shrapnel Records. Credo/Landmarq keyboard player Mike Varty, standing in on a temporary basis for Marillion’s Mark Kelly, indulged in some very 80s-Marillion style solos. Henry Rogers, now also in Touchstone contributed some very powerful drumming. The downside was that all the undoubted instrumental prowess didn’t quite compensate for material that was a bit ordinary in places, and I found my attention wandering at times. To be fair the poor sound didn’t help them in that regard. Still, the set picked up towards the end, and did come to a strong finish with the last couple of numbers.

The whole evening felt close to a double headliner rather than traditional band-with-support. The number of Tinyfish t-shirts in evidence and way the crowd had thinned out noticeably by the time DeeExpus came on stage suggested that a lot of the audience had really come to see to see the support. While the headliners had their moments, for my money Tinyfish were the band of the night.

Posted in Live Reviews, Music | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Warners Kill Roadrunner Records

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Tim Hall

A few weeks ago, I blogged about the troubles Delain were having with corporate interference affecting the release date of their album “We Are The Others”. That story appeared to have a happy ending, but sadly it was just an ill omen for far worse things to come. Now Warner Music Group, who had taken over Delain’s label Roadrunner have closed all Roadrunner’s non-US offices, and fired all the staff. That’s everyone in Europe and Canada who understood prog and metal, known and trusted by the bands. Gone.

This for me sums up everything that’s wrong with the music business. It’s why the majors must die.

The cloth-eared bean-counters at WMG will of course blame “piracy”. Never their own short-sightedness, stupidity and greed.

If you want to know why this matters, look at the artists on Roadrunner’s roster: Opeth, Porcupine Tree, Within Temptation, Dream Theater and Mastodon, and that’s just the start. It’s like a who’s who of the bigger prog and metal bands who are producing original and challenging music. And WMG have just fired everyone who knew and understood that music. The cloth-eared bean-counters of course all keep their jobs, and if you’re a fan of any of the above bands, you have every reason to fear the worst.

The great thing about Roadrunner is it allowed artists space to develop, and saw bands like Opeth and Porcupine Tree achieve significant success on their own terms, in complete contrast to the cookie-cutter approach that has typified the major labels in recent years. Almost all the music I’ve bought in the past 2-3 years that hasn’t been on small indies has been on Roadrunner. And most of that has been by European artists who all now face an uncertain future. As Earache owner Digsby said on Twitter

Some corporate twonk at Warners thinks promoting Machine Head & Opeth can be done just like Linkin Park & Green Day?

I hope as many bands as possible manage to extricate themselves from this – Most of them would be better off now with smaller independent labels who understand their music rather than have their career in the hands of some idiot in a suit on another continent who wants them to sound like Nickelback.

Time for Storm Corrosion to redo the shadow puppet video for “Drag Ropes” with a WMG executive replacing the priest.

Posted in Music, Music News | Tagged , , | 3 Comments