Author Archives: Tim Hall

Where is all the good music?

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Tim Hall

We’ve all heard friends like this. “There’s no good music around any more”, they say, like Homer Simpson. We know there’s all kinds of wonderful music out there in every genre from prog-rock to death metal to alt.country to electronic to solo bass to many many more that most people have never heard of. But they only know of the ITV Indie and Asda-pop of the commercial mainstream.

Steve Lawson said on Twitter

Ever heard anyone complaining that there’s no good music around any more? Those people are insane. Ignore them.

But I think Steve Lawson, thought he has a point, is still being a little bit on the harsh side, and although the people he rails about are indeed quite wrong, I can understand where they’re coming from.

When these people were in their teens and early 20s, they had plenty of time to discover new music. All the best music was well outside the commercial mainstream; they listened to the radio late at night, bought music papers, went to gigs, traded tapes with friends, all of it to discover the good stuff.

Now they’re older, with jobs and mortgages and kids, and they no longer have the time do that. All the new music they hear is the lowest common denominator slop served up by the mass media, drivel like X-Factor or daytime commercial radio.

What they forget is the mainstream media always was rubbish. At their seventies peak even huge selling acts like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin were conspicuous by their absence from TV or daytime radio, and people who weren’t active music fans were unaware of their existence. TV was filled with the likes of Brotherhood of Man and The Nolan Sisters in the same way as today has formulaic landfill indie.

Same as it ever was, if you want good music, you have to go look for it.

Posted in Music Opinion | Tagged , | 6 Comments

What are the parallels between music criticism and software testing?

Posted on October 22, 2011 by Tim Hall

Regular readers of this blog don’t really need to be told that I’m a very keen music fan and amateur rock critic. Writing about a small club-based scene I’ve come to know quite a few band members over the years. I’ve even had people suggest I should quit working in the IT industry and become a full-time music writer. But while being on the fringes of the music scene is can be a great experience, I’m not convinced I want to jump ship and join the circus.

But I can see a lot of parallels between music criticism and my professional career as a software tester.

Not that I’m suggesting that testing and reviewing are exactly the same. To start with music is inherently more subjective than software. But there just as it can be a judgement call as to whether or not a piece of software is fit for purpose, it’s never completely subjective as to whether a record or performance is good, bad or indifferent. There are those that claim all opinions are equally valid when it comes to reviews, and there is no such thing as an objectively good or bad record. If you believe that, you clearly haven’t heard Lou Reed’s appalling collaboration with Metallica. It seems to me that both testing and reviewing are something many people can attempt, and just about anyone can do badly, but take skill and experience to do well. You only have to look at the reviews on websites to which anyone can post without moderation to realise there are bad reviewers out there just like there are bad testers.

To review a record or concert requires both an understanding of what the artist is trying to achieve, and an honest assessment of how well they’ve succeed in achieving it. That in turn requires the equivalent of domain knowledge. Just like a lot of indie-pop reviewers come horribly unstuck attempting to review progressive rock or metal releases, ask me to review a dubstep or free-jazz record and I wouldn’t know where to start. But just as testers from different backgrounds will approach things from different angles and uncover different bugs, a reviewer with deep specialist knowledge of a specific genre will have a quite different perspective from one whose taste is far broader. Something that’s meant to have crossover appeal benefits from both viewpoints.

Then there is the issue of speaking truth to power, which can require both courage and diplomacy. Egos even bigger than those of developers go with the territory. When an artist has poured their heart and soul into making a record, they don’t always appreciate being told how their work could have been better. Much like the way developers don’t always appreciate being told the code they’ve slaved over is riddled with bugs they they really ought to have picked up in their own unit testing. And if you’ve ever had the misfortune to work in a dysfunctionally political environment where project managers surround themselves with yes-men and tend to shoot the messenger whenever those messengers are bearers of bad news, then you’ll recognise those over-zealous fans who sometimes try to vilify anyone that attempts constructive criticism.

It’s true that there are a lot of rock critics out there who exhibit exactly the same sort of adversarial behaviour that gives some testers a bad name. Yes, writing and reading excoriating reviews of mediocre records can occasionally be cathartic, but informed and honest constructive criticism is far more valuable in the long run. Just as software testing is a vital part of making sure software is fit for purpose, constructive criticism has a role in making music better.

Perhaps it’s my tester’s ability to see patterns, but what I hope the above goes to show is that sometimes what you do in your “day job” and an apparently unrelated activity you do in your spare time can have more in common than you think. Certainly there are transferable skills, especially those softer ones which are much in demand.

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Lou Reed & Metallica – Lulu

Posted on October 21, 2011 by Tim Hall

When I first heard the preview track “The View”, my first reaction was “What on Earth were Reed and Metallica thinking”? If you’re going to recite words over a rock backing, someone like William Shatner does that sort of thing far better.

Despite lyrics which have been described as sounding like the work of a 14 year old Goth, and an utterly uninspired sludge-metal backing, The View is by far the best thing on it. I have listened to the whole album all the way through (only the once, mind you), so that you don’t have to.

It’s awful.

There is no absolutely no evidence of the rhythmic inventiveness that made Metallica the genre-defining act of the 1980s on display on this record. I was tempted to say their contribution makes Load sound like Master of Puppets. But that would be most unfair on Load.  Much of what we have never rises beyond the level of formless jams which don’t deserve to be dignified by the word “song”. There’s no energy to any of it, either Hetfield’s sloppy tuneless strumming or Lars Ulrich’s appallingly half-arsed drumming.

The combination of Lou Reed’s incoherent and endless ramblings about sex and death and Urlich’s lumpen thud-thud-thud drumming is the sound of a ranting drunk at the bus stop fronting a broken cement mixer. And that’s the best bits.

I am entirely unsure as to what purpose this record serves. Is the whole thing an elaborate practical joke, and if so, at whose expense? Certainly the metal community has decided more or less unanimously decided that the emperor isn’t even trying to pretend he’s wearing any clothes here. Not being a Lou Reed fan, I have no idea if any of them will claim it a work of genius, just to be perverse.

This is a terrible record which will do nothing for the legacy of either artist.

Posted in Music, Record Reviews | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Chantel McGregor, The 100 Club, London

Posted on October 21, 2011 by Tim Hall

I first saw Chantel McGregor very low down on the bill at the Cambridge Rock Festival back in 2010, when she wowed the crowd with a blues-based set featuring some amazing guitar pyrotechnics, and left me wonder how someone so young could learn to play guitar like that. Her début album, “Like No Other”, released earlier this year, showed she could stretch beyond blues to hard rock and even pure pop. Now in the middle of an extensive club tour taking in venues throughout the UK, she came to London’s legendary 100 Club on Thursday night.

Fronting a classic power-trio with Richard Richie on bass, and Martin Rushworth on drums, Chantel cuts a diminutive figure on stage. But one thing I immediately noticed is now much more stage presence she has compared with a year ago. She’s not just playing dazzling guitar, although there’s never any shortage of that, but she’s now putting on a highly entertaining show too.

Her two hour set covered all the varied styles from her album, her take on some classic blues standards, and even extended to a prog interlude with a very heavy take on the closing “Worm” section of Yes’ “Starship Trooper”. Her guitar playing was as superb as I’d come to expect; the extended workout on Robin Trower’s “Dreams” was utterly mesmerising, and some spectacular one-handed playing reminded me of the late Randy California. Despite her obvious technical skill, there’s more than enough fire, soul and passion in her playing too. But it wasn’t all shredding guitar. The acoustic interlude that including her cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Rhiannon” was beautiful, and certainly had something of an Odin Dragonfly feel about it.

Chantel is now far more than just a virtuoso guitarist, and far more than just a blues artist. The original material shows the work of a talented singer-songwriter who can write and perform in a host of diverse musical styles. And seeing her on stage it’s clear she’s rapidly developing into a confident and charismatic live performer too, a big smile on her face, exchanging between-song banter with the crowd all evening making for a great atmosphere, and rising above a few niggling technical problems to deliver an electrifying show.

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

Touchstone / Heather Findlay, Bilston Robin 2

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Tim Hall

I love Bilston Robin 2 as a venue. With great sound, and some seriously professional promotion that means just about everyone who plays there draws a bigger crowd than anywhere else they play, it doesn’t have a reputation as one of Britain’s best rock clubs for nothing. The length of the queue just before the doors opened showed that yet again they’d pulled in the crowds even on a Sunday night.

Though Heather Findlay & Chris Johnson were “only” the support, with an hour-long slot the gig had feel of a something approaching a double headliner. There was certainly a buzz of anticipation before she came on stage, with an awful lot of familiar faces in the front row. Just as at The Borderline two days earlier, Heather had the audience’s rapt attention from the very beginning, and you could have heard a pin drop throughout the performance.

Apart from a few numbers from The Phoenix Suite, much of the set came from the Mostly Autumn and Odin Dragonfly back catalogue, including several Chris Johnson-penned songs. “Gaze” was lovely, and “Magpie” worked well too, with Chris somehow managing to play both the guitar and flute lines on his acoustic. The songs from The Phoenix Suite came over well in acoustic form, so much so that I’ve wondered if that was how they were originally meant to be performed. “The Dogs” from Halo Blind’s album “The Fabric” was an interesting choice; with a reworked ending incorporating a few bars of Heather’s “Red Dust”. But perhaps the highlight was a sublime Silver Glass, transposed from piano to guitar, with Heather singing lead, a performance which left me wondering why she didn’t sing lead on the original studio version.

Even without the power of a full band behind her, Heather came over as a class act; a superb vocalist and charismatic performer, and there’s more than a little of the vibe of her earlier acoustic side-project Odin Dragonfly about these shows. Chris Johnson, while never a flashy lead guitarist, deserves a lot of credit for the richness of sound he gets out of that battered acoustic guitar.

Having Heather touring with Touchstone seems to work well for both bands. Heather’s own fans certainly helped swell the crowds, and she went down well with Touchstone’s audience, such that the merch stand ran out of copies of both “The Phoenix Suite” and Odin Dragonfly’s “Offerings”. Indeed, the latter is now completely sold out and is to be remastered and reprinted. I think this success of this tour shows that she was wise not to follow the advice of those who claimed that supporting a band labelled as “prog” would damage her career because of the alleged stigma associated with the genre.

Touchstone themselves proceeded to awe the crowd with 90 minutes of full-on prog-rock. They’ve come an awful long way since I first saw them support The Reasoning way back in 2007 at the now-defunct Crewe Limelight. I’ve previously described them as prog-rock with the emphasis very much on rock, and rock they did. Their set was tight and full of energy, driven by the sort of enthusiasm of a band who are clearly enjoying every minute on stage.

On this tour they took the brave move of playing a set drawing very heavily from their latest album “The City Sleeps”, released just days earlier, which meant that something like two thirds of the show was brand new material. Much of the new music is epic and symphonic, huge wall-of-sound stuff with soaring melodies, although there are still plenty of places where they rock out. Moo Bass and Henry Rogers have always been one of the best rhythm sections in the scene, Adam Hodgson was on particularly fine form with some spectacular shredding guitar, and Rob Cottingham added swathes of colour on keys. As always, Kim Seviour makes an enthusiastic frontwoman with a tremendous stage presence. But it’s the undoubted chemistry of the five of them together on stage which makes them such a great live band.

On the strength of performances like that, with a record deal in their pocket, and an album that’s made the UK Rock chart to their name, Touchstone seem poised for a major breakthrough. And I’m sure that will be a good thing for all other bands in the “scene”.

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Sankara – Enigma

Posted on October 13, 2011 by Tim Hall

Sankara is the band formed by vocalist and keyboard player Gareth Jones and drummer Vinden Wylde, both formerly of The Reasoning, and guitarist Jay McDonald, formerly of The Bluehorses, with bassist Rhayn Jooste completing the lineup. “Enigma” is their first release.

The four track EP gets off to a strong start with the opening title track. Building from a piano arpeggio to a big soaring chorus the end result is a song you just can’t get out of your head. This and the following hard rocker “Exalted Star” with it’s growling riff and multi-layered vocal harmonies recall bands like Styx before they descended into cheese. The ballad “Lay My Body Down” is perhaps the weakest of the four songs, never really coming to life despite some good guitar work from Jay towards the end, but the EP ends on a high note with the hard rock of “Full Flow”.

This highly melodic mix of hard rock and AOR ballads is quite a way from the prog-metal leanings of Gareth’s and Vinden’s previous band. But there are still definite echoes of some of Gareth Jones’ earlier songwriting contributions for them, and his accomplished vocals prove he’s more than capable of fronting his own band, not that it was really in any doubt. On this disk he sings all the harmonies as well as lead, which makes me wonder how they’ll reproduce the songs live; I guess it depends on how well the rest of the band can cope on backing vocals.

This is a promising start for the band. Even if the production isn’t slick and polished, the quality of the songs and playing shine through, and I’m sure we’ll be hearing more good things from them in the coming months and years.

Posted in Music, Record Reviews | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

The Potemkin Suburb of the “53%”.

Posted on October 10, 2011 by Tim Hall

I’m really not sure what to make of these forelock-tugging serfs. Are they inhabitants of some Potemkin suburb? Do they have such a severe case of Stockholm Syndrome they’re incapable of thinking out of the box the wealthy elites have put them in?

Among the smug-looking posts, there’s one woman who lists a load of crappy low-paid freelance jobs, and insists she feels empowered, not exploited. And her entire income depends on the amount the super-rich have left after taxes.  Another claims her poverty is entirely the fault of her own bad decisions, and is all in favour of “free markets not handouts”. Except for handouts to the rich, of course. They don’t count.

I realise of course that the entire site is a probably some sort of Astroturf job, hastily put together by a few frightened right-wingers as a reaction against the increasingly large scale demonstrations in Washington demanding that the rich pay slightly higher taxes and the financial sector needs to be regulated a bit. It actually reads so  clumsily as propaganda that it’s entirely possible that it’s actually a left-wing parody of tea-party types.

Assuming it is for real, it evidently hasn’t occurred to these people that a much larger middle class who earn most of their living providing goods and services to each other will deliver far greater prosperity to a far greater number of people than their limited vision of a small middle class who survive by supplying goods and services to the elites. Certainly I know of few entrepreneurial types whose businesses depend on ordinary working people having the money to spend on the goods and services their businesses provide.

One day, the more extreme versions of supply-side economics these people have been conned into buying will be as discredited as Communism. Sure, it works for the wealthy elites, just as Communism worked for the apparatchiks. Perhaps one day, expressing an admiration for Ayn Rand will kill a career in business or politics as surely as admiring Hitler or Stalin does today.

 

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Karnataka – The New Light Tour 2012

Posted on October 4, 2011 by Tim Hall

Atmospheric Celtic-tinged proggers Karnataka are back on the road in the new year with a new lineup. The New Light Tour runs through much of Feburary 2012. The 13 dates announced take in regular progressive rock venues like Montgomery Hall in Wath, Bury Met, and of course, The Robin in Bilston, as well as that strange little venue The Village Hall in Lowdham. A London date is also promised, with venue and date to be confirmed.

This tour marks the début of what is now the third incarnation of the band, with Hayley Griffiths as the new lead singer, and only bassist and leader Ian Jones and guitarist Enrico Pinna remaining from the band that recorded the superb The Gathering Light released in 2010.

It will be very interesting to see this version of Karnataka in action, and to see how well they manage to interpret the material from the two previous versions of the band. I’m hoping there will be some new songs in the setlist too!

Posted in Music, Music News | Tagged | 5 Comments

Mini Modules

Posted on October 2, 2011 by Tim Hall

I’ve been reading a thread on Mini Modules on RMWeb. This is a modular layout concept based around tiny modules, each roughly the size of an A4 piece of paper. Yes, that small!  Using Kato Unitrack, they clip together using Unitrack’s rail joiners to connect the modules. The small size of the individual modules mean you can go to town on the detail, yet still have something finished in relatively short time. While modular layouts can be somewhat toy-like with a lot of focus on gimmicks, Sir Madoc’s thread shows the scope for building far more realistic layouts using this approach.

Mini-modules have been promoted for people who lack the space a permanent layout, but I can also see the potential as an alternative to a more traditional approach for those of us who do have the space.

I’ve been intrigued with the concept for quite a while. I’m interested in both British and Swiss outline modelling, and often considered modular concepts where common elements like fiddle yards could be shared between multiple layouts. Mini-modules based on the popular T-Track standard, or something similar may be a good way of implementing this.

While I’m still looking for a new job I’m staring down the barrel of a potential relocation with no guarantee that any future home will have a suitable space for any layout of fixed size. The inherently flexible nature of mini-modules is a huge bonus here, in that they can be reconfigured to fit a space of any size or shape which might be available for a layout, something which isn’t the case for a large piece of benchwork.

Certainly there are some projects I’ve considered in the past which are ideal candidates for the mini-module approach, most specifically anything that’s centred on a “parade of trains” approach on a simple double-track main line rather than an attempt to model an operational hub. “Marine Parade”, based on Dawlish in Devon is a case in point. A six-foot stretch of main line with a variety of buildings behind the tracks is a relatively ambitious project for it’s size and simplicity, even if the majority of the buildings are adapted from commercially available kits rather than scratchbuilt models of the real buildings. Building it twelve inches at a time, completing and detailing each module before moving on to the next one has a lot of appeal. The same applies to my Swiss outline interests, which have a similar parade of trains approach. A small passing station on the Lötchberg line will fit into three or four module lengths. Big-time main line modelling based one of the classic trans-Alpine routes really rules out modelling an operational hub; they just take up too much space.

And that’s before we get into diversions and side-projects. I’ve always fancied building a small working diorama-style layout based on the Cambrian lines in the early 70s, and already have much of the rolling stock needed. And there are a few spectacular scenic locations in Cornwall that I’ve never quite managed to work into a room-filling layout plan. The Luxulyan valley on the steeply-graded and sharply-curved part of Par to Newquay branch is a prime example. It saw, and indeed still sees quite heavy traffic, both passenger and freight, but the narrow valley means you can capture the essence of it in quite a small space.

I have come to the conclusion that I am never going to complete a large, fully sceniced model railway layout. On layouts I’ve built before, I’ve got as far as scenery on some parts of the layout, but never fully detailed, and whole swathes never got beyond bare boards. Mini-modules may well be just the solution I’ve been looking for.

So now I need to stop talking about them on the Interweb, and build one or two.

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Trouble at Reading Station

Posted on September 29, 2011 by Tim Hall

I never had this trouble at Bristol a few weeks ago

With today’s glorious summer weather I decided it was an ideal time to document the old GWR station at Reading before the whole lot gets bulldozed to make way for the shiny new station.

When I got there I was told to find the duty manager to seek permission. She then told me I could only photograph the station infrastructure, and could not photograph trains. Given that I’ve taken thousands of photographs at UK and overseas stations over 25 years, and never before have train companies ever tried to stop me taking photographs, I really don’t understand what First Great Western are playing at.

I know some large stations tried to prevent photographers a few years back through a combination post-9/11 paranoia and corporate backside-covering, but changed their tune after the resulting PR backlash.

Has anyone else had problems at Reading or any other FGW stations? Is this a new policy? What exactly is going on? It’s certainly at odds with the official photography policy of Network Rail, who own the station, or the guidelines given by The British Transport Police.

I sent this complaint to First Great Western customer services

I arrived at Reading this morning with the intention of taking photographs of the Reading station prior to redevelopment. On arrival I was advised by the barrier staff to speak to the duty manager.

The duty manager then told me that while I would be permitted to photograph the physical station infrastucture, I would not be permitted to photograph any trains.

I was extremely surprised and very disappointed on being told this, and decided to leave immediately without taking any photographs at all.

Is this a specific local rule affecting Reading, or is there a blanket ban on railway photography across all FGW stations? This is very much at odds with the widely-publicised photography policy of other TOCs such as Virgin Trains. I have certainly taken many photographs of trains at FGW stations (most recently at Bristol Temple Meads a few weeks ago) without being challenged or questioned by platform staff.

I must stress that all FGW staff I encountered were unfailingly polite.

So now, rather than spending this glorious weather outside with my camera, I’m reduced to sitting at home complaining on the Internet. I wonder what sort of response that complaint will get. Given the stories of low staff morale I’m hearing from inside FGW, they seem to be suffering from serious management problems, for which I strongly suspect my troubles are another symptom.

Update

I have now received a rather bland and somewhat patronising reply.

Dear Mr Hall

Thank you for your email of 29 September 2011. I am sorry you could not take the photographs you wished to at Reading station on the same day.

We expect everyone representing our company to be as helpful as possible at all times. We do welcome rail enthusiasts at our stations who want to take photographs for private purposes. There are various guidelines designed to ensure you have a safe and enjoyable experience in the pursuit of your interest. A key priority for us is to ensure the safety of our passengers and staff. However it is the discretion of the Station Manager to set the photography limits at a particular station.

Thank you again for bringing your experience to my attention. I do hope that future journeys with us will be trouble-free.

Yours sincerely
Siddhi Minawala
Customer Services Advisor

I do not really consider this a satisfactory answer, and I’m assuming that Reading station is off-limits for railway photography for the foreseeable future. And I very much doubt that we’ll ever be given a satisfactory reason.

Update No 2

Now get a second reply, which strongly implies that someone in First Great Western has been reading either this blog or the thread I started on RMWeb with well over a hundred replies.

Dear Mr Hall

I am writing to apologise for the problems you had recently at Reading station, when you were not permitted to take photographs of trains. I understand you were unhappy with the last response we sent you on this matter and I am sorry.

We do have to work within certain guidelines when allowing customers to photograph our trains, however this is something we will permit where we can. There is no reason why you were not allowed to do this, and I am really sorry that you were misadvised at the station about only being able to photograph buildings. I have passed this feedback on to my colleagues at Reading, who I am sure will take the necessary action to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

If you wish to take pictures of the trains at Reading, you do need to approach the Station Manager first, who will go over the guidelines with you. We don’t want to stop you from pursuing your hobby and I am sorry that our response has not been particularly helpful.

I hope this now clears things up and that you will accept my apologies for the way this matter has been handled.

Please do feel free to get in touch if I can help with anything else in the future.

Yours sincerely

Jo Coverley
Customer Relations Senior Officer

Posted in Photos, Railway Photography | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments