I was recently asked by my friend Chris Budd to stand in as drummer for the covers band he plays in Mangetout at a party they are playing at in one of Bristol’s new music venues The Tunnels. It’s for a private birthday party and we’ll be playing around an hour’s set. The music comprises a fair range of styles from Otis Reading and James Brown to The Clash, Pink and Amy Winehouse – good solid party fair.
Time for a soapbox moment…
(Oct 17th 2011)
I know I’m going over well trodden ground here but The X Factor and probably other shows in its genre are in my opinion seriously misleading – by promising us one thing but delivering something very different. At its inception the producers no doubt thought this show would be the definitive answer to modern day pop chart content – give the chart lovers a chance to initiate the careers of the most popular acts on stage. In theory this concept seems a very democratic selection process, and along the way there just might be an entertaining show for the rest of us whilst acts are routinely eliminated. The concept of a TV talent show of course dates back years, so this is not a new idea but The X Factor is simply the current incarnation.
I’ve been reading the recent Guardian blog article about the level of the music on the BBC series ‘Wonders of the Universe’. The article included the following…
“Some viewers complained that the show’s background music was so loud and intrusive that it drowned out [Prof. Brian] Cox entirely. In response, the BBC is promising to re-edit the rest of the series to lower the volume of Sheridan Tongue’s bombastic score. That is surely a triumph for viewers and those who have long complained about the volume of background music. But not everyone is happy with the outcome. Cox himself weighed into the debate on Radio 4′s Start The Week, saying that the decision to turn down the volume of his series was wrong. “We can sometimes be too responsive to the minority of people that complain,” he said. “It should be a cinematic experience – it’s a piece of film on television, not a lecture.” Continue reading