Sometimes, when I'm bimbling about in town of a lunchtime, I feel like getting something new to listen to. Seeing as I usually forget my "to buy" list, it's not unheard of me to buy something completely random from the HMV or Zavvi sale sections. That means that these albums rarely cost more than a fiver, and can be easily ebayed if they turn out to be rubbish.

I thought I'd take stock of what I've bought and see if the not-entirely-random selection process I employ works. Here are a few that I've bought over the last year with tiny, little baby reviews just to say if they're pap or not.


It was a busy week last week. I ended up going to two gigs on consecutive nights in backwater little townlets to see some really quite surprising bands.

First up was Blue Öyster Cult in the tiny village of Holmfirth, made famous by being the setting to Last of the Summer Wine. The venue was certainly peculiar, being as it was a half renovated play house with scaffold and steel fencing supporting half the structure and a peculiar sloping floor. Still, it was a decent enough place and the sound was fine to my ear, so I was ready for some rock.

Given that BÖC released their first album 7 years before I was born, I think they can be referred to as "old school" quite legitimately, and the show reflects this. As Ian (whose idea it was to go to this gig) pointed out, when the band started out a live show actually meant more than just playing a selection of songs from the album and going home. And it shows. 10 or 20 minute versions of classics like "Then Came The Last Days Of May", "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" and "Godzilla", complete with duelling guitars, massive 4 guitar riff fests, drum solos and alternating vocalists. Top stuff.

So after all that, what could follow it? Well, a Friday night in Stocksbridge, steel centre of Sheffield, to see Mostly Autumn on the weekend prior to the release of their new album, Glass Shadows.

After finding possibly the single most distant venue in Sheffield, and standing around for an hour drinking a well kept and surprisingly cheap Farmer's Blonde from Bradfield Brewery, the band took to the stage. They played a good selection of classics and new material, which was great for me. Hearing songs from a new album live before you've even taken the album out of the shrink wrap makes them all the more special, and owning the album 3 days before general release makes it even more so.

Overall, the new album is a bit less proggy, a bit less folky, but definitely Mostly Autumnal. It's a solid release that surpasses the sometimes half-baked Heartful Of Sky, with none of the songs particularly disappointing (although one or two bring out puzzled expressions and exclamations of "What the... ?!", but in a good way) Still, overall a win, and a great couple of gigs. More like that, please.

So I was passed a URL today. This one:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7240234.stm

Have a look, then come back. Done? OK. Are you laughing? I know I am.

So they think that accessing illegal content is worthy of a complete internet ban. Well, let's face it, the punishment must fit the crime. Knocking off an 11 quid CD is surely worth a lifetime being left out of the digital revolution, yes? I thought so.

So hyperbole aside, how many of those people who would be kicked off do they think are current or future IT professionals? I'd wager "a lot", or a figure thereabouts. So when the nation's IT workforce isn't allowed to use the internet any more, and the digital dark age upon us, surely we can reflect on that and say "verily and thus, we may be in the digital equivalent of skid row, but at least we have properly recompensed record label execs ... I mean ... artists."

And aside from the ludicrous idea behind it, let's not forget the lack of any method of enforcing such a thing. If a residence gets cut off, can they sign up for another? Does it somehow stick to the individual and follow them around? What about mobile data plans, public WiFi, pay-for WiFi, hotels and the like? Libraries? Companies?

OK, maybe it wasn't worth a whole blog post to rant about this thing because, realistically, there's no way it could ever be enforced. It did give me the best laugh I've had all day, though.

Last Thursday I went with Andy, Ian and Mike to see Dark Tranquillity play Rock City for the second time in five months for the official Great British Fiction tour.

The setlist was excellent, with plenty from the album and quite a bit of older stuff too. They played almost all my favourites off fiction, including Focus Shift, Misery's Crown, Terminus, and The Lesser Faith. They didn't play Nothing To No One, but that's OK. They played plenty of older stuff, including Therein from my favourite feel-good album Projector, and Wonders At Your Feet which is always good to hear live.

However, prior to them coming on there were two support acts. First up was Omnium Gatherum, a death/black metal band from Finland who I've never heard of before. They play some good riffs and I can appreciate the music a great deal, but the black metal screeching from the lead vocalist leaves me cold. As I commented after their set, the best bit was when the mic cut out and we just got the instrumental. If I manage to ahem borrow a copy of one of their studio albums I might grow to like it. Who knows. I did like their T shirts, so that's something. Oh, and the name means "a hodge-podge", if you're interested.

Prior to them, though, was a local band. Insidious. Now, at first I wondered if the sound system was at fault, but that was later proved wrong by the fantastic sound for Dark Tranquillity. Then I thought it might be just me, because I couldn't detect any tune, melody or even rhythm in the wall of noise coming from the stage. The different musicians were apparently just hammering their respective instruments while the lead vocalist (I hestitate to say 'singer') shouted various grunts between looking like he'd forgotten where he was. Mike asked me if I thought DT were ever this bad. I said I couldn't imagine it.

It was certainly an evening of extremes, from the confusing, apparently drug-fuelled, start to the extremely high quality and well performed gig by DT at the end. Dark Tranquillity were on stage for over an hour, by my reckoning, so we got plenty of the good stuff to compensate, and Omnium Gatherum were alright for a change from my normal listening.

2007 has seen me buy more albums than any previous year. I don't know exactly why this is, but it's been a fun year with lots of new musical experiences. Also a lot of bargains. Here I present my top 5 albums of 2007 in no particular order, followed by 5 "honourable mentions" that didn't make the top 5, but bulk out the rest of the top 10. Again, no particular order. Criteria for inclusion is simply that I purchased (or otherwise acquired) the album in 2007, not that it was released in this year. So, without further ado, the top 5:

So Radiohead did their thing, released In Rainbows, and the internet temporarily went mad for it. Now everybody has their download, what now?

While I am sure that the experiment can be considered a success, I wonder if it would ever be possible to replicate or if any future similar stunts would just be considered rip-offs. Apparently 1.3 million people downloaded the album in the first few days, a third of which didn't pay anything at all for it, and with an average price of about £4. That's a lot of people paying over the odds for something they didn't have to pay for at all. Reports are that some people paid over £20 for 160Kb/s MP3s!

On Saturday 14th April, 2007, we (that is, me and Ian) finally got to the first gig of the year since our 'gig-a-month' idea; Mostly Autumn at the Oakwood Centre in Rotherham. I was quite excited about this one, because it's a band that I've been wanting to see live for ages but have never managed to get to a gig.

To add to the fun, I took the car and fetched Vee and Chris, too and we all headed out to the people's republic of Rotherham to the Oakwood centre. The more astute of you may notice that it's the second time I've been there this year, the first time being the Oakwood Real Ale festival. While the journey last time was arduous and scary, and the taxi ride home was confusing, this time I discovered it's actually very easy to get to. Up the parkway to Rotherham Hospital and next left ... Oh well.

Being a Classic Rock Society gig, the crowd were a mixed bunch. Entire families turned up complete with kids, grandparents and matching t-shirts. Compared to the massing crowds of the Corporation, the setting was very sedate. Chairs were available, along with 3 real ales and a complete lack of moshing 14 year olds.

On Tuesday October 17th, 2006, Lacuna Coil arrived at the Corporation in Sheffield. This sold-out gig attracted a huge audience, with support act PoisonBlack (mis-billed as PitchBlack on the Corporation website) adding more excitement to the mix.

After a quick meal of pork sandwich and ale at the Devonshire Cat, it was time to join the queue. Despite the doors opening at 7pm, a queue of perhaps a hundred people had formed up the side of the building. By 7:30pm, we were a little bored, having made it all the way to the R of the 12" high letters on the side of the Corporation spelling out the name of the club.

As we approached the N, it became evident that the delay was caused by bag searches. After a quick shuffle through my rather uninteresting lunch bag, the bouncer waved me through without incident. We were in.