I have an eclectic and rather fantastic group of friends, with whom I've spent a lot of my summer completely inebriated and severely hungover with. In and amongst these friends is a downright awful and frankly talentless (severe irony) singer named Delyth McLean (shameless plug, but look her up. Actually scary how fantastic her voice is), who, due to her attempt at a music career, saw herself on BBC Radio Wales a few days ago.
In true Rock'n'Roll style, we followed her down as her small entourage and attempted to support the poor girl on her third radio outing. Usually, this involves mouthing incorrect lyrics at her, prolonged bouts of eye contact, and generally making rude and suggestive gestures at her while she tries to do her thing, but we were on strict orders to behave.
Grand little building, the BBC studios in Llandaff. Neither old nor new, it sits in a stasis of attempting to rejuvenate its already rejuvenated decor and so seems almost completely ageless. Being poetic, it may be possible to suggest this is good metaphor for the BBC itself, but I'd rather say that it reminded of someone who forgot to take off their makeup before reapplying it. Apologies, I digress.
After tea and coffee had been served by the very welcoming lady at the BBC, we sat about and generally tried to make Del feel as nervous as possible. Valley's humour is a cruel beast, but its ways shan't ever be altered. Soon, we were ushered into the control room for a quick, direct pre-bollocking. No grabbing the mic's, applause the nanosecond the song finished, and be good. Easy enough.
Our little group was then placed in the actual room that the broadcast was being made from. Inside, and without naming any names, sat a rather minuscule woman behind a large microphone. She was the epitome of 'Cool Mum': Converse trainers kept perfectly in their sterile white, jeans rolled with millimetric precision to just below the ankle, a face adorned so flawlessly with the correct products that even I became conscious of my own skin, despite being twenty years her junior. Her appearance was oddly perfect, lacking any battle scars or tales to tell, but it matched her voice so well that I struggled to part her appearance from her tone. It was flawless, almost eery to hear. When listening from the other side of the microphone, when sat in a car or an office, her voice would be accepted as completely normal. But stood within a few feet, it was almost ethereal. Chiselled seems too harsh an adjective, buttery too soft. Small, over-tongued inflections rooted her accent as firmly Welsh, but the harshness had been strained out and the consonants supported the vowels like pillars to a suspension bridge. It amazed me, in truth.
Delyth sang and was nothing less that fantastic. I cannot express, even in a room designed to absorb all sonic impact and kill the slightest ounce of reverberation, how incredibly well her voice caressed the ears. After her performances, Delyth was then asked a few questions by our radio presenter, and this is where my amazement peaked. Despite the questions being scripted, our host took liberties and went ad lib, even going as far as to include the names of Delyth's songs in her links between questions, never once breaking character. It was then I realised what she was doing; she was acting. Even though she couldn't be seen, our host was firmly in character as a radio host. I doubt that she carries the same perfectly balanced noise home with her, or swears in quite the same tone when she sees the dog concertinaed in concentration as it shits in the neighbours garden, but it was perfect for the job of radio presenting.
This was my 'first' conscious encounter with what I shall dub 'The Radio Voice.' Despite this term, I think its fair to expand it to other professions. Call centre workers develop the ability perfectly and succinctly, sounding like they know exactly what they are doing and that you are their only concern in the world. Still, Virgin Media like to scare me every now and then by asking me for money, despite me telling them that I had cancelled the contract they had with my soul. Another conversation with another person who sounded suitably interested soon solved the matter, but I could swear that the ordeal was solved in my previous conversation. That is the power of assertion and conveying the correct emotion in the voice; you can convince people anything if it's packaged up well enough.
Today, as the whole NATO crew descend upon Cardiff, I was able to witness another occasion in which 'The Radio Voice' phenomena came into play. As many would already have seen, Cardiff Castle is currently just below Hogwarts in terms of Muggle protection. Fencing and concrete blocks protect us from the world leaders, and to ensure that no leader make an attempt on any poor civilian life whilst shopping in Cardiff, marksmen line the edges of the streets. Due to my nosey disposition, I took an extended detour around the Castle to see what the fuss was about. On my travels, I noticed many a shopper stopping and talking to the policemen that patrolled the city. Police forces from all around the UK had been drafted in to help at keeping the jumped up politicians firmly behind bars. Friendly Welsh 'ooooooh's' and 'aaaaaahhh's' cooed from the shoppers in response to the policeman's firm words. Never once were the policemen short with the shoppers; just assertive, carrying the same quality that suggests that they were there to serve a difficult and selfless service. He played the part of responsible guardian and policeman most brilliantly.
Other policemen, whilst not engaging with the public, where chatting quietly amongst themselves, and even partaking in everyday activities, such as drinking tea, or perhaps buying crisps. They were normal human beings in bulletproof vests and carrying bits of metal that project smaller bits of metal with the intent of stopping your biological processes if need be. But despite this normality, the tone they addressed the public in projected them far and above our own heads. They weren't mere mortals, they were protectors, the patrons of the law. If they has used anything less than a direct adjure when dealing with the public, however, I'm not sure the old biddies who asked them about the fencing would be walking away with quite the same zest, secure in the knowledge that they'll be kept safe from Obama and his gang.
So, in all, I'm reminded of a song from Grand Theft Auto: Vice City: 'Act Like You Know' by Fat Larry's Band. Even if you haven't got the foggiest of ideas, like the Virgin Media people of old, by acting like you know what you're talking about, you will be accepted as position of authority and people will soothed by the very vibrations of your throat. If you're really, really good at it, you may even be able to act yourself into a position within the walls of Cardiff Castle, say, as a head of state, or president perhaps. If I had my way, I'd have that radio presenter as a figure of authority in our political system. She could stand outside Downing Street and declare to me that she wants to abandon democracy, and that Fascism was misunderstood and should be given another chance, and I would sit there and happily agree, lost in the soothing jelly-like juxtaposition that is her voice.
Thursday, 4 September 2014
Wednesday, 23 July 2014
Character Building and Buildings With Character
Dave (the channel, that is) has had a rather long and proliferate campaign to promote its 'Characters on Dave'. For seemingly arbitrary reasons, I have seen or heard the word 'character' used adjectively so much this month that I began to ponder on the matter; what the hell does character mean?
The earliest I can actively remember 'character' being used this month was when I skulked the corridors of a faith school in Cardiff (see my last post for some sort of... summary (?) on the matter). In one of the frequent times I was lost, I turned to a slim, bespectacled teacher for help in locating an errand class, with whom I was to help a girl. He turned to me, eyes wide and replied in his well-rounded yet perfectly enunciated Welsh accent, 'She's a real character, that one'. I imagine that I am not the only one in having a person described to me as 'a real character'. Initially, thoughts of 'Oh shitting hell,' came to mind. Usually, and of course, broadly speaking, it is a friend of friend being referred to as a 'character'. What I have perceived them to be saying is 'They're a twat, but due to reasons that I cannot fathom, we are deemed friends'. Alternatively, for the more distant or newly acquired friend who is introducing their 'character' of a friend, what they are denoting is 'You have nothing in common, yet I am about to introduce you to someone and for the rest of the evening you must pretend to enjoy each other's company, despite his poor attempt at humanity'.
As it turns out, the girl who I was sent to sit with was not academically gifted. However, she stretched out her little arm to shake my hand. 'Different', I thought. 'Formal'. She then proceeded to tell me about why she wears her watch on her right hand instead of her left, and then explained which colour she liked best in her pencil case. As pleasant as she was, Religious Studies was not her forte. That said, neither was it mine. It was also possible to come to the conclusion that this lovely little girl was not particularly intelligent, as was confirmed by my colleagues at lunch. But there was something very likeable about her, despite her mixing up of contraception and circumcision (easily done, Doctor), and I can only agree with what the slightly-too-happy teacher had mentioned to me previously; she was a real character.
Another example, a more formally drawn instance, is the inclusion of the word 'character' in estate agent rhetoric. Again, for reasons unbeknownst to both myself and humanity, I am an avid and devoted user of the RightMove app. An inherited thing, so I hope, I hold a fascination with houses. Very often and particularly in older or prettier parts of the world, the word 'character' is used to describe anything remotely old or off-piste. I generally like these 'character' properties, but what I have come to understand is that the term, much like when applied to people, is broad and ever-changing. You hope the term is used to signify a certain 'je ne sais quoi'; an essence that gives something a personality and draws you in. However, much like when referring to people, the term generally applies to the stupid and/or dangerous. When I see the words 'Character Property' in the listing, I no longer think 'Yes, something different to the humdrum boxes of Modernia. Give me something abstract, an air-raid shelter, perhaps. Or a moat'. Instead, I have come to expect an oven in the bathroom, or perhaps a roof made out of Papier-mâché and custard. It's become a by-word for a hindrance: something to make your life that little bit more unpleasant.
As Brits, we bloody love that sort of thing. We love a good hindrance, a moaning point. For example, as a nation of hypochondriacs, we enjoy complaining about our ailments. You see games of 'Infirmity Top Trumps' on buses, with people displaying infections and gangrenous limbs in order to one-up the chump on the bus who thinks his insect bite is the onset of diphtheria.
We dislike perfection, or even things working properly. If an individual has worked hard all their life and for instance shows up in a nice car, it would not be unexpected to hear calls of 'I bet that goes through petrol!' and 'Why do you need a car like that? Speed limit's 70, you WANK-AAHHHH'. I, too, am guilty of disliking things going well for others. A few evenings ago, I stumbled upon a Facebook post of friend (well, a friend of a friend, bit of a character) who recently had a new car. It was brand-spanking new, as fresh as the air in its tires. The boy himself studies an extremely exclusive degree at a fantastic university and comes from a supportive and proud family. He has a girlfriend, who is doing very well for herself in her field and there are lots of lovely pictures of them both at events that require formal and/or beachwear. As I wander through these lovely images, I can't help feel that not enough has gone wrong in his life for me to be content. Everything seems like it's going swimmingly for him and how dare it. I realise I am not one to talk, with my fantastic upbringing, but still. I want to see failure. I'm putting it down to being British, where we like a bit rough to go with the un-smooth.
So, to conclude, I have determined that character means that something is crap, but you like it that way. The hole in the wall, the gap in the teeth, it means you've got something different from the terrible, smooth-running and untrustworthy norm. We enjoy disliking people for being characters, we enjoy liking people for being characters, and that in itself is characteristic of the British Public. Rule Britannia.
I understand that this entry has become a tad anti-British, but please, don't take offence. It's character building, and we like that sort of thing. Don't we?
The earliest I can actively remember 'character' being used this month was when I skulked the corridors of a faith school in Cardiff (see my last post for some sort of... summary (?) on the matter). In one of the frequent times I was lost, I turned to a slim, bespectacled teacher for help in locating an errand class, with whom I was to help a girl. He turned to me, eyes wide and replied in his well-rounded yet perfectly enunciated Welsh accent, 'She's a real character, that one'. I imagine that I am not the only one in having a person described to me as 'a real character'. Initially, thoughts of 'Oh shitting hell,' came to mind. Usually, and of course, broadly speaking, it is a friend of friend being referred to as a 'character'. What I have perceived them to be saying is 'They're a twat, but due to reasons that I cannot fathom, we are deemed friends'. Alternatively, for the more distant or newly acquired friend who is introducing their 'character' of a friend, what they are denoting is 'You have nothing in common, yet I am about to introduce you to someone and for the rest of the evening you must pretend to enjoy each other's company, despite his poor attempt at humanity'.
As it turns out, the girl who I was sent to sit with was not academically gifted. However, she stretched out her little arm to shake my hand. 'Different', I thought. 'Formal'. She then proceeded to tell me about why she wears her watch on her right hand instead of her left, and then explained which colour she liked best in her pencil case. As pleasant as she was, Religious Studies was not her forte. That said, neither was it mine. It was also possible to come to the conclusion that this lovely little girl was not particularly intelligent, as was confirmed by my colleagues at lunch. But there was something very likeable about her, despite her mixing up of contraception and circumcision (easily done, Doctor), and I can only agree with what the slightly-too-happy teacher had mentioned to me previously; she was a real character.
Another example, a more formally drawn instance, is the inclusion of the word 'character' in estate agent rhetoric. Again, for reasons unbeknownst to both myself and humanity, I am an avid and devoted user of the RightMove app. An inherited thing, so I hope, I hold a fascination with houses. Very often and particularly in older or prettier parts of the world, the word 'character' is used to describe anything remotely old or off-piste. I generally like these 'character' properties, but what I have come to understand is that the term, much like when applied to people, is broad and ever-changing. You hope the term is used to signify a certain 'je ne sais quoi'; an essence that gives something a personality and draws you in. However, much like when referring to people, the term generally applies to the stupid and/or dangerous. When I see the words 'Character Property' in the listing, I no longer think 'Yes, something different to the humdrum boxes of Modernia. Give me something abstract, an air-raid shelter, perhaps. Or a moat'. Instead, I have come to expect an oven in the bathroom, or perhaps a roof made out of Papier-mâché and custard. It's become a by-word for a hindrance: something to make your life that little bit more unpleasant.
As Brits, we bloody love that sort of thing. We love a good hindrance, a moaning point. For example, as a nation of hypochondriacs, we enjoy complaining about our ailments. You see games of 'Infirmity Top Trumps' on buses, with people displaying infections and gangrenous limbs in order to one-up the chump on the bus who thinks his insect bite is the onset of diphtheria.
We dislike perfection, or even things working properly. If an individual has worked hard all their life and for instance shows up in a nice car, it would not be unexpected to hear calls of 'I bet that goes through petrol!' and 'Why do you need a car like that? Speed limit's 70, you WANK-AAHHHH'. I, too, am guilty of disliking things going well for others. A few evenings ago, I stumbled upon a Facebook post of friend (well, a friend of a friend, bit of a character) who recently had a new car. It was brand-spanking new, as fresh as the air in its tires. The boy himself studies an extremely exclusive degree at a fantastic university and comes from a supportive and proud family. He has a girlfriend, who is doing very well for herself in her field and there are lots of lovely pictures of them both at events that require formal and/or beachwear. As I wander through these lovely images, I can't help feel that not enough has gone wrong in his life for me to be content. Everything seems like it's going swimmingly for him and how dare it. I realise I am not one to talk, with my fantastic upbringing, but still. I want to see failure. I'm putting it down to being British, where we like a bit rough to go with the un-smooth.
So, to conclude, I have determined that character means that something is crap, but you like it that way. The hole in the wall, the gap in the teeth, it means you've got something different from the terrible, smooth-running and untrustworthy norm. We enjoy disliking people for being characters, we enjoy liking people for being characters, and that in itself is characteristic of the British Public. Rule Britannia.
I understand that this entry has become a tad anti-British, but please, don't take offence. It's character building, and we like that sort of thing. Don't we?
Sunday, 22 June 2014
A Small Fish in an Odd Pond
Recently, in a bid to make myself look more employable and less like a drag on society, I signed myself up (by accident) to an agency that places people into exam halls under the title of 'Exam Invigilator'. This agency also places the young, work-shy and generally horrendously awkward signees into Teaching Assistant positions for short term or one-day posts. Last week, I had my first ever encounter as being a TA.
I was summoned to a well-to-do faith school that sat quietly in the posh suburbs of Cardiff. Obviously, I can't say where, who or what, as I would probably be breaching a contract that I should've paid more attention to before signing. Despite traffic being a cow and parking being equally bovine, I arrived mostly on time, and headed in to be torn apart by the hormone-inspired little shits that dwelled within the jaded walls.
To add to the mystery, the agency give you only bare details by text. The rest, as they say, is up to you to conquer. The text in question asked me to arrive at the school at 8:20am and ask for a certain teacher. That I did, despite my untimeliness, and I was sent to a block just around the corner. I was then handed a timetable for the day, with my point of contact scribbling down the names of those I'd be helping in each of the spaces, and a map. 'He's a handful', she'd say. 'Watch out for him, he'll not want to do any work'. 'These pair are fine, they're quite funny'. 'Don't expect much of him, he's very weak'. Music to my wary, anxiety-drenched ears.
Feeling very much like the new boy, I followed the map precariously and found my way to the first lesson. Biology; not awful. 'Hardly the environment where little wasters flourish, mind you', I thought. Heading into the rather unassuming classroom, I spied my captors. They were a year 9 class; an odd year physically insomuch as puberty is taking its toll in varying quantities and at radically different paces around the class. I resigned myself to being ignored for an hour, and sat down where I needed to be sat.
Except I wasn't ignored. I was inquired over, asked questions, and accepted as part of the running of the school. The two boys who I was to look over knew the drill and engaged in surprisingly un-sarcastic and inoffensive conversation, and were altogether very pleasant to talk to. How odd, I thought. Beginner's luck.
As the biology teacher crept in, I expected to see the rest of the class following him. There was no 'rest of the class'. There were a total of 10 pupils populating the classroom. Surely not? There were at least 30 to a class in my experience. The classroom suddenly felt very big, but not intimidating. I relaxed, anxiety delegating elsewhere in my body for the remainder of the hour.
The biology teacher, a slim, bespectacled man with dark hair falling into a light sprinkling on his cheeks and chin clapped his hands together at the front of his class. They fell silent. Note the 'his class' and not 'the class'; the kids, like a hypnotist's clientele, were under his spell. It seemed very alien from my own experiences of GCSE Biology. Kids behaving? Surely not. Even the boys who I was sat next to, the two who had seemingly been made out to be Satan and Beelzebub themselves sat quietly (mostly) and listened.
The teacher wrote out some rules for a 'surprise test' on the board before placing a jar on each person's desk. Inside these science-y looking jars with their comical markings and triangulated spouts were fish, one for every person in the class. These fish had originated from a large tank sat atop the work bench at the back of the classroom. Now, this seemed very odd. These children were being trusted with an actual living organism, much to their glee. We were barely trusted with stationary, back in my day. The oddity continued.
The class was then asked to observe the fish and write down their observations, sketching anything of any interest they notice about the two species they were provided with. The fish seemed very much alarmed at his new, minuscule habitat; a mere parody of the grand tank he had been derived from.
Then, the oddest thing of all happened.
They actually did the work. Not one attempt to kill or maim the fish was made. Not one. There were no bunsen burners under jars, no games of tennis being played with notebooks and fish across the classroom. I didn't know how to react. What do I do? Everyone was working. I found a slightly puzzled looking girl sat opposite to help, but she was more concerned with turning the jar to the correct angle in order to get a better view of the fish, despite his abhorrence at being studied. It was an odd experience that I'll sort of treasure. It's like attempting to spin a roomful of plates with no success, and then one day, after a period of not trying, having every plate sitting perched on top of a stick, gyroscopically adjusting themselves to stay aloft on their own, enabling you to look back and think about which deity to give praise to. Rather magnificent.
The rest of the day was spent much in the same manner. I talked for the entirety of an RE lesson with one boy on the topic of ants, which we both thoroughly enjoyed. I was told at the end of the lesson that the boy seldom responds to TA's, and to have him complete his work and talk about something at length was most odd. The RE teacher, who I must say was most welcoming and helpful despite her youth and current pursuit of mastering the art of teaching, asked for my name and said she would ask the powers that be to give me priority should any other TA opportunities in the school crop up. Despite feeling that I hadn't done anything groundbreaking, and even a tad undeserving, the gesture was reassuring and put me on a high for the mid-morning break.
The rest of the pupils I was sent to aid were very much repeats of my first lesson; pleasant, well mannered pupils who just needed the odd prod or a question rewording. I was expecting hell, as I had seen in my own experiences of the pre-GCSE curriculum, but it never arrived. It was, in all honesty, quite fantastic to see that the pupils in this school tried hard, despite differing and often difficult home-lives. As the RE teacher pointed out to me, a lot of this has to do with the area; an affluent suburb full of supportive parents and carers who want the best for their children and will do everything in their power to see them get the best from themselves. The melting pot is much smaller than the one I experienced growing up, and it makes for a different feel and attitude in the school. I still can't quite get my head around it.
On a rather more poetic note, I felt it rather apt that my first ever lesson in my first ever position as a proper TA was spent studying fish. I suppose I could empathise with the fish; I too was taken from the safety of the big, wide tank and shoved in a small space to be ogled at and discussed by children. In this case, I was lucky that the children were hardworking and conscientious. They chose not to play tennis with me (using me as the ball), but rather to include me in their lessons and place me back in my tank at the end of the day without harm.
I was summoned to a well-to-do faith school that sat quietly in the posh suburbs of Cardiff. Obviously, I can't say where, who or what, as I would probably be breaching a contract that I should've paid more attention to before signing. Despite traffic being a cow and parking being equally bovine, I arrived mostly on time, and headed in to be torn apart by the hormone-inspired little shits that dwelled within the jaded walls.
To add to the mystery, the agency give you only bare details by text. The rest, as they say, is up to you to conquer. The text in question asked me to arrive at the school at 8:20am and ask for a certain teacher. That I did, despite my untimeliness, and I was sent to a block just around the corner. I was then handed a timetable for the day, with my point of contact scribbling down the names of those I'd be helping in each of the spaces, and a map. 'He's a handful', she'd say. 'Watch out for him, he'll not want to do any work'. 'These pair are fine, they're quite funny'. 'Don't expect much of him, he's very weak'. Music to my wary, anxiety-drenched ears.
Feeling very much like the new boy, I followed the map precariously and found my way to the first lesson. Biology; not awful. 'Hardly the environment where little wasters flourish, mind you', I thought. Heading into the rather unassuming classroom, I spied my captors. They were a year 9 class; an odd year physically insomuch as puberty is taking its toll in varying quantities and at radically different paces around the class. I resigned myself to being ignored for an hour, and sat down where I needed to be sat.
Except I wasn't ignored. I was inquired over, asked questions, and accepted as part of the running of the school. The two boys who I was to look over knew the drill and engaged in surprisingly un-sarcastic and inoffensive conversation, and were altogether very pleasant to talk to. How odd, I thought. Beginner's luck.
As the biology teacher crept in, I expected to see the rest of the class following him. There was no 'rest of the class'. There were a total of 10 pupils populating the classroom. Surely not? There were at least 30 to a class in my experience. The classroom suddenly felt very big, but not intimidating. I relaxed, anxiety delegating elsewhere in my body for the remainder of the hour.
The biology teacher, a slim, bespectacled man with dark hair falling into a light sprinkling on his cheeks and chin clapped his hands together at the front of his class. They fell silent. Note the 'his class' and not 'the class'; the kids, like a hypnotist's clientele, were under his spell. It seemed very alien from my own experiences of GCSE Biology. Kids behaving? Surely not. Even the boys who I was sat next to, the two who had seemingly been made out to be Satan and Beelzebub themselves sat quietly (mostly) and listened.
The teacher wrote out some rules for a 'surprise test' on the board before placing a jar on each person's desk. Inside these science-y looking jars with their comical markings and triangulated spouts were fish, one for every person in the class. These fish had originated from a large tank sat atop the work bench at the back of the classroom. Now, this seemed very odd. These children were being trusted with an actual living organism, much to their glee. We were barely trusted with stationary, back in my day. The oddity continued.
The class was then asked to observe the fish and write down their observations, sketching anything of any interest they notice about the two species they were provided with. The fish seemed very much alarmed at his new, minuscule habitat; a mere parody of the grand tank he had been derived from.
Then, the oddest thing of all happened.
They actually did the work. Not one attempt to kill or maim the fish was made. Not one. There were no bunsen burners under jars, no games of tennis being played with notebooks and fish across the classroom. I didn't know how to react. What do I do? Everyone was working. I found a slightly puzzled looking girl sat opposite to help, but she was more concerned with turning the jar to the correct angle in order to get a better view of the fish, despite his abhorrence at being studied. It was an odd experience that I'll sort of treasure. It's like attempting to spin a roomful of plates with no success, and then one day, after a period of not trying, having every plate sitting perched on top of a stick, gyroscopically adjusting themselves to stay aloft on their own, enabling you to look back and think about which deity to give praise to. Rather magnificent.
The rest of the day was spent much in the same manner. I talked for the entirety of an RE lesson with one boy on the topic of ants, which we both thoroughly enjoyed. I was told at the end of the lesson that the boy seldom responds to TA's, and to have him complete his work and talk about something at length was most odd. The RE teacher, who I must say was most welcoming and helpful despite her youth and current pursuit of mastering the art of teaching, asked for my name and said she would ask the powers that be to give me priority should any other TA opportunities in the school crop up. Despite feeling that I hadn't done anything groundbreaking, and even a tad undeserving, the gesture was reassuring and put me on a high for the mid-morning break.
The rest of the pupils I was sent to aid were very much repeats of my first lesson; pleasant, well mannered pupils who just needed the odd prod or a question rewording. I was expecting hell, as I had seen in my own experiences of the pre-GCSE curriculum, but it never arrived. It was, in all honesty, quite fantastic to see that the pupils in this school tried hard, despite differing and often difficult home-lives. As the RE teacher pointed out to me, a lot of this has to do with the area; an affluent suburb full of supportive parents and carers who want the best for their children and will do everything in their power to see them get the best from themselves. The melting pot is much smaller than the one I experienced growing up, and it makes for a different feel and attitude in the school. I still can't quite get my head around it.
On a rather more poetic note, I felt it rather apt that my first ever lesson in my first ever position as a proper TA was spent studying fish. I suppose I could empathise with the fish; I too was taken from the safety of the big, wide tank and shoved in a small space to be ogled at and discussed by children. In this case, I was lucky that the children were hardworking and conscientious. They chose not to play tennis with me (using me as the ball), but rather to include me in their lessons and place me back in my tank at the end of the day without harm.
Wednesday, 28 May 2014
To Finish First, First You Must Finish
During a rather prolonged and apathetic debate with my dearest mother about not hearing back from a potential employer, it was brought to my attention that I rarely finish anything I start. This got me thinking, a generally dangerous and often fraught exercise, that she has a point.
Genuinely, and I'm unsure if I'm proud to say this, out of the many, many books that I should have read in my second year in Uni, I finished one book in its entirety. One. How many did I start? The best part of fifteen, almost definitely more so. On reflection, the worst thing is that I enjoyed reading a few of those books. I really did. I genuinely cannot tell you, dear reader of my shitty blog, why it is that I did not finish them.
The amount of ideas that I have formulated, concocted in my mind of a sleepless evening again makes for frightening reminiscing; all the 'get rich' schemes, the life plans, the hopeless mental infatuations: all half-arsed. Thought-out, yes. Implemented? No.
The general pattern, as it stands, is as follows:
- Feel some sort of guilt for something (an awkward encounter, spending too much money, etc.)
- Attempt to rectify or remedy it by way of an 'ingenious' solution
- Go through this solution, nit-picking and foreseeing any and all hindrances
- Ending with a mental image of me being rather pleased with myself and/or voted Time's 'Man of the Year'
The problem with this scheme is that it is mental; it stays in my head. I'm not saying my ideas are perfect or even tangible, but they are ideas, ready to bloom into the world from the rather Sisyphean twig that is me. Yet, I keep them there, stuck in the old grey matter to rot and fall away with the bark into the realms of disinterest. By no means will any of these ideas work, but I'd have more respect for myself if I had gone out and tried to implement just one of these ideas. The motoring blog, that could be a start.
A rather ironic and poignant example is this very blog you're reading. I promised myself when I first started writing in it a year ago that I would post at least once a month, and for it to be on anything and everything that catches my mind's eye. Where have I been the last three months? In the same place as I was for the other nine, where I was writing in it. But I just did not bother writing for three months; it fizzled out.
That seems to the problem; I fizzle. I ride the wave of mental arrogance, lording over all I survey with my new, brilliant idea, and then I go to bed, have another idea, and yesterday's idea stands there, like an orphan, waiting to be picked up and played with again. Except I never go back to it, never give it the love and attention that would turn neurone activity into endorphins and happiness. Fickle, I believe is the word.
Even as recently as working on my latest batch of essays, I found the work mostly interesting; reading and studying Welsh poetry made me want to start my own, but 'I've had no inspiration' since finishing. After being glued to some of Roland Barthes' work (which makes for entertaining, 'Ha, that's quite true, actually' reading), I wanted to bury myself in a coffee shop somewhere and make notes of the patterns and behaviours of the city-dwellers and valleys wanderers. But what have I done instead? Nothing. Not a sausage. I'm not proud.
Well, reader, I daresay I am going to take a stand to this. It cannot be good for my mental wellbeing if I start a million things and never finish a single one. This summer, I shall finish the books that I started. I shall take apart the guitar that stopped working three summers ago and I shall fix it. I shall hand my CV into that place, talk to my old headmaster. I absolutely promise to finish, with you as my witness, what I star
(I know it's a cheap ending, but what did you expect.)
Genuinely, and I'm unsure if I'm proud to say this, out of the many, many books that I should have read in my second year in Uni, I finished one book in its entirety. One. How many did I start? The best part of fifteen, almost definitely more so. On reflection, the worst thing is that I enjoyed reading a few of those books. I really did. I genuinely cannot tell you, dear reader of my shitty blog, why it is that I did not finish them.
The amount of ideas that I have formulated, concocted in my mind of a sleepless evening again makes for frightening reminiscing; all the 'get rich' schemes, the life plans, the hopeless mental infatuations: all half-arsed. Thought-out, yes. Implemented? No.
The general pattern, as it stands, is as follows:
- Feel some sort of guilt for something (an awkward encounter, spending too much money, etc.)
- Attempt to rectify or remedy it by way of an 'ingenious' solution
- Go through this solution, nit-picking and foreseeing any and all hindrances
- Ending with a mental image of me being rather pleased with myself and/or voted Time's 'Man of the Year'
The problem with this scheme is that it is mental; it stays in my head. I'm not saying my ideas are perfect or even tangible, but they are ideas, ready to bloom into the world from the rather Sisyphean twig that is me. Yet, I keep them there, stuck in the old grey matter to rot and fall away with the bark into the realms of disinterest. By no means will any of these ideas work, but I'd have more respect for myself if I had gone out and tried to implement just one of these ideas. The motoring blog, that could be a start.
A rather ironic and poignant example is this very blog you're reading. I promised myself when I first started writing in it a year ago that I would post at least once a month, and for it to be on anything and everything that catches my mind's eye. Where have I been the last three months? In the same place as I was for the other nine, where I was writing in it. But I just did not bother writing for three months; it fizzled out.
That seems to the problem; I fizzle. I ride the wave of mental arrogance, lording over all I survey with my new, brilliant idea, and then I go to bed, have another idea, and yesterday's idea stands there, like an orphan, waiting to be picked up and played with again. Except I never go back to it, never give it the love and attention that would turn neurone activity into endorphins and happiness. Fickle, I believe is the word.
Even as recently as working on my latest batch of essays, I found the work mostly interesting; reading and studying Welsh poetry made me want to start my own, but 'I've had no inspiration' since finishing. After being glued to some of Roland Barthes' work (which makes for entertaining, 'Ha, that's quite true, actually' reading), I wanted to bury myself in a coffee shop somewhere and make notes of the patterns and behaviours of the city-dwellers and valleys wanderers. But what have I done instead? Nothing. Not a sausage. I'm not proud.
Well, reader, I daresay I am going to take a stand to this. It cannot be good for my mental wellbeing if I start a million things and never finish a single one. This summer, I shall finish the books that I started. I shall take apart the guitar that stopped working three summers ago and I shall fix it. I shall hand my CV into that place, talk to my old headmaster. I absolutely promise to finish, with you as my witness, what I star
(I know it's a cheap ending, but what did you expect.)
Wednesday, 26 February 2014
Gave Me What I Want: The ending of Kids in Glass Houses and my teenage years
Today marked the day where Kids in Glass Houses announced their ending. To be quite frank with you, there's nothing new about a pop-punk band shutting down shop and moving on. It's life. We'll get over it. They weren't chart toppers, they didn't end world poverty, but KIGH provided me with an introduction to the world of live music and local talent. And for that, I am entirely indebted to them.
Music didn't interest me until I had my first iPod for my birthday, aged 12. I was never particularly into music; none of my friends were, and I had had a crack at playing the cello in primary school, only to realise the lack of talent I possessed and promptly returned it. However, that iPod Shuffle got me into music. Its sole function was to play hours of music, and there was something alluring about an iPod to a 12 year old. Anyway, I digress. I started listening to music, and got myself into the usual blur of Blink 182, Slipknot, punk, and the heaviest possible noise Limewire could muster for me. Anything remotely poppy was frowned upon.
As I had become more interested in music, so too had the rest of the people around me; it must be a puberty thing. A neighbour of mine had started having guitar lessons, and we spoke very regularly on music; namely what was the heaviest thing we had heard that week. Like all good music 'passing down' sessions, his had started with his older sister. This time she mentioned her friend's band. They had just released a demo, and she had kindly (and rather forcibly, as big sisters are) introduced their sound to him, who then played it to me on his phone in the street. The song was 'Me Me Me'.
Jump to a few months later, and I was sat in a music lesson. They weren't fun or enjoyable at this stage in school; we were a bunch of snotty nosed, bum-fluff toting hormone bags that had the sole objective of obliterating everything in our path, so it's quite obvious why the music teacher didn't allow us near anything of any value. This particular lesson, however, involved her testing us to see how much we knew about chart music. She plugged her Mac into the stereo, held both very close to her chest and out of our zone of destruction, and played us various chart songs and some more niche offerings. Lostprophets had a play, so to did Metallica and whatever else was in the charts at the time. The last thing she played was a rather familiar but nameless tinkling of guitar chords: 'Me Me Me'.
'Anyone heard this before?' she quizzed, eyes bright and a bit too eagerly. I raised an unsure hand, owning up to potentially embarrassing myself at my lack of knowledge. Smile still plastered on her face, she had great pleasure in explaining that the band was in fact called Kids in Glass Houses, and that they were local and going places, and the guitarist was from our school. It had a quick acknowledgement from us as a class, and then we carried on dismantling the tables and generally being young offenders.
As my interest in music grew, the next step was to scour music channels for days on end, searching for something new and exciting. Still on a diet of heavy metal and noise, it seemed weird that a music video adorned with pink neon lights and leather jackets would interest me. It had a familiar tone, something recognisable. It was the music video for 'Easy Tiger' on Kerrang. So, the local boys were doing alright. I didn't realise people from The Valley's could 'make it' and be on TV. Crazy.
That summer, they played the Big Weekend in Cardiff. I went down with a few mates and it was a fantastic. It embodied so much of what was important to us as teenagers; loud music, a day without parents, and plenty of awkward encounters with members of the female sex. I entered my very first moshpit (we all remember our first), and as a group, we managed to push, claw and bite our way to the very front. Ben Fogle may have been on some pretty epic adventures, but none were as amazing, tiring and downright impossible as ours. We made the front.
Soon after, they opened for Fall Out Boy in what used to be called the CIA. Life was better when the CIA was actually called 'The CIA'; the Motorpoint Arena sounds as appetising as the collection of liquid that transmigrates from food in a food recycling bin. Again, more biting, stamping and pushing got us respectably close to the front of that gig. My skin had been peeled by a mixture of girl's makeup and everyone's sweat, but the gig itself was utterly incredible.
A friend's Mam happened to be the person in charge of writing the music for the string sections in Dirt. As a very kind lady, she offered us to go into the studio in the Atrium (something else that's had a pretty diabolical name change to something more corporate) and listen to it being done. We got to spend some time in a rather sweaty studio with our idols at the time, their producer (the guy from A. I know, who?) and some musicians swiping away with their bows and sheet music. Getting to hear one of your favourite band's tracks before anyone else was the biggest 'fuck you' to all my friends that I have ever had. I tried desperately to memorise the rhythms and melodies, but like everything when you're 16, it floated gently into one ear and straight out of the other. Pretty cool though, eh?
To this day, I still place their Christmas show in 2009 in Clwb Ifor Bach as one of the top three gigs I have ever been to. I'm pretty sure it was around the 23rd of December, and snow brought the UK to complete and utter pandemonium, so much so that the first support band didn't turn up. Instead, Aled, Iain, and two of their friends came out and filled the opening slot with some Glassjaw covers. They really went for it, guitars and heads flying everywhere. It was a nice contrast to the poppy melodies of KIGH; to hear Aled covering Glassjaw's 'Tip Your Bartender' and the gentler, but still encapsulatingly dark 'Piano' seemed bizarre and yet utterly right. These were the bands they listened to as teens themselves, the seeds that KIGH had stemmed from.
Due to the snow, Clwb was at about half capacity, but everyone clambered to the stage. Everyone suddenly became friends, and we were all out for good time. We screamed and chanted along with them, and they even kindly covered 'Killing in the Name Of' and Mariah's 'All I Want for Christmas'. Everyone danced, smiled and screamed their way through the gig, and no-one left with anything less than a Cheshire Cat's grin.
Most recently, I met one of my best friends through a mutual liking for KIGH. We now share a house together in our second year in Uni. How weird is that?
Basically, Kid in Glass Houses aren't a groundbreaking or particularly big band, but they provided me with a soundtrack for my teenage years. Through the shitty bits of growing up and girls, to getting drunk for the first time, KIGH weren't far away. Listening back to recordings of the band I was part of when I was 16, it's amazing how much they permeated our sound. My bassline carries a rather large whiff of 'Easy Tiger' about it, all done subconsciously. Rather aptly, as they come to an end, so to do my teenage years. Now at the respectable age of 20, I am now expected to start thinking of work, of life, and monotony. Shame. I quite liked the teenage years.
Cheers, Kids in Glass Houses. It was a pleasure. See you in October for the farewell tour. Smart Casual is currently nestling between Queens of the Stone Age's 'Songs for the Deaf' and Rage Against the Machine's self-titled debut record in my top 5 albums of all time. You want it all, but you want more.
Music didn't interest me until I had my first iPod for my birthday, aged 12. I was never particularly into music; none of my friends were, and I had had a crack at playing the cello in primary school, only to realise the lack of talent I possessed and promptly returned it. However, that iPod Shuffle got me into music. Its sole function was to play hours of music, and there was something alluring about an iPod to a 12 year old. Anyway, I digress. I started listening to music, and got myself into the usual blur of Blink 182, Slipknot, punk, and the heaviest possible noise Limewire could muster for me. Anything remotely poppy was frowned upon.
As I had become more interested in music, so too had the rest of the people around me; it must be a puberty thing. A neighbour of mine had started having guitar lessons, and we spoke very regularly on music; namely what was the heaviest thing we had heard that week. Like all good music 'passing down' sessions, his had started with his older sister. This time she mentioned her friend's band. They had just released a demo, and she had kindly (and rather forcibly, as big sisters are) introduced their sound to him, who then played it to me on his phone in the street. The song was 'Me Me Me'.
Jump to a few months later, and I was sat in a music lesson. They weren't fun or enjoyable at this stage in school; we were a bunch of snotty nosed, bum-fluff toting hormone bags that had the sole objective of obliterating everything in our path, so it's quite obvious why the music teacher didn't allow us near anything of any value. This particular lesson, however, involved her testing us to see how much we knew about chart music. She plugged her Mac into the stereo, held both very close to her chest and out of our zone of destruction, and played us various chart songs and some more niche offerings. Lostprophets had a play, so to did Metallica and whatever else was in the charts at the time. The last thing she played was a rather familiar but nameless tinkling of guitar chords: 'Me Me Me'.
'Anyone heard this before?' she quizzed, eyes bright and a bit too eagerly. I raised an unsure hand, owning up to potentially embarrassing myself at my lack of knowledge. Smile still plastered on her face, she had great pleasure in explaining that the band was in fact called Kids in Glass Houses, and that they were local and going places, and the guitarist was from our school. It had a quick acknowledgement from us as a class, and then we carried on dismantling the tables and generally being young offenders.
As my interest in music grew, the next step was to scour music channels for days on end, searching for something new and exciting. Still on a diet of heavy metal and noise, it seemed weird that a music video adorned with pink neon lights and leather jackets would interest me. It had a familiar tone, something recognisable. It was the music video for 'Easy Tiger' on Kerrang. So, the local boys were doing alright. I didn't realise people from The Valley's could 'make it' and be on TV. Crazy.
That summer, they played the Big Weekend in Cardiff. I went down with a few mates and it was a fantastic. It embodied so much of what was important to us as teenagers; loud music, a day without parents, and plenty of awkward encounters with members of the female sex. I entered my very first moshpit (we all remember our first), and as a group, we managed to push, claw and bite our way to the very front. Ben Fogle may have been on some pretty epic adventures, but none were as amazing, tiring and downright impossible as ours. We made the front.
Soon after, they opened for Fall Out Boy in what used to be called the CIA. Life was better when the CIA was actually called 'The CIA'; the Motorpoint Arena sounds as appetising as the collection of liquid that transmigrates from food in a food recycling bin. Again, more biting, stamping and pushing got us respectably close to the front of that gig. My skin had been peeled by a mixture of girl's makeup and everyone's sweat, but the gig itself was utterly incredible.
A friend's Mam happened to be the person in charge of writing the music for the string sections in Dirt. As a very kind lady, she offered us to go into the studio in the Atrium (something else that's had a pretty diabolical name change to something more corporate) and listen to it being done. We got to spend some time in a rather sweaty studio with our idols at the time, their producer (the guy from A. I know, who?) and some musicians swiping away with their bows and sheet music. Getting to hear one of your favourite band's tracks before anyone else was the biggest 'fuck you' to all my friends that I have ever had. I tried desperately to memorise the rhythms and melodies, but like everything when you're 16, it floated gently into one ear and straight out of the other. Pretty cool though, eh?
To this day, I still place their Christmas show in 2009 in Clwb Ifor Bach as one of the top three gigs I have ever been to. I'm pretty sure it was around the 23rd of December, and snow brought the UK to complete and utter pandemonium, so much so that the first support band didn't turn up. Instead, Aled, Iain, and two of their friends came out and filled the opening slot with some Glassjaw covers. They really went for it, guitars and heads flying everywhere. It was a nice contrast to the poppy melodies of KIGH; to hear Aled covering Glassjaw's 'Tip Your Bartender' and the gentler, but still encapsulatingly dark 'Piano' seemed bizarre and yet utterly right. These were the bands they listened to as teens themselves, the seeds that KIGH had stemmed from.
Due to the snow, Clwb was at about half capacity, but everyone clambered to the stage. Everyone suddenly became friends, and we were all out for good time. We screamed and chanted along with them, and they even kindly covered 'Killing in the Name Of' and Mariah's 'All I Want for Christmas'. Everyone danced, smiled and screamed their way through the gig, and no-one left with anything less than a Cheshire Cat's grin.
Most recently, I met one of my best friends through a mutual liking for KIGH. We now share a house together in our second year in Uni. How weird is that?
Basically, Kid in Glass Houses aren't a groundbreaking or particularly big band, but they provided me with a soundtrack for my teenage years. Through the shitty bits of growing up and girls, to getting drunk for the first time, KIGH weren't far away. Listening back to recordings of the band I was part of when I was 16, it's amazing how much they permeated our sound. My bassline carries a rather large whiff of 'Easy Tiger' about it, all done subconsciously. Rather aptly, as they come to an end, so to do my teenage years. Now at the respectable age of 20, I am now expected to start thinking of work, of life, and monotony. Shame. I quite liked the teenage years.
Cheers, Kids in Glass Houses. It was a pleasure. See you in October for the farewell tour. Smart Casual is currently nestling between Queens of the Stone Age's 'Songs for the Deaf' and Rage Against the Machine's self-titled debut record in my top 5 albums of all time. You want it all, but you want more.
Sunday, 23 February 2014
Review Time: Gibson Midtown Signature Bass
I promised myself to post at least once a month, but a delightful bout of constant illness last month put a swift end to that. So, to make up for it, I'm writing a review (something I secretly enjoy and occasionally post on review websites. Yes I am one of those.) on a bass. And to be honest, it's a startlingly handsome one. Ladies and gentleman, the Gibson Midtown Signature Bass in Bullion Gold.
Oddly enticing looking thing, isn't it? It pricked my attention partly due to the way it looks, and partly because I had never seen one before. To me, it looks like the result of a fumble between an Epiphone Jack Casady and a Gibbo EB-3 at a Hot Tuna gig. Here are the mugshots of the parents, to help with pinpointing its genealogy.
So it's got its father's hips, and a slimmer lower horn and electronics courtesy of its mother. So it's going to be a boomer; big dubby tones, smooth and creamy, with a certain hollowness to the sound that has the strange ability to fill a large room with brown-note inducing bottom end. Usually the thing I hate. And in the Gibson Midtown, its business as usual, except I don't quite hate it.
It booms. It really booms. Planting all the strings through the big neck humbucker, you get that famous earthquake inducing bottom. But in all honesty, its not dominating. It's more subtle than that. It's like an EB-3 that's gone to finishing school and no longer wipes its nose on the curtains. I mean, it still spills wine over the furniture and burps mid-meal, but the belch is followed by a quick and polite apology, and a reverential clearing of the throat. It compliments, as opposed to shouts. It creates a wave that jangly, Weller-esque tones can float on, and carry themselves into ears rather soothingly. For a big old Boomer, its got some finesse.
That said, and I feel this may be a little uncalled for or due to my own negligence of the EQ, there was a tiny bit of muddiness on the lowest notes. But again, that is part of the Boomer's character; if I wanted utmost clarity, I should've tried something a bit more modern. I played it through a nice little Ampeg Fliptop/Portaflex rig, which was excellent, and really complimented the character of the Midtown.
There's a delightfully simple set up to the electronics on the Midtown; one volume knob, one tone, and a three-way pick-up selector. Cranking the tone knob to the darker side of things, the neck pickup develops a bit of character, and shows its heritage. Keeping it clean provides a perfect bed for clean guitar tones to waft over.
Flicking the selector to the middle position, we see the introduction of the bridge pick-up in the sound. It's a small humbucker, held a bit closer to the strings and gives an overall clang to the sound. Personally, I think it's redundant in a bass like this. The deep, dubby tones produced by the neck pick-up are crashed over by snappy, yappy pinches that highlight just how longer your fingernails are that day. It doesn't detract from any of the bottom end, but adds a metallic clank that isn't needed in this context. Think of the neck pick-up as a big old St. Bernard; big, dignified, a bit slobbery, but full of love. Place atop its back a little, annoyed Yorkshire Terrier, yapping away at the very thought of its own existence. That Yorkshire Terrier is the bridge pick-up, and it doesn't make for a particularly inviting package.
I flicked the selector down, silencing the St. Bernard, and gave the yappy thing a chance to redeem itself. It does a good impression of Jaco Pastorius, but nothing more. On a bass like this, it is about as much use as Yahoo Answers; it provides no solution, nothing productive and adds nothing of any benefit to the sound.
Onto the feel of thing. Nicely balanced and fantastically finished, it is a thing of beauty. I can't remember the exact price, but I feel it was just under £1300, say £1268 or so. To be completely honest, I was surprised at how little this was for the quality. The colour, much lighter in person than in the picture above, carries with it a bizarre finish; visible brush strokes up the neck did make me ponder on quality, but the lacquer and fitment of everything suggests that this is part of the handmade character. It's a sturdy beast, not delicate in the slightest.
I read a lot on the Gibson website about the unique construction; their new way of building the Midtown, yadda yadda yadda. I hate sales rhetoric because I am very often drawn in and take the bait. Frankly, the way this thing was designed carries no impact with me. All I can say is it's a fantastic bass for the old-school deep reggae beats, a finely cut accompaniment for laid-back tunes, and with a bit of fuzz, could even carry off some of the more docile heavy tones, a la Jack Bruce. The quality is top notch, and it looks fantastic.
Please, Gibson. Get rid of the bridge pick-up, bring the price down by a hundred quid or so and we have an absolute future classic that could happily be used week in, week out for the next 30 years. Just don't expect to fire machine gun triplets at Mark King on it though; she's a Boomer, and always will be.
It booms. It really booms. Planting all the strings through the big neck humbucker, you get that famous earthquake inducing bottom. But in all honesty, its not dominating. It's more subtle than that. It's like an EB-3 that's gone to finishing school and no longer wipes its nose on the curtains. I mean, it still spills wine over the furniture and burps mid-meal, but the belch is followed by a quick and polite apology, and a reverential clearing of the throat. It compliments, as opposed to shouts. It creates a wave that jangly, Weller-esque tones can float on, and carry themselves into ears rather soothingly. For a big old Boomer, its got some finesse.
That said, and I feel this may be a little uncalled for or due to my own negligence of the EQ, there was a tiny bit of muddiness on the lowest notes. But again, that is part of the Boomer's character; if I wanted utmost clarity, I should've tried something a bit more modern. I played it through a nice little Ampeg Fliptop/Portaflex rig, which was excellent, and really complimented the character of the Midtown.
There's a delightfully simple set up to the electronics on the Midtown; one volume knob, one tone, and a three-way pick-up selector. Cranking the tone knob to the darker side of things, the neck pickup develops a bit of character, and shows its heritage. Keeping it clean provides a perfect bed for clean guitar tones to waft over.
Flicking the selector to the middle position, we see the introduction of the bridge pick-up in the sound. It's a small humbucker, held a bit closer to the strings and gives an overall clang to the sound. Personally, I think it's redundant in a bass like this. The deep, dubby tones produced by the neck pick-up are crashed over by snappy, yappy pinches that highlight just how longer your fingernails are that day. It doesn't detract from any of the bottom end, but adds a metallic clank that isn't needed in this context. Think of the neck pick-up as a big old St. Bernard; big, dignified, a bit slobbery, but full of love. Place atop its back a little, annoyed Yorkshire Terrier, yapping away at the very thought of its own existence. That Yorkshire Terrier is the bridge pick-up, and it doesn't make for a particularly inviting package.
I flicked the selector down, silencing the St. Bernard, and gave the yappy thing a chance to redeem itself. It does a good impression of Jaco Pastorius, but nothing more. On a bass like this, it is about as much use as Yahoo Answers; it provides no solution, nothing productive and adds nothing of any benefit to the sound.
Onto the feel of thing. Nicely balanced and fantastically finished, it is a thing of beauty. I can't remember the exact price, but I feel it was just under £1300, say £1268 or so. To be completely honest, I was surprised at how little this was for the quality. The colour, much lighter in person than in the picture above, carries with it a bizarre finish; visible brush strokes up the neck did make me ponder on quality, but the lacquer and fitment of everything suggests that this is part of the handmade character. It's a sturdy beast, not delicate in the slightest.
I read a lot on the Gibson website about the unique construction; their new way of building the Midtown, yadda yadda yadda. I hate sales rhetoric because I am very often drawn in and take the bait. Frankly, the way this thing was designed carries no impact with me. All I can say is it's a fantastic bass for the old-school deep reggae beats, a finely cut accompaniment for laid-back tunes, and with a bit of fuzz, could even carry off some of the more docile heavy tones, a la Jack Bruce. The quality is top notch, and it looks fantastic.
Please, Gibson. Get rid of the bridge pick-up, bring the price down by a hundred quid or so and we have an absolute future classic that could happily be used week in, week out for the next 30 years. Just don't expect to fire machine gun triplets at Mark King on it though; she's a Boomer, and always will be.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)