The Shed on the Web

The best news I’ve heard for ages is that a new Gil Scott Heron album is about to be released. This will be his first new album in almost 15 years as he has been in and out of prison on drugs charges. The album is apparently all down to XL Records’ Richard Russell who tracked him down at Rikers Island prison and offered to produce a new LP.

The album is fantastic and can currently be previewed on the Guardian’s website or by clicking on the image below.

I hope he tours the UK as I’d love to see him again. I saw him at a free GLC gig in Jubilee Gardens on the South Bank not long after moving to London so that must have been in 1984/5.

I spent the day editing some audio tracks for an awards ceremony. The idea being that as the winner is announced the music plays as they go up to collect their award and ideally this would start at a punchy piece of the track so I top and tail them so they end up being about 90 seconds long.

The client, a major Financial journal had sent me a list of tracks to source and edit. I was quite amused to see amongst the tracks My Generation by The Who and Anarchy in the UK by the Sex Pistols. Both of these tracks were seen as very anti-establishment at the time and now here they are being used to support the establishment as they pat each other on the back.

It just goes to show that we all grow up to become our fathers – Hope I die before I get old!

I’ve not noticed this before but when I listen to BBC Radio programs via iplayer the volume control goes up to 11!

A new series of Skins started last week and like the previous 3 series the man who finds the music has managed to find some fantastic music to go with the action. I blogged at the end of series 3 that I had liked a piece of music so much that I had to try and find out what it was and that was when I found the Skins Music site.

The track in question was Franki’s Gun by The Felice Brothers which still gets played on a regular basis. So after I watched the repeat show the other day (having fallen asleep during the adverts and missed part 3 the first time round!) I checked the site to find out the identity of a couple of the tracks. The one that stood out was the Great Procrastinator by Ivan Campo which can be heard on their Myspace site.

So I’m looking forward to watching the rest of the series and being able to find out what that snatch of music I liked is called and who it is by. At some point I will have to watch series 1,2 and 3 again to check out the music on those shows – and I still don’t think I’ve seen the bit where Tony gets hit by the bus!