Geiger167 on the radio again, going Radio ga ga

I'm at it again, I am getting played on the radio again this week :)
www.amazingtunes.com
www.amazingradio.co.uk

Mark Ryan

Amazing Radio

Presenter:

Amazing Beats

Producer:

Amazing Beats

Amazing Folk Roots with Frankie Ward

Rock Show with Aaron Phillips

Saturday Show with Colin and Matt

Jim Gellatly

The show starts at 7pm GMT and runs all the way through until Midnight.

Exciting show, 90% new music and loads of new artists to amazingtunes.com

Were talking the best in House/ Techno/ D&B/ Dubstep/ Breaks/ Hip Hop/ Grime/ Electronica and some ambient numbers

This week Tom Patrick takes over the reigns of the guest mix and I will be speaking to BaseHQ Gav in the studio

The play list will be online soon for all to see via the Amazing Beats page on amazingradio.co.uk

We broadcast on DAB Digital radio. 6 clicks left of BBC radio 1.

You can also stream live at amazingradio.co.uk

If you miss the show you can listen again from Monday at Midday via www.amazingtunes.com/users/amazingrewind

Enjoy

And spread the word

The blog bashing myspace, praising Bandcamp

There was an interesting article on hypebot extolling the virtues of Bandcamp over myspace today HERE
An interesting read, although there was a lot of Myspace bashing in it. Have used Myspace now for years, and don't believe I am alone in thinking recent changes over there have been pretty poorly received. Making a website that caters for every whim of an artist is a tricky business, you could go the clean and minimal route, like T61 site (mmm looks great, just doesn't work properly, what's with all this mood crap) or do you go for the all-out everything but the kitchen sink approach that Myspace uses. Basically, myspace just looks a mess now, something seems to break everyday, functions disappear, pages go white for no reason, you cant easilly export your friends list so you're effectively stuck with it.
Which brings us neatly to Bandcamp, nice clean interface, high quality tracks, neat discography for displaying album art. I even like the cute iframe function for header bars (works a treat) Two things prevent me from giving it the two thumbs up. First, the home page search function is beyond stupid. If I want to find an artist on a site, I don't want to be presented with some weird google ranked nonsence, I want a site search. IT'S SIMPLE. Here's what Ryan from Bandcamp support had to say;
'The trouble you are having has its origins in how Google does its indexing. Simply put, because your content was uploaded somewhat recently we have to wait around until the Google system finds its way to your page and adds it. That should happen soon, and when it does everything will be golden.'
Why is google indexing the site search ? I just want to find a track or an artist not wait for four days before I am part of a google index. Makes no sense to me at all. Ooops, was off on a rant there lol :)
Secondly, did I mention the site is VERY clean, difficult to get your foot in the door without all the bells and whistles other sites offer, so for a start-up band, unsigned act with no fans (or someone like me lol) it may feel a bit intimidating to actually find your place here. I think it worth the effort though.


Anyways, without any further fanfare here is Bandcamp LINK so you can marvel at my site building prowess and then proceed to make something far more tasteful lol


Oh and I'm still on Myspace as well lol, I could never leave a site, you never know, facebook might buy it and take over the world after they buy twitter. Here is my Myspace LINK (looks a mess lol)

Geiger167 - Let's Get This Thing Started Remix Album

Got House Records recently ran a recent competition of my track Let's Get This Thing Started, hosted by Mp3Unsigned.com. There were lots of great entries in the contest and the Label decided to release an album containing their favourite Remixes

The Album is now available to buy on Juno Records on http://www.junodownload.com/products/lets-get-this-thing-started-the-remixes/1706239-02/

Track Listing:
1 Lets Get This Thing Started (Sean Chains remix)

2 Lets Get This Thing Started (MarkoBoko remix)
3 Lets Get This Thing Started (Dynamonster remix)
4 Lets Get This Thing Started (Gete remix)
5 Lets Get This Thing Started (Tedd-Z remix)
6 Lets Get This Thing Started (DJ-Pipes remix)
7 Lets Get This Thing Started (Diinch remix)
8 Lets Get This Thing Started (DDJ remix)
9 Lets Get This Thing Started (DJ PaRe remix)
10 Lets Get This Thing Started (DJ Roland D remix)
11 Lets Get This Thing Started (Infinity Deejay remix)
12 Lets Get This Thing Started (Redshirt Theory ReDmix)
13 Lets Get This Thing Started (Got House Records remix)

Album will be available from other stores shortly :)

Geiger167 on the radio (again)

Got my track, White Fluff, played on the radio this week, BBC Radio Tees to be exact. Track is played about twenty minutes into the show and a feed is available still for week or so at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00dcr3p

Got some nice website plugs on it is as well (wish they had spelled my name on air though lol)

Still baby steps for me as far as radio play is concerned, but I will keep plugging away :)

Yet more Acid stuff

I've gone Acid crazy lol, two tracks in a week, hell has truly frozen over. My latest masterpiece of self-indulgence can be found here;
http://soundcloud.com/geiger167/cornish-pastie
I'm still gauging feedback on the acid stuff, but not had any major blows to my ego yet lol. May squeeze out another one (sounded better in my head lol) May encourage a new wave of break dancing in the streets or it may be just another case of 'Meh, sounds like all the other crap you do' Who know, who really cares lol. You. the reader, will decide. The fate of the world is in your hands :)

In between bouts of music making and ego stroking, I managed to catch a few new films this week;
The Kings Speach - Period drama, top acting, like Downton Abbey with stuttering. Magical stuff :)
Hatchet 2 - Yes, you missed Hatchet 1, but I didn't. Gory, foolish, tits,blood, humour, swamp folk with mutations and The Cnadyman hamming it up, genius.
The Resident - New hammer film, not as good as Let Me In, but a good Hitchcockian thriller, great cast as well, well made, decent all round.
Unstoppable - Denzel and Pine with runaway train. Big popcorn-fest, loved every second of it.

Also watched some new Blu-rays (or caught up with some xmas pressies lol. Spent the week wallowing in the Alien Anthology and watched the movies and the unbelievable extras. I'm a total Alien geek, so loved every second. the first two had the best remastering jobs (all were good though) Alien in particular was astounding, but Aliens was the best I have ever seen it (and that includes the original viewing at the cinema) Best extras are the Alien test footage (The very tall and thin Alien actor doing test footage creeping down corridors with a  dodgy alien head on was great) and the big Alien 3 documentary (with missing footage reinstalled) was great as well, if a bit depressing.
Found a great new site for news on the upcoming Prometheus (Ridley Scott's Alien prequel) here;
http://www.alienprequelnews.com/
Well worth a book mark :)

New Track - White Fluff

Posted my newsest track, White Fluff on Soundcloud http://soundcloud.com/geiger167/white-fluff

Was curious to see what people felt about the track before releasing it, so thought it best to put it out there and get some feedback. Mainly positive so far, so looking promising.Am forging on with some new tracks in a similar 'Acid' vein, got the bug now so might as well go with it.

Had a mooch around thesixtyone site, was very impressed with the look of the site, it' s a bit trippy looking with full page hi-res visuals for bands and small player boxes. Look amazing to be honest, not sure if it is really geared up for dance music, has a folky vibe, which is cool, but maybe not me. Check it out anyway, looks amazing: http://www.thesixtyone.com/geiger167/photo/show/91526/#/s/8VFcGPXiHxH/

Label reports remix competition is going well still, some good entries so far, still plenty of time to get your entries in :)

http://soundcloud.com/gothouserecords/sets/here-it-comes-remix-comp/

Typing this as I am eating some pasta wuth meatball so excuse the tomato stains lol

Last thought, looking for some crowd footage from gigs (dj sets would be most appropriate) So if anyone has any decent ressed jpegs (1600 x 1200 pixels are ideal) give me a shout, would be happy to give credit on sites I use the jpegs on for promotion :)

As the lizard lady says, We are of peace :)

I've Gone Acid

Been promoting a lot this month, it never seems to end lol. Time to get back to what I enjoy, and crack on with some music  Was doodling about with some tracks and decided to try something a little different so fired up Reason and made some groove that had more of a swing feel to them. Yes. it Acid time lol. Spent a good fortnight working on one track in particular, White Fluff, that seemed to have the best feel going. After I has some semblance of a structure I rewired it all into Ableton Live and began to resample all the bits I liked best. Got a basic song going, then began stripping it all back to the basic of what I liked about the track in the first place. This is a pretty conventional way of doing this stuff, you always end up with tracks just filling space and doing little else, that’s the time to get out the scissors and hit delete lol. Everything was going well until I started to mix it, it just sounded plodding, so hit my itunes library and listened to all the tracks that sounded nearest to what I was going for. After a few hours getting lost in some Luke Vibert/Wagon Christ stuff, I had an idea of what I was going for, not a digital sound, more of @I have just transferred all my m,asters from cassettes’ type of feel. Then began a search for some samples of vinyl cracks, skips, scratches, and adding bits of tape delay and spring reverb. Finally I had a hallelujah moment when I ran the Rhodes track through guitar rig and it completely changed the vibe into a more mellow place. Mixed and mastered, I burned the track and played it everywhere I could, sounded great to me, played it to some friends, noticed they were giving me the nodding signs, so all was good. Played it to some online friends, got a good response, think I have a decent minimal acid house, lounge house track 

Also cracked on with a second track, Cornish Pastie, again it’s taking time to get it right, but it has a great groove again so should end up OK.

All this acid stuff brings to attention the great hardware/software debate. I’m a poor starving musician without the means to buy the ‘real thing’ a 303, so am forced to use software. There are actually some very good 303 clones out there, ABL2, Phoscyon, some great Reaktor ensembles, Reason Silverbird etc, and basically I’ve ended up using all of them lol, they all seemed to have plus and minus points. I’m finding using a combination of everything (then processing with distortions, delays, spring reverbs, yields the best results. I’m also having to fortify the bass end quite a bit with subtle sub tracks to make it sound more real (this is the hardest part, none of the plugins seem to have real bass weight. So until a rich benefactor sends me a real 303, will have to plod on.

Am thinking I could get a few tracks out this Acid stuff, possibly and album, so will crack on, hope that inspiration continues for a while lol, and hope there is still a fan base for groovy minimal acid stuff.

Biggest event this month is my Website has just gone live, and can be found here

Spent a while ironing out all the cracks in it (spell checking lol) and designing a unified theme that wasn’t too dark. In the end I went with Bandzoogle website builder, as it seems to offer the best bang for buck and also a proepr domain name for me that was easy to remember lol. Now resisting the urge to mess about with the site every five minues lol.

Second big thing that happened this month is I got played on the Radio, BBC Introducing Teeside to be exact, and it was a thrill to hear one of my tunes on a big Radio station.  Hope to explore this area of getting my stuff out there a lot more in the coming months, as it’s great publicity 

The remix competition for my track Here It Comes, which I released under the name of Pyramid Head, is also in full swing now and I’ve been informed there are already some great entries by label. Still time to have a go if anyone is still wanting to try, some great prizes. Details can be found on my website or SOUNDCLOUD

Still working on some Acid tracks, one in particular is coming along very well, and I’m working on it hard at the moment. Had some mixing problems (well nightmares lol) as I just couldn’t get a particular sound I was after. Was trying to get a scratchy vinyl type swing thing going on, and I couldn’t continue with the track as it was driving me bananas. In the end I had to get some samples of record scratches and put them low in the mix, and really push the sub bass on the kick drum (fortified with some tuned kick samples) Ended up sounding really nice, now I just have to add some melodic content or it will be six minutes of 303 bass squelches lol. I keep toying with some vocoder lines as well on it, but I keep ending up sounding like Luke Vibert (which isn’t a bad thing lol) I might try the Ableton vocoder for a change or do it in Reason.

feel free to mosey on down the website, leave your scathing comments on the homepage, join the forum and call me names lol, or sign up for the mailing list (I rarely mail, I hate spam lol)