craniac's place » Music

Killers Crowd

Steve Crane — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 22:39:30 +0000

I shot this with my cell phone, off a screen in the VIP tent during the Killers’ show. What struck me was how the moment has captured a single face clearly and that this face has a completely neutral expression, as if just standing around among the crowd of people all going crazy.

Concertgoers

Steve Crane — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 05:22:33 +0000

People rocking along to the Jesse Jordan Band at a recent sunset concert at the Helderberg Nature Reserve.

Jesse Jordan Band — Sunset Concert this Sunday

Steve Crane — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 08:40:48 +0000

The Jesse Jordan Band will be playing a sunset concert in the Helderberg Nature Reserve on Sunday 1 February 2009. We’ll be there.

Verity needs your help

Steve Crane — Wed, 07 May 2008 21:37:59 +0000

I’ve blogged before about Verity, a singer from Cape Town, who is taking the unusual route of raising money for her first album by pre-selling copies rather than signing her soul away to a record company. I was prompted to post about this again after receiving her latest newsletter, in which she says;

My first single “Angel” is starting to get playlisted by various radio stations around SA so I am looking forward to seeing how it does. You can find the song available to DOWNLOAD OR LISTEN HERE… and I would love to hear what you think.

I also have a web interview that my good friend Bruce Muzik did for his website that you might ENJOY WATCHING HERE…

We are in the final push to sell the last 185 copies on my site. If you enjoy listening to “Angel” and the interview inspires you, then please mail the links to your friends so that they can see if they would like to join the Future Owner family and help us get the album ready to post by the end of May if all goes well!

Please buy a copy of the album. Help this brave and talented woman to meet her goal and remember that by doing so you are also helping her to help others. That’s right, a portion from each sale goes to charity.

My Top Ten Albums

Steve Crane — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:27:58 +0000

Nic started this off with 20 albums to educate your children with and Melissa followed up with her top eleven albums. So here are my all time faves.

Live, Throwing Copper
The Clash, London Calling
Pavlov’s Dog, Pampered Menial
Fleetwood Mac, Rumours
Queen, Live Killers
Bad Company, 10 From 6
Def Leppard, Pyromania
Chris de Burgh, Spanish Train and Other Stories
Neil Young, Harvest
Rodriguez, Cold Fact

So what are your favourite albums?

Lip Dub – Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger

Steve Crane — Thu, 03 May 2007 07:26:47 +0000

Somebody posted this music video to a list I’m on. It was made after work one day by a fun bunch of geeks.

Supporting local artists

Steve Crane — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 20:16:27 +0000

Today seems to have been a day for supporting local artists. I bought a copy of So Close, Tertia Albertyn‘s book this afternoon and was going through my feeds a little while ago when I came across her latest post about Verity, a local singer who is employing the interesting technique of pre-sales to raise the money to record her first album. I had been meaning to become one of the future owners for a while now and saw Tertia’s post as a sign that now was the time. So I have bought a copy and have become future owner #994. I’m looking forward to being a part of the album creation process by helping to choose the songs that Verity will record.

The Great DRM Swindle?

Steve Crane — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 07:21:00 +0000

Supporting Local Music

Steve Crane — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 22:12:41 +0000

I’m not sure how I ended up on Rhythm Records’ mailing list but when I received a copy of their newsletter last week it looked interesting so I took a look at their site and spotted one or two albums I wanted to buy.

This evening I got around to actually doing so. I was very satisfied with the experience. They have a long list of South African artists on their catalogue and offer non-DRMed downloads in MP3 format so you can play them on any OS and download them to any MP3 player. Their music is reasonably priced at R6 per track, considerably less than the likes of Pick ‘n Play, who charge more than twice this for most tracks and only offer DRMed downloads that can only be played in Windows Media Player.

So what did I buy? Two albums, Takeaways by Bed On Bricks and The Red Stone Album by Pebbleman.

I saw Bed On Bricks play live at Rock The Bay in December 2005 and thought they were a really great live band so when I saw that their third album was an acoustic live set I just had to buy it. I’ve given it a spin and I like it. It has a mellow vibe but is still upbeat and funky as you would expect from Bed On Bricks.

My only experience of Pebbleman was the track Loaded Gun that I downloaded from SAMP3.com a few months ago. It is a driving guitar-based rock track and impressed me greatly. Listening to the samples of Pebbleman’s other tracks revealed them all to be of the same ilk. A nice album, not metal, but good old-fashioned hard rock.

I will definitely be passing more of my business to Rhythm Records and will continue downloading sample tracks from SAMP3.com to get an idea of what local music I like and want to buy. I suggest you do the same.

On the subject of South African music, you might want to check out my South African Music group on Flickr. If you’ve taken any photos of South African musicians then join the group and post them.

POTD 2006-09-05

Steve Crane — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 14:17:49 +0000

karen zoid @ gatskop originally uploaded by ffreakazzoid.