The Content Hoarder

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Oppikoppi, South Africa’s most popular music festival was attended by between 13 000 and 15 000 music fans this weekend.

The organisers of the festival celebrated the 15th anniversary of the event by declaring it a national monument.

The festival, which was rated by the British press as one of the top 10 to attend in the world, sported a lineup of musicians such as Koos Kombuis, Vusi Mahlasela and the Parlotones.

Founder Carel Hoffman told Eyewitness News they felt it was necessary to acknowledge all that the event has achieved during its lifetime.

According to the Times, this year’s Oppikoppi festival ended “with a bang” when the Parlotones took the stage - as one of the event headliners - to wrap up the celebrations.

The band took time off from recording their upcoming album to perform a set over the weekend, and a homeland crowd was happy to have them for a night as they prepare for a fall tour of the UK and Europe. The Parlotones tour begins this autumn.

The Parlotones were selected as MTV’s featured artist after an MTV colleague working for the South African network base recommended the band’s music. South Africa’s MTV has long been fans of the band, especially since the band first blew up in 2006. That year the band won a live competition to become the hottest up-and-coming act in South Africa and was crowned the MTV Alert Artist of the Year.

This is perhaps the best hand held DAB radio ever made in my opinion. The sound quality is frighteningly clear with a deep sense of atmosphere & depth with the supplied Sennheiser MX three hundred earphones. Even the analog stations sounded extremely crisp to such an extent that it was tricky to notice the difference between the DAB broadcasts. I have owned many DAB radios previously, but the Pure 1500 is way above all of the prior models regarding its ergonomics & sound quality.

The comparatively poor battery life had been a standard issue with previous digital radios in the past. The improved dynamics of the Pure 1500 is a massive improvement over the prior Pure one thousand leading to a much better battery life overall. However, this is reliant on general usage. If the back-light option is permanently switched on then glaringly the battery life will be shorter. I can listen all day at work & only need to recharge the batteries each 2 to 3 days.

There are many equaliser presets which you can adjust to your own preferences. The bass boost setting is best for general listening. There are also many different options for assorted settings.

If I could find one really minor niggle with the PocketDAB 1500 portable radio & that is the absence of a sleep timer. It is a well designed, simple, solid, highly functional DAB radio handset which is built to last and will give many years of listening pleasure.

Passionato’s aim was to grow to be the world’s most accepted classical music web site & it is fair to say that Passionato have most definitely attained this. Passionato.com sought to offer their customers the finest possible collection of outstanding quality DRM- free classical music downloads. The online store has 4 sub sections all of which are incredibly helpful to classical music lovers. These are perfect new releases, charts, special offers & critic’s choice.

Passionato was purposely created after finding a gap in the market for classical music downloads. Passionato.com have the biggest variety of classical music as the company at the moment have right of entry to 2 of the main music label catalogues, Universal Music and EMI Classics. Passionato.com also have access to more professional labels such as Naxos, Chandos, Avie & Arts, all of which is great.

www.passionato.com appreciat more to offer than just an awesome pick of music. The company currently have free DRM- Recording which are portable to any device and also burnable to CD. You along with this as a customer, have the option to access for free to the Passionato.com Player, this has been intended to have you widen & systemize your existing Classical CD’s along side which also have been purchased through the Passionato websites website.

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You’ve written a great melody, but you don’t know what chords to
use to accompany yourself when you play it. What do you do?
Adding chords to melodies can be fun, if you know a bit about
how chords work. Try the following steps:

a. It’s important to think about strong beats and weak beats
with regard to your new melody. Sing your melody and try to get
a sense of where the pulses happen. As you sing, you’ll notice
your toe automatically tapping… that’s a good sign! For many
melodies, you’ll find that the first beat will feel like a
strong pulse and the next one will be a bit weaker. It’s on the
strong beat that the chords will change. Let’s take the melody,
“Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” as a good example. Each syllable
of each word alternates between strong and weak. You’ll find
that it feels most satisfying if the chords change on the strong
beats, or even every second strong beat, or every fourth one.
It’s less pleasing to change chords on the weak beats, though it
can happen occasionally.

b. So… what chords do we use? The first chord should emphasize
the key you’re in, so if your melody is in C-major, then the
C-major chord will probably work well. You’ll find that in any
major key, three chords will work quite nicely: chords based on
the first note, the fourth note, and the fifth note. In C-major,
the three chords that will be most useful to you are: C, F and
G. So take the first strong beat note(s) and weak beat note(s).
Those notes will likely belong to one of the three chords I
mentioned. That will guide your choice. So the chords to Twinkle
Twinkle would be: C C F C F C G C (where each chord happens on
each strong beat.

c. I’ve just used three chords as an example, but now the fun
begins… try substituting some chords for other ones. As an
example, the C chord works well in C major, because it
reinforces the key. But try substituting one of the C chords
with an A minor chord. A minor has a C in it, so it will work,
and will give your music an interesting flavour.

Keep in mind that simplicity is better than complexity,
especially in the world of songwriting, when you want people to
remember your melodies. So don’t try to use too many chords.
Four or five different ones are usually sufficient.

Good luck! (The information in this article comes from Gary
Ewer’s downloadable e-book, “The Essential Secrets of
Songwriting” http://www.secretsofsongwriting.com)

The term, “oldies,” refers to both popular music from the 1950s-1970s and the radio format that specializes in this type of music. “Golden oldies” usually refers to oldies music exclusively from the 1950s-early 1960s. Oldies songs are typically from the R&B, pop and rock music genres but may also include country, movie soundtrack, novelty, and other types of popular music played on the radio from around 1950-on. Pop music genres that had their heyday before the 1950s (e.g., ragtime, big band) are generally considered “too old” to be included in the oldies radio format. Oldies music radio stations, which typically feature bands and artists such as (to name a few) Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, Little Richard, Pat Boone, Sam Cooke, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, the Rascals, the Association, the Temptations, the Who, Elton John, and Fleetwood Mac, cover a wide variety of styles including early rock and roll, rockabilly, doo-wop, surf rock, girl groups, the British Invasion, folk rock, psychedelic rock, baroque pop, soul music, Motown, and bubblegum pop. Oldies music also overlaps with classic rock which focuses on the rock music of the late 1960s and 1970s as well as newer music in a similar style.

The phrase, “oldies but goodies,” was first coined in 1957 by renowned deejay Art Laboe who, at around that time, used to get frequent requests from his listeners for songs from the early 1950s. A central figure in L.A. radio for over half a century, Laboe was the first deejay to play rock and roll on the West Coast and one of the first to play black and white artists on the same show. In 1959, he put together the first LP to feature (mostly older) songs by different artists. This immensely popular compilation album, entitled “Oldies But Goodies,” stayed on Billboard’s Top 100 LP’s chart for over three years and has, to date, spawned some 14 sequels. (Click here for a recent interview with Art Laboe.)

Soon after the release of Laboe’s first “Oldies But Goodies” album, the phrase, “oldies but goodies,” became commonplace and by around 1960, people were waxing nostalgic for 1950s doo-wop which was already starting to be classified as “oldies.” Little Caesar And The Romans’ 1961 hit, “Those Oldies But Goodies (Remind Me of You)” and its sequel, “Memories of Those Oldies But Goodies,” both pay homage to early doo-wop and doo-wop artists. This wave of nostalgia brought about a doo-wop revival in the early 1960s which was the first of many nostalgia movements in pop music since the term, “oldies,” was first applied to older pop music.

While “golden oldies” has remained a constant over the years, the larger body of pop music that we still call “oldies” today - which is made up of core golden oldies songs plus more modern material - is not fixed but has been gradually expanding forward in time to keep up with changing demographics. Nowadays, oldies music is generally considered to include all of the 1970s, even disco, and the same is expected to be true someday for the music of the 1980s, now often described as “retro.” Oldies music is also expanding in breadth as thousands of long-forgotten tunes from the 1950s and 1960s that never made the Top 40 in their day are being rediscovered and resurrected. Whether because of nostalgia, curiosity, or a genuine love for good music, the oldies format has maintained a huge following and will probably continue to do so for many years to come.

Amy Gold
(c) Copyright 2005, allbutforgottenoldies.net

Amy Gold is the webmaster of http://www.allbutforgottenoldies.net/
Visit her website where you can search and browse thousands of song titles from 1960-1975 with links to audio clips. Her website also has interviews, RSS feeds, and many tips and resources of interest to oldies music collectors and other music hobbyists.

As I understand it, the members of Archer Avenue don’t share
a hometown, but are spread out between San Antonio, El Paso and
Houston. How did you guys meet up and end up forming a band
together?

DAVE: (drums) We met in the SA bar scene, Jack (vocals, guitar)
and I knew each other from Trinity University. I had known Marc
(lead guitar) for years and we been playing around town with our
band at the time Face Down, and Stephan (Bass) sort of appeared
later, but Marc and I had been going every now and again to
watch bands he played with. I remember seeing Stephan play the
Rabbit my first week in SA with Psycho Plague. The four of us
first played together in Summer 2003; the purpose being to
record a song for a compilation while on break from school in
San Antonio. One song turned into an EP a few months later, and
the band was born.

How do you make it work being so far apart from each other,
writing music, rehearsing, etc.?

DAVE: This is probably the most common question people have.
Luckily we have a strong songwriter in Jack, and the rest of us
focus on the parts and the arrangements. We have almost no
rehearsal time, but Jack records demos on his own to spark the
creative process. By the time we get together to rehearse, the
rest of us will have heard the songs in demo tape form for
months. We do a lot of the arranging when we re-record demos in
full band form at Monster Music Studios, with Keith Krouse
engineering.

The name Archer Avenue is taken from a street name in The
Royal Tenenbaums. Is there any significance to that or is it
just random?

MARC: We had originally been called the Radio One, and we had to
change it, so amongst the almost hundreds of possible names
Archer Avenue was the one that kept coming up. It really doesn’t
mean anything to us, well at least not me.

Your music is pretty much straight-up rock-n-roll, but I
think I hear a lot of late 90’s alternative rock influence in
there. One band that came immediately to mind was Fuel, in the
days of “Shimmer” and “Jesus or a Gun.” Am I correct in thinking
that 90’s rock was a big influence for you?

MARC: In the end it comes out sounding that way, but I think we
are all going for different sounds and styles, and for some
reason it comes out sounding like late 90’s pop. as far as my
role, I wanted the band to be very song oriented and me fit in
like Mike Campell with the Heartbreakers, along with some Brit
pop and country thrown in there, the other guys probably have
totally different sonic goals, but if it results in late 90’s
pop, then that’s cool.

I also hear some distinctly Texas sound creeping in, in the
lyrics and some country-influenced guitar licks, for instance at
the beginning of “Cars and Airplanes.” What Texas or country
bands have influenced your music?

MARC: For me, the licks and tones that sound “country” in our
songs come directly from British stuff like the Stones and the
Faces, but as far as feel and arrangements, Dwight (Yoakam),
Pete (Anderson), and the Flying Burrito Brothers are an
influence on me.

OK, Dog Bone Studios. You just recorded your first
full-length album there and got to work with some pretty big
names, including Grammy Award winner Pete Anderson. How did that
come about?

DAVE: Marc met Pete in El Paso TX, I remember him waking me up
in Phoenix saying, “Dude I just fuckin met Pete Anderson!!”

MARC: I have been a fan of his playing for a while, and went to
see him perform with Moot Davis, needless to say there wasn’t
many people there for him to talk to, so he and I had about a 3
hour conversation and hit it off on a buddy level with little or
no music talk. As I was leaving, it dawned on me to give him a
copy of our song “Greyhound” that was on a compilation released
by Bordertown Records a couple of years ago. We talked about
playing some shows together, and after some failed attempts it
happened. The talk of making a record came about really
casually, just something to do. We had the tunes and the time,
ya know?

DAVE: I met up with Pete the next night in Phoenix, got to the
bar where him and Moot were playing at around 6 PM, it was just
Pete and I and the bartender for like an hour, but truthfully I
was a fan and just wanted to meet the guy, and I did have a demo
with me but I never thought it’d amount to anything but just
casual talking that day.

The next call came like 8 months and 4 demo submissions later
from his label Little Dog Records asking if we wanted to open
for Moot and Pete in El Paso, TX in Aug 2005. We had just come
off a brief tour for Left of the Dial (our EP) so we were like
“hell ya!” We played and Pete watched the whole show to my
amazement; actually we draw pretty well in El Paso, and maybe
the crowd got Pete’s interest. He’s a really cool dude.

Tell me about the experience of recording there. What was the
coolest moment? The worst moment? The weirdest moment?

MARC: The coolest moment was basically the whole time, we
weren’t there for any other reason besides making the record, no
school or work to have to go to, just wake up and go play music
every day (well, at least talk about music for 8 hours, then
play music) I could do that every day and be happy. Plus every
word that came out of Tony Rambo’s mouth was confusing and
enlightening. Worst: battling with harmonies and arrangements,
and being able to determine what’s right and wrong Weirdest: The
drum lesson that Pete gave Dave and I, (Jack) Bonner’s bacon,
and the earthquake.

DAVE: The best moment: Watching Bob “Boo” Bernstein record dobro
on “Breakdown on N. St Mary’s”. He was the guy who originally
introduced Pete Anderson to Dwight Yoakam in the early days. He
played with Freddy Fender when he was in college. That and
drinking beer and eating donuts for like weeks. And, hanging out
with Tony Rambo the whole time we recorded. He’s the best
producer I’ve ever met.

The worst: Day 7 or 8 or so, we had trouble with the harmonies.
Pete, Tony, and Sally (Browder) wanted a ton of harmonies that
we weren’t used to doing, and it took major Jack and Marc chops
on the creative end to come up with them, and the end result was
exactly what the producers and we were going for.

Weirdest: The earthquake during the drum tracking, day 2.

OK, pimp your upcoming CD to me in 50 words or less. Make me
want to buy it.

We Watched the Headlights, We Watched the Stars, a record by
Archer Avenue. Influences from the Stones, the Kinks, to
contemporaries Jimmy Eat World and alt. country twang of the Old
97’s. With knob twiddlers Pete Anderson, Tony Rambo, and Sally
Browder behind the board, the end result is just a tight,
straight-up rock record.

I understand you’re also in the process of organizing a
Southwest tour. If you could only take 5 CD’s to listen to on
those long bus rides, what would be your must-haves?

MARC: Stones’ Exile on Main Street, Tom Petty’s Greatest hits,
Gram Parson’s Grievous Angel, Aerosmith’s Rocks, Dwight Yoakam’s
A Long Way Home, Oasis’ What’s the Story Morning Glory.

DAVE: H.I.M.’s Love Metal, Amorphis’ Tuneola, Dwight Yoakam’s
Population Me, and I’m really into Megadeth’s The System Has
Failed and Moot Davis’ self-titled debut at the moment.

Anything else you’d like to say to the readers of SA Rocks?
Come check us out sometime, we’re going to be playing SA a lot
in the next year or so, at sort of random spurts. And also,
drink a beer! stay in touch.

Thanks for your time and I’m looking forward to catching you
live at Rock City Bar on Friday (Nov 4)!

DAVE: Thanks SA Rocks!!