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  • Week one with my Android

    htc-desire Last Friday my dear ole Blackberry went to phone heaven. So Saturday demanded that I get a new mobile communications device.

    The HTC Desire was a phone I had been looking at. I liked the idea of open source and the range of apps that were available. Plus I didn’t really want to add to Steve Jobs’ wealth.

    So I charged up the phone and had a sniff around. It was pretty instinctive to.use the operating system and as I use gmail as my primary email loved the ease of setting it up. I use Google calendar too so being able to sync the calendar on the phone and on the desktop simultaneously.

    The phone came with apps for Twitter and Facebook. I decided though to use Seismic for Twitter and I updates the app for Facebook.

    Other apps I downloaded were a couple of games, Air Control and a Baseball homerun game. All the apps I’ve downloaded so far have been free.

    I’ve also downloaded Sports Mobile, an app that aggregates sports scores from different sports, MLB, NFL, F1, EPL results, golf, everything apart from GAA.  Loving it, it gives all the scores and start times in my timezone which is brilliant as a.Sfgiants fan.

    Other apps I’ve got include a great notepad which provides options of how I want to share the finished thing. That was one thing that really bugged me about the blackberry. There wasn’t the amount of options. The WordPress app is really good so far has let me do everything I need.

    The biggest thing really is getting used to the touch screen instead of a QWERTY keyboard. A few days of using it though and its grand. Just takes a little bit of messing round to figure out how hard or not.to touch the screen.

    So one week on, I love the android and love the apps the potential the platform has.

    Blackberry Rust in Peace. Long live the Android.

  • Bill Coleman: Black & Blue EP Review

    bill colemanBill Coleman has worked his socks off. He’s been on the Irish music scene for a while, honing and perfecting his sound. I happened to stumble upon a performance on Saturday last in the Mercantile on Dame St, Dublin and the man himself gave me a copy of his Black & Blue EP. So what’s it like ?

    Well, Bill Coleman is more than just a singer songwriter. Live, solo, he has enough energy and stage presence to knock four or five members of any band into touch. ‘I want you to know’ shows this energy from its opening kick drum ‘oh eh’ refrain. Coleman has cleverly combined the live feel of a band with electronic noises and effects. The song has lots of lyrics and Coleman impresses with his ability to not make the track sound overcrowded or confining. The track seems to keep building up more and more until the last notes. Cracker.

    Crossfire has a more minimalist style of production, again Coleman uses his vocal hooks to build up the track. He has a knack of writing songs that really suit and bring out the best of his vocals. Church of Second Chances builds from an electronic drumbeat and showcases Coleman’s voice and his lyric writing ability.

    Last track on the EP is ‘Welcome to the Breakdown’ (Joe’s No Handbag Disko Remix), this totally messes with people’s perception of what a singer songwriter is. This track could fully complete the acknowledgement that Bill Coleman is an electronic artist who writes great music and just happens to play acoustic guitar when he does it.

    Bill Coleman just keeps getting better and better. I could listen to this all day.

    http://bcoleman.com/

  • Kate Walsh: Peppermint Radio

    Kate Walsh Peppermint Radio is Kate Walsh’s fourth album and sees the British singer songwriter take on well known UK songs, break them down and give them a twist. Walsh takes on Blur, EMF and Eurythmics to name a few, in this piano led odyssey and features songs which have influenced Walsh’s musical life. The album has a delicate air, as Walsh’s vocals are interwoven with atmospheric harmonies and minimalist instrumentation.

    Walsh has taken on a huge task to convert the listening public to her versions of these well known songs. Sometimes it works really well, sometimes not quite as well. Prefab Sprout’s ‘When Love Breaks Down’ starts with an airy vocal effect and gives Walsh another shot at being featured on Grey’s Anatomy. The track is not as well know as some of the others on the album, maybe that’s why it works.

    Surprise number one has to be ‘Unbelievable’, EMF’s 1990 hit. Despite there being other versions of this, Walsh’s version takes the track reworks the overall arrangement so as only the lyrics are familiar. Very Clever.

    Walsh’s whispery vocals on Lullaby try to echo Robert Smith’s on The Cure’s original but its not quite there. There are, though, some great wind up toy sounds throughout the track. Walsh’s tries to put her individual stamp on each track but Blur’s ‘Beetlebum’ is immediately recognisable and is although it builds up towards the end, lacks a killer punch.

    (more…)

  • Tune Of The Week: 10/08/2010

    I saw this guy a few weeks ago supporting Kassidy, truth be told, he blew them away. I’m not 100% sure but I think I actually met Ryan Sheridan when I was booking The Voodoo Lounge on Arran Quay back in about 2003.

    This is Ryan’s New single, ‘Jigsaw’ which is due for release on September 9th. Go buy it, go see him.

    http://ryansheridanmusic.com/