Cliffk

If it’s a musician and/or singer, I’d rather watch them doing their thing. If you can, have multiple cameras at various distance and angles - surprising how this improves things. No offence to any DJs here, but one thing I cringe at are DJs ‘performing’ - all I ever see is cliched 80s hand waving interspersed with sporadic dives at the turntable to scratch along with an intro/outro.

Absolutely. What I’d add as a variation is to record yourself soloing over an ‘interminable’ loop - as much and long as you like. This will allow you to try a range of approaches (from ‘thinking’ to experimenting with staggered timings on the hoof), hopefully resulting in a state of flow (see Csikszentmihalyi if you want the theory 😉).

West London, UK - been here for over 25 years. Always dreamt of retiring in a small beach town on the Californian coast (like Avila Beach), but my wife looks like dragging me the opposite way (central Europe) in the next few years. 😄

Hmm I may finally succumb to NYT’s badgering to subscribe. Talking Book is my favourite album ever, bar none. Just a unique collection of songs, with playing, singing, sounds, melody and harmony to match. Those chord changes and (auto?)wahs on Tuesday Heartbreak blew my mind when I first heard them - not groundbreaking, but different for a pop song lasting just over 2 minutes. Ok, personal summary impressions of main albums: MMM - raw, exploratory TB - fresh, unique Innervisions - sophisticated, accomplished FFF - joyful, melodic, beautiful SITKOL - someone said it: expansive, impressive

Oooh this thread has got me rooting round the archives! Soppy for sure, but that's the point right? A few of my favourites:

I don't go as much as I'd like but these are my most memorable down the years. The pattern is obvious! 😉 Kool and the Gang Michael Jackson Prince Stevie Diana Ross Peabo Bryson Randy Crawford Luther Vandross CeCe Winans Jonathan Butler Standouts were Luther (for top-notch quality, production and vocals) and Kool and the Gang (when JT Taylor was leading them to all kinds of successes). I was unexpectedly blown away: these cats put on a performance I'll never forget. Oh and CeCe is a monster live vocalist. The one bad concert was when I went with a girl I was trying to impress. Got tickets cos I knew she loved this group. It was The Braxtons - but f--- me sideways, that was excruciating. Needless to say, the relationship went south before the group had even left the city for their next tour date ... talk about dodging a bullet there.

Gratifying to see such thoughtful responses, though as was mentioned above, these forums are on a different level to many out there - which is why we stay. 😊 It’s really important to keep communication channels open while retaining respect and tolerance for viewpoint diversity, especially on contentious close-to-the-bone issues like this. In that spirit, I’m happy to have the thread moved to Craig’s forum.

Whew, this is bound to be binned by DB … 😅 in the interests of balance, I’m British too, though a clear minority in the demographic under discussion. I’m nobody’s subject, and republican to boot (but just for clarity, not in the American red vs blue sense 😉). So absolutely no disrespect to Biggles, but to me and many of my circle, just the concept of monarchy is an anachronistic abomination and a hugely successful sociopolitical con. Timwat, I genuinely appreciate yours was a neutral info-seeking post, so just to let you know, this is as deeply political as it gets for those of us who are anti-monarchy. In that sense, we’re talking similar levels to current left and right divisions in the US. So that’s all I’ve got to share on this, but at the very least I reckon it’s worth knowing that not all Brits are of the same mind on monarchy. Again, no offence intended to anybody. Now I’ll get back to the good ‘ol regular stuff about keyboards …

RIP Dave.

Donny was just an immense talent.

Ah Doogie and L&O - serious feels for my college years right there.

Funny story. I was selling my Rhodes on eBay about 10 years ago and Mike Lindup messaged me with an unacceptably low side bid. Told him I really liked the band, but politely declined his offer. 😁

Yeah it is sad, actually. And it reflects what others have intimated above, that perhaps it's an indictment of our times. The technological reality of being able to see (almost) everything - and more tellingly, being able to be seen - seems to have exposed a rather ugly side of human nature which has probably always been there: our rabid narcissism. As for it being fake, nah. I can't think of an incentive big enough for someone like Chris Rock to agree to be remembered forever by a large portion of his own community as 'the punk who was bitch-slapped' on live TV. Justified or not, that's the perception he'd have to live with. In a related sense, Will Smith's evidently very deep anger is arguably also driven by reputational considerations. His wife has spoken openly about their 'open marriage' (which she apparently initiated), and Smith has since found himself the butt of any number of cuckold jokes. Hard to live with. I just find the whole thing reveals, for all our legitimate achievements and ridiculous pretensions, how close we humans always are to the baser demons of our nature. That said, I'm an irrepressible optimist: we really need to never quit trying to be better people. [Sorry for the quite personal post. The times we're living through are hard, aren't they?]

Damn, I guess Ricky Gervais had better watch himself from on. Hasn’t he flat-out insulted both Mel Gibson and Robert Downey Jr. before? And if we’re talking about being sensitive to people with diseases, does RDJ’s former drug dependency count? Or is it ok cos he’s a dude? Also, doesn’t Jada talk about absolutely everything on her chat show? Should she then expect a limit on comedians not to rib her? Where do we draw that line? I mean, is anything off limits to comics, or is any issue fair game? Loadsa questions man. The implications for what happened last night seem wider than the event itself.

Apart from the clear references to the Beatles’ psychedelic era, Seeds of Love has always reminded me of that other great 80s stream-of-consciousness smash by Peter Gabriel, Sledgehammer (pun just popped up! 😆). Wonder if STSOL was influenced by that at all, especially its video?

Ah love me some TFF! As a singing teen who loved keys, I recall being weirdly taken by the charisma of the drummer in the original video - man, how he hit those cymbals on the syncopated accents. To this day, I struggle to play Songs from the Big Chair softly … so I don’t. 😬

Yup, that’s a really sure route to messing up your kid. A newsreader masquerading as a ‘psychologist’ once put out a book called ‘There’s no such thing as naughty’, referring to kids up to 5ish. Okay then. 😏

Oh man, El DeBarge layin’ it flat out! I mean, those high notes? Amazing.

Hehe thanks for this, Maurizio - serves me right for being slightly snarky. 😁 I was actually referring to the triumphalist Brexity tone of the headline. And I'll quickly veer off now before I get cited for breaching 'that' line ... 😅

Nicely detailed appraisal. Not sure what ‘British’ manufacturing has to do with this though.

Thanks again, Josh. This for me was a definitive thread.

Grand!!

Warmest holiday wishes to all on the KC!!

Congrats Tim! Can"t add any more than that integrity is recognised even by those colleagues who seem to lack emotional intelligence and inevitably who"ll test your boundaries. And another vote for Netflix"s The Chair. Adan called it right - and I"ll add 'funny as hell" for all the in-jokes and affectionate stereotypes for those familiar with academia. Imo the intrigues behind those musty walls are worth many more looks than popular media can usually be bothered to reveal.

Thank you, Josh. Thank you.