Some Electric Life

[Blinx]

Now, you may have heard that I'm in a band.
We'll we finally have music up, live from a gig we did ages ago.

I'd appreciate it if you gave us a listen and tell me what you think.

http://www.myspace.com/someelectriclife

[worMatty]

k.

Swings And Roundabouts: Singing isn't very nice. Gets a bit boring after a bit. Guitar work is good. Lyrics seem okay.

Water Over Wine: Nice mix of guitar and piano. Very good. Again, singing seems a bit stale. Can't really understand what she's singing. Not as boring as the previous one though. Over the whole track nothing in particular stands out, it all sounds very similar throughout.

All sounds like it was recorded from inside a box.

[Blinx]

It was done live, and ripped from a Video camera.

Cheers for you thoughts. And I agree that Swings sounds too samey, we're dropping that one.

[bonz]

Water Over Wine:
Nice harmonies with keys, guitar and vocals.

Swings And Roundabouts:
Singing sounds quite apathic.

We need better quality to judge anything further.

[philby4000]

The water over wine one is pretty nice.

[Paul.Power]

Yeah, I'd say Water Over Wine is better. The piano works well (the slightly off instrumental at the end), adding some very effective high notes to the backing. The singing is clearer as well. It could still use polishing, although recording it on a camera would have made it sound worse than it was live. But there's a solid tune in there, and that's vital.

As for Swings and Roundabouts... I do like straight rock, but it's trickier to get right than the more "rock-pop" sound of something like Water over Wine. Jun Senoue's compositions for the Sonic series (nerd alert!) serve as a good example: he's got serious melody-writing skill, but he's far more effective when he does pop than rock (The annoying part is, he seems to enjoy doing the rock ones more...). But I digress. The main tune is very important, and I can't really find one in S+R. But as I say, Water Over Wine is much better on that front.

[bloopy]

:cool: Water Over Wine is a nice catchy song, but I prefer Swings And Roundabouts because it's more instrumental, experimental, and downbeat, all of which are things I like. I don't have much of a musical ear but the lyrics and vocals are great in both.

[MtlAngelus]

Swings and Rundabouts is fine except for the singing. It needs more energy on the singing.
Water Over Wine is fine.

[Squirminator2k]

I agree. Also, you've changed your band's name again?

[Blinx]

Thanks for all your input guys. =]

Yeah, we've discovered that Water Over Wine is generally our most popular song. We've improved on it futher, making the breakdown more interesting and energetic. I'm sure that when we record it properly it'll be even better, I've already recorded my own version of it with overdubs I would add to it.

With regards to Swings, we're kinda sick of this song really. I agree with the lack of energy, I think the lack of energy in the singing is due to the lyrics themselves. I asked Stephen, who wrote it, what it was about, he just said it was "Bollocks". And also the tune is abit samey and repetitive. Recently we've done away with that song. We are playing a better song that I wrote with my bassist called "I'm Running", which I really enjoy playing.

S2K. Yeah we did change it again. We've had so many name changes but this is the final one. For sure. We weren't pleased with Red Cloud because it was too "soft" as such. Some Electric Life (SEL for short) seemed more interesting.

Thanks again guys. :D

[MtlAngelus]

I don't think you should give up on Swings... All it needs is more energetic singing.
It just needs more feeling on the singing, right now it sounds as if the vocalist is holding back or not singing at full lung capacity... not sure if that makes sense. I would point at Sandra Nasic as the only example I can think of.
Also, being repetitive is not a bad thing, there's plenty of songs in my list that are repetitive.

[Xinos]

It's the wrong genre for being repetitive..

[Paul.Power]

I don't think you should give up on Swings... All it needs is more energetic singing.And a tune. I mean, as far as I can tell, the Old Grey Whistle Test is still an effective guideline to work by.

[bonz]

Yeah we did change it again.
Did he finally sue you?
http://www.muleswelt.de/2003/hans_blix.jpg
Some Electric Life (SEL for short) seemed more interesting.
Hmm, that strongly reminds me of Electric Light Orchestra, also known as ELO. :-/

[FutureWorm]

Hmm, that strongly reminds me of Electric Light Orchestra, also known as ELO. :-/
yeah me too, you might want to angle for something more original (unless of course you don't want to change yet again, which is quite understandable)