That awful BT Couple

Now, a cynic might point out that Diffusion PR, the people that commissioned this study, have BT on their roster. The same BT who recently ran a choose-your-ending ad campaign. But far be it from me to cast such nasturtiums.

There’s no more sure fire way to bland-up your show than by giving the public a choice in the matter. Not only will you end up with lowest common denominator outcomes (I present to you Joe McElderry, Rachel Rice, that one that won that thing.. you know, whassisface, yeah, with the total lack of distinguishing features… yeah?) but to say that we, a bunch of drooling telly watching eedjits, know better than the writers is just arrogant.

Last year, during the quite brilliant, Torchwood: Children of Earth, lots of writers (some that weren’t even involved with the show) came under a huge amount of flack for killing off one of the main characters. I loved the character, a lot of people did, and killing him off was brutal, but worked brilliantly as a plot development.

If you think you can write the stories better than Steven Moffat , Graham Linehan, James Moran et al, then for goodness sake send it in to the BBC and don’t hope over 50% of viewers agree with you so it’ll turn out ok in a vote.

And if you’re writing to please more than 50% of your viewers – give up, you’re doing it wrong.

So much so, that when we were given the monthly night at Milo we did all we could go get them to play… and not only did they play an amazing set, they brought the Water Tower Bucket Boys with them too for some out-of-this-world bluegrass fun.

You can hear more of the Hi and Lo at their myspace – http://www.myspace.com/thehiandlo – or have a wee look at this performance. It’ll be stuck in your ears for weeks. In a good way.

Ray of Sunshine

the Hi and Lo |<

Water Tower Bucket Boys @ Milo, Wed 18th

We’re putting on this amazing ol’ time band at Milo as part of Foxes and Convicts tomorrow night in Leeds – it’s free in, at Milo (opposite Blue Rinse next to the Corn Exchange) and going to be a really busy one, so get down early! The fun starts at 8!

March of Dimes @ Elbow Rooms & Nation of Shopkeepers

Tom’s off on holiday this month, so we’ve rearranged the songs into a good ol’ bit of footstompin’ fun. We’ll be playing them at Elbow Rooms on Friday night, then over in York on Saturday, then back to play Nation of Shopkeepers on Sunday night.

If you’re around, pop down. If only to see me sweat through trying to play 4am:division and Cracks in the Floor and a kick drum at the same time.

Hannah Trigwell playing "Give it Up"

When I started running the monthly Milo night with Jon from the Dimes, we started recording a monthly podcast with some live sessions from the people playing at the night.

The first run was brilliant fun, and we had some amazing sets – so great, in fact, that I’m going to put together a pay-what-you-want compliation album of the tracks in aid of Cancer Research UK.

Not only that, but we’ve recorded another one! We’ve got three acts in we’ve wanted to record with for ages, so that’s very exciting, and they are:

Silky

Hannah Trigwell

and

Jack, and Gill’s Daughter

Fluffy Cyberman

“Yorkshire telly is coming soon”

After keeping us waiting and building up quite the interest, Yorkshire Telly has finally launched, and has already uploaded four great videos – a taste of things to come from this pioneering internet broadcast team.

Watching these videos made me think the following:

1) I want a double bass
2) How lovely is Yorkshire in the summertime?
3) I really want a double bass
4) There’s so much talent in Yorkshire, it’s fantastic to have a place to show it all off.

It’s worth mentioning the video technology too – loaded really quickly at a very high quality for me… I hope we can get a mobile version sometime, I’d love to see these videos on the go!

So pop on over to Yorkshire Telly and see what they’re up to. For a taster, here’s one of the first videos they’ve uploaded, I’ll let Albert Ross introduce it…

Secret Sirens are Narelle Frances and Andrew Siron. They both appear to have been knocking about in various different projects for a while, but this latest collaboration seems to have something a bit special about it.

Through the seemingly never-ending stream of guitar-guitar-guitar-boring-boring-boring acts that are always on the bubble, it’s nice to hear someone doing something a bit different… They’ve clearly spent some time building a nice atmospheric, layered sound.

New bands need to be told there’s no shame in sounding poppy!

Their new single, Black Heart, is out next month, so have a listen to a sample here:

And if you’re in Leeds, they’re playing Elbow Rooms tonight at 8:30!

Friday bonus: Here’s a clip from the remix of the single, also available next month:

http://www.secretsirensmusic.com

Secret Sirens on Facebook & Twitter

Odd, for a creation that picked up so much hype, to end up being so underused – it’s difficult to know quite what went wrong.

Officially, the uptake wasn’t as high as they wanted – and I can see why. Pitched as the great new social collaborative working tool, it was originally offered out as an Alpha release (and then Beta) to a select group of people. It integrated seamlessly with their address books, so they’d be able to connect with anyone else on the trail.

Here’s where the logic machine breaks – if you’re creating a collaboration tool, but none of your friends have the invites yet, you’re not going to be able to do much on there.

But the good thing here is that gave it a try. Google can’t be blamed for the hype that whipped up, and their commitment to innovation should be praised. That said, they could have handled what happened next better. By integrating it more closely with gmail, or mobile software, they could have held people’s interest that bit longer, and got the engagement they hoped for.

Perhaps this just wasn’t meant to be – innovation can be great, but all great innovators miss the mark sometime!

The other day I posted the video for the excellent “Behind the Door” from Leeds-based folkster Gary Stewart’s new album, “Boy Cries Wolf”.

He’s a busy lad, our Gary, and quite disgustingly talented at all sorts of musical endeavours… not least drumming, which he does for Leeds band Hope and Social.

I stumbled onto Emily French’s blog the other day, and spotted something I knew had taken place, but had no idea was released – and SO GOOD.

So, here’s a video for Hope & Social, which should fill you with a warm Friday fuzzy feeling.

Last Friday, I was playing the Cockpit with March of Dimes. You might have heard me mention it once or twice.

Wondering around, Jon, Gordy and I needed a bite to eat quickly, and we popped by Viva. Wondering if we had enough time to get a bowl of pasta, Gordy asked very nicely if they could rush us through as we had a gig to play… Quick as a flash we were sat down, some very nice bruchetta was brought out and, what seemed a couple of minutes after we’d ordered, a plate of very tasty pasta.

We were in and out in 20 minutes, had some really great food at a great price, and left (being waved and hand-shaken by pretty much the entire staff) really happy that this is somewhere like Viva in Leeds. Proper Italian hospitality.

If the true measure of a place is how they deal with out-of-the-ordinary requests, Viva has to be one of the greatest examples of customer service in Leeds right now.

Well done them!