clivemurray.com

Yeah I know, I keep crapping on about it. But it’s great!

Anyway, a mate in NZ popped up on twitter the other day saying that my Rockia ringtone (which is me playing the Nokia “Grand Valse” tune on my guitar) had taken his office by storm. Excellent, thought I. Wonder if there’s an easy way to make an iPhone version?

Turns out there is, so I did. And in addition to that I made a few new ones. Here they are, feel free to download any of them and use freely!

• Rockia
• Education – some Pink Floyd
• Freak – the main riff from “Le Freak”, by Chic
• Gadget – Inspector Gadget theme!
• Lonesome – a blues riff, should work when looped
• Phantom – an Iron Maiden riff, famous in the 80s for being the Lucozade song
• Snooker – from the track “Drag Racer”, used for many years as the music for the snooker on UK telly
• Spy chord – in G (for guitarists out there it’s spelled X-10-9-8-7-0)
• Stairway – you should be able to guess what this is
• Twice – the intro riff to my song “Twice As Bright”

And as a special bonus, and because it’s my favourite, here is Mr. Stephen Fry excerpted from his podgram entitled “Compliance Defiance”:

• Fuckoff – “Tell them to FUCK OFF”

If that one doesn’t raise a smile, I don’t know what will. Just don’t let it go off in church.

–c.

Podcasts! They’re great, I reckon. No, really. My commuting listening habits have switched from constant hard rock to lots of funny things. It’s smart!

Favourites:

• The Bugle
• Phill & Phil’s Perfect Ten
• Stephen Fry’s Podgrams
• Adam & Joe
• 8 out of 10 Cats

You’ll mostly find me chuckling on the tube.

–c.

One of my favourite things about the iPhone is that you keep discovering little extra things about the interface as you go along. It’s not things you wish you’d known and berate Apple for not pointing out before, it’s little extras, little things that are like the icing on lots of tiny gorgeous fairy cakes.

Just now I discovered, entirely by accident (I was cleaning the glass while listening to Phill & Phil’s podcast), that while the phone is locked and you’re listening to audio, you can double-press the main button to access the ipod controls – volume, next, previous, pause – without unlocking the main phone.

It’s just a nice little tweak, and it’s stuff like that which keeps me in love with the thing.
–c.

Testing photoblogging from the jeebus phone. Here’s a hungry cat.

–c.

So excited am I by the impending release of GNR’s Chinese Democracy, that I dragged myself before a mic once again and made you a new podcast.

Aren’t you lucky?

–c.

Hate is a strong word. I should probably use “really strongly dislike” instead, but it wouldn’t make for a pithy post title. But I digress…

Music is, as you likely know, very important to me. If I’m not writing it or playing it, I’m usually listening to it. And in all this I try to be reasonably open-minded, even though my listening habits are usually pretty narrowly confined to the arenas of rock, classical and ambient. But… But but but…

I’m sorry about this, but there are some artists that I just hate. I really do. I’ve tried not to, I’ve tried to give them a fair go, but I just can’t do it. A few bars in and I’m either reaching for my headphones or heading for the door.

At this time that list includes:
- The Smiths/Morrissey
- Johnny fucking Cash
- Beck
- The White Stripes

There are plenty of currently trendy bands that I would put on this list if I knew their names (one I know is Vampire Weekend – more irritating than genital warts) purely because they seem to take pleasure in singing just a bit off key or pjaying just out of tune enough to make me wish I could go spontaneously deaf, but I really don’t have the stomach to research their names.

Jesus. Just thinking about some of the shit that is played on the office stereo gives me the fucking shakes.

Still. If ever I’m at a party of yours and you want to get rid of me, now you know how to do it.

–c.

I whole-heartedly agree with this review of the film “Wanted“.

I expect many people found it to be unwatchable dross, but I loved every second of it. It’s the only film I can think of in the last few years* that made me want to see if I could hide under my seat and stay in the cinema to watch it again immediately. Honestly. And the only film that’s every engendered that response in me before was when I first saw the original Matrix film, though that was on VHS in my bedroom, so in that instance I simply rewound it (remember rewinding?) and watched it again.

Wanted is brilliant fun. But if you want something that makes sense or teaches you something or gives you some deep insight into life, it’s not the one for you.

–c.
* Dark Knight included. Yes, it was great. But it didn’t make me go “Holy shit let’s watch that again!”

We wake up today in a different place. A world in which the USA has elected a Democrat Party president for the first time this millennium. A world in which the USA has elected a black president for the first time ever. A world in which I now feel a little less exasperated and scared.

Congratulations, America, and welcome back.

–c.