I need a few words spoken by a Canadian accented woman for a recording project I’m doing….anyone know someone? A simple phone recording would do. If you know anyone let me know. It will literally take 30 seconds….Ta!

Recently I’ve become fond of songs with real stuff in them – clips of speeches, film etc. Spirit’s fantastic “Future Games” is the first time I heard this – a whole album interspersed with bit of Star Trek, The Muppets, US radio…and more recently we have Public Service Broadcasting who do it really well too. In fact I did a recording project with a load of clips in too (though modesty prohibits posting one of my own – copies available on request…). This clip is a favourite of Twang Jr who learned the sax part, but what got me is the sensational clip of JFK. Post other examples here…

https://youtu.be/kV8yjMeU2X0

I quite like the idea and think I could do decent dialogue, but barring just starting typing I wondered if anyone here has written one? Any tips? I did co write a musical at college but mainly did the music/lyrics with another bloke, bar the odd line.

OK rounding off the year end festivities let’s do the Afterword year end survey…

1.Best thing in 2016?

2. Worst thing in 2016?

3. Thing that made you laugh?

4. Thing that made you cry?

5. Hopes for the year ahead?

6. Fears for the year ahead?

7. One prediction for 2017?

These will be reviewed at the end of 2017 and prizes awarded.

Hi all

@DogFacedBoy and I will be hosting an end of year/year ahead podcast on New Year’s Day at 7.00 pm – all welcome – just pop in to say hello, or stay a while. The more the merrier. No particular topic – just shooting the breeze on the year gone, and the one to come. Just post below and I’ll be in touch.

A great enhancement to the site goes live tonight!  A much requested change is that the “New” indictor is based on when you last looked at a thread regardless of the device (as opposed to now, where it is based on the specific device).  From tonight, posts will only be flagged as New once, and won’t appear as New again if you move from one device to another.  A superb bit of work by Rich especially as we negotiate the numerous (and long) year end threads.   Also there’s a new “New” indicator which now in red on the post which itself is presented in a fetching blue box.  A huge round of applause is due for the mod/dev team I think.

Of course a band is only as good as its rhythm section. Few are better than Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, here showing how it’s done – note how Mick adds tension in the otherwise pretty simple verse by playing that weird off beat, so when he hits the back beat in the chorus the whole thing takes off. And McVie (J) effortlessly bounces around the beat with long melodic lines before perfectly locking in.

Who are the other great rhythm sections, and why?

2016 continues its grim toll with the passing of AA Gill on Saturday. A marmite figure for sure, but I never read anything he wrote which I didn’t enjoy. His books of travel writing always throw up interesting perspectives and views, showing he was far from a right wing Clarkson lite figure. And his “Sap Rising” – famously reviewed by the Guardian with a “Do not buy this book” (they immediately put the quote on the cover) is a hilarious and quite outrageous romp. I didn’t keep up with his newspaper columns but I’ll dig out the travel book later and re-read his piece on the visit to Dachau. Stunning stuff.