Category: #Music

Spabbit’s Music of the moment.

Here are a few of the artists I’m listening to at the moment. The first is The Hillbilly Moon Explosion, a rockabilly band guaranteed to wake you up – a lot of original works and a fair few covers. I’ve bought into them with 4 albums, and I just can’t stop listening!

Here are a couple of vids from Youtube, plus a link to their stuff on Amazon – If you like, go buy 🙂

The Hillbilly Moon Explosion – Down On Your Knees (Official Music Video)

The Hillbilly Moon Explosion – Call Me (Official Music Video)

Some of the The Hillbilly Moon Explosion albums:

  • Buy Beg Or Steal
  • My Love for Evermore
  • The Sparky Sessions
  • With Monsters and Gods

Amazon links:
The Hillbilly Moon Explosion on Amazon (US)
The Hillbilly Moon Explosion on Amazon (UK)

The next artist is Haley Reinhart.

Not being American, I didn’t see Haley on AGT, but instead encountered her as a guest of Postmodern Jukebox, and I’ve been hooked ever since 🙂

Haley Reinhart – Lo-Fi Soul (Official Music Video)

Postmoden Jukebox – Black Hole Sun – Vintage Soundgarden Cover ft. Haley Reinhart

Amazon links:
Haley Reinhart on Amazon (US)
Haley Reinhart on Amazon (UK)

Finally, Pomplamoose!

❤❤❤  Pomplamoose!

Video Killed the Radio Star – Pomplamoose

Pomplamoose on Patreon – If you like what you hear why not go support ’em in making more excellent sounds 🙂

My Top 14 Albums!

IMG_4453This little Top album meme is shamelessly nicked from other sources, such as Facebook posts, still – I enjoyed making up the list and listening to a lot of music to make up my mind 🙂

  • Alannah Myles – Alannah Myles – The very first CD I bought back in the day when they were still new.
  • Albert King with Stevie Ray Vaughan – in Session – Blues, say no more.
  • Amy Winehouse – Paradiso – Always good for a drinking session (sic).
  • Clanad – The ultimate collection – This one got me through some very hard times back in the early 90s.
  • Dinah Washington Finest Hour – Classic.
  • Earth and Fire – The Singles – These guys are the alternate Abba – a little more raw.
  • Huey Lewis and the News – Sports – The very first tape album I bought, and not regretted a single minute of listening to 🙂
  • Imelda May – Love Tattoo – I got engaged and married with “Falling In Love” playing on a loop in my head!
  • Jeff Wayne – War Of The Worlds (1985) – Say no more.
  • Mike Oldfield – Amarok – Love this – few words, but sets your imagination going.
  • Postmodern Jukebox – Squad Goals – PMJ take a normal song a fuck with it to transform it into a masterpiece – this is their most recent album, and one of their best!
  • Robert Schumann – The classical selection – Yes, it’s not Mozart – think I’ve grown out of my Mozart days!
  • Sky – Five Live – Sky – those drugged up hippies armed with the most amazing pieces of music I’ve ever heard – Live is always better.
  • The Very Best of Nina Simone – Always good drinking music 🙂

… And that’s my 14 – spread over 30 years of collecting music… There are so many more artists in the collection, this is a small slice of my personal history!

Some more Post Modern Jukebox…

I’ve posted a few odd songs from PMJ in the past, so here is a pick of the recent best of PMJ – Enjoy 🙂

You Give Love A Bad Name – Vintage Blues – Style Bon Jovi Cover ft. Jennie Lena

Black Hole Sun – Postmodern Jukebox Vintage Cover ft. Haley Reinhart

Stressed Out – Postmodern Jukebox Twenty One Pilots Cover ft. Puddles Pity Party (Sad Clown)

Ex’s and Oh’s – Vintage ’30s Jazz Elle King Cover ft. Lisa Gary

Mad World – Vintage Vaudeville – Style Cover ft. Puddles Pity Party & Haley Reinhart

.m3u playlists and Winamp…

winampRemember WinAmp?

Do you still use WinAmp?

Do you have a load of favoured, lovingly built .m3u playlists?

Would you like the files copied to another folder, without having do them manually one by one, to play on another device?

If the answer to all of the above is yes (This means you’re old!), look no further. Below is some batch file code in Windows which will allow you to do exactly that. Run it from the command line with the single parameter of the playlist.mu3 filename (Filename cannot contain spaces).

When run the batch file will create a folder in the current location named after the .m3u file, go through the .m3u file, then copy all of the tracks to the destination folder for you – from there all you need to do is reorganise them to your own preferences – you could use DBPowerAmp to convert the formats, and Mp3Tag to do the filenames / ID3 tags 🙂

I’ve recently used this to extract my playlists from my PC, copying the files, then setting the ID3 tags with Mp3Tag as a compilation, then shoving over to my iPad with CopyTrans Manager.

Have fun with the code, feel free to use and modify, however you are forbidden in using it in any form of commercial project without significant modification. If you do find the code handy, please comment, and link back here!


@echo off

if "%1"=="" goto NoFilename

if exist "%1" (goto continue) else (goto FileDoesntExist)

:continue

echo Extracting filenames from %1

find /V "#" %1 > tempfileextract.txt

set DestTemp=%1
set Dest=%DestTemp:~0,-4%

mkdir %dest%

for /f "delims=" %%a in (tempfileextract.txt) do (

echo Processing %cd%\%%a
copy "%cd%\%%a" %dest% >nul

)

goto end

:NoFilename
echo No Filenname specified
goto end

:FileDoesntExist
echo Cannot open %1
goto end

:end
echo.
echo Cleaning up.
if exist tempfileextract.txt del tempfileextract.txt
echo.
echo Done.

Wintergatan – Marble Machine

I was sucked into the YouTube Vortex the other day, and stumbled upon this gem from Wintergatan… This is simply amazing, and in this day and age where the fine level craftsman is something of a myth, even more amazing. Apparently this machine uses somewhere in the region of 2000 marbles (Although they look like steel ball-bearings to me), and is entirely hand cranked… What kind of madmen made this – Wintergatan madmen!

Enjoy 🙂

After watching this, I went further and watched some more Wintergatan… Whilst they looks like hippies given the IKEA make-over, they make some shit hot instrumental music – highly recommended 🙂