Friday, 31 December 2010
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
Thursday, 18 November 2010
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
Tuesday, 26 October 2010
Sunday, 17 October 2010
Friday, 8 October 2010
Tuesday, 14 September 2010
Sunday, 12 September 2010
Sunday, 5 September 2010
RobinPlaysChords - Hunting In Numbers [video]
http://instantmusicvideo.appspot.com/?v_url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tFPsytbCnA&sc_url=http://soundcloud.com/robinplayschords/hunting-in-numbers
Let both players load. Press play on the video. Wait until the 8 second mark before pressing play on the Soundcloud player - voila!
Let both players load. Press play on the video. Wait until the 8 second mark before pressing play on the Soundcloud player - voila!
Tuesday, 24 August 2010
Wednesday, 11 August 2010
Sunday, 8 August 2010
Thursday, 5 August 2010
Sunday, 1 August 2010
Friday, 23 July 2010
Monday, 19 July 2010
Saturday, 17 July 2010
Sunday, 11 July 2010
Friday, 9 July 2010
Monday, 5 July 2010
RobinPlaysChords - Red Admiral LP
red-admiral; a common butterfly (Vanessa atalanta) with reddish-banded wings
After the last notes of 2009’s Paper Skies LP, Robin Johan Jax got his head down to follow it up. Rather than create one album to be flung to the world in one piece, he created a collection of songs to be distributed in easily-digestible (and downloadable) chunks which grew to become the Red Admiral LP. This process took over eight months, due to various obstacles (including depression and swine flu), but from this came a creative drive which spurred the record (and the stand-alone single I Can See For Miles) on to its completion. From the opening track (the symphonic glossolalia of ‘Isis’) to the bitter end (the harrowing, Silent Hill-sampling ‘Little Sparrow’) and every note betwixt, there is a riot going on at various volumes. Red Admiral spans the struggles on the ground between life, death and chrysalis that everyone must go through to eventually flapping their wings and flying to freedom.
Wednesday, 30 June 2010
Tuesday, 29 June 2010
Monday, 21 June 2010
Thursday, 17 June 2010
Tuesday, 8 June 2010
Coventry Rhythm Weekend review in CovertMag webzine
Robin's review of Coventry Rhythm Weekend is featured in Coventry webzine CovertMag - http://covertmag.com/2010/06/03/coventry-rhythm-weekend-review/
Friday, 4 June 2010
Wednesday, 2 June 2010
Friday, 14 May 2010
Friday, 7 May 2010
6Music & Asian Network Supporter's Group (Soundcloud)
Send us your track to show your support for BBC 6Music and the Asian Network! (Please keep your submissions to one track only.)
Wednesday, 5 May 2010
Wednesday, 28 April 2010
Monday, 26 April 2010
Saturday, 24 April 2010
Monday, 19 April 2010
Saturday, 17 April 2010
Friday, 16 April 2010
Monday, 12 April 2010
Monday, 5 April 2010
Saturday, 3 April 2010
RobinPlaysChords - I Can See For Miles (KVN Little RMX)
RobinPlaysChords - I Can See For Miles [KVN Little RMX] by Kevin Little
(This is the first official RobinPlaysChords remix, and I owe massive thanks to Kevin for doing this, and doing it so well!)
(This is the first official RobinPlaysChords remix, and I owe massive thanks to Kevin for doing this, and doing it so well!)
Sunday, 21 March 2010
Thursday, 18 March 2010
Posting update
Due to a series of happy accidents, I will be writing reviews of shows put on by Taylor Johns House, The Tin Angel and its affiliated venues in Coventry. Reviews of these shows - and more! - will be posted to Taylor Johns House' page on Wordpress. All other shows, album reviews, band features and the like will be posted directly onto MOG, with links from Blogspot posts and Twitter feed.
Monday, 15 March 2010
Twestival for Concern
http://twestival.com/about-twestival-global-2010/
Support your local event where possible!
In Twestival-related news, RobinPlaysChords has donated the track 'I Can See For Miles' to TwestivalFM (click here).
Support your local event where possible!
In Twestival-related news, RobinPlaysChords has donated the track 'I Can See For Miles' to TwestivalFM (click here).
Mama Rosin - Le Pistolet (video)
On Wednesday, I managed to go down to the Curtis Eller show at Taylor Johns in Coventry, and was mightily impressed by the set from "New York City's angriest banjo player". He did a fantastic job, but a very special mention must go out to support act Mama Rosin, a four-piece from Geneva, Switzerland - probably the last place you'd expect to find a Cajun/zydeco-punk band. Don't let any geography-related doubts put you off; this is wonderful ear candy which can also get your feet moving in perfect synchronicity. This video is for 'Le Pistolet' from their 2009 album Brule Lentement. Miss these guys at your peril!
Friday, 5 March 2010
Tuesday, 2 March 2010
Saturday, 20 February 2010
Film review: My Name Is Khan
My Name Is Khan
A Karan Johar film starring Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol
(May contain some spoilers)
A film about an Indian Muslim with Aspergers coming to terms with the world post-9/11, where most of the dialogue is spoken in Hindi, sounds like a difficult pitch to sell to the world, let alone the Indian market, without a reputable star. My Name Is Khan is that film, and it has three of India's leading lights - director Karan Johar, actress Kajol, and the man widely considered as the most bankable international film star, Shah Rukh Khan.
Khan plays the adult Rizwan Khan, the aforementioned Indian Muslim with Aspergers, whose aim is to tell the President of the United States that his name is Khan, "and I am not a terrorist". This is explained to us via flashbacks related to the words he writes to/for a woman named Mandira (Kajol). In the film's first movement, Khan recounts growing up in Mumbai and the lesson from his ammi (mother) which is a reoccuring theme throughout the film - that in life, there are only good people who do good deeds, and bad people who do bad deeds, and that there are no other differences between people (a lesson taught to Khan in the aftermath of the Bombay Riots). That the young Rizwan (deftly performed by Tanay Chheda) has Aspergers isn't recognised by his loved ones at this point, but his talent for memorising historical dates and fixing machinery is already in evidence, as is the tension between him and younger bhai (brother) Zakir, who leaves for America under a cloud of jealousy at the supposedly inferior treatment towards him.
After the death of his beloved ammi, the adult Rizwan heads to San Francisco to live with Zakir (Jimmy Shergill), whose wife Haseena (Sonya Jehan) manages to get Rizwan's Aspergers diagnosed. Zakir finds Rizwan a job as a herbal beauty product salesman, and whilst out with his products, he's nearly being hit by a tram on a yellow crossing, which leads to him meeting Mandira, a Hindu woman with a son from a previous marriage. Here, the traditional Bollywood love story meets modern American indie cinema; thankfully, the necessary 'quirky' relationship is genuinely human and moving, with Khan and Kajol exhibiting a natural chemistry that they have always shown in previous pictures together, without being too heavy handed in dealing with some of the film's key themes and issues.
Just before the halfway point of the film, the events of 9/11 take place and turn the story upside down; anti-Muslim sentiment rear its ugly head, and two events occur which would leave you struggling to keep back the tears. Throughout the middle part of the film, Kajol is an emotional tour de force as Rizwan and Mandira's world spirals into despair via intolerance and a heartbreaking tragedy. Shibani Bathija's script is one of those where light breaks through the cracks and hope is never conquered, but the film's darker moments have the power suck the breath out of you as if you've been punched in the gut. For a film that's rated 12, it's fairly heavy stuff.
The scope of the film's topics - primarily the attitudes towards Muslims after 9/11, but also covering Aspergers, love, and an event which loosely resembles Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath - means that there is a lot to take in and the final part of the film occasionally lapses into fairly sentimental territory, but Johar does a very good job of pacing the film through each one of its 160 minutes, and never allows the film to be bogged down by the weight of the emotional baggage attached to each thread of the story. There must also be a special mention of Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy's brilliant score, which fuses traditional Bollywood and subtle Western flavours to magical effect. Like the film itself, it invites you to open up your heart and mind, and takes you on a quite magical journey where everything, like the film itself, isn't just black or white - it's HD technicolour which will stay with you long after the credits roll.
4.5/5
A Karan Johar film starring Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol
(May contain some spoilers)
A film about an Indian Muslim with Aspergers coming to terms with the world post-9/11, where most of the dialogue is spoken in Hindi, sounds like a difficult pitch to sell to the world, let alone the Indian market, without a reputable star. My Name Is Khan is that film, and it has three of India's leading lights - director Karan Johar, actress Kajol, and the man widely considered as the most bankable international film star, Shah Rukh Khan.
Khan plays the adult Rizwan Khan, the aforementioned Indian Muslim with Aspergers, whose aim is to tell the President of the United States that his name is Khan, "and I am not a terrorist". This is explained to us via flashbacks related to the words he writes to/for a woman named Mandira (Kajol). In the film's first movement, Khan recounts growing up in Mumbai and the lesson from his ammi (mother) which is a reoccuring theme throughout the film - that in life, there are only good people who do good deeds, and bad people who do bad deeds, and that there are no other differences between people (a lesson taught to Khan in the aftermath of the Bombay Riots). That the young Rizwan (deftly performed by Tanay Chheda) has Aspergers isn't recognised by his loved ones at this point, but his talent for memorising historical dates and fixing machinery is already in evidence, as is the tension between him and younger bhai (brother) Zakir, who leaves for America under a cloud of jealousy at the supposedly inferior treatment towards him.
After the death of his beloved ammi, the adult Rizwan heads to San Francisco to live with Zakir (Jimmy Shergill), whose wife Haseena (Sonya Jehan) manages to get Rizwan's Aspergers diagnosed. Zakir finds Rizwan a job as a herbal beauty product salesman, and whilst out with his products, he's nearly being hit by a tram on a yellow crossing, which leads to him meeting Mandira, a Hindu woman with a son from a previous marriage. Here, the traditional Bollywood love story meets modern American indie cinema; thankfully, the necessary 'quirky' relationship is genuinely human and moving, with Khan and Kajol exhibiting a natural chemistry that they have always shown in previous pictures together, without being too heavy handed in dealing with some of the film's key themes and issues.
Just before the halfway point of the film, the events of 9/11 take place and turn the story upside down; anti-Muslim sentiment rear its ugly head, and two events occur which would leave you struggling to keep back the tears. Throughout the middle part of the film, Kajol is an emotional tour de force as Rizwan and Mandira's world spirals into despair via intolerance and a heartbreaking tragedy. Shibani Bathija's script is one of those where light breaks through the cracks and hope is never conquered, but the film's darker moments have the power suck the breath out of you as if you've been punched in the gut. For a film that's rated 12, it's fairly heavy stuff.
The scope of the film's topics - primarily the attitudes towards Muslims after 9/11, but also covering Aspergers, love, and an event which loosely resembles Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath - means that there is a lot to take in and the final part of the film occasionally lapses into fairly sentimental territory, but Johar does a very good job of pacing the film through each one of its 160 minutes, and never allows the film to be bogged down by the weight of the emotional baggage attached to each thread of the story. There must also be a special mention of Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy's brilliant score, which fuses traditional Bollywood and subtle Western flavours to magical effect. Like the film itself, it invites you to open up your heart and mind, and takes you on a quite magical journey where everything, like the film itself, isn't just black or white - it's HD technicolour which will stay with you long after the credits roll.
4.5/5
Friday, 19 February 2010
Life imitating commentary on life?
So this was part of this week's Charlie Brooker's Newswipe, repeated last night on BBC4:
Next day (today), Tiger Woods releases a statement which is THE main headline on ALL news bulletins.
And the PCC turns down complaints against Jan Moir...
...
Next day (today), Tiger Woods releases a statement which is THE main headline on ALL news bulletins.
And the PCC turns down complaints against Jan Moir...
...
Tuesday, 9 February 2010
Remix RobinPlaysChords
Monday, 8 February 2010
Thursday, 4 February 2010
Monday, 1 February 2010
Friday, 29 January 2010
Friday, 22 January 2010
RobinPlaysChords - Covers
Fields Of Gold (RobinPlaysChords cover) by RobinPlaysChords
(Originally written by Sting for the album 'Ten Summoners Tales)
Teenage Angst (RobinPlaysChords cover) by RobinPlaysChords
(Originally written by Brian Molko/Placebo for the album 'Placebo')
(Originally written by Sting for the album 'Ten Summoners Tales)
Teenage Angst (RobinPlaysChords cover) by RobinPlaysChords
(Originally written by Brian Molko/Placebo for the album 'Placebo')
Thursday, 14 January 2010
Haiti appeal
DEC
OXFAM
UNICEF
In addition, RobinPlaysChords will donate £1 for every stream/download of RobinPlaysChords material on their Soundcloud page. Spread the word.
OXFAM
UNICEF
In addition, RobinPlaysChords will donate £1 for every stream/download of RobinPlaysChords material on their Soundcloud page. Spread the word.
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
Friday, 1 January 2010
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