…. but I do kinda like this.

Spotify is a new piece of software (well relatively new anyway) which you can download to your PC or Mac and then listen to as much music as you want – for free. It’s advertising supported, so unless you sign up for the premium account, you’ll be hearing an ad every four or five tracks (and this’ll probably grow in the future). However, it’s brilliant being able to listen to practically any track or album you want (and legally as well).

Now if only it combined with last.fm’s recommendation engine, that would be amazing, but in the meantime, it can scrobble your tracks to your last.fm account. I would have probably prefered it if it had been a last.fm service to begin with though, to avoid having to give my e-mail address to another company.

Saying that though, Spotify’s a great way to preview music before you buy it, and could mean you potentially save a fortune on music too. With this, there’s potentially no reason you’d ever have to buy music again, as long as you don’t mind putting up with the ads. You can give it a go here – invites were required previously but if you’re in the UK you no longer need one to sign up. An iPhone version would obviously be awesome!

Last week (bear with me, catching up!) I helped out at Do You Remember The First Time? A gig organised by Belfast City Council and broadcast live by ATL and recorded for TV (being broadcast this Tuesday, details at the end of the post).

The gig was held to celebrate the re-opening of the Ulster Hall after a two year refurbishment. Put together by the ATL team, each act performed two songs – one of their own, and one a cover from a band that they had seen play at the Ulster Hall in the past. Acts were all local, including Kowalski, Panama Kings, Lowly Knights (attractive girls included), Ash, and a surprise appearance from Snow Patrol. Unfortunately my favourite local band, General Fiasco, were missing from the line-up.

It was a great night really – I was just looking after some of the bands, making sure they were where they needed to be when they needed to be, so I managed to catch quite a lot of the concert, and it should be well worth viewing as well – the footage does look great. The Ulster Hall has definitely benefited from a make-over as well. Although you won’t notice much of a difference in the hall, the entrance is much nicer, as are the backstage areas (although they are still being finished by the look of things).

At the end of the night, all the acts got on stage for a performance of “Teenage Kicks” which with pyrotechnics and paper cannons was a bit like some weird X-Factor final!

After the gig of course, came the drinks – first in the Ulster Hall, then the Stiff Kitten (as the shutters were coming down and the floor was being hosed in disinfectant) and then the Holiday Inn bar. I left about half four in the morning I think.

Fun night though. ‘A’ was there as well, but I managed to avoid tipsy texting or anything like that. Result!

You can catch the concert “ATL – Live At The Hall” on BBC Two Northern Ireland at 9pm on St Patrick’s Day (Tuesday the 17th of March). If it’s still available on the iPlayer, you should be able to find a link to it on this page.

I meant to blog about this ages ago, but am only getting round to it now – check out this mash-up of Billboard Magazine’s top 25 songs of 2008. It’s obviously got a US flavour to it, but there are some UK artists in there, like Coldplay, Leona Lewis and Natasha Bedingfield.

You can download the track from DJ Earworm’s site. Good job!

Ok so I’m a bit behind with this because it happened last week, but Amazon have started selling music downloads – at a discount to iTunes. At the moment, as what I can only presume is a loss-leader to get people to try the service, they’re offering some brand new albums for only £3 – including ones by Kings of Leon, Take That, Girls Aloud, and Snow Patrol (although Miley is £6.49 annoyingly as I’m a bit tempted.)

I might try it to give it a go – I’m tempted because there’s no DRM restrictions on the music, so I can use it how I want, it will play nicely with my iPhone and iPod, and Amazon’s software (a small plug-in type thing) apparently makes it a cinch to copy into iTunes. Normal (i.e. not discounted) albums seem to cost £6.49 compared to iTunes £7.99.

Find the Amazon MP3 store here.

Get up on the Dance Floor by George Sampson, out on Nov 24th.

Obviously bought without a second thought…..

I flipping LOVE this song. It’s quite rightly going to be number one this weekend.

Taking a bit of a break from getting Northern Exposure ready for TX every week, I joined me old mucker Feargal and the ATL / ATL TV crew (I’m not producing this series) for a trip down to the Glasgowbury festival near Draperstown on Saturday.

Glasgowbury is a small, growing festival – their slogan is “small but massive”. It was quite a good day really – although a long one. The weather stayed dry, which meant their was no mud about for the punters, and we had plenty of breaks between filming to chill out and relax and enjoy some of the bands.

I was just filming on DV on stage, but unfortunately was filming the drummer for each of the bands which will be included in an ATL TV special going out on Thursday 14th August on BBC Two NI. I say unfortunately because I have learned that it is very cramped around a drummer on stage, which a) meant I had to crouch down for long periods of time and b) meant I couldn’t move for long periods of time, which became a bit boring after a while looking at a tiny viewfinder!

Music wise, Glasgowbury is all about local bands. Of the bands I saw my favourites were Oppenheimer (who incidentally provided the theme music for my current series) and General Fiasco. Mark my words, you will be hearing more about GF soon I think!

Ash were also playing, and treated the audience to some of their newer material. Not as catchy as their old stuff if you ask me!

Every time that we meet, I skip a heartbeat.
Give me an evening, or give me a night.
I’ll show you the time, of your life.
I’ll walk you home safe, from the dark.
I’ll give you my jacket, I’ll give you my heart.
But she won’t come dancing tonight, She’s having the time of her life.

They seem written for me. I reckon worst lyrics of the year so far go to Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl” which is actually a good song….

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]
However that was because I thought the lyrics said

I kissed a girl, I loved the taste of her cherry chop stick

When actually what it says is

I kissed a girl, I loved the taste of her cherry chap stick

So I’ll let her off. I was intrigued as to what a cherry chopstick was though.