I remember in the early days of the net, finding great pleasure in discovering the Online Guitar Archive – OLGA – which saved me a fortune in music books and eliminated the need for me to learn how to transpose musical notation – which I’d learned from piano lessons – to the guitar.

OLGA, however, was shut down following disputes with the record labels. In the past decade, however, other forces have arisen, including the Ultimate-Guitar site, creator of that iPhone App I mentioned the other day. Curious about how this could possibly be legal, I delved through the bowels of the Internet, finally arriving at Wikipedia (Ok, it might have bent he first place I went) – where I read about the rise of legal tablature sites.

Turns out they share ad (and presumably app) revenue with the labels, which is rather clever. Here’s to new business models on the Internet and me finally learning how to play a few songs in their entirety…

@patrickyiu

The app lets you access thousands of tabs from UG’s website ‘in-app’, complete with automated key-changes and auto-scrolling through the tab, so you don’t have to pause to flick down and see what chords/tabs come next.

It’s a lovely bit of code. I’ve also downloaded the iPad app, but mysteriously this app was free with in-app subscription modes, and I can’t quite bring myself to pay for the same service twice – so will see how I get on with the iPhone app in the weeks to come.

Check them out if you haven’t already.

I’ve retained some of my inspiration from watching the Warm Leads play a couple of weeks ago and started working on a playlist. Here are the tracks so far:

• Killers – Mr Brightside
• Mumford & Sons – Little Lion Man
• Barenaked Ladies – if I had a million dollars
• RHCP – Californication
• Beatles – Norwegian Wood
• Eagles – Hotel California
• The Fray – How to save a life
• Gary Jules – Mad World
• Kings of Leon – Sex on Fire (terrible)

I think Kings of Leon is going to drop off – it doesn’t work, as Patrick warned me, on a single guitar arrangement. At least, not if you’re me. But the others are working out OK at the moment, if I haven’t made any progress memorizing them yet.

I do have better tools available to me today than the last time I took guitar seriously. There are a plethora of useful (if slightly agonizing) Youtube tutorials (yourguitarsage.com keeps coming up) in addition to lots of freely available chord and tab arrangements out there.

I just need to make the time to memorize some chord sequences and lyrics.

Any other suggestions for songs I should work out, folks? I have a separate list for Emily which includes Old Macdonald, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Dingle Dangle Scarecrow.

Not my guitar. But not far off

Suitably inspired, I moved my 15 year old 15 watt Marshall practice amp downstairs yesterday and got out Excalibur – my limited edition twin-humbucker 1990s Fender HH Strat variant – for a little solo jam last night.

Huge fun.

Totally unexpectedly, songs I learnt to play as a teenager at boarding school came relatively easily to my fingertips. Well, riffs I learnt to play, if not songs in their entirety. The ‘middle 8′ continues to confound me, and I need to learn some.

I’m going to make myself a playlist of songs I want to memorise. It won’t be massive, 10-15 songs or so in the first instance. But it’d be nice to sing and play whole songs rather than the fragments I know at the moment.

Any requests? I think Weezer, some Killers, some Mumford, maybe some RaTM… will all make it onto the list.

I naturally went slightly nuts on the dance floor. I love live music, and small intimate gigs are *fantastic* when the band has the technical proficiency, talent and presence to make it all rock together.

What it absolutely invariably does, however, is make me want to pick up my guitar and rush onstage. I didn’t; and in point of fact probably wouldn’t have been able to do much. My "talent", such as it is, never extended much beyond the opening riff or catchy chorus of any number of songs.

But I’ve been tabspired; I’m going to look up some of my favourite songs and restart my guitar tablature folder, practice, and try to at least be able to entertain my daughter, if not jump on stage the next time the Warm Leads are gigging…

This song worked its way into my head as I drove past a herd of lazy cows on the common this morning. Summer countryside living = bliss.

But I had fun, after a fashion, and in most respects thanks to Amanda’s amazingness -  and its funny how – looking at the footage – the discomfort in itself acquired a sort of nostalgic charm.

I’d like to go again, or to another festival – better equipped this time – if we can work out a way of making it fun for Emily. I’ve had the Big Chill and Bestival recommended to me as family-friendly, will need to give it some thought….

There are also new clips on their Myspace page, for fellow fans. Ben & gang – when can I buy the new album??!

That is all. Hopefully it’ll be stuck in all your heads now, as it’s been in mine for the last 9 hours or so.

One slightly more niche genre that keeps rearing its head is musical comedy, and more specifically – comedy rap. My brother introduced me to Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince when I was 11 years old and I distinctly remember thinking that the song “I think I can beat Mike Tyson” was one of the funniest things to be composed ever at the time (I now know it’s not). In it, Will Smith challenges Mike Tyson to a fight and gets seven types of crap kicked out of him.

Needless to say, when The Lonely Island materialised with their epochal ‘Incredibad’ album a couple of years ago, featuring such works of self-deprecating parody as “On a boat” and “Like a boss” (all LI videos are NSFW, btw) I felt that the void that had been made as the Fresh Prince evolved into Wiki-wiki-Will Smith had once again been filled. So it was with not a little anticipation that I checked out some tracks from the new album, Turtleneck and Chain.

Sadly, for me, for the most part, it doesn’t live up to the heights of its predecessor. The tunes aren’t as catchy, the raps aren’t as articulate or funny. But two things made me smile.

First, the song “Rocky”, in which Andy Samberg challenges Rocky to a fight and gets seven types of crap kicked out of him. Sound familiar? I wonder if it was a deliberate homage to the Fresh Prince (in which case it’s clever-ish) or if its (in)advertant plagiarism (in which case, not so much).

Second, “Jack Sparrow”. There are few people whose swagger I’d like to match, but Captain Jack has a certain slurry je ne sais quois that has got to make for a hell of a party trick. Michael Bolton feels the same way – check it out:

Whilst staying with Sarah and Ilkka we tried it with a hummed tune, which – to be fair – it doesn’t claim to be able to cope with. It didn’t. So I researched alternatives and found Soundhound – it works on both Android and iOS devices and when I sing to it – it works out the song title pretty regularly.

Fantastically clever, and good for spontaneous singing competitions!

This is excellent.

It’s v. exciting news that they have finished work on a new album, but whilst I wait for them to publish, Ben’s worked on another album with Beth Porter and Poppy Pitt, published exclusively through a Bath independent bookstore, Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights. The album is lovely. Preview, more info and purchase details here for those interested in folky goodness – think Urusen + Joni Mitchell sort of thing.

Disclosure: I fully intend to pay for it, but Ben’s not given me payment details yet, so currently I’ve been listening to it for free. This does not negate from its goodness.

If you’re more into the environmental side of things, my friend Damian is reporting from the conference for Prospect (and has been writing for the BBC in the run-up to it). All worth checking out, and a great overview of some of the issues under discussion and (on Prospect) a feel for the show.

Sorry for lack of posts of late. There’s been no new soup, work’s been manic, as has the Christmas routine which has seen us away most weekends. Expect blogging between Christmas and New Year, as I attempt DIY and to resume my fitness regimen.