I’ve decided to make the new Mister Fusty album, “The Waiting Room”, free to download at Soundcloud. I enjoy making music and I’d love as many people to hear it as possible. If they like it- even better! Previously you could stream the whole album free there and at Bandcamp anyway, so I figured that I’d make it available for mp3 download too. If you really like it and want to support the artist it’s available to buy at iTunes, Bandcamp (if you want lossless go there) and many other places. If you download it and can’t afford to buy it then that’s ok. As I mentioned before I love messing around making music, I don’t do it for financial gain. I’m actually not sure it is possible to gain anything financially from music anymore anyway!

Unfortunately I think you have to download each track individually but don’t let that put you off, download away me hearties!

The Waiting Room by Mister Fusty

John Grant – Queen of Denmark.

Backed by Midlake, whose own album I found disappointing (sorry chaps), this stunning album evokes 1970s soft rock in the best way imaginable. For once a MOJO album of the year I agree with.

http://www.myspace.com/johnwilliamgrant

Paul Weller – Wake Up the Nation

“Return to form” is such a cliche, but I can’t but help using in Mr Weller’s case. He’s returned from his “return to form” album, 22 Dreams, with a leaner (and better) album. There’s still life in the old mod yet.

http://www.paulweller.com/

Beach House – Teen Dream

Victoria Legrand has such a unique voice and uses it to great effect in this languid and delicate album. Dreamy.

http://www.beachhousebaltimore.com/index.cfm

Field Music – Measure

A lot, if not most, double albums could do with a lot of pruning. Not so in this case. This album takes a while to get into but rewards repeat listens. It’s about time more people listened to Field Music because they are one of the best UK bands around and deserve big success.

http://www.field-music.co.uk/

Gorillaz – Plastic Beach

For me this is the best Gorillaz album so far, Damon All-Bran knows his way around a good tune and this is full of them.

http://gorillaz.com/

Josh Rouse – El Turista

Since he moved to Spain I’ve read that some fans are disappointed he’s moved away from his more country-folky roots. Those fans are buffoons, I say, because you’ve gotta move on and with this album he has beautifully.

http://www.joshrouse.com/

Teenage Fanclub – Shadows

The world is a better place with Teenage Fanclub still around. One of the most dependable bands out there. They may not be prolific but when they do release an album it’s always bloody excellent.

http://www.teenagefanclub.com/

Pernice Brothers – Goodbye, Killer.

Although it lacks some of the production sheen or the lush strings sections of some of Joe Pernice’s other albums it’s still full of great songs – as ever.

http://www.pernicebrothers.com/

The Divine Comedy – Bang Goes the Knighthood.

This album is brilliant, witty, tuneful and contains my favourite middle eight of any song this year on “Assume the Perpendicular”.

http://www.thedivinecomedy.com/

The Roots – How I Got Over

Until the last few years I was never a big rap/hip-hop fan, but it’s albums like this that make me realise what I’ve been missing out on.

http://www.theroots.com/

The Coral – Butterfly House

Definitely their best album so far. A classic sound with wonderful harmonies and production. Get the bonus edition if you can because the 5 extra songs are as good, if not better, than some that made it on to the ‘official’ release.

http://www.thecoral.co.uk/

Deerhunter – Halcyon Digest

I’m always put off by hype but slowly but surely I came around to this album. The track “Helicopter” alone warrants it’s place in this list.

http://www.myspace.com/deerhunter

John Cunningham – 1998-2002 Homeless House/Happy-Go-Unlucky

This is a compilation released this year by The Pernice Brother’s Ashmont label of two albums by John Cunningham, a English singer-songwriter. The latter Happy-Go-Lucky album is the better of the two, containing my favourite song of the year, “Losing Myself Too”. (You can hear this song on his myspace page, couldn’t embed it here – thanks myspace)

Blitzen Trapper – Destroyer of the Void

I’d not heard of this band before so it was a delight to discover them, “Lover Leave Me Drowning” is probably another contender for fave song of the year.

http://www.blitzentrapper.net/

And finally, even though I’m on this album, (on a track called “Fitness Suite”) I must mention Expo’s She Sells Seashells, a wonderfully woozy slice of psychedelic Americana.

http://www.myspace.com/expoh

For those who have Spotify here’s a playlist of these albums (the ones that are on Spotify anyway) plus a couple of other ones I forgot to mention.

Update!

As soon as I hit publish I realised I missed out the excellent Janelle Monae, whose album The Arch Android is a cracker. Rectified!

Paint Along With Nancy. Artist Nancy Kominsky presented this 1970′s show which, as the title suggests, taught people how to paint. It has a great breezy, jazzy theme tune which is quite hard to find online but I did find it..although you have to sit through 6 mins of testcard! (WHY?!!?) Just skip along to about 6.14 on the video above.

UPDATE: Hear the theme tune in all it’s glory here (Thanks Arnie!)

Farmhouse Kitchen. This series had another theme in later series but I prefer the original flavour. The track’s called “Fruity Flute” by Reg Wale and it’s bloody marvellous. You can get it on an excellent compilation CD of themes and library music called, “Girl in a Suitcase”.

Jim’ll Fix It. The best bit of this theme is the “ba ba ba”s backing vocals, I’m a sucker for “Ba ba ba”s. The show was, for those who don’t know,  a British Saturday tea-time staple – where a slightly creepy elderly DJ from Leeds would grant children’s wishes (“Your letter was only the start of it..). Best remembered though for the, still hilarious, clip where scouts are granted their wish of having a picnic on a rollercoaster.

Mr. Men. Kids TV show themes are usually the best so let’s hear some great examples. First up the Mr. Men (Original series) with it’s lovely theme, so good it makes me almost shed a tear. Couple that with the wonderful Arthur Lowe telling the tale and I’m 5 again. *sniff*

The Wombles. Written and Sung by Mike Batt, this McCartney-esque song is a 70′s classic, in fact the Wombles had quite a few chart hits in the 70′s, I think I had an whole album of Wombling songs as a kid, including the classic, “Remember you’re a Womble” which is actually a great pop song!

More great themes to come….(seriously).

The Avengers. My two favourite things about this theme tune are the ethereal strings that seems to float around the main theme and the “ding ding ding ding ding” bit, know which bit I mean? It’s at 0.37 in the video, you’ll know it when you hear it. Wonderful.

Are You Being Served? A classic from the late great Ronnie Hazlehurst, a titan in the world of TV themes, this is a classic piece of 70′s kitsch with cash register sounds possibly inspired by Pink Floyd (or was it the other way around?).

Grandstand. I’m not a big sports fan but this classic theme from the BBC sports show ran for many years. I’m not entirely sure why this particular video features a picture of a cake…Composed by Keith Mansfield, a library & production music giant, I found a great video of Alan Hawkshaw, another library music great, with Keith and the KPM Allstars playing this live at the Jazz Cafe, wish I’d seen that!

Dave Allen At Large. Speaking of Alan Hawkshaw let’s have one of his finest, “Blarney’s Stoned”, the theme to comedian Dave Allen’s long-running show. You can find a compilation of Hawkshaw’s genius on CD called Mo’hawk which is highly recommended. Strike up the Hammond!

More to come soon…

Hello there,

I’ve not posted any news for a while, so here’s a little update on the goings on in Fusty land, should you be bothered!

The Connect EP had a few nice reviews, links below, which was encouraging. I wish I could say I’ve raised a lot of money for charity – I haven’t. A shame but I tried. Either I’m not very good at getting the message out (likely), or the music must be really bad (possible) or people really don’t want to pay for any music these days, especially from an obscure hobbyist like me (bingo!). Not to worry though, I really like making all this stuff up so I’ll continue throwing these songs and musical nuggets out there. Tough!

For an experiment I put some of my music on a Bittorrent site, Mininova, who now only distribute legal torrents. It’s actually a great way of getting stuff out there, whether you are a movie-maker or musician, providing you don’t want to be paid for it of course. Anyway, I tried it and I had a LOT of downloads – well, for me anyway. Whether people actually liked what they downloaded I don’t know, but at least it brought the music to their attention. Perhaps it might persuade them to buy a lossless download or try one of my paid for albums, who knows? As long as more people hear the music I make I don’t really mind. I was never in this for the money, this is a hobby and will always be so. I might as well do this for all future releases, at least a few more people will hear it. Future releases..ah yes….

I’ve started work on the, as yet untitled, 4th Mister Fusty album. It’s at the very early stages yet but I have a few ideas, it’s hopefully going to be a bit different to the last, perhaps a little more experimental and lyrically I’m going for a different direction too. We shall see! I have a few older songs floating about that I may post here, songs that might not fit on the new album.

I have it on good authority that the very first Mister Fusty cover is happening, i.e. someone covering one of my songs as opposed to the other way around. I’m honoured that someone would actually want to play one of my songs so it’s a thrill for me. I won’t say anymore about who and when, watch this space!

There’s also a possible collaboration with some talented comic book artists in the pipeline, one of my new songs may feature in a some sort of comic book/music crossover scheme. More news on that to come but it sounds like a great project.

And finally the big news is…I’m doing a Christmas song! Yeah, why not eh? I’ve had a backing track floating around for a few months that is slighty too cheesy (even for my standards) to use on the new album but would make a great bit of festive frivolity. So all I need to do is write some pithy lyrics, add some vocals (and a few sleigh bells of course) and there we have it. Be afraid.

http://popshifter.com/2010-07-30/mister-fusty-connect-ep/

http://thisispopmusic.blogspot.com/2010/06/mister-fusty-releases-connect-ep-for.html

http://monolithcocktail.wordpress.com/july-2010/reviews/

Thanks for reading my blathering,

Rob

It’s summer time and you’ll be needing some nice music to have in the headphones for those lazy days on the sun lounger, baking on the beach or waiting wearily at the airport, won’t you? Never fear, Mister Fusty is here and he’s desperate to sell some albums a generous fellow and all three Mister Fusty albums are on sale for only £1 (that’s about $1.49 and €1.22 at the time of writing) and the Sprung EP is FREE. Not bad eh? If you’ve never heard much Fusty music before now is a good time to have a listen. The latest EP, “Connect” is still a reasonable £2.50 (It is for charity, come on).

These batsh*t crazy prices are only available at the Bandcamp store, or from any of the music players on the Listen/Download page.

Tell your friends! Oh go on..

UPDATE: The summer sale will end 1st August, earlier than expected, as Bandcamp will be taking percentage from then, which is fair enough. They have been offering the (excellent) services for free up until now.

Last night. A revelation!

I have a song, the backing is done – it was the one I mentioned before with the four layers of guitars on (are you keeping up?) and I have some lyrics. I even have worked out the tune. I had a go at a lead vocal and it went ok but was missing something.

Here comes the revelation. I got my lovely wife involved!

I asked her opinion because I was having trouble working out a harmony. She listened and had an idea, “You need some ba-ba-bas”.

Of course I do.

“Do you want to have a go?, ” I told her. To my surprise she stepped forth in front of the mic. The reason I was surprised is that I’ve been cajoling her for a while to have a go at some backing vocals for me, she’s convinced she can’t sing – but I will have none of it. If I can yell at a mic and claim that it is singing then I’m sure she can.

She did. The ba-ba-bas were added and it sounds pretty good. The resulting track is called “Wake me up when the future’s rosy” and you can listen below. It’s only a rough mix but it gives you an idea.

[audio:rosy.mp3|titles=Wake Me Up When The Future's Rosy|artists=Mister Fusty]

I think, though,  she may end up regretting it as immediately afterwards I started playing her all my other unfinished songs, “What do you think of this?…what about that one?” etc…

It does highlight one of the problems of being a one-man band. Sometimes it’s very useful to have another opinion other than your own.

I have learnt an important lesson today. I really must play the guitar more often for two reasons.

1) So when I play for the first time in ages my fingers don’t really hurt.

2) So when I record myself I don’t sound really bad due to my lack of abilities as a guitar player.

After a few weeks of non-existent Fusty recording activity I have actually got down to business and started recording again. I had a chord sequence idea and wanted to have a track based around layers of guitar, I think I had Wilco in mind. (Not that it’ll end up sounding anything like Wilco, probably)

So I recorded 2 electric guitar tracks and 2 acoustic stacked on top of each other. The acoustic I have has a high action, so it’s akin to wrestling with overhead electric cable wire, playing barre chords is hard work and painful! But this method works and the guitars sound fuller than I had previously managed before.

Anyway,  I’ve been lazy and I have weak hands, this much we have learned…a corner needs to be turned. This week I’m going to get back on track and crank up Monkseaton Studios and see what happens.

I have a song provisionally titled, “Make a Stand“. I pretty much finished the backing track to it a while ago and I recorded a vocal. I’m still not happy with it though. I’ve decided that I hate the chorus, so I have abandoned both lyrics and melody and I have something new. It just needs to be recorded, and while I’m at it, I might as well re-record the verses, because I think I can do them better (think positive, come on Rob you can do it!). It’s Mister Fusty’s attempt at an eco warrior anthem….kinda. Actually, it’s the usual made-up-on-the-spur-of-the-moment Fusty lyric, a bit cheesy perhaps but here it is…

You can’t stop, shouting out
Don’t drop, have no doubt
It won’t, go away
make a stand, make it today

(chorus)
You got to tear it all down
before you start again
Don’t stare at the sun
until you’ve drowned in the rain
your facebook group won’t change a thing
Stand up tall at the town hall.

Ice caps, they will go
they’ll make, a reality show
About folk, that live in boats
the poor sink, opportunity floats

The business man, his only concern
is his pocket, the rest can burn
They want, to swim in oil
Put the planet in the oven
cover it in foil

I recently had the pleasure of visiting Canada – Toronto & Vancouver to be precise. A wonderful country and I had a very good time indeed.
One of the great things about Canada, in my experience anyway, that people are so polite and friendly to a level that even bus drivers are jolly.
Here’s a couple of examples from my particular jaunt.
In Toronto on the street car (not technically a bus I know, but I’m lumping all public transport together with this theory) we were around the Chinatown/Kensington Market area and needed to get back to downtown. We had run out of tokens required and there was no subway station near to buy them from. We figured that surely we’d be able to buy some on the street car to get downtown. A tram approached and I asked the driver whether we could buy tickets/tokens on the tram. He politely informed us that you used to be able to, but you couldn’t anymore, then told us that if we stayed on board he’d drop us off near a subway where we could buy one – essentially giving us a free ride.

In Vancouver we got on a bus, which was virtually empty, the driver asked us where we were from (obviously my blending-in-with-the-locals skills are lacking and the bumbling Englishman in me shines through) he then gave us a tour of the city, telling us about all the landmarks on his route. He even mentioned the rougher parts of town we drove through, not just the nice bits.
These two examples of bus driver geniality would never happen back in Britain. You are lucky if you get a grunt of acknowledgment. Bus driver drivers back at home are generally grumpy bastards. There are exceptions but these are few and far between and you often get the impression that those British transport conductors that are jolly have some kind of mental issue as their cheeriness is so rare.
I came away with the feeling, not just with bus drivers but other Canadians we encountered – waiters, bar workers, hotel staff etc, that they were proud of their country and proud to show it off to tourists, which possibly explains why they come across so happy to help and impart with information. This civic pride is something that you find is rapidly disappearing, if already gone, here in the UK and possibly explains why we shuffle around on our public transport with miserable down-turned expressions as the driver grunts his displeasure at having to actually ferry people around.
One way token to Canada please…

So I’ve decided to write a blog on the making of Mister Fusty’s third album. That difficult third album, even more difficult as I’ve decided to add vocals this time and as I’m discovering it makes things a lot more time consuming!
This blog is not going to be a ‘this is how I did this & did that’ kind of technical discussion. I won’t be going into great detail of how I achieved that ‘wowee wowee’ effect or how made that guitar sound like a tractor. There are other blogs and websites that do that kind of thing far better than I ever could. No, this will be a look into the creative, possibly deranged mind of Mister Fusty and hopefully a few humourous tangents will be found along the way.
First a little background. I’ve made two albums, Honest Blundering and Sparkle Darkly, which were both instrumental. For the third album the reasoning behind adding vocals was that I really wanted to write pop songs. A lot of the music on the previous two albums were pop songs albeit without singing. I could have added vocals then but I had a terrible microphone, which probably cost about £10, and I had no confidence in my voice. Of course I’ve now bought a new microphone (a Samson one, I forget the model, I could go and find out for you but I suspect you don’t really care) and my thinking was that if I spend some money on a mic, than surely I’d have to give singing a go. I was secretly hoping that really it was the cheapo mic that was making my voice sound terrible to my ears and that with a ‘proper’ microphone I’d suddenly be able to sing. It hasn’t really worked out like that. Although a better quality microphone has made me a bit more confident. So vocals are go go go!

The way I’ve always recorded is in small chunks. I’m not like a real musician that books studio time and then goes in for a month or two (or years in some cases). I record at home, (yes, I’m one of those ghastly home recording musicians you read about) which means I can work whenever I have time or dash into the studio (ok, it’s actually a spare bedroom) whenever I have an idea for a cowbell sound. It’s usually a couple of hours here and there, usually at weekends. I guess you could say that the work on this album started around the summer, the (misguided) hope was that I’d have it finished by the end of the year. Although getting married certainly holds things up, as I have done recently, not that I’m complaining – it was a wonderful day. So it’s looking like it will be a spring release, but who knows? The good thing about being an independent musician, free of the constraints (and money) of record companies is that you have no deadline. So you can work at your own place, which is good when you have to work for a living in a full-time job.
It also means you can throw out EPs and such whenever you want. Which is something I may do prior to this album, as a free taster of what’s to come. Who knows, there maybe an EP in time for Christmas!
So far I’ve got one finished track called, “Closing Time”, which is the very first track I’ve done with vocals, you can hear a rough mix on the myspace page. I also have several half-finished, nearly-finished and sketchy ideas. More about them in the next part as I’ve realised I’ve probably taken far too much of your time already…