jeffstunes's Journal in May 2008
I'm going off line here to discuss a certain European song contest. Music being my focus. I watched the Eurovision song contest last night. The only reason I watched it was to be entertained by the commentary of Terry Wogan. Those not in Europe may not be aware of this competition, but in Europe, it's normally a big event. I have to say that the general outcome was really no surprise at all. With neighbouring countries patting each other on the back with their votes. None more that what I like to term as Eastern Bloc Europe. So Russia were the victors this time around. How surprising! I laughed when one judge quoted "The best song in Europe", and one of the judges unwittingly got close to the truth when they said it was a "Great concert", because a concert is all it was. It certainly isn't a fair competition any more. Terry Wogan said something like that. He is even considering not commenting on the competition next year, I mean concert :) Am I sore that the British entry came joint last with votes from ony 2 countries? No, I'm shocked though, because it was in my top 5, and I know a bit about cutting edge music. It's even more amazing if you look in all the European charts. There's always British and American music there. And why is that? Well, because it's cutting edge. I thought it was between Turkey and Norway for the title. Turkey's song was a modern sound, that was not too far removed from a band called Muse, and for pure songwriting craft, you have to give it to Norway. It's some consolation that they got into the top 10. The British song was a pretty good song, and also deserved to be in the top 10. My sympathy to Poland and Germany too (The Polish entry was pretty good) who were holding up the table with us. I wonder when Europe started seeing them as politically close to the UK? Political, you hear me say? That's what I said. I've come up with a new name for the competition. The Eurovision Political Popularity Contest. Well, it's certainly not about the merits of the compositions. I think that was made blindingly obvious last night. So what are my thoughts on Europe? I adore it, and would love to travel to all the European nations in my life, and enjoy time with indigenous population. I'm just a regular guy who enjoys meeting people and doesn't colour them for the actions of their fellow citizens. You can accept or refute my views. I wouldn't say I am qualified to pass judgement on that show. After all, I'm only a Songwriter :) |
Well, it's almost a year on Youtube now, and I've been thinking about what I've achieved so far. In my opinion, not very much. In relation to lots of others, the Youtube progress is probably quite good, but not as far as my aspirations are concerned. I'm only about 250 subscribers outside the top 100 UK musicians of all time. That sounds pretty good, but it's not made me any money yet. Basically, I'm a singer/songwriter. I write what I consider to be good songs, and that's been backed up by good friends and industry professionals. I consider that at the age of 42, I'm not a teenager anymore. So It's not my priority to become a performer. The logical route is for me to write songs, and then push them out to signed bands. In the hope that they would like them enough to want to record and release them. It doesn't matter what age you are. As long as you write good songs that people will want to sing. This reflection came about from watching the Jonathan ross show last night. The featured guest was Mr Neil Diamond. He started his career as a songwriter. Writing great songs, such as "I'm a believer", which was a hit for "The Monkees". I'd be more than happy with 1 percent of Neil's success. Neil is someone that my vocals have been strongly compared to. So I'm not giving up. It's true to say that the longer you make that effort. The more credibility you have in the industry. The more tunes you compose, the greater the chance of someone important wanting to use them. I've recorded over 100 songs now, but I've only put out about 20 of them. I'm even in the middle of writing a new song at the moment! Some advice to songwriters. Never, ever give up. You might achieve nothing, but at least if you make an effort. You'll know whether you could have had success. That's better than not knowing at all, and looking back and thinking what if? If money is an issue, then it can be an enormous sacrifice. You can get to a point where you have almost nothing at all. If you are determined, then you will not let that affect your efforts. I'm going to finish this post with a link to my Youtube channel, and the current Youtube stats. Here is my channel. You can listen to some of my original songs there. Current Subscribers = 621 Current Channel views are 13,352 My Total video views are 195,657 I'm going to be recording some of my new song today, so I'll be enjoying that. Until next time :) |
I am currently working on writing a new song, so the next few posts will not contain any new videos. I thought it would be a good idea to mention some of my comments and messages, because I get so many of them now. First of all, my "Fun with faces" video. I've now got 8 response videos to it, and more are promised. This is so much fun. If you've joined Youtube, and want to have a go at it too then please do. Please post it as a response to my video. The link to it is below: This has been my best perfoming video, as far as the honours are concerned. At one stage it had 20. The one that shocks me the most is that my video is in the top 100 Most responded comedy videos in the UK, of all time!!!! Astounding!! I had a comment a few days ago from someone telling me that I look like a guy called "Miroslav skoro". I had never heard of him, so I did a quick search for videos. It's hard to compare yourself to someone else. I just can't see any likeness at all. The only thing that I did notice is that our hairstyle was reasonably similar in some of his videos. Well, how's the lay of the land on the Youtube stats situation. 616 subscribers now and my channel views are now 13,110. They've been moving a bit faster in the last week. My total video views are 191,821. The way the numbers are climbing at the moment, I think I'm looking at less than 2 weeks before it hits the 200k mark. On June 2nd, I will have been a Youtube member for 1 year. I'm going to try and get my new song ready by then. It's going to be interesting to see what the second year will bring. |
The fun with faces video I uploaded has had a really good reaction. As I explained in my last post, I saw the website used on T.V. and decided to try it myself, and make a video out of it. I encouraged other Youtubers to morph their own pictures and post their video as a response to my video. So far I have 6 responses, and each one of them are very different, and very funny. These are the 6 users that have responded so far. gersing UpDownMostly beachfrontal grandplans Midnightsongstress7 yeuxlumineuxNtx You can take a look at their responses by visiting my vid, and then clicking on the responses shown underneath it. I also discovered that in the last 24 hours, they have added some more morphing options to the list since I did mine. I might do another post update if I get a good few more responses. I'm having a lot of fun with this, plus it helps get a little more exposure for my music :) |
I was watching a T.V. program hosted by Graham Norton last night. and he went on a website that transformed faces into different ages and races. Such as a baby and an Apeman. All you have to do is upload a front facing jpg of yourself, and you are ready to go. I thought I'd give it a try, and upload the results to my Youtube channel. I set it as a challenge to the Youtube community. Requesting that they do exactly the same as me with their own pictures. Then post their video as a response to mine. That way, we could have a collection of funny faces all in one place. This video was a slideshow, so I dug out a song I wrote a few years back, to use as the backing. The name of the song is "I understand". This way I could get another of my tunes out, and have some fun at the same time. Go take a look at my video to see what transformations were made to my photo: As per normal. Here's some youtube stats. I've finally broken the 600 barrier with my subscribers, and they now stand at 605. My channel viewings are 12,798. My total video views are getting real close to the 200k mark now, and currently stand at 186,136. I estimate is should take around 2 to 3 weeks to get there. |