GrumpyDaddy

2011 has been a great year for rock music, in particular for progressive rock and melodic death metal. While I still hold that 2009 was the best rock music year of recent times I still think there are plenty of great records that should be on your shopping list when those Christmas vouchers come flooding in next week.

Check out my musical review of the year over on my music blog Grumpyrocker.

One could argue - if I was a bit more flush I might have a go - that you can have too many guitars. I certainly have a few - but by no means a ridiculous collection. The current count is six if I ignore wifey's bass guitars.

The six are an Epiphone 435i, Epiphone Les Paul Standard, Fender Squire Bullet Strat, Aria 12-string semi acoustic, PRS SE Custom 22 Trem and finally a Gibson Les Paul Traditional.

So the question is how many of them do I actually play and therefore actually need?

Lots of great music released in 2010. There have been plenty of albums I've really liked - but which have been my five favourite?

In This Moment "A Star Crossed Wasteland"
I know I'm too old for this sh*t, but when it popped up as an Amazon suggestion I checked the band out. Bloody hell what a surprise, the kind of band that the Kerrang kiddy channel would play but I actually like. While most young American metal seems like a load of noisy strummy crap this band actually likes a bit of harmony, plenty of Maiden-like moments in the music and vocalist Maria Brink really is going to be a megastar.

Example tracks - The Promise, The Gun Show

Thanks to David Lewis for suggesting this. Using only song names from one artist, answer the following questions - without repeating a song title. It's harder than you think

• Pick yourself an artist - Iron Maiden
• Describe yourself - The Educated Fool
• If you could go anywhere, where would you go - Isle of Avalon
• Your favourite form of transportation - Flight of Icarus
• Your best friend is a - The Trooper
• You and your friends are - Blood Brothers
• If your life was a TV show what would it be called - The Prodigal Son
• What is life to you - Stranger in a Strange Land
• Your current relationship - The Angel and the Gambler
• Your fear - Fear of the Dark
• What is the best advice you have to give - Be Quick or Be Dead
• I would like to die - Only the Good Die Young
• Time of day - 2 Minutes to Midnight
• My motto - Heaven Can Wait

I have set myself a goal for the next few months and that is to form a band. Given my age I reckon it should be called Old Enough to Know Better.

My ideal I think would be a simple three piece group - me on guitar, a bassist that can sing and a drummer. I've got plenty of gear - I think the only thing lacking is a spare amp in case something goes wrong.

As for the material that's easy. We'd play popular classic rock covers. Though I'd hope we could shoe-horn some original material in too, I've written over a hundred songs over the years and it's a long time before an audience has heard any of them.

So I just need to hope they are some other thirty-something musicians in Dorchester itching to escape nappy changing and instead throw some shapes and play some rock and roll.

Have you heard the new song from Diana Vickers?

Rather familiar isn't it?

It features the biggest musical theft since Lloyd Webber ripped off Pink Floyd's Echoes for Phantom of the Opera. The chorus of Vickers' Wicket Heart sounds exactly like Red Hot Chilli Peppers' Under the Bridge being sung in a Reeves/Mortimer "Club Style".

Enunciate girl, enunciate.

Now this is rather fab...

I'm in a fix. The reason? Wifey has just bought herself an iPod Touch. No I'm not suffering jealousy, my problem is that the device is clearly very good, it's almost the perfect mp3 player. But it's the "almost" that's annoying. The iPod Touch is a marvel of modern technology and arguably the best all-round small portable media player around - but it's still light years from being the device I want.

While I do have plenty of technology that's just right - my camera, TV, AV amp and the like, I've still not really nailed it with a portable music player. And the reason is I don't think the device I want exists.

Take the two mp3 players I already own...

I reckon I'm getting quite a handle on this photography lark. Over the last week I've been learning how to make judgements on manual exposures depending on the subject I'm trying to capture.

But something has defeated me. But to be honest it's also defeating the brain in my Canon 40D too. Even its advanced electronics can't cope with the subject I wish to photograph.

It's my new guitar. A Yamaha RGX A2. But unlike the one you can see by following that link - the model I bought is black.

Not just black. But the kind of black that sucks in light around it. There seems like some sort of gravitational lens effect around it that prevents photography. Certainly with an advanced DSLR.

Radio One has decided to play a censored version of The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl's Fairytale of New York this year, editing out the words slut and faggot.

It seems totally ridiculous that the nation's pop music station is the most reactionary.

Radio 5Live has just spoken to Frankie Goes to Hollywood's Holly Johnson who said the editing of this "work of art" is totally "absurd" and although the words are offensive in many contexts, they are not in this case. As Johnson said, this is a song about two drunks arguing, you can't expect them to obey social niceties.

A spokesman for the Pogues said the band "found it amusing that a song that has been one of the best-loved Christmas tunes should suddenly have been deemed offensive".

Update: Seems all the furore over this today has caused Radio One to change its mind and play the track unedited in future.

I'm all for starting the twins' education rather early and today we looked at the subject of modern hard rock and heavy metal.

So instead of the baby channel it was Scuzz that the TV was tuned to for a little while.

The results were rather interesting.