Ben Young - exclusive downloads, mmmmmm :-)

Oh it's been a while. I've had a lot of other things on my mind. I wrote ten new songs, started a new job, and i'm becoming a dad in a few months, and that's not even the half of it.

It's Ben Young!

Never mind, i'm here to tell you about some music. I won't rabbit on about the "scene" or the "industry". The less said about them the better i suspect. Maybe it's time we started treating music as an artform again, rather than as some commodity, like a liquid, not even as valuable as coffee or beer. Or water.

Some years ago, there was a really good singer songwriter in Edinburgh called Ben Young. I saw him a few times at Out of the Bedroom. He left Edinburgh, but before he did he made a few copies of a six song CD called "Englandland" and handed them out at his final Out of the Bedroom appearance. The only way you could really get a copy of this CD was if you were there on the night.

Ben Young is now part of the highly successful pop ensemble Reason Breeds Monsters, playing Ben's Atheist Advent songs, but you can get an exclusive glimpse into his roots right here on Edinburgh Unlimited by listening to, and downloading, Englandland. Hope you enjoy!

And tell all your music loving friends as well, please. Busy though i am, i still have some more unique musical tidbits to offer you in future weeks and months right here on Edinburgh Unlimited.

Keep the music alive,

Calum Carlyle
Edinburgh Unlimited

The House That Gerry Built!

Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's christmas this month, i know because i attended a sumptuous and lovely christmas evening yesterday at the Voodoo Rooms. A lovely time was had by all, i am sure.

And on a similar subject, we've got our December Edinburgh Unlimited gig coming up tomorrow as well. It's on Thursday 13 December, it's upstairs in the Meadow Bar, it only costs £3 to get in and it features performances from Pol Arida, Caro Bridges, Andy Paul, and myself (Calum Carlyle) too.

Now, one other thing, here's the newest EXCLUSIVE download from Ed Unlimited, it's four songs from Gerrybhoy, recorded at last month's Unlimited gig. Click here to download for free, and i hope you enjoy Gerry's music as much as we all did on the night.

So while we're still on the subject of christmas, i have some christmas music for you. No wait! It's music you won't have heard, and that's the problem with all the christmas music you hate, it's because you're sick of it! Well, not so with this stuff, for example, here's this free EP by Fiction Family, i thought it was ace, see if you agree!


And here's a highly interesting christmas EP by Stephen Cope, check it out!

And you didn't hear it from me, but here's an 8 bit christmas album called Decembits by The Brothers Dizz. Put it on during christmas dinner with the relatives! :-)

Okay, see you at the gig (because who knows, the world might end later this month!), and hope you enjoy all the music.

Calum Carlyle
Edinburgh Unlimited

Free music from Edinburgh, the Lothians and Beyond!

Hiya folks!

Calum Carlyle on your phone!

So i'm playing a gig tonight (Saturday 27 October) at The Kilderkin, courtesy of Out of the Bedroom. It's free, and it starts at 8pm, hope to see you there. And if you can't be there (or even if you can) then download the official Calum Carlyle Android mobile app! Do it now! And remember to play my music loudly on a bus, if you can, let's show those tasteless teens what real music sounds like! No, seriously, get the app, listen to my music on the go, and have a good one. And if you have got some other type of phone device, you should find that www.calumcarlyle.co.uk is optimised for 3G mobile viewing as well, so everyone's included!

What else? Well, i do have some free music for you as well, and it's really good quality sa polish your ears and point them this way.

First of all here's a song by Roisin Russell that i think is REALLY good, it's called Barriers. Check it out, and check out her other songs as well.

Next i want to mention this sumptuous six song collection from Gerrybhoy. He's playing live at the next Edinburgh Unlimited event (at The Meadow Bar at 8pm on Thursday 15th of November) but if you want to hear a bit of his music in advance, now's your chance, he's just released a FREE mini album of songs co-written with the excellent Tina M, one of my favourite lyricists, i must admit. Check it out and do your ears a favour.

Now, i have seen a couple of other great little blog posts this week, so rather than do a rant (which is what i was going to do) about the state of music today etc, i'll let you read these excellent little missives, first here's Claire from Glasgow PodcArt having her say about Industry Wankers.Succinct and to the point.

Next, Kim o' The Concrete Jungle told me about this article about how listeners' musical tastes have changed over the decades, it's a great fun read.

And that's it really, i could blah on about the best open mics, my suggested gig list etc but i have mentioned the open mics recently (scroll down the blog for that) and i am sure you have events in your Facebook just like i do so...

See you all next week in Musicland!

Calum Carlyle
Edinburgh Unlimited

Live gig coming up! Free music! and a NOT-NECESSARILY-ALCOHOLIC open mic night!

Darren Thornberry - On The Blog

Hi everybody! First of all let me say i am frustrated by the Edinburgh Council's decision to close Sneaky Pete's with no notice on the basis of noise complaints. I wonder why the Council has shown repeatedly that thousands of music fans mean nothing to them, while one complaining resident can pretty much close down a live venue. What sort of world do they want us to live in? This is a capital city! Why aren't the council supporting indigenous art such as live music? It's pathetic. And i am greatly sorry to see Sneaky Pete's closed down. It'll be missed. In response to this, Daniel Davis has started a FB group for those of like mind, you might consider joining.

Okay, well here's this week's featured download, it's a free four track EP from Thorn's Musical Journey. For those who don't know Darren Thornberry was a great mover and shaker on Edinburgh's acoustic scene, and was much loved by all. He moved to the US a couple of years ago and has been greatly missed, but here's his first ever band recording "Newtongrange", yours for free if you so choose.

Next i want to mention the upcoming Edinburgh Unlimited event, it's on Thursday the 13th of September at 8pm in the upstairs room of The Meadow Bar.

It's STILL ONLY £3 and for that you get to hear live performances from:

* KITE AND THE CRANE
* ECHO BOOMER
* THE SUNDAY REPUBLIC
* DARREN HENDRIE

So yeah, tell everybody you know, and i'll see you there.

There are a ton of other things on in Edinburgh, as you all know. Facebook has the details. :-) I just found out about an open mic night at "I heart cafe" near the top of Leith Walk on Wednesdays from 7pm to 10pm as well, it's a lovely venue and it's a CAFE which means you DON'T have to buy alcoholic drinks to take part. See you there on Wednesday and at Edinburgh Unlimited on Thursday, then.

Wait! one more thing, i heard this band called Lindby recently from the states. check them out, i like their stuff, it's quite upvibe. Hope you enjoy it too. Please consider buying their album as well, in the grand scheme of things that's a very fair price and you've probably spent a lot more than that on electricity, bus fares or food this week so get your wallet out for music as well. And while you've got that wallet out, please buy some of my music as well! ;-) (cheeky!)

Okay, see you all out there in Musicland! 

Calum Carlyle
Edinburgh Unlimited

Live gigs coming up! Cancel The Astronauts review! And more free downloads!

Hi there again. Tons of free downloadable music for you this week but TONS of info as well, so please read to the bottom. Thank you! :-)

The Legendary Graeme Mearns

This week's free and exclusive download is by The Legendary Graeme Mearns Band, captured digitally for posterity as they performed in front of an audience of millions at the scenic Ross Bandstand in Edinburgh's Princes Street Gardens this August.

Click here to listen and download this live bootleg recording, and remember, it is very much a bootleg, but don't despair, those of you who prefer more polished recordings. The band's album "Into The Hollows" is available as well on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, and eMusic.

Let me just mention again Peter Michael Rowan's three excellent compilation albums, of songs on which he appears! You can buy the three collections singly for £4 each, or for £1 a song, and every purchase will go towards the helping-Peter-to-move fund, so do your ears a favour and get your wallet out for some good music.

I also wanted to say thanks to the Labelled Independent podcast for including one of my songs in their latest episode. Check it out, there are eleven bands on that show as well, all of them very good. Hope you enjoy!

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I've got a couple of LIVE GIGS to tell you about this time actually, please stick these in your diary and come along for some awesome music

First i want to tell you about a gig that's happening on Tuesday 4 September at The Voodoo Rooms. It's Matt Norris and The Moon, Collar Up, Al Shields, and Three Little Birds, it's £10 admission, and it's part of STV's appeal to raise money for children living in poverty.  And that's at 7pm on Tuesday 4 September in The Voodoo Rooms ballroom.

Slightly unfortunately on the same night (Tuesday 4 September) at 7pm, a new Edinburgh open mic is being trialed upstairs at the recently refurbished Artisan Bar at 35-36 London Rd., EH7 5BQ, in Abbeyhill, corner of Montrose Terrace between Easter Rd and Meadowbank Stadium. PA and three mics supplied. Bring your own instruments. If successful, it could become a regular gig and a valuable addition to the Edinburgh open mic scene. Please turn up and help to get it off to a good start!


Next, let me mention The Return of Edinburgh Unlimited at The Meadow Bar on Thursday 13th of September. The acts will be: Echo Boomer (listen here), Kite And The Crane (listen here), The Sunday Republic (listen here), and Darren Hendrie (listen here). All this for only £3 ladies and gentlemen! tell everyone you know please, and here's the FB invite to forward round to everybody as well, please, if you could. Please note our new venue! It's in the upstairs room at The Meadow Bar on Buccleuch Street in Edinburgh, and that's on Thursday the 13th of September at 8pm.

I might also mention that Out Of The Bedroom (Edinburgh's longest running open mic night and songwriter community at large) is going through a lot of changes at the moment, in terms of a change of personnel running the nights, and a possible change of time and day as well. I would recommend those of you who are interested in the future of OOTB to get back in touch with them and keep your finger on the pulse for future developments. For the immediate future though, OOTB is still on Saturday nights at The Maltings/Montague Bar at 8pm (7:15pm for performers to sign up). 

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Cancel The Astronauts - Animal Love Match (2012)

Cancel The Astronauts are an Edinburgh (and Markinch!) band with a few very notable songs behind them, and they're releasing their new album "Animal Love Match" on 17 September. I had a listen to it and here's what i thought:

Cancel The Astronauts, finishing first.

This is quite a diverse album, and yet there are a lot of stylistic elements that hold it all together. I imagine this band would be great live because they've got a certain youthful energy, and their songs all sound different to each other! It would be easy for me to namedrop all the bands i think they might sound a bit like but, no, you may as well just judge these guys' music on it's own merit. They're doing their own thing, and that thing is a very human sounding kind of music (pop music? rock music? who knows?).  I mean i could say "Explosions In The Sky invite James and Arcade Fire round for tea" but what that would tell you very little about the actual music.
The album includes the singles Seven Vices and Intervention, and those songs both work well on the album, though i did feel like the other songs maybe stretched a bit further creatively and experimentally, and were more like a cohesive whole. It's not unusual for single tracks to stand out on an album but i think in this case the album stands out from the single tracks in some ways. As i said the album has quite a lot going for it, it has an eclectic selection of songs on it, it has that energetic undercurrent, it has good songwriting and song arrangements, every element's been thought about on this album, as with every good album. It's a great journey. It's nice that this is an album, rather than just a collection of songs.

I actually thought this album got more fun to listen to as i got further through it, and i suspect it'll get more enjoyable with repeated listens too.  All in all, this album was a pleasure to listen to, and i'll certainly be listening to it again. I heartily recommend you buy this album, and keep your eyes peeled in case Cancel The Astronauts are playing a gig near you soon.

Preorder "Animal Love Match" and you can also get some mysterious "goodies" from the band, album out 17 September 2012, and the album launch is at Sneaky Pete's in Edinburgh on 15 September. 

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So yeah, there's more music, and TONS of gigs big and small just go out and find them! More music stuff from me next week, see you out there in Musicland!

Calum Carlyle
Edinburgh Unlimited

Free Music Downloads! (good ones!)

Hiya,
It's a sunny day and the Edinburgh Festival (and fringe(s)) have started.

But! You can still benefit from some good music to listen to in your down time. This week, i'm sort of cheating. I usually like to give you totally exclusive music that you can't get anywhere else, but i heard a few choice things this week, and i want to share those with you. You probably wouldn't have heard these otherwise, so it's still kind of okay! :-) Here we go!

Kite And The Crane are a band from Edinburgh who sent me a link to this song. It's really nice! Maybe we can get them to play at Edinburgh Unlimited someday.  Anyway, go and listen to the song, and "like" them on FB.

The Anaesthetics are a band from Manchester, here's their FB page, but more importantly here's their music. The acoustic stuff is quite imaginative sort of anti-folk but then they do electric stuff too. Hope you enjoy anyway.

Miriam Crespo is a Switzerland based performer, and here she is playing a half hour set live in Switzerland! I heard of this set from a link on the Spanish Rock Shot FB page. Check it out!

Now i know you're all busy but please if you have any friends that like hearing good new music, then tell them about this blog. Do two at least, tell at least two friends this week, and the same next week etc. Let's get a sort of pyramid scheme (but in a good way!) of new music listeners on board. and if you're new to the blog, do two things:

1) check out the older posts, every one of them has free downloads in it
2) subscribe! Every future post will have free downloads in it too! :-)

Now, if you are in Edinburgh there are a few things on. Well, there are a ton of things on but there are a couple i want to mention. First of all at Henry's Cellar Bar on Thursday (9th of August) it's the LP launch for Conscious Route! Also featuring The Kennel Wages, Werd (SOS), Deeko (SOS), Combo Combo and DJ Miro. All this for only £4! And that starts at 8pm. Check out older posts on this blog for links to hear Conscious Route if you're not familar with his stuff.

I also wanted to mention Peter Michael Rowan's Acoustic Underground. It's on every night from 2345 onwards during the festival starting tonight. click the link and see who all's playing. This is all in the Kilderkin down the Holyrood end of the Royal Mile, and it's free too!

Oh yes, i also wanted to say a big thanks (or do we call it a shout out these days?) to Jason from Popcop for featuring my song Strange Skies in the jukebox on his site. Thanks! :-)

And you should check out his site anyway because it has a ton of good music on it too.
And thanks too to Scottish Fiction for playing Strange Skies this week on their radio show as well. :-)

Right, go and TELL PEOPLE about this blog, people who like music anyway.
And take care out there in Musicland! It's a fast and furious place!

Calum Carlyle
Edinburgh Unlimited

Neofolk + more - free downloads...

Hi folks and welcome to the second episode of Edinburgh Unlimited online! Click the links, and please tell ALL your music loving friends to subscribe to the blog. I take time and effort to put a bunch of good music in the blog, and i want as many other people to get the enjoyment from this music that i have as well so spread the word!

Right, the first thing i want to mention this week is the next Edinburgh Unlimited gig. It's special for a number of reasons, firstly it will be the LAST one to be held at The Third Door. It has been good at The Third Door, and it's enabled us to put on some electric bands and suchlike, but we'll be moving on to the Meadow Bar in September, so keep your eyes open for that, on this blog or on our FB page.

So here are the details: It's at The Third Door (which is next door to Negociants), it's at 8pm (don't be late because the music's starting at 8:15pm) and it's on Wednesday 11 July. It only costs £3 to get in, and the performers this month are: Caro Bridges (doing a special solo acoustic set for us), Katie Forbes (from the excellent band The Dull Fudds), Calum Carlyle (yes it's me, and i'll be launching my new single Strange Skies, you can get a FREE copy if you come along in fact!, and Stevie B Good, he's a songwriter i've known for a while, and he's very good, but he rarely plays live. This is your chance to hear him performing.

I also wanted to mention that the excellent Dave Keir (i'm not kidding, if you like fingerstyle guitar playing and intelligent songwriting Dave Keir's your man) is playing the featured act set at The Montague Bar at 8pm this Saturday (7 July) AND launching his new CD too! AND he's also hosting the Listening Room at The Blue Blazer on Sunday 8 July too. And all this is free! Hard to believe i know.

Darcy DaSilva

So yeah, i'll see you at all of that, UNLESS you don't live anywhere near Edinburgh in which case let me just grab your attention back by presenting you with a downloadable set from Darcy DaSilva. She's a very good performer of original folk music, from Moniaive in SW Scotland. Here she is performing with her band last November at The Listening Room (click). Enjoy! Also, you can find Darcy on Facebook, Myspace and Soundcloud too.

Now i also wanted to just tell you about a few bands i recently heard of, because you might enjoy them too. First one is Sproatly Smith. Sproatly Smith's recently released third album "The Minstrel's Grave" is the best album i've heard so far this year. Have a listen, be warned, it's not a dip in and out type album, it's best enjoyed as a full album of music, i think, so stick it on when you have time to listen to it, sit back and enjoy.

Also, in a sort of similar vein, but totally different too (because they're American, part from anything else), it's Andrew Rose Gregory & The Color Red Band, with their 2011 album "Song Of Songs". Andrew Rose Gregory is most well known for his "Auto-Tune The News" videos, but let me assure you this album is nothing like that! I particularly enjoyed the second side of the album myself (yes, i still think of every album as side one and side two).

And finally i just heard a German (i think) artist on BBC 6Music, and he's called Fai Baba. I could only find two songs on the internet that you can listen to but here they are anyway, Peach Orchard Mama and Ocean's Child. Hope you enjoy!

I'm busy writing songs this week, now that 50/90 has started, if you're a songwriter and you need a bit of inspiration to write some songs, then 50/90 is for you, and this week is the best time to join up.

One other thing, this blog has a comment facility so please do comment, with additional links, your music recommendations, discussion, jokes, etc etc, but this isn't just me telling you about stuff, you can get involved too, communication's a valuable tool, let's make this a community rather than just a blog.

Okay, have a good week, come along on Wednesday 11th if you can, and i'll see you out there in Musicland!

Calum Carlyle
Edinburgh Unlimited

Caro Bridges - live downloadable mp3s!

Hello there everybody, how's it going?

Welcome to the first of my Edinburgh Unlimited blog posts. I'll be blogging about good music that comes my way. A lot of it will be from Edinburgh, but not all. Similarly this blog is for ANYONE in the WORLD who likes good music, so please tell all your friends to subscribe to this blog, if they like music. That should add up to a lot of people i'm thinking.

Caro Bridges

So why should you come back every week and check out the blog? Well because every week i'm going to be GIVING AWAY some free music, usually EXCLUSIVE to Edinburgh Unlimited (ie: unavailable anywhere else online or otherwise!). This week i've got two tracks for you by Caro Bridges, with Matt Norris on mandolin, recorded live at The Listening Room. Click here to download. I *strongly* recommend you check out Caro Bridges' officially released EP as well, it's very good.

Speaking of The Listening Room, it's an open mic night plus featured performer that happens every week at The Blue Blazer on Bread and Spittal Streets in Edinburgh. It's free, and it's on Sundays at 8pm. More information available here (click).

Now the other thing i wanted to mention to you is 5090, it's an online songwriting challenge. Anybody that wants to can challenge themselves to write up to (or more than!) 50 songs in 90 days, and the best part is there's a web hub where the participants give each other comments on their songs and co-write songs together etc etc. Honestly if you're a songwriter it is VERY fulfilling, and it's a great kick up the bum to get some songs written as well. I do know a lot of songwriters who would really benefit from this challenge, but sadly they are the ones most scared of actually getting involved. Overcome your inhibitions! More info about 5090 here (click). 

Hmm, yes. Well, i'll be back next week with some more exclusive downloads, and more info for people who love music. Till then, take care and i'll see you out there in Musicland!

Calum Carlyle
Edinburgh Unlimited