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Game Designer's Notebook
- the birth of Breaking Away
Keeping It Simple -
advice on games design from James Ernest of Cheapass
Games
GCSE Graphics Course:
Producing A Board Game
Tunnels & Trolls: 1984 interview with the
designer.
Music To My Eras -
musings on musical fashions
Mind Your Language - a rant
about people who mangle the English language
You can e-mail us here
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Music To My
Eras
Music To My
Eras
Track 2:
THE BEACH BOYS
This mob
actually pre-date the Beatles and until the British
invasion were the top band of the time. Although shaken
by the success of groups playing "beat music"
they were established and talented enough to stick to
their own sound.
Although now reduced to the status of a glorified cabaret
oldies band, they remain the benchmark for white vocal
harmony groups.
The reasons why they never remained monster big like the
Beatles?
- They were fat and ugly
- Their appeal was seasonal
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Identifying
yourself with summer may be fine in California where it
is summer all year long, but in Darlington the
summer only lasts 3 days if you are lucky.It might be
thought that having your main creative talent go
completely bonkers might have been another impediment to
lasting fame, but it ain't necessarily so.
If Brian Wilson's
insanity had taken the form of an urge to park his
Bentley in the swimming pool of the Las Vegas Hilton every alternate Wednesday it would only
have boosted his image. Unfortunately, his madness took
the form of sitting barefoot at the piano in a sand-box
whilst stoned out of his head on mind
"expanding" drugs. |
THE BYRDS
America really was knocked for six by the British
invasion and there was a massive attempt by the youth of
America to respond. This is where the origin of the term
"punk band" came about. Young punks, with
limited musical ability, would record a couple of songs
in a garage (hence the expression "garage
band") and some dumb record company would release it
to the ecstatic apathy of millions of young kids.
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A few,
such as ? and the Mysterions or the Standells, would have their moment
of fame. Some, such as the Kingsmen, who gave us "Louie, Louie" had
more influence on the course of rock music in their three
minutes of fame than Rock Wankman ever managed in 14
years of turgid keyboard solos for Yes. (Yes, keyboard
solos really were 14 years long in those days - or seemed
like it.) |
| America was obsessed with finding
their "answer" to the Beatles. One of the first
bands to be labelled with this dead-weight soubriquet was
the Byrds. You can
understand why the press made this assumption.First, and
most important of all, their name was a mis-spelling of a
group of animals (Beatles/Beetles, Byrds/Birds), although
this may have come about as a result of a desire to
differentiate themselves from a British band called the
Birds, who featured a young Ronnie Wood on
guitar. |
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Secondly,
they had real long hair with fringes of the length
not seen again until Mickey Dolenz adopted the Old
English Sheepdog look. Unfortunately, they also had David
Crosby, who was chubby and already balding.
Third, they had the fashionable Rickenbacker guitars. In
fact, they are the seminal Rickenbacker band, being more
jingly-jangly the jingle-jangle morning of Mr. Tambourine
Man. (Has there ever been a more instantly recognisable
intro than the Byrds' "Mr. Tambourine Man"?) |
Helping them along the way was a
couple of halfway decent songwriters, namely Bob Dylan and
Trad. Arr. The band's own Roger (Jim) McGuinn was a fine
tunesmith too.
Although they had the songs they lacked the personality
and the sex appeal. They were basically old folkies at
heart, and it's hard to lust over a man who puts his
finger in his ear when singing. By the time the Eagles came
along and showed you could become (boring) megastars
playing country music, the Byrds were a spent force
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WORDS
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