Tommy Collison » music

Now That’s What I Call What Tommy Listened To In 2011

Tommy — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 23:46:20 +0000

Phoenix
Scala and Kolacny Brothers
Peter Gabriel
Coldplay
Sunset Rubdown
Green Day
My Chemical Romance
Counting Crows
R.E.M.
All Time Low
Original Cast Recording of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Deadmau5
Amadeus soundtrack
Kraftwerk
Los Campesinos!
Arctic Monkeys
Adam Pascal

Imperative

Tommy — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 16:47:01 +0000

1. Stop whatever you’re doing.
2. Find the best pair of speakers or headphones currently available to you.
3. Kick back, relax and listen to this.

Danger Days

Tommy — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 19:43:03 +0000

Recently, I’ve become the sorta guy who much prefers to listen to a full album rather than specific songs. I sat down with My Chemical Romance’s Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys and it’s rather excellent.

As Lovers Go

Tommy — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 08:00:00 +0000

As Lovers Go — Dashboard Confessional.

I heard this song on the radio the other day and knew I’d heard it somewhere before. Those of you who saw Shrek 2 will know what I mean.

Tune and a half

Tommy — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 07:00:00 +0000

Mr. Jones and me tell each other fairy tales
Stare at the beautiful women
“She’s looking at you. Ah, no, no, she’s looking at me.”
Smiling in the bright lights
Coming through in stereo
When everybody loves you, you can never be lonely

Mr. Jones — Counting Crows

A Long December

Tommy — Tue, 24 May 2011 18:23:33 +0000

Over the last couple of months, I’ve found that music has been the perfect antidote to studying. One of my newest favorite bands is Californian band Counting Crows. Adam Duritz’s nasal croon is actually quite likable, and the band’s overall style is reminiscent of R.E.M., another American band I love. This is one of my favorite songs from the band; a melodic gem called “A Long December”, which has one of the nicest openings of any song, ever, I think.

Drumming Video

Tommy — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 08:00:00 +0000

I’ve been drumming for near 5 years now. It’s one of the few things I do just for me, and no-one else. I don’t play in a band, and have rejected the offers I’ve had over the years too. If I get into a band that’ll put pressures on me and drumming is just something between me, the sticks and my iTunes library. Instead, I just play along with whatever’s in my music library at the time.

This is me playing along to American Idiot by Green Day. While playing, I don’t try to copy the original drumming style to the letter, because that’s not what drumming is for me. So, I’ve added bits and changed others.

How I make them can be tough: I record myself playing with the song playing through the headphones. Then I have to add the MP3 file of the song over the video. That part’s easy, it’s lining up the start of the track through the headphones with the start of the superimposed track that can be difficult.

Alligator Aviator

Tommy — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 07:06:23 +0000

I’ve loved R.E.M. a lot, ever since John gave me Shiny Happy People back in 2007. I’d have considered Out of Time to be their best album (it brought you Losing My Religion!), but with the release of Collapse Into Now I think that’s changed.

The above song is probably my favourite track from the new album. The title, Alligator Aviator Autopilot Antimatter, reminds me of this rhyme:

From Sydney Zoo an alligator
Was put on board a flying freighter.
He ate the pilot
And the navigator.
And asked for more with mashed potater

Show-Time

Tommy — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 20:06:44 +0000

Last Friday, I took part in CentreStage Youth Theatre’s latest variety show. Our director told us to pick songs from more obscure musicals. I’ll admit I was apprehensive about it but in hindsight, it made a generic ‘night-at-the-musicals’ more interesting because the usual songs were nowhere to be found. I’m certain I speak for a lot of people, cast and audience alike, when I say that I learnt a lot of new songs and musicals from the show.

The dress-code for the night was ‘debs-ey’, so I dug out the suit I wear for weddings. It hadn’t seen the light of day for about 18 months but luckily still fitted me. As I tweeted, every time I wear a suit, I’m reminded why these occasions are rare. I’m too used to wearing jeans and converse to be able to comfortably pull off a suit.

I did one solo, The Kite from You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown. It’s a definite kids’ song, but I enjoyed doing something quite different this show.

Once again, I experienced the weird sensation of being on auto-pilot while on-stage. The song I was doing was quite fast with a lot of similar-sounding verses and I found myself tripping over them a lot in rehearsals. However, once I got on-stage, I found muscle memory kicking in and my mind freeing up.

The song is supposed to be be accompanied by some sort of kite prop but I felt that a physical prop would be too distracting. Not having a prop in the end didn’t bother me, because I enjoyed the miming aspect of the invisible kite. Because singing went on auto-pilot, I was able to devote a lot of effort to actions, facial expressions and the like, which was great.

All in all, I was pleased with how the show went; the show overall as well as my solo. It was a great experience that reminded me why I love musical theatre. :)

Moving Too Fast

Tommy — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 08:00:00 +0000

The week before last, I heard someone singing “Moving Too Fast” from The Last Five Years. There’s a part in the song that goes:-

Some people analyze every detail
Some people stall when they can’t see the trail
Some people freeze out of fear that they’ll fail
But I keep rollin’ on

Some people can’t get success with their art
Some people never feel love in their heart
Some people can’t tell the two things apart
But I keep rollin’ on

I didn’t have the song in mind as I wrote Focus, a blog-post from a couple of days ago, but it sums up my feelings really accurately. I’m not one for mantras or life mottos or whatever, but “Keep Rollin’ On” is a pretty good one.