Boy Child : excellent introduction to Scott Walker

After years of deliberation, I finally bought Boy Child, the compilation CD of Scott Walker’s late 60s music. Even on the first spin of the disc, I immediately came to love the music – I can even say this is the most interesting AND listenable CD I have bought in a very long time.

Scott Walker has a great reputation as a singer-songwriter musicians’ listen to and cite as influences. Often this means the music is not very accessible. But Scott Walker’s early albums covered in Boy Child is an odd mixture of 60s pop that sounds like pop yet is more. Walker’s baritone vocals remind me on Tom Jones, and so does the orchestration of strings that create the unique atmosphere of much of his music. Yet, the music is not quite as timid or chart friendly as this makes it seem.

As this is my first Scott Walker CD, it seems I will definitely be acquiring more of his catalogue – probably Scott 4, Tilt and The Drift.

Verdict : highly recommended!

TwitterFon best Twitter app on iPhone?

Ever since I started using Twitter, I have wondered what the best Twitter app on iPhone is. Turns out Gizmodo covered this in a great article in late Jan 2009. The article reviews both free and paid apps for iPhone. It seems I am already using the best free Twitter app already as I am using TwitterFon . . .

Click on the link below for the full story.

iPhone Twitter App Battlemodo: Best and Worst Twitter Apps for iPhone.

Lifehacker Gina Trapani’s ideal setup

I’m always immensely curious what hardware and software other people use on a daily basis. Today I happened upon an interview on Lifehacker’s Gina Trapani covering her gear and ideal set-up at Waferbaby.

Interesting! Gina Trapani on waferbaby.

Twitter . . . to tweet or not to tweet

Lately I have begun using Twitter.

Micro-blogging, and Twitter in particular, is already immensely popular in the west, but still in its infant stage in Hong Kong. Personally, I find it requires quite a bit of work to get started – it demands more active participation than say Facebook.

I was also alerted that the basic web interface of Twitter’s own page does not begin to reveal the ways it can be used to share information. As a result, I have installed Twitterfox as an add-on in Firefox, TweetDeck as an app on the desktop, and TwitterFon onto my iPhone.

I have to say I am still experimenting with Twitter and my experience is still rather mixed. As times, the blurbs that I upload seem totally random and meaningless to anyone but me; I don’t see the reason why anyone would want to read my tweets at all!

Gmail even better than before with multiple inboxes

Lately, Gmail has been rolling out quite a few exceptional new features – of these, I find the improved contact management and multiple inbox particularly useful.

Gmail’s contact management used to be pretty basic and of the new enhancements, the merging of contacts should prove to be a welcome addition. Now I can easily clean up my contact list – and then eventually sync them to my iPhone.

Gmail’s multiple inbox is simply a godsend. I used to have to search again and again for archived emails and attachments despite having a decent labeling system. Now, with multiple inboxes, I can see my inbox together with key projects I am currently working on all on one screen! Absolutely brilliant. Multiple inbox can be enabled in the Gmail labs tab, and further customized within the regular settings tab.

Swamp rock perfected on CCR’s Bayou Country

For the longest time, the only Creedence Clearwater Revival album I had was their greatest hits album Chronicle, Vol. 1 – this excellent disc contained their hit singles and the songs are mostly tight and staples of classic rock radio.

I was aware of John Fogerty’s reputation as an outstanding guitarist, but there are only glimpses of his fretwork on Chronicle, Vol. 1. So a few weeks ago, I went out and bought the band’s first 2 albums.

CCR’s self-titled debut album finds the band still performing cover songs – the band already sounds tight but lacks the confidence that emerges on their second album, Bayou Country. CCR finds it definite sound on Bayou Country and the mixture of hit singles with more adventurous extended jams makes it one very enjoyable album. On these 2 albums, Fogerty’s guitar work is looser and more creative than on the later albums, where he focuses on creating more simple but catchy songs at the expense of musical experimentation.

I heartily recommend Bayou Country as an top notch late 60’s classic rock album!