Dear Word readers,

I think the rise in popularity of Guitar Hero is going to have a negative effect on the amount of time kids spend actually playing real guitars.

Yes, it's a fad. Yes, it's a bit of fun, but I can't help but think for every hour our future guitar heroes spend pushing multicoloured buttons in time to graphics appearing on a screen, it's another hour lost of serious guitar shredding along to (insert nostalgic record of choice here).

What does everyone else think? Do I have a valid point, should we march en-masse on the gates of Activision, axes aloft (see what I did there?) and dismantle their machines of anti-music?

What say ye?

A long time ago, when I was working as a Tape-Op at Cava Studios in Glasgow (I think it was around 1990/1991) I happened to meet John Martyn.

The man himself, the legend!!

As I was a bit green behind the ears, and of course these were the days before t'interweb and the marvellous wikipedia, I got onto the subject of our surnames being the same. Not only was he a Martyn, but I was too.

There I was, ready to go and tell the world that I was in some way related to John Martyn. My long lost uncle perhaps, or second cousin)...

John soon put me right though by admitting that his real name was Iain McGeachy.

Gah!

Anyway - it's good to see Uncle John on the cover this month!!

:)

Geoff (Martyn)

Watching Later the other night, I was quite interested to see and hear Goldfrapp play from their new album. Now I know that Goldfrapp by their very nature are seen as an electronic rock band, so they have a certain level of technology on display when they play, but it was almost to the point that they were playing entirely to a backing track. Granted, each musician was playing their own part live, but it was as though there was no room for any movement or 'feel'.

The acoustic guitar part had been worked out to perfection with the electric part, the bass part did everything at the right moment, and the keyboards filled the frequencies inbetween. The backing vocalists sang their parts perfectly when they were required. I suppose this is production, and whoever produced it did their job well...

Not that I'm a great fan, I just find some of their stuff quite interesting, but live it just seemed a bit robotic.

Am I being over critical? I'd just love to hear the same music without a click track leading the drummer into each song. You can hear him knock four beats on the high-hat on at least the first two tracks , which I would imagine is him setting everyone else up for the intro...