Independent Music Academy News, Tips and Tricks

Sadly we got a bit edited on this one (got bumped by a Hugh Jackman interview… oh the cheek!). A shame because the guitar solo was pretty cute.

Keep an eye out as we are aiming to get some visual content for our performances (we’re going to rerecord clean versions) and start posting them around.

If you would like to provide some visual content let us know!

And in the meantime enjoy getting shaky after school…

 

 Ian Carey Project - After School (intro) [1:14m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (36)

 

 Ian Carey Project - After School [2:32m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (45)

heh heh heh. This was fun, Silas and Seamus showing that the music theatre world has little to fear from the All American Rejects musical…

 

 Standard Podcast [1:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (42)

 

 Standard Podcast [2:58m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (52)

Just shows how a well written song holds up against any tampering… even gob laden punk. (:

 

 Taylor Swift Love Story Challenge [1:18m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (38)

 

 Taylor Swift Love Story [2:38m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (60)

So this one went ok!

And it’s kinda amusing!

Can you believe it?

Soooo… please enjoy the marvellous Beyonce’s Single Ladies… Country Style!

 

 single ladies intro [1:33m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (62)

 

 single ladies [2:52m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (89)

Damn and blast it!

This was funny! It would have been a cracker!

But….

We were running through a whole bunch of new gear and WE DIDN’T TURN IT UP LOUD ENOUGH.

I love learning about things like that live to air.

If you squint with your ears you’ll hear it though; Jessica Mauboy as performed by The Wiggles. Funny. (With thanks to Andrew as The Hijackers resident Wiggles expert…)

 

 MHJ Jessica Mauboy Burn [3:22m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (75)

We learnt some new and exciting things from this particular performance.

While I still find it amusing (though maybe a bit too long) and I feel proud for having been partially responsible for having something so odd air on B105, we learnt a lot here about what works on morning radio.

High (or at least reasonable) production values.

Confident sounding performances.

Brevity.

Please note that this particular performance contains NONE of these.

But it still makes me laugh…

Enjoy!

 

 MHJ Pink - please don't leave me [3:18m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (62)

So this was by far and away the most difficult one that we have had yet… play Britney Spears’ Circus as an 80s power pop ballad ala Foreigner or Aerosmith.

Why so difficult?

Well.

80’s power pop ballads are all about melody. Well obviously there are lyrics and chords there too but they always have a strong melody, which you desperately need when you are wailing away at a very slow majestic tempo.

Now the Britney fans out there who are super familiar with this particular tune may have noticed something… there is not a lot of melody in this song. In fact, vast swathes of this song contain only the one note… check out the chorus - it goes “all eyes on me in the centre of the ring just like a circus” and it is all one note right up to the word “circus”. Not a bad melody in the context of a pop/dance tune but as far as singing it all long notes at a slow tempo…. ye gods kill me now.

But fortunately we had our resident 80s guitar music expert Andrew present and he reharmonised it (changed the chords underneath) so that it was a bit more rock and then we tried our best…

(The bass player certainly could have tried a bit harder but at least you know now that we are live and unrehearsed!)

Enjoy our 80’s power ballad Britney!

 

 MHJ Britney Spears Circus [3:19m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (110)

Could you ever imagine Fall Out Boy sounding so wholesome????

I doubt it… (:

 

 America's Suitehearts [4:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (91)

Hi all, check out our heavy metal version of Miley Cyrus’ See You Again…. the first and perhaps last time, that you will ever hear death metal vocals on Austereo….

 

 SeeYou Again Challenge [1:36m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 See You Again Performance [3:32m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Hello everyone. We have a new challenge this year (well a succession of them). The people at B105 enjoyed our very early morning musical shennanigans so much, they asked us back to meet their musical challenge every Monday morning at 7am…..

They have named us The Musical Hijackers and we will weekly add to our blog the outcomes of our spot. The breakfast crew might ask us to perform Lady GaGa’s Poker Face as a country song or Katy Perry’s I Kissed A Girl as a polka.

This week it was Kings Of Leon as a swing tune… that’s right, jazz isn’t dead, it just smells funny…

 

 Sex on Fire Challenge [3:14m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Sex on Fire Song [3:49m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download