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April 27, 2025 - On Brand
20:49
Music Is Nice: The Return [PREVIEW]

We go through some of Al's musical background in the return of Music Is Nice! Want to hear the rest of this episode? Head over to patreon.com/OnBrand for the full experience.

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Music is nice you
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Music is Nice, The Return, with me, Alworth, a musician.
To jog everyone's memory, Music is Nice came about from the fact that prior to the allegations against him, Russell used to have a football podcast or...
Soccer to you Americans.
With series editor Gareth Roy called Football is Nice.
It was cancelled after Gareth assumed a more behind-the-scenes position at Stay Free when the allegations against Russell came out.
Now...
I don't know much about football, but music is my stock and trade, so that is a show I can provide for all of you.
And on Music Is Nice, we'll be listening to some tunes from a variety of genres, and I'll provide some context and do my best to explain why I think they're great.
It's also nice to have a pleasant buffer.
You know, something to break up the horrors of present-day existence.
You know what I mean?
Now, normally I'll be playing tracks from a variety of artists I like, probably focused around some kind of central theme, but I wanted to be able to put a preview of the additional content up on the main feed, and to do that with other people's songs would cause something of a rights issue,
and fair enough.
So this will likely be one of the only Music is Nice previews that ever ends up on the main feed.
So what we will be doing today is taking a look at my own musical background and some tunes I'm already...
This should also hopefully give some context as to why anyone should listen to me about music at all.
Though obviously personal preferences and taste and that kind of thing come into music, I can at least weigh in on the technical side and my own preferences from working in music and also having a first class degree in creative musicianship, which I will talk about a little bit later.
Suffice to say, if I have to talk for a long time, So, the first track I want to play is one from a long while ago.
It was written back in 2017 and recorded in 2018, though not released until a few years later, and it's one with my old band, Money Shot.
So thematically, cast your mind back to the first Trump presidency, Charlottesville, all that good stuff, and try not to get too depressed at how relevant the lyrics still are.
The song was written, produced, mixed, and mastered by me, and performance-wise, there's me on guitars and vocals, Joe Smith on bass, Zoe Kaye on drums, and Costas Magdalenas on lead guitars and backing vocals.
It was recorded without the use of a metronome or click track and without autotune, so basically recorded live with some overdubbing.
Done pretty old school.
Needless to say, there are a couple of moments it gets a little loosey-goosey with the tempo, especially in the breakdown, but I kind of like that.
And there are things about this track that I'm proud of, and plenty that I would do differently today, but regardless of any of that, I hope you enjoy.
This one's called Stronger Than Love.
Love
I see them walking down the street Goose stepping right in front of me Riding high in the name of free speech Spitting on those of us who disagree Marbling at
their witty repartee An old man who turned and said to me How as if they can hate so freely But you know it's not okay to punch a Nazi We'll
take the pain Cause you ain't stronger than love
You ain't stronger than love You ain't stronger than love You ain't stronger than love You ain't stronger
than love And we don't bow to you guitar solo
Militant youth marching down Fifth Avenue Lighting torches that be followed in from Timbuktu Igniting ignorance in people that cannot see through Arguing the Third Reich was just misconstrued On a way that I don't share
their worldview Hyperbolic telling me it's gonna be so huge I think, man, I got a major case of deja vu How the hell did he seem to come to be so screwed?
Will take the pain Cause you ain't stronger love You ain't stronger love
You ain't strong in the love, we'll break your chains But you ain't strong in the love You ain't strong in the love And we don't buy you guitar
solo We'll take the pain Cause
you ain't strong in the love You ain't strong in the love You ain't strong in the love We'll break your chains Cause you ain't strong
in the love You ain't strong in the love And we don't buy you We'll
be right back.
The chorus might be a little cheesy, but hey, it's what we've got to do.
Outlast the fascists.
Outlive the fuckers.
They are not stronger than we are.
And if someone could let me know if it's okay to punch Nazis again yet, I'd be grateful.
I was playing that new Indiana Jones game a while back, which is great, by the way.
And it seems to be pretty cool again.
Answers on a postcard, please.
Sound off the comments, something like that.
So now we're going to move forward in time to the very last thing I officially released musically, and it's the very first thing released under my own name of Al Wirth, which is the Spectre EP I put out at Halloween this last year.
Now...
I know there's a bunch of you who live life as though Halloween is a state of being more than it is a holiday or an ancient pagan ritual.
And yes, I'm looking at you, people who will happily watch The Nightmare Before Christmas in the middle of summer.
Because we are going to be leaning in your direction for this next track, actually.
I may not understand you fully, but I do appreciate you.
Now...
The Spectre EP came about as a little experiment I had, firstly in working with solely electronic music, which I'd not done before, and also because at the time I was feeling pretty inspired by, like, mythical monsters from legend and whatnot.
This particular track I'm going to play is called Wendigo.
Wendigo is a human-like malevolent spirit that eats people and is part of the belief system of the Algonquin-speaking indigenous peoples in North America.
Supposedly, it embodies gluttony, greed, and excess.
They also call it Wittikau, amongst other things.
A lot of these legendary creatures have multiple names.
And so, directly after this track, there's a piano piece called Wittikau on the EP, which transitions into something else.
I should say, I did end up putting some live drums in this one towards the end, so it's not technically fully electronic.
But hey!
Artistic license, right?
Art is art.
In any case, here is Wendigo.
Wendigo
Yeah, you can see I leaned into the greed themes there by throwing basically everything but the kitchen sink at that track by the end of it.
If you want to check out the rest of the EP, by the way, it's on Spotify under my name.
Search for Alworth and Spectre, and hopefully it should come up.
Or Wendigo, equally.
Okay, so we're going to have a little change of pace here, and we're going to take a look at a live performance I did of a song called Apparently Nothing, which I wrote back in 2015.
Question mark?
So like a decade ago, and before I even started my degree.
This is, I would say, the most songwriter-y song of the episode here, particularly as it's just me and an acoustic guitar.
And not only that, but the song itself is very much about like a post-breakup analysis of a relationship that ended badly.
A recorded version of this does exist out there.
Not published currently, but one does exist.
Where I put some songs down on an 8-track recorder.
But we're going to look at the live performance because, frankly, it is better.
The 8-track recordings were as DIY as it gets, more or less.
Just an 8-track, a condenser microphone, and a Shure SM57 for recording guitars and bass through two very cheap amps, both propped up in front of an upturned mattress.
I have a picture of that somewhere.
In any case, let's enjoy the live version of one of those songs.
Okay, this is called Apparently Nothing.
when we were young.
It seemed so easy in the days of the sun.
When it was so right, how could it be wrong?
Beholding to no one, we lived for the fun.
when you're in love you live for today it's such a shame that we couldn't stay away from the mindset of pride and no shame well I'll admit something
I'm not okay I believe there was something that I couldn't see it seems so
strange to know what you're thinking of me.
It's apparently nothing.
Oh no.
It's apparently nothing.
I believed I was someone and you gave a damn.
Just spineless and spotless.
It's all that I give to you and your lover.
I remember where you were and what you did.
Remember every word you said.
I could see there was something I knew all along.
Just
Maybe you were too young to know I were afraid of I believe there was something that I couldn't
see It seems so strange to know what you're thinking of me
It's apparently nothing Oh no I just couldn't see it coming You
know it's been too long It's unlikely to change The simple description of distance and rage You won't talk it out And I think you're afraid Of what I don't know But it hurts just the same You're not willing to hate me I'll do it myself I'll bear the burden I created this hell You carry on and I'll...
I'll wait out the time Don't worry about me I'll be just fine There are some songs in my back catalogue where I'm kind of tempted to revitalise them.
You know, like, do them fresh with all the knowledge and ability I have now compared to back then.
And I will say, like, I think that's one of them.
You can tell someone around the age of 20 wrote it, and it's simple, but I like it.
And the version in my head, like, always had drums and all sorts of other shit going on, so...
We'll see if I ever come back to it.
Now let's skip ahead to one of the weirdest and most fun projects I've been involved in.
All right.
I'm going to finish now because I'm hungry and I want to eat something.
All right.
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