"(re: Tiza G) that's great! it's Madness! Posh Spice could do with a bit of madness"
John McLaughlin, producer/songwriter of Busted and Westlife, Lisa
Smosarski, editor of Smash Hits and Celia
McCambley, Sony Records on C4 Richard & Judy
Show, Easter 2004
Backbone
review in 24/7 Magazine, March 2006
US reviews of "Peter Gill The Emotional Man",
"Paul
Hawkins Was A Cat", "J.O.B.",
"Kamikaze"
and "Charlie
11" from www.garageband.com/artist/variousassortments
"Listened to your CD, you mad nut! Very inventive, and very good! We listened to it last night and it was brilliant! Wondered whether you thought of taking it to a proper recording studio, so they can incorporate more light n shade into it? The recording seemed a bit too compressed. Love it anyway."
Tina Adair, Rusty Nail
"Liked the CD (musical). Nice piano piece near the end."
Billy Bad, Grays
"(re: Tiza G) That song is Mad(ness)! Made me smile! (Re: Owen Sexxx) Fuck dude sounds like an Numan-ish-Outland-esque Bill Sharp, Softcell-Sexdwarf type thingy. Stop sending my head on these weird trips."
Numix, Manchester
"(re: Tiza G) Wow! Ok so its twee and it sounds a bit like madness (not a bad thing), but there is a lot of arrangement going on in there and I'm impressed with that. Whether you like this kind of thing or not, I believe this is pretty well executed- not an easy thing to put together at all. Some of the melodies could have done with some
de-quantisation and the vocals could have been a bit higher, but the worst mistake was the end where you have the slightly vocodered (or so it sounds) bass backing singer going into your left
earhole.. its too low and too cluttered to be able to make out what is being said/sung there.. Oh, and you get my award for worst forced-it-to-rhyme-even-though-its-not-in-context so far of 2004 for the
charisma/rizla couplet! Overall, very interesting, non-offensive, non-threatening, no-brainer 70s/80s urban pop. You got any more?"
Marvy Mills, www.electromancer.com
"These tracks (Owen Sexx and Tiza G) made me smile...I was going to ask whether you had anymore characters but you have answered above - what was Charlie the Chocolate Man all about? Oh and another thing...that guitar solo in Owen Sexx must be the longest in the modern day era."
Shamen Shanks, www.afenet.com
"Thanks for the CD, I've been away on business a fair bit the last week or so and it hasn't left my car CD player, I've really enjoyed it. I think it was quite a project in both writing and recording terms and you must be really pleased with the outcome, it's really good. Do you intend
to play it/stage it live ?"
Jon James, Battery Powered Snowmen manager
"Liked the music. Have been singing Paul Hawkins all weekend. Do like the Doors bit in the middle of it. Tiza G reminds me of a madness/kids TV tune. Keep up the good work."
Ms Sarah Tully, Total
Film, London W1U 6FP
"Great stuff"
Graham Gilbert, www.kernowfm.com
"Apologies for not getting back to you sooner, I have been away and am
also in the process of moving back into London. Thanks for the CD, have had a listen, enjoyed
it.. if not a little crazy
but good fun. So where you intending to do a full on feature short at some point then?
Not sure logistically what the possibilities are here with you in Cornwall and me in London unless we got a storyboard and script together
and then I came down to Cornwall for a few days to do the shoot, would require a lot of organisation before hand but might make an interesting
project for me to work on from a directing and technical point of view. Let me know what you think.
Kind regards"
Steve Smith, www.tribalvideo.com,
15.4.04
"Yr CDs pretty brilliant - got 2 listen more 2 appreciate it. A lot there. Mind the gap - I did that! Well done old chap"
Chrissie Mauritius, Plymouth
"Well done, good body of work hangs together well. As you know, I've never professed to be much of a musician but all the tracks sound tight and well executed. I like where you're going with it, nice melange
of influences. Good effort"
Martin Turner Overdrive, Cornwall
"hey cool songs but they just sound a little midi-ish. but i dont suppose you can afford big studio production though
lol. nice one mate! can you play guitar?"
Steve, www.blurtalkboard.com
"ok, i retract my previous statement of "rubbish" after listenin to your tracks. they are much better than expected. though i agree, too
midi-ish but yet very old blur b-side-ish at best.
if not that, then maybe a saturday morning childrens cartoon music segment. gotta work on the adult part of the songs."
Admin, www.blurtalkboard.com
"(re: Tiza G) What a silly song!! Take that as a complement, please. Daft-but-clever lyrics ('his body's finally caught up with his brain' -class) and sampling used properly for a change. Looking forward to hearing more, so you'd best bring me that disc!!"
Rachael, Larkside
"Listened to your CD again, like it a lot!"
Andy Woodwind, Larkside
"That's not the
finished version, is it?"
Jimmy Appudurai Chua,
Rock Photographer
"Hey ....thats
very good going. Heard Paulos had a funny laugh, and it is quite different to my
taste. But i enjoyed it!!, very much, entertaining music and lyrics. cudnt
review this in depth, because i seriously dont know how to, specially with this
song. regards"
saif, www.download.com/saif
"charlie piano: not
to sure on the panning could be a bit smoother i like the piano but i am very
picky with songs that have singing in basic song but it work if it were my song
then i would loose the singing keep the piano and add a serious beat but hey
thats my opinon although it is not annoying me which means that it will probably
grow on me
paul hawkins was a cat: first thing again a serious issue with fading and
panning i have to keep checking to make sure my headphones are working correctly
i do like the sound that come from this song but again not to keen on the
singing helecopters at the end cool
kamikazie: its all a bit eighties maybe i should be wareing a shell suit whilst
listening to this so far it is the best of the lot well the first three relaxing
and consistent nice
paulos had a funny: for some reason the intro reminds me of marilyn manson dunno
why again not really my cup of tea but it does have a future but only if you
send to me what his laugh sounds like only joking but seriously good trak for
the right person dont just go by what one person sais
overall the panning needs to be sorted and unless it was planned there is a lot
of hiss an pop in the trax but you cannot be faulted just for that well done
good effort. hope you dont take offence by this"
http://music.download.com/stevelunn/
"Yes I thought the songs were good, but I have heard them before. Have you done any new stuff ?"
Mark Wild, Grays
"Great CD..made me laugh:musical trip down memory lane..heard my name and smiled"
Michaela Jayne Clark, Yorkshire, Feb 2005
"Been spinning Charlie constantly! Fucking brilliant!"
"after spinning Charlie at work, I've had to run off some copies!"
Cathedral, Birmingham,18.2.05
"Specific comments on Charlie? Well, I mentioned that the sole contact name I had was Paul so there was an artroom deliberation as to whether you were the Paul mentioned in the "gym/bodybuilding" section of the album. Makes me wonder.. do you by any chance own "joe's Garage"? If not, why not?"
Cathedral, Birmingham,23.2.05
"I can see me listening to this a fair bit - you got any track titles? I'd like to stick this on me mp3 player and play it on the way to work. Made me laugh a few times and enjoying this. Having a lot of midi ain't your problem - the only thing I'd say is that everything's a bit dry and "non produced". All the keyboard and sounds seem very unprocessed which makes it sound like a Frank Sidebottom record from the late 80s to be honest - kind of a novelty value I guess? What else...the drums sound really mechanical - the rolls etc - and again some processing wouldn't hurt to make them sound a bit more pro. Otherwise, not much wrong with this. Maybe some of the lyrics are a bit weak, but I'm no lyricist so I can't criticise. I really like the arrangements with a wide variation in the type of sounds coming in and out. Good ideas are all over this - nice one! You had any feedback from anywhere?"
Phil
Marsh, Milton Keynes
"Just listened to Owen Sexxx... Reminds me of Frank Zappa. Starting to listen to the rest of the RO and lovin it"
Pete Lawrie, Mr Benn, 13.3.05
"I thought it was brilliant. Really different and to be honest much more professional than I'd expected. I really like the singers voice. Send me another???"
D. Robertson, Surrey
"(re: Tiza G) oh and by the way, p**s funny song above!"
Paul Goodwin, author of Electric
Pioneer - An Armchair Guide To Gary Numan, 21.3.05
"Mate, I've been bimbling through one or two of the tracks on your site but as there's so much to hear I wanted to grab as much off there as I can and give an overal assesment if you want one. I'll say this already though. Love the engineering"
Shaun Brooks, Dubsounds Audio, 23.3.05
"Is this a snippet of the strange contents of your mind? Ouch! So utterly cool and deliciously wicked! When can I hear
more? my 7 year old daughter couldn't stop singing 'various assortments of your mind' and is now your number one fan! keeps requesting the slippery slide song, constantly!!"
Tamara, Gunnislake
"Yes - enjoyed the CD a lot! What is the story behind it?"
Les Campen, Grey
Parade, 27.3.05
"I came across the song a few months ago when me and friend were bored enough to start typing our names into google to see what came up. I can't remember what exactly I typed (obv. "Paul Hawkins" and something else) but I found the song and then started playing it to anyone I could find. I geninely like the song by the way, and think I probably would whether or not my name was in there"
Paul
Hawkins, London, April 2005
"I'm hoping to give you some pointers from an engineering POV that may or may not be of use but it's really gonna be a lot to take in and transpose to text being a whole album of such vast scope as yours.
How did you come to be involved in such a concept Paul and what's your involvement? Is it just for fun or are there more serious intentions behind the project (ie a stage show as I imagined - rocky horror kind of affair). I think for a commercial release, you would probably have to re-record it in a professional facility and would benefit enormously from using a drummer (session or otherwise) but there's no shortage of content or whacky
ideas"
Shaun Brooks, Dubsounds Audio, 8.5.05
"it was CTCM day at work today. Had the album blasting out much to the amusement of everyone else. Owen is deffo the works' favourite track. We've got a hippy muso at our place.. can't take a piece of music for what it is. He always has to pick at it like a scab: "Oh, that bit sounds like/ those harmonies are like/ hear what he's doing on the bass?/ etc etc". Drives us up the fucking wall.. Anyway, a couple of tracks into CTCM & he gave up. Silence.. sheer bliss!"
Cathedral, 12.5.05
"I had a listen to some of the songs on your site, good work, haven't heard anything quite like
it before (and I've heard a lot of records!). Would it be the songs on your site that you'd want doing or some new stuff? From what i could hear from those songs if they haven't already been mastered the initial engineering is so good that very little mastering would have to be done. If they're older ones that have already been mastered that explains that tho (my crappy computer speakers aren't really good enough to tell).
Also how many songs are you looking at doing and what format would you give them to me on and what would you like it mastered to?"
Phil Baker, Sound Engineer, The Phoenix, Plymouth
"By the way, I'm enjoying all The Various Assortments downloads again. (I had some off your site earlier this year and lost them to a computer/iPod disaster.) I came for the quirkiness and stayed for the musicianship"
Karl Sherlock, 10.8.05
"Shut up Toby and stick to making your 60's sounding pastiche musical interludes"
Riptorn, www.afenet.com, 19.8.05
"It's your
fault I got woken up today.... my sister wanted all my Various
Assortments CDs before she went back to university.... tap.... you're
barred"
Justin Davis,
Bouncer & IT Worker, Larkside, Easter 2006
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