Reaction to “Vision On”

Theo and myself are in the middle of updating my main site (www.timburness.com) at the moment and I’m putting up links to a selection of the album reviews we’ve had over the last few months. I think it would be fair to say that the consensus is that “Vision On” is a good but maybe not exceptionally good album. Unfortunately in this day and age of massive competition in an over-saturated market, this is not really good enough! But I can only do my best and as always, a few people at least have genuinely “got” the whole thing of what I’m on about. THANK YOU again to those of you have listened or promoted my music in any way whatsoever, it really is appreciated on a deep level.

As usual there are a number of reviewers who don’t like my vocals. I’ve noticed that this seems to be a relatively common view among many “progressive rock” reviewers, whereas listeners from a broader or poppier background tend not to have a problem with my singing. In fact many people (particularly in connection with the last few albums) have told me they really like my singing. My voice will never be particularly powerful and I guess this will always put some people off my music. Should I take some of the reviewers advice and get in another singer in future? Easier said than done. We shall see. I’m likely to take a different musical direction next time round anyway, vocals may not even feature.

Many people familar with my music in the long-term say that “Vision On” is the best whole album I’ve made and I tend to agree with this. However, I know I can do a lot better. Time and money tend to be big limitations and given how my life has gone since soon after releasing the album, I’m just glad I managed to get something out there while I still had the chance.

Not many people are buying it. As probably everyone reading this knows, not that many people are buying CDs by anyone these days. So there are now several free tracks available from my site, with an option to buy. Ideally I would love to be making some money back from my music, but the most important thing to me has always been BEING HEARD.

Some astrology

I am putting in a lot of hours as a psychiatric nursing assistant at the moment to try and get a bit more on top of things financially. Last week I had a nice break from this when I did my first full astrology reading this year. After 20 years I still really enjoy doing these, the feedback is always extremely positive, and since 2001 I have been charging a reasonable amount based on a total of about 5 hours work for each consultation and its preparation.

More generally, I have been pondering the recent movement of Pluto into the sign of Capricorn where it stays for the next 13 years or something like that. Pluto is the planet of death and re-birth, eliminating old structures to make way for the new. Capricorn is the sign of responsibility, organization, the material structures of society, wisdom, older people, authority, limitations, restrictions, depression, hard reality but also excellence in achievement. Although this one planetary position alone doesn’t tell the whole astrological story, there seems a rather obvious connection with the current global economic crisis that appears to be just beginning. A complete political and economic transformation is surely what this planet needs, however painful? Just a thought.