Whey Protein Supplements

Whey protein is extracted from milk and although only 20% of milk is whey, it is an effective supplement for weight loss and muscle gain. The rest of milk’s protein is called casein and in order to separate the two, the milk must be subjected to a series of purification processes.

As most of the dairy elements of milk are contained in casein, if whey protein is relatively pure, then it shouldn’t trigger and allergies that you might have to milk, however it has been known to induce lactose intolerance so proceed with caution.

So how much is the right amount of whey protein to take? Can you take too much? Well, the straightforward answer is yes, you can take too much, doctors will most probably advise that you use these supplements fairly cautiously as they have sometimes been known to have some harmful side effects.

One of the most ironic things about these side effects is that your working out practices can result in not being able to work out anymore. Gout is the reason for this and it is one of the most unpleasant side effects that can be brought on by excess protein.

Gout is a result of excess protein in your body that the body can’t do anything with so it settles on your joints, muscles and tendons in your legs and feet (usually in your big toes first) as crystals of uric acid that cause joints to be stiff, brittle and painful.

Excess protein can also cause lasting damage to the liver and the kidneys, but as long as you follow any recommended guidelines you can find you should be alright (you do have to take quite a lot for gout to settle in). Different people require different amounts of protein for it to take effect, and the most prominent factor is deciding how much is right for you is your body mass. I would advise having a consultation with your doctor before you start on protein supplements to try and work out an estimate for you on how much to have.

So whey protein, we can conclude, is an effective source of protein for your body to lose unwanted fat or gain some lean muscle, but you should always do all the research you can before you start using supplements of any kind to make sure you won’t be troubled by unwanted side-effects.

For a great range of whey protein supplements, visit discount-supplements.co.uk, a huge online supplier of protein supplements

Vertically Challenged Rockstars!

I like these lists of rockstars with a common trait, and I’ve just found a list of rockstars that are under 5′ 8”. There are a few more that I know of so I’ll add my own to it as well.

So here’s a list of rockstars that have all been “vertically challenged” (short), some may surprise you!

Prince (5′ 2”) To those familiar with Prince, it will come as no surprise that he is one of the smallest rockstars in the world: Prince

Bono (5′ 7 1/2”) It’s pretty much common knowledge that Bono is the pint-size hero of rock n roll, although he only just falls short of 5′ 8” (which isn’t really THAT short anyway.) As the only person ever to be nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, A Grammy and The Nobel Peace Prize, he may be undersized but by no means an underachiever: Bono gets Beef!

Thom Yorke (5′ 5”) The lead singer of radiohead is perhaps not as noted for being short as he has a rather more immediately noticeable physical trait, as I’m sure every radiohead fan is aware, his left eyelid droops as a result of it being closed shut at birth and the 5 subsequent operations he underwent (before he was even 6 years old!) to have it opened. Thom Yorke: “The Clock”

Angus Young (5′ 2”) The guitarist from AC/DC – now 54 years old – has always seemed to embrace his small stature by dressing like a school boy on stage. I suppose it’s a good way to make people ignore you’re child like height: dressing like a child! AC/DC Live Album

Ronnie James Dio (5′ 4”) “Dio has rocked….for a long long time.” Standing at 5′ 4” and hunched over like he is most of the time, he looks rather strikingly like a goblin in my opinion, but then, that kind of fits in with his ultra satanic power rock style of music so rock on little elf man! Ronnie James Dio recently threatened to take the band dios to court for the name similarity!

Bob Marley (5′ 7”) The Rastafarian spreader of peace was surprisingly only 5ft 7inches, although this isn’t exactly tiny, it’s still a lot smaller than you would imagine him to stand given the size of his aura and the power of his message. No Woman No Cry

Bruce Dickinson (5′ 6”) The awesome front man of Iron Maiden’s short stature is barely noticeable when he’s on stage. With the amount of theatrics and pure genuis showmanship that go into Maiden’s concerts, the lack of a few inches is no match for the power of Dickinson’s voice and stage presence. Here is an awesome collection of Iron Maiden photos

Jon Bon Jovi (5′ 5”) In my humble opinion, next to Bruce Dickinson in one of the best singing voices of all time. Again, the legendary front man’s showmanship skills overshadow his height (or lack of as the case may be!) Here’s a fairly rare Bon Jovi song that you may not have heard before.

Eddie Van Halen (5′ 4”) I think I speak for everyone when I say that whenever you watch this guy perform, eye’s rarely stray from his fingers on the fretboard, height makes no difference when you can make a guitar sound like he can. Eddie Van Halen is apparently recovering from his recent hand surgery.

So there’s the list, with a few extras added on to the end, hope you found it interesting.

Rockstars that died at 27 years old

If there’s any profession that’s famous for living fast and dying young, it’s being a rockstar. There have been an uncountable number premature deaths in the music industry (well, and the whole world really, but lets try and narrow it down a bit) and 27 seems to be the age that most of them go. So here, purely for your personal interest (if you are interested) is a list of 6 of the more noteable rockstars that died at the age of 27, but there are plenty more:

Brian Jones – The Rolling Stones – found in the bottom of his swimming pool at his home on 3rd july 1969 (It should be you, The Rolling Stones)

Jim Morrison - The Doors – Found in the bathtub of an apartment in Paris on the 3rd of July 1971  (Mock Jim Morrison Interview)

Jimi Hendrix – Swallowed 9 sleeping pills and then vomitted in his sleep, asphyxiating himself while unconscious on 18th of september 1970. (Hendrix Album)

Janis Joplin – Died of a herione overdoes that may well have been mixed with alcohol on the 4th october 1970, around 2 weeks after hendrix. She had recorded a birthday tape for John Lennon which arrived at his door the day after she died (Janis Joplin at Woodstock)

Kurt Cobain – Nirvana – Found dead at his home with a shotgun laying next to him and most of his head missing by an electrician who’d come to install a security system on 8th April 1994. (Kurt Cobain)

Richey Edwards – Manic Street Preachers – His body was never found and he was assumed deceased in november 2008 (Autumnsong by Manic Street Preachers)

So if you’re in a band and are older than 27, stats say you’ll be alright, but if you’re younger than 27, when you get to that age you may want to cut back on the drugs and booze and crazy living, only until you’re 28, then you can go nuts.

Bruno!

So as we all know, Sacha Baron Cohen has created another documentary style film that follows the journey of another one of his brilliant characters, Bruno. With the amount of hype surrounding this film you must have been hiding under a rock for the last few weeks if you haven’t heard of it or don’t know at least a little bit about it.

At the beginning of the film Bruno is a host of an Austrian fashion TV show which he subsequently gets fired from and embarks on a journey to Hollywood to try to become a celebrity.

We soon learn (although you could have guessed from just seeing the trailers) that Bruno is homosexual and very sexually active. The whole film revolves around not only pushing the limits of what is acceptable on a cinema screen, but also highlighting ignorance and intollerance in people.

Although on the surface it may appear that the film consists of nothing more than gay jokes and contraversy, it all has a point, (well, I say that, MOST of it has a point, but there are some bits that seem to be in there for no other reason than the novelty of having a penis flapping around on screen, but that was entertaining enough through shock-value alone) and the point of it is to point out the traditionalist, narrow minded ignorance that people STILL have despite the times we live in. One of the best examples of this is when he decides that in order to be a big Hollywood star, he needs to be straight like all the others (Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt etc.) and so he goes to a christian priest in an attempt to get himself converted from homosexuality. This scene is one of my favourites as it just points out the stubbornness of christianity (and most religions really) and its refusal to believe anything other than what their prehistoric teachings say, despite the fact that it has been proven that homosexuality is not a choice, but a biological/genetic thing and despite the fact that Bruno is SO clearly gay and nothing else, (he even says that the idea of making love to women repulses him) the preist carrys on telling him that he must effectively, bottle it all up, push it to the back of his mind and BE straight, which anyone can tell is a one way ticket to depression and then possibly some kind of brain tumour for someone that knows they’re gay.

Another great scene in the film, and probably my personal highlight of the whole feature is when Bruno discovers that when people get kidnapped, videos of them get displayed around the world and so that can be a way for him to become famous, so he then travels to the Middle East in order to try and get kidnapped.

He interviews one a member of a suspected terrorist organisation with a translator, and I absolutely love this scene because you can tell that it is completely real and unstaged and he is basically asking this terrorist to kidnap him. Brilliant. The man does not look impressed with the questions he is being asked and you wonder how far he will push him, and then he says something like this; “You should really consider shaving off your beards because your King Osama looks like a sort of, dirty wizard or a homeless santa” at this point the translator pauses before telling the interveiwee what Bruno has said, but then he demands to know exactly what was just said, and so that translator tells him. He then goes very stern faced and says something in his own language which the translator doesn’t translate, he simply says “Leave now, seriously get out of here now” and you then see Bruno being escorted through the town centre with a veil over his head saying “I have been advised to leave the Middle East” Ha! I bet he was advised to leave the Middle East because I reckon he would have been shot if he’d stayed there much longer!

So to summarise, I rated Bruno very highly. Even though it’s an unconventional comedy in the way that (aside from the obvious) you may not be physically laughing the whole way through, but my god you will be entertained.

Click for another Bruno review

Music Weekend, Kicking Kays, [inrem] (continued)

So yesterday I posted about the first live music event I attended this weekend where I went along to support my mates and their band. And then the next day I had a gig of my own, which turned out to be the most fun I’ve had playing a show in a long time, possibly ever.

So we arrived without any real hiccups, set up and sound-checked while Roger Federer and Andy Roddick were battling out in the Wimbledon final on TV which we ended up missing the end of because we went to subway. Never mind, subway was good. But anyway there’s not really a great deal to say about anything that happened before or after we played, but the other bands were alright. I’m not entirely sure what the first band was called, possibly Seethe, but I’m not sure, and they were distinctly alright I think. They were pretty much generic metal with some cool guitar bits in there but they could easily have been any other local heavy metal band on the scene, with heavy, pounding and shredding guitars and a massive guy at the front roaring down the mic, as I’ve said, they were alright, the lead singer would make a good front man on a bigger stage I reckon, but on the whole they were pretty much the same as most of the bands that we play with, relentlessly heavy tracks which you can’t really distinguish between because they’re all kind of the same.

Although they did stick in my mind more than either of the other bands, neither of whom do I know the names of but if I remember correctly they were both again, alright. When it came time for us to play I wasn’t expecting it to be anything special. Just another gig in a pub like we’ve done hundreds of before. But while we were setting up Dan (vocalist) turned round to all of us and said, “Right, I wouldn’t worry too much about being super-tight tonight, lets just give it energy up the ass crack” so when we started playing we all immediately began jumping around as usual trying to look energetic and impulsive without looking like I’m trying to look energetic and impulsive. I don’t feel like I ever look completely natural onstage, I feel like I’m just kind of moving around because everyone else is, but on Sunday night while playing that gig, in a small pub in front of about 15 people I suddenly just got lost in the music and full on went for it. I don’t think I’ve ever exuded that much energy before during a live show, but I felt like I was completely at ease and knew what I was doing.

It was the first time I’ve ever played a gig in shorts as well, and I’m not a big believer in co-incidences so I reckon it was the shorts freeing my legs that allowed me to move around so freely and naturally. Now that I’ve done that, I cannot wait for our next gig because it’s a battle of the bands final which is being headlined by Exit Avenue, one of the biggest bands still gigging locally, and it’s in a professional theatre with a stage that’s bigger than the whole pub we played in on Sunday and so now I’ve properly got my groove on, I think that gig is gonna be insane, and it’ll be nice if we win but I’ve heard all the other bands are pretty good so we’ll have to pull something special out of the bag if we want to have a good chance.

So that’s pretty much it, I had an eventful weekend and found my form while playing live onstage, we have two more band practices, then I’m away for a week and Dan is away for two weeks, then when we get back, we’ve got the final, so let’s hope that sun, sea and general merriment doesn’t erase all of our performance skill and make us forget how to play our songs lol. Although given the amount I’m planning on drinking and the overall amount of the holiday that will probably be gone from my memory by the time I get back, I wouldn’t be surprised if some other stuff went with it!

Either way, I’ll keep you up to date about who, when, why, where and what shizz goes down. X

Music Weekend, Kicking Kays, [inrem]

So this weekend was pretty musically eventful for me. Two shows in total. I only played at one of them myself but a few of my good mates are in a band and they were playing a gig in a little village called Blunham. I’d never heard of it either but it’s just outside bedford. So yeah, having been at the cinema in Bedford watching Ice Age 3 (pretty good, nothing all that special though) I decided to go straight there, which turned out to be a bad idea because we got there before the band!

It was an all day “village fete” style affair with a lorry with a side-panel missing as the stage. Given that it was a day time sort of event we all sort of guessed that my friends band (Kicking Kays) would be on at some point during the day like, six or maybe sevenish, but no, they were told when we got there that they would be on at 9 – 9:30, and considering we got there at around half past four, we had a lot of time to kill.

So we began lying on the grass in the sun watching people fly their model aeroplanes in the field next to us, which appeared to be part of the whole event. One of the model planes flew right into the power-lines and the music cut out and the bouncy castle started deflating (full of children) – hilarious. The power was only out for a short time, around 20 seconds or so, but even so, we started to think it wasn’t coming back on and I don’t actually know who it was that flew the plane into the power lines, but I bet he/she was panicking.

The power did of course come back on, and that incident with the model plane was pretty much the last eventful thing that happened while we were there, after that, the six of us decided to go for a leisurely stroll round the village of Blunham. We started wandering down some back alleys behind houses, just generally trying to pass the time, and we came across a river. We’d been walking through some woodlandish area and then we saw a river with a weir stretching out in front of us. It was pretty wide as far as little back-water village rivers go, and pretty deep, and so of course the question was, who is going to get in?

We should have all known the answer to this question as if anyone was going to get in, it was only ever going to be one person and sure enough, with the offer of £12 on the table, Danny Barton, the lead singer and guitarist in Kicking Kays was in the water and swimming about. Sam, the bassist got down into his underwear and almost went fully in, but I think decided against it as Danny looked pretty damn cold when he got out!

So, Danny was of course dripping wet having been in the river (and not seen a penny from any of us I might add) and Sam was wandering around in nothing but his boxer shorts, it was fairly obvious to passers by that they’d been in the river, but what were they going to do? There wasn’t a “no swimming” sign anywhere. Or so we thought.

On wandering to the other side of the river (there was a bridge) we saw, clear as day, a big sign with the name of the river on it (I can’t remember what it was called) and “No Fishing” and “No Swimming” in big red writing. So, given that Danny was STILL wet and Sam (for some reason) was STILL in his boxers, we thought someone was probably going to say or do something less than friendly any minute as there was pretty much a steady stream of people walking past, so we decided to head back to the field.

Upon arriving back we were still only around halfway through the wait, but nothing more of note happened, so after a LONG wait, Kicking Kays were finally on the stage, and despite a slightly dodgy guitar sound on one of the guitars, they were absolutley brilliant. They kind of have their own brand of rock, I don’t really know what to call it other than Kay Rock, but it’s almost a cross between the Foo Fighters and Kings Of Leon, although when you imagine that match it doesn’t really sound like the Kays, I don’t know, you’ll have to listen to them (myspace.com/kickingkays) they really are very good. When onstage they combine their music with their natural ability to make people laugh and all in all I’d say Kicking Kays are one of my all time favourite bands to watch live, and they’re getting lazy with their gigging and general self promotion so anyone reading this blog needs to go to their myspace and comment the hell out of it saying that they should keep at it ‘cos they’re good.

So yeah, that’s one half of my music weekend, I’ve rambled a bit more than I intended to so I’ll post about the Sunday tomorrow.

Much Love x

[inrem] & local music scene

So if you’ve read some of my previous posts then you will know that I play in a band called In Remission (a name which we are thinking of changing, possibly to [inrem]) and basically we feel that we have come to the end of our first gigging era.

We started playing shows in September 2008 and from then have had around 15-20 gigs booked and played, I reckon before we calmed it down a bit we were averaging 2 shows a month, but anyway we think we are going to take a small break from the live shows to concentrate on some new material. I know it seems like a step in the wrong direction but we have made ourselves a pretty well established presence in the local scene, quite a few promoters put us on for the first time because we contacted them and then asked us to come back for a headlining slot, which is quite nice. Things seemed to be happening really fast. I think most of that was down to our manager beavering away in her own time trying to get us places which of course we are forever grateful for. It started with gig dates piling up and then we had a couple of press interviews and a radio interview which were all pretty cool, then things kind of went a bit stale, and that’s something we never wanted to happen because we didn’t want to end up as another band that showed some potential once and then just kind of dried up playing the same local venues month in month out not getting anywhere. As far as we’re concerned this is something to avoid at all costs.

So we have decided that we are going to take a little break from the live shows and try to disappear for a while, during which time we’ll look to writing some new material as the stuff we are writing seems to keep on getting better and more musically mature and at the moment we are trying to fit writing in around shows and stuff so we tend to not make the songs all that they can possibly be because we don’t have the time to go through them all with a fine-toothed comb so to speak.

So the point of this time off is to get some more tunes in the bank and really go at them until everything goes and flows exactly where it should, and then, sad though it is (for us anyway) we will probably think about retiring some of the older songs that we have surpassed as a band in terms of musical maturity so that hopefully by the end of this break we’ll have a set of around 12-13 songs that are all 100% killer tracks.

Towards the end of the break we intend to go into a studio (I say “a” studio because we don’t know which one yet!) and get some really high quality recordings done, probably just a couple of songs or maybe three, but few enough so that in the five days we are planning on spending there, a producer will have all the time he needs to, you know……produce them.

Then after all that we are planning on exploding back upon the scene and making things move along quicker than last time, we’ll get back in contact with all of the promoters that liked us, tell them that we’ve re-vamped our stuff and that they should totally give us some gig dates, and then hope that some of them do. We’ll force ourselves onto some sort of publicly available media apart from the Internet (the Internet goes without saying) and I’ve got some marketing strategies up my sleeve that may or may not work (I don’t really know enough about marketing and commerce etc. to say whether these plans will work or not but I reckon it’s worth a go) and yeah, that’s pretty much the plan, make ourselves the best band around and then force ourselves upon the public. It’s gonna be fun. X [inrem]

Kicking Kays

Success/Failure with Ex-Nihlo

So Saturday night was the night that I traded in my old six string for the chunkier, heavier four-stringed version, the bass guitar for one night only. One of my friend’s bands was in need and who was i to decline? I’d spent the Wednesday night and the Friday night learning the songs and it was all going to go seamlessly.  But anyway, we arrived and got told that we were playing first which wasn’t really ideal because nobody ever remembers the first band on, and seeing as it was a battle of the bands final we could have done with people remembering us , but hey, someone has to go first and I guess we just drew the short straw.

So after sound-checks and a short measure of merriment we were being told “5 minutes!” so we strapped on our respective axes, wheeled the amps onto the playing area (or carried the ones that didn’t have wheels) and began to put plugs in sockets, then before I knew it, we had started.

The first song did not go well. Not for me anyway, even though I had convinced myself that I knew all of the riffs and would be fine, as soon as the first song started, I had the familiar feeling that I recognised from practising with the guys, the feeling of  “oh crap, what am I supposed to be doing in this bit?”. But it wasn’t so bad in practise because when I got lost either Matt or Jonny (the guitarists) would turn and show me their fretboard so that I could just follow along with the root notes, but they were both moving far too much during the live show, and with enough hair to keep a wig maker happy for a year between them, i could barely see their fingers among the flashing lights and flying locks, let alone their position on the fretboard, so I had to kind of ‘wing’ the first track.

It got easier after the first song because I knew that the bass started the second one, and that was an easy riff, and then the rest of the song just sort of rolled out without too many hiccups. All the while I was kind of, rocking on the spot, trying to look impulsive and energetic rather than uncomfortable and trying too hard, although I think with the amount of time i spent blatantly staring at the guitars for guidance I probably did look uncomfortable but hey, I was playing  strange songs on a strange instrument and I was under pressure, and I think most people knew that, well, most people that were there to see us anyway, so I think I got away with maybe not looking entirely natural onstage.

By the time the third song came around I was thankful for a break. The third song was a slower one that was simply 3 notes all the way through on bass, the old 4, 4, open, 2 sequence (fret numbers) and so we all just had a bit of a chill out for that one which was nice considering my mouth was dryer than Gandhi’s flip flops by this point and sweat was pouring out of places I didn’t even know existed. All this was about to change with the beginning of the fourth song. This number was the most technically challenging with quite a bit of fast finger moving which I’m usually ok with, but everything is so much bigger and involves more effort when playing bass and pretty soon, my fret hand had almost seized up, but I just tried to relax it a bit and keep going, it wasn’t like I could just stop playing.

I think the fifth song drew the set to a close, I can’t remember if it was 5 or 6 that we played, but either way I was absolutely gone and as soon as we’d finished playing I tried to wheel my bass amp out round the back of the venue (the way we came in) to my car, I immediately regretted this as it was pouring down with the fattest heaviest rain I’ve seen in a while, and then when I got round there I discovered that the gate was locked and i couldn’t get out with it. Brilliant. So I had to wheel it back through the hordes of people I’d just had to steer it through along with many “excuse me”s and “sorry”s  and so five minutes later I was back inside with my amp having achieved nothing with that struggle except got very wet. So I thought “right, sod the amp for now, I’m gonna go see what the guys thought of the show”. 

So I went to find them, and basically spent the next couple of hours just chillin round a sheltered table outside. I got the impression that the rest of the band thought it went really well, Matt said that he hadn’t enjoyed a gig that much in ages and they all seemed to think it went pretty well, and so did I truth be told. I thought it was a good performance backed up by powerful music which despite a few cock ups on the bass, sounded pretty awesome.

I had left before the result was announced (it was a battle of the bands final)  and so I had to find out that we didn’t win by a text from a highly inebriated guitarist. So we didn’t win the battle of the bands, which would have been the icing on the cake, however I considered it a small personal victory as it was my first time playing bass live onstage and I didn’t completely screw it up, in fact, I think it went quite well.

See the beginning of this story – Bass Guitar

Until next time I have a story to tell,

Speak to you later x

Learning bass guitar by tomorrow

So here’s the scoop, I’ve agreed to play bass guitar for my good friend matt’s band at a battle of the bands final that they’re playing tomorrow night as their bassist can’t make it, despite the fact I play a six string guitar and have done since day 1, but bass can’t be all that hard can it? I learnt a couple of their songs last night which weren’t too difficult, although there are some elements of tech-metal in there which are hard work on a chunky thing like a bass, having developed a nimble playing style on lighter strings and a smaller fret board, when it comes to jumping your fingers around quickly on a bass, physically it’s a lot more work, which was something I wasn’t expecting.

People say that the bass guitar is an idiots version of a six string. I’ve never agreed with this anyway but learning these metal songs that I still can’t really remember (which is worrying as I’m supposed to be playing them live tomorrow!) has proved that theory wrong. I’ve actually discovered that I quite like the bass guitar, I’ve had a go at some slapping and I can do a simplified version of what Flea plays at the start of the Chili’s “Higher Ground” cover and that’s about it, but I think I wanna learn some more slap stuff, it sounds so cool and you feel so full of groove and funk when you do it, it’s awesome!

But anyway, I’m having a band practice with the guys tonight to try and tighten up on the ones I know and to learn from scratch the ones I don’t…….I don’t see tomorrow night going well, ha, but it should be a good laugh whatever happens. The band is called Ex-Nihlo and if you’re going to be around the Luton area on saturday the 27th June 09 then come on down to the castle tavern, it’ll be amusing to watch me struggle if nothing else! I’ll keep you posted on how it goes. 

P.S. Check this guy’s bass out, it dam sexy >>>Bass Guitar

P.P.S Check this shit out, he has got to be one of the best bassists alive.

Andy Mckee, amazing guitarist.

Holy crap I’ve just discovered Andy Mckee on you tube, he plays an acoustic guitar (with both hands doing all kinds of crazy stuff) while playing the percussive rhythm at the same time. Mental. Anyway this song is called drifting and it’s my favourite one that I could find. Enjoy