Driving to work I slotted in a CD which has only been played once in my wife’s car where it worked perfectly! When I got to work I had a look and there are some pretty nasty scratches. Which left me wondering how do you get scratches out of CD’s?

I look took a look at Amazon which revealed some pretty scathing comments regarding commercially available products.

This product will not fix your discs. It claims to fix deep scratches but it can’t! Do not buy this product, it is a waste of time any money. I have sent this back to Amazon to get a refund.

This product is awful. It literally uses sandpaper to remove scratches on the CD/DVD. It completely destroyed my CD. The polishing pad did not polish it one bit. Luckily, I tested it on an old worthless one. Straight in the bin it went!

This product is great, if you want to make coasters out of DVDs. They are good for nothing more after having been run through the device!

That said some of the more expensive products had a mixture of scathing and compliment reviews. On balance of reviews the SkipDr Premier (Automatic) looks about the best, but £24 is a fair amount of money to pay for something that might completely destroy a CD! Especially as the machines only good for around 50 discs and one of the positive reviews suggests you’ll need to run a disc though around 20 times – which means that’s just two discs making it look an expensive gamble.

Independent reviews of machines are hard to come-by and an up to date review even less so – I guess a lot of people just don’t use discs anymore! PC Mag picks the Alera DVD/CD Disc Repair Plus as it’s “Editor’s Choice” but that’s back in 2005 – the machine doesn’t appear to be available anymore although something by Aleratec looks remarkably similar as does the manufactures’ name come to that – it’s available at Amazon with one appalling review – although checking the USA Amazon site reveals a more even spilt between good and bad – however it is considerably more expensive than the SkipDr machine.

Overall I’d have to say a machine is no better than a 50-50 bet.

WikiHow has a pretty comprehensive article on How to Fix a Scratched CD and includes a video showing how to use toothpaste – which is certainly a cheaper option than a commercial machine.

Burning Issues carried out a test of various CD repair options – although I don’t believe it has been published since 2007! And this article appears to be from December 2000 – the interesting point is how well Brasso (Wikipedia has instructions on using Brasso) performed against commercial machines and how poor toothpaste performed which isn’t what wikiHow suggests as this table shows (Note many of the specialist product are no longer available).

CD Repair Table Collated from Burning Issue - click table to enlarge

The wikiHow article had one suggestion that made a lot more sense.

Have the CD professionally refinished. If the disc still doesn’t play correctly, bring it in to a music store (especially one that sells used CDs) or a DVD rental store and ask if they can repair the disc for you. Many of these businesses have CD refinishing machines that do a remarkable job, and they’ll probably charge you less than five dollars to repair the CD.

The website Total Disc Repair which as well as supplying disc repair machines costing from £300 upwards also has a link to Play Like New where you can type in your post code and find a local disc repairer – there’s also a couple of links to online specialists.

Back to my original problem – I’m going to use a lens cleaner on my car’s CD player – I don’t think I’ve done it since I got the car – nearly three years ago. And if I need to get a CD repaired I think I’ll try out one of the local disc repairers.

Now I love Dark Side of the Moon – but 10 different versions over six CD’s who on earth is going to want to listen to that lot once let alone fork out almost £90!

Pink Floyd: The Dark Side of the Moon Immersion Edition – review | Music | The Guardian.

Members of legendary US rock band REM have announced they are splitting up after 31 years.

“We have decided to call it a day as a band,” the band said. “To anyone who ever felt touched by our music, our deepest thanks for listening.”

The group found fame with a string of albums, notably 90s hits Out of Time and Automatic for the People.

BBC News – Rock legends REM announce split.

It’s long overdue really they’ve not done anything of much worth for years.

Played U2’s No Line On The Horizon album and it sounds even more banal than the first time I listened. Lyrically I ask you! Take this from track two Moment of Surrender – I was punching in the numbers / At the ATM machine / I could see in the reflection / A face staring back at me / At the moment of surrender / Of vision over visibility / I did not notice the passers-by / And they did not notice me – now can anybody believe moneybags Bono uses a cash point? The whole things a complete waste of space and time!

Well we’re halfway through the year so time to list what I think are the best so far:

1. The King Is Dead by The Decemberists
2. The People’s Key by Bright Eyes
3. Helplessness Blues by Fleet Foxes
4. Grown Unknown by Lia Ices
5. Kiss Each Other Clean by Iron and Wine
6. Get Well Soon by Sarabeth Tucek
7. Smart Flesh by The Low Anthem
8. Last Night on Earth by Noah and The Whale
9. Angles by The Strokes
10. Burst Apart by The Antlers

Move over BBC 6 music! Amazing Radio is a national radio station dedicated exclusively to playing emerging and independent music.

All the music on Amazing Radio comes from amazingtunes.com, the ethical website where artists get 100% of the download revenues. Since 2006 we’ve been gathering fresh music from unsigned artists. There’s now more than 29,000 songs, all of them new, all of them from unsigned bands.

If you’ve a DAB radio you can listen to Amazing Radio or if you prefer you can of course use the internet.

Hat Tip: The Guardian.

I’m hearing rumours that the End of the Road festival has increased its capacity to 12,000 which means that the main stage is being moved from the garden to a field outside – for those who’ve been it’s rumoured the location will be where the showers and disabled camping was situated last year. I’ve conflicting reports that the Garden Stage will become the second stage but this is more idle speculation.

Finding out the facts on the capacities of any festival is difficult – in the case of End of the road you’ll find it listed as either 5,000 or 8,000.

So with facts thin on the ground all I’ve managed to glean (look I’ve got a day job to do) is from an agenda for a meeting of the North Dorset Licensing Sub Committee for the 11th January 2011 in which paragraph five states:

The festival caters for a wide mix of people. The layout of the stages will be dependent on the number of tickets sold, with one layout being used if less that 8000 ticket sales are sold and another layout being used if more than 8000 tickets are sold. Aileen Powell, North Dorset Licensing Sub Committee.

Nerina Pallot isn’t going to set the world on fire – but I liked her second album Fires which I find enjoyable listen when driving the car. What I never realised is the difficulties Nerina faced in releasing her albums and ultimately the comprise she made to release her fourth album.

I first released an album in 2001, on a major label, just before iPod fever and at the dawn of Napster and filesharing. Album sales were only just tailing off from their 1990s peak. As a result, budgets remained robust: you could buy a modest semi in Croydon with the average video budget and I was regularly given, gratis, clothing worth more than my monthly mortgage repayment.

My first album sold about two copies, and so I soon found myself on my own record label – not in the way people like Mick Hucknall do when they release albums as a pastime between taking the new Ferrari for a spin and popping to Bali for the weekend, but by default. I am in complete and utter awe of people who actually choose to start their own label, because I had no real idea how it would consume my every waking moment for a couple of years.

After completing my second album, Fires, I set up Idaho records in 2005 in order to release it. I lacked manufacturing know-how, distribution clout and extra cash – remortgaging and maxing credit cards was not enough. There was no online campaign budget – it was me, on my laptop, in any spare moment I had, cold-MySpacing people I thought might be interested in my music. Tour support consisted of playing as many gigs as I could, on my own, selling my album before and after sets and praying I sold enough to buy the petrol to get me to the next gig. An early casualty of this phase in my career was my driving license, battered after a particularly busy day on the M4 when I racked up nine points, and finally surrendered in Scotland courtesy of a hidden speed camera.

After selling 10,000 albums on my own, I entered into a new record deal with Warner Bros licensing the album, and I got the shot in the marketing arm that only a major label can bring. Suddenly, the same single that I had released to little fanfare (apart from Radio 2, to which I pretty much owe my career) was put on radio playlists everywhere and became a chart hit. Supermarkets started stocking my album. A major label has money, leverage and influence that is simply unavailable to most independents, and that isn’t going to change any time soon.

I felt the difference between those two worlds again when Fires didn’t sell the 5m copies Warners had hoped for, and so I dusted off Idaho one more time to release my third album, The Graduate, in 2009. It was not like starting from scratch – I am incredibly lucky to have a very loyal and supportive fanbase built from previous adventures in recording – but when promotion time arrived again, I had acquired a few more credit cards. I had also, by this time, acquired a husband, who would periodically find the card statements hidden under the sofa and make me open the bloody things. We effectively became a Mom and Pop label.

But, again, it was exciting. I found that breaking out of the usual major label timetable of releasing albums roughly every two years meant that I was steadily creative, and could make work and get it to an audience immediately. I also started a parallel career writing and producing for other artists. But in the four years between Fires and The Graduate, music sales had further declined, and it was hard enough selling copies to meet manufacturing and promotional costs, never mind make a little extra on top.

So, in the summer of 2010, when the head of Universal called and asked me if I would like to make a record for the company, I did not agonise over my decision. I was heavily pregnant, and while I was dying to record new material, I was conscious I could not be spending cash on putting out records when I had a mouth to feed on the way. I may yet resurrect Idaho, but, for the time being, I am just incredibly grateful that I get to make music for a living. It’s getting harder than ever out there, and I am uncommonly lucky. Nerina Pallot, The Guardian.

Rise Warwick Arts Centre branch will close in the coming months due to lack of custom. Just Played.

Grim times indeed for music retailers – Rise is my favourite but with just two other stores in Cheltenham and Bristol I’m luck in having both with easy reach of my doorstep – how long before these last vestiges of the music stores that once dominated every high street disappear forever?