Recordings

So this blog has been (partly) functioning as a recording diary. And after everything got stolen there wasn't much to record. Recently though we've been able to start again: notably Nuncle who is recording stuff for St Cuthberts.

Today (1 April) was actually his third session; other recordings were on 11 Feb and 11 March. He's recorded about an hour of stuff each time, generally bits and pieces for St Cuth's, but also some lovely original stuff like "Where to Run" and "How Long" which is just great.

* * *

I've also been doing some recording with Matt in Auckland not to any great effect - but this evening I also "remixed" a great U2-ish song of his called "sleep" but putting the pro-tools BOOM drum machine under it (because his version was done with Reason and I don't have Reason any more). But I think a "straighter" version will sounds better: this one is just an oddity.

Kath's got a blog

Katherine has joined blogger - at this rate, it will be facebook in 2020 and twitter in 2030... Kath's blog is at http://keresley.blogspot.com: I'm not sure why it's at that URL but there it is. Her first post is called A Handful of Rubbish but I don't think it's rubbish: rather the opposite.

PLOPGIFT08 (antidote to Nashville)

I'm in Nashville attending the PLOP 08 conference. As part of the tikanga of the conference, attendees are supposed to give gifts "that represent themselves, their work, or their companies" to other participants. My gift (once again) is a CD, this year a mix CD. I didn't have time to make covers, so here's the tracklisting, if you got one of these and would like to know what you're listing to, or if you want to make one yourself.

Up to the Sky, 4:21, The Bats remixed by Trillion, Audio Agriculture In The 21st Century
Overground, 3:22, Pine, Akira Sunrise
Bright Grey, 5:03, The Phoenix Foundation, Happy Ending
Tough Culture, 5:55, Strawpeople, World Service
She's Leaving Him, 3:14, Nothing, A Warm Gun
Passenger 26, 6:38, Don McGlashan, Warm Hand
Stars Without Makeup, 3:03, David Yetton, Blow Out Your Candles
No Ordinary Day, 3:51, Let's Planet, La Gloria
Together now, 6:06, Jeremy Taylor, Black Balloons
Hotline, 3:10, Disasteradio, Visions
It's More Fun To Compute, 3:52, Bubblyfish, 8-bit Operators: A Tribute to the Music of Kraftwerk
Nuclear Weapons Are Morally Indefensible, 6:30, Tomorrowpeople
Love Will Tear Us Apart, 4:22, bis, We Are Bis From Glasgow, Scotland [Greatest Hits]
Turquoise House, 3:20, Jim White, Transnormal Skiperoo<

Citron

So in spite of the sentiments in the last post about being well-fed we ended up at a loose end in Wellington last night, thought about the Matterhorn but it was a two hour wait, and so on the spur of the moment rang Citron.

So yes they do do walk-ups for the 9 course Degustation menu which I'm not supposed to list here as it might spoil the surprise. And it was great. Hard to describe. French/Kiwi/ with a touch of micro-gastronomie. We arrived around 7.30 and left at 11: but it really didn't seem that long at all. I didn't think we'd eaten that much, nor drunk that much, but, well, we were both a bit under the weather this morning.

And why so many posts? Umm, because I was thinking - "I need a studio log book to log what I'm recording" and then I realised that this is it? Or because I then started reading through the back-issues and it was more interesting that I'd thought (to me at least). At least it's a record of some kind of something.

Damned if you're rich.

And yesterday, I recorded yet another song. Basic blues, crap guitar playing, kind of depressing really. Spot the lyrics?

You're damned if you're rich: you've had your comfort now.
You're damned if you're well-fed: you've gonna starve.
You're damned if you're happy: you've gonna sing the blues.
You're damned if everybody loves you: think of the idiots everybody loves.

So the catch is, this means I've now got 11 songs down, one of which doesn't really fit with all the rest (see Family Last). So another two then I have twelve, which will do for this project, and I can then get on to something else. I just have to conjure two more songs up from nowhere.

Or perhaps ten songs is enough and I can move on already?

We're Going on a Bear Hunt

So this post really should have been made last week.

On Monday 1 sept, my Brother "Nuncle" and a friend of his "Chris" came over to record a song for Chris's school production (she's a schoolteacher in Newtown). Basically I think it's a sing-along track for the "going on a bear hunt" kids story.

She recorded piano and then we put in some drums and doubled the bass notes with a garish synth --- and all of this was done in GarageBand. No Live, no ProTools, just, well, GarageBand.

I was mostly relieved that everything worked :-) Especially the MIDI from my old CS1X blue keyboard (that I only ever got to use as a controller anyway, even though it doesn't have aftertouch) through the ReMOTE-25 and then into the MAC

Say No! to Metal

Was in Slob Out today, bumped into Richard Mansfield.

Came up with another good name Say No to Metal (or alternatively Fear of Metal) when looking for the Mulchzoid album by David Mulcahy. They've rearranged the tables, so the Electronica section is next to the Metal section. Thus, accidentally browsing Modest Mouse, losing my place, suddenly I'm looking at Megadeath.

And, so far as I can tell, Mulchzoid's Laptop Dancer is good (and certainly has a good name, though I might have picked Mulcazoid for the band name :-). Sort of carries on from where Oddy Knocky left off, but with rather more techno, a bit of New Order in there, and a gratuitous female on the cover.

In other news, well, no posts from me from June till mid August. Got back from Paphos summer to an NZ winter, and went to ground, just trying to get through each day. Perhaps things will be better now.