Inneresting

Tablehooter on Soundcloud.

2011-09-25T04:37:00.000-07:00

Just a quickie to say that you can get all the Tablehooter mini-albums on Soundcloud!

I'm taking a break from music at the moment as I'm in my final year at art college and I really need to concentrate on my visual practise! Hopefully I'll start making music again when it's over. Degree show next May 2012 @ University of Chichester where hopefully I'll be constructing a full-size military bunker with sound installation..that's the plan at any rate. :/

http://soundcloud.com/tablehooter

Inneresting.

Tablehooter vid II - Casio MT-520, SA-35, Hazarai and Holy Stain

2011-03-09T11:55:00.000-08:00

The Tablehooter rides again.

Inneresting.

Tablehooter Casio and Guitar Session

2011-03-02T14:17:00.000-08:00

A long minidisc loop session, painstakingly edited down into individual segments for you to observe how I layer up my silly tunes..of course I left on the guitar rock out section at the end...well just a bit of it.

Inneresting.

Tablehooter volumes 5 & 6

2011-03-01T15:58:00.000-08:00

Just trying out the Soundcloud deal to see what it's like. So far it seems really good to me, especially since myspace has gone so far down the tubes as to be irretrievable. Soundcloud is just about the music, not advertising! Much like bandcamp but with the added interactive commentary element which is a great feature and a novel way to build up a community around you and your peers. Soundcloud may well be the new myspace although there's no provision for image slideshows and the like which was one of the things I did like about myspace, the ability to have all ones creative output in one place...miss that.

Anyways here's 2 new Tablehooter collections, 'Dundee' is a casio driven collection with no guitars but the new and experimental inclusion of spoken word..actually it's just Dundee swear words and phrases..very uncouth...whereas 'Edglands' is a mainly guitar landscape insired by my latest encounters with psychogeography and the book 'Edgelands' just published about the experience of the UK's in-between forgotten noman's lands that make up much of our national urban landscape.

Right then, here's the stuff....they just keep a comin'...

Tablehooter vol 5 : Edgelands by Tablehooter

Tablehooter vol 4 : Dundee by Tablehooter

My kind of bicycle

2010-07-05T02:34:00.000-07:00

Why has it taken so long for someone to combine retro good looks and an engine on a pushbike ?
Steampunk beautiful mini cafe racers. Well done guys.

http://www.imperialcycles.com/index.html

Inneresting

Knob twiddlers gazette

2010-07-03T14:48:00.000-07:00

Creative music machinery, studio engineering, production, boxes with knobs on, valves, transformers, classic golden age production stories, interviews, studio secrets of the pros, gear reviews, wild tales, microphones and soooo much more. And did I mention it's gratis. Sign up now and get this wonderful free geek mag through yer letterbox.

here: http://www.tapeop.com/subscription/

Innerested ?

Meet the new Boss

2010-07-01T13:53:00.000-07:00

Ok so it's a Roland...(BA-330) anyway, stereo portable PA with built mixer and FX (and fx loop). Runs off 8 AA batteries and with a boasted sound pressure level of 109 db (just short of a jumbo taking off!) and enough so they say for an audience of 80 people. Incredible, but is it true? Reviews are thin on the ground and all I can find is the groovy Roland promo vid. Why so ?

here's the lowdown.. (about 350 gbp by the way)

http://www.roland.com/products/en/BA-330/

While you are at it, check out his feather-weight wee brother, the mobile cube. I've bought one of these and I like it alot, it's got FRFF stereo speakers, dozens of inputs for guitar, mic and line, built in FX. It's dinky but vibey and has the classic JC chorus and a halfway decent reverb/delay duo, plug'n'play heaven. Again AA cells or Roland wall wart..and here I MUST STRESS use the recommended power supply, if you don't, the thing cuts out and farts about like an idiot..be warned, it needs the correct ampage to work properly, but get that bit right and this thing is LOUD as !!!!!

Not only that, it's only a hunner quid... bargain!

Inneresting.

Thinking about John Martyn

2010-07-01T13:34:00.000-07:00

This is a wee thing I wrote just after John died and emotions were running high. Just wanted to share it here since he's been on my mind of late.

It's been a week since Iain McGeachy left planet earth and it feels to me a bit like losing a friend.

Although I never met him, to me he was one of those people who are just always 'there' in the background of your life, almost taken for granted until...one day suddenly they're gone and you realize what they meant to you.

John Martyn's songs first worked themselves into my psyche as a teenager when I was in the throws of emotional turmoil and wonderment. I used to go and see him play live all over the country, wherever I moved to (and I've moved around alot) he would always appear at some point to play a gig, be it solo, duo or with his unceasingly excellent band. As a result, each song I listen to acts like a catalyst bringing a person or situation into my mind, a time and a place, a face and a twinge of emotion.

The gigs...some great..some not so great..everyone knows that story.

Personally I like to remember the first time I saw him play 'John Wayne' at the 'Mean Fiddler' London in the mid 80's, an intimate gig, he and the band were just stood on the floor 10 feet in front of me, it was almost frightening in its intensity, I'll never forget it. The Queens Hall in Edinburgh, Just him and Spencer Cousins, John with a huge joint in one hand and a large tumbler of black stuff in the other or the time he arrived late, played about 2 songs then stormed off in a mood...later in a pub around the corner some of the dissapointed crowd spotted him...

"hey John I travelled all the way from shetland to hear you play your songs...

"oh so it's sangs yer wantin' is it?". (I think he used the Scottish accent that night).

He then proceeded to play the entire set acoustically on a bar stool to an enraptured pub crowd.
There was also the time when performing a particularly intimate and spellbinding version of 'go down easy' the last chord hanging in the air around the entranced audience, John perhaps feeling uncomfortable with the emotional tension, let fly with the most enormous belch. Typically irreverent John behaviour.
Sometimes he'd turn up, play a solo gig then afterwards just hang around waiting to see if anyone wanted to go for a drink. I reckon it can be a very lonely life as a gigging solo musician on the road. I Really wish someone had had the courage to go up to him, (put it down to shyness of youth) but he just wandered away into the night, guitar case in hand. The nearest I ever got to John was buying a Jamieson's (with 1 piece of ice) for Alan Thomson after a brilliant gig at Burgess Hill many years later during the 'Glasgow Walker' tour, I remember Alan saying how John only needed a half of lager to be completely out of it, such was his
condition at the time.

And then finally and fittingly, the performance of 'Solid Air' in its entirety at Celtic Connections in Glasgow. John was suffering badly with the flu..or something..

"I don't know wether I'm dead or alive" he declared as he was wheeled on...

incoherent ramblings followed between songs..but he brought the house down when he referred to himself as a living "leg.. end"...I distinctly remember thinking to myself at the time, oh god he looks and sounds really fucked, and I wondered if I'd ever see him alive again. I didn't.

I suppose now, I no longer have to 'worry' about him, and I did worry in latter years, I think we all did. Maybe it's because I lost my own dad to drink a while back or maybe it's because I too was once a youthful curly haired singer-songwriter with an idealistic and over romantic view of the world that I miss John so much, perhaps I see a bit of him in me..he was a hero and a role-model, like my dad a larger than life slightly eccentric Scotsman, or maybe it's because I've absorbed so much of his music into my own work.

At the end of the day tho, he was also just a regular guy..fatally flawed, tortured and searching for release like the rest us...(ok like me), the matter of fact announcement of his death in the Irish Herald last week, listed in the 'M' section reminded me of this fact, and brought a wee tear to my eye at the same time. Aye, death is surely the great leveller.

MARTYN (Wollangrange, Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny) Jan. 29, 2009, John (Muscian) (formerly of Roberton, Langside, Glasgow); deeply missed by Teresa, Bari, Spencer, Wesley and Eimer, sister Jules, brother David, relatives and friends. R.I.P. Reposing at his home. Service at St. Mary's Church, Kells, Co. Kilkenny at 12.30 o'c. tomorrow (Sunday). Cremation in Newlands Cross Crematoriam at 3 o'c. on Monday. No flowers.

Collection during service.

Goodbye John and thankyou. We'll probably never see yer likes again.

Ex

Classic Tracks for Anoraks

2010-01-24T14:54:00.000-08:00

Being a bit of a recording nerd, I often wonder how the songs I have known and loved were recorded. I've read and heard lots of reports about the Beatles and how the mighty George Martin shaped their sound on 4-track tape machines..incredible really...The whole drum kit only had a single track and sometimes it was shared with other instruments too. I have also had the pleasure of playing around with the multi-track masters of some of the Sgt Peppers tracks and the magnum opus of Queens Bohemian Rhapsody..all 24 tracks of it. For those of you who don't know, these recordings were leaked onto the Internet as unmixed multi track recordings....(have a look on the torrent sites)...remixing them oneself feels like tinkering with the crown jewels or some other national treasure. Amazing to hear how the tunes were constructed and to hear all the little bits that didn't make it onto the final mix, realizing that John Deacons bass part has 3 whole tracks to itself and that the snare drum is doubled up on the heavy section..heehee.

Anyway, I'm writing this because I wanted to draw attention to a collection of excellent music geek articles written about the recording of classic tracks through the decades. The articles are from an excellent webzine called 'The Mix Online'.
Great stories and a wealth of info on microphone types and placements etc... I'll bet you can find a track that you love in there somewhere. Mine was David Crosby's 'Laughing'...wonderful stuff.

Check it out

http://mixonline.com/classic-tracks/

Inneresting

Bill Drummond at the end of recorded music.

2009-11-23T03:39:00.000-08:00

Long-time music biz maverick and arch provocateur, KLF founder and original thinking Scotsman Bill Drummond famous for amongst other things..the burning of one million great british pounds (see video below), "The Manual" or (how to have a number one hit the easy way) available here, recently recorded a podcast/lecture on the death of recorded music.
The lecture is a fascinating potted history of recording plus an extended Drummondesque projection into the future. Thought provoking stuff and I would say a positive and heartening message for music makers everywhere..(except the major record company darlings who sell squillions of albums...do they really still exist?..hands up Robbie and Madonna). The whole thing weighs in at around 23 minutes so have a listen sometime when you can relax with a cuppa and absorb the message. Thanks should also be extended to Tom Robinson for all his posts on the excellent freshonthenet.co.uk site, a veritable wealth of helpful information and advice for aspiring musical types wishing to assail the walls of the 'industry'.... to be honest, as an ageing singer/songwriter I'm not sure I can really be bothered with all that polava anymore, heck my music is already public domain and you can enjoy it for nothing...I reckon live music is where it's at or should I say, where it is going...rock on.

listen to the lecture here

Here's Drummond and Jimmy Cauty talking about the burning of the million quid, funny how upset some people get...I love it.

Inneresting

Jan Sochor - his camera never lies

2009-11-15T15:01:00.000-08:00

Thanks once again to the excellent Baroque Dub site for putting me onto these stunning photographs. One of the images that really struck me (the one of the old man sitting on the ground with his guitar) made me wonder about it's origins, and underneath it I found the link to the extraordinary photo blog of Jan Sochor.
Here is a brief bio from Jan's site ;

"Jan Sochor, freelance photographer & media designer.

He was born in the Czech Republic but he is changing his base between South America and Europe frequently, he lived and worked in Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Spain and the Czech Republic in the last five years. America has become a major theme for him since then. He focuses on documentary projects trying to show and tell about the (Latin) American continent, its everyday life, social, political and cultural issues."

(scary guys eh?)

Just take a look at these sets of images, they are some of the most beautiful, compelling and grittily real photographs I've seen in years.

www.jansochor.com

Inneresting.

Shoot first...think later

2009-11-15T14:59:00.000-08:00

I seem to be on a camera theme at the moment, so here's a little bit about one of my pet hobbies..(if I had the time to pursue it). Now I don't like using the word 'lomograph' much because it's about a massive branding excercise that gets my hackles up... So what is a lomograph? It's a photograph. That's right, so why call it something else? Well it's all about taking an out-of-date Russian 35mm camera 'the lomo' with a peculiar lens and light leaks and turning it into a tool for creating art...and an ethos..."shoot first, think later".
Random, super-saturated, vignetted images on film shot from the hip with plastic cameras is all the rage don't you know. Away go the 'proper' rules of photography to make way for the helter-skelter artistic anarchy of 'lomography'. Double exposures, check...light leakage, check...out of date filmstock, check...cross processing...double check. It would take far too long to describe the whole philosophy here...not to mention the plethora of anarchic cameras and fangled lo-tech accesories. Much better that you go and take a look at the world lomographic website and see for yourself...don't forget the 12 golden rules mind...including rule number 12.."disregard all previous rules"...you get the drift?

image by lonur

I adore the images that these cameras produce and I wholeheartedly embrace the ethos, allowing serendipidy to usurp the well practiced method...hell yeah, that's right up my street.

photo by lomoteddy

image by lonur

www.lomography.com/

and here's another one:

www.toycamera.com

Inneresting

Kristen Hersh and the creative commoner.

2009-10-11T13:43:00.000-07:00

I was trawling around on ccmixter the other day looking for accapella vocal tracks to sample when I came across the page of Kristen Hersh (Throwing Muses). It seems, being the wonderful experimental soul that she is, she has uploaded a load of bare vocal tracks for the remix community to play with.
For those of you who don't know ccmixter, it's a site, neigh a community, that provides samples for re-mixers and mash up freaks to use legally in their creations. Contributors can license samples and accapellas under the 'Creative Commons' licensing system, a flexible set of legal copyright licenses that grant 3rd parties the legal right to 'play' with the material as opposed to the standard copyright license which allows no freedom to use copy, share or create derivitaves. see www.creativecommons.org.uk/ for all the types available.

Here's a link to Kristen's accapellas on ccmixter and her cash music project page (great songs on here, and all available to remix and mash)

and ccmixter itself.

Inneresting.

Indulge me if you will.

2009-10-11T13:17:00.000-07:00

About 8 years ago we boldly moved from the South East of Engerland to a small and remote Scottish town. Our initial money making venture was to set up a shop. It was a tiny little box of a place, crammed with soft toys and all manner of handmade 'stuff', we called it 'Mock Turtle' and managed to scrape a meager existence from the dribble of tourists and local kids who visited us almost every day after school with their pocket money. Anyway the thing is, there were times when it was quiet, really quiet.... I decided to make use of the days by taking a boom box in there and hooking it up to my laptop. We had lots of background music in the shop so I just started trawling through our cd collection ripping loops out of all my favourite tracks. I had a demo version of Ableton Live 3 so I had to dump whatever I had made in a day onto a minidisc, then lose the project files forever (I couldn't save in the demo). In many ways this was a really good thing because it set a deadline and forced my hand into finishing things instead of tinkering endlessly, (which I find sucks the life out of lots of potentially good music).
So for about 2 weeks I made these tracks in between customers coming in and then just before closing time dumped them onto minidisc (the quality has suffered a bit due to the multiple analogue to digital conversions) but there you have it, a bunch of one off never to be repeated mash-ups, the tracks actually work rather well as a collection, I've had alot of good feedback about this one. Have a listen for yourself. Of course, there's not a legal sample anywhere in sight so if the feds come knocking on my door... I'll come peacefully officer.
Hope you enjoy it.

Download North East Of Nowhere (63 mb)

Inneresting

Now that's an iDea

2009-10-07T06:43:00.000-07:00

Recently I've been playing my heavily customized travelling guitar (which I'll show you all later), and thinking to myself...mmmm...it would be nice if I could just press a wee button and record this idea/riff/melody/chord sequence...wouldn't it be cool if there was a little recorder built right into this here guitar. Well, the very next day I discover that ovation have done just that! How come big companies always nick my ideas?

I like the immediacy of this...away with all the wires and pullava...one button and you're done.

Not too expensive either...nice one Ovation...or should I say innOvation :(
now all I need to do is find a little 4-track recorder that I can strap onto my guitar, then I'll have overdubbing too...even better!

http://www.ovationidea.com

Inneresting.

Home Entertainment Systems.

2009-10-06T03:12:00.000-07:00

Haha not a blog about about hi-fi or surround sound plasma screens, oh no no no. Quite the opposite in fact.

These days, with music descending into mp3 hell and non-stop visual entertainment becoming as ubiquitous as chips, people are seeking something REAL! There I've said it now, it's going to be the new zeitgeist, mark my words. Real entertainment by real human beings...in your home (or someone else's).

A few years back, I had the pleasure of attending such an event on a regular basis. Down in Lewes a lass named Aylla used to open her kitchen to all and sundry about once a month and in would come local entertainers of all denominations (including Arthur Brown the god of hellfire and his acoustic guitar). In also would come an appreciative audience, bottles in hands to sit on the kitchen floor drinking and enjoying the feast of homespun music and drama.
The whole place was only about 15 foot square and it could be a bit of a crush...but how great to witness artists wedged between you and the cooker giving it their all. Intimate.

Anyways, years later, 'Aylla's Kitchen' is all but a happy memory. But wait, I see we were not alone.

Here's a couple of sites that point to a resurgence...

First off themoth.org real people telling real stories...to save myself some typing I'm going to steal from my mate Andy's blog:

Just wanted to share my recent discovery of a phenomenon known as "The Moth", an organization founded in New York in 1997 by poet and novelist George Dawes Green, which celebrates the art of live storytelling.

There is a real mixture of humorous and genuinely moving real life tales, including an incredible (if somewhat gruesome) one by Ed Gavagan on this page:

http://www.themoth.org/listen

I can also recommend the Alan Rabinowitz "Man & Beast", and Richie DiSalvo's "Anthony The Hat" stories from that same page.

The podcast has some gems too, including NYPD police officer Steve Osborne's "Mug Shot" which is worth listening to for the wonderfully extreme NY accent alone!

I think it's difficult to beat the age old pleasure of hearing real life experiences being shared by "normal" everyday souls...it's refreshing and far more compelling in my view than the synthetic, trashy, formulaic soap operas and dramas we are fed on TV these days (with the exception of quality shows like "The Wire" of course!)

Anyway, this inspired concept has got me thinking about the oncoming Winter nights and the prospect of holding a storytelling evening with a few friends...a nice roaring fire in the grate and a wee dram. Nothing like a little homegrown entertainment!

Cheers Andy! (link to Andy's blog)

Second site is oriented to live music but it's a similar kind of thing
House concerts are not a new concept but seem to be gaining popularity. Check them out here:

http://houseconcerthub.ning.com/

Inneresting

Baroque Dub Mix Tapes - Wikidist Riddims

2009-07-19T15:50:00.000-07:00

I love this site, the good chap who runs it is obviously a very decent and generous fellow who wants to share his love of 'dub' with the whole world. Not only does he give away his most excellent mix tapes of eclectic dub sounds, he also provides a huge resource of sound samples, midi riddims, and a great database of links to all things musically cool including audio plug-ins and music sites of interest to the aspiring dub fiend. He also welcomes mixes that you've made using all of this stuff. He must also be a modest fellow because it took me ages to find his name anywhere on the site...Jerome Di Pietro "cheers Jerome great site!"

So what is dub? Well based on my years of listening to and loving the likes of Misty In Roots, Aswad (New Chapter of Dub), Eek a Mouse, Prince Fari and Black Uhuru I used to think it was something to do with reggae and yes it is but these days it has also broadened out to encompass many other musical forms and happily begs borrows and steals wherever it can fusing it all together through the use of loops and delay. It can be anything from uber mellow atmosphere to pumping sub-bass noise terror. Dub is also quite 'trippy' and 'chilled out'. Take my advice and go and download one of the mix tapes, stick it on while you're going about your day...it'll help to gee you along nicely.

for the mix tapes go here:
http://baroquedub.co.uk/audio_mixes.php

home page here:
http://baroquedub.co.uk/index.php

Inneresting

My kind of guitar - looks aren't everything

2009-06-21T05:16:00.001-07:00

Following along from the idea of the ultra compact gigpig drum kit there comes the travel guitar with integral amp/speaker, digital fx and drum machine.
The Fernandes Nomad is a kidney shaped device that by all accounts plays extremely well and sounds very nice indeed. It has a little 5 watt amp built right into it and the deluxe version has a battery of high quality digitech digital fx. It comes in many gaudy colour schemes or just plain black, silver or wood.

Actually I should say it 'came' in many colours because it is sadly in the past tense. So it's over to ebay where they seem still to be available. A quick browse on youtube also yields some folks demoing the instruments. I think they're kinda neat and I would love to have one just to pick up and wander about with or to jam along with other acoustic instruments.

It's the immediacy factor that does it for me. I'm sick of cables and stands and hours of setting things up, I'd rather just pick up and play like you do with an acoustic.

Fernandes guitars

Here is a bass version too.

Inneresting...twang

Gig Pig - My kind of drum kit.

2009-06-20T09:43:00.000-07:00

About 25 years ago, before I had a car or could even drive for that matter, I decided I needed a portable drum kit for busking with friends. I based my design on a black plastic dustbin with a lid, several kids snare drums and el cheapo tambourines. The snare and hi-hat assembly strapped onto your leg via a big wide Velcro elastic strip while in the sitting position and the open/close hat was operated by a hoop and string mechanism hanging down to the left foot. The toms where attached separately by a wooden dowel to the short plank that held the snare and hi-hat. The whole lot fitted inside the bin which doubled as a very respectable sounding kik drum. I did actually busk this kit at the strawberry fayre in Cambridge with a couple of pals playing acoustic guitars. We called ourselves 'Colossus'! What a laugh, actually I thought we sounded pretty good. I think my portable kit fell apart shortly after that, but at least it lived for 1 legendary gig.
And now these guys have gone and taken my idea and done it properly. Cost you a grand, but I'm sure it will last longer than mine did, probably sound better too.
'Colossus' may rise again!

Gig Pig Website

Inneresting.

Panic Attacks - How to cure them.

2009-06-12T01:33:00.000-07:00

I used to suffer from sporadic anxiety attacks during my teens that occurred usually for no real reason that I was aware of and at strange times like sitting in a cafe or a cinema. At the time I was like most people quite unaware of the underlying causes but suffered them blindly until they disappeared by themselves. Of course they never went away for good. I was relatively free of them until my late twenties when I began to have them more and more frequently until at the worst point I was living in what can only be described as a permanent state of anxiety that lasted for about 2 years solid. Looking back, knowing what I know now, I can see that my nerves where in tatters mainly because of being in bad relationships and stressful emotional situations combined with an unconscious suppression of my natural instincts in order to keep the status quo...how many people live in that kind of situation, be it a marriage/relationship, a crap job, a place you live, financial stress or just a general bad mix of them all? A place you don't think you can get out of. For me it was a nightmare, and I thought I was losing my mind. If you are suffering anything like this, then read on.

Luckily for me, the place I was staying at the time had an extensive library on healing and all things esoteric. Now I am not normally a great believer in the power of self-help manuals but this somewhat slim and simple book really did save me from this hideous state of affairs. No other book has ever had such a spectacular and direct impact on my life and I feel like I ought to share it with anyone who may be suffering in silence. Basically the good Dr Claire Weeks who wrote this book had the gift of speaking directly to the reader and explaining in simple and clear detail exactly what is going on and how to counteract the symptoms and get to the root of the whole deal. I'm not going to explain how it works except to say that it only took 2 reads of the book for me to be permanently free of the attacks..amazing but true.

Forget vallium or prozac, this book is what you need.

If you or anyone you know is suffering like this (quite often people won't admit to it either) then please get them to read this book.

"Peace from nervous suffering" by Dr Claire Weeks

Inner resting.

Folkstreams - folk roots documentaries from the big country.

2009-06-03T09:17:00.000-07:00

This is a hugely fascinating site. It hosts an amazing catalogue of historic documentary films about old style roots american life. The archive includes everything from the most ancient all the way up to present day material on things like storytelling and youth culture. The subjects are diverse and range from outsider art to real blue ridge hillbilly music and Mississippi delta blues, quilt making, painting, letter cutting, chainsaw art, fishing, shakers, body art, aging, death and ritual. These films were all made, (quite often on 16mm film) by people who were real enthusiasts about the subjects they loved and they capture some real, gritty and beautifully honest portraits of old time down home life U.S style.

My personal favourites include;

Sonny Terry: Shoutin' the Blues
Homemade American Music
Stoney Knows How - An old school tattoo film
Final Marks: The Art of the Carved Letter
Dreams and Songs of the Noble Old
Cowboy Poets

Folkstreams.net

Inneresting.

Ripping Yarns - vintage vinyl on demand

2009-06-03T08:58:00.000-07:00

Really it's all too much. Once you start trawling through a few of these blogs you will begin to feel as though a veritable tsunami of free music has crashed over your head. Standing up and rising to the surface for breath one begins to realize that it would take the rest of ones life to listen to a fraction of what's out there, finding the good stuff is the trick. Now most of the albums on these blogs have been ripped (digitized) from original vinyl that is no longer available or has never been re-issued on cd. Some of it is not, some of it is blatantly illegal being ripped from Cd's that are available to buy.
However, the things that really interest me are the super rare items that I never even knew existed. Things like the P.E.R.R.O (Planet Earth Rock'n'Roll Orchestra) tapes and the Sergeant Peppers Multi-track master tapes, the very first Roche sisters album (just Terre and Maggie), The first live CSN&Y show, the George Harrison solo acoustic out-takes and a whole slew of excellent and largely forgotten albums from the 60's, 70's and 80's, the list is shockingly long. The authors of these blogs very often write excellent and insightful reviews of the music they love that can help pip your interest and turn you on to some great new music you never knew existed. It's all there, free for you to download and enjoy. Of course you still have to trawl through mountains of miserable unlistenable crap to get there, c'est la vie.

Here are a few of the best (imho) :

Good Job I Kept My Turntable my mate runs this excellent blog, selflessly sharing his massive vinyl collection with the masses. Thank you Jerry.

Time Has Told Me frequently updated and always good for a visit.

ZeroGsound brilliant!

Garden of Delights marvelous and unusual collection.

Retro Vinyl Cupboard masses of cool retro sounds.

Never Get Out Of The Boat where I found the p.e.r.r.o stuff and a whole load of other CSN related treasures.

Aquarium Drunkard excellent.

Reggaecosmemusic Reggae music.

Staring at the Apocalypse getting very contemporary here.

C-60 Low Noise Oh yeah.

Sakalli 60's 70's and prog rock.

Free Music yeah har.

And then you have your aggregatators, the blogs that collect the urls of all the other blogs! Aaaarg!

Totally Fuzzy just use the tag cloud at the side for your genre.

Alright, enough already. There's more stuff in those there links than anyone could ever shake a stick at over the course of their entire life. Of course, if you are really searching for something specific, just go to google and use the blog search option. Nine times out of ten you'll find what you're looking for on a blog within the first 2 pages. Remember also that most of these blogs have many many links to other music blogs that they recommend listed down the side...it's endless really. Infact life's just way too short.

whew inneresting.

Hyper Jeff - Mac Apps Galore

2009-05-23T13:43:00.000-07:00

Got a mac, need an app ? Look no further than here.

Hyper Jeff

If you enjoy sifting through lists of new and wonderful applications sorted by type, category and licence, ie freeware, shareware, paid etc then this is the place for you. I've been using Jeff's site for years now to unearth many marvelous pieces of software. Go have a look and see what you can find, just use the 'pick a category' drop down and start trawling.

inneresting.

Creative Spaces

2009-05-23T03:54:00.000-07:00

Since I've started studying stone masonry I've been building up a little visual research portfolio of images that would lend themselves well as inspiration for doing carvings. I find them all over the place, and now I'm beginning to get into the idea of collecting ideas wherever I can.

Recently I took a visit to the British Museum in London and spent a day marvelling at the awesome carvings in there, I was especially struck by the Egyptian stuff, it has a clarity and boldness that makes it look positively contemporary, in fact I could immediately see where allot of the art deco movement got its ideas from which is something that had never really struck me before.

Anyway, the fact is that the combined stockpile of relics in London museums is a fantastic resource for anyone seeking inspiration. But here's the good bit, they've gone and put pictures of thousands of these items online for anyone to browse and then compile into a notebook. How cool is that? You can even browse other peoples notebooks by category, add videos, use your own photos, drawings and text or set-up and join groups about specific areas of interest.

The whole thing is still in its beta phase so there are a few wee niggles outstanding such as some items having no image yet, or sometimes the zoomed in version not being found but these occasional problems aside, it is amazing that you can actually search the combined treasure troves of ;

The British Museum
Imperial War Museum
National Portrait Gallery
Natural History Museum
Royal Armouries Museum
Sir John Soane's Museum
Victoria & Albert Museum
The Wallace Collection

Hopefully in time creative spaces will improve and grow into a great resource for researchers and a real source of inspiration for artists.

Inneresting.

Creative Spaces homepage

Esoteric Photography, Alchemical Art.

2009-05-16T15:40:00.000-07:00

I've been looking into alternative photography recently, more specifically, making prints using unconventional techniques. It's a practise that lies somewhere between photography, painting and printing. It utilises archaic chemistry and modern technology (and the sun), to create haunting images with unpredictable and deeply atmospheric qualities.

For example, 'digital negatives' are a kind of reverse engineering of digital photography whereby a negative is created from a digital positive. The process is fairly straightforward. Here it is very briefly.

a. Take a digi image you like, bung it into photoshop reverse it, make it monochrome and tweak the levels to adjust mid-tones and contrast, some practitioners recommend giving it an overall orange hue for reasons of tonality in the subsequent creation of a positive (See links for detailed processes.)
b. Print out the image on a sheet of A4 inkjet/photocopier transparent film so that you have a nice big A4 negative.
An interesting variant of this is to print the neg on regular paper then use oil or wax to make it transparent, this yields even spookier soft edged images.
c. Exposeyour neg on your treated paper out in the sun or some other UV source.
d. Give it a wash to develop it and see what you've got.
e. Of course you don't even need a negative, you can instead create 'photograms' by judiciously placing objects directly onto treated paper and exposing as normal.

Cyanotypes (cyan) and gum bichromate prints can be developed in plain old water or helped along with vinegar or perroxide solutions, it's all about experimenting.
You can even go on and use tea or coffee to add further tones to the prints. Some of my favourites I've seen so far are cyanotypes washed in tea, they look great because the vivid blue is really toned down.

You'll need the appropriate chemicals but luckily they are readily available and pretty easy to mix. Alternative photography processes are in use by lots of artists these days and you can find tons of info on the web, but to save you time here's some useful links I've discovered on my trawlings.

All encompassing Alternative photography site: http://www.alternativephotography.com
Really informative Gum Bichromate site : http://www.gumphoto.co.uk
UK suppliers of chemicals : http://www.silverprint.co.uk

I really like this guys work on flickr and there are lots of other esoteric photo printers on there, such as this group dedicated to digital negatives

go forth and create images in your own likeness

.....inneresting.

Doesn't Mean That Much To Me.

2009-05-11T09:59:00.000-07:00

If I were ever pressed to name my favourite album of all time I think I'd have to say Eg and Alice "24 Years of Hunger". Something about this particular album is truly special. Ask anyone who knows this record and they'll tell you so.

They may refer to things such as, the way Alice Temple sounds like she's about to burst out crying when she sings, or the brilliant playing, or the lush soundscapes, and the songs, so achingly bittersweet. The vocal interplay between the pair seems so effortless and intimate that you almost fall in love with that alone. Indeed it's an album about love and regret like so many great records, but it is delivered without pretentiousness or overwrought complexity. It captures perfectly the atmosphere of the time and place it was made, north London in the late 80's. Recorded, so legend has it, in Eg's kitchen above (or below) a Chinese takeaway in Notting Hill. The atmosphere here simply oozes out between the songs as we hear little sound vignettes of things like rain, dogs howling, bits of incidental chat, doors closing etc. Overall it's a work of breathtaking maturity considering its makers were only in their early twenties at the time and it works its way deep into your emotions. Just take a look at the reviews on Amazon and you will see how much those in the know really 'love' this album. Notice also how much you'll pay for a copy of the cd!

At its root the basic songs are pure class already but with the addition of Eg's atmospheric and somewhat angular keyboards, evocative samples, live and programmed percussion plus some absolutely out of this world bv's, guitar and bass playing, then they really grow wings.
There are loads of super guest players on here too, Eg has obviously enlisted a dozen genius friends to contribute extra bits of sparkle to this unknown masterpiece. Really though, it's the overall effect that makes the album so memorable, the way the songs sit together and the myriad moods they sweep you through, by the end you just need to hear the whole thing again.

I have compiled this little compendium of Eg and Alice stuff because I want to spread the word about them, funnily enough most fans ended up losing their albums because they lent them to people they were trying to convert and never got them back.

So, here we have '24 years of hunger', 'Turn me on I'm a rocket man' (Eg's beautiful solo follow up and a mighty fine record to boot) , a 4 song Ep single with some remixes and an odd number called 'Lazy Woman' and finally a video I found on youtube the other day...yes a real video exists of a young and beautiful Eg and Alice on ITV... amazing!

The good news is that Eg is just about to release a new album "Adventure Man" including a collaboration with Alice Temple (you can hear it on his myspace page.)

Actually, Alice too did apparently release a solo record called 'Hangover' on V2 records in the States but I don't think it ever came out, if it did it's impossible to get. However you can hear allot of her new songs on her myspace page. She's really veered away from any kind of urban soul now and deals in a much more hard edged sound, which is probably what she always wanted to do anyway.

I could say a ton more about Eg and Alice but really it's time to let the music do the talking.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I have this last 20 years.

24 years of hunger 78.9 mb

Turn me on I'm a rocket man 50.32mb

'Doesn't mean that much to me' ITV chart show 1992 on Youtube

Doesn't mean that much to me (cd single) 28.07

Alice Temple Myspace

Eg White Myspace

(Disclaimer, I am only posting this music here until such time as it becomes commercially available again or until the artists or their representatives ask me to remove it.)

Inneresting.

HDR Imaging....Tasty.

2009-05-05T13:40:00.000-07:00

What the hell is HDR imaging?

Well, I liken it to what mastering engineers do to audio tracks before they go on a cd. They add the gloss, sheen and sparkle, saturate the loudness levels and even-out all the lumps. A similar mastering process happens to video and film in post-production where engineers do magic to the colour balance, brightness and general look of the material and ensure it adheres to broadcast safe parameters, before going to press.

HDR stands for 'high dynamic range'. In music mastering, a thing called the 'dynamic range' is an important factor in preserving the 'light and shade' in the music (a big problem in today's uber loud cd production strategies where dynamic range is severely comprimised). In visual terms it's kinda similar and employs a technique called 'tone mapping' which seems to give digital images an almost eye popping hyper-realism, probably approaching something akin to what you really see with your eyes, rather than the flat tonally subdued images reported to you by a computer monitor. Here's another example.

The great thing is, you can process your own images yourself with the help of a programme called photomax and a quick tutorial (see below).

The images above were created by a jolly nice fellow called Trey Ratcliff and feature on his famous travel photography blog 'Stuck in Customs' which is also home to a great 3 part HDR tutorial here. Thanks Trey.

So there you have it, I haven't done any of my own HDR's yet but maybe soon I will.

mmm...Inneresting.

Fill Yer Boots - Audio Plugs Galore.

2009-05-02T15:02:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome to the blog!
To get the ball rolling here's a site I discovered the other day that lists hundreds neigh thousands of free vst/au audio plug-ins. It's run by a guy called Tom Gersic who has created a whole world of fascinating audio goodies including some excellent written work on the subject. Tom seems to be a very smart fellow as a read of his biography demonstrates, but basically he's my kind of guy (geeky multi-media techie musician type). Of course there is a predominance of PC based plugs but there are also a good few Mac OS X entries too, which matters to me as I am a mac man at heart.

Most computer musicians are well aware of KVR audio http://www.kvraudio.com/
the big daddy of everything plug-in related, but I have to say that for speed and simplicity Gersic is a great place to browse. Go and have a rummage about in there and you'll find some amazing free plugs, I have discovered dozens of wondrous instruments and effects that I never knew existed.

Plug-ins database:

http://plugins.gersic.com/

check out Tom's main site too.

http://www.gersic.com

....inneresting.