rubbish blog idea #4

This one is a few weeks old but basically I planned to take photos of the backs of people's heads on the bus, using my phone. Seeking only to capture "heads of interest", each post would attempt to analyse the head and decide what kind of person it belongs to.

I quickly ditched the idea after I realised

a) the only information you can gather from someone's head is whether they cut their own hair and when they last washed it (as well as the obvious stuff, A/S/L)

b) it's impossible to do this discreetly; sure, your subjects aren't aware (unless you leave the fake 'camera click' noise on like a massive noob) but to everyone sitting behind you it's pretty damn obvious

Just to clarify, rubbish blog idea #1 was the "blog ideas" blog, rubbish blog idea #2 was the "failures" blog, rubbish blog idea #3 was the "you must be logged in to do that!" blog.

nadge biscuits

Okay, so since the last post I've gone through numerous ideas for this blog. I had ideas for one where I write about ideas for blogs, then one where I write mainly about failure - then I considered how hilarious it would be to do NEITHER and got stuck in an infinite loop of smug post-modernism.

I then thought of one where i take this warning:



and apply it, out-of-context to other pictures. My test was the famous Eric Cantona kung-fu photo, but then once i'd done it i realised it's exactly the kind of thing i HATE. You know you should steer clear of an idea when you can picture it on a t-shirt being worn by a student with a mullet.

Anyway, this post is just to say "hang in there" while i think of a great idea; in a way this post doesn't really exist. But, in another way, it does, so let's press on...

Bands. I currently have two bands, neither of them have names so let's call them band 1 and band 2. Band 1 has practised a few times and is stretching me on all musical fronts, which is definitely good. Band 2 is an unashamed attempt to be liked by as many people as possible, whilst pretending we don't care. Simon is in both these bands, and also band 3. Band 3 have a name but i'm not into AdSense. Oh man, and then there's band 4 - which is just so crazy it just might work - and band 0 - who may reform for a one-off gig.

Don't be surprised if the next post is me moaning about how EVERYTHING fell through and muttering something about home recording and exotic tunings (again).

Right, that'll do for now. By the way, the reason I'm doing this post is because i gritted my teeth and gave the blog its first link; now i'm worried that there will be an influx of people (1 or 2) and nothing interesting to read. But then, i haven't really addressed that problem.

Also, I'm ditching the song lyrics for titles idea, but here is what i used up to this point:

Morris Chapman - Be Bold! Be Strong!
Bjork - Sonnets/Unrealities XI
Tears for Fears - Everybody wants to rule the World
Peeps into Fairyland - Suilven from Elphin
Kate Rusby - Who Will Sing Me Lullabies?
Smashing Pumpkins - Zero
Deftones - Korea
Bardo Pond - Walking Clouds
Laura Veirs - The Cloud Room
Manic Street Preachers - Revol
Lisa Loeb - Listen, Lisa
Logh - The Passage
Sufjan Stevens - John Wayne Gacy, Jr.
Teenage Fanclub - Take the long way round
Sonic Youth - Wish Fulfilment
Kate Bush - Dream of Sheep
Joanna Newsom - Sadie

x x

all day long we talk about mercy

Hmm, not really sure what to do now. We've had some developments as we now have a drummer, and subsequently a new band. This blog was primarily to document mine and Simon's advances towards starting our project; piecing together recording equipment, recruiting musicians to help out, write, record and then maybe try to pull it all off live.

Currently, as it was merely meant to capture this band from the start and nothing more, only I read this blog. This makes it weird to write; I've never kept a diary for the same reason - i can't write unless I can at least imagine someone else reading it at some point. And maybe, if we actually got somewhere, this would be interesting to read 3 or 4 years down the line, but maybe mundane stuff like this is just not meant to be recorded.

So, now, things are instantly way more conventional. We have the band, we even have access to all the recording gear we will need, courtesy of our new drummer, so if i was to continue on the same way, every post would either be about practising, gigging or recording. And surely this can be saved for a dedicated band website/myspace?

This could be a mixture of band news, cool photos/bands/websites and personal musings, but that's what EVERYONE is doing and what would make mine so special?

i tune in to some friendly voices

Sorry about that, apart from tinkering with a couple of pretty tunings over the Christmas break, i haven't really had much band stuff to talk about lately. And now... I'm coming down with a fabulous cold, which will either mean much more music (if i need time off work) or much less (if, as usual, i keep going to work and simply collapse on arriving home).

Meanwhile, Simon has been furiously coding drum patterns, although we both have the looming sense that these electronic percussion/choir endeavours are nothing more than experiments and something to get out of the system. But perhaps that's just short-sightedness?

Kinda beginning to miss the band environment and the input of several people; i could never be a solo artist.

A little gear news: as I'm itching to record, first and foremost, I'm putting the recording devices on the backburner, after all, I already have a decent 4 track which is sufficient for drums. So my attention has turned to recording mixers...



This is the Fostex 450, 8 channels, XLRs, phantom power, direct outs for each channel... and more importantly, mid-80's, looks cool, would look beautiful with a matching reel to reel recorder :D

So, this would do very nicely for the time being, and is a (financially) attainable target, but if i ever do reach the 16 track dream, I'll need to upgrade accordingly!