Turns out I peaked in the 80s.

Yes, no surprise I suppose. I haven't really listened to any of that old stuff, using the excuse of not having a cassette deck mainly, but a guy I must have communicated with at the time has kept a pretty good vault. Actually he has tapes I no longer have and has put in the effort of restoring them and sending me MP3s. Kinda humbling that anyone would do that with such care.

Amazingly there's stuff on there that's a zillion times better than the material that made my latest vinyl reissue. So far I've listened to Duncton Wood, Eternal Champion, The Path, There & Back Again and some of Sketches. The last of those was never released and he had a hand-written copy I must've done for him. Had forgotten some of the tracks even existed.

Here's the thing: the tracks I once liked now sound dated, cheesy, weak, poorly-played, embarrassing... but some of those I thought too plain now shine. Bloody weird experience.

The quality still isn't great and there are still fluffs and corny bits leaking into the good stuff, but I am coming round to the idea of getting the source material and saving the tracks that deserve it for bandcamp. Strange to hear myself from 30 years ago, little piano pieces, sequences, ambient or weird tracks. I don't have so many ideas these days. Remember writing The Path on a piece of paper as I sat waiting  in a car park for Pat, something I rarely do cos my notation is rubbish.

So I think the festivities are done. Actually we may have to have more as our Dawn been doing them down south and expects us to do them again when she's home. I have lots of work on though, finished my first review (out of the 6 I have stacked up) and I keep wanting to go back and play with the first thing, having sorta changed my position on it since day 1 with repeated playing... darn.

Invited to a NYE party but may not go as Pat will want to stay in . Good excuse for me then.

The Dr Who Xmas special was excellent, there I've said it.

Lots of the country has snow but not us. :(

Anyway, here's to a great 2015!

PRS day

Well, I've been lucky so far but today earnings are down. Apparently I'm not alone but that's no surprise or consolation. On the plus side, the dozen tracks I submitted were finally approved, all of them, no tweaks needed. This is a pleasant surprise. I need more tracks and more variety. More talent and drive would help there.

I have some ideas for more music for over the break so will take a similar approach and do a lot. However Tim's around and there's going to be lots of chances for us to work on tracks. Today we did a little overdubbing of 'Contopus' which has a couple of very good sections. Showed that I need more acoustic instruments, should get my own violin.

Doubt I'll get much time to work on novel for a while, I have a few old releases lined up for bandcamp and it's interesting that the old stuff goes down best. I guess I should not be surprised. Mind you everyone likes JIC and I discovered a gig from 2004 at the Space Centre that I'd forgotten about. Phil is playing a lot of guitar synth and I'm not sure it sounds like 'us' but I'll listen through and rate it...

I fixed up a few of the better tracks from the early 90s. It's a free download.

https://paulnagle.bandcamp.com/album/sardines

We also put up Tales of Summers Past, I ended up trimming the tracks a little to line up the track start and ends a bit more precisely. Anal to the last. Anyway, not convinced people will listen to it enough times to get it but what the heck. :)

Mum's dog Ally finally went home. Bob the rabbit seems more chilled now he's not being started at all the time. He's been hanging around the house these last few evenings because Pat noticed he's either been scratched or maybe a cat bit him.

Still having battles with the Analog Four. Some days I think it's worth the effort, other times I feel how I could design the best 'groove box' yet myself but nobody would build it. It's just so very much less than a P3/Radias combination and, really, is the size reduction so great? It's strongest point is still being able to have 128 complete projects on board, compared to the P3's 12. Well, I spose Cirklon and Radias, and.... it goes on. I'll never have the perfect gear for gigging and I'll keep resisting the laptop route and keep struggling. Perfectus super absolutionem. Missing Phil today. Weird to think we'll never play together again. Weird to think Binar might do another gig, hope that's a good idea....