Wartiness and 404 decision time

 Well the things on my face are seborrhoeic keratoses - basically warts and very common. Even though it damages my great beauty I'll keep 'em. Also keeping the 404. Juno had generously offered to refund me since they don't have any more and Roland's fix time is 6-8 weeks. They also offered knocking a bit of cash off if I wanted to keep it - and I think I will. Despite it being a very odd thing that I've struggled with, I think it has real potential and maybe Roland will address some of its obvious weaknesses - they did fix a couple of things already. Struck me that if I had a gig next year, it would be handy to have compared to the BlackBox - can be an FX processor and useful for triggering spot effects and longer ambient passages and doesn't have the BB's minijacks. Just a shame you can't name the samples you make on it without using the app!

Thursday, rolled a 1 and decided to move the 101 away and put in the JD-XA in its place. Means adding P3 to the same power strip as the mixer, so it's available to setups 1&2, sorted! Started a thing on P3/JD which sounded potentially good, caught a snapshop in the BB. Will progress tomorrow as it's Friday. 

Good afternoon, finished the track from yesterday, sorted Ibiza booking cockup - a hotel they now partner with has a similar name to the one they used to. Anyway, full refund and full marks to TUI. Pat in odd mood, talking about immigrants - this time in context of booking our pre-Ibiza hotel. The daily mail effect continues. 

Hmmm, I just watched an episode of Rick & Morty that basically did my novel. How depressing. 

Sunday now and I've had a pleasant few days pottering about. Friday did some 'Scootswind' - using recordings made in Scotland. As if summoned Tony appeared mid-afternoon so it was a shorter session and recording than usual, still goog though. Good, even. 

https://soundcloud.com/smokyfrog/s2-scootswind-120

Have done a few cool things with the 404 now I'm learning its limitations. Saturday Tim and I did a fab ambient sesh with it, or mostly it anyway. 

Random pix time

Hauntology or Ontology? Oh, and a week in Scotland

 Been thinking about hauntology for a while, well this morning, well this last hour or so. I reckon a lot of my stuff and Headshock stuff is a good fit - but who do we tell and are we welcome into the club? If not, I propose we start an offshoot, ontology. Then, instead of doing music about the nature of being miserable, wistful and backwards-looking, ontology will cover the nature of being. This means we can cover multiple moods and style and, well, do what we always do. Genius eh? I expect someone more dynamic will beat us to or possibly already has and, again, we won't be welcome. 

Makes you think eh? Nah, me neither. 

Still struggling to know what to say to Dave's widow, if indeed I should say anything. Feels lame of me but really has knocked the wind out of my sails and I'm dealing with it by not thinking about it. I know I'll dig out our poetry and music collab Earth & Sky Sequence quite soon and then maybe I'll start to know what I feel. I told Andy G as CDS/Lotus will have known Dave well over the years. Andy wrote a lovely review of the new album, makes me think I should probably send it to other reviewers but I've rather lost track of all that. 

Realised all my MIDI/TRS adapters are type B, except the Korg I haven't been able to find for ages. Guess what - the 404 needs type A. Why they fecking well didn't include one to make it a genuinely MIDI compatible device I don't know but, shit, there's room for full-sized real MIDI jacks too and they penny-pinched that. Bastards. Anyway, ordered one off eBay as Amazon wanted over £16 for the same thing. 

My emergency 2-week referral is actually an expected 6-week stretch due to stress on the system. Let's hope this little thing on my face doesn't eat me away before it's even looked at. Goodness knows when the scan on my foot is gonna happen but hard to be optimistic. All part of the great tory plan to grow the private sector and screw the NHS.

Well now, back from Scotland so I guess I should post a few pix - even though I've put a ton on facebook and google and even flickr. It was great although the last few days were rather damp. Long drive means that a week doesn't feel long enough. While there I noticed the bank A button on the 404 doesn't work and it's just over the month limit for returning the thing, which I had been tempted to do. Will stick with it though, just not totally sure why. The MIDI adapter arrived and proved that the 404 is pretty shit when it comes to sync - only the pattern sequencer syncs up, not the BPM-synced effects or audio loops.