Cheech & Chong, Mighty Boosh, time out...

Yeah, so I had a few days to myself and kinda took my time. The closest to 'work' I came was to revise Exoplanets 3 to version 1.1, dropping the track which was rather problematic. It didn't fit with the rest and I have tweaked 2 of the other tracks slightly, making edits are per my 'listener notes'. At 56 mins it's still a good length but I'll let it stew a bit longer and see whether it's as good as it can be.
Wrote a few words for His Dudeness's Harmonics in the Silence, easy to do cos I think this stuff is the best yet. I should probably do a few more Binar backbones.

Last night I watched one of my Cheech & Chong collection followed by a couple of episodes of Mighty Boosh (series 2). Amazing that they included an fairly obvious Cheech & Chong homage and that I hadn't noticed it before (the 'searching for the New Sound episode). So I got little done but had a nice relaxing time. Getting so good at relaxing it's hard to do anything else.

Tracked down a Vangelis album I'd never heard of - Sex Power (really!) and ordered it.
Got it. It's mad. Ordered a load more of the big V I only have on tape including some remasters. Heck, why not.

Tim and I recorded 2 days of groovy stuff. The first anarchic and totally spontaneous, the second with some pause and prep prior to recording.

I got some nausea pills as got inner ear weirdness going on from Wednesday morning.

Must do some review work tomorrow!

Was that November? Anything much happen?

Apart from the USA following our lead and voting to punch itself in the face for a bit, I mean.

Well, I'm in pro-active gathering-modules-for-review mode. So good old me. Have to keep that modular column going. Weird, but still enjoying the new lease of life Eurorack has given me. The new modules I got recently have all been really good and I'm recording quite a lot with the modular and anything else. As a result I already have a 1.0 version of Exoplanets 3. I'll play it for a while and see if anything is wrong with it - but after 1 day I think it's already the best yet.  I'm afraid I actually 'performed' on some of its drones.

Well, I hadn't posted any pix for a while. Now I have.
Today I finished an app review - fed up of those now. At least I ain't seen a good one in a very long time. Tomorrow a few days to myself to work on a few projects, maybe start a new novel. The fantasy one I have been throwing around the head cavity for a while.

Did a new drone
https://soundcloud.com/smokyfrog/amateru
Curries this week: 2
Watching GoT series 6 and loving it!

Phew

I think I made a meaningful update to Bogus Focus. Today I reached the end having fleshed out the characters to my satisfaction and shown more levels to the story. It's better for it but I really will need an editor in future. :)

I may release all 3 as Bogus Realities in a single volume. If I can just resist going back through each I might be able to start something new. The main thing is I can finally put it back up on Amazon and be happy about it - just need a way to alert people to the update (or send it them free).

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bogus-Focus-ebook/dp/B00APJX82I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355780933&sr=8-1

I recorded this today (and something else). Rather pleased with it. Shows off the Doepfer Subharmonic Generator / Korgasmatron II / DLD with some bursts of Elements

https://soundcloud.com/smokyfrog/the-mob

Great day,

Bye Bye October

So my trundle towards grabbing my pension and winding down my workload continues. Have talked to several people with financial know-how and a plan is forming. It means next year I should have more time for writing my novels, playing in the studio and taking those long walks in the Lakes I've been wistfully talking about for years. Oh, and more time to write library music. We'll see...

I am rewriting the ending to Bogus Focus, having seen a way to improve it quite significantly. Doubt it'll make anyone try again, but maybe when I put all 3 into one volume it'll hang together much better now I've trimmed a lot of the asides and nonsense and left an actual plot.

Right now I have the usual review stack - sadly no eurorack in right now, which is what I'd like the most. I have this new secret Korg thing, which allows me to get back on an old hobbyhorse, for all the good it will do.

I recorded a new drone the other day, Quixote, which ended up going in a different direction to my plan. It may or may not complete Exoplanets Vol2, I'll let it stew a while. It will be better as a first rather than last track though, each 'dynamic' drone alternating with the subtle, underplayed ones.

Oh the Binar double album is available, people liking it. I like it, which I hadn't quite expected but then you need to play them, leave them, return and see. It's impossible to tell immediately after a performance.

https://andypickford1.bandcamp.com/track/b-boner-e-bola

That track was a studio one, yes a drone! I even played some Minimoog in it. So Binar do different stuff sometimes, yay! There are a couple of other studio tracks, which I think makes the whole release rather interesting.

Must book Superbooth on Monday. Could be our interesting book project will be released then, more info when I'm allowed to say.

It's pretty much impossible to take a photo of Jasper when he isn't sniffing the ground. Anyway, thanks October, it's been a lovely, warm and sunny month - unlike June or fecking July!

The Dreaded Lurgi!

Was on the point of going to doctors when finally my stomach started burbling again. Have been sick since Synthfest and struggling to get much done.

Which is annoying cos I have a review that needs doing fast. As ever the company are hard to communicate with via email and there are things I need to know. Sigh.

A cool filter arrived today, a Korgasmatron II. Only had a brief time but it sounds excellent and with two filters, panning and soft/hard clipping it should be the last filter I need until Dave Rossum releases his Morpheus filter. :)
Also have a Doepfer Subharmonic Generator on the way, swapped for Phoreo (not needed now I'm using Cirklon more fully with my euro setup). The Doepfer should go well with my ribbon controller in giving me those classic Trautonium sounds, should be brill.

Best of all, I finally solved my problem with the character of Seldon Zuckerzeit in my Bogus Focus novel. Had withdrawn it a while back cos it was just too sloppy now I've updated the others. I'm 20 chapters in fixing things and now into the area that needs a major hacking. Fortunately, I've finally worked out why some of the things that happened happened. So assuming I don't die in the next few months maybe I'll put it right.

So that's nice. New Binar album Tales of the Uninformed should be out any day. The gig recording plus some studio stuff, came out very well. Better than I initially thought, but that's always the case. The Dude always manages to make 'em sound good.

Busy, busy!

A bit of percussive nonsense 

55 years old and feeling fracked

Yeah, had a birthday. Government rewarded me by their usual hypocrisy. It went like this:
Brexit: the people have spoken, we obey
Fracking: the people have spoken, fuck 'em.
It seems we'll bribe people to accept hundreds, possibly thousands of drilling wells in their back yard but won't do the same for wind farms cos it's nasty, clean and renewable? Sigh... OK, OK, enough with the despair.

Blimey but I have some talented friends. Paul L did this almost immediately after getting his new Linnstrument. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy8giR8TxdY

And anyone who ever tells you all the great melodies have been written has never met Andy Pickford. He sent me something today that I've played 4 times in a row it's so beautiful. Mellow, wistful, full of longing. A simple thing too and not embellished.

Thursday was a good day if not much work got done. Dave F came and spent the afternoon hacking our trees into shape. Still some to do but he did a great job, will try and organise curry with him next week along with my sis.

Friday I aimed to record another drone. Have had this idea kicking around for the last track on Exoplanets 2. I got an ES Disting the other day but it's so complicated I haven't done much with it. (Only bought cos he was such a nice chap and I felt guilty I wasn't the man to review his computery interfacey modules. Sorta feels foolish now but I'll work at it, possibly Friday not the ideal day for knuckling down though.)

Ooh, got some royalties from the Cherry Red comp. All is good. And the Arturia Drum machine finally announced. Can't deny it's rather exciting, will probably kill off the Tanzbar and maybe some other stuff too. Individual outputs, yes! And an analogue filter, their cool random algorithm, and more. Already put in my request to review it. :)

Bought again a pile of David Gemmell novels we have mysteriously lost over the years. Still a couple to track down, really annoys me to lose books. I made the mistake of reading half my own Bogus Focus yesterday and was frustrated into starting a rewrite. It's the weakest of the lot and being the first of three people are unlikely to stick with the series. Damn but I wish I could get at least one tame reader to check these things and give me quality feedback. Spose I have to get better first.

More drones underway.
It's PRS week.
I should do some work...

Synthfest and beyond

Long weekend in Sheffield at Synthfest. Very successful, my thoughts scribbled on Facebook. Embarrassing videos sure to follow - me as a roving reporter, mostly because no grown-ups were available. Hopefully next year there will be and I can go back to wandering around, grinning and bumping into people.

Today I have started with the inevitable cold, the one you get if you never go out and meet people ordinarily. I sat around in the sun and read Half-Sick of Shadows by David Logan.

I wrote this to David Logan on completion.
"My wife just bought me 'Half-Sick of Shadows' thinking, without fully knowing why, that it would be right up my street. She was correct. I read it in a single sitting, noting (with dismay) elements from my own novels (Future Art Factory and Bogus Focus), but rendered properly, as a real author would. So much for my dreams of originality. (etc. etc.)
What else can I say? Less, preferably. I will find and read more. Perhaps in doing so I'll discover the contents of future novels I now needn't attempt. This is my long-winded way of saying: great stuff!"

It's true, there are ideas that could have been from one of my novels, if you can imagine one of my novels written by an actual writer.

However.

It turns out there are 2 David Logans. Yes, I wrote to the wrong one. I know because he wrote back telling me so. So I apologised and promised to buy one of his. I picked one at random without looking properly. Amazingly, stupidly, I picked the last of a trilogy. He's laughing at me now. I went and ordered the other two because I felt such a pillock. Hope they're good. Can't seem to contact the original David Logan and tell him of his unknowing partial plagiarism. I expect he wouldn't be interested anyway.