More horse shenanigans

Poor old Caspian is going to have to lose his eye. Fortunately it's his bad one but there's nothing else for it and Pat is gonna be down for a while I expect. These things keep coming along and I guess since he's no spring chicken (he's a horse), more will be waiting down the line.

Here's a calming picture of a tree:

Still very hot. All my plans to drive north and explore places have sorta melted in favour of lounging around here. Going to see John today for tea and cake though and may get as far as Dunsop Bridge later in the week. This total inability to go anywhere puts serious doubts on the value of camper van to us. Too hot for studio though (got that module review done but not started another) and almost too hot to do book chapter edits. Have a challenging one lined up where I need to be careful of the personal pronouns.

The last one is a fuzzy phone pic because I like the effect.

This rather lovely shot was taken on the way home from the Continental today:

It's a week later and I'm obviously rubbish at this blogging lark. Was listening to a fascinating interview with Scanner (Robin Rimbaud) and noted he has written a diary entry every day of his life since he was basically an embryo. And every one will be interesting, witty, thoughtful, insightful, educated, worth reading...
Annoyingly for any reader of this drivel, my blog is available to the general pubic, Scanner's is not.

In view of my shallowness, I had this political thought which I will write here:
Since our current political system is so blatantly incapable of handling #brexit - how many other issues is it equally out of its depth with and totally unsuited to? Do politicians, in fact, fail us this badly all the time but somehow we are blissfully unaware of it?

Anyway, I'm thinking of Dunsop Bridge again for this week but have just abandoned my plan to do some modular work today. Looking forward to a week by myself next week to write and noodle.

Delay, more delay (a fairly shit and pointless blog entry)

Yes, I got Tony's ADR30 to play with. I think he under-enthused about it because it really has a superb vintage tone, magical feedback and a very dubby, subtle shifty kinda quality to it. Tried some drums through it and was delighted, felt that voltage control over feedback amount would have been even more amazing. Speaking of voltage control, yet another delay module is coming for review, one I couldn't turn down.

Great to see Tony today, potter in the studio, have lunch.

Well, time seems to have passed. Summer came back. We started putting up shed but it was very slightly windy so gave up again. Other stuff probably happened. I broke a review module and just got a replacement, have another review to complete for Monday but cracked on with it so should be OK. Must retire though, too many other things to do!

Sure I had other stuff to write. But. After Life is coming on well, I think. The chapters I've done so far are standing up well.

Completed the review, fortunately not too difficult to write. It's Saturday now and we might have a go at the shed again, although the weather app says the wind will be almost non-existent tomorrow. I know: any excuse.

Would have liked to be at the thing in London protesting at the insanity that is Brexit. But not enough to venture down the M6.

Sorry, a shit blog this one. I'll go an edit the title to say so.

Diddly

Playing with Tim's Digitakt kinda confirms my feeling that life is too short to try and learn another piece  of  Elektron kit. Powerful though it surely is, everything takes so long to accomplish. Even the new Electribes are fast and slick in comparison - and you know how much I moaned about them!

Re-reading Hitch Hiker's, I'm forced to conclude that the efforts to weave a plot around the original episodic nonsense actually weakens it. This isn't just a 'first is best' type observation either.

Similarly, it seems the only misgiving I now have about the Grandmother technically (I'll never forgive the stupid name, sorry) is that they used Voyager VCOs, not even actual Minimoog ones. IMHO the Voyager (another stupid name synth) is an episode in Moog's history best forgotten. Makes me think of Edgar Froese in a way, who you could only really assess as an artistic force once he was dead and therefore unable to produce any more of the turgid music he'd been spewing out in his dotage. Does not damage his legacy at all BTW, just shows you that people get old. I'm still in awe of what he achieved, as I am Bob Moog, but let's not pretend the later stuff is anything special.

Now if I were reviewing the Grandmother (which happily I'm not), I'd want to try it with AJH Minimoog VCOs going through that filter/VCA. I'd be able to moan about the stupid name, suggest that a Doepfer ribbon might fit across the panel which has the name on it, perhaps I'd admit to liking the colour scheme and the form factor before doing my inevitable 'this is Moog's Music Easel' comparison. Anyway, maybe I'll write about it here when it comes, who knows?

I've been enjoying the sunshine, taking pix and not doing a whole lot except potter in the garden. Oh, the new Klaus Schulze album is like death that's been warmed up then left to grow furry fungus that can hopefully pass off as life. I may well be producing shit and forgettable music these days. But I'm not the only one.

Right, just a bit more sitting down to do then I'll do something...

30th Anniversary Blog

No, I'm not going all mushy on you - but I have been married to Pat for 30 years now. Kinda nice someone would stick with me that long as I know I'm not always a perfect human being. Here's to another 30!

Recording yesterday went really well - the whole 'just play' idea working out splendidly. Gained some HS stuff and a track of mine got some guitar, just needs its two halves splicing together and a small amount of arrangement. Next cloudy day I'm on it!

Now then, it's Wednesday, almost the end of May and the weather continues to be fab. Continuing to work in the garden, actually enjoying myself just pottering about, thinking about novel plots, basking in the sunshine. Have started work editing P & T - not doing major rewrites or mass tweaks this time, just going for the important stuff.

More fuzzy phone photos. I know they're lo-fi but I sorta like the fuzziness and I'm playing more and more with the quick draw effect, which confuses the light meter.

I have Tim's Digitakt here to play with. If I like it, could be a good replacement for both my Analog Four and the Electribe Sampler. Although it lacks quite a few features of the Electribe, it has enough appeal of its own. All depends how much fun it is to use, how easy to get samples in, how it handles sequencing/processing external gear. I will report my findings here, mostly to try and make this blog in some way worthwhile and relevant.

It's Friday, it's raining and it's OK

It really is. Not raining enough to fill the ponds but will sure help. Garden is looking well lush anyway and so am I.
Yesterday, after a wee smoke, I inquired about purchasing a grandmother. Today, practically sober, I sealed the deal. Why is a bit of a mystery, even to me, and I can only hope I paid for a Moog synthesizer rather than some unfortunate crone. This proves, beyond all doubt, that I need to fit some kind of smoke detector capable of automatically switching off my wireless router and locking me out of the big shop called the internet. In my defence, the demos were good and answered most of the questions I had about sound quality.

Now I'm going to power up the Model D and do the obvious shit with it.

Yes, Redshift's TTU is far superior to Last. Klaus Schulze has a new one too and it's pretty low key stuff from what I can tell so far.

Saturday
Well, Pat hasn't had the best start at the new/old stables - she lost the keys this morning. Yesterday's piece is kinda mellow, might benefit from some guitar. Oh and here are one or two more phone camera shots, still messing with overexposure and kinda liking it. Dunno what the day holds. Well, it holds beer I expect. And warming up last night's thai. 

Ongoing sunshine

The second week of sun begins, council workers out on the grass-cutters, erasing as many wild flowers as possible in between checking their Facebook page, or whatever it is that demands their full attention in their palms.

I realised over the weekend, as 2 new Roedelius CDs arrived, that I've been buying albums from this great man since the late 70s. And not one has lived up to the promise of the first. Or even come close. I am forced to conclude that Peter Baumann was far more important than was previously suspected. And further to this conclusion, Conrad Schnitzler's Con remains his greatest work. Shame Baumann didn't produce more albums really. I must also add Cluster's Grosses Wasser to this list.

This week I have no work lined up, unless I wanted to do that Plaits review. Think I'll see how it goes. Got an early morning (5:15) accidental call from my mum, something that's happening more often although thankfully not at that time. Given Pat's awful cough kept me awake until around 02:00, I'm shagged today. Starting the morning with a quick flush of Morton Subotnick, which it a perfect illustration of how to make electronic music appealing to those with leather elbow patches or lab coats. It's fun though and pretty freaky, keep finding myself grooving along to parts of it.

Now then, it's Thursday, the JCBs have moved into the wild end, destroying a fresh batch of trees. How fucking depressing. Birds still raising their young - indeed I just caught a magpie in the garden that was hopping around after some of the baby sparrows we have in abundance. Magpie had got injured so I was able to corner it - it pecked me but didn't hurt much. Of course I just took it out of the garden and let it go, soft git that I am. Didn't neck it.

Bought another Redshift album (on recommendation, although so far it's another of the generic releases) and also the cool I, Monster album with the stories and groovy music. Can't just put that on while reading though, have to concentrate. Someone recommended a Redshift that sounds instantly much better. Called Turning Towards Us, coulda saved my money on the other which is kinda predictable/obvious. My next pair chase.

Yeah been one of those Thursdays. Pat made excellent tea and we're gonna finish off Lost in Space, hopefully not being quite so wound up by the stupidity than so far.

I had the cover review this month and it featured lots of balls.

That moment when...

... you open the grinder and find your good old pal left you a generous donation to the weekend's creative writing fund. Different to the other stuff too, got a purply tinge to it.

Too hot for the studio this aft. Should reorganise the novel, delete all the parts I fancy starting over on. Having written it once, I think I can do a better version starting from a clean slate rather than editing and making do. Still got my start and end. It'd be like having, if not a plot then surely a map.

I don't often take pix with my phone but those are Sequentix HQ and last Sunday's walk with my mum, respectively.

It's Saturday now, no idea when I started this entry. Have sat around drinking mostly today and have tweaked some of the 'Hell' parts. No rewrite, still carving out useful bits from what exists and trying to make them more modular.

I have done very little today so far. Feel totally zapped and mongated. Indeed, I might just go back to the whole sitting around looking vacant thing.