More improvisation practice…
Dorian Strat Mess (Youtube)
I did start to wonder what these occasional bouts of improv practice had to do with my “record something every week” plan, but it makes sense, really. One of the main reasons I lose the recording momentum sometimes is because I get bored of my own playing, so this is all part of the plan!
No, this time I’m not quoting Chris Morris… the video on that site is for real. Wrong-brained, yes, but real.
*cough*
Well, when your home studio also doubles as a transcription suite (sounds impressive, eh?) and half of Bluesjamtracks High Command, you don’t always get the time for making ill-conceived demo recordings. The past two weeks have mostly involved publicising bluesjamtracks.com and starting work on a second book of guitar transcriptions for Wishbone Ash.
I have been doing some recording as well, but I’ve nothing to play for you, for two reasons. Firstly, because lots of it was shite, so I just deleted it. Secondly, because I’ve been recording some little snippets for an idea which is still only half-formed. It also requires a little bit of web design, and I’m incredibly lazy. More details soon…
(Blue Jam “Baby Combat” sketch, broadcast BBC Radio 1, 14 November 1997)
The four women, all from the same family, are heard laughing as the toddlers are urged to keep on fighting.
(Shock at women goading toddlers, BBC News website, 15 February 2007)
Last week ended triumphantly for “Dr” Gillian McKeith “PhD”, but worryingly for those of us with the capacity for rational thought. The latest PLR statistics for public library borrowing in the UK show the Poo Lady’s books in first and third position in the non-fiction chart.
But what a difference a weekend makes!
Ben Goldacre’s hard work, both in the Guardian and on his own Bad Science blog, has finally paid off. After a tip-off by one of Dr Goldacre’s regular readers, the Advertising Standards Authority has now ruled that McKeith’s use of the title “Dr” is “likely to mislead”, breaching two clauses of the Committee of Advertising Practice code: “substantiation” and “truthfulness”.
Of course, she’s still perfectly entitled to claim that a single seed contains enough energy to create a full-size plant, or that chlorophyll can create beneficial oxygen in the gut, and no doubt plenty of people will still buy her books, watch her TV shows and believe every dangerous word she says. But it’s a step in the right direction…
Matthew Sweet mourns the decline of challenging film presentations on terrestrial TV in yesterday’s Guardian…
Where did all the great movies go?
I don’t think it’s *quite* as bad as he suggests… there’s a trickle of decent films on BBC4, ITV3 and 4, More4 and five, just as long as you have access to Freeview. Even so, it’d be easy to come to the conclusion that an increase in the number of channels leads to a reduction in choice. Sweet mentions the retrospective seasons they used to run just after a director or actor had died… this is part of the rather patronising, paternalistic approach to TV that seems to be all but gone, and I MISS IT, DAMMIT!
In a recent discussion on Comment is Free, someone called me an elitist snob for suggesting that the disadvantage of commercial TV is that everything is dictated by the will of the masses (via the advertisers). He was wrong, though… I was including myself in “the masses”. I want experts and boffins to take me by the hand and guide me through stuff I don’t know. In this case, I want a real Film Expert to show me films I’ve never seen before and explain why they’re important.
In reality, I’m more likely to be given a list of Top Movie Moments by a collection of one-hit wonders, footballers’ girlfriends and graveyard shift cable presenters. These people have killed all the experts and boffins and taken charge. Where did they come from? Who employed them? Are they members of a secret society, headed by their great role model, That Welsh Woman Who Couldn’t Learn To Drive?
Please send them away. I want the boffins back. I want to be patronised and paternalised.
All the tweaking and testing involved in the bluesjamtracks launch meant that my recording time was limited last week. Still, Richard and I found time to experiment with mixes of a couple of things he’s been working on (such as this electronic tune).
While doing so, I got to spend a bit more quality time with a couple of plugins from PSP Audioware, a Polish company that deserves more exposure. I’ve been using the Vintage Warmer for quite a while now, but also tried experimenting (on the track above) with the MasterQ. As with the Vintage Warmer, I was impressed by how easy it was to bring about a marked improvement simply by setting the controls according to semi-educated guesswork. In this case, I wanted to tighten up the top end and add a little “air” to the overall mix. More experimentation is needed, but I’m very tempted to start splashing out on more PSP stuff…
I’ve been occasionally alluding to a “new project” on here for a while now, so it’s a great relief to come clean at last…
In an ideal scenario, the site would have gone live last March… that’s when we felt we’d finalised both the concept and design. However, while an e-commerce company (who weren’t really up to the job) took several months to get things up and running, we were able to add more content and polish the overall concept. Maybe these things happen for a reason…