What I'm Working On

One Last Time

I'm prepping a CD of 'Satellite City: Live at the Manning Bar'. Yes, I'm re-working those recordings one last time. Sometimes I feel like I've polished these recordings so hard there's nothing left of them to enjoy for myself. However, it is this one last time because after this process is done, I'm consigning it to history - and so I should. I've been the custodian of these recordings for the last 19 years and (yes, you read that right, 19 years!) it's getting to the point where if I can't get this off my plate for good, I'm just going to not deal with it at all.

Even so, I trotted on to Sydney Uni campus to get some photos of the Manning Bar - and it was closed so I ended up with some photos of just the Manning House from outside. It's been years since I'd been on campus; so damn long that I couldn't even recollect my angst of trudging past the Physics Building towards and away from the Bosch Lecture Theatres. All I could recall was a vague feeling of discontent and not belonging. Winters used to be shit, and summers were shit too. I used to hate it, but it was long past the embers' last flash of anger in that fire.

When I listen to it as closely as I have done, all the faults manifest themselves mercilessly while the actual *good* seems to recede more and more. It's hard to explain but I feel buried in the faults getting more and more depressed. All the charming mistakes and bum-notes just revert to being just that, while the added clarity actually sheds light on what exactly it was that was being played. You know this used to be good and fun, you think, but the process keeps demanding closer inspections of things that perhaps are better left to sleep in time.

Yet I have a memory of what it was like to play these songs on those particular nights - and its significance still resonates within me, and it is that which keeps me at the grind. The pleasant surprise is, there are people actually waiting for these recordings. I guess the best outlook is that this time next year, it would all be history at long last. Until then, it is one last herculean effort to get it right. Really, the last step is just getting it self-published and them I'm done. I feel like I'm staggering to the finish line with this thing and when it's all said and done, I'll crack open a scotch in a lonely room and have one last listen and be *done*.

Grab Bag

Update
I am likely heading to JAXA for the 15th of Feb launch after all, which is good. I'll be away for a month starting early Feb. thru to early Mar. so please be warned I won't post too much in the period. I'm suddenly a busy man again.

Also, 'Coelacanth' is now officially working towards the second 'album' of 12 songs which we hope we'll release this year - we might not get there' but we'll try. Anyway, we are welcoming back Michelle Z on vox, so it probably won't be an all out guitar assault in the style of 'Fish Don't Carry Guitars'. I'm sure people are drawing a sigh of relief there.
Title is still being debated. Stay tuned.

In the mean time, I'm posting up some more of my Beastie Boy remixes so head on over to iCompositions for a listen, won't you now?

From The Mailbag
We were talking about Robert Fripp only a week ago and now we find out this story:
Robert Fripp is being tabbed to do the sounds for the new Microsoft Vista Operating System.

Fripp, who was a co-founder of the influential band King Crimson and has also worked with Peter Gabriel and Talking Heads, recently spent some time at Microsoft's Redmond, Washington campus "recording the various sounds we'll all hear in Windows Vista", according to a video posted on Microsoft's MSDN Channel 9 website.

Fripp is an electric guitarist noted for his ability to generate futuristic, electronic sounds from his instrument. From the evidence on the video posted on Microsoft's website, "Behind the scenes at [the] Windows Vista recording session", he's shooting for aural effects that wouldn't have been out of place in the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey".

"They don't just want it to look good, they want it to sound good, too," said Joe Wilcox, senior analyst at JupiterResearch. "Why have the boring PC 'beep' when even the basic sounds of the operating system can be an experience?"

This isn't the first time Microsoft has aimed at cutting edge sounds. Electronic rock pioneer Brian Eno created many of the tones used in Windows 95. Microsoft also spent millions of dollars to licence the Rolling Stones song "Start Me Up" for use in its ads promoting Windows 95.

"From a rocker perspective, it [hiring Fripp] does show the age of some of the people working on this project," Wilcox said.

So Robert Fripp rocks on with Microsoft. Maybe that's another reason to get a PC again when Vistas comes out. Trevor Rabin did work for Mac OS X. What is it about Prog Rock and computer sounds?

There's Also This Gem
I know it's odd, but people were discussing nude skydiving on the weekend and one of the people involved in the conversation dug this one up.


Do yourself a favour and go to the link and watch the video. It's a form of hilarity, all of its own kind.