The throat is still sore, but not as sore as it was the other day. Hurrah! Maybe the illness is subsiding.
In the post: more crap from eBay. This time it’s a promo only CD which features a remix of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra’s “Telephone & Rubber Band”. The accompanying PR blurb says the tune was used for a Mercury One-to-One advertising campaign in 2000. The remix itself is utter toss, but it only cost me 30p on eBay and it makes me happy to moan about such crimes against music. And now you must suffer…here it is: Telephone & Rubber Band [Pop-Tastic Remix]
Category: Diary
Still got a sore throat. If I open my mouth wide enough and get the right about of light behind me, I can use the mirror to see yellow pustules on the back of my throat. YUCK! The funny thing is that apart from the sore throat, I am feeling OK. Normally, there’s some kind of cold symptoms or running nose, right? I keep popping pills and gargling with soluble disprin, but nothing is shifting it. I was thinking that maybe a trip to the pub might kill off the bugs!
In the post: junk mail…boring!
Being a bit of an anal retentive, I like to check out whose been coming to my site. Recently, there’s been loads of people searching Google Images for Nookie Bear. And I mean loads…at least a dozen. What’s the fascinating with Nookie Bear all of a sudden? Maybe he’s staging a revival that I don’t know about. (For those who don’t know, Nookie Bear is a ventriloquist’s dummy who was popular in the late 1970s/early 1980s with his controller Roger de Courcey).
Another popular search term that brings people here is “ashbory”. For those who don’t know, these people are looking for sound samples/information about the Ashbory bass guitar. The unique thing about the Ashbory is that it is about half the size of a regular bass guitar, is fretless and uses silicon rubber strings. I bought one in LA for my 30th birthday and it is information buried on the site somewhere that is cropping up in Google. I am putting together a dedicated page to my Ashbory bass and it will be here: http://www.darrenlock.com/ashborybass.htm. I’ve taken some pictures and put some sound samples together and so hopefully it will answer some questions for those who want to know more.
And why-o-why have over 35 people from the www.scissorsisters.com website been coming to this address? What’s that all about? If someone could tell me, I would be grateful. The internet is a funny old place, innit?
Yesterday, I pre-ordered the new Brian Eno album “Another Day on Earth” and purchased the internet single “This” for £1. I am really looking forward to this record and I am going to share “This” with you now on the condition that you go and pre-order a copy from www.enoshop.co.uk
So far, 2005 has been quite a year for music. 🙂
I was going through some of the folders on my PC and I discovered a folder full of unfinished tracks that were languishing all alone. The great thing about not being a professional musician is that you can publish your mistakes and people will say: “Aaaah, at least he’s trying!”.
http://www.darrenlock.com/media/acoustidoodle.mp3
This is an acoustic doodle for my abandoned CD of acoustic tracks that never happened. It ended up sounding too much like Hotel California for my liking!
http://www.darrenlock.com/media/acoustirumble.mp3
This is another acoustic track for my abandoned CD of acoustic tracks that never happened. It’s quite loud and intense and I quite like it. Unfortunately, where would you put this on a CD?
http://www.darrenlock.com/media/bassdoodle.mp3
Ex-recording chum Andrew challenged me to produce an instrumental track that was all bass. This is it. Sounds a bit too much like Tony Levin for my liking. No use for it anywhere else.
http://www.darrenlock.com/media/cave.mp3
Not sure what this was all about.
http://www.darrenlock.com/media/delaydoodle.mp3
And then it all went like U2 trapped in a drum machine. What the f*ck was I thinking?
http://www.darrenlock.com/media/irondoodle.mp3
Quite like the atmosphere on this one, but what to do with it? So it never got used or finished.
The sky is grey and I am wearing my jumper…so it must be June! Fear, pain, suffering…I have a sore throat and I am feeling sorry for myself. Too bad…that’s what I get for kissing the wrong girls, eh?
In the post: nothing.
At the weekend, The Missus bought me a pedometer for £2. It can tell me just how far I’ve walked and how many calories I’ve burnt off. The only problem with it is a design flaw that means the battery cover can open with little user interaction and reset the stats. This isn’t good, especially if you’ve been wearing it all day!
In my attempt to do things I wouldn’t normally do, we’ve been talking about buying a bike. Now I cannot actually ride a bike. I know, it is shameful, but when I was a kid I mangled many a friend’s bicycle with my lop-sided riding and so therefore never actually managed to learn properly. When they saw me coming, they would hide their bikes! I don’t particularly want to learn to drive, so learning to ride a bike is another way of being more active. Buying a dog was meant to be a path to extra activity, but I ended up getting a four-legged friend whose idea of a good time is snoring his way through the day on the sofa. So yeah, a bike = a fit and active Darren. But which one to buy and will I be able to remain upright?
Recently, went to the cinema and saw “The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse”. I am a big fan of the LoG TV series and was looking forward to the film. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a disappointment. Yeah, it would have made a great TV-movie, but as a big screen outing, like all TV crossovers, it was a bit poor, especially the sections featuring the LoG’s “new” series “The King’s Evil”. This was woeful. But for £3 I was entertained for 90 minutes.
In the post: Steve Hackett’s Live Archive 05. This is great, it is a recording of SH’s April show at the QEH – the review of mine is on the site under “April”. The recording is fantastic and it is a reminder of just how good those concerts were. If you couldn’t make it or just want a document of the night, I thoroughly recommend this CD. Superb!
Meanwhile, the company that supplied me with the faulty memory card won’t answer my emails for a refund/replacement. I’ve been emailing them since Thursday and I’ve not even got an apology from them. Soooo…in the interest in warning other wary Internet shoppers who might be searching for reviews for this company, I would advise that you do not buy anything from The Computer Webstore of Liverpool. The customer service leaves a lot to be required. It’s a shame they don’t have a phone number on their website as I would be on the blower to them by now. I don’t want to return the item just in case I end up with NOTHING. On Monday, I am going to give SanDisk a call and see if I can get a replacement direct from them. It says that all their products come with a five-year warranty. So let’s hope this works out!
Nearly forgot…here’s the “Top 20 List of Search Terms Used to Get to My Website for May 2005”:
1 darren lock
2 darren cable saxophone
3 darren’s new single 2005
4 female saxophonists
5 review van der graaf generator royal festival hall
6 wreckless eric bungalow hi
7 www.rael arced game.com
8 ashbory electric space guitar
9 awkward blowjob blog
10 cottaging blog
11 darren
12 darren lee blog
13 emerson lake
14 emerson lake palmer beyond the beginning missing
15 every bloody emperor
16 export mp3 minidisc
17 it’s only seven days queen
18 laurie anderson barbican 2005 review
19 laurie anderson the end of the moon review
20 musical box lamb live genesis
As you can see, there’s some interesting entries there. Good to see that VDGG and Laurie Anderson makes an appearance. Still a bit disturbed by the cottaging and blowjob searches. Damn, now I’ve typed those words again, I guess that will drag more pervs back to the site. What a messy, dirty business that would be. Hmmm…can you see what I’ve just done. If someone types in “messy dirty blowjob” it’ll lead them here. 🙂
Ain’t search engines fun?!?!?!
Crappy, crap, crap. The 1Gb memory card that I received yesterday turned out to be a dud. While writing files to it, it froze up my PSP and when I tried to access the memory card again it cannot be read. Bugger. I’ve been in touch with the supplier, but they’ve been mighty quiet about issuing me a refund. Oh well, if it turns out bad, I’ll post their details here so my one regular reader can boycott their online shop!
In the post: 10″ Marvin the paranoid android
After seeing the Hitch-hikers Guide movie, I just couldn’t resist this little fellow. I think he’s a great piece of design and now I’ve got him standing on my router pointing his laser blaster at me. Oh well, it’s the only time in my life I’ll own anything that’s 10″. 🙂
Man, I need to grow up!