Got the confirmation last night from CDBABY that they had received 5 copies of “Sow’s Ears” and 5 copies of “Without Words” – so those titles are back in stock. I was surprised as we only posted them on Monday and they got all the way to Ohio, US of A in less than 3 days. Wowser! The new postal rates are frankly “doing my head in”. A small padded envelope containing a DVD now costs more to post to the UK than sending five CDs to America – this is thanks to the revised postal charges which take size and thickness as well as weight into account. Of course, it could be that we got overcharged. But the bottom line is that these postal charges are obscenely complicated to work out if you are a common or garden sprout like me. I expect some boffin with thick glasses is sitting in Royal Mail HQ shrugging his shoulders and saying: “It all makes perfect sense to me.”
I received two helpful emails from CDBABY today giving me direct links to my albums on iTunes and eMusic.
LINKS TO ITUNES
Darren Lock: Textures
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playListId=4151131
Darren Lock: Without Words
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playListId=18757324
Darren Lock: Sows’ Ears & Silk Purses
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playListId=18757802
EMUSIC LINKS
Darren Lock: Without Words
http://www.emusic.com/album/10855/10855640.html?fref=700329
Darren Lock: Sows’ Ears & Silk Purses
http://www.emusic.com/album/10855/10855435.html?fref=700329
Darren Lock: Textures
http://www.emusic.com/album/10855/10855306.html?fref=700329
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Here’s the stereo audio of that improvised track I posted earlier today.
CLICK HERE
Uploading video files to MySpace is screwed up again, so I am hosting this one at YouTube in mono. I was just goofing around, trying to get a loop going and riffing over it. Again, this sounds much better in glorious stereo, but until MySpace sorts itself out, this is the best I can do.
This one will also be eventually added to my RSS feed for those of who are a subscriber. If you are not, you can subscribe by clicking on the RSS link to the left the screen or cutting and pasting the URL into your podcast downloader, such as iTunes. However, I am also having trouble uploading stuff to my website, so until I get that fixed, I can’t host any large files.
See – making ambient droning noises really is cat’s play:
Recent events have caused me to throw myself at the mercy of employers and with cap in hand, spit and polish on my CV and hope in my heart. Last week, I applied for about 10 positions and one of them was quite local. I liked the sound of it and visualised myself doing the journey to work. I spoke to the lady at the agency dealing with my application and felt that I had made a good impression with my experience and general keeness. That was on Tuesday…and yesterday afternoon, I received an email saying I had been unsucessful. When I pressed them further, I was told that the position had been given to a temp who had been working there. Well why fricking advertise the job as being available? Are you doing this just to waste my time and give me false hope? My inherent opinion that all job agencies are useless remains unabated. Another rejection from another agency appeared in my inbox not long after. It was a great end to a particularly dismal Friday.
But heck, I am not going to be put off by a set-back. I have other things going for me like my terrible music. And yes, I have finally managed to pull my finger out of my rear and finish “God Pays Debts Without Money…”. I spent most of the today pulling together the first copies and it is all registered wth CDBABY. All I’ve got to do now is send them off to America on Monday. To say I am proud is an understatement as I am particularly pleased with how it all turned out. Now I am at a loss with what to do with myself musically speaking.
A table full of my CDs ready for the off
Yup, both “Without Words” and “Sows’ Ears” have sold out so I have to send some more stock out too. So it is going to be a very expensive day at the Post Office on Monday!
It seems I am jinxed. Someone out there has been busy with needles and wax effigy or has thrown a dark hex my way. “How so?” I hear you ask. Well it all began when I stepped into my local tube station with the intention of getting to the gig on time. I had left early, so that I could meet up with the Missus and have a bite to eat at one of those snazzy eateries on the South Bank, before tootling onto see Peter Hammill in concert. However, my Spidey-senses tingled as soon as I hit the station and the word “delays” echoed over the PA system.
What should have been a simple, 60 minute journey was stretched out beyond all recognition. Travelling from Debden to Stratford, which normally takes about 25 minutes, turned into a 90 minute marathon with the driver apologising profusely for there being signal failures at Bethnal Green. The problem with that bottleneck of the Central is that you are stuffed until you get to Stratford as there are no connecting trains, so I stood in cramped carriage and swallowed it down. I’ll be honest with you, I don’t like the Underground. I know it is a bit wimpy, but there’s something I just don’t like about the UK tube network. I always think it is on the edge of collapse and when we get stuck in a tunnel for a long period of time, my bowels begin to churn. But enough of the details, eh?
So when I did eventually get to The Missus, all hopes of having something to eat were out of the window and it was just a matter of walking to the venue and taking our seats. I was in a bad mood and didn’t particularly want to be there – my nerves were shot by the prolonged tube fiasco and I wanted a drink. Yes, I wanted a drink real bad. But I never drink before a gig as I believe music should be received untainted by alcohol, so I was very tetchy.
In this tour, Hammill was accompanied by violinist Stuart Gordon and I was interested in hearing how it would turn out as I hadn’t had the chance to pick up their collaboration “Veracious”. Tracks like a “A Better Time”, “Driven” and “Bubble” were stripped down and arranged in such a way that there was plenty of space for Gordon to fill in with his violin. I am not entirely sure if this approach worked. I mean those guys are great performers, but some of it just didn’t work for me and didn’t engage my senses. The only time things really started to get electric was during a harrowing performence of “Like Veronica”, a song about spousal abuse, which really went for the jugular. An old classic “The Birds” elicited whoops from the audience and I was particularly pleased when Hammill performed “Stranger Still” as the final song. It’s one of my favourites, but again the rearrangement jarred me, but all came good in the end. There was one encore with “A Way Out” and it was all over. While I thought it was an interesting night of music, I did find myself feeling slightly underwhelmed by the proceedings. Hammill, I felt, was a little off and a little sloppy in the guitar/piano department and Gordon’s violin, while sweet and soaring in places, began to grate after a while. Again, this is no slur on their performance, I just think a whole evening of this configuration is difficult listening, which can be a good thing sometimes. I guess my tube troubles had clouded my musical brain, which upset me.
After the show (yes, Hammill performed that song too), we headed out into the night and The Missus want to eat. Again, my Spidey-senses were tingling and, much to her annoyance, I insisted we went straight home. Good job too, because the tube was still up shit creek without a paddle. First there was the “Passenger Action” on the Jubilee Line (yes, those are two words you don’t want to hear on the Tube), so we hopped off and diverted to Bank station. There we waited ages for a train to Leytonstone, then had to wait there for a connecting train heading to Epping, which was another 20 minute wait. By the time we got home, it was 11.50pm and we’d left the concert at 9.30! The Missus remarked that in total, I had been travelling nearly four and a half hours on the Tube that evening for a round trip of less than two…
You’ve got to laugh, ain’t ya?
Weird Al does it again.