The top search strings for this website for July 2005:
1 nookie bear
2 my-nude-album
3 ashbory bass
4 ashbory bass sound samples
5 cocksucker s diary
6 anderson sec 1 blog
7 ashbory
8 ashbory bass mp3
9 bone bomb mp3
10 computer webstore liverpool
11 cottaging blog
12 darren almond 15 minutes moon
13 darren lock
14 darren sharper 2005
15 electric six gay bay video
16 eno bone bomb mp3
17 how is postalservice and old age managed in nigeria
18 lyrics when everyone was here
19 my psp froze and i cannot shut it off
20 my squelchy life dr. dream
There are some interesting entries this month with cottaging making another entrance into the top 20, but nookie bear is still holding strong. Why o why are people coming here to look for Nookie Bear? It was only an off-the-cuff remark way back in March about the similarity between Sir Alan Sugar and Nookie Bear, but it keeps the Nookie Bear anoraks coming. Oh well, if I mention Roger De Courcey today that should really set their search engines alight!
Latest Entries »
Track Listing
1. Electric God MP3
2. Birdsong
3. Apathy
4. Control
5. Drifting
6. Coils of Sleep (including Lullabye)
7. Secret Son
8. Last Train to Leytonstone
9. Vision Thing
10. Devil’s Claw MP3
11. Timelapse
12. Eye Needles
13. Shot Myself in the Foot Again
14. Over the Horizon
It seems such a long time ago that I recorded this old thing. It was put together using my first four-track recorder made by Vestax, which was a huge clunky piece of kit that looked like something that would look at home in the former Soviet Union. The subsequent tracks were then mixed and recorded onto a fresh tape in my hi-fi.
Equipment used on this recording including my faithful Yamaha RGX guitar, my Encore bass, a marvellous Zoom 9000 guitar FX processor, a very old Casio keyboard, and a Yamaha 12-string guitar. There is also an appearance from a very out of tune mandolin too.
The sleeve itself was painted by me. OK – it is a slight homage to the King Crimson album “Discipline” but I am quite pleased with the results. I painted using acrylic paints onto transparency paper so I could get a very clean looking design.
Spent Saturday tidying my room and making sense of the all the mess. On Sunday, went to the local dump to offload an old monitor and printer that was no longer needed. Both of these items were too old/heavy to be sold on eBay.
The heavy head that came on me late yesterday remains today. It’s like a headache but not. Just a dull ache that’s causing me to frown and making hard to focus my eyes on anything. I’m sure it will pass.
Did some more recording yesterday afternoon and transformed the recent demo into this:
The new album has around 15 minutes already glued together with another 10 minutes in the box marked “shall we bother to include this?” I’ve been enjoying recording. It’s nice to get back in the saddle again, as it were.
A lot of people visit this website courtesy of Google looking for information about the Ashbory bass guitar. Seeing as I own one and there wasn’t a dedicated page before, I thought I’d cobble some information together for all you weary web travellers. Firstly, I got turned on to the Ashbory bass in 2000 when I saw it being used by Trey Gunn at a King Crimson concert. Expecting the instrument to cost thousands of pounds, I was surprised that you could pick one up new for around $200. At that time, there weren’t that many stockists in the UK selling the Ashbory Bass, but luckily I was visiting Los Angeles for my birthday in February 2001. A search on the web, brought up the details of Highland Park Music & Pawn. I got in touch with Doug the propreitor and arranged to pick one up on my visit. So for $200, I got myself a little bargain in black.
The Ashbory itself is a unique instrument. It is around half the size of a standard bass guitar, fretless and uses silicon rubber strings. It is the combination of the strings and the pickup that makes the unique sound – it is supposed to give you a similar tonal range to that of a regular upright fretless bass for a fraction of the price. I like the tone of the guitar, but there are issues that make it difficult to play. Firstly, it is the tuning. My instrument is always slipping out of tune, especially the “G” string. The “G” string is always the first one to snap too and it can be expensive to buy replacement strings. Luckily, I found a man on the net that sells replacement “G” strings for a fraction of the price.
Here are some pictures of my instrument:
Here are some sound samples I’ve recorded using my Ashbory:
Ashbory Links:
The Story of the Ashbory Bass
The DeArmond Website
The LargeSound Ashbory Bass Resource Page
Replacement Ashbory G-Strings
Every year I tune into the freak-fest that is Big Brother to see how Channel 4 has degraded the format. The very first series was an interesting social experiment, but now they tend to fill the house with people who are just too media-savvy for their own good. However, the really great thing about Big Brother is the betting culture that’s grown up around it. Every Friday, you can have a flutter on who is going. Every series there is at least a couple of good chances to make some money when the bookies get it completely wrong. Where else in a two-horse race can you get odds of nearly 5-1? Even if you do lose, the odds are too good to turn down and there’s always at least one eviction that catches the bookies out. I’ve been biding my time and waiting and last night, I took my chance. I had a flutter on Kemal getting the boot and my horse came in. I made a nice £50 out of the show. So who says that reality TV is rubbish? Not me. You’ve just got to find a way to make it work for you. 😉
Why o why o why o why do rock stars feel it necessary to cover the classics. This time it is Justin “I’m only 54, you know” Hawkins from the Darkness slaughters “This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us”. Ha de har har…it’s so funny. And so post-modernly ironic as both Russell and Ron Mael appear in the video. This balding chipmunk should be taken out, horsewhipped within an inch of his life and then made to personally apologise to everyone who’s ever had the misfortune to hear one of his goddamn awful novelty records.
Apart from that little outburst, it has been a quiet day. 🙂
So anyway, after calling her insurance company, The Missus was told that she needn’t worry about being sued. She should simply forward the County Court claim forms to the insurance company and their solicitors will deal with the matter. It seems that the claimant hasn’t given our Insurance people all the details of the damage to her car and so they aren’t willing to pay out. They are like us: they can’t understand how a £10 cracked number plate on the Missus’s car could result in this giant claim from damages. Also, reading the claimant’s version of events was very interesting. It seems she is saying that the accident happened at speed with her moving and the Missus trying to overtake. It didn’t: it happened in stationery traffic with the Missus rolling forward into the back of her. Oh well, we’ll have to see how this all pans out. At least, I won’t have to visit The Missus in prison just yet. 🙂
Yesterday, Sony released a patch for the PSP which allows uesrs to the surf the Internet. Boy – I must admit, it’s the cleverest thing I’ve seen in a while. The browser is lightning fast and works with most of the websites I’ve visited. It also means that if you are travelling, you can check your email/surf from a wi-fi hot-spot (like an airport or Starbucks). It means that if I am ever going away again, I can keep in touch WITHOUT taking my laptop. Hurrah! I love technology.
In the post: the last set of VDGG remasters. I am not that familiar with “The Quiet Zone/Pleasure Dome” as I always found it one of the tougher VDGG (or should that be VDG?) albums to get, mainly because of the line-up change, but I am looking forward to getting reacquainted. I had a brief listen to the restored live album “Vital” and it sounds good. There’s still the issue of David Jackson’s sax in the mix but that problem will/can never be fixed. But they’ve done a good job anyway.