Blimey – diary entries are like buses…wait ages and two come along at once. Anyway, for the loyal reader who visits everyday, here’s a demo of a track I recorded last night/this morning before I went to bed. It’s called “Eastern Pipes” and the percussion loops is by me and it is more of a sketch than a fully-fledged track. I’ll subsequently re-record this and develop the idea. This is how I work now…I record a couple of demo passes, trying out some ideas and then go for a proper take. Of course, sometimes I end up using the demo if it is that good. Anyway, I am gibbering…here’s da toon:
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It’s only seven days till the UK elections, but seeing as you can’t vote for me to be your benevolent dictator, I would suggest that you vote for this fellow instead:
Apparently, that song makes a small cameo in the new “Hitch-Hikers” film. It’s by Neil Hannon from The Divine Comedy and a couple of guys from Travis. Well it made me smile and it has got me all juiced up for my visit to the cinema to see the movie itself. I can’t wait! 🙂
While out walking Alex the Wonderdog this Sunday lunchtime, we happened to spy a couple on the green area opposite our house “getting it on”. It wasn’t exactly the weather for it, but these people (not sure if they were man & woman, woman & woman or man & man) were dressed conservatively and wearing hoods. But despite this fact, there was plenty of dry-humping going on. We diverted our gaze and continued with our walk, but as our projected route arced round back to the house, The Missus was sure that she saw one of the couple giving the other a blow-job. All this on a Sunday afternoon – normally I have to trawl the Internet for a cheap thrill, but now it is happening just a stone’s throw from the house. It’s not the first time this has happened. Because we live in a fairly secluded area, couples having illicit affairs have used our road as a spot to “get it on”. This has happened during the day time (middle-aged couples copping a feel on a Friday lunchtime, out of sight of their work colleagues) to the youngsters steaming up their Vauxhall Nova’s windows at 11pm at night. We’ve seen it all and the remains of their spent passion the next morning. Ho hum…get a hotel room, fer Christ’s sake.
As for this lunchtime, at least it gave all the other dog-walkers something to look at..
I love Genesis. And I love the Lamb album. In fact, “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway” was the very first Genesis album I ever bought. It was around the time of the Peter Gabriel “So” album and I heard that he was in this other band before he went solo. So I read up in the NME Encyclopaedia of Rock and discovered that the Lamb was regarded as their pinnacle recording and that PG left soon after. I bought my copy on cassette from WH Smith in Romford during the Whitsun school holidays. I hate Romford, but the record shops made it bearable for a 15-year-old me. I played the album obsessively trying to figure out what it all meant, not having the luxury of an inner sleeve or the background story that came with the album. But it had me hooked and I became a Genesis fan.
I’m a (relatively) young whippersnapper when it comes to Genesis and I never saw them play live in the 1970s. I saw them on the “We Can’t Dance” tour and the highlight was always the old medley. In 2002, we caught “The Musical Box” when they performed at The Royal Albert Hall. I am not a fan of tribute acts, but I heard that this band were something else. And they are. They aren’t a tribute band as such, they are more a theatrical recreation of a moment in time. The moment in time is a Genesis concert from the 1970s. The “Selling England By the Pound” gig we saw that the RAH was fantastic and we even got to see Steve Hackett play an encore with the band, so when I heard that they were performing the Lamb, I was really excited. I didn’t want to see them at the RAH again, instead I opted for the Cambridge Corn Exchange, thinking it would be a more intimate performance.
Cambridge is about 45 minutes drive away from us and after getting lost on the Cambridge Ring Road, we arrived at the venue with 15 minutes to spare. However, we soon discovered that the band would be going on stage 15 minutes later than planned. Not a problem as we would slink off into a nearby pub for a drink to waste the extra time. The pubs were thrumming and we had a quick pint of cider, before taking in a few of the sites of the shopping precinct/square near the venue. We headed back in time to buy a programme and take our seats. I wasn’t too pleased with where we were, as the balcony at the Cambridge Corn Exchange is angled slightly too shallow, so you can see the top of people’s heads blocking the stage. If the angle had been a degree or two sharper, things would have been fine, but they weren’t. So I did a bit of stretched and discovered that my slouching was hiding an extra inch or two of neck length. Click! I could see the stage. The Missus wasn’t so lucky, lots of craning left and right for her.
The opening tinkles of The Lamb began and everyone cheered. Except me. I quickly realised that this was the worse sound system that I had ever heard. There was no PA system serving the balcony, so it felt that we were watching another audience enjoying The Musical Box. A lady behind me was very annoyed by the low level of the music and went downstairs to complain. It’s a shame because The Musical Box are a top band, but where we were sitting, their attempts to recreate sonic history was reduced to musical mush. Cup your hands over your mouth and sing “And the Lamb…lies down…on Broooaadwayyy!” and you’ll understand what we were hearing.
Not to be disheartened by the poor view and crappy sound, I began to tap my legs and jigger in my seat and sing along. Unfortunately, the sound was so low that everyone could hear me and not the band. The Missus asked me to stop – I was making a scene. “But I always sing along,” I replied. Not tonight…I was too loud. So I found it hard to get behind the music. But I still tapped and jiggered and enjoyed the unfolding story of Rael and his journey through the Underworld.
I thought it was all very clever, the way the projections worked with the songs, the props and the energy of lead singer Denis Gagne. The music was good too with only a few duff guitar notes and keyboard fluffs along the way. But with the sound mix as it was, it was barely noticeable. I must say that the drummer on this tour is spectacular. He is absolutely amazing and from our vantage point, looked like Phil Collins. He had the moves and the swagger down to a tee. Superb.
The stage show went well and I couldn’t get over how complex it all was. It was simple in its execution, but there was a lot of ideas being thrown at the audience. Do you listen to the words, the music, take in the projections, watch the lead singer…boy, it was a real sensory overload. The music was absolutely top-notch, but there was a few moments when I couldn’t hear the singer – there was an audible drop in sound. I loved the use of the fire effect during Back in NYC and this has to still be one of my favourite Genesis tunes. Of course, the Lamia and Slipperman costumes steal the day…very clever stagecraft, even if it is a little cheesey in the 21st century. I thought the final flash and the two Peter Gabriels before “IT” was superb. I briefed the Missus to look out for that and we tried to guess which one was the dummy. It was impossible to tell. And then the show was over – it was the quickest 90 minutes of concert I had ever seen. Highlights were the guitar solo for “Fly on a Windshield”, “Broadway Melody of 1974” and jamming on “The Waiting Room.” Singing along to this stuff and getting a mental picture of that tour was splendid. I’d waited a long time to put the imagery to the music.
The band returned to the stage to perform an encore. It consisted of “The Musical Box” and “Watcher of the Skies”. I’d heard them perform these songs before, but to keep authenticity, the arrangements seemed a little different and Gagne’s performances were more muted than during the “Selling England by the Pound” performance. I wasn’t sure if this was part of the act or whether he was worn out. Anyway, I loved those two old tunes and was surprised to see the amount of people who left before the encore…mind you, the record for people leaving was broken tonight by the four men who left soon after “Fly on a Windshield” – they left never to return. Obviously they didn’t like the sound either.
I had a quick toilet break during one of the instrumental pieces and had a listen on the floor to the sound and it was completely different. It was much better, in fact. I wish we’d got tickets in the stalls and not in the balcony, because the Cambridge Corn Exchange as venue did The Musical Box a great disservice tonight. A great gig, shame about the lack of PA in the balcony.
The great thing about having a website is you can see which search strings are leading people to your site. When someone types in “Darren Lock” in Google or MSN Search, the idea is that it should lead them here. But other, more random, search strings are leading people here. And so I present:
Darren Lock’s Website Top 16 Search Strings
1 2 11.11% cottaging blog uk
2 2 11.11% darren wacky world blog
3 1 5.56% acoustisynth
4 1 5.56% ashbory
5 1 5.56% darren lock
6 1 5.56% download shatner rocket man
7 1 5.56% emerson lake
8 1 5.56% emerson lake and palmer rotating piano
9 1 5.56% free novel
10 1 5.56% laptop battery regeneration
11 1 5.56% rhythm buddies
12 1 5.56% rhythm buddy loops
13 1 5.56% shatner 1978 rocket man smoking
14 1 5.56% the long hello mp3
15 1 5.56% the office an american workplace video clips
16 1 5.56% zoom 9000 pictures
The first one disturbs me. Cottaging blog? Could it be that a random combination words is leading young fellows here looking for outdoor bum-fun? We’ll have none of that sort of thing here, you know. Despite the nail hardening polish, I am not that kind of guy, thankyouverymuch. But seeing this list made think that if I slip in some random popular phrases it will lead more traffic to the site. So here is a list of words that will get Google’s knickers in a twist:
boston marathon amityville horror britney spears vida guerra nelly irs lance armstrong pontiac solstice ufc wholphin
This list was generated by the Google Zeitgest Archive which can be found here: http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist
Now I can just sit back and wait for all that extra traffic to come through the virtual door… 🙂
Busy, busy, busy…I’ve got lots of work to get through this week (which is a good thing).
I recently purchased a Sony MiniDisc player courtesy of Amazon for a really good price. We needed a recorder for journalistic purposes as our old MD recorder departed a long time ago and our USB MP3 Player/Recorder can be a bit temperamental when recording with an external microphone – not good for telephone interviews. So I purchased this NetMD player for ÂŁ40. Now you can export MP3 files on to MiniDisc with the supplied software and I even put my own music on the player as an audio test. I was immediately struck by how superior the sound playback was. In fact, I was so enamoured by the Sony MD player, I have purchased another one. This one uses the HiMD format meaning you can store up to 1Gb of data on a disc – plus you can use it as a USB storage device. My old USB MP3 player is going up on eBay. It was fun while it lasted but my ears are telling me it has to go.
In the post: Horizons (DVD) – Steve Hackett. Managed to purchase this from eBay for ÂŁ4. This a show filmed at the Birmingham Studios in 1991 (or thereabouts). I have the original TV broadcast somewhere in the Darren Lock video archive. Nice to have it on DVD, anyway.
Now a confession. I am a chronic nailbiter. There…I’ve got it out of the way. I haven’t always bitten my fingernails, but over the past couple of years this habit has got worse. I do it when I am stressed – I often do it and I am completely unaware. The habit got so bad that my fingertips were getting sore. This is no good if you use a keyboard or play the guitar. The Missus, with foresight and some great logic, bought me some nail hardener at the weekend and I have been using this to deter my nail biting. The stuff makes my nails all shiny (no sniggering at the back – I am 100% all-man…grrrrrr) but when I put my hands to my mouth, I can smell the chemical smell of the nail hardener and it gives me that psychological jolt to take my hands away from my mouth. Clever, eh? So for the first time in half a decade, I am actually growing some fingernails. Next week, I might even put on some black fingernail polish! [JOKE]
I’ve seen some crap on eBay, but this has to take the prize.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=2913&item=7150895746&rd=1