This is just me soloing over a riff. If I had the time I think I could develop this further into something more worthy, but at the moment it is fairly static, working on one level and so won’t be put forward for anything else.
A topical joke:
The Beijing 2008 Olympics started today in China, but the only problem with having a Chinese Olympics is that 20 minutes later you want another one…
I than’ you!
For me, the single defining cop show of the 1980s was Bergerac. You can forget your Dempsey & Makepeace and your Cat’s Eyes, Bergerac was the cop for me. He was a man who was troubled by his demons who overcame alcoholism to take on the criminal tidal wave was ashore on Jersey’s picturesque beaches. OK, so some of the stories got ridiculous, but I still enjoy watching the first few series when they air on UK Really Old. It is my guilty pleasure and I am a Bergerac anorak, I admit it. I have no shame.
A few weeks ago, the current run of repeats came to an end on UK TV Old and it got me thinking if, like Doctor Who, the show could be revived for a modern audience. After catching ten pitiful minutes of John Nettles wasting his time in Midsomer Murders, I decided that I would write a script for fun. I’ve never written a TV script before, so I settled in front of the laptop for a couple of afternoons, bashing out a story that would thrill and scare in equal quantities.
This was to be a modern Bergerac. The early episodes were pretty gritty and quite violent, so I got to work putting that stuff back in. I am also a fan of two great crime movies “Get Carter” starring Sir Michael Caine and “The Squeeze” starring Stacey Keach (it is a totally overlooked cult movie that features some tough moments as well as using a track from Olias of Sunhillow by Jon Anderson as part of the soundtrack – weird!), so I wanted this new script to be gritty like them.
OK – I know this will never get made and I wrote it for the pure pleasure of it. If you are a fan of Bergerac, download it, print out a copy and go to bed with it. I am sure you will be entertained – or at least horrified by it.
Here is “The Return of Bergerac”
And for the Googlebots: Bergerac, Jersey, John Nettles, Terence Alexander, St Helier, BBC TV, detective series 1980s
I am a screaming statwhore and so I am always checking exactly how much data is being sucked out of this website. It gives me a satisfying feeling that I am shoving over 100Gb of music down the open mouths of the unwary Internet traveller looking for free MP3 files. Though I must admit I became rather alarmed today when I noticed that yesterday I had racked up over 70Gb of traffic in one day. One day…70Gb of data whooshing from here to who knows where. That scared me. Scared me lots…
I mean that’s probably the daily rate of a hardcore porn site or something? So I checke and it turned out that for some unknown reason one of my older songs had racked an unbelievable 27000+ access. The song is “Jolly Good Mood Music” and gawd knows why it is proving to be so popular? It was recorded 10 years ago when I was still struggling with the mystical art of sound recording and is a bit shite. Oh well, who can explain it?
Meanwhile, I managed to fix the wobbly audio on my “Seville” video and I’ve uploaded a High-Def version so you can see every spot and pock-mark on my corpulant, sweaty, saggy sad old face. Look at that face…it’s as if Droppy the Dog has mated with a badly stuffed cushion. Poor bastard. Look at those blood-shot, tired eyes…what must his baby daughter think when she sees such a vision at the side of her cot?
Well she just laughs at me, because I am officially the funniest thing in her world. And that suits me fine…
By the way, you can download the Hi-Def video from here
Blimey, two entries in one day…there must be a full moon or something…
Took delivery today of a new audio toy for my arsenal of boxes and gizmos that I plug my guitar into in an attempt to make it sound like less of a guitar. This time I have purchased a Boss SL-20 Slicer pedal. I’m not really sure what a Slicer pedal does, but I think I can explain it now I have used one for ten minutes. It seems to be part delay pedal, part tremelo pedal, a touch of auto-wah and some weird melodic filter thing. So it bounces whatever you put into the little green box all around the shop and creates a subtle rhythm to what you are playing. The harmonic slice feature adds extra harmonic tones to the proceedings. It is a total gimmick, but I see some potential here for an extra dollop of “wuh?” to my sound. For example, you can record a short loop and have it play back, but it only records the FX, so you end up with a rather strange sound to solo over.
The next track demonstrates the SL-20. I’ve gone for subtle rather than “over the top” and it’s only till the end that you hear the SL-20 doing its thing. Not sure how often I’ll use it, but it certainly adds something to the mix…not sure if it is good or bad though…the jury is out! The track is called “Seville” and it is a two-pass improv. The first pass was me and the drum machine laying down some synth loop using the RC-50 and the GR-33, then I started to improv over the of that with the Godin xtSA and the VG-99, put through the Boss SL-20. Then a second pass was made with some sloppy bass via my Fender Precision Deluxe Special (within internal GK-2A kit that I installed myself) through the V-Bass pedal. If you are wondering why I am listing my kit, it is so the GoogleBot brings interested musos this way. 😉
The SL-20 is described as an audio pattern processor. Not sure exactly what that means, but you input your instrument into this green little box, select the pattern you want to use and the audio is sliced up and bounced around in rhythm to your playing. Quite strange, really…
This is a close-up of the SL-20 control panel.
By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. more information
The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this.
