Been acquiring various albums recently. Got a best of Aretha Franklin, which is fantastic. I’d also recently got The Blues Brothers on DVD, and it’s amusing watching her trying to lip sync on the version of “Think” in the film - in the “making of…” commentary that’s one of the extras, they admit that the problem with Aretha is that she’d never sing a song the same way twice, hence the problems filming that piece. I also bought a couple of Grant Green albums; “Best of, vol.1″ and “Idle Moments.” Only had a couple of listens to these so far, but they’re definitely good; his playing is quite similar to Wes Montgomery’s at first take (though without Wes’ signature octave style), though I haven’t had time to analyse his note-usage. One of the tracks on the best of was sampled by Us3 in… oh, you know, one of the Us3 songs that samples a Blue Note track (there, that’ll narrow it down). All this aural pleasure was supplied by the best thing to come from Jersey since Bergerac: the wonderful play.com.

Anyway, enough whinging about lack of sleep, it’s part of the modern condition. Last Friday night I went around to Derek and Katie’s place to help them take their piano down to the tip. I’d have taken photos of the actual process itself, and even took my camera along, but sadly forgot to put any batteries in it… So instead I took an octave’s worth of the keys home.

One of the tip people picked up the piano using a JCB and proceeded to drop it from a great height into one of the enormous waste holders. Disappointingly the last noise the piano made was a low thud, rather than some apocolyptic chord (I was hoping for something akin to the end of “A Day In The Life,” by the Beatles.)

A friend once said that he played dirty at golf by asking questions like, “Do you breathe in before making a shot, or after?” Probably his opponent had never consciously thought about the issue before, but because the point had been raised, next shot would duly focus on his or her breathing, and hence cock up. For me, insomnia’s like that; normally I’ll just shut my eyes and then without realising, I’ll be asleep. However, occasionally my brain just won’t shut down, and continues to bother me with thoughts like, “When am I going to fall asleep?” Or, “What’s that noise from downstairs, did I lock the back door?” Or, “Bloody hell the dawn chorus is loud, I wonder how much a shotgun costs?” (Apparently the dawn chorus is a noisy affirmation of life - lots of our little feathered friends cark it overnight, so those that survive proclaim this fact loudly, to discourage any moves the neighbours might have thought about putting on that spot on the TV aerial. For me,the dawn chorus is just one more reason to use earplugs.)
I was going to post this at 4.30am when it all first passed through my mind, but then I fell asleep.
Still, it’s a nice day, and the lilly is in flower…

Re-recorded a tune I’m working on: Bubblegum Vision. Still a bit out of time, but getting better; think I’ll leave this thing alone now and start something new. Been messing with some chords, just came up with a lyric… think I’ll aim for something Princely.

Played with my camera and photoshop for a bit on the weekend, and voila, a new background image over on the main site. I think I’d passed the old one through MS Paint at some point, which had reduced the quality of the jpeg rather too much for my liking. I’ve tried to get the new image into the background of this blog, but no success so far (though if you’re reading this and there’s an image back there, discount this sentence).
Other than this, not much has been going on, but I’ve been chuckling over the cartoons on iamvork.com. Oh, and shit my arse if Doom3 didn’t just get its gold source release - slated for a mid-August release. The weather better not be good in late August, as I think I’m going to be busy indoors…

This example is my newest relation: Meredith Grimshaw, my brother’s third kid. That furrowed brow is a trademark of Grimshaws everyhere; the world is a puzzling place, and is best met with a mistrustful expression.

I saw the band Moe Foe at the Fez club last night. They’re a four-piece band doing live drum and bass: drummer, singer, bass player, and a keys-and-samples man. It’s well worth checking out the mp3s they have on their site (I think Cypress is my fave due to the opening bass line, though Coffee is close behind). Afterwards it sparked a conversation that basically ended with: is it pointless doing this kind of music in this “partially live” kind of way? The drummer was being fed a click track (well, I assume that was what he was wearing headphones for; perhaps he was listening to some relaxing Mozart), and everyone else went with him and the samples. I guess it depends on how much work the guy running the samples was doing, whether he was queuing each one up individually, or whether they’re sequenced already… Anyway, the music was still very enjoyable, and the bass player scores extra points for being able to play some impressive lines whilst dancing around like a loon.

This strange and pyramidal beastie is a cuberdon. It is also an example of how lines should be drawn between nations: on their confectionary. Kyla and I plus a couple of friends took a day trip to Bruges a while ago: soak in the culture, the beer, the chocolates… and in a sweet shop, we found these things. They’re kind of like jelly babies, but the shell is harder, and I hear that in a pinch they can be used focus the power of ley lines to keep razor blades sharp. (OK, that last bit might be a lie.)

OK, this blog is just going to be infrequent expostulations and photos from my rovings. Here’s a test photo…

It was taken in London, at a fair in Dulwich park a few weeks ago.

OK, let’s kick off with the inevitable test post. I’ll probably delete this later anyway as it’s unlikely to be anything that’s worth saving for posterity.