Category: Random Catchup

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cats and websites

Sorry for big absence from blog-world – two big things have been going on. Firstly, and most tragically, the ginger fairly aged feline has been very unwell. You know about the cancer, which at the moment isn’t showing up the way it was, but he’s now got very serious kidney failure, (creatin level of over 800, which is off the chart), and there’s pretty much nothing they can do. We’ve been trying to get his blood levels settled, but he’s not enjoying the renal food and isn’t really improving anyway, so we’re now pretty much resigned to giving him whatever he wants to eat so he can enjoy his last week or two on earth. It’s a horrible horrible moment to reach – it feels like condemning someone to death, even though there’s no way he’s going to suddenly get better. The will is there to keep fighting for him, but he’s got nothing left to fight with. It’s a dark time in Stevie-Towers.

The second hugely time consuming thing of late is moving my website over to a new server. Copying the stuff over was no problem at all – the Captain took care of that in his usual uber-geek cleverness way – but once there, it became clear that OSCommerce wasn’t going to run on a server running the latest versions of PHP and MySQL (like I know what I’m talking about). So, ’twas time to find a new shopping cart – this time I’ve gone with Zen Cart – it looks quite similar to OSC, but I’m assured by geeks who know that it’s more secure, and much tidier code-wise. I’m almost there, almost completely up to date with the shop – it’ll hopefully go live over the weekend, with advanced order on ‘Behind Every Word’ available, which will include the free download album ‘Lessons Learned From The Fairly Aged Felines (Lessons Learned Pt III)’ – I just need to finish mixing that, zip it up into a zip file with some artwork, and maybe a couple of tracks from ‘Behind Every Word’, and it’ll all be on sale then. I’ll then over the next week or so get Lessons Learned Pt I, Conversations, Open Spaces and It’s Not Gonna Happen up for sale, and hopefully replenish the Street Team Stash with all manner of goodies. Busy time for a bassist cum web designer. :o)

Also, just in, I’ve been booked for an open-air gig in Portsmouth (at least, I’m assuming it’s open air, as it’s for a boat race of some kind, and they generally don’t happen in doors) – I’ll posted the deets as soon as I can.

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Good times, bad times..

My what a mixed up week!

Starting with the screwed up car – bad times.

Then Tuesday I had a rehearsal with Julie for our gig at the National Theatre on the 31st – got lots of songs done, including songs by Green Day and The Cure. It’s going to be a fab gig. – good times.

Wednesday was another great rehearsal, this time with Andrea Hazell – Andrea’s only improv experience before this was onstage at Greenbelt last year with me, so she came round for a run through before thursday’s RC gig. Working through various ideas we found that Dido’s Lament by Purcell worked beautifully when looped and layered over ambient mush! – good times.

Which leads us to Thursday and the RC gig. The day started with renting a car – Enterprise do a scheme where they pick you up for free as well, which was nice. I then set off to pick up Todd from Peckham. When, after an hour and a half I hadn’t reached the river, I had to admit defeat to the traffic and head back home, leaving Todd to get the bus to the gig! – bad times, but at least I got to have a listen to the whole of the new album on the in-car CD player and check out what it sounds like in another situation. it’s pretty damned fine sitting in traffic music!

Anyway, came home, loaded the rental car, with gear and TSP, and headed down to Darbucka. Got there nice ‘n’ early, got set up and sound-checked, and even the sound check was sounding lovely. It’s safe to say, that this Recycle gig was one of my all time favourite gigs. Y’all know by now the the RC is ALWAYS stunning, but this perhaps even eclipsed the others. I started solo, with a glitch-free version of ‘Behind Every Word’ (first time that my opening tune at the RC has gone off without a hitch)… However, the loop gremlins just hid until my second track – some weirdness going on in ‘FRHU’ but it was still fun. Followed that with ‘Grace And Gratitude’, then got Andrea up to join me. We did two long pieces – the first a wordless improv, and the second was the Purcell – the purity, clarity and power of Andrea’s voice makes for a completely unique duo experience. Like so many people, the harshness of bad opera has left a bad impression on me, but working with Andrea shows just how good operatic vocals can be when performed by a world class singer. A total joy.

After the break, Todd Reynolds was on. I already knew Todd was amazing, world-class. I wasn’t quite prepared for just how awe-inspiringly amazing he would be as a solo performer. This was, without a doubt, one of the greatest virtuoso performances I’ve ever seen – it’s hugely inspiring to watch someone play who has obviously dedicated such a super-human amount of time, energy and love to being right at the top of their game. I can count on one hand the performers I’ve ever seen of equivalent levels of skill and beauty in their playing – Gary Husband, Show Of Hands, Antonio Forcione, Michael Manring… it’s a tiny tiny select group that serve as a wake-up-call to the rest of us to up our game considerably. I don’t think I’ve ever heard violin played like that live, even on video. It was a fairly small crowd for the RC, but every single one of the people there got a major treat checking out Todd’s magic.

And then the improv bit at the end, the musical equivalent of a 70s wrestling ‘royal rumble’, only a bit more gentle and considered. For this, the three of us were joined half way through by Julie, and the transition from the layers and layers of Andreas’ huge expansive voice fading across to the intimate exquisite layers of humming from Julie was definitely one of my favourite improv moments ever.

How lucky am I? Definitely Good Times.

And then today. I took the rental car back, they found a stone-dent in the back door (was it there when I got it yesterday? I didn’t see it…) and charged me £75 for it, making a grand total of £105 for the day’s car rental. Bollocks. Bad times. Then, just as I arrive home, the garage calls and tells me my car’s ready – £666,69. I’m not sure if the number’s significant, but it’s certainly an evil amount of money. Still, they are a fantastic and trustworthy bunch of guys, and it was really nice to get back in our car. It’s the first time ever that the switch from rental car to own-car hasn’t been a disappointment. This is one lovely car, and even with the blown gasket, I’m still hugely grateful to the lovely G and J for selling it to us for a solo-bass-wages sized sum. So bad times on the cost, good times on getting it back.

Then I come home and finally start to tackle the monumental task of tidying my office. – scary times. The problem is, I’m halfway through and need to somehow make it so I can teach in it tomorrow! arrrrggghhh!

Good times, bad times, you know I had my share…

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Car-gone

For the last few days, the car has been overheating randomly. On Friday, lots of freaky brown sludge came out of the water reservoir when I took the cap off. My first hunch – not knowing much more about cars than a four year old with some toy ones – was that some had at some point used Rad-Weld or something like that on it, and it had just bubbled up to the top. A call the the lovely G disproved that – he’d owned the car from new, so he should know (though he’s not a vicar anymore, so might be practicing telling really big lies now that he’s allowed to).

Anyway, this morning I took it to those trusty peoples at T&H Motors in Barnet (great mechanics and nice blokes), and they told me that the head gasket is leaking oil into the coolant. Apparently it’s a regular problem with Rovers (I remember my brother mentioning something similar when I first got the car). So, the upshot is that we’re without a car for a week, then without several hundred pounds to fix the car. 🙁

With means I’m going to have to rent a car for the RC gig on Thursday…

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Part III – WTF?

Right, The Matrix part III has just finished, and seems to be have been closer to the 2nd one than the 1st – incomprehensible, OTT and full of plot holes. Anyone care to have a stab at explaining this one???

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OK, who the hell is going to explain the 2nd Matrix film to me?

Right, I remember it getting a bit of a slagging when it came out, but I watched the Matrix Reloaded this evening (it was on TV finally) – what the hell was that all about? I mean, other than the fighting and crap attempts at sexual chemistry? Plot? er, no. Any clue? Loads of jumbled up references to the same stuff as the first film – Faith, destiny, fate, sacrifice, the search for meaning… only this time they were crassly squeezed in between the fight scenes, which were all at least 50% longer than they had to be.

Is being cleverly animated enough for a film these days? Was it just me, or was that largely a load of shit?

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Internet facts…

From Wadders’ blog –

According to research carried out on behalf of the BBC recently:

40% of the population are not online

27% of households have terrestrial TV only

27% of the population aren’t aware of Digital Radio

15% of the population aren’t aware of Freeview

Only 2% of UK internet users publish a blog

30% of UK internet users haven’t even heard of blogs.

So, go tell a friend about blogging! Feel free to use this as an example. haha!

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The vagueries of the English language.

Just found this on the blog of a Danish bloke – pretty much sums up the silliness of the pronunciation of English language…

When the English tongue we speak.
Why is break not rhymed with freak?
Will you tell me why it’s true
We say sew but likewise few?
And the maker of the verse,
Cannot rhyme his horse with worse?
Beard is not the same as heard
Cord is different from word.
Cow is cow but low is low
Shoe is never rhymed with foe.
Think of hose, dose,and lose

And think of goose and yet with choose
Think of comb, tomb and bomb,
Doll and roll or home and some.
Since pay is rhymed with say
Why not paid with said I pray?
Think of blood, food and good.
Mould is not pronounced like could.
Wherefore done, but gone and lone –
Is there any reason known?
To sum up all, it seems to me
Sound and letters don’t agree.

Lord Cromer, 1902

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(I'm gonna drive) 500 Miles

It’s true, I’ve done 500 miles in the last couple of days. Yesterday after a daytime of teaching and listening through the newly recorded tracks from Monday and Tuesday, I headed off down to Brighton to see Imogen Heap play again, accompanied this time just by Zoe Keating on cello. I’m really glad I got to see the duo version of the gig, as well as the full band version last week. Imogen really is one of the most engaging live performers I’ve ever seen. Fantastic stuff.

Bumped into Steve – Cathy Burton’s keyboard player – at the gig, with his fiance, and offered to give them a lift home, as their last train was only just after Imogen had started. Ended up being a v. v. long diversion, and I got home at nearly 3.

Had to be out of the house again before 9, to drive to Nottingham for a day’s teaching stuff at Broxtowe College – a load of other pro musicians and I were brought in to critique the bands, help them with arranging, rehearsing, performing etc. It was a lot of fun, and I was paired up with Kieran Pepper from The Prodigy to work with these bands together. I then finished up the day giving a quick masterclass/Q & A sesh to a group of bassists. Much enjoyment all round.

However, I very nearly didn’t make it to Nottingham. On the way up, my brakes started to make some strange grinding noises – that nasty metal-on-metal noise that means your break pads are going. By the time I’d got to Nottingham the break pads had gone completely, and the grinding noise was hanging around beyond the pedal being held down, indicating that the brakes were beginning to stick. I got the car as far as a garage (Hi-Q in Beeston, if you’re interested), and they got it up on a ramp straight away. Weirdly though, the adaptor thingie needed to undo the locking nuts on the wheels was totally threaded, and useless (a call to the lovely Rev. G revealed that this wasn’t the case last time he changed a wheel… much strangeness). A resourceful young chap in the garage was able to hammer a socket-set thingie onto the nut and remove it, so we were off again, but with the 15 minute walk from there to the college I got there about half an hour after I was intending to.

Still, they fixed the brakes, I picked up the car afterwards and paid them £128.00

So now I’m knackered, too much driving. Wanted to go and see Cathy Burton at The Half Moon this evening, but was just too tired.

Soundtrack – Lola Perrin, ‘Fragile Light’ (gorgeous solo piano from possible future collaborator… watch this space…)

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British Book Awards

just watched the British Book Awards on TV. I, of course, voted for Margrave Of The Marshes in the public voted book of the year category, which was sadly won by JK Rowling for some unknown book about kids pretending to do magic or something.

That’s pretty much expected in a public vote. What was more disturbing was that Margrave was beaten in the best Biography category by Sharon flippin’ Osborne! Now don’t get me wrong, I like the Osbornes. Sharon’s a fascinating woman, and as the architect of Ozzy’s career renaissance, she’s clearly a marketing genius. But her book better than the Peel one? Naaaaah.

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Kid's typing course

just found this via a friend’s blog – A free touch typing course on the BBC website – it’s designed for kids, so the graphics and stuff are as you’d expect for kids, but if you are really to tight to fork out for mavis beacon’s typing course, then it’s a great place to start, or to refresh your skills if you’ve got lazy. Just typing this and thinking about which fingers I’m using, there are a few touch typing rules that I’m breaking, so I think I’ll go back and do the course too…

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