Tag: Geek

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I. Officially. Rule.

First up, big thanks to all techie geeks who attempted help with the router/hub/modem thingie problem – Lovely G, TH and Christian Renz, all fine peoples with some top advice.

However, in the end it was me who came up with the solution. Yes, me. I’m sat here thinking about the problem, and how everyone says ‘but ethernet ought to connect automatically’. TH in fact pointed out that I ‘must have had the ethernet connected to configure the modem in the first place’. And that’s the bit that sparked my next thought… My problems all seemed to stem from the fact that I’d configured it all via wireless, so it saw the Wireless as the primary internet connection, and wasn’t sending the right DHCP info to the ethernet side of things at all.

So, I do what every self-respecting geek-in-a-fix does, and restored the factory settings on the modem, turned off the airport on the laptop, plugged in the ethernet and started again.

This time, it worked like a dream. DHCP assigned LAN IP details (shark, ask TH) to the ethernet side of things, I was all hooked up in seconds, and could properly configure the wireless side of things to actually have a password on it! Yay for me.

However, more important than all of that, I could also then do the software update for the Looperlative, fixing a bug I found two days ago (Bob uploaded the fix yesterday – how’s that for customer service???), and cleaning up the audio even further (it already kicked the arse of every looper I’d ever used)… So scratch that title – Bob. Officially. Rules.

Oh yes.

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this toddler is learning patience

I forgot that beta-testing is all about ironing out hiccups.

rough outline of the day –

power supply arrives, box is working, box isn’t working, talk to bob, get box working, attempt upgrade, upgrade fails, reboot, upgrade half worked, retry upgrade, fails and buggers machine. Was it something I said?

So tomorrow is more techie-geekery in order to get loop-toys working to potential. And it all means that the trouble-shooting process for the end result will be that bit more secure and organised, more bugs will be ironed out, and the whole thing will be more stable.

It’s just that I want it working NOW! So I’m going to sulk of to bed instead.

Soundtrack – The Bears, ‘Car Caught Fire’ and The Psychodots, ‘Terminal Blvd’ – two amazing bands with 3/4 the same members – The Bears is The ‘dots + Adrian Belew. Stunningly great guitar pop in a very british early 80s Elvis Costello/XTC/Joe Jackson sort of way, filtered through american guitar bands like The Rembrandts, Husker Du and with Belew sounding just like Belew on the Bears album. highly highly recommended.

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Point and Shoot…

So, as I’ve mentioned, Theo and I have got an arts council-sponsored tour in February, and are getting all the promo stuffs together. Yesterday was the photoshoot, conducted by the genius that is Steve Brown. My last shoot with Steve was in a studio in the west end, but now Steve has all his own lovely photo geek-gear, and after buying a huge white background, we set up in the newly decorated back hall at St Luke’s, which proved absolutely perfect for the role.

We got what looked like some fantastic shots – lots of great ideas from mr photographer, and a couple of reasonable ones from Theo and I. Steve not only takes great pictures, he has a real skill for the dynamics of a photoshoot, getting people into sensible poses, and guaging what they are and aren’t going to be happy to do (I’ll ponce about all day in all manner of strange clothes and poses, whereas theo is slightly more refined, despite being the one with the red and black ‘kings road circa 1978’ jeans).

I can’t recommend Steve highly enough – and it’s vital if you as a musician want to get any press to have great photos. Magazines – especially smaller magazines – won’t run articles about you if you don’t provide them with great photos. It’s as simple as that. If you do, they may run an article they weren’t really planning on, just because your pictures make their mag look good. Your posters will be more eye-catching, your flyers more likely to be picked up, your website snappier, and all the foxy laydeez will digging your wikkid skillz. So, head over to his site now, get a quote and get booked in. He’s cheaper than Anton Corbijn, and I prefer Steve’s style… 😉

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New things at last.fm

First there was audioscrobbler. then they added last.fm, a sister internet radio station that chose tracks based on your audioscrobbler profile.

Hang on Steve, what the hell is audioscrobbler in the first place? Oh sorry. You see how at the bottom of most blog posts, I have a list of what I’ve been listening to, and the word ‘soundtrack’ next to it is in bold. Well that’s because it’s a link. if you click that link you get taken to a page that gives you details of every bit of music I’ve played in itunes over the last year or so. It has charts of who I’ve listened to the most, and for each artist it has charts of how many people are listening to them, what tracks are being played the most, etc.

Anyway, that was the scrob. And they also had last.fm, which had much the same information available on it as the scrob, but in a slightly crappier format.

So the whizkidz behind it decided to combine the two sites, and give the new site a bit of an overhaul. and it’s now last.fm. go and have a look. Do a search on an artist or two. then check out my page – the one that’s always linked from the bottom of the blogs. You’ll see what I’ve been listening to. How clever is that?

Anyway, they’ve also made it much easier for record companies to upload their music for the radio stations. So I’ve just been uploading the Pillow Mountain catalogue. check out the pages there for Grace And Gratitude and for For The Love Of Open Spaces. From there you can preview the CDs, or add them to your last.fm radio station (personalised radio, for free, with no adverts. Oh yes).

All in, last.fm is a music geek’s paradise – head over there, sign up and geek out!

Soundtrack – last.fm solobasssteve radio (you need the Last.fm player and a last.fm account for this link to work)

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For those of you who just can't get enough of background hiss…

The lovely and wonderful Rev. G of the parish of St Tourettes, Edinburgh blogged about the PlusDeck – a cassette adaptor for your PC.

Now, apart from the general uselessness of creating high res MP3s that sound like dial-up optimised real audio files from the mid 90s, the page is particularly hilarious given that right at the top, where they are selling the unit’s most remarkable features, it says,

“PlusDeck 2 offers you high quality sound using cutting-edge audio technology and a Full Logic Mechanism Deck. The deck plays and records with Auto Reverse. You can easily play or record on sides A and B of the tape without ejecting it.

Now, I don’t know about you, but ‘auto reverse’ on a cassette deck is a bit of a late 80s innovation – hardly the stuff of computer-geekery. Surely that’s a given? In these days of iPods that will play 30,000 songs on continuous random play, having a 90 minute cassette, that sounds like it was recorded under a duvet, turn over in the middle is hardly world beating?!?

If you pay a bit extra you might even get the one with the buttons that make it go faster in both directions so you can find the songs you want just that little bit quicker than listening to the whole thing.

(having said all that, it would be a cool gadget to have, given that I have got a few things on tape that I’ll never be able to replace on CD… shhh, don’t tell Gareth)

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not one but two Amy Kohn gigs in London

One of the best things about Edinburgh is meeting up with other performers. Sometimes it’s a fleeting yet encouraging chat outside a venue (I met Alan Carr outside the Assembly Rooms where he was performing, and had a lovely chat and swapped encouragement for the fest) and other times it’s people who become top chums and you stay in touch with.

Amy Kohn is a friend of JazzShark‘s, who was playing up at Edinburgh, and who stepped into the role of Echoplex footpedal on Fringe Sunday and jammed along on accordian, on Amo Amatis Amare. She was down in London this weekend playing a couple of gigs so we went along. First up she was at The 12 Bar – an acoustic venue in central London, playing at an accordion night (oh yes, it’s not just bassists who get together for a geek-out once in a while!). Obviously for this gig she was just playing accordion and singing, but was fab. She writes very quirky songs, with lots of really odd harmony in them, and it takes a while to get drawn into Amy-world, but when you catch up with her, it’s beguiling stuff.

Monday’s gig was at Ray’s Jazz in Foyles – just a half hour in-store. But they had a piano, so I went along to see what Amy was like with piano instead of accordion. Damn, she’s a fantastic piano player! Scary stuff indeed. The Accordion is a great live tool, in that it gives her freedom to move around, it’s pretty original for a left-field singer/songwriter and is just makes a nice change, but Amy’s piano playing is on a whole other level. There are nods towards Tori and Kate Bush, but that’s just a tiny part of what Amy does. She’s as much Charles Ives as she is Tori Amos, and her background in musical theatre definitely creeps in there too… I picked up copies of both her albums, and have listened to the brand new so-new-it’s-only-an-advance-copy one, which is marvellous. Really really original and lovely. Top stuff.

Today’s been a day of two halves – the first half was spent shopping in Enfield with my auntie Babs. Well, she’s actually my third cousin Babs, but has always been auntie Babs… (maternal grandmother’s cousin). Anyway, I think I’ve probably blogged about Babs before – she’s 80 (I think), but looks about 20 years younger, has a more active social life than most people half her age, a great sense of humour, and is much fun to go out for lunch with. Today she needed the batteries in her smoke alarms changing, so that was a fine excuse for us to go out for lunch before heroic me shimmying up a ladder to swap said batteries over.

And now I’m listening to and playing through the songs for Duncan’s greenbelt gig. Lucky me – what a charmed life. 🙂

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Fine digs in Edinburgh

There are a few things that seem to be consistent across most people’s Edfest experience – sore feet from flyering, paranoia about a ‘nil points’ on the ticket sales front, fretting about bad reviews, drinking too much and staying in overpriced horrible accomodation.

Well, sore feet I have – though not too bad, and I do feel myself getting fitter as the days go by, and I’ve lots weight…)

Audience figures have thus far been well up on last year, and I’m reasonably positive about the rest of the run.

Not a single press person has booked a ticket for the show as yet, though I did ring a couple of papers this morning who seemed at least slightly interested in sending someone along. but it does mean I’m only worried about audience reviews, and the one I’ve had so far has been just fine.

Drinking too much? Well, I’m driving in each day, and playing at 11.15, so no drinking for me at all. My Edfest alcohol consumption for 2005 thus far has been one glass of wine in the Jolly Judge on my first day here.

And as for a place to stay – TSP and I are staying with Gareth and Jane, a finer place to lay one’s head is not to be had in all of the Scottish lowlands. It’s warm, spacious, and Gareth’s a geeky pedant who prints off corrections to my blog and brings them up to me. And they say vicar’s are meant to be rushed off their feet. He also has a slightly unnerving fetish for 80s metal, and a their bath is so deep and long that it’s more of a canal than a bath. I’m thinking of installing a lock halfway along it so I can reach the taps in a boat. There’s a tow-path along the side of it, and I stubbed my toes on an old shopping trolley this morning.

It’s a great place to be – and I have to bite my tongue when other peoples are telling their tales of woe regarding paying £400 a week for a hovel.

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Italy post no. 6

(written 24/7/05 10.45)

I’ve just arrived at the venue for todays, gig and it’s unbelieveable – it’s in the grounds of a huge chateau, known locally as ‘little versailles’ – beautiful gardens, an 18th century stately home, and a massive great covered venue in the gardens – huge stage, lighting rig. Ripe for some solo bass loveliness.

The range of acts playing is pretty broad for a bass-centric event – from me at the start, through to a big band playing some of Jaco’s big band stuff at the end, with Michael Manring as featured guest. It’s going to be a fun day.

As well as that, there’s a bit of a gear expo going on – lots of freaky looking high end basses, gadgets and amps galore. The problem with having a set-up that I’m as happy with as I am is that gear loses its appeal, unless it does the same thing only smaller.

Michael and I have been talking a lot in the last couple of days about how to reduce our processing setup down to a laptop and a handful of pedal controllers. The idea of taking two basses and one bag to gigs, especially once I get my powered Accugroove speakers, is sublime. I’m definitely going to start investigating what’s possible, and checking out possible pitfalls like latency. It’d open up all kinds of other options for loopage and processing too – being able to use the Ohm Boys filter live would be a dream, as well as being able to have the tail on a reverb or delay carry on fading whilst switching to a whole other channel to carry on playing, with different reverb and delay settings. Geek heaven!

Today is definitely going to involve a lot of sitting around not doing much, but I can’t think of a nicer place to be sitting around doing nothing in.

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