Sunday, February 25, 2007

Ben's Birthday Pancakes

Mr Ben McGuinness turned the barely youthful age of 29 late last week, and to celebrate we had a traditional Bristol night out...

We met at the Watershed at about 10:00 and drunk at a very fast pace until midnight when they called time. We slowly left the building and stood in a huddle deciding where to go next before concluding that we should just go back to my middle room and drink red wine. Being the birthday boy, Ben took the role of DJ, and Em came up with the genius suggestion of pancakes. We had one egg, but still managed to make enough batter mix for six.



Bruce took the taste test and promptly gave it a resounding 'thumbs-up'





With four pancakes devoured, Em suggested I film her attempting a 'high toss', seemingly determined to give me some top notch material for this blog. I don't think any of us anticipated that the idea would provide such comedy footage as this...




Just in case anyone can't watch that due to company firewalls, or something, you can view it here (presuming your firewalls don't also block youtube). It's well worth it!



Happy birthday Button!

Saturday, February 24, 2007

And Again!

The boys at OTC have used my track again on their webast, but this time they've only gone and opened their show with it!! (and there's no MC shouting over it either).

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

My First (mini) Break

I suppose having a track featured on a myspace webcast for unsigned talent is a good start. It's four minutes into the show (Morph - Albino), and only lasts a minute, but the mc's response had Chewy and myself chuckling (and left me feeling rather chuffed!)

"Yeaahh Boy...Apsolutely!"



"Take me to the zone!"

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Busy Bee

It seems like just about every spare moment recently has been taken up with music and promotion. In the first month of setting up a myspace, I've had two 'unsigned talent' online radio stations message me to ask for tunes, one of which might be dropping an old dirty d'n'b tune of mine on their next webcast. Ironically, they didn't think much of my latest chilled efforts, so I pulled out an old chunky number, which I'm not very keen on, and they loved it. Each to their own.

The other request was from 'Breakthruradio.com', specifically their 'downtime' show, which is definitely worth a listen. In fact it's a great website generally, for anyone who likes decent new music. I haven't actually got round to sending him anything yet, but his message said he liked the down tempo track on myspace, so I really should get round to it.

I've also sent my latest tune, 'Inflicted' to a newly formed drum'n'bass label, after receiving a 'friend request' from them. I wasn't expecting them to love it and instantly sign it, although I did have my fingers and toes crossed. The guy said he loved the vocal and praised the 'groove', but said I needed to build it up a bit with some more incidental noises. Still, it was nice to get my first bit of direct feedback.

I've also been postering and posting on forums for the next Breakout, of course, as well as uploading a 'Left Hand Skratch' mix (WARING - This link will upload the mix to your player!) onto the Breakout myspace.

On top of that, I've been working on a new reggae influenced drum'n'bass tune, featuring one of my favourite King Tubby samples. In fact, I sent an early version of it to Aries through msn.

Aries is the DJ who played at last month's breakout, who has made fame recently for writing reggae influenced drum'n'bass, so I was hoping for some good feedback. His response, was to send me a tune of his own, with the message - "Like the tune - check this out, also in progress - you'll laugh!".

Perhaps predictably, it contained exactly the same King Tubby sample. We did take very different approaches with it though, so I'm really going to try and get mine as strong as I can, and try to push for a b-side on his release! In fact, I've asked a trumpet player to come round and put some live parts down (and it already contains some live guitars).

Believe it or not, before you slate me for claiming that all of the above makes me 'busy', I have also been working Monday to Friday 9-5 on another placement. So there!

I have managed to take a few photos with the new camera though (and all without leaving the house)...

Firstly, the rain over the crematorium...



Chimney...



Sainsbury's...



And this one was actually taken with my old camera a couple of months ago, but what a beauty!