So this week I decided to try and get some tunes written.  I’m usually quite prolific when it comes to writing music and I write it a lot for my own amusement.  The problem I often have, is that if I sit down with a certain idea in mind I often run into difficulties.  It’s almost like because I have a set of ideas that I want to convey, when I don’t get the sounds exactly matched to what is in my head I give up.  Most of the week that is what was happening.  I tried several different approaches and couldn’t write anything that either (a) didn’t sound just like something I have already written or (b) didn’t suck.

After getting repeatedly pissed off and starting again I eventually started writing without any kind of plan and ended up with a tune.   I’m reading Steven Hawking’s ‘a brief history of time’ at the moment (something which I have been meaning to read for years) and had recently heard a suggestion on the London Electricity podcast that said if you are stuck for a name for your track, flip randomly to a page in a book.  This technique acquired me the name ‘evolution’.  Not the most original name in the world but it will do.  Actually, the book is pretty good for flipping through for names as it has lots of cool-sounding sciencey words in it.  Not to make myself sound too brain-dead or anything!  It’s actually quite an interesting read too, although I think I might check out the more recent one ‘the universe in a nutshell’ afterwards as BHOT was written some time ago in 1982.  I already have some knowledge of many of the topics discussed in the older book, albeit mostly gained from programmes on television that feature or involve Hawkins in some way.

I had a call today (or yesterday) offering me another live gig for terrorist on 12th June.  This is the same day as Unjust in preston but luckily I am not on the lineup so I can do it.  Means I will miss Ladyscraper which is kind of a shame, although I did see him almost two years ago so I suppose that is some consolation.

Just like many other DJs and Artists, I have to keep up a part-time job to make sure the rent is always covered.  However, in this financial climate a part time job isn’t quite covering it so this week I’ve had to go and find a full time day-job.  I had the usual interview on Tuesday and was offered the position on Wednesday, despite having a fairly terrible interview.  At the moment my part-time job is in the evening, which gives me the day time to work on music and other related stuff while most of the neighbours are at work, letting me make pretty much as much noise as I like.  I’m not sure how the neighbours will respond to the change of noise levels come the 8th June when I start working days and writing in the evenings!

While I still have the opportunity to write during the day I have, of course, got writers block.  Everything I write sounds terrible.  In fact that’s not quite true.  Anything I like sounds far too much like my other work.  Pretty frustrating but that’s just how it goes sometimes.  To alleviate this tedium I have been experimenting with the Kaoss Pad.  It is quite easy to make rapid techno rhythms by using the sampler and slicing a repetitive loop into small pieces and turning each slice on and off.  As much fun as it is to do it’s probably not something anyone would want to listen to on it’s own, but I might incorporate this into my live set at some point.  The great thing about it is that it sounds completely different each time and the results are very difficult to replicate.  Of course, this might prove quite stressful in a live situation but that’s all part of the fun!

I also found out during the week that you can get a korg MS-10 emulator for the Nintendo DS.  I might look into this and see what other music apps are available for the DS.  Not that I have one, but I have been meaning to get one for some time, and the price is bound to come down soon when the DSi gets popular.  I’m having so much fun with the Kaoss Pad that I want more hardware to play with!  Greed.  Still, I have the APC-40 on preorder so I should have that in a couple of weeks, should revolutionise the live set.  Can’t wait!  In the meantime I am going to try and write some music again, so I have something new to play next time.

So, last night was the fabulous Sounds from the Other City festival at Salford.  First time I have been to this festival at all, and first proper live electronic gig for me too.  I must admit, I was well nervous beforehand!  I arrived at 12 o’clock or so to sound check, set everything up without any problems and left to get some food.  When I came back unfortunately everything had had to be moved onto another table to accommodate other artists - fair enough cos I was on quite early.  But because everything had been unplugged the computer became rather unhappy.  You know how it is, you unplug something and your laptop shouts at you for not ejecting it, or the program that you were using crashes.  Well, I had kind of expected that so I went over to set everything up in plenty of time.  For those that know about software, I had Ableton Live running as master with Reason running in slave rewire mode (just for instruments).  Because everything had been unplugged the reason engine did not start.  I restarted but the same thing happened.  I must admit this panicked me slightly and my mind started to freeze up, blocking all possible solutions from my vision.  I’m not even sure what I did but frantic clicking and switching stuff off and on seemed to work eventually.  I had to have a cigarette afterward, despite the fact that I have (more or less) given up!

When I actually started the room wasn’t particularly busy, but being nervous as I often am on stage, I didn’t look up much until near the end.  When I did I was surprised to see how full the room had gotten.  “OK, now I’m nervous!”, I thought!

I used a lot of Arnie samples in the last track for comic relief and some people responded really well, finishing up some of the more famous lines (”…I Lied!” comes to mind) and lots of people came up to me afterward with kind words.  Thank you all for that!  It was really nice to get some feedback!

It is safe to say the gig went about as well as I could have hoped and I can’t wait for the next one.  Massive thanks to everyone that came down, and cheers to the Terrorist crew for putting me on.  The rest of the festival was awesome as well, really nice atmosphere everywhere we went throughout.  Looking forward to next year!