Memoirs of a Lunatic

Its done! :D

Done it! Dave just left, CD in hand… i’ve produced my very first EP as an engineer, and i think i’ve done a good job, Dave certainly couldn’t stop grinning away!
It feels good to have something completed like that… i guess its my first achievement as a technician, and i think its something i can be proud of… i’ll certainly showcase the work to my mates and see what they think - although i have to be careful, don’t want it to seem like i’m rubbing their noses in it!

I might get some more engineer work too… Dave was telling me about his mate and his band. They spent £500 recording an album for a forthcoming tour in germany, and the results were aparently very poor… the technician had just invested in a load of new equipment, and basically overdid it big time! So dave is gonna give the guy my number if he wants to get it remixed by myself, at a considerably smaller charge too… its probably like 10 tracks, so somewhere around between £50 and £100 is what i’d most likely charge for that.

Now the next step… recording my own band. This might be a little tricky. I’ll have to hit the record button then run out the booth, grab my guitar and start playing.

6 weeks and everything has to be completed for the college deadline… strange, 6 weeks is a long time, but then again its not… i’ll just have to pull my finger out now and get everything done! In fairness though i haven’t got an awful lot to do… unlike some of the class cretins who haven’t done any work

Waffle!

Well, had my surgery now… rather embarrasingly i got out of theatre, and in confusion thought that a fat, old chinese woman was Sara Kept asking her why she wasn’t at uni! Least i can blame the drugs for that one!
Actually not doing as bad as i thought i would… i was expecting worse i have to say. Just need to rest this week, ready for next week and starting my new bar job! My new bar job that pays £7ph, the best money i’ve ever heard of for bar staff!

Played live with my band on Saturday… first 2 songs went ok, although we know that we do a lot better during rehearsals. 3rd song went horribly wrong… so yeah, we have a lot of work to do, but we’re optimistic, and we’ll be getting in the studio to record in a couple of weeks… the main problem highlighted was lack of structure, so having recordings will help no end with that. After we’ve sorted the structure on these 3 songs we can take any new songs with a better structured approach to production, rather than hap-hazard song making.

Great…

The time i booked for the studio… no good.
Sam (rhythm guitar) will be on holiday for most of April, and Markos (lead guitar) can’t go to the studio during college time cos he has exams coming up soon…. my only hope is that i can get us in at work for the easter holidays… I’ve sent my boss an email explaining that, so hopefully the time will be available.

If not…I’m boned.

Oh, and my tutor sent me an email (i emailed him with the proposal for my project) He basically said i can’t take all this time off college due to being broke, and i should get another job, and that because i’ve taken all this time off i can’t book 2 days studio time for straight after the holidays.
He then sent me another email saying he understands how hard it is but i should try (like i haven’t tried finding another job!) and i should phone him to sort things out… which i will do.

…Why do things always end up getting fucked up for me.

Oh, and lets make things worse… just been rehearsing with my band and sorting out song structures and such (something i regard as part of my course seeing as we’ve got to record this for my project) Finished, went and had a beer with the guys afterwards. Felt a lot more relaxed… when i went out i was all pent up and stressed out.
I get home to, as usual, a pissed off mother storming around the house and pissing off everyone.

I. am. sick. of. this!

Everytime i go out and relax, or go out and have a good time, i get home and she ruins it for me! Instead of going to sleep thinking what a good day its been, i go to sleep wishing i wasn’t here! I should just stop fucking coming home!

So, now i’m pissed off again, and feeling quite panicy!

Well fuck me in the @sshole!

Thank you very much Nescot… got a letter yesterday from them, telling us the deadline for ALL work to be submitted is May 18th! Eck, they’ve been telling us June 14th for the whole year! Now suddenly i’ve got to rush to get everything done in time… fuck, i still have another EP to produce! I’ve booked the studio time for that, middle of next month… its just not much time.
I’ve still got to finish off a budget, explain the nats arse of each track, show research (btw, a pointless task, i’ve done no research for this stuff, its already been taught to us!) finalilize the presentation and evaluate thouroughly… kill me please.
This is on top of Alan’s retarded fucking assignments… i don’t know music theory, therefore i have no idea how to finish those assignments! Fancy giving work to music TECHNOLOGY students, about music theory! Its nothing we need to be concerned with!

Oh, the salt in the wound - After everything has been handed in, we are still expected to attend for a full month, with no work to do, and no point in being there….. when will common sense prevail?

Enter Charcoal!

Less than a week now before me and my band play live together for the first time! Its our bassists birthday party we’re playing at, doesn’t sound like much but a big hall has been rented out, and there’ll be a lot of people… so its as good as a gig.
Kiinda nervous, but i’m used to be on stage, so i’m more looking forward to it! We’ve actually got a good sound going on so i wanna see what kind of a response we get from the audience!

After the weekend got my surgery… meh, not exactly looking forward to that but what can ya do? Just hope i don’t feel rubbishy afterwards.

What else… erm, not a lot comes to mind. Oh i’ve finished the first EP album for my FMP, and it sounds pretty good Not its down to getting my own band recorded and using computer wizardry to make us sound like rock gods of the century

Gas @_@

Yeah beer gives me gas…

Anyway! Speakers turned up, the same ones. DV said to phone them when i got em because they tested the things thorughly and they worked fine for them. So i did and spent ages on the phone while the guy said ‘try this, try that’ all to no avail. So they arranged to pick em up again and i got off the phone… then i decided to test them just one more time. Weird thing is, they worked… they worked just fine! I have no idea why they just started working like that but they did, and they sound fucking awesome!
So, thankfully that issue is now totally resolved!

We’re not gonna be doing the sound for fu manchu anymore at college… turns out Marcus took so long actually getting round to phoning their agent that by the time he did they’d given up and booked the date, and had no free dates left! Me and Chris are gonna rip his buttocks off next friday!

In other news i’m going to Olympia tomorrow for the 2007 sounds expo i love seeing whats new on the market, and it looks like there’ll be quite a few interesting new things… plus now that i’ve come a long way since the last expo, i’ll know a lot more about what i’m looking at and what impact the new technology will have.
Also going to Harrods, they’ve got a kick ass guitar expo going on so its certainly worth a look… got some very expensive axes there for us to drool over!