Communion #3

I'm really on a roll with this communion thing. On Sunday ML gets up for announcements and not mentionaing any names, mentioned that I had nearly died last week from the communion wine, and therefore this week we were having a 2002 Merlot. Well I don't know how to break this to you, but uuummmm, well, .... Merlot's (unless they are really expensive) don't really improve with aging. They are generally designed to be drunk not too long after being bought, and if kept too long will deteriorate. So...I think maybe a port is the way to go - being a fortified wine they are supposed to last a long time, so you can open the bottle and come back to it a few months later. Unless of course you buy what EF calls hobo port which is rotten to start with.

So anyway I was thinking, "Why have alcoholic anyway?" Just because I like wine is not a good enough reason to serve alcoholic wine for communion. It's not about enjoying a good nip. It's about what it represents. But it has been a long standing tradition (the Jews used wine) and the grapejuice thing is only quite modern. You only have a mouthful anyway, so it's not like you are going to get tanked.

Communion #2

I really felt I need to do a follow up to my original post on communion. I turns out people do actually read my blog, and my minster saw it. He passed on my communion post to the person responsible for communion and I received an email of apology! Wow, this blogging thing really is powerful! Apparently they are rethinking the way we do communion.

I would like to say here that I think communion is an important time for us to remember what Jesus did for us when he died for us, and I never wanted it to become a comedy. But good laughs do come out of serious things.

My Dad, like me, is a red wine lover, and also a retired minister, so therefore loving red wine can’t be a sin. (White wine on the other hand is purely evil). He loves telling the story of the time he came to my church and we were all sitting around tables and on each table was a bottle of red wine and a plate of Turkish bread for communion. He has this idea that we have really stylish communion. Not anymore. Anyway I’m not expecting top grade port, but I don’t remember the communion wine tasting so bad when I was growing up. But I was probably too busy trying to avoid the gooblies floating around in the common cup to worry about the taste. But according to my Dad they always had a reasonable quality port.

great mistakes #8

I thought it was time I return to my own stupidity. The moral of the story today is – When there is a sign on the studio door that says “Do NOT Close this DOOR”, you should take heed to what it says.
This takes me back to my student days at the Con in Brisbane. I was recording a friend’s song one Saturday and Tom S who was clarinettist with Qld Philharmonic had come along to play piano. He had an orchestra gig that afternoon so had to leave by certain time.
The door handle had broken off the door to the recording room. But someone had stuck gaff over the toungue thing that sticks out that keeps the door shut. What is that thing called? Anyway, I thought it was safe to shut the door because the toungue thing was taped in. Except the gaff tape tore and the toungue thing protruded again and the door fastened and we couldn’t get out! Naturally Tom was freaking out because if he didn’t show up for a gig that was his job gone. There was a lot of jumping up and down going on. But then we realised the mics were up on the desk so the people in the control room could hear us. Tom was giving instructions to DC on the other side of the glass to call another clarinet player to get him to turn up to gig, and it was all a bit tense there for a while. Did Tom lose his job? Did he make it to the the gig? Was Goldy responsible for the demise of his career?

Studio time

I had the best day in the studio last week. After 6 years at the ABC I was given the chance to have an experimental day in the studio. As in, no pressure, deadlines or anything, just take my time trying things out and getting it right. Usually we are in such a rush to get things done we just go with what we already know. We have a new mixing desk – SSL Duality. It’s the only one in the country as far as we know. It’s an analogue console which flips modes from being an analogue desk into a Pro tools controller. It’s a little bit difficult to use as they have redesigned the signal paths, by doing away with the small fader and taking your multi track sends from the input gain. There are a lot of options for routing signal and it all gets a little complicated sometimes. Trying to get a pre fade headphone send is not as easy as one would think. But that’s why Dave and I had the day on Thursday – to sort all that stuff out, and also play with different mics.

We had A jazz band called “The World According to James” come in. They were hoping to track a couple of tunes. A free recording for them in return for them giving us their time for us to play in the sandpit. They are a really awesome band.

I had a great time experimenting with different mics. On drums I tried 2 sets of overheads. The Royer SF -24 stereo ribbon mic was a much better option than a pair of Sennheiser MKH40’s, which were much brighter, but also really in your face. For jazz, the openness of the royer was much more suitable.
On sax we tried a U87, C12, and Microtech Gefell M930. The U87 won hands down. I was a bit surprised the C12 sounded awful. Then I found out today we were using the one that was supposed to be sent for fixing. No wonder it sounded awful.
On trombone we tried a 414 and a beyer M160 ribbon mic. The 414 sounded much fuller. But I’m not convinced we were using the 160 correctly… And the update on that is I’ve just found out we definitely used it incorrectly. Yes we are professionals, but we don’t know everything. We thought the 160 is a Fig 8 but no, it’s a hypercardiod, which really affects the way you point the thing. So that’s why it sounded awful. All the forums rave about this mic. Can’t wait to try it properly.
Double bass was interesting. Now I’m really giving away the secrets.
MG M930 on the sound hole, plus an MKH40 up on the fingerboard. Solves that problem of not getting the string sound and clarity.

Gonks at the Chrissy Party

What IS she doing playing a guitar? I thought she was a bass player???!!! Absolutely right. And I would like to point out I am a purist bass player – as in, I’m not a frustrated guitarist who switched to bass. I took up bass long before I ever touched a guitar. I actually WANTED to play bass. But here I am in the photo playing guitar at the ABC RN Christmas party. It was only for 1 song – White room. Dave and I swapped instruments just for fun. I like this photo because the guitar is much smaller than the bass so doesn’t look ridiculously big on me. And I’ve got my tongue out, concentrating hard.

Well, all 2 of my readers will be glad to know that “Addicted to Love” went off really well. After several nights practicing in front of the mirror, I nailed it. I worked out that if I don’t move my feet, but only move shoulders, hips and knees, I can keep in time and not lose the bass part. Like all rock stars I like to be really vain and say we were AWESOME!!!

Set lists were

Set 1:
Brass in Pocket – (The Pretenders)
Listen to the Music – (Doobie Brothers)
Come Up and See me – (Steve Harley)
No such thing – (John Mayer)
Cajun Moon – (JJ Cale)
Knock on Wood –(Eddie Floyd)
Moondance – (Van Morrison)
Cool for Cats – (Squeeze)
All Right Now – (Free)
White Room – (Cream)


Set 2:
I Got You – (James Brown)
Superstition – (Stevie wonder)
Instant Karma – (John Lennon)
I saw Her Standing there – (Beatles)
Call Me – (Blondie)
Sisters are doin’ it –(Eurythmics)
Wishing Well – (Free)
Crossroads –(Clapton)


Set 3:
Addicted To Love – (Robert Palmer)
Love Shack – (B52s)
6345789 – (Wilson Picket)
Jackson – (Johnny Cash)
Living for the City – (Stevie Wonder)
Take me to the River - (Talking Heads)
Man, I feel like a woman – (Shania Twain)

Communion

We had communion on Sunday morning at church. We have little mini cups for the wine. You get a choice of grapejuice or alcoholic. Being a red wine lover I go for the alcoholic. It's funny how you have this expectation of what the wine is going to taste like, but then it never meets it. This time the wine was sooo bad, I audibly gagged when I took a sip, so that people all around me heard and turned to see what had happened. I felt like I'd been poisoned. And then tears started running down my face. It must have been the wine frome the $2 shop. Lots of people were laughing, but they probably thought it was because I got a shock from the alcohol, which was not the case. I got a shock from how awful it tasted.

Zwartz

Last Saturday for the music Show I mixed live to air Jonathan Zwartz’s band. I love how his name starts with “Z”. He is a well known Sydney Jazz bass player, played with Jackie O lots. Hamish Stuart was on drums, Phil Slater on Trumpet and a piano player I’d never seen before called Tom.
I started off with a 414 on the double bass, but it was distorting a bit. Not sure if the mic was bit dodgy or what. Jonathan requested an 87 so grabbed one and it sounded heaps better. A much fuller sound. I still needed to boost quite a bit of a large bandwidth centred around 3k. This helps really bring out the string sound of the double bass and because it was his music I wanted to really make sure he stood out. I still mixed the bass in context properly, as in locking in with the other rhythm when the trumpet was soloing, but the bass really stood out well when he soloed.
I loved the music. Really nice compositions.

Photos

This was taken in Tokyo.

Today's theme - statues. All were taken with my 3.2 mp canon point and shoot on my overseas trip in 2005. This was before I knew I was interested in photography.


"Chick looking at Tower"



Freddy Mercury in Montreax

Taken in the Louvre.

The Reformation wall in Geneva. John Calvin is 2nd from left.

Gonks

Gonk rehearsals are well under way for the ABC RN Christmas party on Friday. I'm the bass player. This is our 4th Christmas together as a band. We are mostly all sound engineers at RN and we got together originally to provide entertainment at the work christmas party. And we are still together.

Thre most challenging things I have to work on before friday are - Getting the footwork right for "Addicted to Love". I'm the only chick in a mini skirt who has to actually play for real. This is what we are trying to pull off. I'm useless. Too busy concentrating on the bass part so I forget to move. Also am trying to nail John Mayer's "No such Thing". The bass player goes nuts on the recording. And hopefully we will remeber how Superstition goes, because we haven't rehearsed it in a while.

Christmas Bus

Do you live in Sydney? Have you seen the Christmas bus? Last night I went on the Christmas bus. I thought we were going to take off into the air like we were on Santa's sleigh. I’ve never seen anything more over the top. It’s just a normal State transit bus on the Newtown route. The driver had decorated it with every tacky bit if Christmas stuff you can think of. I like Christmas decorations, but they need to have some style. This had no style, except kitch. Stuffed toy reindeers all over the front dash. Santa pictures all over the windows. Tinsel on every pole or hand rail. Bells hanging, things hanging, stuff everywhere. There was no space left plain. And then to make the trip more amusing, a girl sat down opposite me wearing a huge badge saying “lose weight now, ask me how” . Sure, OK. Not your standard but trip conversation nor much of a fashion or political statement.

My Fair Lady

Last night KF and went to My Fair Lady at the Theatre Royal in Sydney. I’ve never been in this theatre before. I like it – it’s quite small and intimate, good for a musical. Except for hearing the trains rumbling underneath every 10 minutes.
I’m not going to rave about My Fair Lady like I did Billy Elliot. Don’t get me wrong. It was a thoroughly enjoyable night. I’m really glad I went, especially as it is such a famous renowned musical, and one you must see at least once in your life. But I can’t talk about especially captivating performances, or emotional choruses or extremes of emotion. It was a great story, well performed with some nice songs, but I guess the more modern musicals are just a bit more out there.
My favourite scene was at the races. The costumes were spectacular, with everyone’s colour scheme consisting only of black, grey, white, and apricoty-pink. The pretentious characters watching the races were very funny.
A great line which everyone laughed about as if ridiculous was by Henry Higgins – “you hear better in the dark”. Which is not ridiculous. It’s true. Especially in this day of digital recording where you have a computer screen in front of you with wave forms going past. Often when I’m trying to hear a detail better, I shut my eyes. It’s like you can transfer more energy to your ears if you shut down your eyes. Lots of blind people have amazing hearing.
Anyway that’s off track.
Richard E. Grant was the lead – Henry Higgins. Well played. I’ve met him. Last year he was in Sydney promoting his book and I had to go to his hotel room with the brekky crew to record an interview. I’m not a huge fan of Withnail and I, but I loved his film Waa Waa.

November in review

A bit late I know, but here's the briefest wrap up of November things from work and some other stuff.

Katie Noonan, The Herd, Steve Earl, Jordi Savill - Hisperion 21, My Street Sampler, recording café sound effects, Sydney Peace Prize at the Opera House, Discovery at Angel Place, tidying up Rupert Murdoch for the Boyers (anti-spitting), Selah gig, IFILWAM, Tanya's canned BBQs, Pattersons bbg in Fairlight, K East visited, filming the Living Room.

Great Mistakes #7

I heard this story the other day couldn’t resist including it.
Many years ago when the ABC was in a different building, there was a guy called the commissionaire who was responsible for keeping track of all people coming in and out of the studios, sort of like a front desk job. One day two guys rocked up with a truck and said they were here to pick up the piano. The commissionaire showed them where it was. The piano was never seen ever again. Woops. Imagine trying to explain that one.

Photos

Todays theme - Dogs

Dogs are really hard to photograph because they won't stay still and when you crouch down to get at their level they all come running over for cuddles.


This is my fave. Taken at Centennial park.
450d with 17-85 lens
as with all these black and whites. Except the one below taken at Glebe Point.

Does this count? Taken in Helsinki with my point and shoot. C H-J wanted to buy one of these dogs but the shop was shut and we were all leaving Helsinki next day so couldn't get one. But we discovered a shop in Aus that has them.

Photos

Today's theme is weddings. This year I took pics at 2 of my friends weddings.




Canon 400d with 50mm 1.8 lens











CS asked me to do her pre wedding shots at her place.

Canon 450d with 17-85mm 4-5.6 lens.

Nathan lent me his Sigma 30mm 1.4 for these indoor shots.

Haircut

Would you let a male work colleague cut your hair? I just did. I had a haircut the other day and he said it looked awful and wanted to fix it. So we went into the kitchen (one that no one uses very much) and he chopped it. It looks heaps better.

Great Mistakes #6

I once watched Repoman all the way through. Honestly, why would you?

Films that look great

I always forget films that I've seen which I like so I'll try and blog them.

2 films which I've seen quite recently where each shot looks great, are 'Control' - the story of the Joy Division, and 'September', an Australian film about the friendship between two 16 year old boys, one black, one white. Worth a look.

I need a new word.

I am aware of the fact that I use the word "amaizing" a little bit too often. Trying to come up with something else. Oh yeah - and the wig, well it's not a wig, its a website. www.yearbookyourself.com. Give it a try. Hours of fun for the family.

Stanley Clark

In April I went to the Stanley Clark and George duke concert at the Opera House theatre. The view was great, and the sound was OK. Stanley was a bit distorted to start with but they sorted it out.
It really blows me away seeing people who have been music legends longer than I’ve been alive. Stanley is one of them. And he’s one of the most famous bass players ever. I was so aware of my jaw hitting the floor as he played. I can’t say I’m a massive fan of his music – he does some pretty weird stuff. I really wanted to go to hear his bass playing talent. But he played stuff I enjoyed and the funk tunes were great.
It was funny to see guys in front of me who were about 50 getting so into it, clapping their hands above their heads and bopping in their seats. People absolutely loved it. George got his keytar stuck on the keyboard stand – someone had to come out and rescue him.
Then in the middle of the show, the band went off stage and Stanley played a solo acoustic bass set, and oh man, you never thought such a thing could raise the roof. He got a standing ovation in the middle of the concert after playing solo double bass!!!! His virtuosity and musicality was mind blowing.
When the band came back on after this they went into some full on funk and the drummer who was quite a young guy, had a massive solo. It went on forever and it was the fastest playing I’ve ever seen. I know that just because its fast doesn’t mean it’s good, but this was. The cross rhythms he was playing against himself were amazing. And then at the end he threw his drum sticks on the floor and jumped off his stool. It was kind of weird – you couldn’t tell if it was an act or he was angry or what. He couldn’t have been angry with himself, because he’d just played the most amazing drum solo. I found out later on from Rich who was mixing the monitors that he was actually really angry at Stanley who wasn’t being very nice to the band. Apparently he is no fun to be around at all. He’s a bit precious they’d had a run in during sound check.
I got my photo taken with Stanley after the show. He was nice to me.

Did you see the sky on Saturday evening?

In Sydney it was amazing. It had been cloudy/rainy all day, and then at about 7pm my housemate TR commented on how cool the light outside was looking. I went outside and looked up and immediately ran to get my camera. TR had clambered up onto the side fence of our yard – a 6ft high brick wall. She was saying how much better the view was from up there. TJ was there hold the stool steady, so I quickly proceeded to get up there as well. But when I was up, I freaked out. I was on my hands and knees trying to work out what to do next. All I could see was either side of me the ground was a long way down and there was no soft fall either side. TR was like “you have to look up Goldy, this is AMAZING”… but I was trapped on my hands and knees. “I can’t move, I’m going to fall.” But then I got to the palm tree next to the wall and braced myself on that. I stood up and got the photo. And it was amazing as you can see.

great mistakes #5

Have you ever done anything sooo emabarrassing that you have never told ANYONE about it? I have. And not a soul knows.
Well, I'd just like to announce to world, (not that I think anyone actually reads this blog) that this completely embarrassing great mistake is.... going to remain only something that I know about. Sorry. Can't tell you.
Of course if I had a husband I might tell him, but I'm learning not to get my hopes up. So it's my secret, forever.

Herbie Hancock

While I’m still on a high after Stevie I thought I would write about some other cool concerts I’ve seen recently before I forget the details.
Herbie Hancock played in 2007 at the state theatre in Sydney. I wish all concerts could be held there. It’s small, you get a good view and sounds good. It was the first time I’d ever been to hear a world famous jazz artist, and the first time I’d sat in a concert with my mouth open in awe for the whole show, or grinning away, just loving it. Oh except for the first 20 minutes. That was bizarre. He did this long piece of synth stuff which had no melody, no rhythm, and I was getting worried. I just wanted to hear watermelon man.
But once he got the weirdness out of his system, it was all good. He got into the Head Hunters stuff, and I’d never heard such amazing playing live before. The drummer was Vinnie C, bass player Nathan East and an African guitarist whose name I can’t think of. He did some tunes with paper stuck in the strings of his guitar playing in weird African time signatures, and I loved it. Really clever.
And Herbie did the daggy thing of playing the keytar – you know that 80s thing of wearing a keyboard round your neck like a guitar. All totally for show. And he loves choosing the cheesiest synth sounds, but you just forgive him because you love the music and his playing. How could you not be on the cloud 9 when the guy who helped write Chameleon is sitting 30m in front of you playing it himself? Yep. Good times. One of the best nights of my life. Pretty shallow I know, but meaningful life events keep eluding me so live music is as good as it gets.

great mistakes #4

For a couple of years I attended church at St Matts Manly. For those of you who don’t know the area, its located in a major tourist area, which is also largely residential.
I was on sound one night and had turned up for sound check as usual at about 4 in the afternoon– full band plus 3 or 4 singers.
Well, I managed to get our sound check shut down by the police that afternoon. I was a confused for a little while as to why all the neighbours were complaining about the noise being unbearably loud, but heaps of people had complained, so here were the police.
I wasn’t mixing especially loud – I don’t think church should be overly loud, and it was only sound check. I even had front of house turned off when the police arrived, so it was definitely not loud. But the secret was all in the bell tower. St Matts is one of those really old churches with a bell tower, and our bell tower was special because it had speakers in it. Somehow I’d managed to turn on the bell tower speakers and therefore was broadcasting our sound check to the whole of Manly! The neighbours had good reason to complain. It must have sounded awful.

My day at the circus.

Sometimes it feels like I work in a circus.
I started late today. Had to go to City Recital Hall to record "discovery" with the Sydney Simphonia. The conductor talks through the music for the audience. I always enjoy these gigs. Tonight they did Elgar's nimrod and other variations on the theme of whatever it is.

I get to work and I go to the store room to grab a little portable mixer, and the batteries are all flat. i tip them out to put new ones in. i get battery acid on my hand. I put the batteries in the bin. I put new battieries in and no go. So i take the thing to Tom and demand he fix it. then i realise i haven't booked the car and it's already out and Tom laughs at me. i demand that he find me another one. he says no. Punishment for not forward planning. I say i wasn't rostered any time to forward plan. he says to quit while I'm ahead. then Tim walks past and i ask him to find me a car. He syas it's not in his job description, can't tom do it. Tom's punishing me. Tom rings 702 and organises me a car. I complain about getting battery acid on my fingers. Tom says "WHATTTT did the batteries leak???!!!! They're not meant to leak. Get me the batteries."
Me - no, they are in the bin.
Tom - i need the batteries, they're not supposed to leak.
I go get the bin.
Tom says not to put them on his desk, he needs them in something.
I say - here have the bin, they are in the bin. That's something.
Tom nearly hits me but can't because he'd lose his job.
He gets some paper towels and i fish the batteries out of the bin and get more battery acid on my fingers. And the batteries also have bits of food on them now.

Anyway I get back from the gig and i have instructions to leave the car keys on the reception desk at 702, but I can't get into 702 after hours so i have to go down to security to ask them to let me into 702.
them - you are supposed to leave the keys in the box down at the staging office
me - no, the 702 people want me to leave them at their reception desk
them - the policy is to leave them in the box at the staging office
me - but the the 702 people told me this afternoon to leave them at reception
them - (a bit more like what has already been said.)
((And a few more times back and forth))
me - but no one will know where the keys are if i leave them in that box. they want them on the reception desk
them - this is all new to me
me - PLEEEAASE believe me - i really need need to leave them on the reception desk. please can you let me in??!!!! (pleading)

Finally the security guy walks with me up to 702 and i leave the keys on the reception desk.

The end.

Hard Quorum

Episode 3 has gone up.

http://hardquorum.mypodcast.com/index.html

Oktoberfest

I’m in a band right. We are called the Gonks. In our own minds we are rock stars. In everyone else’s we are just a cult band. We were introduced once as everyone’s 2nd favourite band. I play bass.
Last Friday night we played at an Oktoberfest party put on by a couple of guys from my church.
The set list was

1. Listen To The Music
2. Eagle Rock
3. 634 5789
4. Cajun Moon
5. I Got You (I Feel Good)
6. Black Magic Woman
7. Moondance
8. Midnight Hour
9. I Shot The Sherriff
10. Take Me To The River
11. Living For The City
12. Superstition
13. All Right Now
14. Sultans Of Swing
15. Crossroads

The food consisted of lamb, beef and pork on the spit – tasted amazing, homemade German sausages – tasted amazing, sauerkraut – tasted amazing, salad – tasted amazing, and German beer in huge bottles. One beer was the equivalent of 2 normal size ones. Dave our lead guitarist had to sing everything because our 2 lead singers were both unavailable. So we had a restricted set list, but Dave was great.

We were playing a hall that had the tiniest stage I have ever seen. There were 5 of us in the band and only 3 of us could fit on the stage. It was like playing in a box. And the sound bouncing around in there was crazy. I couldn't hear what i was playing because of all the reflections and the drums were so loud even though Greg was playing quietly.

Stevie Wonder in Sydney

Last night I saw Stevie Wonder live at the Acer Arena in Sydney. To put it simply he is an absolute genius. He has written so many huge songs which have appealed across platforms in the pop world and also into the jazz world. His voice was as good as it has ever been - amazing, and effortless.
He really played to muso fans last night too which was great - he didn't just play a pop concert. He started off playing Miles Davis "All Blues" on the harmonica. Not a predictable way to start and absolutely brilliant. He also played some other jazz numbers through the night - Spain, and Giant Steps, and then all the funk classics, plus the crowd pleaser pop tunes. But even they are brilliant works of art.
There were 15 people on stage - 2 percussionists, drummer, 2 keyboardists, 2 guitarists, bass, 4 bvs, horns, and Stevie. Huge.
OK now here is my gripe. Why in this day and age can no one install a sound system in a large venue that sounds good? We pay all this money for concerts that sound like crap. There was no clarity in the bass at all. The whole night it was just a huge rumble, so all those funk tunes which are so reliant on the bass line were just mush. And I don't believe it was the fault of the engineer. I think those venues are just rubbish. Like Sydney Entertainment Centre. Everything sounds awfull. Surely the artists would like to think that they sound good out the front. And as a bass player I know that bass players like to be heard - especially when they are playing really complicated lines. All you hear is the sub and no clarity. Drives me nuts. And it really detracts from the enjoyment of the concert.
Anyway Stevie is awesome.

Great Mistakes #3

Thinking back to my time at the casino again, I started laughing when I thought about some of the crazy jobs I had to mix. One of the classiest acts was the Manhunt and Queen of Clubs competition. Totally himbo and bimbo stuff.

The manhunt involved guys showing off their bods and this included a modelling spot - The first guy up for the night was prancing around like he really thought he was so amazing. Except for the bit when he completely misjudged the edge of the catwalk and fell off the stage into the front row of the audience. Woops. Hee hee.

Actually, talking about people falling off stage Humphrey Bear made an appearance at the Johnny Young Talent school end of year concert and yep, poor humphrey fell off the stage that night. There were a lot of very worried 4 year olds who thought humphrey was dead. But don't be silly it wasn't the REAL Humphrey - it was just a guy in a bear suit pretending to be Humphrey.

I seem to also remember a particular Swedish magician falling off the stage during a rehearsal in Sweden. No one knew what to do. Do we just pretend it hasn't happened? Or do we all rush to help? The place was silent while we all waited to see if he'd get up or just lie there... Only a bruised ego.

Then in the girly night club competetion, each girl had to present herself in an original way. This one girl went for the Barbie theme. Yep, it really was a night of intellectual performances. She had the Barbie song playing - "I'm a barbie girl, in my Barbie woooorrlld..." And she came on stage riding in a pink Barbie car. We had completely lost it in the audio booth. Oh yeah i nearly forgot to mention the bubble machine. Awesome. All of my life mistakes just fade into complete insignificance.

Hard Quorum

Around Easter time in 2006 I agreed to help a couple of friends out recording a podcast. The proposal was to record a series of 6 podcasts and post them once we have recorded all 6. Around easter time this year we recorded the final episode. It took 2 years to record 6 podcasts! Althought the first episode has only just gone up because it took so long for matt to do the editing. I was involved because of being a sound type person and I had some equipment, so Matt and Joe offered payment in the form of a 6 pack. Sounded like a good deal to me.
So they rock up to my place that first Sunday afternoon, with a 6 pack of Easter buns. Not quite what I expected, but the precedent had been set. The next time after they finally arrived, a bit late because they had forgotten I’d moved house and turned up at my old place, we managed 2 episodes. Payment was a 6 pack of wild turkeys. Things were getting better.
Next time I was presented with a 6 pack of eggs.
The final time, Joe insisted we start early, because he had things to do. We waited an hour for him to show up. The 2 final episodes were done!!!! Payment? 6 pack of fruit juice poppers. Awesome.
Anyway the person giggling in the background is me. We weren’t trying to be too professional about it. I also join in the singing now and then. Aaah my moment of fame has finally arrived. For some reason they call me the producer. I didn't really do anything of the sort. I recorded it and giggled. Oh and I made the theme music. Although you cant really hear the genius of it because they faded it under the taking.
What’s it about? I’m not sure. Oh yeah, discussions about Christian issues. Of a kind. Lots of questions asked, no answers given. When Matt asked me what I thought about the first episode, I think I said something like "could’ve been funnier" .
Hard Qorum - things could be better. Here it is -
http://channels.ourmedia.org/hard-quorum#

Great Mistakes #2

Well it’s one thing to bring the curtain down on a multimillion dollar production, but to take our National broadcaster off air? Uuuhh yep – done it. Although it wasn’t really my fault, just one of those freak things.
We were having server upgrades one Saturday morning and I was on shift. We couldn’t do any live programs because all our computers were off line. So everything was precorded to be played off CD and I had the important job of sitting in the studio playing CD’s of the hours’ blocks of content, excluding the news. So at the top of every hour I had 5 minutes to change CDs and get them cued while the news was on and then at 5 past the hour, my studio was on air.
Now our CD players had a bit of a trick to them – the CD drawers weren’t mechanical closing types – you had to push them shut. But if you pushed too hard the CD sometimes jumped out of its carriage and got stuck, but if you didn’t push hard enough the door wouldn’t close. So there was a fine art to closing the CD drawer.
So 10 am, I went to change the CD and low and behold, although being extremely careful, I just shoved it that little bit too hard. The CD had jumped out and was now stuck up in the back of the CD player, unable to be played. Here’s where the panic starts. I’ve got less than 5 minutes to fix the problem or we’ll go off air. I tried and tried to get the drawer open but it was jammed. I ring up tech services in the building.
ME - “Can you please send someone up to RN studio 242 to get a CD player open in the next 2 minutes. This is an on air emergency – we’ll go off air if we don’t fix this before 5 past.”
THEM – “What’s your name?”
ME – “mi……. – can you please send someone one up now?”
THEM – “what’s your surname?”
ME – “Go……….”
THEM – “how do you spell that?”
ME – “just get someone @#%$% up here now!!!!!!!!!”
Needless to say, they didn’t get to me before 5 past and we went off air. Eventually they arrived and got the thing open and into another CD player and we were back on air.
A couple of years later when we had another server upgrade, I warned the engineer about what happened to me. I said they should have back up CDs in case the CD player jammed. They didn’t take my advice. We went off air again that morning…

calm radio announcer

Well I like to pride myself on how calm I am in the studio. The whole world can be falling down around me, and I keep it together. Not sure how I'd go if the studio was burning down around me.
Check this video.
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=v_KOK0wLmdA

Watussi and Garlic

Last weekend db and I took the abc radio recording truck to the glorious annandale hotel, which is in my very own suburb - Annandale. Aaaah the dale…
Watussi are a sydney based band who play Afro Colombian rock type music and they are pretty awesome.
The previous day I was wearing my warmest winter jacket, then on this day the temp decides to get up to 30 degress.  So there we are in the dale, running cabbles in the hot sun about to die from heat exhaustion.

I took some pics. I just recently got into photography and have a canon 450d with 17-85 lense. I thought this would be a great opportunity to try my hand at being a band photgrapher. It's not that easy actually, because the shutter speeds in that light were often too slow and the band just wouldn't stand still!  The one above I took while I was doing the coyote ugly thing - I was standing up on the bar. But no dancing. I was scared of falling off actually. But don't tell anyone at work because that's not very OH&S.

Anyway the Euphonics desk in the truck which is just waaayy too difficult to use for its own good was playing up. Our levels were jumping up and down all over over the place. And the Tascam 48 track hard disc recorders were being silly too. Actually I managed to break one the day before. Better the day before than on the the day…right? But they ended up recording OK after a couple of heart attacks when we thought both machines hadn't recorded anything. But they had!

Now there is nothing that makes me more happy in life than a free feed. And did we get one!! They had a South American BBQ in the arvo. And we ate spicy sausages, black puding (I said no thanks) giant mushrrooms, etc, but boy the garlic sauce that went with it. Lucky everyone was eating it so we all stink. I've never had anything more potent. 

Anyway satisfaction all round… We didn't finish work till 3 in the morning. After starting at midday I guess I was a little bit tired the next day. Actually I felt like I'd been hit by a truck.

Billy Elliot

Last night I went to the stage musical billy elliot at the capitol theatre. It was awesome! I've always really loved the movie. I was a bit worried i wouldn't like the musical so much because of how much i love the movie, but the musical was brilliant. The kids were absolutely amazing. The part of billy is a huge role, especially for such a young kid, and he was really good. The kid that played michael was fantastic - really funny. The only thing I didn't like were some of the emotions were a bit overplayed, compared to the movie, which is really powerfull, but a lot the the reactions of characters are a lot more subtle. However on stage I guess things need to be a bit more extreme so people up the back can get the gist of what's going on. We were in the 3rd row off to the side. I love being close to the front where you can really see people's faces and details in the costumes etc. The problem was i had to keep craning to see around people in front of me, and being off to the side you miss some of the action further upstage. Anyway a great night.

great mistakes #1

So I thought I'd make a series dedicated to the times when I have had things go wrong, at work, on stage, in studio, or funny things that have happened.

The main thing that comes to mind was when I was doing sound on the shows at Jupiters Casino. We're talking way back in about 1996. I managed to stuff up so badly that the curtain had to be brought down for a whole minute and 3 seconds. Which is an AWFULLY LONG TIME!

What happened? WELL, we were about 6 weeks into a new show. Magic, dancing - typical casino show stuff. Anyway most of the music was played off an 8 track digital tape - remember the days of Tascam DA38? The show was given a major reshuffle - dance numbers cut, change of order of routines etc. Which meant a new show tape had been made. I came into work, grabbed the show tape which I was used to grabbing, shoved it in the machine, did all the pre show tests, curtain went up, first couple of numbers were fine, then we hit the Diner scene and guess what? Wrong music. Goldy had put the old show tape in the machine. Dancers were trying to dance to the wrong music and in my panic realising it was the wrong tape I just instinctively pushed stop, no nice fade out or anything. So then the dancers had no music to dance to. And it caused mayhem with the lights because timecode on the show tape was running the lighting board. So it had to be reset which is what took the longest. the curtain came down, i was about to have a fit, thinking I was going to get sacked. Anyway the show finally got going again.

The funny thing is though, everyone thought it was my boss who had stuffed up because he was the one who always made the mistakes, not me or C. So he got all the blame. And unwritten law in theatre is when you stuff up you have to buy the crew a case of beer. So my boss brought in a case of beer the next night. Once I had gotten over the embarrassment of it all I was trying to get the credit for it because R was taking credit. So I was going backstage going "I did it , not R!"
So anyway I didn't get sacked.

work today

I'm currently doing the post production for a classical music concert I recorded which involves the conductor analysing the music. So the orchestra plays the piece through and then the conductor talks about what what is going on in the piece with the orchestra playing bit and pieces here and there. This concert is a couple of sibelius pieces.

I've recorded several of these concerts before but never had the chance to do the post production before. it's interesting hearing the recording in a proper studio. I used a spaced pair of omni Bruel and Kjaer 4006 microphones, hung over the orchestra a couple of meters above the conductor's head. I think the recording is actually lacking quite a bit of top end. So I'm boosting it a fair bit to give it more sparkle. And also the phase relationship beyween the 2 mics is not as good as it could be.