Christmas Recipe Meme

I don't even know what a meme is.  But I've been tagged for one.  By Ally.  By golly I hope I spelt that right.

I have to do this -

1. Link to the person who ‘tagged’ you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Post your favourite Christmas recipe – something traditionally festive or something that has become a tradition in your house.
4. Tag four people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know they have been tagged by commenting on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know the entry is posted on your blog.
7. Post your own Christmas recipe within a week of being tagged to keep this on the move.
 
 
Well, the thing is, we don't cook in our household at Christmas.  We eat seafood.  You buy it, as close to the day as possible, if not on the day, pack it on ice with collanders underneath so the water drips out and the seafood doesn't go soggy.  Then you arrange it on a platter.  Then you eat it.
 
The tricky thing is cutting up the crabs.  You have to get all the guts and gills out.  Luckily they have their own builtin can opener thing.  The flap undernneath - pull it up and then pull the top shell off.  Then cut the body down the middle and then run it under a tap to wash away the gills and yukky stuff.
 
Ok here's the recipe bit -
 
 
Cocktail Sauce to dip the prawns and crab in.
 
Some mayonnaise
Some tomato sauce
Some worcestershire sauce
Some lemon juice
Some pepper.
 
Mix it all up. 
Sorry, no quantities, but you use mostly mayonnaise and add bits of the other things till it tastes good.

Now the tricky bit is finding 4 people to tag who haven't already been tagged.  Ummm  Soph, Alison, Bonnie, and Nix.

Garage Hymnal at the ABC

I'm in the video too, with lots of dancing meters.

Gonks at the Chrissy Party

The world famous gonks performed again last week at our work Christmas party.  It was a hoot.  Who are the Gonks you ask?  If you haven't caught up with the phenomenon,the Gonks are the band I play in.  We started up in 2005 after a discussion one lunchtime between me, DB and JD in January that year.  We thought it would be a good idea to put a band together out of the pool of sound engineers and play at the next Christmas Party.  So we did.  The Gonks were formed and this was our 5th Christmas together.  No one has told us they are sick of us yet so we keep playing.  And we had a bunch of guest artists join us (other staff members of RN).  I'm the bass player.  And there were no cools shots of the band taken this year for me to show you.  They were either all out of focus or the lights were in the way.  So instead enjoy the photo of me and LM acting up for the camera.

Set lists were -

Overkill (Lazlo Baine)
Is She Really Going Out With Him (Joe Jackson)
Copperhead Road (Steve Earle)
Money (Beatles)
Total Control (Motels)
Ode To Billy Joe (Billy Jo Spears)
Delta Dawn (Helen Reddy)
Crazy Little Thing Called Love (Queen)
The Times They Are A Changin’
Dancing In The Street




Come Up & and See Me (Steve Harley and Cockeney Rebel)
Man, I Feel Like A Woman (Shania Twain)
The Ballroom Blitz (The Sweet)
Besame Mucho (Luis Miguel Armando Manzanero)
Moondance (Van Morrison)
I Got You (James Brown)
Living For The City (Stevie Wonder)
Take Me To The River (Talking heads)
Stray Cat Blues (Rolling Stones)




Boys In Town  (Divynils)
Don’t Stop (Fleetwood Mac)
634 5789
Black Magic Woman
Play That Funky Music
Knock On Wood
Pretty Flamingo (Manfredd Mann)
Better Be Home Soon (Crowded House)
Addicted To Love (Robert Palmer)
La Bamba

Where the Wild Things Are

I saw it.  Yes I did.  I was reluctant, but my friend was keen.  I really liked it.  She didn't.
It was total childhood fantasy. There were big furry creatures and problems were solved by wrecking things, throwing each other around and jumping on each other without anyone getting hurt.  It was fun.  The last half hour or so did get serious when furry creatures did start to get hurt and they got serious about the issues and how people should be treated.
The experience was even more enjoyable for me because the theatre was filled with young children and throughout the whole film you could hear little voices asking "why did the monster...?" and "what's he doing...?" and why this and why that.   I kept laughing because of the kids.  And then in the film the main boy character and the big furry thing howled at each other, so after that kids in the theatre were howling.  Very funny.

Musicals I have seen live (professional productions)

Phantom of the Opera (twice)
Les Miserables (twice)
Cats
The Secret Garden
Crazy For You
Pirates of Penzance
Singin in the Rain
The Lion King
The Boy From Oz
Billy Elliot
My Fair Lady
Wicked

Wicked

I saw Wicked the musical last night.  I liked it.  I like seeing musicals.  Wicked is the story of the wicked witch from the Wizard of Oz, but it takes place before the story of the Wiazard of Oz.

It was at the Capitol Theatre in Sydney.  This is a beautiful old theatre.  It lookes like a castle inside and you look around in awe at the ornate decorations.  If you want to book tickets there - the dress circle upstairs is pretty good because it's pretty steep seating so if you are short you won't have your view blocked.  But don't get a box like we did.  Sounded good until we couldn't see half the show because of obstructions.

I liked - the storyline, amazing costumes, interesting characters, set, sound, good production.

What it lacked - amazing memorable choruses and dance routines.

It was a good show, but would have been better if it had some great music to remember it by.  And please don't cast famous people as a drawcard if they really aren't the most talented people available.  Like the Idol reject Rob Mills, who had one of the lead roles.  He can sing in tune and his acting was ok.  But he wasn't fantastic, and he can't dance.  I bet there are unknown musical theatre performers out there who could have done a much better job.

Mixing Garage Hymnal

Last week I had a very short amount of time to mix the Garage Hymnal sessions for the broadcast on ABC.  Yes I was recording them for work purposes, not just for fun.  They'll be broadcast on our religious music program this Friday night at 2105.  Radio people always talk in 24hr time.  We are clever in that way.  Click here to find your fequency to listen to them.

Anyway, because we are churning out so much stuff all the time we don't spend heaps of time doing stuff.  If I was mixing this session for an album release or something, I would have spent up to a day per song for mixing.  Not because I'm slow, it just takes that long to get all the details right.  But for this radio broadcast, I spent a day and a half on 7 songs.  Then I spent a couple of hours mastering it.  So it's a little rough, but it's meant to sound live anyway, otherwise you might as well just stick on the album.  I'm pretty happy with how it turned out considering the time limitations.  I would like to go back in sometime and do a bit of polishing, just for my own satisfaction.

So, some tricks in the mix.  Don't tell the drummer, but I replaced the kick drum with a sample, thanks to the Drumagog plugin.  It's really good because it replaces things sentitively and takes into account changes in dynamics, so it's not all the same level hits.  It follows how the player played it.

Reverbs I used were the M6000 - 4 different engines going at once, plus the Lexicon 224.  It is a bit of a luxury having so much expensive reverb to choose from.

The SSL automation is really nice and easy to use.  And because the desk is fully digital I can go abck and recall all my mixes and tweak them anytime.  The only problem is finding studio availability.

I had a bit of trouble getting the bottom end right becasue this was the first time I've mixed on the new speakers we have in the studio.  they are Dynaudio Acoustics Airs.  These are really nice speakers, but I just wasn't used to them so the bass is a bit out of whack.  I really want to go back and fix that especially.

Here's some more photos from the session on the GH facebook page - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Garage-Hymnal/9949777114?ref=mf#/album.php?aid=133102&id=9949777114