Missionary man

I have been rather busy over the last few days, Friday was a disaster for one, after finishing my morning music therapy session, I thought I would get a usual weekend task out of the way, and do my weekly Mannering Park surveillance duties where I am currently looking after my parent's place while they are holidaying in Malta and the Greek islands, I am desperately trying to keep their garden alive unsure of whether it is suffering from lack of water or the cold winter w( as I am most comfortable with items which have keyboards attached to them be it music or computers, gardening and plants leave me bewildered, like goldfish, most plants eventually die on me).

I didn't quite get there though... halfway there, my car started shaking and convulsing as it if it had been suddenly possessed by the fiercest of automotive demons, so I turned around and headed back toward home and to my local mechanic who changed a coil block and a few spark plugs, chanted a few mantras, sprayed some holy water on the engine block, charged me what I had made from my last two gigs, all in the space of about 3 hours and I was on my not so merry way.

Now some people are paranoid about their health, whether the doctors have given the correct diagnosis and carried out the right tests and such, well I am pretty OK with all that, but when it comes to my car, I fret like a new mother listening for the smallest irregularity which might indicate another problem.

Saturday morning was band rehearsals, so my partner and I packed up the Jeep (her car), and made our merry way to five hours of band rehearsals only to zip off to her father's place afterward to help clear up a house which he was selling. Trailer attached, we returned in the evening with a few extra pieces of furniture, 3 big ceramic pots, a antique chest of drawers, and assorted oddments. We both crashed out after a tiring day.

Sunday morning I managed to get up early and re-attempt my surveillance duties. Being the first trip back in the car after it's exorcism, I was a little a little paranoid thinking that some possibly related overseen fault would manifest itself and leave me stranded in the nether regions of Mannering Park (about half an hour from home). I am pleased to say that this time the trip was incident free. After getting home, I spent most of the afternoon just quietly vegging out, whilst my partner revisited her father's emporium of material delights.

Monday arrives with an early morning visit to the pathology department for regular blood tests and such, which don't really bother me too much (though still listening carefully to the sounds my car is making),

I return home and get a call from my mates who had planned to come over and finish off a song we had been working on last week saying they will be around soon, so I tidied up a little, prepared the baby room ( as they have a 2 month year old newborn ), and set up the baby monitor.

They arrive, Billy, David, and mother Robina start working on vocals for the chorus of the unfinished track. ( I managed to put down some vocals to the verses previously with my usual octave down pitch shifted effect which all were pretty pleased with and made it easier to come up with a chorus as a subject had been established ). We decided that with four singers on board, that harmonies were the way to go, so we figured our parts, laid out tracks and soon had a chorus which sounded pretty OK.

Now Dave is a huge Frank Zappa fan so he felt obliged to include the zappesque 'yeah' and 'mmm' exclamations you can hear within the first verse section, he was pretty chuffed with his work too may I add.

We made a group decision to remove the firecracker recording and subsequent giggles we had added to end the song during the previous week ( agreeing that a cracker going off had really nothing to do with the subject of stalking, and submissiveness) and decided to end the song in a more conventional way.

All of us were pretty happy with the finished product ( and started working on a new track).

That just about ends my last few days activities, my studio looks no cleaner or organised, so that is my attempted project for the next few days.

You can have a listen to the new tune from the link below.. enjoy.

Ecca.



Man on a Mission