Bit of Everything

Welcome back lovelies... thought I'd post a short entry today to let you know what's been happenin'.

Musically Ive been doing quite a bit of composing, I may have mentioned in an earlier post that I received a great keyboard for Christmas that has some quite impressive sounds and musical accompaniment styles. Basically in an effort to be as varied as possible I'm going through the styles and trying to write something from each genre, it's been getting quite interesting. I've so far covered, Disco, Guitar Rock, Trance and a few others. It's a bit like giving a child all these different ice cream flavours to try out. :). I am currently putting vocals on the Guitar rock track, so expect to see it posted here fairly soon.

It looks like this week is a going to be a busy one for performing, starting on Thursday night at the regular Jam ( If i make it..) , Friday night at a local RSL with a 50-60's rock and roll band, Saturday at a regular Charity Gig Jen and I play at and finally on Sunday at a Blues Gig with a friend of mine at one of the day markets up here on the Central Coast. I think by Sunday afternoon my fingers may need a little rest.

I've been checking out some cool stuff on the web of late.
Managed to find the complete Cremaster Cycle series which I am slowly getting through ( its difficult at times). If you are not aware of Micheal Barney's Cremaster work, do some googling, it's quite interesting stuff. Very artistic and symbolic, and beautifully filmed. Don't try to watch it without some background knowledge as it will come across very disjointed and weird. Winkipedia has some great background material on the project.

I have also come across some Charles Bukowski recordings of him reading his poetry and short stories. A friend of mine introduced me to his work a few years back (gave me a listen to a spoken word recording) and I found it quite interesting. This latest one though still interesting needs some editing, because you can clearly tell he is pretty drunk and it is a little hard to tell where his ranting ends and his poetry recital begins. Also it sounds like it was recorded outside of a studio, because some of the production (especially microphone feedback) is pretty poor.

I have given a provided a link below. Be prepared though if you are unfamiliar with his work, it can be quite hard hitting and brutal. Maybe another googling job for yaz.

The boyz have been getting together to do some more collaborative recordings, and to finish work on some older numbers, we managed to get one of our favoured vocalists to come over and put vocals down to a tune we recorded some time back, it seems to have turned out OK though I had major hassles with my setup, I think I must have had some system tray programs running which seemed to have been interfering with my sound card, anyway we managed to rectify the problem after many false starts.

Link is provided below.

Hope you enjoy your homework if you wish to accept it, and see you next time...

Ecca



Bukowski

Prison

Catch Up

Wow it's been a while, I haven't posted here since way before the holidays, don't ask me what I have been up to, i cant remember back that far.

I had a good break though, and spent New Year watching the obligatory fireworks, and making a few of my own with some of my nephews. Jen was off work for 8 weeks, so we spent a fair bit of time together and did some handy stuff around the house / yard.

Musically, the end of the year was fairly hectic, though the beginning of 2009 has been rather slow on the gig front, but I'm working on that.

The boys have been around a number of times and we have dabbles around with some new tunes and such. One of which I have posted below, so check it out if you want, if you don't then 'boo to you' who cares...

I got a great new keyboard for Christmas from my folks, one of them auto everything jobs, so I'm using it quite creatively to explore as many music genres as i possibly can. i even whipped up a disco tune the other day which I am in the process of throwing some vocals onto, so listen out for that one soon.

Oh I also managed to pick up a cheap 35mm SLR camera off ebay over the last few weeks, so I will be adding some of my weird shots to the blog posts.

There you go, a quick update. hope the next one doesn't quite take so long.

Cheers.
Ecca

Nothin'

A little Ambience

Though i enjoy collaborating with my musician friends and creating improvised pieces which usually end up sounding quite rough, I still enjoy sitting back with a nice sounding vsti and layering up a tune. one such piece called 'Sultan's Funeral' which was written a short time ago.

I didn't think too much of it when I wrote it, but listening back to it now, it seems to have a solemn feel and a strange appeal. Anyway I've linked it below so dim the lights or turn them off completely, sit back in your favorite recliner and enjoy the ride. maybe you can let me know where it takes you in the comments.

Cheers
Ecca.

Sultan's Funeral

How do you Feel?

Been a little quiet on the collaboration front lately, but yesterday my mate Wayne broke the drought by saying he'll pop over and make some music , so after a quick call to Billy, we had a trio set up to lay down some tracks to a new song.

Wayne has a rough demo recording of a song he had come up with which we listened to and thought we could redo with a few more instruments and some solid arrangement, so we got down to it.

Wayne laid down his rhythm guitar track (which was initially done in Acid, though then we changed our mind and decided to record in Audition as a straight recording rather than loops, so we had a bit of a slow start). I then added some bendy steel guitar bits in the intro, whilst Billy added some fancy pants guitar bits in the intro and instrumental sections.

Wayne was ready to add his golden voice, and recorded the first verse, and then decided it would be great if each of us wrote and sang the lyrics to each subsequent verse. Because the song was called 'I Feel', I could be forgiven into thinking I was in the middle of a Music Therapy songwriting session, as I would often do something similar with teenage clients as a songwriting exercise.

Anyways, we each put down our vocals, and we thought of putting down some fretless bass, but then opted for the orchestral feel of a deep cello for verses and strings for refrain. We put these down in a few takes.

We then decided some backing harmonies would be appropriate in certain refrain parts, and huddled around the rodes mic to add these. They turned out nice, though Billy reckons they should be louder (may make some subtle changes later).

Billy then came up with a tail part to end the song on the guitar, and we recorded this on the end of my pedal steel track, and amazingly the echo on the p/s track worked great with this tail run.

There are still some additions to be made, like a phasing on the rhythm guitar, and adding of some piano, but the song stands pretty solidly as it is.

This one's for you Wayne mate, hope you like it.

Take a listen from the link below, and let us know what you think. Enjoy !

I feel

I feel tired.. off to bed.
Cheers Ecca

back for a while

Hey there, remember me, it's been a while.
It's good to post here again after a period of absence, I've had a few minor crisis moments which are a little too personal to share on this otherwise rambling blog, but I'm back.
Unfortunately I cannot say that I'm back with any new music I've written because I've had to put all that aside for the last month or so to sort stuff out.

The next few weeks approaching Christmas are looking quite busy for me at the moment, with a number of corporate gigs booked between Shoal Bay and Sydney (for the New South Wales locals).

I am also involved with a number of charity gigs around this time of year, including one for a fundraiser for a kid that needs an insulin pump and a Christmas party for a disability group that I do music therapy with. I am looking forward to both of them very much as these groups really enjoy having live music at their functions, and if they have fun, it is more fun for the performers.

Jen and I have also been asked to play at the annual Christmas party for the Spencer community. Spencer is a small town between the Central Coast and Sydney, which is basically a country town, they have their Chrtismas party at the community hall, the whole town turns up, so it is quite a night. We normally so some easy listening stuff and dance stuff for the adults, and then do some Christmas songs for the kids. It's a fun time for everyone including ourselves.

Jen and I are still playing every Friday afternoon at Donnisons cafe on Kibble park at Gosford, though we don't get a huge crowd at the cafe, we get regular listeners who sit in the park, and enjoy the entertainment which makes it a pleasant afternoon for all.

Last Friday my mate Wayne asked me to join him for a gig at a local pub at West Gosford which ended up being a farewell party for one of the regulars who was moving up north to Kempsey, most of the locals turned up, and we had a great night playing music for them and watching them kick up their heels.

Other than the music side, Jen and I are still working on the gardens here, removing retaining walls, and putting heaps of plants (and removing a few as well), it seems like there is always something to do in the yard.

I hope to get back into the regular posts as soon as I can fit them in at this stage, until the next one, stay safe and have fun !

Ecca

The Week That's Bean

Whoa what a hectic time I've had since last posting, it wasn't planned to be but stuff just kept popping up. I'm sorry it's taken so long to post an update, but I have been rather busy (compared to my normal laid back lifestyle).

Firstly I blew a PA speaker at one of the Thursday night Jam sessions. Looks like these muso's are a destructive and loud bunch. Apparently J who normally uses his PA system has also blown a number of PA speakers on Thursday Jam nights, so while I'm not surprised. It was a bit of a shock when I went to use the speaker on Friday night for our usual cafe' elevator music gig, and a strange buzzing sound came through the PA.

Luckily, a good muso friend who lives only a few minutes away was able to lend us a PA speaker for the gig after a desperate phone call.

I later sourced a replacement, removed the blown speaker, and put the new one in, but as sure as the sky is blue, I had to re drill the PA box as the mounting holes didn't line up. I know it doesn't sound like a huge job, but for a dodgy handyman like me, I was sure I was going to stuff it up, but all turned out OK.

I also had a bit of bad luck on Monday night, I normally leave assorted pieces of music gear in my car to save me from carting stuff back and forth, I'm talking keyboard stand, power supply and leads bag, another music therapy bag with percussion instruments in it etc. Upon waking on Tuesday morning, the next door neighbour was at the front door letting me know that someone had broken into my car. Obviously they just wanted the music gear as nothing else was touched, so most of Tuesday was spent replacing the stuff taken and getting a smashed car window replaced.

Luckily I scraped up enough gear to still do the open mic on Thursday night, music therapy session and gig on Friday. One of the items I really miss though and will find it hard to replace was a Tibetan singing bowl, which I simply loved. I used to use it for meditation and also in music therapy for centering the group either at the beginning or end of the session. I am really going to miss it.

The rest of the week was quite uneventful, so I got back to my planned activities. We are in the first few weeks of spring in Australia, so I decided to do some pottering in the garden and enjoy the glorious weather we have been having. Mugsy (the cat) was surprised to see me spending time in the garden rather than spending it behind the computer desk, he hung around me investigating what I was doing to his precious habitat.

I also noticed that the broad beans I had planted earlier in the year were beginning to sprout beans, I was surprised to see this as most of my efforts to grow stuff end up in disaster as I usually look after them for the first few weeks, and then lose interest and they end up experiencing a slow and painful death. But not this time, the beans were coming out and the few that I sampled tasted great ! Yipee.

As far as music goes, I have probably started work on around five pieces of music which I intend to finish at some stage, but at the moment I am practicing for a gig which I have next week. As I don't get asked to do the Karaoke gigs that often (outside of Xmas period), I often have to relearn or refresh all the songs each time I have a gig, and of course they are always adding new songs to the list, so it is an ongoing task so to speak. Meanwhile I am also learning new stuff for our cafe' gig so as to provide some variation rather than playing the same old every week.

Well I hope I have something more interesting to post next time, but for now It's adios...

Cheers Ecca

Welcome to my weekend

Ah the weekend is over and I'm back to my recording space to stir the musical cauldron. The weekend was an enjoyable run of gigging and relaxing. The gigging actually started on Thursday night at the regular open mic jam, I have some great times here, you just don't know who is going to turn up and offer their musical talents and last Thursday night was a great one.

Jake runs the night ( and has been for the last 6 or so years) , and it was is birthday, so a heap of people rocked up to rock it out and celebrate with him, and that they did, musicians as well as punters.

Unfortunately I couldn't hang around after midnight as I had my Friday morning music therapy session to run, the clients were great, they were in a singing dancing, participating mood, so it was really enjoyable seeing them have such a great time and hopefully (fingers crossed) there is another respite organization interested in employing my services for some midweek sessions which would work out really well at the moment.

Friday afternoon Jennifer and I did our now regular cafe gig, and this time instead of playing to a spattering of clientele, there were two full groups booked plus a few friends which we invited to pop in, so it turned out to be a good night. The highlight was that a friend of ours Col turned up with his fiddle, and played along with us, it really sounded great. so I hope that he decides to join us more often, it was really great to have him there, he is an awesome musician.

On Saturday, Jen and I were asked to play at a charity gig for a cancer group who were organising a fundraiser to buy a transport bus, we weren't too sure what to expect, but it was a good function with a really good audience. There were a few other musicians asked as well so we had a little impromptu band happening, so it worked out real well.

The fundraiser was held in a private backyard with stage, dance area and seating, so it was a good little set up, and the weather was absolutely magnificent. The function was booked ticket sales only, so I was surprised when Dave and Robina (a few muso friends who regularly turn up here for a jam and recording sessions), showed up. Funny thing was they were walking down the side of the house and recognised my keyboard playing... well there you go, they were quite surprised when he saw Jennifer and myself on stage.

After around 5 hours of playing and singing, both Jen and I had pretty well had it, but we still had one more thing to attend to, Jake had his official party at 'the farm' where he lives, so were rocked up there for a few hours, caught up with some friends we had not seen for some time, but unfortunately had to leave early as he were totally buggered.

Jen spent Sunday relaxing whilst I spent it making wall plaques of some of my musician friends from photo's I had taken to put up on the studio wall. I ended up with around 25 plaques, and am now I just need to put the rest of them them up.

Today I had the gang over for a improv session, Wayne, Billy, Dave, Robina and Col all rocked up with instruments in hand, we had a great time, but unfortunately no finished product. We started on a tune Dave and Robina had been working on over the last few days, but got bogged down a bit with the technicalities of it and ran out of time. But it will definitely be an ongoing project.

Well that just about wraps up this interzone report but I am going to leave you with something real special, Dave told me about a TV special that Alice Cooper had filmed back in 1975 for the release of Welcome to my Nightmare, apparently it has never been released on DVD. I Love the Nightmare album, so I searched the web for this TV special, and it was well worth it. The links for the are below... enjoy, I did.

Cheers Ecca.

Part 1: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5T93X2VW
Part 2: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VZ1DQZV5
Part 3: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=G6VL5G75