Nostalgia ain't what it was...
Monday, October 20th, 2003 12:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caddymanIt is I suppose, something of a custom now, to use the early hours of Monday morning to natter about the weekend just passed. In that spirit, I find myself reporting that I spent yesterday afternoon and evening with my friends Sam and Ruth sans LJ in Burgess Hill.
As is our custom, the time was passed by listening to music, watching DVDs and chatting. And drinking BEER and eating pizza, of course. It is noteworthy that the West Sussex night is a great deal cooler and darker than the London night. Also much quieter. Once again I find myself wondering precisely why I still live in London - other, that is than inertia and lethargy. Oh, yes. Burgeoning poverty; that plays a role, too.
Never mind.
Sam is one of the only members of the Belvedere Bad Band with whom I am still in regular touch. The Bad Band (motto: 'Talent is killing music') was an occasional trio-cum-quartet that recorded out of my bedroom for a period of about 6 weeks in 1985. Paddy's Day 2004 marks the 19th anniversary of our classic hit, Matilda J Arkansas, which bears the distinction of making a friend of the band laugh so hard he threw up.
You will appreciate that making music in a bedroom was difficult at best, and recording it harder. Multi-tracking and overdubbing on two double-tape ghettoblasters (Boom Boxes as I believe they are known west of The Pond) gave us a gratifyingly muddy sound and necessitated frequent re-tuning as tape speeds varied just enough to cause no end of amusement. This variation in tape speed also lent many of our recordings an unintentional psychedelic feel since it provided us with home-made phasing. Our efforts were further hampered by the fact that only Sam could play an instrument with anything approaching competence. My input was restricted to vocals delivered in a hideous attempted Lennon impression, various sound FX and improvised recording engineering.
Now all the tripe we recorded, including backing tapes, remains in my possession. As the BEER flowed on Saturday night it was decided that we should follow the custom of other bands and re-master the band's output and convert it from analogue tape to something digital (probably MP3) and drop it on to CDs. The re-mastered noise (music is a rather too elegant term), once we have fathomed out how to make the transfer, to be subjected to some kind of cleaning up on a computer.
Of course, this means finding some appropriate software. Ho hum.
We anticipate that the market for the band's output will be between 2 and 3 CDs. One each for Sam and me, and possibly one for Jez, the other regular member. If we can track him down after nearly 20 years and intimidate him.
As we got progressively more drunk, the conversation turned to a number of ludicrous instruments we had once designed, but never made: vis. the maudline, the cachophone and the donk. We further came up with the concept for another based loosely on a Timpani filled with rice. Armed with these conceptual instruments we then wrote what could be, if we had the money to build these 'instruments' (which happily for everyone's sanity, we don't), the last hurrah of the Bad Band.
The piece as written is entitled Concerto for the Black Death and would run for about 5 minutes.
But this is all a story for another night.
Perhaps.
As is our custom, the time was passed by listening to music, watching DVDs and chatting. And drinking BEER and eating pizza, of course. It is noteworthy that the West Sussex night is a great deal cooler and darker than the London night. Also much quieter. Once again I find myself wondering precisely why I still live in London - other, that is than inertia and lethargy. Oh, yes. Burgeoning poverty; that plays a role, too.
Never mind.
Sam is one of the only members of the Belvedere Bad Band with whom I am still in regular touch. The Bad Band (motto: 'Talent is killing music') was an occasional trio-cum-quartet that recorded out of my bedroom for a period of about 6 weeks in 1985. Paddy's Day 2004 marks the 19th anniversary of our classic hit, Matilda J Arkansas, which bears the distinction of making a friend of the band laugh so hard he threw up.
You will appreciate that making music in a bedroom was difficult at best, and recording it harder. Multi-tracking and overdubbing on two double-tape ghettoblasters (Boom Boxes as I believe they are known west of The Pond) gave us a gratifyingly muddy sound and necessitated frequent re-tuning as tape speeds varied just enough to cause no end of amusement. This variation in tape speed also lent many of our recordings an unintentional psychedelic feel since it provided us with home-made phasing. Our efforts were further hampered by the fact that only Sam could play an instrument with anything approaching competence. My input was restricted to vocals delivered in a hideous attempted Lennon impression, various sound FX and improvised recording engineering.
Now all the tripe we recorded, including backing tapes, remains in my possession. As the BEER flowed on Saturday night it was decided that we should follow the custom of other bands and re-master the band's output and convert it from analogue tape to something digital (probably MP3) and drop it on to CDs. The re-mastered noise (music is a rather too elegant term), once we have fathomed out how to make the transfer, to be subjected to some kind of cleaning up on a computer.
Of course, this means finding some appropriate software. Ho hum.
We anticipate that the market for the band's output will be between 2 and 3 CDs. One each for Sam and me, and possibly one for Jez, the other regular member. If we can track him down after nearly 20 years and intimidate him.
As we got progressively more drunk, the conversation turned to a number of ludicrous instruments we had once designed, but never made: vis. the maudline, the cachophone and the donk. We further came up with the concept for another based loosely on a Timpani filled with rice. Armed with these conceptual instruments we then wrote what could be, if we had the money to build these 'instruments' (which happily for everyone's sanity, we don't), the last hurrah of the Bad Band.
The piece as written is entitled Concerto for the Black Death and would run for about 5 minutes.
But this is all a story for another night.
Perhaps.