march improv walking

this from thursday morning...

today though was a killer day, the day that the moon is closest to us... i took a walk... once this video was rendering... did the 2 part... got told i looked like a movie star in jai... then up to the big green... standard circuit...

found myself saying to an almost complete stranger: "look after that leg" as she left the shop...

lovely S in there asked me about my living stuff - landlord - and of course it brought it all to mind, put the afternoon in perspective, this area that i love, coming home to this flat that i love, that balthazara loves...

and it does make me sad... seeking advice on monday...

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improvisations

this one i did yesterday... mixing a drone i made in the TX modular synth with my rhodes...



last week it was the frohmage plugin from ohmforce that pleased me so much... with the rhodes...



and then a month ago, a week after the 1st i did (this time around)... rhodes & voice...



and while i'm in a youtube place... this rhythm tree i made as a reference for my students:



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deflea dr john chico buarque

she's sulking somewhere... but it's done...

dr john has come back into my life, much more than before... i'd seen him on jules holland and i think we supported him once at a student ball @ warwick university... not that i saw him then or him us - (i imagine)

anyway, i was @ core on monday for a meeting and a few of us musicians killed some time jamming, a straightforward tune led by me and then a much less straightforward melange which somebody said sounded like gris-gris... dr john's 1st album...

since then i've immersed myself in 3 different albums by dr john: gris-gris, dr john's gumbo & in the right place...

'68, '72, '73,

and then chico buarque's construcao came to mind today after listening to some of the crazy arrangements on gris-gris...

i'm also continuing to write the tune i started last week on the rhodes... some lyrics are floating in...

and the sopranos is getting dark... ralphy in season 3...

oh and i've started my booker book club reading, although C by Tom McCarthy is only on the longlist, the shortlist hasn't been announced... i read an excerpt from C in the "sex" granta... what i read was great and i'm very pleased to have found another writer i like, and for this book to be at least in the longlist for the booker...

if it makes it onto the shortlist i will have begun early for the booker book club challenge of reading all 6 booker shortlisted novels in the 5 weeks between shortlist announcement & winner announcement... (i did it last year)

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rhodes muse new tune

that beautiful electro acoustic instrument feeds me... i didn't know i was looking for love until i found it... i had forgotten how much it gives me & i am oh so glad to have it back in my life...

yes it would profit from the preamp being looked @ by the nice milton keynes man...

yes... that's true... but in the state it's in right now, which is pretty much the way it's been when it's been working for me in the past...

it is both muse and instrument... it calls forth music from me...

and since it's been working again - roughly the last 24 hours... i've written a new tune... well... i've got 2 sections chordwise and i've written a provisional melody for the chorus which is really nuts chordwise...

it may suit the voice of someone i met last week... it may suit my own voice... lyricly it may well talk about my feelings in relation to oncewassqueeze... it could turn into a spanner tune... it could be a longcat tune... it could be a tune from this identity i'm thinking about which uses my real name...

from me... if you will...

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rhodes stuff

so i got the amp bit home... asked around and got hold of a soldering iron... soldered in the speaker lead that had gone astray... put the amp bit back in... proceeded to screw back in the 10 huge screws that i remember it taking me an age to unscrew the 1st time i ever did it...

didn't quite finish before the job finished off the screwdriver i was using...

excitedly moved the keyboard part near the amp/speaker part... plugged it all in...

and it didn't sound right... still doesn't... although it did for one moment...

disappointing yes... but i remember it being very reticent when i 1st got it and it finding it's proper voice after 6 months or so... i came to believe that it was being left turned off for long periods of time that it didn't like...

anyway translate that to today and it's clear to me the preamp (on the keyboard part of the suitcase) is having trouble... (the lights aren't coming on properly... so maybe it's not getting it's power quite right...or it's not happy in some way inside...

it's a job for daylight... and a possible phonecall to the nice man i saw today... although a thought has just entered my mind that maybe i didn't push the bits in correctly before screwing it all together again... and my heart breaks at the thought of undoing all those screws again...

so... that's where i'm at x

but just before i close... i'm just had another look at it and pushed the sustain pedal a few times, turning the tremolo on and off...

and it has started behaving like it's old self again...

tomorrow now before i give myself a proper rhodes experience... one can't play one's rhodes at the volume one deserves in the middle of the night... not in this flat anyway...

must also get hold of a new screwdriver and finish screwing down those pesky screws... exaclt half of them are as far down as i intend to get them, the other half and a cm or so off...

tomorrow x

tethered

my 3rd trip to milton keynes of 3... picking up the bit of my rhodes... then home... then some work putting it back together again... then possibly a smoke... then rhodes bliss once more...

blogging from my PC.... tethered to the internet through my phone... something i was looking forward to being able to do with android 2.1 - although it turns out i could have done it anyway...

around about the middle of the 2nd series of the sopranos... it makes me happy... a smile coming to my lips fairly often... such well written and beautifully crafted TV...

ok, that's all i have to say... i'm really just showing off because i can use the internet on this train...

and then i can't... mobile phone networks being oh so fragile while on trains...

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today... the day before my brothers birthday

worked...

the 1st full day of the new term... although not such a full tuesday as i used to have... the spanners not rehearsing this time, and in the future they won't be rehearsing on a tuesday any more which, no matter which day it eventually falls upon, will make my life easier...

after work i walked over to see C (homerton to broadway market) - guitarist and recording engineer... as well as being many other things... we recorded over @ his place a few weeks ago, in the week where i had no work at all - (except a meeting... nothing's prefect)...

then after leaving his i got onto the canal and walked to angel... even trying to go beyond the bit that's closed off... i got through several fence type obstructions before a security guard stopped me, very reasonably from going the final 20 meters... the concrete had just gone down today apparently and even if he hadn't been there i probably would have turned back anyway...

then into the vue cinema for the loo, finally finding my way into wagamama's for a small meal...

i wrote this down while i was in there:

quite richard fordesque acceptance falling over me


although of course it's also eminently longcatesque & it's one of the things i like about richard ford - & about frank bascombe - that in some ways they are like me -


the rhodes situation casting a lovely bubbling presence behind my mind all day,


slightly timeless quality now - in that i don' know what time it is - only that it was 9 when i got on the canal -


walking also a welcome influence on my mind - the hint of autumn that the low sun coming through the trees @ london fields... not quite - it's more that lovely late summer magic that blesses us a few more times...


trave 39 tomorrow-


frank bascombe being richard ford's main character in the sportswriter, independence day & the lay of the land... the 3rd of which i finished reading today while waiting for students to show for my keyboard class - a risky strategy because it could have been cut off at any time... but it wasn't...

the rhodes situation being that part of my lovely suitcase rhodes piano is currently in milton keynes, under the watchful eye of a very nice silver haired old git who is mending it for me...

i don't know... you wait for a reason to go to milton keynes for decades... and then 3 turn up all at once...

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under the sea

in a couple of hours i'm going out to meet with felinity, we're seeing micmacs....

i'm feeling a bit under things today, a sore throat and a cough/sneeze thing...

i'm about to smoke a tiny bit, which won't be very pleasant but it will produce quite a nice feeling, upon which i'll sit down at my rhodes, with the MIDI keyboard on top, the rhodes going through the BlackStar valve thing, the MIDI keyboard controlling the hammond and the tetra, and everything going into the space echo...

and i'll play for an hour or so...

still not recording because i'm still waiting for delivery of a USB sound thing, it turns out the Edirol one i ordered (and paid for) was in between names, being rebranded, and i wasn't going to get it until the end of next week...

so i cancelled it and tried to get it from someone else, phoned a few people, one man told me he wouldn't be able to get an edirol for a little while and anyway, the last one he'd sold (a year ago) had blown up...

so he persuaded me that in fact i wanted an M-audio thing, newer, for £100 less...

i was persuaded, and tomorrow morning, possibly before i leave for work, i shall receive it in the post and then it will all start to slip into place...

i will also be able to start mending the mopho, or at the very least recreating the mopho sound i was using in the SJP's in the Tetra...

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just listening to this, being another time i was playing my rhodes through a space echo, but that time, my rhodes was in full working order and it was a real 70's space echo...

this time, my rhodes is still broke, the amp part is in need of some specific love, but the upper, harp part is currently wired into my Blackstar valve overdrive pedal, which is wired into the brand new (to me) Boss Space Echo, a seemingly faithful digital reproduction of the original...

similar therefore to my hammond organ module - the Creamware B4000, a lovingly researched and recreated digital version of an analogue classic...

week 24 of the weekly improvisation (because that's what it is i'm listening to) was recorded on the 5th of December 2006,

ok, it's just finished, and now i'm listening to week 34, from the 10th of february 2007, the day that landlord E popped over to pick up his space echo after a few months of it living with me...

i'm sharing these links with you because my old computer is dead and until my brand new Edirol USP sound thing arrives i can not record anything just yet... but when i can ladies & gentlemen you will be drowning in the deluge of music i'll be making...

earlier on i felt so completely at home playing the rhodes through the space echo (with that lovely bit of valve overdrive), i tweeted with joy, and tomorrow i'll be taking both the space echo and the brand new tetra to the SJP rehearsal, we'll see what the hammond sounds like through it...

we're practising up for a big showcase type thing that will feature dancers (including dinah):



be there or be square folks x

from bed

hmmm... a sedintary life for me, the booker prize all done... the last one I read won it, the great wolf hall... I got through 5/6 with the 6th now in my possession, I don't know if i'll read it... we'll see...

blogging from my phone, in bed, just to check it out really...

not working Wednesday but if I can i'll pick up my fender rhodes x

yr4wk5

yr4wk5 rhodes improvisation from longcat on Vimeo.

recorded last saturday night, just as the pub was getting going,

the last bit of recording i did with the rhodes before TC broke it on monday... x

yr3wk52 rhodes & cymbal

yr3wk52 rhodes & cymbal from longcat on Vimeo.

again getting to the wednesday before i've done the improvisation chores... slack...

this working lark really does take it out of one...

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yr3wk50 bass clarinet & rhodes with Dan Spanner

yr3wk50 with Dan Spanner from longcat on Vimeo.

it really did take just over a day to render... it finished just before i left the house for my mental day of work yesterday - 9:30 - 9 in 2 different places...

so, wednesday, late for an improv but finally it's here x

yr3wk49 rhodes alone

yr3wk49 rhodes alone from longcat on Vimeo.

no words for quite some time...

i guess i'm just not in the habit of it...

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yr3wk47 rhodes thru mopho

yr3wk47 rhodes thru mopho from longcat on Vimeo.

the music from a week & a half ago on a wednesday, the sky video from last week... monday...

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Longcat Hadron Collider version 2 chapter 1

Longcat Hadron Collider 2.1 from longcat on Vimeo.

there's an owl that toots at 7:45 am...

it woke me up...

so i came to see if chapter 1 of that large scale improvisation had uploaded...

and here it is x

yr3wk42 mopho & rhodes

yr3wk42 rhodes & mopho from longcat on Vimeo.

from last wednesday, not an april fool...

unlike my post on that day, but what can you do? old traditions surely are worth keeping hold of...

anyway, the improv recorded at the studio, the 1st one in ages on the rhodes...

i just hope i can take advantage of the studio to let out all the musical ideas i have all the time x

studio rhodes

the studio in kennington is moving on...

those massive 8/4 foot acoustic panels are going to be built in a kind of hexagon...

with 2 of them fixed on the top... so it'll be a 6/6 foot room for recording drums, and indeed anything else...

i was there tonight (well, it really is tuesday morning now, so.. ok last night) & i'm going back on sunday (probably)... to do the building...

at the moment 3 of them are standing up but they're all resting on things (wall or massive speaker cab)... so all the drilling, screwing, sawing and so on will be on sunday...

i also plugged in my rhodes which is there... i took down one of the tracks i'm working on in the korg D8 and recorded a few rhodes parts for it...

it was lovely playing it in the room... no sound issues... (touch wood)...

it's going to be absolutely amazing in there...

cold though...

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yr3wk31 + john sinclair + dog shit

yr3wk31 rhodes & moog improvisation from longcat on Vimeo.

so i played last night with john sinclair and the blues scholars... quite scary, but very good, john is a real sweety...

i looked down at one point, after having been to a place outside to get food and having my piano chair taken for a few tunes by someone else...

i could smell shit...

and i could see shit on my shoe...

this being the 3rd time it's happened in recent weeks, once really early in the morning just going out to put gas on the card... the 1st time in ages and it really irritated me...

then last week down in kennington looking at the desk and the place again i smelt it and looked down and there it was...

and i remember wondering if i was due another one these things coming in 3's as they sometimes do,

and the 3rd came sat at a piano, playing on the edge of free/blues/jazz with an ex-criminal...

i hope this current spat of shit is over with, it seems like it was years before this that it last happened, have the dog owners of this city been careful for a few years and now they don't care?

the gig is repeated tonight, today being the inauguration of that famous man over in americy... do come down if you fancy it,

cafe oto in dalston... £12...

yr3wk30

foolishly went over 20 minutes for this week's improvisation (on wednesday) which means dailymotion will take awhile sorting it out... (so slow that maybe they won't ever sort it out)... and i'm forced to go back to googlevideo for an immediate, embeddable video...

no funny business with googlevideo for once...

the conflict in gaza on my mind...

playing the 2 marvellous sound modules i got hold of last year... the hammond organ with the volume pedal that arrived the day before...

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