canals

so this is for 3 different occasions recently...

the 1st a couple of mondays ago, then the wednesday after that, then this thursday just gone...

1st & 3rd on foot, 2nd on the bike...

it started that monday, regretting not cycling in to KCC (by trellick tower), i got onto the grand union canal right there and wondered along it, at a very different pace to the cycling i generally do on it - although having said that, my quite impressive walking pace cycling technique does get employed with pockets of pedestrians on that canal from time to time -

little venice came along & i transferred onto the regents canal with a certain amount of street necessary... although less street than when i'm on my bike as feet can go back down to the canal earlier than wheels it turns out...

it was around 2 in the afternoon and on the two mondays previous to this i'd been to see the finches, 1stly with felinity on her birthday, then on my own (but seeing felinity's friend & goddaughter there)...

back to this monday i'm talking about i found my stone grand piano, under those rail bridges... place of homage for me...

i met a lovely young woman reading a huge textbook where the canal goes around the top of regents park... then floated off the canal and lay down in the park for a little while... reading proust...

i wanted to take the canal all the way to kings cross tube but i was kicked off it by some work happening (not happening in my sight but cutting off my progress),,, so i reluctantly made it back to street level and found the 29 bus home...

the following wednesday i had a meeting @ cm for an hour in the middle of the day, and afterwards i rolled a little jazz cigarette & stowed it away in my bag - i went in search of dilmah tea in the huge sainsburies in stepney... successful in my task i then headed north and when i hit the regents canal i got down onto it & headed west...

finding my progress cut short by another bit of work i stopped and smoked my JC... watching a man deal with his barge on his own...

when he started trying go through the lock that was just on the other side of the barrier blocking me & my bike i lent him a hand, squeezing through the barrier and assisting him with shutting the lock doors...

it turns out he possesses a sound system so we traded numbers, the idea that one day i might need a huge soundsystem seemed possible just then...

then finally this last thursday... again i hadn't cycled in to work over there (this time HWLC) and again after work i rolled myself a couple of JC's & i was drawn to the canals again... i got the train over to paddington and came out round the back by the canal... walked through the throngs of commuters up to little venice and onto the regents...

did that little bit of street, coming down just east of the maida vale tunnel... stepped off the path to right by the tunnel mouth and smoked the 1st of my two JC's...

saw a boat enter the tunnel and headed east... meeting a family of ducks, a couple of beautiful women & a travel writer on my way around regents park, through camdem and then eventually off the canal at the same point i'd been kicked off a couple of mondays earlier...

this time i tried to walk from there to where i could rejoin the canal but i got distracted on the way by st pancras graveyard... by st pancras old church (where R used to do those gigs, maybe still does)...

the graveyard suited me fine and i smoked the 2nd JC while looking @ hardy's tree... really enjoying the low angle that the sunlight was coming in @...

also really enjoyed soanes tomb for his wife (and eventually himself) which seemed to me to be like a really old rolls royce car...

eventually leaving there & walking down to st pancras station, through the eurostar bit (under that fantastic roof) and down finally to the tube @ kingscross and home...

many more canal days ahead i hope...

x

yr4wk7 overdrive heaven

yr3wk7 mopho, hammond & blackstar overdrive from longcat on Vimeo.

thursday... very late, no good... but don't you just love this overdrive?

fixed my puncture yesterday, had a fine day of cycling as a result...

went down to an odd fete in a park in poplar for work, met a few nice kids...

then back to whitechapel (although to be fair this was all taxis' from whitechapel to poplar and back)... a lovely chat with G & H @ CM's office...

then into town to see felinity, no cinema but some food & a few gin & tonics, a lovely night, much laughing... walked her to waterloo, then sat in the royal festival hall for awhile using their wifi for my phone... then a cycle home with herbie hancock in my ears, magnificent, foolish yes, but beautiful... i love that bike..

x

yr4wk6 moog & voice

yr4wk6 moog & voice from longcat on Vimeo.

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

yr4wk4 mopho & revelation

yr4wk4 mopho & revelation from longcat on Vimeo.

i announce it in this video i made in the early hours of my birthday, so i announce it here & now...

me & dinah are no more... not as a couple... friends still... always will be i hope, and still living together - at least until august...

it's difficult, for both of us... a sad time...

x

yr4wk2

yr4wk2 moog, hammond, voice from longcat on Vimeo.

tuesday night...

i'm gaining...

x

yr4wk1 hammond

yr4wk1 hammond organ from longcat on Vimeo.

the 1st one of the 4th year... just hammond x

yr3wk51 moog & juno

yr3wk51 moog & juno from longcat on Vimeo.

i really love the canal video that's in this improvisation... it was a lovely sunny day coming home along the regents canal last thursday... my camera sat just on the waters edge, rush hour on the canal, in the 15 minutes i left it filming there were many, many people, walking or cycling past...

x

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...

x

yr3wk48 tonematrix & moog

yr3wk48 moog & tonematrix from longcat on Vimeo.

if you haven't played on this tonematrix i heartily recommend it, (you need the latest flash)...

enjoy x

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...

x

yr3wk46 mopho juno 6

yr3wk46 mopho juno 6 improvisation from longcat on Vimeo.

i was in such a rush to get ready to "broadcast" by sunday that i forgot to do the last bit, putting it here & on my blog & my webspace...

the blue sky/clouds footage was shot on friday the 8th may, and it was when i was cycling home from there that all the phone calls, assumptions, photographing happened as told in the last post...

x

yr3wk45 (honestly) mopho & drums

yr3wk45 Mopho & Drums from longcat on Vimeo.

last week i presented the LHC 2.1 video as yr3wk45, but it was only a brief lack of thinking...

last week thursday i recorded this here improvisation with lovely D on the drums, it's the 1st of the improvisations to go through the slightly longer allowed time frame, from here on in i'm improvising, then posting last week's improvisation on sunday...

it gives me more time to work on the sound/video for the improv's... it came about because the LHC 2.2 was taking forever and a day to get ready and i realised that sometimes i do need more than a few days to make it happen...

so LHC 2.1 went out the following week (when this one should have gone out by the old system), even though i had recorded this one already...

and in fact on friday i recorded the improvisation that's going out next sunday...

lovely thing with the juno & the mopho...

i hope it makes sense...

enjoy x

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

Longcat Hadron Collider version 2 chapter 2

Longcat Hadron Collider 2.2 - Yr3wk44 from longcat on Vimeo.

it took me so long to get this together, well, actually, just over a week, recorded last tuesday and brought to you here on this thursday...

it doesn't sound too bad does it...

but it's way late for last week's improvisation...

so today, i did an improvisation with lovely D, the drummer from the last LHC i did, also the man i bought the moog off... but it'll go out next week, this week's improvisation will be the 1st half of the LHC (2.1), so that in the future, i'll be improvising with at least a week to go before it's going out to the world, giving me time to deal with it all...

such a mad time of it i've had...

the other lovely D, omnichord player on both LHC's, helped me mix the one you see above here... both mixing and teaching me about mixing it was...

i recorded D's drums today and i'm quite confident i can mix them myself this time... using the drums we mixed together as a template...

so much time has passed and so much has happened... what to tell?

on the day after we did this improvisation i cycled down to the studio to meet a piano tuner, (who was great), but my bike decided to take that opportunity to completely lose all of it's brakes... leaving me midtown, no brakes...

so i gradually drifted down to the river, leaving it by waterloo bridge (the ladies bridge) - returning for it the next day with P who i'd been teaching, cycling with her along the river, slow enough to be able to stop with my feet... her playing tunes on her phone - including "rock me amadeus" by falco...

left overnight for a brake service in pretty much the only bike shop i trust these days and picked up the next day, good as new...

a consignment of tea arrived, a joint venture between me & spski... dilmah all the way...

floopy & T's cat cleo passed away on tuesday which has hit my beautiful dinah quite hard, cleo being the cat they had when she was a girl... and now that floopy & T are away she would normally be going round to feed cleo... sad times...

cleo is the cat who inspired my song "hunka munka poo bum"

yr3wk43

yr3wk43 moog rogue, mopho, piano from longcat on Vimeo.

recorded last tuesday... the day before the moog rogue went home to HK (and indeed the opus 3 came home to me)...

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

yr3wk38 upright piano

yr3wk38 upright piano from longcat on Vimeo.

this is from tuesday afternoon, it's the 1st time i've used a mirror video effect in an improvisation, and it's also the 1st time the audio has gone through the computer in the studio, a couple of UAD effects on it...

it's also been ages since i did one on a real piano - (actually that's not true - me & gareth did one using a real piano only a couple of weeks ago)

now - yesterday i was in the suit all day...

after it was all over i was walking along tufnell park road, my smart shoes making a loud sound with every step... i overtook another man, also wearing loud, smart shoes...

i was really tired and a bit frazzled and it was very pleasing to hear the sound of my steps and his steps ringing out, slightly different speeds, but very close, mine slightly faster than his... 2 rhythms gradually going in and out of phase...

eased my troubled mind...

x

yr3wk37 moog, juno, hammond

yr3wk37 moog, juno, hammond from longcat on Vimeo.

this from thursday morning, a couple of weeks ago it was the juno on it's own, now it's joined by the moog and the hammond organ...

i find in certain sections of this my arm looks really odd...

i formally welcome anamoglam to these pages, although he(?)'s been watching for a little while it seems...

x