blue eyed dressed for every situation

all my bags are packed I’m ready to go

September 4, 2005

Not going to do too much in the blog this week, can’t be arsed. Enjoying a relaxing morning in the sunroom listening to Liz Kershaw on BBC 6Music.

Going to San Diego on Wednesday and then onward to Seattle. Really not looking forward to it. Very much the homebird these days.

Learning to play "Songs of Love" (Divine Comedy) and "Small World" (Roddy Frame) on guitar. I’d love to get out and play a gig. Maybe I could do a 15 minute set somewhere ? Just me and the guitar. Someone elses gig. Safe.

Right , I’m off to buy a new hamster house for Heather’s ‘Digger’. Dwarf hamster my arse….

You Never Give Me Your Money

August 28, 2005

tags: blogging, gadgets, mates, pugwash, technology

A good week – aren’t they all ? I discovered emoiticons in the blog.

Worked monday through wednesday which wasn’t too bad. There might be changes afoot in the org. which means I might have a chance at a different job

Definitely won’t be doing that M.Sc – I simply can’t afford the €5k a year and even if I could I’d sooner go back to college to study film scoring (not business!). I’m not bothered.

My mate Thomas from Pugwash ‘phoned. We had been playing phone-tag for a couple of weeks. Always good to hear from him – a talented guy and I can live out my fantasy of being a real songwriter and musician through Thomas. The album is coming out soon and he’s given me a little dedication on it for some help I gave on a song. That means a huge amount to me – a validation of my abilities as a musician. It makes up for not playing piano on the actual track (long story there) when we were in Abbey Road last year. I really hope it works out for Thomas and that when he’s hugely successful he won’t forget me

Unfortunately (or is that fortunately ?) the deal with Andy Partridge’s APE record label is dead in the water. Given what I’ve heard I think that’s a good thing.

Wednesday I left the car in for some minor bodywork [while away on holidays some little shit decided to relieve the car of it’s mercedes ‘star’]. The star itself was only €20 but over the past couple of years various idiots in supermarket car parks took slices off the corner bumpers and mouldings on the car. Put the whole lot in for one claim and because I’ve got no-claims-bonus protection it’s only costing me the €125 excess

This meant that I had to commute home using public transport

using the Luas for the first time – a very pleasant experience. 20 minutes after jumping on board (I’ve gone all travelogue haven’t I?) it dropped me off in St.Stephen’s Green and I strolled around from the east side of the green to the north side where an ‘express’ bus ( the 37X if you’re interested) arrived only 5 minutes later. Got me home about 45 minutes later. Now , in fairness this is about the same as a bad-day commute via car. I don’t know if I could do the public transport commute thing really – well , it’s not going to be practical as I’ll be back to doing school-run for the girls this year with Ben going to a new school.

I took Thursday & Friday off because it had been so enjoyable last time and with the kids going back to school in a few days I figured it would be good to be at home. Thursday was a difficult day – spent the morning doing domestic finances and the periodical "are we living beyond our means" discussion. Sharing personal finance is not something I’m comfortable with but let’s just say we’re very cautious and despite our nice house and two cars we’re not as flush as perhaps some people would think. We’re not exactly living on the streets either. All is well.

Back to Atlantic Homecare for some proper exterior wood paint so that I could do the windowsills upstairs. That and some sandpaper discs to fix two sticky doors. Val had a go at some homemade pizza and if the kids are anything to go by it was a success. Tried watching 24 Hour Party People but didn’t get to the end.

Friday was wonderful. We took the kids into town on the bus (see ? – I’m making a habit of this) and after some noodles in Wagamama hopped on the Luas (I’m getting the hang of this now) out to Sandyford to pick up the car.

Very pleased with the work done and the advice given on how to fix up those annoying little chips in the bodywork and the type of stereo/phone kit I’d like in the car. Turns out that there’s a Pioneer head unit DEH-P70BT that plays radio, cd, wma, aac, mp3 files and has an available iPod interface plus it has a bluetooth interface so you can partner with a compatible phone. Now this is good because I don’t want to change my current Nokia because the connection to the phone has changed and the installed car kit I have isn’t compatible with modern day Nokia phones. Bah. I do like the idea of the whole lot being integrated via bluetooth though. That’s the gadget-freak in me coming out again.

Ben woke us up Saturday morning vomiting. Nice. I surfaced from bed a few minutes later and walked downstairs… barefoot… straight through a pool of vomit at the bottom of the staircase. Lovely.

Val headed off into town at lunchtime to meet her mum while I monitored an improving Ben (funny how 6 year olds bounce back so well, Alan Partridge would be proud). Ali & Heather did the bike thing with their friends while I painted the upstairs window sills (at last!), did some rust treatement to a few chips on the car paintwork and finished fixing the door to Alison’s bedroom. It no longer sticks and the wood floor is safe again.

I’m getting more and more satisfaction out of this DIY stuff and am becoming unbearable.

Spent Saturday evening at our neighbours house. We’re fortunate in having a great bunch of neighbours. I’m sure they all don’t like me that much if truth be told (I can be a bit upfront in my opinions and beliefs…). Kids had a blast and despite his illness that morning Ben ate rubbish with the rest of the kids.

It’s sunday morning and I find myself in our sunroom at the back of the house having just read Andrew Collins’ blog and thought it was about time I did a little updating of my own. I have that little anxious/anxiety feeling I get some days so I’m going to keep myself busy – that’ll make it go away. There’s some gardening that could be done but what I really want to do is sort out my 6Music access at home. I really like listening to that station and have a couple of ways of listening to it but neither work well at the moment. I can stream it online to a PC or Mac but that stream only works on the computer. If I’m downstairs where we have a couple of Roku Soundbridge M1000 devices I can’t listen because of a compatibility issue with the streaming technology. I found some great software which I’ve installed on my iMac. This takes any input (including a realaudio or windowsmedia player for example) and streams it on my home network (or out to the internet if I wanted to). Nicecast is intended to allow you to run your own internet radio station but I’m just using it to ‘rebroadcast’ 6Music around the house. It doesn’t work very well – I’m listening to Liz Kershaw at the moment and the sound is lilke bad AM radio. The other method I have is to take the sound from a Sky digibox and broadcast it on FM using a little transmitter I’ve got. What I’m thinking of trying to set up is a combination of both : the Sky digibox connected up in the attic/office (see webcam here !)

That’s what I’m doing if it rains. If it doesn’t rain I’m going to try and persuade Val to do a bit of gardening with me. I’m not really supposed to do any gardening with my chronic pollen allergy but I do enjoy it (sometimes).

Mr. Blue Sky is out and the small wisps of cloud are shooting across the sky – it’s quite windy innit ?

. . . does anyone really read this ?

From A Window

August 16, 2005

tags: DIY

Well I was wrong about something in today’s blog. The windows at our bedroom need another coat of woodstain.

That’s what I’ll be doing thursday evening.

Leave A Light On For Me

August 16, 2005

tags: blogging, DIY, family, work

Obstensively this is just an excuse to post some photos of that recording session.

Of course it is.

Seeing as I’m here I figure I might as well ruminate (2nd big word) on what I’ve been doing these past couple of weeks.

I’ve applied to do a M.Sc. which is all well and good but I can only do this if my employer pays for it. All has been going well until now.. well until 5 minutes ago when I hear that perhaps only 40-something per cent of the fees (over €10k a year for 2 years) will be paid. So unless there’s a change of mind by someone in the food chain above me I won’t be pursuing that particular plan.

I’m not too pissed off (yet) because there’s other stuff afoot that might compensate in some ways – more about this in a couple of weeks [ I have a confidence to keep ].

The window frames at home are now looking pretty damn good. Having gotten my arse into gear I got around to cleaning and varnishing the window frames. 5 years on and they were beginning to look pretty tatty. I even did the sills (well, there’s 2 sills upstairs to be done but I don’t have the right paint for them do I ?). A strange sense of satisfaction from it all : the dignity of labour. I’m itching to get into a bit more DIY now – having done a little minor plumbing a couple of weeks ago I’ve not decided I can do anything. Well. Painting and replacing taps.

We’re inching toward the end of the kids summer holidays and I’m going to try and take a couple more days off to hang out at home. I took off last Thursday & Friday and it was frankly wonderful. I think our fiscally-enforced decision to stay at home next year (and not go away either in Ireland or abroad) will actually work out quite well !

So, the Premiership has started again and Liverpool drew 0-0 with Middlesborough. Oh dear. Hope it gets better than this . Lots of opportunities to score and nothing converted. Sigh.

Talking about Talking about Come On Feel The Noise

August 9, 2005

tags: bbc 6music, family, radio

Word reaches me today that a well known radio station plans to play one of Ben’s songs this September.

Stay Tuned.

Talking about Come On Feel The Noise

August 2, 2005

tags: family, music

And here are the results of Saturday’s recording session.

Ben’s first release "Come On Feel The Noise EP" !

At present this is an exclusive for the blog. Ben wants me to set it up so that people can buy his album (see more on the album below) on the internet. Honest – he asked.

Track One is titled "The Pussycat Song". It’s about a pussycat (we think). The lyrics are below. You decide what it’s about and blog it. Me? I’m not sure.

Track Two is titled "Big Sister Blues". It’s not a 12-bar blues, it’s more a 15-bar ode to the challenge of being a boy with big sisters in the 21st century.

2009 Update: those links won’t work any more. Everything was on Ben’s myspace site which myspace decided to delete without notifying me. Bastards. If you really want to hear this stuff just ask.

For those who care : Ben plays a half-size Les Paul copy through a small Marshall 30 watt amp. His vocals were recorded using a Neumann TLM103 through a TLAudio 5051 mic pre-amp. All recorded live to Digidesign ProTools at our home studio. The percussion/drumloops were provided by Propellerheads Reason. Ben chose all the sounds and loops. I just pressed the buttons.

Ben wants to record more tracks for a full album which he hopes to release (that is : give to everyone) for Christmas. Apart from the request to sell it online (!) he has asked Matthew (guitar player in Brush Shiels‘ band) if he could sell it at some gigs. Matthew could have some of the money but of course Ben had to get most of the money.

I think Ben has a future in management…

THE PUSSYCAT SONG

oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah
funky dude funky dude
pussy cat pussy cat where are you ? i’m in france
where is he ?
he should be hungry by now
i’m delcious . . . for lasagna
oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
wonder why
wonder why
rock and roll
peace

BIG SISTER BLUES

Yo Yo Yo !
Cool dude Cool dude
my sisters most of the time are good to me
my sisters most of the time are good to me
oh I hate them oh yeah I do
most of the time
I hate you
oh yeah
you are an idiot
GIRLS !
my sisters most of the time are good to me
my song called big sister
sisters are dumb
haha

Quote

Come On Feel The Noise

Ben spent some time in the studio with me on Saturday. He wrote and recorded (at the same time !) a new song called "Big Sisters". Accompanied by a straight 4/4 provided by Propellerheads Reason.

<<<SNIP – go read the original blog !>>>

Ben plans to give copies of his album to people this Christmas. You have been warned…

Some photos of the other recording sessions we’ve done with Ben.

Talking about America’s Most Dangerous Drug – Newsweek Society – MSNBC.com

August 1, 2005

tags: blogging, drugs

Like me I’m sure you’ve guessed that pot/420/marijuana/grass isn’t the problem.

This is some scary stuff – I knew a little bit about meth but this is alarming.

Only last week I was offered Amyl Nitrate , openly on sale in a shop in Dublin.

Quote

America’s Most Dangerous Drug – Newsweek Society – MSNBC.com
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Road To Rouen

August 1, 2005

tags: memories, music, supergrass

Naughty boy that I am I downloaded the new Supergrass album "Road To Rouen". It’s not as dense and kitchen-sink as the last couple of albums. Shades of, dare I say it, Wings circa Wild Life – Red Rose Speedway.

Supergrass have provided soundtrack to a good many times over the past 10 years. "Alright" was their big pop-hit in summer 1995 when we moved into our first house. A scorcher of a summer I remember putting down cork floor tiles in the kitchen while listening to that , Blurs ‘Country House’ and Oasis ‘Wonderwall’ on the radio. "In It For The Money" I purchased in New York while there on a business trip. Heady days – I bought a stack of CDs from the Virgin Megastore on 7th or 8th avenue (I can never remember which) across from the Marriott Hotel in mid-town Manhattan.

Come On Feel The Noise

August 1, 2005

tags: bbc 6music, family, radio, recording

Ben spent some time in the studio with me on Saturday. He wrote and recorded (at the same time !) a new song called "Big Sisters". Accompanied by a straight 4/4 provided by Propellerheads Reason.

We edited it down to a manageable 1:40 and today we’re going to mix the other song he did "Pussycat". This number has the line "…pussycat where are you ? I’m in France…." Bobby Dylan eat your heart out.

A CD will be winging its way to the BBC because of discussion in the Vic McGlynn radio show.. I’d better make a website for him…

Ben plans to give copies of his album to people this Christmas. You have been warned…

Some photos of the other recording sessions we’ve done with Ben.

Talking about Pure Pop For Now People

July 17, 2005

tags: memories, music, songwriting

Bravo on ‘God Only Knows’

I’d add ‘Never Let Her Slip Away’ by Andrew Gold… call me a soppy twat if you will. Also perhaps ‘Blackbird’ by the Beatles but maybe the lyric doesn’t meet rule#2 (concise).

This has got me thinking.

One of the ingredients that is missing is ‘instrumentation’. You should be able to touch, feel, taste the sound. Witness the french horn in Kate Bush ‘The Man With the Child in His Eyes’

Quote

Pure Pop For Now People

So begins my quest for the perfect pop song…

<<SNIPPED>>

Perfect pop is:

Economical

: The 3 minute confection is the standard

Concise

: There are no labored metaphors, no florid lyrics to obscure the message, no pretentious poetry getting in the way

Single-minded

: Most songs are concerned with love: finding it, keeping it, losing it, aching for it, etc.

Unaffected

: No affectations, no irony, no arch declarations, nothing precious. (I wanted to include Istanbul by They Might Be Giants, but it’s a little too clever for its own good, so no dice.)

Melodious: The hook is everything! And it has to be irresistible.

The song has to possess moments of such sheer beauty that you can hardly stand to listen to it because you think at any moment your heart might burst.

If a perfect song falls in a forest and no one is around, is it still perfect pop? Yes, it’s still perfect pop. This opens the door to a lot of hidden treasures, like Vanishing Girl by Dukes of Stratosphear (XTC’s alter ego band). It is sublimity embodied. It is exactly those lost little ditties that I seek.

The essence of a perfect pop song is two-fold: You can’t bear to hear it end, but you also couldn’t stand one more second of it. Some people will understand this intrinsically. Others may never get it. Perfect pop is ephemeral and elusive but the perfect pop song itself is timeless.

Here’s my list so far:

Let Her Dance by The Bobby Fuller Four

Tears of a Clown by Smokey Robinson & The Miracles

Teenage Kicks by The Undertones

Feel A Whole Lot Better by The Byrds

Go All The Way by The Raspberries

September Gurls by Big Star

Someday, Some Way by Marshall Crenshaw

Couldn’t I Just Tell You by Todd Rundgren

If I Can’t Change Your Mind by Sugar

God Only Knows by The Beach Boys

<<SNIPPED>>

blue eyed dressed for every situation