Last night was the first full band “Yours Truly” rehearsal in about 7 years. Obviously the line-up has changed a bit since I last performed my original music live. I have to say, I couldn’t have chosen a better team to perform my complicated arrangements than Damian, Anthony, Blair and Richard. All of them did not hesitate to help out when I asked them and I have been spoiled with their talent and commitment.
I was a bundle of stress (as per usual), but everything went better than expected. Whilst concentrating on the technical and logistical issues though, I managed to overlook the basic stuff like cups for drinks and an available toilet, but thankfully Mel came along to help me out. Being that we rehearsed in a classroom, Mel did see fit to give Richard, Anthony and myself detention for talking too much.
We rehearsed up 9 out of the 12 songs I have in my full set. By the 3rd run through of each track we were sounding really tight and we were well and truly done after around 3 hours, which included time for pizza! I was running my fancy Line6 pedal straight into the PA (which is one of it’s features) and the sounds came up well. I was a bit disappointed in my Fender though, so I might have to save my pennies and get the VG model I mentioned a few posts ago.
Damian grabbed some recordings on a portable digital recorder so I’m looking forward to hearing the band in full swing. This will also give me great incite into what works and what needs work. Thanks again guys!
Last Saturday night, Shane (a co-worker) and I did our first gig as the acoustic duo “Roadcase”. We’ve done a couple of performances before but we are now starting to formalise the arrangement. The gig was a 40th Birthday party and we played everything from classic rock, to current Top40 with our 2x guitar / vocals lineup. The crowd were very pleased with our show and thanked us multiple times during the night.
I have mostly done solo work since my duo with Marion “Moonlight” and it was a great change to be performing with someone else again. I’m sure we’ll get plenty of work in the future so everyone will have to come and check us out when they can! We will be doing a couple of numbers at my upcoming 30th party.
As most of you know, I work in I.T. Support. in this job we get a lot of frustrated people (understandably) but they often complain to our department about how something hasn’t worked for weeks, and do so in a way that makes it to be our fault for that entire time.
Sure enough, ensuring their smooth and problem free use of the I.T. Services is our responsibility but to simply assume we somehow know about every problem “automatically” is a stretch. Not only that, but to blame us for it not working (as if we broke it) is also fantasy. Hello?!?! We’re the guys fixing stuff, it’s everyone else who breaks it.
This is my favourite bit … the part where they tell you how they let you know weeks ago. They can’t prove it though. Either they never used the correct channels to report a job, or there was some freakish one-in-a-million occurance on the network where the message just didn’t get through.
To me this situation equates to going up to someone at McDonalds and complaining to them about how hungry you are, and how you’ve been hungry all day and it’s “Just Not Good Enough!!!”.
Heres 10 things to be aware of when approaching your local I.T. Department:
1. Restart your computer before contacting I.T. Often most problems are fixed this way.
2. Remember, they didn’t write Windows XP. They’re just the guys silly enough to offer to keep it running for everybody.
3. Yelling at them doesn’t make them go faster. In actual fact, it often gets you put to the back of the queue, behind those who make more polite requests (in our case anyway).
4. Restart your computer before contacting I.T. (I can’t stress this one enough!)
5. If you email a request, perhaps check for a reply once in a while. The solution may just be in there.
6. If at first you don’t succeed, check again in a few hours. The problem may have resolved itself by now.
7. Specifics are great. Requests entitled “It doesn’t work” doesn’t give us much to go on.
8. Sometimes it is just a stupid mistake and yes, it can often be YOUR FAULT.
9. Macs won’t make the internet come back online any more than PC’s will. Remember who you’re talking to before suggesting “The Big Switch”. Not only that, major changes to the network takes time. A lot of time. Before offering upgrade suggestions, make sure you include a detailed short term plan during the downtime required.
10.You guessed it … RESTART!
On Saturday night Mel and I ventured out into the City. Some friends of mine invited us up to check out their band “Ricky Loca” playing at a new venue in Crown Casino called “LIVE” (the old Mercury lounge).
This place has a brand new NEXO sound system and for those who don’t know, NEXO is very very VERY good – we have a similar but smaller setup in the theatre at work. Overall, the sound of both the DJ and the band was expensively fantastic! So much so my ears are still ringing. Also, for a bonus that night, it was fairly quiet (people wise). This is good for Mel and I as we’ve had enough of crowds ever since Point Nepean.
The true highlight of the night for me was
Ricky Loca themselves. I have been following this band through my friend Anthony for a while – he is the co-creator/owner and keyboard player. I even had the pleasure of filling in for him one night on keyboards a few years back. They played their full “Superstars” set for the first time in public. This includes Madonna, Kylie, Michael Jackson, Prince and Queen, all brilliantly done in full costumes. The rest of the night they played Top40, a “Rock” medley and a “Dag” medley – all very entertaining.
If you ever see these guys on the bill at a venue near you, be sure to check them out! (Unless of course one of my bands is on the bill at another venue) … and if you do, keep an eye on the drummer Blair and the keyboard player Anthony as they have both agreed to take the music of “Your Truly” on board and be in my original band. Very cool!
Tonight whilst waiting to pick up Mel from work, I wandered in to a Music shop to have a look around at all the gear – a very dangerous thing to do by myself. I’m currently looking at upgrading my amp to a Fender tube model – with a particular interest in the Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. I walked in to the guitar section and started talking to one of the staff. He talked about how excited he was about his latest toy that was delivered that day. He opened up the case to reveal the new Fender VG model strat.
He gave me a go of it through the amp I was interested in and I was instantly impressed. It is basically an American Series Stratocaster with a Roland GK Pickup for sound modeling. It had a fantastic sound with everything set to normal. Then I played with the tuning, this was fantastic. With the switch of a dial I could change to a D-Tuned setup. I know this doesn’t mean much to non-guitarists out there. Basically the lowest string on a guitar is commonly tuned to an “E” and for a “D-Tuning” you have to manually dial down the pitch using the pegs on the headstock. The Roland GK pickup has a receiver for each individual string and can change the pitch on the fly enabling an instant change.
I then had a go at the sound modeling (the second dial). It enables you to change the tone of the Fender to sound like a Strat, Telecaster or Humbucker tone. It also does fantastic acoustic guitar modeling – making it a very versatile machine. This would be the perfect tool for someone who plays many different styles of music and requires versatility from his gear (ie me 
).
So long story short, I shouldn’t be allowed into music shops by myself any more.
Last Night I upgraded my phone. I was currently using the HP PPC Phone model rw6828. I haven’t really been using it’s features of late and have found myself needing a more basic design phone (one that doesn’t require a stylus to sms for example).
I was out of contract and on a really low plan, but was spending a fortune on calls so I upped the plan and got a Sony Ericsson K800i 3G Phone. So far, I have to say, I am impressed.
At the start, the price was right. Secondly, the camera attached is the first to be a “Cybershot” in the phone series – with a 3mp camera, proper flash and heaps of options producing great quality images. Then I found out it has 3G capabilities, something I wanted to explore. Then came the streaming media – anyone who knows me would realise I was sold at this point.
Once my SIM was active (which took about 4 hours after exchange delays) I activated the 3G Foxtel for a bit of fun. It is a great service that is unfortunately capped by Telstra at 15 minute sessions for a maximum of 200 minutes per month. I don’t think I’ll have it on constantly but it’s a bit of fun to play with for now.
I was futher impressed by the Sony Walkman and FM Radio sound quality. In the end, this device will be replacing a lot of other stuff I own and rarely use. There will no doubt be another eBay onslaught in the coming months.
This is the 10th mobile phone I have owned all up (not including work phones) so I have put together a little Technology Chronology showing what phones I have used along the way since the mid 90’s. I invite other people to do the same!
Comments