Music from a passing lawnmower
This is the closing track on my album For 100 Years and the second track on that album made from samples recorded at Leeton's Central Park, which is a lot smaller than the one in New York that comes to mind for most people.
That droning sound at the beginning was the result of a lawnmower passing the metal support pole for the cover over some picnic tables. In the video I shot while recording you can see me giving the driver a greasy look but, once I heard the result, I was much happier with his contribution!
I've been soliciting remixes of tracks from the album and, if you're interested, you can download the raw recordings from Central Park or loops from both my Central Park tracks. These sounds were recorded using homemade contact microphones.
The spirit moves me
One idea is to continue recording the jams playing bass and theremin simultaneously. I like the dubby sorta vibe but also the glitchy drum machine I've been using.
You can hear this vibe in the Soundcloud player below. And the pic above amuses me because the theremin was originally known as an aetherphone and the idea of having the most famous zombie playing it seems apt.
Playgrounds remixed
After nearly nine months of recording and remixing, I've finished my album celebrating the centenary of Leeton. Next I plan to author a DVD with videos for each of the tracks, a documentary and hopefully a very special feature -- but I haven't prototyped it yet so I don't want to let that cat out of the bag.
Choices
It took me a number of attempts to finish the first year of university. One of the hurdles was money because I was kicked out of home but couldn't get Austudy, the government support payments.
When I was 19 I was working in a Canberra coffee bar named Robert's. Robert was a former assistant tax commissioner or something who'd retired and started the business. He was also involved in Kenja, a communication-focused organisation that was later described as a cult in NSW parliament. Robert paid for some of his staff to attend Kenja workshops and those I went to were interesting but the fervor of the followers was a little unsettling. I sometimes wonder if Scientology is like that.
Anyway, one time I was talking to Robert about how I wanted to study but needed Austudy and didn't know whether I was going to get it or not and he offered some advice that I still reflect on regularly.
He said to imagine an empty box. Well, it looks empty but there are all sorts of atoms in it bouncing around randomly. He said to imagine putting a solid object into the box and visualise how the atoms would react. They would form patterns as they reflected off the object.
This was what it was like to make a decision, he said. Once you decide on a course of action, that decision forces other elements in your life to accommodate it. Patterns will emerge and other elements in your life will fall into place around your decision.
When I was 19 I was working in a Canberra coffee bar named Robert's. Robert was a former assistant tax commissioner or something who'd retired and started the business. He was also involved in Kenja, a communication-focused organisation that was later described as a cult in NSW parliament. Robert paid for some of his staff to attend Kenja workshops and those I went to were interesting but the fervor of the followers was a little unsettling. I sometimes wonder if Scientology is like that.
Anyway, one time I was talking to Robert about how I wanted to study but needed Austudy and didn't know whether I was going to get it or not and he offered some advice that I still reflect on regularly.
He said to imagine an empty box. Well, it looks empty but there are all sorts of atoms in it bouncing around randomly. He said to imagine putting a solid object into the box and visualise how the atoms would react. They would form patterns as they reflected off the object.
This was what it was like to make a decision, he said. Once you decide on a course of action, that decision forces other elements in your life to accommodate it. Patterns will emerge and other elements in your life will fall into place around your decision.
Homeless
This is an interesting discussion of the causes of homelessness, directed by Mark Thompson (who I met studying television production in Wagga).
One thing that resonated with me was the bit about pets preventing people from accepting housing because I found myself between homes a few times in my early 20's and my dog became an issue on numerous occasions.
It drove home to me how easy it would've been to end up in a less fortunate situation at a time when I was trying to get financial support to study at university.
Good girl gone bad?
Google News seems to suggest Delta might want to pursue a career in teaching because that's where one usually finds stories of attractive women hooking up with boys.
New Presets/old laughs
The Presets last album Apocalypso has been popular in my household, the kids like the pop choruses and I like the production.
The first single off their forthcoming album arrived and I thought I'd seen some of it elsewhere, such as the video below.
It's a lot funnier but the soundtrack isn't as good :)
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