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Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Speed nanny!

Sooo, my shit is mad at the moment, I have today off and I'm sodding glad as I didn't get home from engineering some band till like, six this morning. It was one of the club managers B's birthday last night and he told the band, and the band then forced him on stage halfway through their set to play guitar, and I'm like "Ooooh dear!" But he actually pulled it right off? I had no fukin idea he could actually play, I thought it was just an urban myth, but no, he's kinda good.

Anyway, club shuts, punters ejected and me, the club managers and several assorted barmaids, all have a right fukin kneesup in the bar till the wee small hours of this morning, gawd knows how many bottles of Champagne where consumed, but my head isn't my best friend at the moment!!

Ooof!

I liked this speed camera story from the Beeb this morning. Speed cameras have become a real sore point with us English folk (even the ones who don't drive), Why? cos there just a fukin nuisance, nobody sodding wants them, and to be honest there bloody dangerous! Don't know how many times I've been in a car when I, or whoever else is driving, has spotted a speed camera and then slammed on the brakes to avoid being flashed? Not good, and the next time your a passenger and you see that speed camera warning sign, just take a minute and watch the other car drivers, nobody's watching the fukin road anymore, they're all looking out for fukin cameras?? Another stupid nanny-state idea.

Talking of nanny-state people, we had a health and safety inspector in the club the other week, what a fukin donkey! We've had to put grip tape on all the stairs and move this shit and that shit and and... If this fuker had had his way fully, the club would have looked like a padded fukin cell with cotton wool around the beer taps?? Jeez louise, talk about jobsworth, this guy was out of control.

Oh fuck, I've just smoked a half cigarette from the ashtray, and it was a joint, and now I'm fukin stoned, and I have shit to do, so I don't wanna be stoned!!

Bugger!

Heehee!

It's just a big fish, you fukin clogheads!!

Just sooo you know...

Hours of fun.

Laters

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Lightning sound

Sooo, I got to do my first band on our new club sound system last night, sounded pretty fukin hot as well. The band we're a kinda electronic dub reggae type affair, one of my favorite types of music to do, you just make sure the bass and drums sound fat and then the rest just sits somewhere in between. Pretty decent night as well, although there were a lot of idiot pill heads dancing around like fukin loonies in the venue, and sooo many people smoking dope??

I always find it totally hypocritical watching somebody thrown out of the club for smoking a reefer , but it's kinda like this: It's not that we don't want people smoking green in the venue (I'm all up for it ), it's just that in the every increasing world of fukin nanny state draconian laws... Your joint ain't worth our licence kidda!! Just remember that the next time your ejected from a venue for, "Only avin a fucking toke mate?"

Ok sooo... One thing that really really pissed me off last night, (Oh here we go again!!) The fukin last DJ's spoilt brats inability to listen to anything he's been sodding told? Ok, we have this brand new sound system that's like totally fukin loud to the point of pain when it's slammed hard, and this cunt is driving it (on the DJ mixing console) right into the fukin red to the point of crass distortion! I hate this shit about DJ's , they think that everything has to be turned up full in order for them to sound good? What's wrong mate, you think the people at the back of the classroom can't hear you? For fucks sake!

Note to DJ's the world over: KEEP IT OUT OF THE FUKIN RED!! Why? Ok I'll tell you why, COZ IT DISTORTS LIKE FUCK, SOUNDS SHITE AND CAN FUCK UP A SOUND SYSTEM!!!

Technical explaination of why: When a DJ mixer is driven hard, all of your nice flowing sound waves turn into square waves and the sound becomes soo compressed that it DISTORTS LIKE FUCK AND CAN TEAR A SPEAKER TO SHREADS. Imagine your nice flowing waveforms as a butter knife gently rubbing down the skin on your arm. Tickles yes, damages no!! Then imagine as the more you apply pressure to the edge of the blade it starts to sharpen. Eventually if you apply enough pressure it become like a razor and because it's an exponential gain, by the time the knife breaks your skin, it's not only cut you, it's like, gone through the fukin bone and is making a bee-line for your dorsal aorte. In other words, your fucked!!

Not many people know this, but you can blow a 500 watt speaker with a 50 watt amp by applying this theory, and (take my word for it, I set fire to my bed sheets as a kid) if you hold the knife effect just on the point of blowing the speakers, with the right frequency, a soft dome tweeter can create ball lightning... BEWARE THOUGH, IT WILL EVENTUALLY BLOW AND THE BALL WILL ESCAPE TO SOMEWHERE IN YOUR IMMEDIATE VICINITY!!! Mine set fire to the bed sheets (Sorry about the cat mum, I was just making some ball lightning when...) I do not recommend this experiment anywhere in your own home, you have been warned!

I digress.

So yeah, this fukin stupid DJ was slamming the system, totally deafening the audience and generally making everything sound shite.. Would he listen though, would he fuck!!

Fukin idiot DJ's!!

Right, It's Saturday, so I'm off down the pub to meet some mates.

Woops!

Poke the bunny, and why not!!

No fukin idea!

And...Totally nuts!

Laters

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Holy Paotto!

Sooo, I'm doing this gig the other night and it's like, five thrash metal bands, not my favorite, but I like any kind of music really and it's always good ( for a live engineer ) to know how to tackle any kind of band head on. Anyway, this kid comes up to me and he's like, "Can I put my iPod on between bands mate" and I'm like, "Sure mate!" This is kind of a relief for me as I have like zero thrash metal on mine, my best effort had been Nine Inch Nails and somebody was complaining about it coz it was too mello?? So this kids ipod on shuffle was doing the trick.

Sooo, as the bands are changing over I toddle off to the toilet. I return to the sound booth and there's this crowd of metal types giving me really stange looks and I'm like, "What??" I'm just about to go over and say something when out of the sound system blasts (excuse my pronunciation, I'm using one of those translatory thingymajigamies )

"How much are the oranges please?"

"Cuánto es las naranjas satisfacen?"



"The oranges are 1 euro 20 a bag"

"Las naranjas son 1 euro 20 un bolso"



"Two bags please"

"Dos bolsos satisfacen"



What the fuck??

The ipod kid comes running over and he's like, "SKIP THE FUCKING TRACK!!!"

Turns out this kid had been learning Spanish and his iPod has gone and shuffled right to his 'Learn to Speak Spanish' lessons....

Funny as fuck!

I didn't stop laughing for like 5 mins, I'm still giggling to myself as I write about it.

Playlists son...Playlists!!

Fukin doughnut!

Talking about Spanish (well Colombian) people, DJ Paotto (anagram of potato) is getting a lot of action on the Myspace thing. If you missed the last post DJ Paotto (anagram of potato) is a made up Colombian trance DJ that I invented just for a laugh. I can see this kid getting fukin signed, oh dear, what have I gone and done!

Oooops!

Anyway, we have a label meeting tonight (Down the pub of course) So I expect it to turn into carnage..

Oh dear, here we go again!

I like these, Hmmm!

They're nearly as good as these

But this guy takes the star prize.

Oh look, I've just blaspemed, I'd better go and join these guys for a right ole religious knees-up??

Get a fukin life!!

Please, no religious flaming (if you're a muslim) in the comments section, I really can't be arsed!

Laters

Friday, September 15, 2006

DJ Paotto


Soo, my life has been way busy of late, just haven't had the time to write. Finished all the club system install and I get to engineer the first bands on it next Fri, so totally looking forward to that one, it just sounds fukin amazing!

I've had the Sweedy girl down for a few days as well, so all good in that department. She's an angel..

What else, Oh yeah, I've got a load of mixes down and we're on the home straight with one of my bands albums. Just need to do a bit of mastering and I guess that'll be that.

This is funny, I have a complete disliking for Trance music, in fact I fukin hate it with a vengance, and I'm sooo sick of all these producers telling me that I hate it coz I can't make it, coz it's really complex and difficult to make and blagh blagh blagh fukin blagh!!

Ok sooo, as a big "fuck you I can't make fukin trance music!" I spent about a week, one hour at a time, programming, at great hardship to myself (drove me up the fukin wall) and I bring you (big fukin drum roll please! ) DJ Paotto (anagram of potato), a completely made up Colombian trance DJ type person thing...

Thanks to my mate C at DJ mag for the DJ Paotto biography, you're a star mate!

Dj Paotto can be found on Myspace, you have been warned!


He's got like, one friend at the mo!!

Can't make trance music...eat my fukin sequencer!!

Bush scratch...love it!

Soo, itunes 7 finally manages to solve that fukin awful putting a gap in between songs shit. It's kinda nice to hear an album as it was supposed to be heard (without the stupid sodding crossfades?)

And that's that for now, I have the whole weekend off and I intend to do bugger all. No parties, no drugs, no nothing!

Sooo

Laters

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Fukin Sound mate!

Ok, sooo what a week. The theory of hanging 85kg speakers 30 feet up from a club ceiling is soo far removed from the reality of actually doing it is just not funny. But after erecting scaffold, messing with a block and tackle, hoisting monsters and then wiring the whole thing up, we finally got the job done.

Jeez louise that was a hell of a lot of work!

Anyway the club now contains Martin Audio H3 blackline speakers hanging from the roof like some huge black T-rex heads waiting to sonically digest all who go near them!!

And what happens when you power them up? Well, it all kinda goes ouch! They sound fukin superb, and I mean fukin superb. Put it this way, I lit them up at 3/4 volume at 1:30 pm and got complaints from a business three floors above the club.. Woohoo!!

We'd never (obviously) have them this loud on a club night, that would be like 'danger of death to punters' time, but we know the volumes there if we need it.

I'm a happy bunny!

Ok what else? Tomorrow (Sunday) I'm doing a little festival in North London for a mate of mine. All pretty heavy rock bands, but... all money, so I can't complain and then next week it's back in the studio for a day and then we're gonna put the old sound system from the club in the bar area, so more wiring and shit!

Blogcollector, way cool. It alows you to download your entire blog and print it to either PDF, or as a book. On the off chance that someone hacks your blog or google somehow manages to loose it, you don't!

Right, I have a day off, soo I'm gonna kick back with a couple of bottles of wine, watch a few Dvd's and do sod all, all day.

Nothing to do, and all day to do it ;-)

Thanks

Laters

Thursday, September 07, 2006

tired!

I'm halfway through installing a new sound system at the club, I'm fukin knackered, but we're getting there. I'll write about it when I'm finished. But for now you'll have to deal with this poxy short post!

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Go on son!

Banksy mate, you are a fucking genius. I bow down. I am not worthy. If ever there was one person 2 steps ahead of the pack!!

You rule!