A rather heavy Harmonium

Sooo: I engineered a Bangladeshi showcase night in Central London tonight. Some extremely good acts. Lot's of weird instruments to mic up though, but some absolutely outstanding vocalists + tea and biscuits ( Maybe a bygone taste of the British Raj? ) in the half time interval.

So yeah...a good night all round.

Funny: there was this girl singing and playing a beautiful old harmonium accompanied by a superb electric guitarist. Halfway through her set I kept hearing this awful banging sound from one of the mics? I noticed after a couple of minutes that it was actually the girl banging the mic with her hand as she pumped the bellows which power the instrument, sooo... I ventured onto the stage to move the mic to a less painful position.

Everybody good...nobody gets hurt.

But... as I walked across the stage I stepped on the fukin guitarists FX pedal board, instantly changing his Pink Floyd like, nice sunset on Goa beach echo reverb guitar effect sound to what I can only describe as huge death metal, distortion from hell, Iron Maiden up your bum, karate chop to the brain, everybody run for your life, doom sounding effect programmed by Satan himself on a bad day.

Ooops!!

I mean fair play to the guitarist, he held it together. I ( obviously ) exited the area, stage right at double speed, tail between my legs, never to be seen again thanks very much.

H'mmm

Apart from that it was a great night, everybody went home at 9.30pm too.

Bonus.

Tomorrow night is the bands first gig of the year.

Central London at some awards ceremony.

Let's just hope that Riggormortis hasn't set in too much after the winter break?

We'll see?

Jacques Brel - Ne me quitte pas

Laters

Light fingerprinting

Sooo: Apologies for not blogging, I've been kinda busy what with this and that.

Anyway....

What's been happening? Well we've been having huge rows with Westminster council about emergency lighting down at the club. The council came to inspect the club the other week and because this fukin jobsworth inspector couldn't find anything wrong health and safety wise, he then decided to concoct his own scenario about the emergency lighting?

Basically the emergency lights are there in case of power failure and direct everyone out of the club and toward the emergency exits.

[Captain fukin obvious strikes again!!]

Fair enough.

Our emergency lights are red, have always been red, and have always passed every inspection.

But... Oh no, not on this jobsworth twats watch ? He launches into the spiel about red lights ( as emergency lights ) being illegal and threatens us with closure unless we change them to white lights??

It's a fucking nightclub you tosser!

Anyway, off he trots and returns with the buildings electricians and makes them change all the fluorescent bulbs from red to white? "What's the problem with that " you may say? Well I'll tell you the problem: The problem is that this then lights the club up like a Christmas tree. Even with the houselights off, it felt like you were standing in the middle of some office complex at lunch time with the blinds open on a sunny day??

For a nightclub = Totally unacceptable

We had so many complaints last Friday of " Can you turn the lights off please?" that I was literally pulling my hair out by the time the night finished.

We pulled out all the health and safety documentation shit and have since found out that this jobsworth inspector is completely full of shit. So (of course) we changed the lights back to red.

He can go fuck himself as far as I'm concerned.

The guy will be back tonight for his re-inspection.

Expect fireworks.

What else? Oh yes, now this is interesting.

A mate of mine who works as a school teacher had a visit from the Police the other day. It was one of those visits where the Police come to the school to warn kiddies of the potential dangers of drugs, crime, smoking, drinking and a bit of what the Police actually do, blah blah blah.

Nothing special there then...we all had those visits as kids.

But ( and this is the interesting bit ) The Police gave the kiddies a little project to take home.

This project consisted of the kiddies learning how to take their own finger prints and then returning the kits to the school complete with above said finger prints???

You see where I'm going with this.

Now I'm not quite sure ( neither is my mate ) if the Police are going to come and retrieve these little projects at a later date, but he was told to hang onto them?

What the fuck is that about?

No further comment.

Anyway...

The end of the World

And for those who haven't seen it already:

You suck at Photoshop

It's definitely worth watching the full series of these little gems.

Right... Off to work

Laters

An alarming night out

Sooo: I was working a venue Central London last night, couple of bands, nothing to write home about. Same shit different day.

Anyway it got to about 10:30 and the venues fire alarm system went off?

The sound system power was cut, the emergency house lights went on and the security evacuated the building.

It was 10:30 so we decided therefore to just end the night and send everybody home. No biggie really, it happens surprisingly a lot wot with pissed punters smashing fire alarms on the way home 'n' all that.

I rushed around trying to find where the broken alarm was, found it, reset the alarm system , powered the venue back up and then I noticed...

....all the tills had been smashed open?

The venue had been robbed???

Right under our fukin noses.

In under 15 mins flat?

Not a trace on the cameras either? For some stupid reason (which I can't actually work out ) as the venue powers down into emergency mode. So do the fukin camers???

Whether the robbers actually knew this or not I don't know.

I would say probably not to be honest.

Yep...all the till locks had been smashed ( not a difficult job really with a hammer, a screwdriver and a couple of minutes. You'd have never heard it with the sound of the alarms going off ) but... these fukin chancers had made off with all the cash.

Unbelievable!

I mean hats off to them...genius idea.

The Police said they'd seen this before, but never in a packed venue full of punters, staff and security?

Must have been planning it for a while I guess.

The mad thing was that the venue manager was in his office the whole time and I was running about the place trying to find out which alarm had been smashed.

Never saw or heard a thing the whole time?

Clever.

Very clever!

Ninja robbers even.

Hope they enjoyed the crack fest the robbery probably paid for?

H'mm

Todays internet site of mesmerizing worthiness.

Laters