Sunday, April 23, 2006

The Week That Was

Had a totally shit week - moved to a two floored apartment (posh word for flat) in Rhyl for not very good reasons so my head has been further up my arse than usual!

Met with Homespun, we're going to be doing a video for their song 'Badman' - filming in 2 weeks.
Mike Peters dropped off a copy of the single mix for 'Raindown' - it's shorter and more to the point than the LP version. I think its going to be a download only single, and The Alarm want a Gathering video of the song and a montage of the forthcoming Gathering DVD.
Nearly finshed 'Rescue Me', but like I said, it's been a hard week.
Started on Portrait of A Lifetime - using them as a tester for the ninja caveman footage we caprtured last year - looks good. Me and Paul also finished editing Tonnica's track for Complete Control Music - didn't use Rob's footage after all - looks great, and really like their approach.

Saw The Affliction at Bar Blu last Wednesday, great set - they've come on well these last few months - the blending of Moo's Kinks outlook on life with Steve and Cumi's Sons of Selina influence has worked well.
Ephesus were ok and Tom's Huge Elevation from France were pretty decent, like a garagey Jesus & Mary Chain - only with 2 female guitarists. Birds are great!

Watched Liverpool do Chelski in the FA Cup semi-final, well, from the comforts of The Swan in Rhyl - I did have a ticket but sold it yesterday morning.
The drinking started at 5pm and we stayed out, heading for The Dudley to see Sonic Boom Six, Juz, Random Hand and Scott Bakers - don't remember much cos I was very very drunk at the time...

Friday, April 14, 2006

Whatso Good About Friday?

Finished Killionaire - did it in black and white - looks good - unusual song 'Gerroff You Monster!' - also finished Iris with their song Breathe - really good stuff - did it in saturated colour to compensate for the lack of any decent lighting at the Conwy gig. Need to do Racketears next, which I'm looking forward to and then grab the High Def stuff off Rob's camera to do Tonnica.
Going to have a Gathering meeting as I'm on song 16 (out of about 40) and think the others should do some as well - it'll make it a bit more interesting also.

Did another radio show - quite enjoyed it. Also had a call off Adam Walton - I start a new slot on his Sunday night show in a couple of weeks - seeking out new talent from the North Wales coast.

Right - need to go now and think about the bassist from the Bitchpups for a short while...

Friday, April 07, 2006

1000 Jobs

Got stuck into the Complete Control Music footage we recorded a coupla weeks ago. Captured the opening song by Tonnica - enjoyed their set when we filmed it, they were like way beyond their years and sounded like the mad bits that Gintis do (the tuneless noisy bits) with a smattering of heroin thrown in for good/bad taste. I would've got stuck into editing it tonight, but Rob accidentally filmed the song in HD (High Definition) and my capturing camera said 'what the fuck is this!' - so I'll have to wait and get Rob's camera round to capture his footage. I did start a title sequence as Rhys (he of Sibrydion) at Complete Control wants the emphasis on NORTH WALES for the showreel DVD. Should have Iris, Killionaire and The Racketears all captured tomorrow.

I've left the PSST editing to Paul Sutherland and Rob, it should be done by the early hours - see! I'm not that stupid! While they're busily chopping away, I'm relaxing with a bottle of wine in one hand and Green Wing on the telly! - Well, that and the fact that the Crudlets aren't very well today, oh, and I've had the 'flu.
The PSST video is looking excellent, the hardest thing is finding footage of Paul Scouse where he doesn't look like a football hooligan! Dean surprisingly looks just plain silly rather than intimidating, and Bob (of Carbon Atom) looks cool. But its the kids that make the video - they look great. Yes there are some ethics involved, when a Scouse connected band are in the last 32 of The Scum's Football Anthems competition, but I suppose it's their money (The Scum's) that PSST would be taking if they won. I hope they do...

Sent a demo edit of Sonic Boom Six to their manager this evening, it was pretty hard to cut down (as will the Complete Control stuff at the same gig) as the venue wasn't really blessed with lights or people! So it'll be a pull out all the stops effort to get that best clip! The demo looks pretty good tho' nice and choppy for that punk/ska Senser type feel the band portray.

Bumped into Tom Scriven (ex Carbonari / Black Swans) at Bar Blu last Wednesday, he was wearing a hat and it wasn't for a good few minutes of chatting away to him that I realised I wasn't talking to Leigh Cox!!!! Alcohol is ace innit....

Sunday, April 02, 2006

Final Cut Slow

Been having problems with video editing this weekend - the program I use (Final Cut Pro) has been running slow and dropping frames on song #14 of The Alarm's Gathering 2006 project I'm working on.
I've tried cleaning out my systems - although not a complete expert on Apple Macs (I use the G5 solely for video editing - the PC is for EVERYTHING else) - it didn't work.
I've tried to create an oldy-worldy effect on the opening this next song and it looks great but the G5 Mac just won't play it - I've reduced the frame rate, the compression - tried to get it to Print To Video - everything, but it won't play back. But a study of t'internet lead me to Larry Jordan's FCP website and it turns out that the program struggles if you're down to your last 15% of space on your hard drive, Mine's a 200GB and I'm down to 30% left - so I guess its time to give ex-GMX Stuns bassist, Steve Buckley some more of my cash and purchase another drive from his shoppe The Computer World in Colwyn Bay.