19-04-09 – Hi, are you Dave from biab? / MexBarrow again!

So much for regular personal blogs, eh?

Better late than never though!   A convenient side-effect of not saying anything for a long time is having a lot to say, so let’s get started…

This past few weeks entailed…

- Releasing the 7 day Bassline song!
- Getting my new camera and starting the next Axe-Fx tutorial
- Getting the business plan 99% finished
- A Mini YAWA tour with a gig in Mexborough (6/10) and Barrow (5/10)
- Spending a whole week with Rachie where, amongst other things, we
had a picnic, watched shutter island and went to a skins audition!
- Going down to London for a secret project!
- A bunch of online teaching sessions
- Starting work on the new 7 day song

Boyinaband babay!

Rachie has assisted with some cheesy vocals for this month’s 7 day song tutorial on boyinaband, focusing on the genre “Bassline”.

It’s seriously cheesy and took about 2 weeks to complete thanks to YouTube deciding to change its layout and break its upload forms, but it’s all up there now for you to listen to and learn from!

Check out the finished product here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emTaX2xTc3A

Some of the videos look slightly different to others since Scratch and I alternated on the editing for some of them (He’s started helping out) and I tried a few different settings (attempting to get Higher Quality) that actually resulted in weird aspect ratios.   I also accidentally uploaded the last video in widescreen, meaning two big black bars either side of the video – whoops!   Won’t be doing that again.

But yeah, the general response is that people think it’s funny and Rachie’s voice is awesome.   I agree with them there (I’m totally not biased at all).

Axe Fx Tutorial 2

After the camera was stolen at the gig and having to buy another one, I’ve finally got round to starting on the next Axe-Fx tutorial.

I’ve felt like I’ve been waiting forever to get started on it since something always gets in the way, but now things are finally getting back on track

Bidniss!

I’ve been working on this since new years, but it’s finally got to the point where I have all the information I need.

I got my parents to check it over (they are very adept when it comes to checking stuff!) and it’s considerably more streamlined and professional looking as a result.

Now it’s simply a case of formatting it in the document and sending it out to people for a last review before I send it off to funding places!   I’m intending to do that right after I finish this.

YAWA Mini-Tour!

We did the Mexborough – Barrow mini tour again this past week, and a considerable amount happened.

Mexborough was great, plenty of people dancing, talked to loads of people (I ended up chatting to this one chick about synths for ages!) and I got two additional ego boosts:

- The DJ recognised me from boyinaband.com!
- Kieran got a phone call.   His brother called to say that when his friend told him he was on a music tech course and he said “Ah you should check out my friend’s website, it has tutorials on Reason…”, his friend replied “Is it boyinaband.com?   Everyone on the music tech course uses that!”

10: Dave.ego++;
20: GOTO 10;

But yeah, after the gig we drove to Scratch’s house and his mom made some amazing veggie food for us at 3am (Hospitality much?).   After sleeping in the bed with someone I really don’t want to sleep in a bed with again, I woke up early and Scratch and I had a nice chat with his parents about the business plan.   We then all chilled for a bit, enjoyed some more fine cuisine (including epic cheesecake), then departed for Barrow.

Then we noticed we had a flat tyre.

We found a tyre garage on the way and got it replaced.   It looked like Wolverine had had a go at it, god knows what happened, but we ended up getting to Barrow several hours late, but just in time for a last minute soundcheck before the majority of the crowd arrived.

Though when we actually played the show, there were less people there than during the soundcheck – you see, the bouncers kicked everyone under 18 out, even though it was advertised as a 16+ gig.   The local police had apparently told the promoters (who we’re good friends with) 4 days before that they couldn’t have it as anything but an 18+ gig.   How considerate of the police to give plenty of notice, eh?

So apparently loads of people got turned away.   We ended up playing to around 50 people, but it could have been so much better.   It was still fun, if a little off-form, since we were all a bit disappointed by the 18+ thing.   At one point we were playing whilst some Bananas in Pyjamas were doing unspeakable things to Jamie.   I’m not sure quite why.

But yes, after the post-show chatting with fans, some people getting considerably inebriated and all of us sleeping in the coldest room imagineable on 8 chairs pushed together to create a makeshift bed(Resourceful, huh? ), we ate our traditional Barrow Morissons breakfast and headed home.   We ended up getting back at like 8:30pm the following day.   An eventful weekend indeed.

Rachie week!

I got to spend a whole week with my favourite YAWA fan (Oh, and also my girlfriend) Rachie last week!

It entailed many things, but let’s start with the Mountain walk/picnic!

I say mountain walk, that was just to get your attention.   It was a place called Hawkstone Park and it was great fun.   We trekked through caves, to the top of a ridiculously tall tower (Where I couldn’t help but imagine what would happen if some random guy threw Rachie off and she landed on the spikey fence below – is that a healthy, normal thing to think?) and over tiny bridges that wouldn’t seem out of place in an action movie that finds itself crossing a cravass in the jungle at some point.

We then had a picnic of innocent smoothies, french bread and doritos and much jolliness was had.

So what else… ah, Shutter Island!   Terrifying movie, even though I guess it technically wasn’t a horror film.   It was just so intense, the music built up tension so well.   Loved the twist at the end, definitely a film to see if you like psychological thrillers.

Lastly, the skins audition.   Rachie was uncomfortable asking me to drive her, since she’s the kind of person that doesn’t like me to buy things for her since it makes her guilty, but I forced her to go to the audition for Skins series 4 in Bristol.

Unfortunately, she didn’t get in (apparently only blonde scene kids got picked from her audition group), but even though we were waiting for about 5 hours we still, for some reason, had a good time.

LOndon seKrIt project.

Well, tbh I’m not sure why I brought this up.   It wouldn’t be much of a secret project if I told you about it.   However, I’ll reveal that it involves me writing music, that I slept in Gareth from Pendulum’s studio again and that things could get very interesting in the next few months.

Stiiiiill teaching!

I educated someone in Dubai about Drum and Bass and someone in LA about trance music amongst others, it’s great fun and I feel like I’m getting into the swing of it now!

Watch out, Noisia!

Yep, the next 7 day song will be on dirty drum and bass!   I’ve been working on my disgusting basslines and synthetic breaks to put together something seriously dark and intense.

It would have been chilled liquid DnB, since that was the winner on the biab poll, but due to a sponsor paying for a dark DnB one instead, we’ve got something more evil coming up this month!

Next Week on Dave’s Blog!

Okay, so next week, I should have…

- Posted an Axe-Fx Tutorial
- Played a YAWA gig in Kettering
- Finished making the song for the next 7 day song tutorial
- Finished the business plan and sent it to people for review
- Chilled with Rachie + Kirstie!   (I need to arrange chillaxing time for Ogre too, I haven’t forgot you budslice!   I’m just slightly busy! ><)

Take it easy, geezers!