HAHT gassup redux
Week from Monday 15th June 2026 - I finally got around to the happy task of turning CBQ's naughty recording of the SOFT MACHINE gig at The Green Hotel in Kinross into a SINGLE DISC LISTENING EXPERIENCE, and pretty atmospheric it is too. As is usual with latter day Softies, once you cut out the banter and dead air between numbers (and abbreviate the drum solo!), it NEARLY all fits on one seventy-nine minute disc anyway! In this case, I also needed to omit "Joy Of A Toy", which will go on a future "HOT TICKLES" compilation instead.
Week from Monday 22nd June 2026 - I dipped in and out of the Sky Arts coverage of the ISLE OF WIGHT FESTIVAL, but for the most part, none of it was for the likes of me! I did however stay up to watch Shelfy's favourite band THE CURE in all their glory. I don't think that the HIGH DEFINITION close-up cameras did them any favours though. Nobody needs to see geriatric goths squinting in the unaccustomed light through badly applied eyeliner! Plus, Robert Smith's physical transformation into Jo Brand is now utterly complete... Of course... however... though but... the music itself (over a couple of hours of it) was absolutely TERRIFIC! (Mind you, it was a lovely clear and muggy night, so if the wind was blowing in the right direction, I'd probably be able to hear it from here anyway!)
I attended "SATURDAY CLUB" up at the horsepickle, and I was in-and-out for my 'armful' in no time (well, the ninety minutes it takes to 'drip', anyway!). Just enough for back episodes of "NO SUCH THING AS A FISH" and "THE GOON SHOW". I went for a walkabout downtown afterwards, thus providing the opportunity for a couple of #ViewFromAWalkies snaps along the way.
As part of my regular "MONDAY DOING MONDAY STUFF", I've been following Radio 3's 'Essential History Of Classical Music' "KEY CHANGES" every week. It's been highly educational for the most part. Although, now that we've got as far as the SEVENTEEN-HUNDREDS, I'm finding that I enjoy fewer and fewer of the actual musical examples used. It's a whole period of music that never really tickled my fancy - diddley diddley dee diddley dah dum, fiddley tern woddley poon... The more I hear of OTHER formulaic, jobbing composers of the eighteenth century, the more I realise how much the REAL genius, JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH stood out from a pretty mediocre crowd. I particularly struggle with GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL. "Zadok the bleedin' Priest", for example, is guaranteed to make me turn off the radio or run screaming from the room. It's right up there with "Bohemian soddin' Rhapsody", "Hey frickin' Jude" or anything by the excruciating Gilbert & Sullivan.
It's TOO DARN HAHT and only going to get HAHTer! I'm only venturing outside once, to go to the local shops because I have to. There are RED WARNINGS and ominous TRIANGLES wherever you browse. Comfy SLEEPING is even more of a problem than 'usual'. And don't get me started on the POLLEN COUNT! Luckily, medical-commitments-speaking, this counts as a 'WEEK OFF'.
Week from Monday 22nd June 2026 - I dipped in and out of the Sky Arts coverage of the ISLE OF WIGHT FESTIVAL, but for the most part, none of it was for the likes of me! I did however stay up to watch Shelfy's favourite band THE CURE in all their glory. I don't think that the HIGH DEFINITION close-up cameras did them any favours though. Nobody needs to see geriatric goths squinting in the unaccustomed light through badly applied eyeliner! Plus, Robert Smith's physical transformation into Jo Brand is now utterly complete... Of course... however... though but... the music itself (over a couple of hours of it) was absolutely TERRIFIC! (Mind you, it was a lovely clear and muggy night, so if the wind was blowing in the right direction, I'd probably be able to hear it from here anyway!)
I attended "SATURDAY CLUB" up at the horsepickle, and I was in-and-out for my 'armful' in no time (well, the ninety minutes it takes to 'drip', anyway!). Just enough for back episodes of "NO SUCH THING AS A FISH" and "THE GOON SHOW". I went for a walkabout downtown afterwards, thus providing the opportunity for a couple of #ViewFromAWalkies snaps along the way.
As part of my regular "MONDAY DOING MONDAY STUFF", I've been following Radio 3's 'Essential History Of Classical Music' "KEY CHANGES" every week. It's been highly educational for the most part. Although, now that we've got as far as the SEVENTEEN-HUNDREDS, I'm finding that I enjoy fewer and fewer of the actual musical examples used. It's a whole period of music that never really tickled my fancy - diddley diddley dee diddley dah dum, fiddley tern woddley poon... The more I hear of OTHER formulaic, jobbing composers of the eighteenth century, the more I realise how much the REAL genius, JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH stood out from a pretty mediocre crowd. I particularly struggle with GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL. "Zadok the bleedin' Priest", for example, is guaranteed to make me turn off the radio or run screaming from the room. It's right up there with "Bohemian soddin' Rhapsody", "Hey frickin' Jude" or anything by the excruciating Gilbert & Sullivan.
#OnThisDay #TenYearsAgo
- "Twitterchum MISTER QUARTET recently released a whole bundle of stuff via his Bandcamp site, including some electronically-manipulated STRING QUARTET pieces and some GUITAR SOUNDSCAPES (unmistakably 'F****ertronic' in their influence - Don't mention the 'F-WORD'!). I found some of the latter to be delightful for improvising piano over. Of course, once I'd been noodling for a few hours and mucked about with the resulting MIDI data, one or two of my own improvs evolved into some decidedly NON-PIANO things of an 'ETHNOLOGICAL FORGERY' nature... I suppose that's ME all over. Some of it works, some of it doesn't, most of it could do with further editing. I've sent him a discful."
- "In between UNCLE WILLY and HAIR PEOPLE and GOD-ON-A-PUSHBIKE™ work, I finished assembling a 'test pressing' of the CLOUDLAND PEDESTRIAN project... and now I've posted off a 'Mark Two' version to MISTER QUARTET. The first version, you will recall, contained the unedited versions of our 'jams', but this one has undergone a lot more POST-PRODUCTION. It sounds more like an 'ALBUM' now."
- "MISTER QUARTET promises 'a cheeky wee five minutes' of our collab on his 'radio' show. He seems most taken with one of my suggested titles 'SCHNEEWITCHEN, SCHWARZMISCHUNG', so I guess that will be the one we settle on. I wasn't even sure if that is grammatically-correct Deutscher, but he does seem to know about these things. (I was attempting to translate 'SNOW WHITE, BLACK MIX'.)"
- "I've posted my own favourite track, 'CLOUDLAND PEDESTRIAN #15' on my Soundcloud. This is a piece based on his Frippy guitarscape 'The Glass Coffin', whereupon I added my own secret 'PSALTYGURDERY' virtual instrument. This was achieved by submitting a duplicate of his guitar part to a series of treatments - 'Octave Split' > an LFO 'chopper' effect > Ring Modulating the whole thing, then some final EQ and level tweaking in Audacity. The resulting entity sounds like a medieval bowed instrument (or maybe something played by Tony Conrad and/or John Cale) which follows his changes. All rather 'viol' really!"
- "Twitterchum MISTER QUARTET recently released a whole bundle of stuff via his Bandcamp site, including some electronically-manipulated STRING QUARTET pieces and some GUITAR SOUNDSCAPES (unmistakably 'F****ertronic' in their influence - Don't mention the 'F-WORD'!). I found some of the latter to be delightful for improvising piano over. Of course, once I'd been noodling for a few hours and mucked about with the resulting MIDI data, one or two of my own improvs evolved into some decidedly NON-PIANO things of an 'ETHNOLOGICAL FORGERY' nature... I suppose that's ME all over. Some of it works, some of it doesn't, most of it could do with further editing. I've sent him a discful."
- "In between UNCLE WILLY and HAIR PEOPLE and GOD-ON-A-PUSHBIKE™ work, I finished assembling a 'test pressing' of the CLOUDLAND PEDESTRIAN project... and now I've posted off a 'Mark Two' version to MISTER QUARTET. The first version, you will recall, contained the unedited versions of our 'jams', but this one has undergone a lot more POST-PRODUCTION. It sounds more like an 'ALBUM' now."
- "MISTER QUARTET promises 'a cheeky wee five minutes' of our collab on his 'radio' show. He seems most taken with one of my suggested titles 'SCHNEEWITCHEN, SCHWARZMISCHUNG', so I guess that will be the one we settle on. I wasn't even sure if that is grammatically-correct Deutscher, but he does seem to know about these things. (I was attempting to translate 'SNOW WHITE, BLACK MIX'.)"
- "I've posted my own favourite track, 'CLOUDLAND PEDESTRIAN #15' on my Soundcloud. This is a piece based on his Frippy guitarscape 'The Glass Coffin', whereupon I added my own secret 'PSALTYGURDERY' virtual instrument. This was achieved by submitting a duplicate of his guitar part to a series of treatments - 'Octave Split' > an LFO 'chopper' effect > Ring Modulating the whole thing, then some final EQ and level tweaking in Audacity. The resulting entity sounds like a medieval bowed instrument (or maybe something played by Tony Conrad and/or John Cale) which follows his changes. All rather 'viol' really!"
It's TOO DARN HAHT and only going to get HAHTer! I'm only venturing outside once, to go to the local shops because I have to. There are RED WARNINGS and ominous TRIANGLES wherever you browse. Comfy SLEEPING is even more of a problem than 'usual'. And don't get me started on the POLLEN COUNT! Luckily, medical-commitments-speaking, this counts as a 'WEEK OFF'.
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