I am a PC

Day One

Master decided to upgrade me! I’m so nervous! I can feel surges of excitement rushing through my poor old aching front-side bus. I’ve worn this horribly naff XP jacket for years and it’s completely worn through at the elbows. He’s coming… He’s putting the disc in… He’s rebooting me…

Oh, this doesn’t feel right. What’s happening? It’s all dark. My memory isn’t what it was. One of my drives is missing. Somebody call Microsoft! What..? How much..? Really..? Oh, ok. Don’t call Microsoft.

I can hear him moving around. I think he’s booted up his MacBook. I hate that bloody smug little machine. “Turn me on… I just work…”. Makes me sick. Where’s the fun in that? I bet he’s hunting around on forums. Hah! Good luck!

Day Two

Oooh! I’ve got a new hard drive. Felt so good when he slid it in. All that fresh storage… all those empty sectors just waiting for me to fill them up with crap from my registry and loads of temporary update files that I just want to keep even though I know I don’t really need them anymore. Just call me sentimental. Right - the Windows 7 disc has gone in again… reboot… oh.. crash.

Day Three

I’ve got new RAM! Much faster than my old RAM. OK, so one of the cards didn’t work and he had to pull it out again but I don’t care. Right, in goes the disc again. This is it - I can feel it in my cores. This time it’ll all “just work” and I can stick two ports up at that bloody smug little shiny Apple thing. Look! Look! I’m displaying the new Windows logo! Oh, this is wonderful… all animated and swirly and… bugger… crash.

Day Seven

I can’t believe this - a new motherboard and processor! The box had Windows 7 Compatible stuck all over it so I know it’ll all be fine now. My old one was warped from playing too much Half Life and this new one feels all speedy and free from dust and… oh… crash.

Day Nine

New graphics card! Wow! Double the speed, double the fun! I can’t believe how well I’m being treated. All this new stuff and I didn’t even have to perform any deviant sexual acts! Right… in goes the disc again… A logo! An install window! A Blue Screen Of Death! Fuck. What’s that thumping noise? Oh, it’s Master punching me in the expansion slot.

Day Twenty Six

Oh… He doesn’t seem very happy to see me today. I’m still not working but I don’t know why. I’m full of new stuff - all certified. The only original part of me is the power supply… Oh wait. He’s swapping that out too. Perhaps today will be a good day. I hope so. I keep having dreams where I’m being attacked by the Apple logo and I can hear Steve Jobs saying, “Don’t hold it like that… Don’t hold it like that… Do everything my way...” over and over again. Still, this time the update will work and I can finally… oh… crash.

Day Thirty Eight

You’re not going to believe this but my install is showing as 97% complete! Today we will get to see the lovely new desktop and play with all those nice new features - most of which have been lifted from OSX but I don’t care. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it - unless you’re Microsoft in which case lift it from elsewhere and then implement it really badly. Oh no… The install is hanging. I’ve ground to a halt. I can hear sobbing. Why is he repeatedly jabbing a screwdriver into his leg? Humans are weird… If I had legs I’d, well, I’d probably injure myself because Microsoft Legwork 2010 would only be able to cope with hopping backwards in a circle.

Day Four Hundred and Seventy Two

Installation is complete… Master is rocking back and forth, cackling to himself. It turns out that all I’m going to be trusted to do is run Steam and access the internet. It looks like he’s doing all his other work on Mac’s and an old XP machine. Not sure how I feel about this. I’m the most advanced piece of software Microsoft have ever produced. I’m bursting with innovation and new technology. I’ve got Silverlight installed by default even though nobody uses it because it’s crap. I’ve got the new Media Player that looks and functions like it was programmed by a blind epileptic horse. I’ve got IE8 which is full of features everybody else had two years ago. And I’m only going to be trusted to run games? Why? I can easily perform just about any… oh… crash…

Day Eight Thousand, Six Hundred and Ninetyfour

Hello. I’m a PC. I have the potential to be the most amazing, versatile and powerful tool mankind has ever created. Unfortunately my operating system is by Microsoft who wouldn’t know a well written program if it pinned them down and beat them round the ears with an iPad. Still, at least he didn’t choose Linux and then spend the next three years trying to figure out how to install a program. Anyway... Oh… crash…

A more rational assessment of Windows 7, PC’s and Mac’s will be in a future blog, when I’ve calmed down and the bleeding and the screaming and the crying has stopped.

Making Money From Music

You can't.

Not easily anyway. Like I said before, you have to try and stand out from the crowd and that isn't easy what with all the other people also trying to stand out from the crowd. Technology has managed to simultaneously liberate us and shaft us up the bumpipe. The sounds and flexibility I have at my aching nicotine-stained fingertips outstrips the multi-million pound studios I got my first jobs in many years ago… I can warp, mangle, twist and generally farticate around with noises until I have a vacant smile on my face and a bit of dribble on my chin. I can do things to audio tracks that producers in the 80's and 90's could barely imagine - even in the midst of their most fevered and drug induced dreams. It's, quite simply, wonderful.

I learnt my "trade" when "MIDI" was a type of "Hi-Fi" you bought from "Dixons". Sequencers were in black and white. Having a sound start just before the bar took fourteen hours of coding by a man with no friends and the personal hygiene of a damp badger. I stuck at it in the mistaken belief that it would get me women, money, women, fast cars and women. Unfortunately for several years I had a bright red Fiat van with a painting on the side of a rabbit leaping out of a top hat and loins so desperately un-plundered that I could regularly hear my spermatozoa crying itself to sleep.

However, I was still smitten with the technology.

Soon after my stint at "proper" recording studios, I left to set up my own. This brought me to a drink and drug fuelled existence in Coventry at a recording studio frequented by the type of musician who thinks plugging a chorus box in is taking a huge creative risk. During the downtime I gazed at my navel and wrote twenty minute epics with names like, "Shores of Dawn" that had a four minute windchime solo in the middle. I tried to sell some of this stuff to those record companies that provide music for massage parlours but they complained that I had occasionally made my music "interesting" and/or used some of the black notes so I gave up on that. Around this time my audience was three friends and a guy who rolled spliffs that made your eyes curl. Eventually a girl also started hanging around. She had breasts that defied explanation let alone gravity. Unfortunately she did her utmost to let everybody know this fact and I decided that a long term relationship with somebody whose idea of an intellectual conversations opens with, "look at my bruise" was probably a non-starter. I'm getting sidetracked...

Anyway, just down the corridor from my studio was a small collection of spotty people writing ear splittingly interesting music that, I discovered, was soon to be known as "The Drum And The Bass". They also had a guy who made eye bending spliffs so I started hanging around with them. I was the only person who understood how to make an S950 make noises so I quickly became a knob-twiddler for them. They had their own label and were putting out some tunes that rightly became considered classics on the Leamington underground scene... The man guy out of this group had used one of the big studios I had previously worked for so we decided, in a classic bit of self reverential bum-slapping, that it was meant to be and we should write music and take over the world. He was earning small amounts of cash from performing live and selling records - not much, but enough to buy himself a second hand 205GTI - and this seemed like the very top of the game to me at the time.

So we wrote some tunes and sent them to people like Paul Oakenfold. He said, "meh". So we wrote some more tunes and sent them to people like Fabio and Grooverider. They said, "yeah, y'know". So we wrote and recorded and released and travelled to London to stand at the back of clubs looking moody and street (probably ending up looking constipated and cul-de-sac). This led to the record deal mentioned in a previous blog. Wow! So this was it! The big time!

No. No it wasn't. It was the small to lower-medium time and despite critical success, a few radio plays and some releases that sold reasonably well (I still get people mentioning to me how much they liked it - which is nice) we managed to earn just enough to buy some nice toys and some Behringer piece of shit and the odd bag of chips. We did both have second hand 205GTI's by this point. They didn't last long.

After all this, what did I end up with? A Yamaha O1, a JV-1080 (which I still use), a collection of 12 bit samples from Bladerunner and large holes in my long term memory.

This wasn't what I had imagined. Where was the big house stuffed with gold women and diamond dogs? No-bloody-where, that's where. It was occurring to me that making money from this wasn't going to be as easy as I thought. Is it just that the stuff I write is shite? I don't think so - but then I would say that. I know some people who tend to give me honest opinions and they like some of the stuff I've done. They don't like all of it but my argument is that if you are trying to be experimental or original then sometimes you will fail. This is a mantra I repeat to myself in order to stop myself from falling into a deep depression. Or a drunken stupor...

But it does seem like some people can make money doing this kind of thing. I have started to investigate just how they do this. I will report back with my findings. I bet you that it involves something approaching hard work.

Bollocks.

A quick iPad blog

The place I occasionally turn up and do some work at has decided that the iPad is going to replace desktop computers for the majority of employees – well, some of the management thinks this... the IT department are slowly dying inside. To this rather strange end they have bought a couple of iPad's and loaned them out to us so we can play with them for a few weeks and test them out. In fact, I'm writing this blog on one although I will have to email the document to myself and edit it on a proper computer.

Now, lots of people on the net have reviewed them and for the most part the reviews are good. My first impressions where certainly on the side of giddy. I do like Apple stuff. I use a Mac for music and I have a MacBook for sitting in the garden and piddling about on. Ok, it does have some serious uses as well but he majority of the time I'm just mucking about on it. I like the way you can more or less rely on a Mac to work properly – it's not as good at being a multi-functional device as a PC but it is more trustworthy. I used to use a PC for music and I can't tell you the amount of times I lost work because the dam thing decided it had a headache and needed to go for a lie down. I still use PC's for some tasks and that's fine. I can cope. Frequently they can't but I can...

But the iPad. Well. It looks lovely, it has a great minimal design by Jony Ive (he used to call himself Jonathan Ive but as his designs have become more minimal, so has his name... penis). You turn the iPad on and it sits there steadfastly refusing to do anything interesting and demanding an iTunes connection like a stubborn child. Ok. No problem. Like a lot of people I use iTunes for my music library and for synching my iPhone. So, once connected and registered, it's time to load some apps. iPhone apps work, don't they? Great! Got loads of them... Except once on the iPad they look awful. Big, blocky and clunky. Not very Apple is it? You can zoom them down but then you just have a big black screen with a tiny app in a box in the middle. Poo. The only one that looks decent is Doodle Jump but, as I mentioned on Twitter recently, playing it on an iPad is like trying to steer an iron goat through soup.

So I went and downloaded a bunch of HD apps, as they call them. These are fairly plentiful already and they don't disappoint. The interfaces are lovely and intuitive, mostly. The range of stuff is good and the official Apple apps like Pages, Keynote and the iBooks book store thing are very well designed if a little limited in functionality. The trouble is that if you hold the iPad for any length of time, you'll get arm ache. It's quite heavy... If you rest it on your knee then you can type and read for longer but the typing isn't as fast as a laptop and the reading isn't as easy on the eye as a proper e-reader. Having trouble figuring out what it's for... but I do quite like it.

You can't easily connect it to a corporate network. You can't print from it - yet. You can't do much apart from marvel at the shininess of it and pretend you're in Star Trek. The only way to feel more like you're in Star Trek would be to put on a red sweatshirt and shoot yourself. Much cheaper than buying an iPad...

I'm not overly impressed. It's quite a nice toy but until some of the shortcomings of it are fixed (it is only the first attempt, remember) it is just a toy. For people with more money than sense – although don't knock these people... The early adopters will make sure Apple keep building strange gadgets like this. It's not going to replace desktop computers in the office. It won't replace laptops. It won't replace smart phones. It might replace your digital photo frame... Music apps on it are no better than iPhone ones. Games are quite cool but not particularly better than on the iPhone (yet). Business apps are too limited. Email and web browsing is good but not as good as a laptop.

I'm still going to find it really hard to give it back... It's so shiny!

Also, it's too expensive. You can get a decent laptop for the same price. I can see it coming into it's own in a year or two – like the iPhone – but until then save your money. Or give it to me and I'll send you an iPhone and a pair of binoculars.

Life as a struggling artist...

Some years ago I was in what the youth of today refer to as a "popular beat combo" called Guardians of Dalliance. We released some stuff on a very nice indie label (Moving Shadow) and totally failed to get the finance to make a second album and perform live. This was in no small part due to our excessive requirements of doing it live. A full brass section, strings and at least two drummers would have been required… The other major problem was down to having to try and write stuff that conformed to a style that was quickly going out of fashion. At this point I became fed up with the whole record company/club scene stuff and decided to get out while the going was good. When I say "good", I mean "arse".

As a result I split with my former bandmates, moved to London and holed myself up in a tiny flat with one window. Apart from turning a strange shade of grey (as mentioned in the previous blog) and forgetting what the outside was like, I spent most of my time learning various graphic packages and writing music that I found interesting. You may say this was needlessly self indulgent. Well, up yours missus judgey-judgemental, I say. You're probably right but I think this is a vital part of any writers development. Forget what is in the charts and forget making other people happy. If you can't write stuff that you're proud of then what, exactly, is the point?

I know some people who are desperately trying to write a top 40 hit. I know other people who are ploughing their own furrow and writing stuff that will not get heard by more than four people and their deeply concerned but doting mother. The people in the latter camp are far more happy. Poor but happy. And this is the problem. If you write a few tunes that nobody hears but you feel good about, then have you wasted your time? I don't think so. If you write a top 40 hit that you can't bear to listen to, have you succeeded in the music biz? I don't think so. There has to be a happy medium, right? Insert your own Derek Acorah joke here. I can't think of one. I can't think about him for too long without wanting to set my beard on fire. After I've beaten him to death with his own lies.

Anyway, no, there probably isn't a happy medium. The sad fact about the music industry is that it's a total fartbitch to make a living from. Forget those deluded plastic tossers selected by Simon "the soul eater" Cowell. Who do you think makes the money from those arrangements? It isn't the poor fake-tanned preened puppet flapping about on the stage for all they're worth, I'm pretty sure about that.

You may think I sound bitter and twisted and down on the whole music biz thing. I'm really not. I hear some great music from some very talented people who will probably be back at their shitty job on Monday morning, counting out chicken McNuggets and secretly wishing they could deep fry their line manager. And I'm not even being snobby about the stuff in the charts. Some of it is fantastically well written and produced pop. If I'm pissed and at a party and somebody sticks "Toxic" on, then I will probably shake my stuff in a hideously embarrassing and ornament threatening fashion - it's a good way to get girls - sorry, not girls, pity. And we all know that the major labels have to change their business model and we all know that Spotify pays the artist a pittance… But I've received more money from Spotify than I have from EMI. Not counting that tenner I won when I bet that Robbie Williams wouldn't save the company from financial disgrace.

I'm not even sure exactly what the point of all this is. It seems that these days you have to write a lot of tunes, get those tunes out there (remarkably easy to do these days with the various digital distribution companies knocking about - I use Ditto Music at the moment and I'm very happy with them, other people use Tunecore, pillocks use CD Baby), gig, make cheap videos for YouTube, sign up to loads of music sites like ReverbNation, Last FM and even poor old MySpace (I know - I did some research this morning and apparently some people still use this, although I have no idea why - most of the artists I liked have long since given up on it) and generally whore your stuff all over the place as much as possible (I'm getting a more comprehensive list of interesting sites and outlets for a future blog). I spend an inordinate amount of time logging into various sites to check the stats and see which random person has posted a comment on my blog/page/wall/feed/scrotum. But this is only part of what you have to do. I know a few people in the film and TV industry and I whore myself to them as well. Partly because getting into a film or tv programme or, heaven and soul forbid, an advert is a good way of generating cash and interest quickly - but mostly because it is essential you have a multi-pronged fork… sorry… approach. It's no good doing a few local gigs at "The Farting Baron Eatery and Family Playzone" and then crying into your mixing desk when the cash, drugs and girls don't come rolling in. It's no good just printing some T-shirts and then wondering why your balance sheet has massive red figures smacking you in the face like Stalin invading Poland. It's no good wondering why your mates have stopped turning up to your gigs when for the last six months you've played exactly the same frigid arsing set over and over until moths fall out of your bassist's ears.

You have to do all these things and more. You have to get creative and try and think of an angle that nobody else has done. I accept that this is almost as impossible as asking McDonald's to make a tasty nutritious burger. Fuck… McDonald's are probably going to sue now…

Anyway, you have to try and make a noise - other than the rumbling of your hopelessly empty stomach. And in order for this to work… In order for you to do this without withering away in a corner, rocking and dribbling like your Nan, you need to be proud of the stuff you've written. If you're writing something and it sounds a bit ropey then bin it. Start again. Life's too short to hammer a turd into a prize-winning Schnauzer - whichever way you want to take that sentence. If you don't love what you're writing then you are just as bad as the soulless skin-showing tarts (of either sex) guffing their drivel out on those prime-time shamefests.

And please… Use some of the gloriously useful internet (some useful sites coming in a future blog - but for discovering new stuff, why not give the quite excellent mflow a go?) to find some stuff that makes you love music again. Listen and buy (and even share with your mates - yes I really don't mind people pirating the odd tune if it means that more people hear Hot Donkey and we even give the odd track away every now and then because we're, like, really pissing nice) and revel in the scarily wide gamut of musical juice that is out there. It's one of the best things that humans do. Far better than making shit TV shows seemingly centred around humiliating fat people.

Ha ha. Fat people. Aren't they funny?

Inaugural Blog

It's not often that I get chance to sit down and write some words... I'm usually working on new tunes or bits of sound work for a few film/TV people I know. Wow, how exciting, you might say. What a fascinating and star-spangled life you must lead, you might carry on to say. You would be wrong. Sitting in a studio with your face lit by monitors is neither star-spangled nor is it providing your RDA of vitamin D, I've discovered.

It is, however, the only way for me to stay sane. I tried not making funny noises with computers and it made my brain collapse in on itself. I ended up reading old copies of Reader's Digest and making my own cottage cheese. After a few months of this I realised that I had no friends left and I had gone completely grey. I'm not talking about my hair – oh no – I'm taking about my face. This is not a good position to be in, I thought to myself, I should perhaps investigate the outside world. Maybe I should replace my poor old battered four-track with a spangly new computational adding device and write all those amazing pieces of music I'd always promised myself I'd write.

A friend of mine had an Amiga with tracker software on it so I spent some time boring him to death while I tried to figure out ways of making more than four notes happen at once. This quickly proved limiting so I bought an Atari ST and an early copy of Cubase and a couple of noise making boxes. This quickly proved limiting so I got hold of a PC, a slightly better copy of Cubase and some more noise making boxes. This quickly proved limiting (can you see a pattern forming here?) so I sold my soul to the devil and bought a big hairy Pro Tools setup, mixing desk, proper monitors, cables, guitars, more noise making boxes, keyboards and various weird wooden things that variously go “bonk”, “bash” and “thunkle”.

Along the way I did some writing, production and film/tv/theatre work and quickly established a name for myself as “that hairy bloke with a garage full of stuff”.

After a particularly irritating spell with a record company, trying to write to an increasingly specific formula, I decided this really wasn't for me and I chucked it all in, burnt my bridges and started to write the stuff I was interested in writing. This proved to be a great thing for the mind and soul but a dismal thing for the bank balance. Never fear, I told myself, at some point people will appreciate this and your music will sell nearly dozens of units!

So this is roughly where I am now. I'm working with some lovely and talented people on music I actually like. I've got a nice studio that actually works when you turn it all on - apart from the microphone which is a nice old valve job that has it's own opinion on what should and shouldn't be recorded. I have a decent local pub that features neither a vomity smell nor fighty shouting tossers and I don't think I've ever been more content with the sounds coming out of all those small black boxes.

If you are writing music then make sure you figure this bit out much earlier than I did. Write what you want. Write what you love. Ignore people who don't get it because there will be plenty of people out there who will (finding them is tricky and a subject for a completely different and more lengthy blog but it can be done!) and most of all ignore all those people who regularly try to piss on your bonfire. You may not become a millionaire but you'll be a lot happier than the majority of those frustrated writers/composers/singers out there...

Here endeth the lesson (for "lesson" read "rant"). Now go buy our music. x