Life has now returned to normal after the Moseley Folk Festival. It made a nice change to go to a festival where no camping was nessesary, devoid of mud, rain and aggression. Oh yes, and the music was great. Jethro Tull put on a great show, and I’ve been listening to Focus, Rick Wakeman since on the stereo. Ade Edmonson combined the funniest on-stage banter (he basically /is/ his character from Bottom) with furious mandolin playing. The discovery of the weekend for me was Wolf People, combing Jack Bruce vocals with a updated prog/psych sound. I’m just a sucker for twin-guitar solos.

So, a good weekend in which we managed to do tiling, church, and a three day music festival.

I’ve not blogged for a while, so here’s an update on all the random stuff going on in my head and life – well some of it,  anyway.

Thursday night we went to see Little Sister at the Hare and Hounds.  Apparently they now practice is bursts of a week, because one of them lives in Wales and one in Copenhagen.  This must have had been a good week, because their new stuff was great.  The opener had an Indian feel, after which they continued to work their way around the world’s folk music via Wales and Southern America.  One of the most striking aspects of the four girl group is not just their harmonising, or the range of instruments that they play, but the great big harp that sits on the stage, looming like a Renaissance sculpture while the support acts play.  Unfortunately, the sound often gets lost on pub stages, but the soundcheck had obviously been successful, so Sammy Fox’s glissandi were able to beautifully counterpoint the accordion.

This weekend @katieday is down in Bristol doing something related to interactive gaming that I’ve been struggling to explain to people, so in the meantime I’ve been getting to grips with Reaktor from Native Instruments. This program lets you create synthesizers and audio effects by stringing together blocks. I’ve been meaning to get back into effect design since my final year project at University, a DSP board connected to a MFC C++ program which would let you genetically evolve audio effects. Nowadays, these things are much easier to do, though you can still make something look absolutely horrible…

This fantastic Video installation in Moor Street Station featured a flock of birds in black and white accompanied by a minimalist soundtrack by Ben Frosts. I was reminded of some of the haunting shots from There Will Be Blood with Johnny Greenwood’s  soundscape. The birds formed abastract shapes like fast moving clouds, or the startfield screensaver from Windows 98.

Capsule – Supersonic

Grrr, grrr, and furthermore grrr. I’ve given myself some time to calm down, but I’m still not quite there yet. A few months ago, I bought these Samson Studio Dock speakers:

Look nice, eh? Good price too – 80 quid. <green ink mode> Unfortunately the volume knob was broken, so I took them back. I went to pick them up a few weeks later on my bike (a very bad idea), and the knob problem had been fixed. Great. Then a couple of weeks later they started crackling every now and then. So again I took them back. I was pleased to get a replacement, didn’t mind getting rained on while lugging them back on the bus. But then I got home and discovered that they had the same volume knob problem as the first pair, and also were chipped. Why, why, why didn’t I ckeck them? Now I have to go in a fourth time. </green ink mode> It was my fault. I should have checked. Why didn’t I listen to my Dad as I was growing up?

Goodbye old blog theme, hello new blog theme. This new look blog isn’t just a skin change, things have changed behind the scenes too. The old articles are now available at archive.edshome.co.uk. The old site was made with a CMS called Drupal, which I philosophically agree with, but for blogging (and much else), WordPress is quietly taking over the world, so I thought I’d let the tide sweep me out to sea. Hopefully the warm comfortable fur of WordPress will draw me in to posting more. I’ve adapted this blog theme myself, based on one called Bluebird, with inspiration from greyscalegorilla.com. As for the content of the posts, don’t expect much to change, there will still be lots of incoherent rambling on subjects with which I have no authority; don’t take anything too seriously. I’ve also stuck a twitter gadget at the side. Please subscribe, though, because it’s much easier that way. The link is here.

The picture at the top is me taking a picture of me in Morocco with an Olympus Trip.

Just very much enjoyed watching this video recorded by Birmingham’s own Chris Keenan. These guys are amazing.

TG Collective, somewhere in a forest in Devon! from Stoney Lane on Vimeo.