Robotot

try to act surprised

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 00:26:49 -0800

mt cloud

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 00:25:53 -0800

head like a clock

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 00:24:52 -0800

enough - live band version

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 00:23:46 -0800

wishing well

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 00:22:55 -0800

Bad Dream (remix)

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 05:33:50 -0700

Bad Dream

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 05:32:25 -0700

try to act surprised

Mon, 28 May 2007 06:36:25 -0700

one thousand times

Mon, 28 May 2007 06:27:48 -0700

hey la

Mon, 28 May 2007 06:21:44 -0700

Enough

Mon, 28 May 2007 06:08:50 -0700

dashboard dog

Mon, 28 May 2007 05:43:19 -0700

I'm so behind the times

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 05:58:08 -0800

I had my first skype telephone call last night. I know it's not new or amazing, but it's still pretty cool the first time you use it. I rang Pat in London, spoke to him for about half an hour, and it didn't cost me a cent. Had to use a pair of headphones as a microphone though 'cos I didn't have anything else that'd fit into the mic jack on my laptop.

I remember reading an article where these guys were doing a home recording with cheap microphones, and needed a solution to record their kick drum. By simple soldering a microphone cable to the + and - terminals of an old 6" speaker and plugging it into the mixer they were able to make a tasty kick mic. I've yet to try it, but after the success of the "headphones as telephone" I'm gonna see if I've got any old speakers lying around that i can re purpose as crusty microphones...maybe if I sing down some cardboard tubes attached to the speaker that might be cool...or just really reverb-y and washed out.
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<--end transmission-->

Internet Meme 08

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 20:28:21 -0800

Here's my pick for the internet meme for 2008.

Zombie Dinosaurs

I give it until February till we're all sick of it.

I've been bit!

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 04:39:58 -0700

...by the travel bug.

Little over a week ago I wed my girlfriend of 4+ years.

In lieu of presents we requested that our friends and family donate money to a wishing well...our wish is to travel overseas.

Our wish has been granted it seems.

We have just come home from the travel agent's with an armload of literature to help us decide where on earth we will go. There are a few must see locations, merely because we have loved ones there to visit: London, and Berlin primarily, but Paris is also a must see. Zo's been already, but I doubt she'd mind going twice.

Morocco too. I had never even thought about it before, but i love the idea of it after reading a few travel brochures.

We just have to pick where we want to go...and it's proving hard to decide.

If someone had just given you a wad of cash and said, use it to go anywhere in the world you want to, where would you go?

Too Quick

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 04:39:58 -0700

Okay, I may have been a bit too hasty with the first post. Yes, Zo and I will be going to Europe, but probably not this winter, which kind of makes the whole theme and title of this blog redundant, but I like it so I'm going to keep going anyway.

The money we have for the trip is safe and sound, so there's no rush to spend it. Instead we're going to focus on other stuff, like maybe buying a house or unit or something, and leave the overseas trip as a nice little reward in a year or more.

Regardless, this blog will be about the road to getting there, along with all the little upsets and detours that life throws in your way. I've never been the sort of person who puts much stock in roadmaps, and destinations or ambitions anyway...I'm more the sort to float along, a passenger on the backseat of the greyhound bus of life (but not the one right near the toilet).

Expect to hear about money woes, housing woes (hopefully few of these, I don't want this becoming winge-blog) ideas for songs, ideas for DIY projects which will never get off the ground, and the usual stupid observations that most bloggers write about. I will include the odd photo of my cat, but only because it is in the Blogger terms of service that everyone has to include one arbitrary photo of a household pet per month.

This is not a fanblog

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 04:39:58 -0700

Augie March are one of my favourite Australian bands.

On they're first al bum they have this song called Men Who Follow Spring The Planet 'Round, which is the inspiration for the name of my blog, except I tweaked the title somewhat to reflect my wife's and my own impending voyage.

At our wedding several weeks ago three friends of ours played that same Augie March song as my bride walked towards me at the start of our ceremony. Mike an old friend of mine, played cello; Kristy, a new friend of Zo's and mine played violin; and Richie, an old uni mate and band mate of Zo's sang and played the acoustic guitar. They were fantastic.

I have a scratchy video of them rehearsing the song which i may put up on Youtube one day, with their permission of course...i might have to get Augie March's permission too.

Well maybe not. As I am want to do, i was researching into things, and learnt that Glenn Richards didn't write the song, it is in fact a traditional sea shanty ballad thing....folk music! Yay! In other words it's a song so old, that it belongs to everyone! It's called The House Carpenter or The Demon Lover

And of course there are umpteen-thousand versions of the song out there, and this started a hunt that led me all over the place. It turns out that the traditional version is about a man who leaves his true love while he goes out to sea to seek adventure and treasure and scurvy and such and such. He is gone or such a long time (3 months?...1000 years?) that his girl forgets about him and shacks up with a carpenter, gets married and even has a kid or two. Eventually the seaman returns, and finds that his wife has moved on, so he attempts to woo her back, promising gold and adventure across the sea, if she would only leave her carpenter man and children and journey with him across the sea. Well, she agrees (its quite a long song, see?) and boards the ship/boat/schooner and they head out to sea, but once they are out in open water she begins to regret her decision, starts pining for her children and all that, and suddenly the man reveals that it was all a trick to get his revenge for not staying true all those years ago. At this point in the different versions the man is either a man, a ghost, or the devil; and he either rips the ship in two and they all sink to the bottom of the sea (if he is the devil), the boat spontaneously sinks (ghost) or the woman throws herself overboard (man). My favourite version is the devil one.

A cheery sentiment with which to begin married life.

Here's this great folk music archive site, with the an English and Canadian version of the lyrics. Bob Dylan did a version too, the cool devil one.

Smel-stinki

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 04:39:57 -0700

Tokyo.
London.
Berlin.
Paris.
Helsinki.
Hong Kong.

Looks like we're going overseas in winter after all. Our travel agent sent us an itinerary the other day, and it looked too good to pass up, so we pretty much snapped it up.

We tweaked a few dates, and rearranged the arrival and departure times, but ultimately Zo and I are going to Europe this winter. I cannot wait, and I quite like that it ties back in with the whole theme of this blog - following the winter.

I will miss summer in Australia, but it'll be worth it to see Shinto shrines in Tokyo, or the remnants of the Berlin Wall, the Seine in Paris, and whatever it is they have in Helsinki (fjords?)

It's testament to the love and generosity of our friends and families that we have been able to do this at all. It's something special, and I really want to keep it in the forefront of my mind that this is going to be a fantastic wedding present/adventure.

Sometimes you wake up in the morning and you just wish the world would end.

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 04:39:56 -0700

My audio course is coming to a close in a month and I'm in the midst of the mad rush to get everything done in time.

My most recent recording can be found at a new social networking site called virb.com. It's like myspace but without all the ads and nonsense and turds. My one is at www.virb.com/robotot and there are a few songs there to hear. Three of them are just lofi, bedroom recordings, me and acoustic guitar and some backing vocals, the other is an assignment I submitted for college. We had to create a piece on Logic using audio and midi instruments. I did a reworking of a song I've done live a few times, called Enough, but with more instruments. I especially like the trumpets at the end.

Anyone can download all four if they want to, and please leave a comment either there or here...and spread the word.

More songs will be up once I get them recorded. I just finished recording another song at college, called Bad Dream, with the help of my brother on bass, and Blake on drums. It was recorded to 2" tape and i still have to mix it in ProTools, but I'll put it up once its done.

New Songs

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 04:39:55 -0700

I have uploaded some new tracks to my virb account.

Two songs, well, one song and a remix.
Both were assignments i had to hand in to college. The task was to use an analogue 24 track Sony MXP3000 console to record onto 2" tape. Then remix the same song in Protools. The results are there to be listened to or downloaded or both.

Thanks to Blake from drumming and Tim for playing the bass grooves...they did well considering they learnt the song on the night and recorded it in about three takes in total.

I 'm very happy with the results, more so with the remix I think, merely because its not the typical dancey, four-on-the-floor remix. All I really did was loop the drums a bit and layer on swathes of distortion and delay. It was fun.

More bedroom recordings are on their way.