Some music on this day , some music that will last a lifetime.

Van Der Graaf Generator


- White Hammer
- Darkness

UK - Carrying No Cross

Jethro Tull - Aqualung(album)

People -- what have you done

locked Him in His golden cage.

Made Him bend to your religion

Him resurrected from the grave.

He is the god of nothing -

if that's all that you can see.

You are the god of everything

He's inside you and me.

So lean upon Him gently

and don't call on Him to save you

from your social graces

and the sins you used to waive.

The bloody Church of England

in chains of history

requests your earthly presence at

the vicarage for tea.

And the graven image you-know-who

with His plastic crucifix

he's got him fixed

confuses me as to who and where and why

as to how he gets his kicks.

Confessing to the endless sin

the endless whining sounds.

You'll be praying till next Thursday to

all the gods that you can count.

Boston - Piece Of Mind

Styx

- Mademoiselle
- Light Up
- Fooling Yourself

You see the world through your cynical eyes
You're a troubled young man I can tell
You've got it all in the palm of your hand
But your hand's wet with sweat and your head needs a rest

And you're fooling yourself if you don't believe it
You're kidding yourself if you don't believe it

Why must you be such an angry young man
When your future looks quite bright to me
How can there be such a sinister plan
That could hide such a lamb, such a caring young man

You're fooling yourself if you don't believe it
You're kidding yourself if you don't believe it

Get up, get back on your feet
You're the one they can't beat and you know it
Come on, let's see what you've got
Just take your best shot and don't blow it

You're fooling yourself if you don't believe it
You're killing yourself if you don't believe it

Get up, get back on your feet
You're the one they can't beat and you know it
Come on, let's see what you've got
Just take your best shot and don't blow it


Salmon - Shazz

Books I Am Currently Reading

1. 
   Larry Niven : Rainbow Mars

I'd Rather Go Bowling - Notes From The Organization - Part II

Well well well... just as I thought. The Organization(as I will call it from now on) is going to economize by squeezing the last drop of motivation from the volunteers. All rules, no rights, current regulations suspended or plain cancelled, compensation for hours worked cut in half, etcetera etcetera.

We did this before and ultimately decided that the volunteers should not be the ones to suffer from a bad economy or bad management. But I guess they are re-inventing the wheel again.
     
It will all be in vain. Nothing can stop The Organization from hemmoraging money except for a good solution for the smoking ban, better internal management and especially; some really well attended concerts and parties.

Don't save money, MAKE money!

And in the meantime I keep wondering how much the board members get from the local government for the fantastic job they are doing...

I'd Rather Go Bowling - Notes From The Organization

Communication Is The Only Way
              
I work in the cafe of a concerthall every now and then. This is strictly volunteer work but it's fun; DJ-ing and taking care of the bar and all that. Until last week I was also the cafe-coordinator; someone the people could call if they really didn't know where else to go for advice. By and by over the last years this coordinatorship had turned into an almost full managerial job.
                 
The problem with the organization that I worked in/with however, is the almost complete lack of knowledge when it comes to efficient internal communications on the one hand, and the total lack of discipline when maintaining any rule of good communications that they are handed on a silver platter. For the record : I gladly exclude the one or two people in the organization who have actually read a book about the subject in their life, but in general these people do not even know how to write proper minutes.
                                   
Of course you may now think 'Is that all? You can run a organization without minutes and all those things'. Yes, but the lack of communicational and organizational skills is much worse than it looks. Because this organisation is run by volunteers who do not see each other too often, who have day jobs, etcetera, communication must keep flowing like water, using all means available such as email, internal forums or down-to-earth meetings and minutes.

Trust But Verify
                                         
What compounds the problem is that there is supposed to be a - completely new - management, or rather a 'board of directors' monitoring it all. Unfortunately the members of said board can be defined as 'people you never see in the building'. Some time after the government take over of the organization - say about a year ago - this board appointed a managing director to take care of the internal organization. Suffice it to say that - although I am not fainting in admiration at the man's skills - I can see that his job is impossible to do with the current people running around and taking care of things. This is a failure by the board to lead, to organize and then to step back. Ronald Reagan's famous words come to mind : "Trust But Verify".


Have A Smoke And A Smile
                                              
Unfortunately the situation is getting worse and worse now that the government is cracking down on smoking in public places. The organization has had almost two years to come up with a solution but didn't do crap all. So now that the local government(the owners of the building) have demanded a ban on smoking in the whole building, the organization does not have a single alternative. There have been proposals coming from the work floor but they have all been deemed 'too expensive'. We'll have to wait and see if that is still the case when the turnover will drop and drop and drop over the next couple of months. I have seen no official figures so I can make an estimate without violating any trust given to me; I think total revenues have gone down more then 50 %. Frankly; I think the whole place is definitely doomed if they don't come up with a solution in the next month or so. After all; coming up with a plan is one thing, executing it in a timely fashion is something else altogether.
                               
The 'smoking-problem' is a perfect example of the structural problem in the organization: You can see the problem coming, you ignore it for as long as possible, and ultimately you have not even made a financial reservation to be able to come up with a solution. Don't even look at what the competition(e.g. the professional bars and cafe's) do. Don't even take into consideration that most of them still condone smoking until the fines get too high, because they fear that otherwise they will go bankrupt. And don't even look at what it is going to cost you to be more catholic than the Pope.

One Vision
                                       
There is one other major problem and that is the complete lack of vision by the board members and the complete lack of information that flows from the board to the volunteers. Basically, the volunteers can go and play in their little sandbox like Linus Van Pelt, but they should not come out under any circumstances. I could indeed quote StarTrek : 'Resistance Is Futile'.
                                     
When compared to the situation as it was until a few years ago, the first thing that went out the windows under the new local government management was the input and the responsibility of the volunteers for what goes on at a higher level in the organization. This is of course lethal for the initiatives and the ambitions of exactly those volunteers who can really make a difference if they would be allowed to.
                                
If the current board would have formulated a proper policy for the next three to five years this situation would be something that(almost) everyone could live with. In the current 'I Amp Volunteer So Ai Know Nothink' culture that pervades the organization, no volunteer knows anything about anything except where to report to work in the cleanup crew or what time to show up for their 9 hour bar-shift.

                          
Breakdown

So it took another year but last week it was there; that moment when you are so fed up with a situation that you just can't seem to improve, that you basically just stop trying and give up.
                          
In the course of trying to get things working better, a communications breakdown occurred again last week when all the volunteers were invited for a meeting. First of all the communication was severely misdirected. People who no longer work for the organisation received email-invitations while others who still work their asses off did not receive one at all. The email-notice for said meeting was two days. The meeting had been planned while the cafe in the building was supposed to be open, etcetera. Oh! And it was also planned on Mothers' Day at four in the afternoon...

After complaining about this(I admit; loudly) via an email I was told by the person who wrote the actual email that he wrote it on the orders of someone else and he did not feel like discussing the contents of the email. Actually, he used other words as in 'not needing any conversation about this shit' but I'll try to stay polite on my blog.
                   
It was the straw that broke the camel's back so I quit as the cafe-coordinator. I do not stand for these kind of responses, especially when it is so crystal clear that something is being handled wrong. And this sort of thing has happened with alarming frequency for quite some time now.
                  
                    
If people don't want to listen then I'm going to let them do it their way. Because I'd rather go bowling.

Taxman

TaxMan

Let me tell you

How it will be.

There's one for you,

Nineteen for me,

'Cause I'm the taxman.

Yeah, I'm the taxman.

Should five percent

Appear too small,

Be thankful I don't

Take it all.

'Cause I'm the taxman.

Yeah, I'm the taxman.

If you drive a car,

I'll tax the street.

If you drive to the city,

I'll tax your seat.

If you get too cold,

I'll tax the heat.

If you take a walk,

I'll tax your feet.

Taxman!

'Cause I'm the taxman

Yeah, I'm the taxman.

Don't ask me what I want it for,

If you don't want to pay some more.

'Cause I'm the taxman.

Yeah, I'm the taxman.

And my advice to

Those who die.

(Taxman!)

Declare the pennies

On your eyes.

(Taxman!)

'Cause I'm the taxman.

Yeah, I'm the taxman,

And you're working for no one but me.

Taxman!)

Apple Inc - Maximizing Profit: Anything For A Buck?

I do not use Apple products although they look very slick and nice. Never caught a blow from the ol' Apple Windmill. And I seriously doubt if I'll purchase anything by the company anytime soon.

Everybody who has been following the ICT developments over the years knows - or should know - that Steve Jobs may be a design visionary, he also rules Apple like a potentate. Stories of how he checked 150 shades of black to get 'just the right kind of black' for his computer-casing may be charmingly quirky, but they tend to cover up the less friendly and eccentric sides of Jobs(and Apple).

The other day Gizmodo got their hands on a new IPhone. Apparently it was left/lost by an Apple-employee and then sold to Gizmodo by the lucky finder.

So far so 'good'. Mister Jobs has been known to throw employees out of the building when they blundered like that but ok; it IS pretty stupid to leave a new prototype IPhone in a restaurant.


But now the home/office of the writer of the Gizmodo-article has been raided by the police, although that has been deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

So what we have here is a company that wants to decide what you can see on your IPod, on your IPhone, and on your Personal(!) Computer(ITunes anyone?).

And all this while back in 1984 this same company produced one of the most famous commercials in history, in which they accused IBM of being Big Brother...  History has come around again. And it's biting Apple up it's royal fat ass.

Recently Apple announced that there would be no 'Porn-apps' for the IPhone or the IPad(although apparently the Playboy App was not a problem...). Erm.... Excuse me? Even Bill Gates never wanted to decide which content was/is suitable for you. As long as people watched it on their Windows PC.

Jobs is trying to control the content of the Internet. He will fail, but what an incredibly stupid move.

On this beautiful Saturday afternoon...

There must be music!

Donald Fagen - I.G.Y.
Donald Fagen - The Goodbye Look
Donald Fagen - The New Frontier
Donald Fagen - Walk Between The Raindrops


Don Henley - Not Enough Love In The World
Don Henley - Building The Perfect Beast


Michael McDonald - I Keep Forgettin'


Duran Duran - Save A Prayer
Duran Duran - Wild Boys


The Beatles - Got To Get You Into My Life




Al Stewart - Merlin's Time


The Beatles - Eleanor Rigby
The Beatles - For No One




Al Stewart - Almost Lucky


Gerry Rafferty - Get It Right Next Time


Fleetwood Mac - The Chain
Fleetwood Mac - Dreams

TBC...

The Ludicrous Glenn Beck

Here's an informative story about the person who is trying to become a real life Howard Beale.

The problem is that God is giving The Plan, I think, to me [...] I think the plan that the Lord would have us follow is hard for people to understand. But I'm telling you, here's what I feel with everything in me.



And here is Jon Stewarts unsurpassed and absolutely brilliant parody of the guy.

"Glenn Beck didn't want to have to tell you that people who believe in safety belts are killing America."

A Poem For The Ages

And death shall have no dominion

Dead men naked they shall be one

With the man in the wind and the west moon;

When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,

They shall have stars at elbow and foot;

Though they go mad they shall be sane,

Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again

Though lovers be lost love shall not;

And death shall have no dominion.

"And death shall have no dominion" by Dylan Thomas

Serious Music Cafe 18/04/2010 Riverside Live In Paradiso

DJ Lenne and his mates 'did' a serious music cafe again yesterday. These sunday afternoons are dedicated to ProgRock, ProgMetal and related genres.

Yesterday saw a cafe very much focussed on Progressive Metal. The CD of the month was by Knight Area and the music played was mainly Progressive Metal. The video played was of a concert in Paradiso by Riverside, a band from Poland, which I must say is very much Progressive Metal. Fun to see how the long haired fierce looking gentlemen of the band took a deep bow after the show, almost modestly accepting the audience's cheers and praise. I have seen a lot of bands with a hell of a lot worse attitude.

The latest Knight Area CD was the prize in a ticket raffle so somebody went home with an extra bit of music in his pocket!

Two weeks from now there will be a much more classic progrock sunday afternoon, and on May 16th there will be a band performing.

We may be quite a while away from Tilburg or even Zoetermeer, but it goes to show again : one can play Progressive Music everywhere.




(Overheard this afternoon: Riverside, Katatonia, Knight Area, etc.)

Heroes

I guess we all know the details already. Still a great article about heroes

The Most Useless Publication Of Lyrics On The Interwebs!

Mahna mahna

(ba dee bedebe)

mahna mahna

(ba debe dee)

mahna mahna

(ba dee bedebe badebe badebe dee dee de-de de-de-de)

(repeats)

mah mama na mahna mah namwomp mwomp

ma mo mo mana mo

mahna mahna

(ba dee bedebe)

mahna mahna

(ba debe dee)

Mahna Mahna!

(ba dee bedebe bedebe badebe debe de-de de-de-de)

(long pause)

...mahna mahna?

Seriously...

ProgRock > 1985 - The Second Wave

Last night was a fun night, even though I had to work on my tax forms. As long as there's ProgRock I will not complain.

Transatlantic - My New World


IQ - The Darkest Hour
IQ - Failsafe


Glass Hammer - Revelation / Chronometry


Dream Theater - Pull Me Under
Dream Theater - A Nightmare To Remember


GTR - Hackett To Bits


Klaatu - Set The World On Fire

Music tonight...

A bit of what used to be...

Tears for Fears - Advice for the young at heart
The Hollies - He ain't heavy, he's my brother
A-Ha - Hunting High and Low


Bonnie Tyler & Todd Rundgren - Lovin' you's a dirty job(but somebody's got to do it)
Linda Ronstadt - Tracks of my Tears
Jim Croce - You don't mess around with Jim


Carpenters - Rainy days and mondays
Gilber O' Sullivan - We Will
Cher -Walking in Memphis
Cat Power - Ramblin' Woman
Robert Cray - Right Next Door
John Lee Hooker - The Healer

I almost made a dreadful mistake : Apres Ski Must Die!!

Ok, so I see this as a dreadful mistake where others will not understand what I get so upset for. But still...

I almost made a dreadful mistake and it has taught me to do better research before accepting a DJ-gig.

Some time ago somebody asked me to join in for an evening as a DJ on what they incorrectly call 'Apres Ski'. It is named aptly incorrect because I live in The Netherlands and there really are no Dutch Mountains, let alone Dutch Mountains with Lots of Snow... (Full Disclosure : I've never ever even been on a ski-ing holiday). ;)

Now I know that there are hardly any standards when it comes to that 'style' and after all; how can you name a serious style after a boozerama-Fest?

So although I did have some ideas about what to play on the night(go real bad and play Wham, Abba, yes; I would even put aside most of my musical principles and play Boney M!),  I investigated 'Apres Ski' a bit more. I Also checked the torrent-sites to see what kind of Apres Ski CD's were being released.


My Word And I Don't Fucking Believe It! I am definitely most certainly so NOT going to DJ on saturday!

Holy Fuck what an incredibly bad taste in music must you have to DJ on such a night!!!

I just found a whole load of Apres Ski CD's ready for download and they made a chill run down my spine. I was transported back to the days when my parents used to like that stuff and the rest would curse it whole heartedly.

Believe it or not : Boney M is not even at the same level as this drivel; Boney M are an artistic landmark compared to this Apres Ski shit.

No way Jose: I have my principles. I don't even want to be there as a guest so I absolutely Do Not Want To Hear Any Of This Bleh!

Now I know why some people call me a musical elitist, or even a musical snob. If these people believe that Apres Ski is music than I AM ONE BIG FUCKING ELITIST SNOB!!! And very, very! proud of it.

I know that there are people who absolutely adore this shit. Some are even friends. They go so far as to travel to the big city to hear it! I am allergic to it. Possible also because I have seen studio-guys put this kind of crap together in the studio in my days.

And now for another cup of coffee to get rid of the bad taste in my mouth. To think that I actually almost was an Apres Ski DJ. Brrrrrrrr... This was a very close shave.


P.S. As an afterthought I just realized that if I wanted to I could blow the doors of the bloody cafe with my Apres Ski DJ-set. The only thing I would have to do is recall my parents dutch language record collection. Jan Boezeroen, Rob de Nijs, Gert en Hermien, Zangeres zonder Naam(Mexico-hoooo!), De Kermisklanten, etcetera, supplemented by a bit of German: Freddy Quinn, Marianne Rosenberg, Freddy Breck, Heino(!!!).

I am SO glad that those days are over!

Another day, another forum.

First : Heads up for the Dutch Progressive Rock Page !
 
The 'Now Playing' thread is very informative. Only if you like that kind of stuff of course, which I do. So much so that I don't want to discuss my tastes anymore on some other laymen's forum where people still think Progressive Rock means Yes or Marillion. How On Earth people think they can judge ProgRock without even knowing Gentle Giant or Soft Machine is a mystery to me anyway.

As an extra, here are some of the more relevant wiki-entries to ProgRock, ProgMetal, etcetera :

Progressive_Rock
Progressive_metal
List of progressive metal artists
Symphonic Rock

and a couple of useful links to some ProgRock-sites :

Dutch Progressive Rock Page
Prog Archives
Prog Rock Startpagina(dutch)

The Annotated Lamb

It must have been a very rainy day... But still, quite a nice read if you're into ProgRock and especially into Genesis.

"Hackett's guitar weavings became an integral part of the moody atmosphere, as Banks wisely kept his keyboard playing melodic and lyrical instead of succumbing to the obvious desire to create a Third World War like so many of his peers and contemporaries."

The Annotated Lamb

Vot are U plaiying nov...?

ELP - Still You Turn Me On
ELP - Lucky Man
Tony Banks - Still It Takes Me By Surprise
Steve Hackett - Every Day
Styx - Fooling Yourself
Kansas - The Wall . Miracles Out Of Nowhere
Queen - Procession / Father To Son

For now...

Fresh crop for sunday

Managed to get hold of the complete Emerson Lake and Palmer. 'Still you turn me on' and all that.

Also got my hands on some Pendragon, Pineapple Thief and some more bands like that. Quite interesting, and always good to have when you DJ a ProgRock set.

The Downfall Of A Would-Be Empire

America is definitely decaying fast. Yes; although both big parties have been fucking about since Reagan, thinking politics first and country(perhaps) second, the Republicans are to be blamed by far the most, with their idiotic hate-speeches, their tea-parties, their death-panel hoaxes and so on. Not to mention putting a complete political nobody, an empty head like Sarah Palin right smack into the middle of national politics. Also; one would think that after eight years of 'Compassionate Conservative' G.W. Bush in the White House, the Republicans would have learned some humility. Not so!

The Republicans have turned renaming and rebranding stuff they don't like into a high art form. 'Anti-abortion' became 'Pro-Life', trying to restrict the ownership of weapons of course became 'Constitutional Infringement', 'Creationism' became 'Intelligent Design', 'Government Healthcare Plan' became 'Socialism', 'Fascism' 'Communism' and 'Nazism' at the same time(quite an accomplishment!), etcetera etcetera.

Oh! And Barack Obama is a Kenyan-born muslim socialist as well as the Anti-Christ who has illegally usurped the presidency... Such idiocy makes european politics pale by comparison.

What I feared for some time now is coming true fast, which is that at some point-of-no-return, part of the american public will actually start to believe these republican fables and fantasies. And that is the moment that you will lose control Mr. and Mrs. Republican. That is the moment that you will become Pontius Pilate, washing your hands in innocence while your raging idiot-followers burn down the house and threaten children.


Coffin placed on Carnahan's lawn

A coffin was placed on a Missouri Democrat’s lawn, another in a string of incidents against lawmakers after their vote Sunday on a health care overhaul.
Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-Mo.) had a coffin placed “near his home,” a spokesman said Wednesday evening. This came after Rep. Tom Perriello’s (D-Va.) brother’s gas lines were cut, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) received death threats and Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) received a message saying snipers were being deployed to kill children of those who voted for health care overhaul.

Several other Democrats have had threats leveled against them, prompting a closed-door briefing of Democratic members by the FBI, Capitol Police and the House Sergeant at Arms.

"Carnahan appreciates thoughtful feedback received both in favor and opposition of health insurance reform,” Carnahan spokesman Jim Hubbard told POLITICO Wednesday evening “We can disagree on important issues facing our country without resorting to this kind of thing. Russ Carnahan isn’t going to shy away from the importance of reform when 45,000 fellow Americans died last year due to a lack of health insurance.”

When a population goes after its own children it is only a matter of time before the house comes crashing down. This may only be a threat, but just wait; once an idea has been floating around there will ultimately be some ungodly asshole to turn it into a reality.

Back to the old lyrics freak angle...

The warming sun, the cooling rain,
The snowflake drifting on the breath of the breeze,
The lightning bolt that frees the sky for you
Yet only eagles seem to pass on through.
The words of love, the cries of hate,
And the man in the moon who seduced you
Then finally loosed you.

You climbed upon a burning rope to escape the mob below,,
But you had put the flaming out so that others could now follow,
To be out of the bounds and the barks of those who do not wish you well.

You must blaze a trail of your own, unknown, alone,
But keep in mind
Don't live today for tomorrow like you were immortal.
The only survivors on this world of ours are
The warming sun, the cooling rain,

You're old and disillusioned now as you realise at last,
That all all you have accomplished here will have soon all turned to
dust.
You dream of a future after life, well that's as maybe, I don't know.
But you can't take what you left behind, you're all alone.
So keep in mind
Don't live today for tomorrow like you were immortal.
The only survivors on this world of ours are
The warming sun, the cooling rain,
The snowflake drifting on the breath of the breeze,
The lightning bolt that frees the sky for you
Yet only eagles seem to pass on through.
The words of love, the cries of hate,
And the man in the moon...

But you had put the flaming out so that others could now follow,
To be out of the bounds and the barks of those who do not wish you well.

You must blaze a trail of your own, unknown, alone,
But keep in mind
Don't live today for tomorrow like you were immortal.
The only survivors on this world of ours are
The warming sun, the cooling rain,
The snowflake drifting on the breath of the breeze,
The lightning bolt that frees the sky for you
Yet only eagles seem to pass on through.
The words of love, the cries of hate,
And the man in the moon who seduced you
Then finally loosed you.

You're old and disillusioned now as you realise at last,
That all all you have accomplished here will have soon all turned to
dust.
You dream of a future after life, well that's as maybe, I don't know.
But you can't take what you left behind, you're all alone.
So keep in mind
Don't live today for tomorrow like you were immortal.
The only survivors on this world of ours are
The warming sun, the cooling rain,
The snowflake drifting on the breath of the breeze,
The lightning bolt that frees the sky for you
Yet only eagles seem to pass on through.
The words of love, the cries of hate,
And the man in the moon...

(One of my five favourite lyrics)

Can't dance, can't sing, can make a little money...

Boys will be boys...

Axl Buffett!

Fuckheads, retards and bureaucrats

Around 09:20 this morning I was reminded by my phone that I had to be at the dentist... Fat lot of good that'll do, something wrong in the configuration, it should have warned me yesterday. As should my email here at work have done btw.
 
So I immediately called the dentist to check and lo and behold! I did have an appointment. So I said 'Sorry about that, and can we check the other appointments to make sure that they are ok?'. 'Of course sir, yes... they are all correct. We'll see you on the 26th'. Also, they said they had called me and emailed me. Ri-i-ght... both my email address and my phone number were registered incorrectly. That's one hell of an achievement considering I wrote the info down for them myself, and that they had already contacted me several times by phone...
      
Oh well... So ten minutes later I get a call from the same dentist office to inform me that they will have to charge me for the missed appointment. Ok, I can understand that, you have to pay a fine... Until they told me that the cost would be the complete cost of a normal treatment! That means including the shots, the gear, the whole fucking lot. So just because they can go and have a coffee instead of overcharging their patients I also have to pay for their unused materials!!!
  
I told the lady politely that I had been extremely flexible every time they called me up to ask if I could come the next morning because someone else cancelled an appointment, and that I find these cost completely over the top. I also stated that there was nothing to be done about it anyway so I did not see the use of getting into a discussion about it. The lady then said that I had missed appointments previously and that this was/is one of the reasons that they would charge me for the treatment. I informed the woman that that then would have been over 5 years ago(!!!) AND that I had cancelled those appointments perfectly ahead of time AND with perfectly valid reasons.
  
She had to look it up and what I said was completely true. She said she would discuss it all internally. I told her that would be nice, but that for the rest I am not counting on flexibility from anyone in this world any more. I was very polite but also very annoyed to be honest. On the one hand I can service them(while being the patient!) when they have holes in their schedule, but on the other hand they show no flexibility whatsoever.
  
Of course this means one thing for sure : the next time they call me and ask if I can be flexible and go to the dentist at a different date than the appointments that already have been set, they can forget it. Flexibility works both ways, I am not going to go to my boss to rearrange my schedule to please the dentist anymore. Let them charge someone else for their valuable time...


It seems to me that this kind of unreasonable shit is occurring more and more in life. A friend of mine just put an article up on his own blog pondering over what it means to get to be fifty years old. Well Alfred, from what I have seen(and I am not yet 50, I'll grant you that); one of the things it means is that you start to get more and more impatient with people trying to shit you.

Am I right? :)

Just a great poem that inspired great songs

Richard Cory

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich—yes, richer than a king,
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

Late Night Song - Another One...

Get out of the way fat man. You got something to do
Go fill up your hands till they're shining up at you.
You gotta get out while there's gold in the air
It's falling like water, coming down from the hills.

Go West young man
Earn a dollar a day just like your family said.
You're rolling your days right on into the night
The head of the line's going way out of sight.
Go West young man like your family said

All along the wagons
All along the dusty trail.
Seventeen years not over a day
Like children in the wild.
Your mother's milk still wet on your face
And no one to pray for your safe journey home.

Out beyond the desert
Across the mountains by the fall.
Servants who leave their masters house
Are walking all the way.
The golden fields that beckoned you
Are darkened by the years.

Go West Young Man
If you knew then what you know today
You'd be back where you started a happier man
And leave all the glory to those who have remained.

So Go West Young Man
Go West Young Man, like your family said.

Late night song...

A Song With A Real Song Meaning...

Fifty thousand men were sent to do the will of one.
His claim was phrased quite simply, though he never voiced it loud,
I am he, the chosen one.

In his name they could slaughter, for his name they could die.

Then one whose faith had died
Though many there were believed in him, still more were sure he lied,
But they'll fight the battle on.


Then one whose faith had died

Fled back up the mountainside,
But before the top was made,
A misplaced footfall made him stray
From the path prepared for him.
Off of the mountain,
On to a wilderness of ice.

This unexpected vision made him stand and shake with fear,
But nothing was his fright compared with those who saw him appear.
Terror filled their minds with awe.

Simple were the folk who lived
Upon this frozen wave.
So not surprising was their thought,
This is he, God's chosen one,
Who's come to save us from
All our oppressors.
We shall be kings on this world.

Follow me!
I'll play the game you want me,
Until I find a way back home.

Follow me!
I give you strength inside you,
Courage to win your battles -

No, no, no, this can't go on,
This will be all that I fled from.
Let me rest for a while.

He walked into a valley,
All alone.
There he talked with water, and then with the vine.

They leave me no choice.
I must lead them to glory or most likely to death.

They traveled cross the plateau of ice, up to its edge.
Then they crossed a mountain range and saw the final plain.
Still he urged the people on.

Then, on a distant slope,
He observed one without hope
Flee back up the mountainside.
He thought he recognised him by his walk,
And by the way he fell,
And by the way he
Stood up, and vanished into air.

For Sander

Some people think
Think they have none
They might as well stay down
Running in circles
Like bulls in a ring
'Til the sword finds it's way down

While the creep beats the rap on appeal
And the cop who can't stop
Shows the kids how to steal

And we all need some light now
We all need some light now
Yes, we all need some light now

Some people think
Think they have none
They might as well stay down
Running in circles
Like bulls in a ring
'Til the sword finds it's way down

While the creep beats the rap on appeal
And the cop who can't stop
Shows the kids how to steal

And we all need some light now
We all need some light now
Yes, we all need some light now
Turn on your light
And wash the darkness away

Hey you on the brink
Waiting to fall
To become human surplus
The movie's still shooting
You might still get the roll
And man it's all just a circus

But the clown left town long ago
Maybe he'll come back and give us a show

And we all need some light now
We all need some light now
Yes, we all need some light now
Turn on your light and wash the darkness away

Turn on your light
And wash the darkness away

Hey you on the brink
Waiting to fall
To become human surplus
The movie's still shooting
You might still get the roll
And man it's all just a circus

But the clown left town long ago
Maybe he'll come back and give us a show

And we all need some light now
We all need some light now
Yes, we all need some light now
Turn on your light and wash the darkness away

A New Life For Quality Music - And It Feels Like Coming Home

What started it all.

Quite recently I came across an article on the web that made me look at Prog Rock with an altogether different view. When I was a teenager back in the deep down dark and somewhat damp 70ies I grew up being an avid and fanatical fan of Sympho and Prog Rock. Bands like Gentle Giant, Yes, ELP, Camel, and of course Genesis, I listened to them for hours and hours, for days and days.

Of course, just like most people, I thought that this musical branch had just about died out in the early eighties.  There was Marillion, but like many musicians who had enjoyed the bands I mentioned, I always thought that this band was basically Genesis in C minor. So... I set my sights to new musical styles and if/when I played some Prog Rock it would be the 70ies bands that I loved so well.


Getting my own back.


Some years ago though, I came across Spock's Beard. A friend of mine, who happens to be the one of the biggest ProgRock fan I have ever known(Hi there Dick!) gave me a cd of these guys, and although it was well written and performed it harkened back to the old days just a bit too much to really get me enthousiastic.

So imagine my surprise when about one week ago I decided to check out what had been happening in this particular musical scene in the last 15 to 20 years. It turns out that since around the year 2.000 there has been a surge in Prog Rock that I had not been aware of. Bands like IQ(a bit older than that really), Transatlantic, Mystery Jets, The Mars Volta, etcetera, have given the scene an enormous boost. For the first time I can listen to new material that indeed is influenced by the first generation of Sympho and Prog Rock, but at the same time does not wallow in the old chord progressions and technicalities. These bands can all really play, but they have taken the style beyond what it was in its heydays. There are even a lot of power chords in that music(Alfred!)

First 'fun fact' : Although I think Radiohead are quite ok(computer...), I never understood what all the big fuss was about. Turns out that a lot of these newer bands pay homage to Radiohead because it was the first new succesful band to forget about the standard 'intro/verse/chorus/verse/chorus/solo/fade out' format. So in effect they rediscovered wat had been lost in the 80ies and the 90ies.

At the moment I am especially listening to  band like Glass Hammer, Transatlantic and Mystery Jets. After which I shall have to check out The Mars Volta in more detail.


On Retournez Toujours A Ses Premier Amour

It feels like coming home. NOT because it is the same ol' same ol' but on the contrary; these folks really went on to create the next generation of Prog Rock/Sympho. Fun fact : I have actually seen and heard quite a lot of the lesser Sympho Gods in Het Kasteel in the time that we had Dick as our programmer. Jadis, Act, Salmon, John Wetton, Colin Bass, Grey Lady Down, For Absent Friends, etcetera. In retrospect that was a bloody good job by our programmer/Prog-head.

And to top it off, Het Kasteel will very likely have its own ProgRock Cafe in the very near future. Another fun fact; I did some slightly demographic research for a cafe-evening on sunday and not very much to my surprise all the people under 24 replied that they would not be there on a sunday 'because they would still be wasted from the night before'. So... basically we have a night every week on which we can do whatever we want, and we do not have to cater to what 'the hip scene' wants to hear.  A perfect opportunity to see if we can get the more 'mature'(read 'older') cafe-visitor to drop by.


Good times are here again! And people who tell me that this music is So Last Century can go and kiss my lovely royal arse. When a band like The Mars Volta sells over 600.000 records and plays for a sold out Paradiso, what do they know?
We'll make a deal: they will get 9 out of 10 nights and the 10th is for 'us'.

And who knows : perhaps even Dick will drop by again...

Music on a relaxed saturday

Another fine saturday, let the music play!

Alan Parsons Project

- Inside Looking Out
- Paseo De Gracia

Genesis

- Ripples
- Dancing With The Moonlit Knight
- The Musical Box

UK

- Carrying No Cross
- Rendez Vous 6:02

Camel - Never Let Go

Caravan - The Show Of Our Lives

David Bowie - Warszawa

Emerson Lake & Palmer - The Only Way

For Absent Friends - Each And Every Day

Gentle Giant - In A Glass House

Greenslade
- Waltz For A Fallen Idol
- The Ass's Ears

Jethro Tull - Aqualung

Jon and Vangelis - Each And Every Day


TBC...

Han Solo?

As Dave said "A HEADLINE-WRITER WAITS AN ENTIRE CAREER"...

For this...

Book(s) I am currently reading.

 

The discovery of football in Ankh-Morpork

(that is football as in SOCCER, you uncivilized americans!)

The Lighter Side...?

The floor of a Weight Watchers clinic in Sweden collapsed beneath a group of 20 members of the weight loss programme who were gathered for a meeting.

Irony if I ever saw it...

Nation!...

Stephen Colbert killed last night "The Word: Prece-Don't".


(Chief Justice of the United States) John Roberts has a brilliant legal strategy to get around following precedent: not following precedent.

The next bit of learning

Will probably be this bit...

Fortunately I'm getting a bit more time on my hands in the near future.

Not bad, give it a year or two, three

http://i.engadget.com/2010/01/27/live-from-the-apple-tablet-latest-creation-event/

New Apple-thingy...

Can't have a flamewar with music, maybe *about* it....

Blunt - Same Mistake(appropriate)

Joni Mitchell - Blue

"Blue, songs are like tattoos
You know I've been to sea before
Crown and anchor me
Or let me sail away
Hey Blue, THERE is a song for you
Ink on a pin
Underneath the skin
An empty space to fill in
Well there're so many sinking now
You've got to keep thinking
You can make it thru these waves
Acid, booze, and ass
Needles, guns, and grass
Lots of laughs, lots of laughs
Everybody's saying that hell's the hippest way to go
Well I don't think so
But I'm gonna take a look around it though
Blue, I love you

Blue, here is a shell for you
Inside you'll HEAR a sigh
A foggy lullaby
There is your song from me"


Judy Collins - Both Sides Now

"Bows and flows of angel hair and ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere, I've looked at clouds that way
But now they only block the sun they rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done, but clouds got in my way

I've looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It's cloud's illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all

Moons and Junes and ferris wheels the dizzy dancing way you feel
As every fairy tale comes real, I've looked at love that way
But now it's just another show, you leave 'em laughin when you go
And if you care don't let them know, don't give yourself away

I've looked at love from both sides now
From give and take and still somehow
It's love's illusions I recall
I really don't know love at all

Tears and fears and feeling proud, to say, "I love you" right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds, I've looked at life that way
But now old friends are acting strange they shake their heads, they say
I've changed
But something's lost but something's gained in living every day

I've looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all"



Kate Bush - Mother Stands For Comfort

"She knows that I've been doing something wrong,
But she won't say anything.
She thinks that I was with my friends yesterday,
But she won't mind me lying,
Because

Mother stands for comfort.
Mother will hide the murderer.

It breaks the cage, and fear escapes and takes possession,
Just like a crowd rioting inside.
(Make me do this, make me do that, make me do this, make me do that...)
Am I the cat that takes the bird?
To her the hunted, not the hunter.

Mother stands for comfort.
Mother will hide the murderer.
Mother hides the madman.
Mother will stay mum.

Mother stands for comfort.
Mother will hide the murderer.
Mother hides the madman.
Mother will stay mum."


Tori Amos - Leather

"Look I'm standing naked before you
Don't you want more then my sex
I can scream as loud as your last one
But I can't claim innocence

Oh God
Could it be the weather
Oh God
Why am I here
If love Isn't forever
And it's not the weather
Hand me my leather

I could just pretend that you love me
The night would lose all sense of fear
But why do I need you to love me
When you can't Hold what I hold dear

Oh God
Could it be the weather
Oh God
Why am I here
If love Isn't forever
And it's not the weather
Hand me my leather

I almost ran over an angel
He had a nice big fat cigar
"In a sense" he said "You're alone here
So if you jump you best jump far"

Oh God
Could it be the weather
Oh God
Why am I here
If love Isn't forever
And it's not the weather
Hand me my leathe"



Kevin Coyne - Having A Party

(already elsewhere on this blog)



King Crimson - Thela Hun Ginjeet

"Well
first of all

I couldn't even see his face.
I couldn't see his face.
He was holding a gun in his hand.
Umm... I was thinking...
This is a dangerous place..
This is a dangerous place..

I said
I'm nervous as hell from this stuff.I thought those guys were going to kill me for sure.They ganged up on me like that.I couldn't believe it.Look, I'm still shakin'.Weird.There out in the streets like that.It's a dangerous place.It's a dangerous place.

So
suddenly
these two guys appear in front of me.
They stopped.
Real aggressive.
Start at me
you know.
What's that?
What's that on that tape?
What do you got there?"
I said
huh?
They said
What are you talking into that for?
I said
It's just a tape, you know
Well play it for me
I said "oh
no"
I put it off as long as I could.
And finally they turned it on
you know
They grabbed it from me.
Took it away from me.
Turned it on.
And it said
He held a gun in his hand. This is a dangerous place.
They said
What dangerous place?
What gun?
You're a policeman!
And the deeper I talked
the worse I got into it.
I talked
I told him... I said

Look man, I'm not talkin'....
It went on forever.
Anyway
I finally unbuttoned my shirt
and said

look, look... I'm in this band, you know, I'm in this band you know,and we're makin' a recording, you know.It's about New York City, it's about crime in the streets...
The explanation was going nowhere
but

Finally
they just kinda let me go
I don't know why.
So I walk around the corner

and I'm like shakin' like a leaf

and I thought
This is a dangerous place

Who should appear
but two policeman."



Razorlight - America

(already elsewhere on this blog)


Gentle Giant - In A Glass House(appropriate)

 "Looking through the window, can you tell me what you see?
You're sure you're really seeing what is meant to be
A glass, a mirror to reflect what I conspire
A vision, image I desire.

Standing on the ice believing all I'm searching for
Close your cloudy eyes and chase all that you did before
Standing on the ice believing all I'm searching for
Close your cloudy eyes and chase all that you did before

Living in a glass house shielding all that's meant for me
Can you clear the shade and can you tell me what you see?

Shadow fills the light
Until the glass house becomes the night
The dark is gleaming or am I dreaming?

Running everywhere
Seeing clearly when I dare
Is it today or is it your way?

And the moon must fall
Inspiration waits for your call
For you to get a silhouette

Narrow the field aim in any direction
Do what I feel just to see my reflection

Any turn I know
Disappearing everywhere I go
I look to you for what you do

And only then I see
That the glass house is just for me
And any time is never mine

Narrow the field aim in any direction
Do what I feel just to see my reflection

Shadow fills the light
Until the glass house becomes night
The dark is gleaming or am I dreaming?

Running everywhere
Seeing clearly when I dare
Is it today or is it your way?

And the moon must fall
Inspiration waits for your call
For you to get a silhouette"




Heart - Crazy On You

"If we still have time, we might still get by
Every time I think about it, I wanna cry
With bombs and the devil, and the kids keep comin'
No way to breathe easy, no time to be young

But I tell myself that I was doin' all right
There's nothin' left to do at night
But to go crazy on you
Crazy on you
Let me go crazy, crazy on you, oh

My love is the evenin' breeze touchin' your skin
The gentle, sweet singin' of leaves in the wind
The whisper that calls after you in the night
And kisses your ear in the early moonlight
And you don't need to wonder, you're doing fine
My love, the pleasure's mine

Let me go crazy on ya
Crazy on you
Let me go crazy, crazy on you, ohhh

Wild man's world is cryin' in pain
What you gonna do when everybody's insane
So afraid of one who's so afraid of you
What you gonna do...ohhh...

Ooooo...Crazy on ya
Crazy on you
Let me go crazy, crazy on you

I was a willow last night in my dream
I bent down over a clear running stream
Sang you the song that I heard up above
And you kept me alive with your sweet flowing love

Crazy
Yeah, crazy on ya
Let me go crazy, crazy on you, oh
Crazy on ya
Crazy on you
Let me go crazy, crazy on you, yeah

Crazy on ya
Crazy on you
Let me go crazy, crazy on you, ohhh..."




Judy Collins - In My Life

"There are places, I remember,
all my life though some have changed
some forever, not for better
some are gone, and some remain
all these places have their meanings
with lovers and friends I still can recall,
some are dead and some are living...
in my life, I've loved them all.

But of all these friends and lovers,
there is no one compares with you.
And these memories lose their meaning
when I think of love of something new.
Though I know I'll never lose affection for people
and things that went before,
I know I'll often stop and think about them.
In my life, I love you more.

Though I know I'll never lose affection for people
and things that went before,
I know I'll often stop and think about them.
In my life, I love you more. "




The Waterboys - Don't Bang The Drum


"Well here we are in a special place
what are you gonna do here?
Now we stand in a special place
what will you do here?
What show of soul are we gonna get from you?
It could be deliverance, or history
under these skies so blue
could be something true,
But if I know you you'll bang the drum
like monkeys do

Here we are in a fabulous place
What are you gonna dream here?
We are standing in this fabulous placeWell here we are in a special place
what are you gonna do here?
Now we stand in a special place
what will you do here?
What show of soul are we gonna get from you?
It could be deliverance, or history
under these skies so blue
could be something true,
But if I know you you'll bang the drum
like monkeys do

Here we are in a fabulous place
What are you gonna dream here?
We are standing in this fabulous place
What are you gonna play here?
I know you love the high life, you love to leap around
You love to beat your chest and make your sound
but not here man - this is sacred ground
with a Power flowing through
And if I know you you'll bang the drum
like monkeys do

Here we stand on a rocky shore
Your father stood here before you
I can see his ghost explore you
I can feel the sea implore you
Not to pass on by
Not to walk on by
and not to try
Just to let it come
Don't bang the drum
Just let it come
Don't bang the drum
Just let it come
Don't bang the drum
Do you know how to let it come now?
don't bang the drum now
Just let it come now come now come now come now ..
don't bang the drum now drum now drum now drum now...
Don't bang the drum
Don't bang the drum
Don't bang the drum
Don't bang the drum
Don't bang the drum
Don't bang the drum
Don't bang the drum
Don't bang the drum
Don't bang the drum

What are you gonna play here?
I know you love the high life, you love to leap around
You love to beat your chest and make your sound
but not here man - this is sacred ground
with a Power flowing through
And if I know you you'll bang the drum
like monkeys do

Here we stand on a rocky shore
Your father stood here before you
I can see his ghost explore you
I can feel the sea implore you
Not to pass on by
Not to walk on by
and not to try
Just to let it come
Don't bang the drum
Just let it come
Don't bang the drum
Just let it come
Don't bang the drum
Do you know how to let it come now?
don't bang the drum now
Just let it come now come now come now come now ..
don't bang the drum now drum now drum now drum now...
Don't bang the drum
Don't bang the drum
Don't bang the drum
Don't bang the drum
Don't bang the drum
Don't bang the drum
Don't bang the drum
Don't bang the drum
Don't bang the drum"


tbc...

Boring Flamewars.

People are actually reading this blog as long as I am sufficiently incendiary!

Hmmmm...

Update : such fun... /sarcasm

Apparently I am now directed to postings that have been removed. I have no fucking clue what is going on. Nor do I feel any need to. Water under the bridge. But I do believe that I responded 'inappropriate'. Pot and kettle and all that. And no 'Yanni' : I did not use one rude words in my initial reponse so stop whining. Learn some tact some time.


 /whatever : NEXT!


Let's see what I can dig up from this pile of music here.

Back to the 80ies - How not to go about organizing a party...

Let me tell you a short story about a small concert hall/cafe that ran into trouble about two years ago. No, let's not do that: it's getting more and more stale and boring. Let's talk a bit about what they're doing now, under new and 'professional management'.


Suffice it to say that I was asked to organize an 80ies retro party. My mates and me had done that before and we always managed to get between 180 and 250 people in on the night with a one-time record of around 350 visitors. Not bad if you consider that we're talking about 80ies music...

Of course those attendance numbers did not just come about by themselves. We used to put up posters, we would absolutely plaster our own neighbourhood with flyers, and we would not stop talking about it to people so they'd know what we were up to.

So after almost two years we were asked to organize a retro-thingy once more. No problem, we like doing it, and apparently the organization is much better now than it was before... 

The trouble however, started about three to four weeks before the night in question. One fine day I received a phone call from one of the people working for the venue(who is responsible for the programming) who asked me where the 'artwork' was for the party. Now in the old days this venue had a complete promotional team that included everyone; from art-designers to distributors. HELL! We even bought an Apple G4 with all the bells and whistles. Those days are apparently gone for good. O.k.... perhaps I should have know earlier in the game, like maybe I could have been told what was expected of us, but whatever : the same day I put together a very simple poster/flyer. Nothing special, I lack many basic GIMP-/Photoshop-skills, but it was printable and it was promotion. These posters and flyers would now be printed at an official print-shop, after which we could distribute the things ourselves and just as importantly : hang the posters inside and outside the venue. That way all visitors would still see our announcement for several weeks.

To our surprise and dismay these posters/flyers did not come in. To have at least some promotional activity I printed about 10 posters at A4-size, walked through minus 10 degrees celsius to the joint and hung them on the walls.

The same evening - as it turned out - after I had left the building, these posters were ripped from the walls by what has to have been the crew manning the cafe that night. Why they did it : no idea. Am I certain it was that team? Wel... I did not witness it, but the rolls of remaining posters I had left behind the bar was also gone. So either these people thought it would be funny to remove my work behind my back, or they let unauthorized people behind their bar(and next to their money-till). Suffice to say that I will keep an eye on these people because if I see them do something like this again I will personally glue their balls to the wall.

Then again : in the meantime I received word that the posters would be hung up a day later. Rejoice Rejoice!! We would still have about two weeks of promotion. Hurrah! One day later I checked the walls but there was nothing there, no posters, no flyers, no nothing...

After asking/complaining about this, I was told that 'the server was down so we could not print/order/whatever the materials'. Lord Mother Of God! Is that an excuse to organize a party without anyone knowing about it? How come I think that this was just a bloody excuse to hide the inactivity of the organization? Perhaps because in the same time, the whole venue had been literally wall-papered with HuGe posters announcing the Valentine Day party in February?


So : No promotional materials made at all, the efforts of the party-organizers thwarted by some assholes who tore our stuff down behind our backs, etcetera etcetera.

For the record : a party like an 80ies Retro Party should be advertised to the hilt. It should be "Completely In Your Face". The target audience for a party like that does not usually visit a concert hall that often so it has to be made aware of a special activity that is very much aimed at them. Posters should be hanging on every wall in every shopping mall!


In the end the party was a complete failure as far as the attendance goes. We had several very well-known guest DJ's, there was a video wall, etcetera etcetera. And the only thing that went fine was that small cafe, which was pretty much filled up.


Ok, so that was one more bad experience although I should have known this was going to happen. We may do this one more time, with the emphasis on 'may'... Only if we do, this time we will be completely in charge. From the design of the promo-material, via the actual production of the posters up to and including the distribution of said materials.


Retro parties come and go, and it is obviously very well possible that the 80ies retro-wave is about over. But the only way to know that for sure is to do everything right. If people then still don't show up you have to seriously ask yourself if you should go and find something else to do.

A lot of people gave up their free evening to come and help out behind the bar, the wardrobe, you name it, all volunteers. Two security guys were hired(a standard procedure) and had to be paid quite a lot of money.

And in the meantime no one knows how many people could have been there last saturday.  And that sucks for everyone involved.



(Names and specific places have been 'obscured'. This blog-entry is not meant to hurt anyone in particular. If I want to start an ad hominem attack I know a couple of forums that are much better suited to do so.)

Mark Hollis - a truly uncompromising musician

I've been listening(actually I still am) to 'The Colour Of Spring' by Talk Talk and 'Mark Hollis' by the man himself. And people still dare say nothing of any value or interest happened in the 80ies. Un-be-lie-va-ble.


This man. together with David Sylvian, Peter Gabriel and possibly Robbie Robertson formed an army of uncompromising post-rock heroes that was instrumental in bringing us drum and bass in the 90ies. The only thing is that these people said just as much making a lot less noise.

Here is a very interesting article about Mark Hollis. A musician who voluntarily stepped out of the music business and was not heard of again.

"Forget our fate", the pedlar sings.
Set up to sell my soul,
I've lived a life for wealth to bring.
And yet I'll gaze at...
The colour of spring,
Immerse in that one moment,
Left in love with everything,
Soar the bridges that I burnt before,
One song among us all...

Rob-Laptop - A work in progress...

Being an amateur DJ as well as an experienced musician, I fell in love with VirtualDJ some time ago. It is by far the best, most complete and utterly stable DJ-tool I've seen so far. It has almost all of the essential options and tools a live DJ needs; mixing, effects sections, 12(!) sample slots for live sampling and playback(very useful when you are playing Drum and Bass and similar styles of music), etcetera. It also remembers the gain it has to generate to make all the songs sound pretty much at the same volume without sacrificing the dynamics of the music. I definitely don't want to hear super compressed music because I have suffered from that 'House-trick' for long enough. Everytime a stupid commercial walks by on TV or on a website I cringe because of the insanely high volume/compression. There should be a law against it, and I believe some countries are actually clearing new laws to ban this abuse of our ears. Anyway, back to VirtualDJ :

(click on picture to enlarge)

You can find more screenshots and information here if you're interested.


Ok : and then I switched to Linux. A great OS but Damn! VirtualDJ only runs under Windows!

So I installed VirtualBox in Linux and Windows XP/VirtualDJ as a guest. That amazing combination(think of the complex audio-routing: from VirtualDJ's own internal hardware-control via Windows via VirtualBox and the preferred sound engine in Ubuntu) worked fine for a while. Friends were amazed to see it work; Linux- and Windows-users alike.


'Unfortunately' Ubuntu then released a new version of their distro and VirtualDJ also released a new version of their software and everything went belly-up. The DJ-software still ran somewhat, but the sound quality was abysmal and it ate up all the CPU cycles of my 2.6Ghz Laptop. I tried everything I could think of to fix this,  in Windows as well as in Ubuntu, but to no avail.

So this week I installed Ubuntu in its own partition(thanks go out to Mattijs of Pegasys ICT for the assistance and the personal lessons!) and I installed Windows 7 in another dedicated partition. My reasoning was that if nothing works I can always run a dual boot machine and boot Windows 7 for the DJ-gigs.

I finished installing and configuring Windows 7 and VirtualDJ tonight and it works like a dream(well of course : it is basically a standard Windows machine on a fine and pretty modern laptop).

Of course there are always snags. In this case the Windows 7 installation ruins GRUB so I can't boot Ubuntu anymore. That is a well documented problem however(thank you Ubuntu community!) with a relatively easy solution so I'll get that to work later this week.

One other - and unexpected - practical upshot of installing Windows 7 by the way, is that my Remote Desktop Connection to the workplace(for my standby shifts) now works much better. Under Ubuntu I have a pretty serious problem with the time it takes for the remote desktop to be built up and displayed, so I was forced to work with limited colours and a limited window-size. Under Windows 7 everything works lightning fast and full screen.

Although I'm not a particularly big Windows-fan I have to give credit where credit's due : Windows 7 is a major step towards a really seriously grown up PC Operating System. I'd almost start to think that those techies at Microsoft actually listened to the criticism about Vista(for me the biggest mistake in OS-land ever. Even ME ran better).


So another day or so and I can use whatever operating system that is most suitable for the application. Next stop will be to install VMWare and see if I can get Windows 7 and VirtualDJ to work properly in that configuration. If so I can always delete the Windows 7 partition again.

I keep learning, but that is one of the purposes of life in my opinion. For now I am massively enjoying VirtualDJ again. And that's what started it all.

Now excuse me while I put on Dave Matthews' LOUDDDddd version of All Along The Watch Tower. I feel another setlist coming up...

Reading : 'Anthem' by Ayn Rand

I'm currently reading 'Anthem' by Ayn Rand. 'Anthem' is a dystopian story set in a future in which all knowledge is privileged information and the search for new knowledge is suppressed in every way possible. All people are supposed to be created equal and no one is allowed to differ from the rest, or at least be in any way proud of being different.

To quote Ayn Rand :

"Our name is Equality 7-2521, as it is written on the iron bracelet which all men wear on their left wrists with their names upon it. We are twenty-one years old. We are six feet tall, and this is a burden, for there are not many men who are six feet tall. Ever have the Teachers and the Leaders pointed to us and frowned and said: "There is evil in your bones, Equality 7-2521, for your body has grown beyond the bodies of your brothers." But we cannot change our bones nor our body."

'Anthem' was the inspiration for Neil Peart when he wrote the lyrics to '2112' by RUSH. As a comparison here, first, are the liner notes from '2112' that set up the story perfectly :

"I lie awake, staring out at the bleakness of Megadon. City and sky become one, merging Into a single plane, a vast sea of unbroken grey. The Twin Moons, just two pale orbs as They trace their way across the steely sky. I used to think I had a pretty good life here, Just plugging into my machine for the day, then watching Templevision or reading a Temple Paper in the evening.

My friend Jon always said it was nicer here than under the atmospheric domes of the Outer Planets. We have had peace since 2062, when the surviving planets were banded together under The Red Star of the Solar Federation. The less fortunate gave us a few new moons...

I believed what I was told. I thought it was a good life, I thought I was happy. Then I found Something that changed it all..."

Ayn Rand again :

"We strive to be like all our brother men, for all men must be alike.
Over the portals of the Palace of the World Council, there are words cut in the marble, which we are required to repeat to ourselves whenever we are tempted:

     "We are one in all and all in one.
     There are no men but only the great WE,
     One, indivisible and forever."

As compared to Peart's lyrics :

"We are the priests of the Temple Of Syrinx
Our great computers fill the hallowed halls
We are the priests of the Temple Of Syrinxs
All the gifts of life are held within these walls"

Note the 'We' used in 'Anthem' in almost every sentence. There is no individuality in Anthem's world. No one is allowed to use 'I' anymore lest he or she become an individual.

Ayn Rand :

"We think that there are mysteries in the sky and under the water and in the plants which grow. But the Council of Scholars has said that there are no mysteries, and the Council of Scholars knows all things. And we learned much from our Teachers. We learned that the earth is flat and that the sun revolves around it, which causes the day and night. We learned the names of all the winds which blow over the seas and push the sails of our great ships. We learned how to bleed men to cure them of all ailments."

Compare Neil Peart :

"We've taken care of everything
The words you read, the songs you sing
The pictures that bring pleasure to the eyes
Oh what a nice contented world
Let the banners be unfurled
Hold the Red Star proudly high in hand"

I could analyze the complete novella(or '2112' for that matter) but that would spoil the fun of reading and listening to it yourself. Suffice it to say that Peart did an admirable job; he interpreted 'Anthem' quite loosely but at the same time stayed true to the deeper meaning of the story.

Reading 'Anthem while listening to '2112' is a very interesting experience, as long as you play the album LOUD!


TM.


References :

'Anthem' by Ayn Rand can be freely downloaded from Project Gutenberg :

Neil Peart's lyrics to '2112' can be found at LyricsFreak (I kid you not!)

What On Earth?

Ok so I'm nearing the point where I have all my vinyl and cd's on disk(phew...) so I'm finally getting a real wide choice of music to play.

But what on Earth made me come up with this setlist? (...)


John Martyn - Sweet Little Mystery
The Cure - A Forest(Live in London)
Dean Martin - Let It Snow Let It Snow
The Buggles - Lenny
Frank Zappa - Don't Eat The Yellow Snow
Crowded House - Weather With You
Weather Report - A Remark You Made
Steve Hackett - Your Own Special Way
Foreigner - Cold As Ice
Asia - Heat Of The Moment
Yes - Owner Of A Lonely Heart
INXS - Need You Toninght
Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
Snowy White - Sweet Bird Of Paradise
Rufus Wainwright - Going To A Town
Michael McDonald - Keep Forgetting
Saint Etienne - Side Streets
Fatboy Slim - Weapon Of Choice
Santana - Smooth
Rod Stewart - Young Turks
Easy Stars All Stars - Sgt.  Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Simon and Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water(Live)
Simon and Garfunkel - Scarborough Fair
Vals Licht - Hartenbreker
The Tubes - Don't Want To Wait Anymore
Genesis - Selling England By The Pound
UK - Carrying No Cross
Bob Dylan - Hurricane 
ABC - Show Me






Fucking weird...