Rebuilding My PC - Sound systems, Audio- and Midi-recording and Latency...

Background

After the operation as described here my PC has now operated under WindowsXP for a couple of weeks and it is a very satisfying experience(you see Alfred? I CAN be nice about Windows!). No bugs, no hangups, nothing that I would norrmally expect from the older Windows-versions. How on Earth Microsoft could ever follow up this Windows-version with Vista will always be beyond me. Must have been a marketing thing or something.


Showing off for a minute

My goal for this Fall is to have a working studio in my house. The studio should be centered around my PC and will consist of many components. To name a few(and as an excuse to put up some pictures!) :

Yamaha DX7

I would not know what to write about the DX7 that has not been written thousands of times already. It's an absolute work horse, it's incredibly difficult to program, but once you do you will never look back. This machine is almost 30 years old and still performs on stage as well as in the studio every day. It's up there on the podium with the MiniMoog and the Prophet 5.

Clavia Nord Lead II

What do you do when you can't afford an old PolyMoog or an Oberheim OB-X? You buy a Nord Lead! This synthesizer was the first to get rid of the artificial sound of a analog virtual synth. Until this instrument came along all virtual analog synths could be made to distort just by turning up the values of a lot of functions(the filter usually did the trick immediately). Not so with the Nord Lead; whatever you try to do with it you can't make it clip, just like you can't make an analog synth produce digital distortion.
One other extremely important feature of this instrument is that it stores the complete sound(the patch) in every location that it is used. In the old times(well, not so long ago actually) a synth would have sounds which could be combined into combinations. What happened was that the synth would store the patch-/sound-numbers used in a combination but not the actual parameter-values of the sounds themselves! This meant that if you had a combination that consisted of sound A and sound B, and you altered sound A, the sound of the combination would be altered too. It was cumbersome and the instruments only worked that way to use less memory. Not so anymore! The Nord Lead(and many other synths to come after it) stores the actual parameters of every sound used in a combination. So once you have stored the combination you can fiddle about with the separate sounds again without destroying or altering the combination. If only for this I absolutely love this synth. It is a pure pleasure to work with.

Kawai K4

Aaaah.... the Kawai K4. The K4 is a well kept secret. Not too many of them were produced so it is very rare to see a second hand one being put up for sale. The sounds are based on pre-digitized samples so there are no real sine waves etcetera. Instead, some of the basic wave forms are piano-like, strings-like or percussion-like etcetera. This means that a lot of the 'waveforming' has already been done and the basic sounds therefore sound much more complex then the standard synthesizer. This instrument is exceptionally fit to play industrial and New Wave sounds. In this respect it is the absolute opposite of an analog synthesizer(or a Virtual Analog like the Nord Lead II).

Roland JV30

My little beauty. This synth is so rare it is hard to find a proper picture on the Web. A JV30 is not such a big deal but I use it for one reason ; It saves me from having to play standard Roland sounds like the strings on another synth. This little preset-beastie contains all the standard sounds you need in the studio.

I do have some more synthesizers but they are so obscure that I could't even find a picture of them on the Web! So nevermind...

All of the above and more will be in a configuration with a Behringer 20 channels mixing console and lots and lots of outboard gear(delays, reverbs, flangers, multi-effects, etcetera). All of this is amplified by two 125 watts Hughes and Kettner Power Monitors. All in all you can say I'm good when it comes to the non-PC gear.

Back to the PC

So here comes the next phase : getting some kind of Audio- and especially Midi-recording working on said PC. Normally this would be no problem as I've done this many times before. My first computer for Midi-recording was an Atari 1040STF with Steinberg Pro-24. This was back in the damp and musky mid-eighties. That stuff was brilliant for its time. Pro-24  looked like this :

Pro-24 for the Atari

Since then I've had many a computer running Cubase, Cakewalk and even Logic Audio, although I must say that the latter product was way beyond my requirements and cost me way too much time to figure out. I'd rather spend that time writing and recording music, nerdiness only goes so far.

So... here I am; A nice 2.4Ghz Pentium IV with lots of memory, enough harddisk to store a thousand+ songs, and one standard on-board AC97 soundchip... Mind you : in the future I do not plan on using said on-board chip much. After all; I do have a lot of synthesizers in the house, as well as a very nice 24-channel mixing console and two 19" flightcases full of outboard gear(delays, reverbs, compressors, multi-effects, etcetera). So the external hardware will not be the problem but I want to start using all that once I have the PC up and running satisfactorily. After all; I shall have to re-arrange my hobby room to make all the shit fit and I don't want to do it haphazardly only to find out that it's not what I want.

So...I started out by going through my software. This software was all legally purchased because I do believe that for really complex software you'd better have support. I found an old version of Cakewalk that I put back on the shelf immediately; too simple, too limited, too much 'toy-like'. Then I found my original software box  of Cubase VST! Now that would be exactly what I need. Unfortunately this version was made for Windows95 and does not run on XP. Rats... Look what I missed out on... :

Cubase VST

My third and last option was Cubase 3.0 Go, which I purchased some years ago and runs perfectly on WindowsXP. I checked the requirements and the specs and then dedided to take the chance.

CuBase SX for the PC 

First I had to get the Midisport midi-interface going. This is very simple as I did not only have the drivers on a CD, but I found the latest version of said drivers online within a minute. Installation was a breeze and the midi-interface worked in one go.

The installation of Cubase 3.0 also went without a hitch and getting the sound to actually work didn't take too much time either. I was amazed once again at the amount of detail that this software can display. Of course, when you work with very expensive Audio-/Midi-recording software(like Logic Audio etcetera) this is normal, but Cubase 3.0 Go was really Steinberg's low-budget version!

I tried out Cubase 3.0 for a little while and then decided to try and record a sequence or two using my Nord Lead II. And that is where the problem started...


Latency

As you could have guessed from the title of this entry I experience way to much audio-latency when using my Clavia to play a PC-instrument. So much that it would be virtually impossible to record anything decent. If there is one thing a keyboard player expects it is immediate response from his keyboard.

So what to do now ? Two options : 1) Either I buy a better soundcard or 2) Try to reduce the latency.

For me the challenge is to use the latter option. After all; I can always buy a new soundcard but where is the fun in that? Also; in the future I will not be using any on-board instruments but use the real thing instead. It would be a waste of money to buy a soundcard with super specifications, only to abandon it in a little while.

So I am trying to reduce the latency of an AC97 on-board soundchip. I have googled around a bit and so far I found one very promising website/piece of software. Apparently there's a guy who designed an ASIO-driver specifically to reduce the latency of an AC97. I will try out that software tonight and continue my blog-entry.

This is all great fun. Contrary to some years ago, when you had to really work hard to get this sort of audio-processing to work, it is now much easier to get it up and running.


Update : ASIO4ALL to the rescue!

I'll write more about it later but ASIO4ALL is an amazing piece of software. It comes completely free, it's easy to install, and in no-time my latency was reduced to near to nothing. Michael Tippach(the guy who wrote this stuff) should get his own statue. Unbelievable! Recording in Cubase 3.0 using a midi-keyboard and playing it all back over an onboard AC97 standard soundchip and No Latency!


Update II : Using VST instruments.

First of all; the latency reduction also works for NI Reaktor. The software synthesizers have the same mimimal latency as Cubase has. So that's good news, especially because Reaktor is one Hell of a software package. The sounds are unbelievably good(again; for an AC97 soundchip. I can only image what this stuff will sound like on a really high quality card).

Not so good news is that Cubase 3.0 Go only allows for one VST-plugin/instrument. So.... I'm going back to look at that beautiful box with CubaseVST that I have on the shelf. I've come way too far to stop now. If I can get CubaseVST up and running I would possibly not even have to connect my hardware-synths for quite a while.

It's not like I have tons of space in that room...


Update III : VST Plugins.

Ok, so I managed to install CubaseVST instead of Cubase 3.0. This especially so I can use VST-plugins(e.g. soft synths).
Next stop; getting the VST plugins to work correctly. The latency has stayed the same as under Cubase 3.0, a good sign! Now if I can just get the rest to work I'll be done for a long time to come.

Let's get this done! Onward to the rescue my friends...!!


To be continued...

Duke Forever!

Some talented guy improved on what was a beautiful cover anyway.

Philip K. Dick was right.

He just underestimated the speed with which this crap would be developed.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1294037/Taranis-The-143million-unmanned-stealth-jet-hit-targets-continent.html

"Autonomous Artificial Intelligence"? "The Matrix" meets "Terminator" meets "Type III".

Those Yanks will NEVER understand the game of football...

If they start by giving everybody the wrong result...

The Netherlands Win World Cup

Update : Ah, they've woken up...

United States Cyber Command

I don't know what I find scarier; that this organization actually exists or that they seem to be necessary.

Of course they are still bloody nerds, as one can conclude from this quote :

"The text '9ec4c12949a4f31474f299058ce2b22a', which is located in the command's emblem, is the MD5 hash of their mission statement."

l'Histoire se répète

This is a pretty good summer so far. And even some people in the U.S.A. have woken up.

Understanding Rap lyrics

Finally! A way to understand Rap lyrics from Bill Maher.

Rebuilding My PC - Back To Basics

I ran Ubuntu Linux on my desktop for quite a while and I noticed that for Multimedia purposes it still really cannot beat the more recent Windows-versions. It's not criticism, it's just a fact. Microsoft's been at it for at least 20+ years so one may expect them to get it right eventually...

So I decided to revert the desktop back to Windows. For the record; I still have a dual boot laptop that runs Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.4 so I can still investigate and use Linux.

I scratch-installed Windows XP Professional on my desktop and gave the hardware a proper check-up. This took the better part of the Friday night. Late that evening I also installed the drivers, the WindowsXP updates as well as AntiVir, Firefox, Thunderbird and Chrome.

Installing Thunderbird turned out to be a bit of a mistake, as there is a know bug in the latest version that prevents you from sending email under certain circumstances. There is a workaround but as an ICT-man myself I don't like workarounds at all.

'Fortunately' (and I use the word loosely here) the next morning I rebooted the PC and immediately got a disk error message. After a lot of work I decided to switch the master and the slave disk(they are both identical and could both be formatted) and then try again. The disk I used for this second install however, was older and much much slower, so the new installation seemed to take forever. After the installation had completed the system was still much much slower than before. To solve this problem I downloaded a freeware software package called Easeus Todo Backup and cloned my C:-disk to the faster D:-disk(including a format to get rid of the disk-errors I mentioned before). Obviously I let this run at night as it is as much fun to watch a clone-operation as it is to watch paint dry...

The next morning I swapped the two disks back again, so the new and faster(cloned) hard disk became the C:-disk again and Lo and Behold! Speed!! I then disconnected the D:-drive because it may interfere with the operation of my PC and make it slow down, and I will only use that drive if my C:-drive fails to recover the system. As I have external USB-disks I am not short for disk space anyway. My C:-disk NEVER holds user-data.

As a part of the rebuild of the PC I also removed everything that was/is not completely necessary for the PC to work properly. I now have my sound back. The SoundBlaster Live! turned out to be defective so I'm now running the audio over the on-board sound chip(a standard Realtek AC97). To my big surprise I have absolutely no complaints about the audio-quality. I installed the Realtek driver-suite though, instead of just the driver, and that makes all the difference. For such a simple on-board chip it has very extensive settings, including an effects section and most importantly; a 16-band equalizer.

I can also play video properly again, something that I could not do for about one and a half years when it ran Ubuntu 10.4. And yes, to all you Linux-lovers out there; I did install ALL the codecs I could find.

On top of that I found that one of the disks was getting really old and therefore terribly slow. This may have cause sluggishness in the old configuration because I suspect that Linux checks all disks frequently and writes a control record to each disk. As the write operations on the slow/old disk really took a long time to complete, I experienced 'hick-ups' when using the system. Especially Firefox would just 'hang' for 5 to 10 seconds and then continue as if nothing had happened.

My PC is now really really fast. As a properly tuned 2.4Ghz PC should be...


Configuration :

Hardware :

• Processor        : 2.4Ghz Intel
• Memory          : 1024MB
• Motherboard   : Intel PB4GL(82845G chipset)
• Internal disks   : 1x 40GB(I do not keep data on my internal disks)
• External disks  : 1 x 160GB USB and 1 x 460GB USB
• Audio/Video     : Onboard chips, no additional cards.
• Sound system  : Soundblaster 5x Sensurround Set with subwoofer

Software :

• OS                  : WindowsXP Professional
• Virus checker  : AntiVir
• Browsers        : Firefox 3.x, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer 8.x
• Email               : Outlook 2007
• Office software: Microsoft Office 2007
• Audio Software : Virtual DJ 6.0
• Utilities             : ToDo Backup-/cloning-software, WinRAR, uTorrent
  

Music of the sun

The sun has been the inspiration for hundreds of songs, but now scientists have discovered that the star at the centre of our solar system produces its own music.

Source.

I'm going slightly mad...

Laptop has been in for repairs for about five weeks now. And I am slowly but surely going around the bend.

What I Am Reading Now - The Hotel New Hampshire

The Hotel New Hampshire is probably Irving's best novel to date, although "The World According To Garp" was a masterpiece too and "A Prayer For Owen Meanie" still reverberates in my mind. The Hotel New Hampshire though, is absolutely the most emotionally gripping novel by Irving that I have read.

The story is way too complicated to explain here so let me just make a few observations. You can read the whole(very accurate) wiki-entry by clicking on the link above.

The book contains all the basic elements of a true John Irving story; bears, wrestling, death, incest, you name it, it's in there. It tells the story of the Berry-family(mother, father and five children) from the moment the parents meet each other until the father's death and everything in between.

The parents run a hotel, first in the U.S.A. but later on in Vienna(Austria). They have to deal with bears(and 'State O' Maine' is not the only one), with prostitutes, with left-wing terrorist bombers, and so on. And that is really just a small part of what the book is about, the mis-en-scene. Irving never loses sight of what I think the book is about; the impact of these circumstances on the Berry family.

As far as I can see the story Irving wrote tells the path from being pretty much a dysfunctional family - or at least a super weird one - to coming to terms with each other and accepting each other for what they are. One brother is in love with his sister, another one is gay, one of the sisters doesn't grow and is basically a dwarf, etcetera.

The book was made into a movie that starred - among others - Jodie Foster and Rob Lowe. I saw it by chance, way back in the late 80ies or early 90ies, in the loft of a local cafe, because a movie had been cancelled and they had replaced it with this one. I still distinctly remember expecting nothing and consequently being extremely impressed with Rob Lowe. I knew that Jodie Foster was a brilliant actress but at the time Lowe was considered to be an actor for 'bubblegum-movies' like 'St. Elmo's Fire'. Yet here he was, convincingly playing a gay teenager coming to terms with himself as well as the people around him. Of course I was wrong about Lowe; he starred in many a good movie and I just loved his acting in The West Wing. Oh well, it's great to be wrong that way.


For me personally, after all the books I have read through the years, the words "Sorry, just not big enough" can still move me to tears as they have done many times in the past.

Read the book and judge for yourself. And Keep Passing The Open Windows.

Notes From The Organization

Most of the DJ-gig of Sunday afternoon 6th of June 2010 :

Roger Waters - The Tide Is Turning

Roger Waters - The Pros and Cons Of Hitchhiking

Laurie Anderson - O Superman

Syd Barrett - Terrapin

Peter Gabriel - I Think It's Going To Rain Today

Steve Hackett - Spectral Mornings

Muse - Knights Of Cydonia

Glass Hammer - Empty Space / Revealer

Mystery Jets - Two Doors Down

Genesis - It's Gonna Get Better

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

The latest news, though I really don't know if it's entirely correct(Ooh yeah I Heard It Through The Grapevine!);  The threesome that handled the volunteers coordination etcetera, has now been reduced to a solo act as two of them have apparently resigned. How why and when I do not know yet. Whatever! It can't possibly get any worse than it was.

Anyway, on with the story...


But It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time!

Someone introduced a rule about two to three years ago(when I was 'on a rather long leave of absence') to 'pay' the volunteers for their work not in one way but in two ways. Payment would be in tokens(a token has a value of roughly a beer or a coke) and there would be an administration in the office so everyone would know how much tokens they were owed. In effect it meant that the pay out doubled overnight; both a token per hour as well as one drink per hour. This was quite a change, a break away from the past, because when The Organization was just the Volunteer-driven Amateur Pre-professional Organizational Riot(a.k.a. VAPOR) that everyone seems to scorn nowadays, we just used to drink something while doing our work and that was it. Yes it cost money but there really was not that much abuse compared to the total turn-over of The Organization.


Frank Zappa's Cheapness.

The newly introduced administration system also allowed for volunteers to be able to 'save' their tokens, in a bank as it were. So a volunteer could take out some tokens when he or she needed them or one could buy other things with them like specialized education... Can anyone imagine that a volunteer who makes 10 tokens(while working from 19:30 until 06:00) then saves these token to buy training that he or she can use IN The Organization?!? Like First Aid and that sort of thing? In my opinion "Cheapness" (as Frank Zappa so aptly described it on 200 Motels) was redefined by The Organization; Instead of training your volunteers at the expense of the organization, so the quality of their work would improve, the volunteers had to pay for that training themselves. Needless to say that the tokens that people were owed where typically used to BUY BEER on the volunteer's night off, not on specialized training.


Balancing the books.

Of course there was another and much bigger operational problem with this system : The Proper And Timely Administration Of The Tokens Earned. Keep in mind that The Organization is open almost every day of the week so volunteers earned tokens every day of the week, which then had to be accounted for and administrated. After a while the delay in the administration meant that a volunteer had to wait an average of two to three weeks before his or her work was administrated and the token were added to their account.

A typical problem; a volunteer visits The Organization on a Tuesday and want some of his hard earned tokens. Sorry, no go, because there is no one present who is authorized to hand out tokens. This was 'solved' by supplying the bar personnel with a list of all volunteers and their 'credit'. This way the barman could make a note when ever a drink was ordered and these lists would then be entered into the database a.s.a.p.(otherwise known as 'In Two Weeks') by the official administrator in the main office.


Having Your Tokens And Having Them Too.

It gets worse : a rule was instated that said that a volunteer was entitled to drinks on his credit as long as the list had not been updated! Stunning!! Can anyone see the operational problems that this stupid rule causes? How about a volunteer who has 5 tokens/drinks on his credit and drinks them on Tuesday night. The same volunteer comes again on Thursday night and still has the five drinks credit so he drinks them again(although the list at the bar was updated on Tuesday so there is no credit left except in the computer database). The volunteer is now five drinks in the red and has to work five hours to get back to zero.
  
Now multiply the number of drinks because some volunteers had 35 credits on monday and had used up 135 monday a week later(until the list was officially updated).
    
  
So the problems that The Organization caused all by itself without anyone else to blame for them :

1. Extra administration that was not done in a timely fashion and therefore caused problems when paying out a volunteer.

2. People 'going in the red' on their credit, sometimes up to 150 drinks(!). First inadvertently, as time went by on purpose.

3. Double the cost as compared to the old system in which a volunteer 'just' got a couple of drinks.

4. Preferential treatment. As in serving the volunteers you like extra drinks for free.

5. Angry volunteers who have just worked their collective asses off during the weekend, and then could not get some of their tokens because there was no one in the office.


Introducing The Hard Line.
    
As I have described in a previous 'I'd rather go bowling'-item, The Organization ultimately discovered that their system did not work and worse; That It Was Costing Them A Fortune. So a meeting was organized for all volunteers(see previous entries) and a list of draconian and short-sighted measures were announced. To give one example; each cafe-crew ideally consists of three people; one barman and one DJ, and one backup for the two. Especially now that smoking has been banned in the whole building you need a third person to take over if one of the other two wants to go outside to have a smoke. Also; if one of the three is ill or otherwise unavailable you immediately have your backup available.
  
This crew-configuration btw, is what I was responsible for when I did the cafe coordination and it was an official agreement between 'The Office' and 'The Cafe'. Four people in a crew as the absolute maximum but three as the general number of crew-members per evening. However; as part of the new rules it was ordained that only two people would be allowed to work on any cafe evening, and that they would be allowed to have one drink per hour during opening hours(!). This may sound reasonable but it isn't. Opening hours were probably assumed to be from 20:00 until 00:00 but a cafe-crew would typically come in around 19:15 to check everything and to prepare the bar. The bar then would be open until at least 01:30 after which it had to be cleaned. In reality a bar-evening did not last for four hours, it lasted for at least six to seven hours.
    
Ultimately the result of these new rules was that quite some people refused to work for The Organization as they were of the opinion that they did not earn anything for themselves but for The Organization instead, and that this squeezing dry of the volunteers went too far.

A little while after having quit my cafe-coordinator work over all the amateur crap that 'the management' managed to pull, I suggested that maybe they should not pay the volunteers extra tokens but just let them have a drink while they're working. That would cut the cost of the volunteers in half immediately and they would all just be going back to the old situation that no one had ever had a problem with. Of course I did not get an immediate response and I'm absolutely not saying that my words had any influence, but a couple of weeks ago The Organization finally came to their collective management senses and did just that; the new internal policy regarding the volunteers has been revoked so it's all as good as back to the old status quo again.
      
Which begs the question : Why On Earth did no one consult the people who actually know how The Organization works internally? Who have so many years of experience that they have seen these new rules come and go many many many times? Because really; this has been one big blunder from start to finish and it has alienated yet more people. As if The Organization can afford to lose more motivated volunteers still...


Rocket Science.
        
If people want to organize things perhaps they should realize that organizing matters properly is a True Profession that you can study for at the University. And a little bit of emphasis on People's Management would not be a bad thing either.  Because it really isn't rocket science.

Oil

Oil, Oil, You can get it now for free.
Just come down to the shoreline where the water used to be.

Steve Forbert - "Oil Song" from the 1970's

Bad marketing...

Jeez...

Hackers

The replacement text is juvenile and on the verge of racist. Still, nice trick if you can do it!
Link

May 25th...

A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, washcloth, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

Just chillaxin', he twat...

The people over at Lake Superior State University have compiled their 'banished words' list again.

"The list this year is a 'teachable moment' conducted free of 'tweets,'" said a Word Banishment spokesman who was "chillaxin'" for the holidays. "'In these economic times', purging our language of 'toxic assets' is a 'stimulus' effort that's 'too big to fail.'"

Project Gutenberg - The Web Is Useful But Not Vital

Once upon a time back in 1970, a man named Michael S. Hart did some work for the University of Illinois. He was rewarded with almost unlimited access to the mainframe they operated. As Hart wanted to do something useful, he set up a system whereby all books would ultimately be digitized an stored on the mainframe. The format would have to be plain and simple ASCII so all future computers would still be able to read the data.

Project Gutenberg has now been in existence for almost 40 years and is still going strong. This despite the effort of Google to do the same work over again.

All of the materials on Project Gutenberg are either so old that they are copyright free or the copyright has been waved by the original author.

Link

Notes From The Organization

Ok, so May 16th 2010, Sunday afternoon : A cafe full(I mean FULL!) of people, a progrock-band playing unplugged for two hours, a pretty massive consumption of beer and lemonades, and an atmosphere you will not find anywhere else or on any other 'night' in The Organization. The audience were so quiet that you could frequently hear a pin drop. If there would have been falling pins... And on the other hand half the audience sang along to Genesis' Ripples(SAIL AWAY AWAYYYYYY!!!).

The gig started off with 'The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway" including the piano intro et al. Not a bad start at all. *grin*
  
The band played songs from ELP's first album, songs by the great Harry Sacksioni(obviously a favourite of the guitarist!). Hell, they even played stuff from 'And Then There Were Three', one of the most underrated records Genesis ever recorded. And no; it wasn't 'Follow You Follow Me' they played, it was 'Burning Rope'.

"You climb upon a burning rope
to escape the mob below
But you had put the flaming out
so the others could not follow"


But ProgRock is dead of course. That is what I hear from many many ignorant peasants so it must be true.

Stupid Idiots In The U.S.A.

Autistic Boy Charged With Making Terrorist Threats Over Stick-Figure Sketch

The stupidity and paranoia of these folks never ceases to amaze me...

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

Ok, so the latest I heard is that there are now already several DJ's and bar-people who refuse to work for The Organization because of what they believe to be unfair and unworkable conditions. I sympathize and I agree with them completely. Of course you should not become a volunteer for the money or the beer, but what is happening now is the reverse: the failings of upper management are being paid for by the volunteers.

The new rules are mostly and quite squarely aimed at the cafe-activities, not so much at the band- or party-nights. What's much worse is that some people in The Organization believe this cafe cost reduction to be the magic bullet. Now I don't see how people can miss this but they do; even if/when the cafe-activities would run like clockwork and be extremely efficient and cost effective it still would not be enough to solve the insolvency of The Organization by far. In the 'good old days'(I'm talking 5 years ago here) the cafe only contributed a little bit to the total revenue of The Organization. What it did do was give people a chance to learn how to organize activities, which every now and then were moved to the main hall and turned into a big partynight. The cafe as the incubation room of The Organization. Every time such a new party was born it made a hell of a lot of money. Through the years this was how The Organization managed to put up decent parties without spending a truck load of money on outsiders. Nowadays the general and incorrect concensus is that the cafe has to be cost effective in itself.

I had several talks about this yesterday. Of course it is now easy for me to give advice, after all; I am now only a bar-man / DJ. Hearing several people, what struck me as odd is that the reality of the situation(change upper management's way of doing business before anything can be improved) is still not clear to everyone.

For example : who said that the price of a drink cannot go up? Ever? The price of a drink has not gone up in over 4 years while cost has been soaring. Increase the price by 5 percent(which basically comes down to a dime per beer) and you immediately make an estimated  8.000 to 10.000  euros a year more. It's a start. Then use that money to build a smoking room in The Organization which will then make much more money than it does now. I estimate that the total cost of the smoking room would be earned back within three to four months.

Of course this would mean an active role for the board... Oh well, one can dream...

What I am reading now.

Anthem was the sole inspiration of Neil Peart when he wrote the lyrics to Rush' 2112. It's quite an interesting read, somewhere in between George Lucas' THX-1138 and Orwell's Nineteen-Eighty-Four. Anthem was written well before Nineteen-Eighty-Four so no one can accuse Rand of copying the master.

Anthem is a novella, a short novel. As such it is remarkably well written. It does not have the 'John Galt'-bias that most of her later stories have.

You can download the novella for free from gutenberg (I'll write an entry about that website soon).

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)