So recording continues. I went through a pretty rough few days recently, were nothing seemed to be working. It was incredibly frustrating but I think I’ve come out the tail-end of that, putting together a combination new-old song called ‘Top of the World’ which I’m quite pleased with. So it looks like I’ve got three tracks left before I’m finished (two if I use the old one-take version of ‘Modern Living’ which remains possible).

I’m going to try and enlist some pro-bono help mixing the tracks then I think I’ll get it professionally mastered. Hopefully I will be distributing it by late January.

My first novel still lies unedited, I intend to return and finish that particular everest, but I’m also quite set on making a little animation to enter into a local film festival called TropFest. So that first then novel

The count-down to my 21st ticks over – December has begun / Nine days now / Until I’m twenty-one. Anyways enough rhyming, its 2am so I should go to sleep (the recording process has played relativity games with my body-clock).

So I have been neglecting this poor blog I know – but well I’ve been neglecting almost everything for the past few weeks as I’ve been working rather intensely on my album. I’ve got about eight tracks into the nearly sort-of finished stage, with probably four or five left until completion. Plus a few maybe tracks.

I haven’t worked this hard since I wrote the code for Smart-Roster. Its been waking, breakfast, work, gym, work (maybe a half-hour at the beach , work until long after midnight, sleep, then repeat. My fingers remained figuratively crossed that in the end when I listen back to it all I will be proud. Mostly thats what I’m hoping for, not just to be happy with it, but to be proud of it.

Although any desire to actually write songs has drained I did write one the other day called ‘The Antidote’ – it goes a-top the big pile of songs to be transcribed and uploaded (probably twenty something by now).

In two and a-bit weeks I’ll be twenty-one. Strange to even type that! I’ve given a-lot of thought to what that means lately. In a way I think its time for me to Grow Up in respect to my creative energies. I’m hoping this album will either set me on the way to being a professional musician or else allow me to clear the dust from my dream-pipe and buckle down to a real-life.

Checking out my last blog I see I was in a rather sour creative place. Waiting around at the stagnant book-end weeks between things. Luckily I’ve re-emerged!

I’ve started on a solo album of songs that I think is my best musical work to date. Its a strange mesh of almost everything that excites me about music. Its part Phillip Glass, part Tom Waits, part Bob Dylan, part Sigur Ros, part Radiohead, part I don’t know what. I’ve found that my work in dance music production has had a hugely positive impact on my ability to produce other types of music. The most important development is that I’ve finally gotten the knack of convincing midi drum programming.

Not such good news is that my novel has stagnated after the third draft. I think I might bite the bullet and re-write from scratch – it will probably be as much work if not more than writing the original, but I’m sure the prose will be far more directed.

Otherwise I’m hoping to have a Dynotaur EP and my solo album (incidentally named: “Life and Times”) ready for about FebMarch next year. I’d like to release both at the same time. I’ll probably start hunting for management then too.

Anyway, time for sleep(I need to study tomorrow) so adieu world. Until next time.

I think for the first time in my entire life I have spread myself too thin. Things are culminating in a rather intense fashion.

My university exams begin next week, which will coincide with the practices for the band’s biggest gig to date. The recordings were nigh-on disastrous with only one track emerging that was halfway usable (and even that I am rather dissatisfied with). I have also stepped up my involvement in electro-production as I’ve started working with another producer. Smart-Roster is having birth complications with the programmer currently unhappy with my percentage proposal for a cut of the business. And all this has meant the first break from the novel since writing began. Too many loose ends and not enough ties. Too many potentials without anything actualizing. Mhm.

Anyway, in Creative News: Strangely I do keep writing songs, one I just finished yesterday called ‘Here’s One For The Road’. I have about 17 songs waiting to be transcribed electronically and uploaded. I guess that will have to wait till exams are over. Also a few new sketches done from Uni.

Oh and I have an idea for a quaint little animation. Won’t say too much, but I’ve written the script for it (another project for after exams). Otherwise I’ve recently developed a hankering for Kafka and trawled through “Metamorphosis” and “The Trial”. He’s got an uncanny ability to make the reader feel ill at ease. Anyways I’ve babbled during my insomnia (No good creating = I can’t sleep again) – so adieu.

The second day-night of recording was a journey to say the least. The session lasted from 9am in the morning until about 1am at night. The entire gamut of emotions was run through the band, with moments of elation (good takes) and some real frustrations (repeated mistakes). Next weekend we are going to record vocals and guitar in the Blue Mountains and hopefully the week after that get it mixed and mastered.

Until about ten o’clock at night my vocals were being recorded with my home mic (a Rodes NT1A) – I thought it sounded terrible, which I supposed was just because I sound terrible. But as a last ditch experiment because it was too late for drums we plugged in some AKG pencil mics and the difference was huge. So I am actually quite excited to find out what sort of sounds we can get down in the next weekend.

I decided to take my digi-vid camera along to try and document the process. I think I might take it along more often. Maybe to some of our bigger gigs – I’ll def take it to the Bondi Festival. So look out for a few episodes of Going North in the ‘motion’ section

I think my novel will have to wait until exams are over – I am getting to busy with university and the band. I hope the break from it will give me some perspective and some objectivity about the writing.