| 23 October 2003 I posted up a new song called Hatches...simple as pie...three chord song...but i like it. It seems like a good foundation for some effects and production stuff. Synthescape hasn't practiced in a month. it's very depressing. I might put up some more songs when i get the time. for the moment that's it really. 9 October 2003 I just realised how shit this year has been in terms of this band. we set out to achieve a lot and we just dabbled here and there and ran around in circles. In 2003 we have only done fucking 1 proper gig and one open mike slot which is fucking pathetic and tragic and a huge letdown. I suppose I am to blame for some extent, not fully grasping the reins of this band and taking it anywhere. What the fuck have i been thinking this whole fucking year? I mean being employed hasn't made me think longterm enough. It's more like a day to day week to week focus when ur employed. You need to be doing fucking nothing to understand where ur life is going. Retaining a little focus and not get sucked in by the tide. I'm pretty inspired now to do things with the band again. I'm considering yet again to take next year off and do fucking nothing but i'm not looking forward to that. It'd be good to have like 10-20 thousand bucks and just take next year off without working or anything and being able to focus. Right now the band seems pretty good I think. A few new songs have crept up and they're sounding alright at the moment. But it's terribly hard to envisage them as complete full songs. that's the hard bit. letting other band members know what you want for a song when you haven't a fucking clue. I've got 4,000 now...my mum broke my guitar and gave me 500 for it...which is a fair deal i guess. Shopping List Guitar Amp $1000 Guitar $1000 Pedals $2-400 Drums (MACHINE?)$2-300 That means I'd have 1300 left which is damn fine. there's too much choice though. i have no idea what types of things i'll buy. I'm a bit worn out mentally. Like a zombie now. I think my personality has slowly andslowly deteriorated and the range of emotions i feel now has significantly narrowed which gives me a massive empty feeling. I know what my fear in this band is and it's the fear of rejection. I think it's the same with Dom as well and Belch maybe. That's why sometimes people don't say a word during practice, and are kinda too afraid to suggest things. I'm taking next week off so i can dedicate it to searching around for instruments and trying them out. Went over to Belch's last nite and saw the range of stuff he bought. He had made so many purchases I was amazed. It's like he made them all in one nite or something. but yeah somewhere along the line he also got pretty impressive at the guitar. He was really shredding it up. i have this weird belief i have some sort of cancer or something in me. I keep on feeling lumps on various parts of my body and i suspect some cancer inside me is gobbling up everything that goes down my throat before i get a chance to absorb it all. but yeah i wrote a short guitar riff today which is something i haven't done in a while. it's a damn good feeling. The cover band at The Depot played Creep the other night. i thought it was kinda funny. Thom Yorke would have been cringing at all the yuppies all dressed up looking nice and slutty and cool singing along to his hymn of self loathing. But then again he may have been kinda amused by the irony of it all. I saw two chicks kiss twice that night. that was another interesting point of that night. 24 April 2003 well...hello. what's up? after a bit of a hiatus the bands back together and we're doing a few new things. i'm actually very very rejuvenated with everything. i bought a new mike today and started recording a handful of things on my computer which i haven't done for about half a year. and fuck it's a huge relief to get these songs off my chest. i am free. i'm also really excited about playing on tv!!!!!!!! channel 31!!!!!! i think i'm gonna buy like a 3-400 dollar keyboard...and then wait a few months to make the big purchase of the guitar and amp. i'm still thinking. i've written a few new songs. employers and the employees...a jazzy song...beware...psycho song...sycamore street...a sleepy kinda song. all bits and pieces at the moment. i've decided to delete the songs i've put up and maybe post soem new ones. 13th March 2003 i have listened to the demo aproximately 50 times and fuck it came out so well. i am extremely extremely happy. Everytime i listen to climbed into an oubliette i always go fuck!!!! how did we manage this. there are about 5 absolutely magical bits on that song and as a whole for me it's the greatest song we have. and when i listen to it, every note, every little sound, every single thing about it just seems perfect, and right. and there is nothing i would or could change about it. d's drumming is simply mind-boggling...dom's extra touches on piano are brilliant and spencer's crazy effects just complement the song so well. next song, somnambulance. at first i was a bit uneasy while listening to it because it's simply a whole barrage of sounds and beats and emotions but fuck this one came out absolutely brilliantly as well. Dom really surprised me with how good his voice can sound. there is one moment during the song where his voice is just amazing. And even though his voice is a bit rough around the edges, what he has done with the vocals for that song i don't think i'd be able to come up with or emulate. usually with music u listen to songs that last for a few months maybe and then u forget about them and can't find anything left in the song to squeeze out for yourself and it doesn't affect u anymore. but i feel as if somnambulance and climbed into an oubliette are dense songs packed with so many things and so many little treasures to discover that these songs will last a long long time. the great thing about these two songs is that they progress into so many different areas and feelings all in the space of 3 minutes each. PGR was recorded really really well. Even though the quality of song isn't as high as the other two, it's still a pretty good song to listen to. On the negative side, Beautiful Impossible turned out alright for about a minute and a half but after that it falls apart. I'm very disappointed with that. When perform it live usually there is this great feeling that comes along with it. And there's usually moments in the gigs we do when we think 'yes, this is right...i can feel the music and it's moving me to some extent'...and a lot of the time these moments occur during beautiful impossible. but we're considering to jsut take it off the demo. it's got no emotion, no drive, no beauty and it's just a bland, dull, robotic performance of that song. mostly my fault. anyway that's my thesis on the synthescape demo cd. 24th February 2003 It's finally been done. We went to record last Friday at Mark's studio and it went pretty well. i'm so happy to get it outtathaway! We recorded PGR, Beautiful Impossible, Somnambulance and Climbed into an Oubliette. Climbed into an Oubliette for me was an absolute delight to record and listen to. It came together extremely well on the recording. I haven't even got the recording yet as it's being mixed now but from what i heard it was sublime. Definitely our opener for the demo. 3 February 2003 I started trying to put a melody on this new song of mine today. the song was written a few nights ago. I can't remember what i was thinking when i wrote it which is a pity because it's nice to know how songs were written. It's a sentimental kinda thing. Well, not really. i dunno. But there are lots and lots of appegios in the song and i'm a little afraid people will instantly think Muse when they hear this song. But that wasn't in my mind when i wrote it. It's a pretty simple chord progression and a very simple key change but i think the simplicity of the actual chord progression balances out with the apparent complexity of the fingering of the keys. Pretty much it's G minor, C minor, D minor then G major, C major and D major. Very simple, yes? The name I've attached to it so far is Good is the one that runs. My first song of 2003. I'm going to get some some things off my chest here...still about music though but with a personal touch. I dunno if I'm right in what i think here but it seems that the vietnamese community i am in are frowning upon me for taking this year off and certain people think i'm a druggie cos i have messy hair, am often unshaven, say strange things, don't believe in God, and play weird music. That really pisses me off. The community is just like this big chain of gossip that you can't break. Secrets are always spread and manipulated on the way and i dunno if privacy is respected enough. Anyway, maybe it's just me being paranoid. But it just makes people difficult to trust. Good night. 29 January 2003 Haven't been on this internet thing for awhile. There is no news from the band...that's the news. Absolutely nothing has happened and probably won't until mid february. AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! FUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK! I wanna be a rockstar now! Big Day Out was inspiring in a way. It was good to see heaps and heaps of music lovers really getting into the bands they liked. But it's also funny to see how easily people are sucked in by a band's image or the media hype surrounding them when really the music's pretty average. I am one of those people. But I am not the Musical God who determines what is good or bad music so...meh...i dunno. I wrote parts of a new song today. It's in a similar vein to Opening a mysterious parcel. A piano song. Too many piano songs! 10 January 2003 Here's 2003! It finally came. This year is full of opportunities for the band to actually do stuff. I'm not at uni, d's not at uni, dom's probably not at uni...belcha's back at uni. But it seems the past month has made me realise that if i don't get serious about this rockstar thing my life will just be absolutely sooooo shit boring. So in a couple of weeks we are going into Mark's Studio to record some of our stuff in two sessions hopefully. I am sooo looking forward to it. The likely candidates for recording are: Better Run Beautiful Impossible PGR Somnambulance Mute Revolution Climbed Into An Oubliette A Storm We had a band practice the other day where dom introduced us to a few of his new songs. And we worked on one that to me seems like absolute musical genius. I am in awe of his songwriting skills. he best practice we have ever had. The music was damn good. Better Run was absolutely superb with belcha's bass part absolutely immaculate, beautiful impossible has never been so tight, somnambulance was a complete stroke of genius and A storm was messy but still pretty fine. I can actually feel it. If i don't become a musician it's all fucked. Never will i be a career driven type. And i'll become a bum if the music doesn't work out. it's pretty filthy the whole business of making money of other people and thinking in terms of money. i feel pretty down thinking of it. People just leeching off others to survive. Having the big fish eat the little ones. The only jobs that are in my books ethical and fulfilling are the ones that you make other people happy in or somehow complement someones life in, or just simply give something rather than take. That includes musicians, actors, writers, social workers, some teachers etc. but not fucking stocktakers, and businessmen etc. i feel kinda sick thinking about it. i hate money. it distorts everyone's vision. also sex as well. although sex is a pretty damn cool thing, it distracts too many people. love is a good thing though, a worthwhile thing. i'd be happy to invest my life into love. but too many people are distracted by other things. What i want is love, music and a good view of the sky. nothing would make me happier. who gives a fuck how much money you make but yourself. Of course the world is arranged so you require some sort of money but who gives a fuck when you've got enough to live by? The more you have the less you have. The less you have the more you have. i want nothing. the people i know are so cool. i fucking am dead around all people and yet still people stick by. it's nice. i am so desperate to play a gig. seriously I am frothing just thinking about it. gargle gargle gargle. |