So, its been a busy couple of weeks finishing off writing some sciency based songs for a virtual online festival we are playing at called Geek Pop. To top it off we’ve entered the RPM Challenge which last did two years ago, and so will have 5 science songs up for GeekPop with another five nerdy themed songs for the RPM Challenge. If we can get round to it there will be some video’s too! I’ll put the URL’s as and when they come up.
As a computer gamer and a lover of terrible puns I was drawn to a game featuring two badly drawn characters on Steam – Ben There, Dan That. When the opening puzzle involves placing a lit ****** up a zombies ***** you know you are on to a winner big time!
Like Sam and Max, its a point and click adventure game featuring two characters, with a humourous and lateral thinking approach to its puzzles. Trying to examine and pick up everything is something you normally do in adventure games is a sign of desperation but here its a sign of the quality of writing – from the extended quoting from the bible and comments on lager louts and the quality of ladies toilets.
While the humour is kept up all the way through, it also has the right level of playability – I only got really stuck once on this. The game is quite short, but on Steam its also bundled with its sequel at only £2.99 at time of writing, which makes the games a winner! You can also download it from their website for free, but please give them a donation if you play for do so, and/or try their other games out. This pair needs to be cherished.
So in a blog post yesterday I used a word that I made up – digitalulloid. It tries to capture the fact that we don’t record onto film on video cameras any more, but some variant of hard disk or flash disk or possibly digital tape. It provides an nice comfy analogue feel to the user of the word at the same time, as if they were back in the romantic era of pioneer camera users, who lived in danger of their artistic record exploding.
Google shows this word not to be in existence anywhere on the web! Does this mean its a new creation?!! I think it is a good word, and should be in the Oxford English Dictionary within a decade.
As part of a T-mobile ad campaign last year there was a move to get loads of people recording a song to make a supergroup of sorts. There were video recording sessions in various places across the country including London, Manchester, Edinburgh and Bristol. I turned up to a session filming in a covered market area in an area of London whose name I now forget, wearing my coolest jacket accompanied by my dorkiest hat. Usually I am a slave to my own brand of fashion but the day was very cold and tuning the charango up to its standard pitch resulted in two broken strings by the end of the afternoon However as I was placed next to the drums the delicate tonal quality of the charango was not going to be picked up by the microphones! One the right side of me was the ukulele section of the band, though the cameras failed to get our synchronised Status Quo imitation moves onto digitalulloid.
Musically though, the charango was resurrected! A week after going down for the filming in London, I was invited down to specially record a charango track for the song, which is the opening instrument on the track before getting mixed in with the 1000+ other contributors to the recording. It was quite cool being in one of the best studio’s I’ve ever visited, though it was a bit disconcerting having to put a happy-cheery-pop hat on after being told the room you are in is where Radiohead recorded the awesomeness that is The Bends!!!
Many thanks to Josh for getting the ball rolling on this – the recording was a fun day out on both occasions, and it must be pretty cool to have made this happen.
We are now a foursome! We have now added Tom Gaskell to our lineup. This gives us the full complement of four with which to rock the world in 2010! We had our first gig with the man on stage at our Club Manga last month, photo’s of which can be found here.
We might field drained like a victory has been shown the hangmans noose,
We might be down after twenty with seventy more till the truce,
We might feel as rubbish as Jim Davidson trying to replace Bruce,
But the players can be brilliant ;
with inspiration;
Here comes your Moose.
Sometimes whats on the field or boardroom can seem disheartenin’,
And of silverware sometimes, it feels like we’re starvin’,
But players on the field, and fans who’ve paid their farthing
Can feel
Like a hero
When cheered on by Marvin
Apologies to Filbert Fox, from the real team I support, Leicester City
At Thursdays Giggling Gig I had the urge to to the thing where you run along fall to your knees and slide along the ground leaning backwards looking cool. Except I didn’t quite get the looking cool bit, but did just tear my trousers and get a nasty cut and bruise combination going on in my knee!
As well as the injuries I did leave with a CD from one of the other bands playing that night – The Nimble Wits – check them out if they play in your area. I had to leave before getting the full experience from The Quirky alas.
Of the two comics that night Steve Forbes was my favourite – one liner after one liner. He also was not the Steve Forbes who is actively spending millions ensuring millions of poor Americans don’t get access to health care.
So this week in between gigs in London I had a visit to the Anish Kapoor exhibit at the Royal Academy of Arts. It felt a bit pricey at £12 for a not huge number of pieces, but some of the pieces are pretty impressive.
Anish Kapoor is a sculptor/architect making quite large pieces in some instances.
Due to time and not really being an expert on the man or his art I’m not going to go into huge details or analysis of the pieces here, at least not now, but the immediate standout was the multi-room encompassing Svayambh. Its a giant blood red piece of wax moving between rooms – truly a sight to behold.
Amongst other things there was a room themed on mirrors and hot wax being shot from a canon (make sure you get to see this happen – once every twenty minutes).
However as I was placed next to the drums the delicate tonal quality of the charango was not going to be picked up by the microphones! One the right side of me was the ukulele section of the band, though the cameras failed to get our synchronised Status Quo imitation moves onto digitalulloid.
Gigs
The Band
